The supporters of the Administration are responsible to the
country for its conduct: and it is their right and duty to check the
encroachments of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it
to confine itself to its proper sphere.
It is impossible to pass in silence this Proclamation without
neglecting that duty; and, having taken as much responsibility as any others in
supporting the Administration, we are not disposed to fail in the other duty of
asserting the rights of Congress.
The bill did not therefore become a law: and it is therefore
nothing.
The proclamation is neither an approval nor a veto of the
bill; it is therefore a document unknown to the laws of the Constitution of the
United States.
So far as it contains an apology for not signing the bill,
it is a political manifesto against the friends of the Government.
So far as it proposes to execute the bill which is not a
law, it is a grave Executive usurpation.
It is fitting that the facts necessary to enable the friends
of the Administration to appreciate the apology and usurpation be spread before
them.
The Proclamation says:
“And whereas the said bill was presented to the President of
the United States for his approval less than an hour before the sine die adjournment of said session and
was not signed by him—”
If that be accurate, still this bill was presented with
other bills which were signed.
Within that hour, the time of the sine die adjournment was
three times postponed by the votes of both Houses; and the least intimation of
a desire for more time by the President to consider this bill would have
secured a further postponement.
Yet the Committee sent to ascertain if the President had any
further communication for the House of Representatives reported that he had
none; and the friends of the bill, who had anxiously waited on him to ascertain
its fate, had already been informed that the President had resolved not to sign
it.
The time of presentation, therefore, had nothing to do with
his failure to approve it.
The Bill had been discussed and considered for more than a
month in the House of Representatives, which it passed on the 4th of May; it
was reported to the Senate on the 27th of May without material amendment, and
passed the senate absolutely as it came from the House on the 2nd of July.
Ignorance of its contents is out of the question.
Indeed, at his request, a draft of a bill substantially the
same in all material points, and identical in the points objected to by the
Proclamation, had been laid before him for his consideration in the Winter of
1862-63.
There is, therefore, no reason to suppose the provisions of
the bill took the President by surprise.
On the contrary, we have reason to believe them to have been
so well known that this method of preventing the bill from becoming a law
without the constitutional responsibility of a veto, had been resolved on long
before the bill passed the Senate.
We are informed by a gentleman entitled to the entire
confidence, that before the 22d of June in New-Orleans it was stated by a
member of Gen. Banks’s staff, in the presence of other gentlemen in official
position, that Senator Doolittle had written a letter to the department that
the House Reconstruction bill would be staved off in the Senate to a period too
late in the session to require the President to veto it in order to defeat it,
and that Mr. Lincoln would retained the bill, of necessary, and thereby defeat
it.
The experience of Senator Wade, in his various efforts to
get the bill considered in the Senate, was quite in accordance with that plan;
and the fate of the bill was accurately predicted by letters received from
New-Orleans before it passed the Senate.
Had the Proclamation stopped there, it would have been only
one other defeat of the will of the people by an Executive perversion of the Constitution.
But it goes further.
The President says:
“And whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a
plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation
in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and
which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their
consideration—”
By what authority of the Constitution? In what forms? The result to be declared by whom? With what effect when ascertained?
Is it to be a law by the approval of the people without the
approval of Congress at the will of the President?
Will the President, on his opinion of the popular approval,
execute it as law?
Or is this merely a device to avoid the serious
responsibility of defeating a law on which so many loyal hearts reposed for
security?
But the reasons now assigned for not approving the bill are
full of ominous significance.
The President proceeds:
“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in
December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration)
unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any
single plan of restoration—”
That is to say, the President is resolved that the people
shall not by law take any securities from the Rebel States
against a renewal of the Rebellion, before restoring their power to govern us.
His wisdom and prudence are to be our sufficient Guarantees!
He further says:
“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in
December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration)
unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any
single plan of restoration—”
That is to say, the President persists in recognizing those
shadows of Governments in Arkansas and Louisiana, which Congress formally
declared should not be recognized—whose Representatives and Senators were
repelled by formal votes of both Houses of Congress—which it was declared
formally should have no electoral vote for President and Vice President.
They are more creatures of his will. They cannot live a day
without his support. They are mere
oligarchies, imposed on the people by military orders under the forms of
elections, at which generals, provost-marshals, soldiers and camp-followers
where the chief actors, assisted by a handful of resident citizens, and urged
on to premature action by private letters from the President.
In neither Louisiana nor Arkansas, before Banks’s defeat,
did the United States control half the territory or half the population.
In Louisiana,
Gen.
Banks’s proclamation candidly declared: “
the fundamental law of the State is martial law.”
On that foundation of freedom, he erected what the President
calls “the free Constitution and Government of Louisiana.”
But of this State, whose fundamental law was martial law,
only sixteen parishes of forty-eight parishes were held by the United States;
and in five of the sixteen we held only our camps.
The eleven parishes we substantially held had 233,185
inhabitants; the residue of the State not held by us, 575,617.
At the farce called an election, the officers of Gen. Banks
returned that 11,346 ballots were cast; but whether any or by whom the people of
the United States have no legal assurance but it is probable that 4,000 were
cast by soldiers or employees of the United States military or municipal, but
none according to any law, State or National, and 7,000 ballots represent the
State of Louisiana.
Such is the free Constitution and Government of Louisiana;
and like it is that of Arkansas. Nothing
but the failure of a military expedition deprived as of a like once on the
swamps of Florida; and before the Presidential election, like ones may be organized
in ever Rebel State where the United states have a camp.
The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law,
holds the electoral votes of the Rebel States at the dictation of his personal
ambition.
If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be
supposed that his competitor, defeated by such means, will acquiesce?
If the Rebel majority assert their supremacy in those
States, and send votes which elect an enemy of the Government, will we not
repel his claims?
And is not that civil war for the Presidency, inaugurated by
the votes of the Rebel States.
Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, “the proper and constitutional authority,”
formally declared that there are no State Governments in the Rebel States, and
provided for their erection at a proper time; and both the Senate and the House
of Representatives rejected the Senators and Representatives chosen under the
authority of what the President calls the Free Constitution and Government of
Arkansas.
The President’s Proclamation “
holds for naught” this judgment, and discards the authority of the
Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward the anarchy his
Proclamation of the8th of December inaugurated.
If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either
of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the
President to “hold for naught” the will of Congress rather than his Government
in Louisiana and Arkansas.
The judgment of Congress which the President defies was the
exercise of an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution to
determine what is the established Government in a State, and in its own nature
and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other departments of the
Government.
The supreme Court has formally declared that under the 4th
section of the IVth article of
the
Constitution, requiring the United States to guarantee to every State a
republican form of government, “
it rests
with Congress to decide what Government is the established one in a State;”
and “
when Senators and Representatives of
a State are admitted into the councils of the Union, the
authority of the
Government under which they are appointed, as well as its
republican character
is recognized by the
proper constitutional authority, and its decision is binding on ever other
department of the Government, and could not be questioned in a judicial
tribunal.
It is true that the contest in
this case did not last long enough to bring the matter to this issue; and, as
no Senators or Representatives were elected under the authority of the
Government of which Mr. Door was the head, Congress was not called upon to
decide the controversy.
Yet the right to
decide is placed
there.”
Even the President’s proclamation of the 8th of December,
formally declares that “Whether members sent to Congress from any State shall
be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective
Houses, and not to any extent with the Executive.”
And that is not the less true because wholly inconsistent
with the President’s assumption in that proclamation of a right to institute
and recognize State Governments in the Rebels States, nor because the President
is unable to perceive that his recognition is a nullity if it be not conclusive
on Congress.
Under the Constitution, the right to Senators and
Representatives is inseparable from a State Government.
If there be a State Government, the right is absolute.
If there be no State Government, there can be no Senators or
Representatives chosen.
The two Houses of Congress are expressly declared to be the
sole judges of their own members.
When, therefore, Senators and Representatives are admitted,
the State Government, under whose authority they were chosen, is conclusively
established; when they are rejected, its existence is as conclusively rejected
and denied; and to this [judgment] the President is bound to submit.
The President proceeds to express his unwillingness “to
declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish Slavery in States”
as another reason for not signing the bill.
But the bill nowhere proposes to abolish Slavery in States.
The bill did provide that all slaves in the Rebel states should be manumitted.
But as the President had already signed three bills manumitting
several classes of slaves in States, it is not conceived possible that he
entertained any scruples touching that
provision of the bill which he is silent.
He had already himself assumed a right by proclamation to
free much the larger number of slaves in the Rebel States, under the authority
given him a discretion it could not exercise itself.
It is more unintelligible from the fact that, except in
respect to a small part of Virginia and Louisiana, the bill covered only what
the Proclamation covered—added a Congressional title and judicial remedies by
law to the disputed title under the Proclamation, and perfected the work the
President professed to be so anxious to accomplish.
Slavery as an institution can be abolished only by a charge
of the Constitution of the United States or of the law of the State; and this
is the principle of the bill.
It required the new Constitution of the State to provide for
that prohibition; and the President, in the face of his own proclamation, does
not venture to object to insisting on that
condition. Nor will the country tolerate
its abandonment—yet he defeated the only provision imposing it!!
But when he describes himself, in spite of this great blow
at emancipation, as “sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional
amendment abolishing Slavery throughout the nation may be adopted, we curiously
inquire on what his expectation rests, after the vote of the House of
Representatives at the recent session, and in the face of the political complexion
of more than enough of the States to prevent the possibility of its adoption
within any reasonable time; and why he did not indulge his sincere hopes with
so large an installment of the blessing as his approval of the bill would have
secured.
After this assignment of his reasons for preventing the bill
from becoming a law, the President proceeds to declare his purpose to execute it as a law by his plenary
dictatorial power.
He says:
“Nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for
restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people
of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall be,
prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon
as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in
any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their
obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which cases
military Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to
the bill.”
A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the
people has never been perpetrated.
Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it,
and then by a proclamation puts as much of it in force as he sees fit, and
proposes to execute those parts by officers unknown to the laws of the United
States and not subject to the confirmation of the Senate!
The bill directed the appointment of Provisional Governors
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The President, after defeating the law, proposes to appoint
without law, and without the advice and consent of the Senate, Military Governors for the Rebel States!
He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana,
and he defeated the bill to prevent its limitation.
Henceforth we must regard the following precedent as the
Presidential law of the Rebel States:
EXECUTIVE
MANSION,
WASHINGTON,
March 15, 1864
His
Excellency MICHAEL HAHN, Governor of
Louisiana,
Until further orders you are hereby
invested with the power expressed hitherto by the Military Governor of
Louisiana.
Yours,
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
This Michael Hahn is no officer of the United States; the
President, without law, without the advice and consent of the Senate, by a
private note not even countersigned by the Secretary of State, makes him
dictator of Louisiana!
The bill provided for the civil administration of the laws
of the State—till it should be in a fit of temper to govern itself—repealing all
laws recognizing Slavery, and making all men equal before the law.
These beneficent provisions the President has annulled. People will die, and marry and transfer
property, and buy and sell; and to these acts of civil life courts and officers
of the law are necessary, Congress legislated for these necessary things, and
the President deprives them of the protection of the law!
The President’s purpose to instruct his Military Governors “to
proceed according to the bill”—a makeshift to calm the disappointment its
defeat has occasional—if not merely a grave usurpation but a transparent
delusion.
He cannot “proceed according to the bill” after preventing
it from becoming a law.
Whatever is done will be at his will and pleasure, but
persons responsible to no law, and more interested to secure the interests and
execute the will of the President than of the people; and the will of Congress
is to be “held for naught,” “unless
the loyal people of the Rebel States choose to adopt it.”
If they should graciously prefer the stringent bill to the
easy proclamation, still the registration will be made under no legal sanction;
it will give no assurance that a majority of the people of the States have
taken the oath; if administered, it will be without legal authority, and void;
no indictment will lie for false swearing at the election, or for admitting bad
or rejecting good votes; it will be a farce of Louisiana and Arkansas acted
over again, under the forms of this bill, but not by authority of law.
But when we come to the guarantees of future peace which
Congress meant to enact, the forms, as well as the substance of the bill, must
yield to the President’s will that none
should be imposed.
It was the solemn resolve of Congress to protect the loyal
men of the nation against three great dangers, (1) the return to power of the
guilty leaders of the Rebellion, (2) the continuance of Slavery, and (3) the
burden of the Rebel debt.
Congress required
assent to those provision by the convention of the State; and if refused it was
to be dissolved.
The President “holds for naught” that resolve of Congress,
because he is unwilling “to be inflexibly committed to any one plan of
restoration,” and the people of the United States are not to be allowed to
protect themselves unless their enemies agree to it.
The order to proceed according to the bill is therefore
merely at the bill of the Rebel States; and they have the option to reject it,
accept the proclamations of the 8th of December, and demand the President’s
recognition!
Mark the Contrast!
The bill requires a majority, the proclamation is satisfied with
one-tenth; the bill requires one oath, the proclamation another; the bill
ascertains voters by registering; the proclamation by guess; the bill exacts
adherence to existing territorial limits, the proclamation admits of others;
the bill governs the Rebel States by law,
equalizing all before it, the proclamation commits them to the lawless
discretion of military Governors and Provost-Marshals; the bill forbids
electors for President, the Proclamation and defeat of the bill threatens us
with civil war for the admission or exclusion of such votes; the bill exacted
exclusion of dangerous enemies from power and the relief of the nation from the
Rebel debt, and the prohibition of Slavery forever, so that the suppression of
the Rebellion will double our resources to bear or pay the national debt, free
the masses from the old domination of the Rebel leaders, and eradicate the
cause of the war; the proclamation secures neither of these guaranties.
It is silent respecting the Rebel debt and the political
exclusion of rebel leaders; leaving Slavery
exactly where it was by law at the outbreak of the Rebellion, and adds no
guaranty even of the freedom of the slaves he undertook to manumit.
It is summed up in an illegal oath, without a sanction, and
therefore void.
The oath is to support all proclamations of the President
during the Rebellion having reference to slaves.
Any Government is to be accepted at the hands of one-tenth
of the people not contravening that oath.
Now that oath neither secures the abolition of Slavery, nor
adds any security to the freedom of the slaves the President declared free.
It does not secure the abolition of Slavery; for the
proclamation of freedom merely professed to free certain slaves while it
recognized the institution.
Every Constitution of the Rebel States at the outbreak of
the Rebellion may be adopted without the change of a letter, for none of them contravene
that Proclamation, none of them establish slavery.
It adds no security to the freedom of the slaves.
For their title is the Proclamation of Freedom.
If it be unconstitutional, an oath to support it is
void. Whether constitutional or not, the
oath is without authority of law, and therefore void.
If it be valid and observed, it exacts no enactment by the
State, either in law or Constitution, to add a State guaranty to the
proclamation title and the right of a slave to freedom is an open question
before the State courts on the relative authority of the State law and the
Proclamation.
If the oath binds the one-tenth who take it, it is not
exacted of the other nine-tenths who succeed to the control of the State
Government; so that it is annulled instantly by the act of recognition.
What the State courts would say of the Proclamation, who can
doubt?
But the master would not go into court—he would seize his
slave.
What the Supreme Court would say, who can tell?
When and how is the question to get there?
No habeas corpus lies for him in a United States Court; and
the President defeated with this bill its extension of that writ to this case.
Such are the fruits of this rash and fatal act of the
President—a blow at the friends of his Administration, at the rights of
humanity, and at the principles of republican government.
The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which
the supports of his Administration have so long practiced, in view of the
arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our
political opponents.
But he must understand that our support is of a cause and
not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be
respected; that the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to
be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishers
our support, he must confine himself to his executive duties—to obey and
execute, not make the laws—to suppress by arms armed Rebellion, and leave
political rëorganization
to Congress.
If the supporters of the Government fail to insist on this,
they become responsible for the usurpations which they fail to rebuke, and are
justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and security
committed to their keeping, they sacrifice.
Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and
having found it, fearlessly execute it.
B. F. WADE, Chairman
Senate Committee.
H. WINTER DAVIS,
Chairman Committee House
of Representatives on
the Rebellious States.
SOURCE: New York Daily Tribune, New York, New
York, Friday August 5, 1864, p. 5
