To The Supporters Of The Government.

We have read without surprise, but not without indignation, the Proclamation of the President of the 8th of July, 1864.

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 President did not sign the bill “to guarantee to certain States whose Governments have been usurped, a Republican form of Government”—passed by the supporters of his Administration in both Houses of Congress after mature deliberation.

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

Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, December 8, 1863

By the President of the United States of America:

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, in and by the Constitution of the United States it is provided that the President “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment;” and

Whereas, a rebellion now exists, whereby the loyal State governments of several States have for a long time been subverted and many persons have committed and are now guilty of treason against the United States; and

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and treason laws have been enacted by Congress declaring forfeitures and confiscations of property and liberation of slaves, all upon terms and conditions therein stated, and also declaring that the President was thereby authorized at any time thereafter, by proclamation, to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing rebellion, in any State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such times and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare; and

Whereas, the Congressional declaration for limited and conditional pardon accords with the well-established judicial exposition of the pardoning power; and

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion the President of the United States has issued several proclamations with provisions in regard to the liberation of slaves; and

Whereas, it is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States and to reinaugurate loyal State governments within and for their respective States: Therefore,

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known to all persons who have, directly or by implication, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in property cases where rights of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:

"I, —— ——, do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court. So help me God."

The persons excepted from the benefits of the foregoing provisions are all who are, or shall have been, civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called Confederate Government; all who have left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; all who are, or shall have been, military or naval officers of said so-called Confederate Government above the rank of colonel in the Army or of lieutenant in the Navy; all who left seats in the U.S. Congress to aid the rebellion; all who resigned commissions in the Army or Navy of the United States and afterward aided the rebellion, and all who have engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which persons may have been found in the U.S. service as soldiers, seamen, or in any other capacity.

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of persons not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the Presidential election of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, each having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall re-establish a State government which shall be republican and in nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which declares that: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the Legislature, or the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that any provision which may be adopted by such State government in relation to the freed people of such State, which shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition, as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not be objected to by the national Executive.

And it is suggested as not improper that, in constructing a loyal State government in any State, the name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those framing the nosy State government.

To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say that this proclamation, so far as it relates to State governments, has no reference to States wherein loyal State governments have all the while been maintained. And for the same reason it may be proper to further say, 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 still further, that this proclamation is intended to present the people of the States wherein the national authority has been suspended, and loyal State governments have been subverted, a mode in and by which the national authority and loyal State governments may be re-established within said States or in any of them; and while the mode presented is the best the Executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable.

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, the 8th day of December, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-eighth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,                 

Secretary of State.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Volume 6 (Serial No. 119), p. 680-2

Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, July 8, 1864

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, at the late session Congress passed a bill to "guarantee certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government," a copy of which is hereunto annexed;

And whereas, the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him;

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:

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; and while I am also unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States, but am at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the Nation may be adopted, 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.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this eighth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

[L. S.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

 Secretary of State.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume 4 (Serial No. 125), p. 477-8

A BILL to guarantee to certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a republican form of government.

A BILL to guarantee to certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a republican form of government.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in the States declared in rebellion against the United States the President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint for each a provisional Governor, whose pay and emoluments shall not exceed that of a brigadier-general of volunteers, who shall be charged with the civil administration of such State until a State government therein shall be recognized as hereinafter provided.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That 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 laws of the United States, the provisional Governor shall direct the marshal of the United States, as speedily as may be, to name a sufficient number of deputies, and to enroll all white male citizens of the United States resident in the State in their respective counties, and to request each one to take the oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and in his enrollment to designate those who take and those who refuse to take the oath, which rolls shall be forthwith returned to the provisional Governor; and if the persons taking that oath shall amount to a majority of the persons enrolled in the State, he shall, by proclamation, invite the loyal people of the State to elect delegates to a convention charged to declare the will of the people of the State relative to the re-establishment of a State government subject to and in conformity with the Constitution of the United States.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the convention shall consist of as many members as both houses of the last constitutional State Legislature, apportioned by the provisional Governor among the counties, parishes, or districts of the State, in proportion to the white population, returned as electors, by the marshal in compliance with the provisions of this act. The provisional Governor shall, by proclamation, declare the number of delegates to be elected by each county, parish, or election district; name a day of election not less than thirty days thereafter; designate the places of voting in each county, parish, or district, conforming, as nearly as may be convenient, to the places used in the State elections next preceding the rebellion; appoint one or more commissioners to hold the election at each place of voting, and provide an adequate force to keep the peace during the election.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the delegates shall be elected by the loyal white male citizens of the United States of the age of twenty-one years, and resident at the time in the county, parish, or district in which they shall offer to vote, and enrolled as aforesaid, or absent in the military service of the United States, and who shall take and subscribe the oath of allegiance to the United States in the form contained in the act of Congress of July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two; and all such citizens of the United States who are in the military service of the United States shall vote at the headquarters of their respective commands, under such regulations as may be prescribed by the provisional Governor for the taking and return of their votes; but no person who has held or exercised any office, civil or military, State or Confederate, under the rebel usurpation, or who has voluntarily borne arms against the United States, shall vote, or be eligible to be elected as delegate at such election.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the said commissioners, or either of them, shall hold the election in conformity with this act, and so far as may be consistent therewith, shall proceed in the manner used in the State prior to the rebellion. The oath of allegiance shall be taken and subscribed on the poll book by every voter in the form above prescribed, but every person known by or proved to the commissioners to have held or exercised any office, civil or military, State or Confederate, under the rebel usurpation, or to have voluntarily borne arms against the United States, shall be excluded, though he offer to take the oath; and in case any person who shall have borne arms against the United States shall offer to vote, he shall be deemed to have borne arms voluntarily unless he shall prove the contrary by the testimony of a qualified voter. The poll book, showing the name and oath of each voter, shall be returned to the provisional Governor by the commissioners of election or the one acting, and the provisional Governor shall canvass such returns, and declare the person having the highest number of votes elected.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the provisional Governor shall by proclamation convene the delegates elected as aforesaid at the capital of the State on a day not more than three months after the election, giving at least thirty days' notice of such day. In case the said capital shall, in his judgment, be unfit, he shall in his proclamation appoint another place. He shall preside over the deliberations of the convention, and administer to each delegate before taking his seat in the convention the oath of allegiance to the United States in the form above prescribed.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the convention shall declare, on the behalf of the people of the State, their submission to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and shall adopt the following provisions hereby prescribed by the United States in the execution of the constitutional duty to guarantee a republican form of government to every State, and incorporate them in the constitution of the State; that is to say:

First. No person who has held or exercised any office, civil or military, except offices merely ministerial, and military offices below the grade of colonel, State or Confederate, under the usurping power, shall vote for or be a member of the Legislature, or Governor.

Second. Involuntary servitude is forever prohibited, and the freedom of all persons is guaranteed in said State.

Third. No debt, State or Confederate, created by or under the sanction of the usurping power, shall be recognized or paid by the State.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That when the convention shall have adopted those provisions it shall proceed to re-establish a republican form of government, and ordain a constitution containing those provisions, which, when adopted, the convention shall by ordinance provide for submitting to the people of the State entitled to vote under this law at an election to be held in the manner prescribed by the act for the election of delegates; but at a time and place named by the convention, at which election the said electors, and none others, shall vote directly for or against such constitution and form of State government, and the returns of said election shall be made to the provisional Governor, who shall canvass the same in the presence of the electors, and if a majority of the votes cast shall be for the constitution and form of government, he shall certify the same, with a copy thereof, to the President of the United States, who, after obtaining the assent of Congress, shall, by proclamation, recognize the government so established, and none other, as the constitutional government of the State, and from the date of such recognition, and not before, Senators and Representatives and electors for President and Vice-President may be elected in such State, according to the laws of the State and of the United States.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That if the convention shall refuse to re-establish the State government on the conditions aforesaid, the provisional Governor shall declare it dissolved; but it shall be the duty of the President, whenever he shall have reason to believe that a sufficient number of the people of the State entitled to vote under this act, in a number not less than the majority of those enrolled as aforesaid, are willing to re-establish a State government on the conditions aforesaid, to direct the provisional Governor to order another election of delegates to a convention for the purpose and in the manner prescribed in this act, and to proceed in all respects as hereinbefore provided, either to dissolve the convention or to certify the State government re-established by it to the President.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That until the United States shall have recognized a republican form of State government, the provisional Governor in each of said States shall see that this act, and the laws of the United States, and the laws of the State in force when the State government was overthrown by the rebellion, are faithfully executed within the State; but no law or usage whereby any person was heretofore held in involuntary servitude shall be recognized or enforced by any court or officer in such State, and the laws for the trial and punishment of white persons shall extend to all persons, and jurors shall have the qualifications of voters under this law for delegates to the convention. The President shall appoint such officers provided for by the laws of the State when its government was overthrown as he may find necessary to the civil administration of the State, all which officers shall be entitled to receive the fees and emoluments provided by the State laws for such officers.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That until the recognition of a State government as aforesaid the provisional Governor shall, under such regulations as he may prescribe, cause to be assessed, levied, and collected, for the year eighteen hundred and sixty-four, and every year thereafter, the taxes provided by the laws of such State to be levied during the fiscal year preceding the overthrow of the State government thereof, in the manner prescribed by the laws of the State, as nearly as may be; and the officers appointed as aforesaid are vested with all powers of levying and collecting such taxes, by distress or sale, as were vested in any officers or tribunal of the State government aforesaid for these purposes. The proceeds of such taxes shall be accounted for to the provisional Governor, and be by him applied to the expenses of the administration of the laws in such State, subject to the direction of the President, and the surplus shall be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of such State, to be paid to the State upon an appropriation therefor, to be made when a republican form of government shall be recognized therein by the United States.

SEC. 12. And be it further enacted, That all persons held to involuntary servitude in the States aforesaid are hereby emancipated and discharged therefrom, and they and their posterity shall be forever free. And if any such persons or their posterity shall be restrained of liberty, under pretense of any claim to such service or labor, the courts of the United States shall, on habeas corpus, discharge them.

SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That if any person declared free by this act, or any law of the United States, or any proclamation of the President, be restrained of liberty, with intent to be held in or reduced to involuntary servitude or labor, the person convicted before a court of competent jurisdiction of such act shall be punished by fine of not less than one thousand five hundred dollars, and be imprisoned not less than five nor more than twenty years.

SEC. 14. And be it further enacted, That every person who shall hereafter hold or exercise any office, civil or military, except offices merely ministerial, and military offices below the grade of colonel, in the rebel service, State or Confederate, is hereby declared not to be a citizen of the United States.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume 4 (Serial No. 125), p. 478-81

The Political Situation

[From the Richmond Examiner (opp. Organ) Aug. 15.]

Whatever may turn out to be the meaning of fact, the fact itself begins to shine out clear that Abraham Lincoln is lost; that he will never be president again—not even President of the Yankee remnant of States, to say nothing of the whole six and thirty—or, how many are there, counting “Colorado” and “Idaho,” and other Yahoo commonwealths lately invented?  The obscene ape of Illinois is about to be deposed from the Washington purple, and the White House will echo to his little jokes no more.  It is in no spirit of exultation we contemplate this coming event, for Abraham has been a good Emperor for us; but has served our turn; his policy has settled, established, and made irrevocable the separation of the old Union into nations essentially foreign, and we may be almost sorry to part with him.  He was, in the eyes of all mankind, and unanswerable argument for our secession, for he stood there a living justification, seven feet high, of the steadfast resolution of these States to hold no more political union with a race capable not only of producing such a being, but of making it a ruler and king.

Certainly his elevation to that position astonished the world, but it amazed nobody so much as the creature himself; he knew he was neither rich nor rare, and wondered how the devil he got there, or, as he expressed it himself the other day, to a Canadian editor, “It seems to be strange that I, a boy born, as it were, in the woods, should have drifted into the apex of this great event.”  Why strange?  One may be drifted into any apex if he only embarks upon a chain of circumstances; and those who sneer at Abraham’s figures are desired to observe that Noah’s ark did actually drift to an apex; and it contained, with every other beast of his kind, a pair of baboons.  If they drifted to an apex, so may he.  However that may be, he is certainly now about to come down, and even to be dragged or kicked down.  The prognostications of last spring were infallable, that the “rebellion” must be crushed this year—at least very signal and decided successes must be gained over it, or else the war would no longer be carried on under Lincoln’s government; let what might come of the war and the Union, he would get no more armies to fling into the red pit of Virginia for slaughter.

Now to put aside for the present the total loss of what Yankees fondly believe to be their conquests in the trans-Mississippi; pretermitting also the dead lock to which Sherman’s army has been brought, with all Kentucky, Tennessee and half of Georgia lying between him and his own country, and looking only to this most colossal invasion of Virginia with three large armies all bound for Richmond—the thing is over.  Grant’s army is rapidly going away from our front at Petersburg, and returning to Washington or elsewhere.  Of course Grant will not put up a notice on the shore of the Appomattox that he hereby abandons his enterprise; either will Stanton officially notify that the armies of “the Union” are found wholly unable to advance one yard out of the protection of their ships, and therefore they discontinue the campaign with a loss of one hundred fifty thousand killed, wounded and missing.  This would be unreasonable to expect, nevertheless the enterprise is abandoned.  Richmond is no more to hear the roar of Yankee siege guns under that potentate’s reign.

One cannot but arrive at this conclusion from several indications—from the greatly increasing excitement at the North touching the Chicago Convention, which is to nominate a Democratic President; from the daring violence with which some newspapers counsel resistance in arms against the draft of half a million of men, and from the singular movement of some of Lincoln’s own Black Republican supporters in the Washington Congress.  They waited for the moment when their sovereign’s fortunes were declining from their “apex” to give them a treacherous shove down the hill.  Two of his most vehement and efficient allies, Wade, of Ohio, and Winter Davis, of Maryland, gave him this blow under the fifth rib.  They present, in their official capacity, what almost amounts to a legal impeachment, save in matter of form, against their fond and too indulgent master, now tottering to his fall; charge him with arrogance, usurpation, knavery, in withholding his assent to a bill touching the status of these Confederate States—a matter which though of small importance to us, is of the deepest moment, it seems in that country; inasmuch as he has a plan of his own for readmitting States to the Union on the application of one-tenth of their population; and this would, they say, give him the control of the presidential election.  So they inform him that an election carried by this artifice must be resisted, and that he is inaugurating a civil war for the Presidency.

If Grant had only taken Richmond, would they have dared to set their names to such a document as this?  All the world suddenly, within one week, in short, since the blow up of the campaign at Petersburg, seems to feel instinctively that Abraham’s gave is played; and the New York Herald at once calls for a new National convention at Buffalo to nominate some other men instead of the baboon of Illinois and the tailor of Tennessee, and finds out that “the very winds have been whispering it for weeks”—that is for two weeks, since the Petersburg blow up.  Abe! The Emperor, is a fallen tree; no bird of the air will ever again leather its nest under his branches; a dying gorilla against whom the smallest cur can lift up its leg.

Taking it as certain, then, that the enemy’s present sovereign is as good as gone, next comes the most interesting consideration of who is to be his successor.  It is not very plain in the interest of whom, or what, Wade and Davis have so suddenly found out the enormities of Lincoln; nor whether they mean to aid the Fremont party of impossible ultra-radicals, or lay the pipes for themselves, Wade and Davis; but the most interesting matter to us is the keen and active agitation in the two branches of the Democratic party.  The peace Democrats openly avow that they will labor in the Chicago Convention of this month to get a “platform” of instant and absolute peace. We learn that the War Democrats are beginning, through some of their influential papers, to give their assent to an armistice, as one of the “planks” of the Chicago Convention—an armistice to allow negotiations for reconstruction.  In other words, these war Democrats propose that, leaving the military lines of each party where they now are, the Confederate states should be invited to send delegates to meet the Yankee States in Convention.

Let there be not only an armistice, but a formal renunciation of all right and pretense to coerce these states; and of course  an entire withdrawal of all land and sea forces which occupy any portion of our soil, or blockade any of our ports; and then the Northern States will be in a position to propose to us reconstruction of the Union, or a convention of States for the purpose of negotiating that.  It may safely be promised that such proposals would then be at least considered; at present, one cannot say what would be the result of that consideration; but, it short, let our Northern brethren try us.  With such change in the existing relations, no doubt there may come also a great change over men’s minds?  The hideous apparition of the blood-bolstered Lincoln will be laid; the bayonet will be no longer point at our throats, our dead will have been buried out of our sight, and it is vain as humorous Abraham says, to grieve over spilt milk—for so the facetious man calls blood.  We do not answer for a favorable result of this policy, but the Chicago Democrats will find it worthwhile to try it, seeing that is the only chance they have.

SOURCE: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday, August 16, 1864

George L. Stearns, writing from Nashville, Tennessee, September 10, 1863

I opened a letter from you this morning and lo, it was dated 30th August. Probably it had strayed to Rosecrans at Chattanooga and back here. It breathed the old tale of suffering sadness. Such is our life. One day I am successful, and consequently happy. Then, something adverse casts me down, and I have to nerve myself up to the work.

Governor Johnson is afraid of me (or rather was) and opposed my work, and I have been laboring to bring him over to the faith, and think I have succeeded, but can't tell yet. If I do it will be a great gain, for then we will try to settle the slavery question at Washington before Congress meets.

The Governor showed me recent letters from Lincoln and Chase that were very encouraging, Lincoln looking to Tennessee for the key-note of his policy for bringing back the slave states; and I should not be surprised if I was to shape that policy, and the whole affair be settled before it was thought of at the North.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 309-10

Gerrit Smith’s Speech on the Fort Pillow and Plymouth Massacres: Peterboro, Massachusetts, April 26, 1864.

The whole civilized world will be startled and horrified by this slaughter of probably not less than five or six hundred persons. The excuse in the case of a part of the slaughtered is, that they were traitorous citizens of the Confederacy: in the case of another part, that they were whites fighting by the side of blacks: in the case of the remainder, including women and even children, that they were blacks. That these were blacks, was cause enough why, though numbering three or four hundred, they should be murdered — murdered in utter contempt of all the sacred rights of prisoners of war. It is of the crime against these, I would now speak.

Who are to be held amenable for this crime? The rebels. Yes, but not the rebels only. The authorship of this crime, so matchless in its worst features, is very comprehensive. The responsibility for it is wider than our nation. England shares in the authorship and responsibility, because it was she who planted slavery in America, and because it is slavery out of which this crime has come. Our own nation, however, is the far guiltier one. The guilt of this crime is upon all her people who have contributed to that public sentiment, which releases white men from respecting the rights of black men. Our highest Court says that this satanic sentiment prevailed in the early existence of our nation. Certain it is, that it has prevailed in all the later periods of that existence. Who are they who have contributed to generate it? All who have held that blacks are unfit to sit by the side of whites in the church, the school, the car and at the table. All who have been in favor of making his complexion shut out a black man from the ballot-box. All who have been for making a man's title to any of the rights of manhood turn on the color of the skin in which his Maker has chosen to wrap him. All, in short, who have hated or despised the black man.

Even President Lincoln, whom God now blesses and will yet more bless for the much he has done for his black brethren, is not entirely innnocent of the Fort Pillow and Plymouth massacres. Had his plan of “Reconstruction” recognized the right of the black men to vote, it would thereby have contributed to lift them up above outrage, instead of contributing, as it now does, to invite outrage upon them. By the way, it is a pity that he undertook “Reconstruction.” It was entirely beyond his civil capacity to do so: and it was entirely beyond his military capacity to have a part in setting up any other than a military or provisional government. Moreover, this is the only kind of government which it is proper to set up in the midst of war. The leisure and advantages of peace are necessary in the great and difficult work of establishing a permanent government. In this connection let me advert for a moment to the doctrine, “Once a State always a State” — a doctrine so frequently wielded against “Reconstruction” on any terms. Where is the authority for this doctrine? In the Constitution, it is said. But nowhere does the Constitution say that a State may plunge into war, secure at all hazards from some of the penalties of war. But amongst the penalties of war is whatever change the conqueror may choose to impose upon the conquered territory. I admit that it is very desirable to have all the revolting States reestablished — reinstated. But that there is any law by which this becomes inevitable is absurd. Nowhere does the Constitution say that a State is to be exempt from the operation of the law of war. Nowhere does it undertake to override the law of war. How clear is it, then, that by this paramount law these revolted States will, when conquered, lie at the will of the conqueror! And how clear is it, that it will then turn not at all upon the Constitution, but upon this will of the conqueror, backed by this paramount law of war, whether the old statehood of these States shall be revived, or whether they shall be remanded to a territorial condition, and put upon their good behavior!

There is another instance in which the President has contributed to that cruel public sentiment, which leaves the black race unprotected. I refer to his so strangely long delay in promising protection to the black soldier, and to the even longer and not yet ended delay in affording it. The President is a humane as well as an honest man; and the only explanation I can find for his delay to protect the black soldier and to put an end, so far as in him lies, to the various, innumerable, incessant outrages upon the freedmen is in the continuance of his childish and cowardly desire to conciliate his native Kentucky and the Democratic party.

I argued that even President Lincoln is responsible in some degree for that public sentiment, which invites outrage upon the black man and leaves him a prey to the wicked. Those Members of Congress, who are opposing the reasonable measure of letting the black man vote in the Territories, are also guilty of favoring that public sentiment which broke out in the crime at Fort Pillow and Plymouth. Similarly guilty are those members who would make the pay of a black soldier less than that of a white one. And so are those members who consent to leave a fugitive slave statute in existence. In a word, all should tax their consciences with the sin of this public sentiment and with the resulting crime at Fort Pillow and Plymouth, whose influence, by either word or deed, has been to keep up in this heathen land the caste-spirit—that preeminent characteristic of heathenism. I call this a heathen land. To the Christ-Religion — that simple religion of equal rights and of doing as you would be done by — there can be no greater insult than to call a nation in which, as in this, the most cruel and murderous caste-spirit prevails, a Christian nation.

Both on the right hand and on the left, I hear that our nation is to be saved. But my fears that it will not, often become very strong. That the Rebellion is to be crushed, I deeply believe. Often in the course of Providence a wicked people, which is itself to be afterward destroyed, is previously to be used in destroying another and generally more wicked people. There are striking illustrations of this in the Bible. The duty of abolitionists and anti-abolitionists, Democrats and Republicans, to work unitedly, incessantly, and unconditionally for the overthrow of the Rebellion I have not only never doubted, but ever urged. I hold it to be unpatriotic and even traitorous for the Abolitionists to make any conditions in behalf of their specialty, and to propose, as some of them do, to go against the Rebellion only so far as going against it will be going against slavery. So too are those Democrats unpatriotic and even traitorous who can favor the War, only under the stipulation that it be so conducted as to harm neither the Democratic party nor the Constitution. To put down the Rebellion is an object immeasurably higher than to save a party or to save the Constitution, or even to save the country. No man is right-minded, who would not have it put down, even though it be at the expense of the last man and the last dollar.

If anything makes me doubt that the Rebellion will be crushed it is the omission of Congress to abolish slavery, now when it is so clearly seen that the abolition of slavery is an indispensable means to the abolition of the Rebellion. The proposed Amendment to the Constitution I take no interest in. One reason why I do not, is, that it is not a proposition to abolish slavery now. Another is, that war is not the time to be tinkering at constitutions. I see it denied that Congress has the power, even as a war measure, to abolish slavery. Amazing delusion! There is in every nation an absolute power for carrying on war. The nation that disclaims it may as well give up being a nation. In our own, this power is vested in Congress. Congress is to declare war: and Congress is “to make all laws necessary and proper (itself of course the sole judge of the necessity and propriety) for carrying into execution” the declaration. Is it the institution of apprenticeship, which it finds to be in the way of the successful prosecution of the war — then is it to sweep it out of the way. Is it the abomination of slavery? — then is it to strike at that.

There is, however, one thing more which sometimes, though not often, raises a doubt in me whether the Rebellion will be crushed. It is the premature agitation of the Presidential question. When the Rebellion broke out, I assumed that it would be put down in a few months — for I assumed that this greatest crime against nationality and humanity would arouse and unite the whole North. How greatly was I mistaken Very soon the Democratic party was seen to prefer itself to the country. The Republican party stood by the country. But at the present time there is no little danger that the country may be sacrificed in a strife between the members of the Republican party. For, taking advantage of this strife, the Democratic party may succeed in getting the reins of Government into the hands of one of its pro-slavery peacemakers. But I may be asked — will not the rebels be conquered and the country saved before the next Election? I still hope so — and until the last few months I believed so. But is there not some reason to fear that the North will be wrought up to a greater interest in this year's Presidential than in this year's military campaign In other words, is there not some reason to fear that, for the coming six months, politics instead of patriotism will be in the ascendant?

I still say, as through the past winter I have frequently said, written, and printed — that the Presidential question should not have been talked of, no, nor so much as thought of, until midsummer. The first of September is quite early enough to make the nomination; and in the mean time, undistracted by this so distracting subject, we should be working as one man for the one object of ending the Rebellion — and of ending it before reaching the perils of a presidential election. And such working would best educate us to make the best choice of a candidate. Moreover, it is the condition the country will be in three or four months hence, rather than the condition it is now in, that should be allowed to indicate the choice. Great and rapidly successive are the changes in the circumstances of a country in time of war. To nominate a President in time of peace, six months earlier than is necessary, all would admit to be great folly. But greater folly would it be to nominate him in time of war even a single month earlier than is necessary. The Baltimore Convention is understood to be a movement for renominating President Lincoln, and the Cleveland Convention one for nominating General Fremont. Would that both Conventions were dropped Would indeed that the whole subject were dropped until July or August! — and would too that it were dropped with the understanding, that it should then be taken up, not by the politicians, but by the people!

The people would present a loyal and an able candidate: and whether it were Lincoln or Fremont, Chase or Butler, Dickinson or Dix, the country would be safe.

I recall at this moment the large and respectable meeting for consultation held in Albany last January. What a pity that the meeting took fright at the temperate and timely resolutions reported to it! What a pity that the meeting saw in them danger to the country, or perhaps, more properly speaking, to a party! One of these resolutions and its advocates urged the importance of postponing until the latest possible day the whole subject of a Presidential nomination: and, had it been adopted and published, it would not unlikely have exerted sufficient influence to bring about such postponement. Time has proved the wisdom of the other resolutions also. I wish I could, without seeming egotism, say that slavery, and slavery alone, having brought this war upon us, they, who have given but little thought to slavery, should be too modest to toss aside indignantly and sneeringly the suggestions of those who have made it their life-long study. Were these resolutions now published, almost every man who opposed them, would wonder that he had so little foresight as to oppose them.

And there is still another thing which should perhaps be allowed to suggest a doubt whether the rebellion will be crushed. It is, that we are so reluctant to pay the cost of crushing it. Our brave soldiers and sailors give their lives to this end. But we who stay at home shrink from the money tax which is, and which should be far more largely put upon us. Our nation is imperiled by the incessant outflow of a big stream of gold. Wise and patriotic as he is, our Secretary of the Treasury will nevertheless labor in vain to diminish this stream unless importations shall be taxed far more heavily. Deeply disgraceful are these importations when it is by all that is precious in the very life of our nation that they are forbidden. Surely it is no time now to be indulging in foreign luxuries: and as to necessaries, our own country can furnish them all. Luxuries, whether foreign or domestic, should all come now with great cost to the consumer. And only a small return for protecting their estates from the rebels would it be for the rich to pay over to Government one fourth, and the very rich one half of their incomes. Let me add in this connection that the State Banks should be so patriotic, as to rejoice in the national advantage of an exclusively National currency.

I expressed my belief that the rebellion will be crushed — but my doubt whether the nation will be saved. A guilty nation, like a guilty individual, can be saved through repentance only. But where are the proofs that this nation has so much as begun to repent of the great sin, which has brought the great calamity upon her? She has, it is true, dome much to prove that she regards slavery as a political and economical evil, and a source of great peril to the nation: but she has done exceedingly little toward proving that she has a penitent sense of her sin in fastening the yoke of slavery on ten to twenty millions of this and former generations. It is only here and there — at wide intervals both of time and space — that has been heard the penitent exclamation, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother;” — only at these wide intervals that has been seen any relaxation of the national hatred and scorn for the black man. “Abolitionist,” which, when the nation shall be saved, will be the most popular name in it, is still the most odious and contemptible name in it. That the fugitive slave statute is still suffered to exist, is ample proof that this nation has still a devil's heart toward the black man. How sad that even now, when because of the sin of slaveholding, God is making blood flow like water in this land, there should be found members of Congress, who claim this infernal statute to be one of the rights of slaveholding! As if slaveholding had rights! As if any thing else than punishment were due to it! — punishment adequate to its unmingled, unutterable, and blasphemous wrongs!

I shall, however, be told that slavery will soon be abolished by an Amendment of the Constitution. And what will such an Amendment say? Why, nothing more than that slavery ought not to be — must not be — when it shall no longer be constitutional. What, however, the American people need to say, is, that be it constitutional or unconstitutional, slavery shall not be. So they are always prepared to say regarding murder. But slavery is worse than murder. Every right-minded man had far rather his child were murdered than enslaved. Why, then, do they not affirm that, in no event, will they tolerate slavery any more than murder? The one answer is — because it is the black man, and the black man only, on whom slavery falls. Were white Americans to be enslaved in a Barbary State, or anywhere else, our nation would respect no pleadings of statutes or even of constitutions for their enslavement. In defiance of whatever pleas or whatever restraints, she would release them if she could. The most stupendous hypocrisy of which America has been guilty, is first professing that there is law for slavery — law for that which all law proclaims an outlaw — law for that in which there is not one element of law, but every element of which is an outrage upon law; and second, in professing it, not because she has a particle of belief in it — but simply because blacks instead of whites are the victims of her slavery. America declared that John Brown was “rightly hung.” How hypocritical was the declaration, may be inferred from the fact that had they been white instead of black slaves whom he flung away his life to rescue, she would have honored him as perhaps man has never been honored. And she would have made his honors none the less, but heaped them up all the more, if, in prosecuting his heroic and merciful work, he had tossed aside statutes and broken through sacred constitutions. Oh! if this nation shall ever be truly saved, it will no longer regard John Brown as worthy of the fate of a felon; but it will build the whitest monuments to his memory, and cherish it as the memory. of the sublimest and most Christ-like man the nation has ever produced! Some of the judgments of John Brown — especially such as led him to Harper's Ferry — were unsound and visionary. Nevertheless, even when committing his mistakes, he stood, by force of the disinterestedness and greatness of his soul, above all his countrymen.

Would Congress contribute most effectively to put down the rebellion, and to save the nation by the great salvations of penitence and justice — the only real salvations? Would it do this? — then let it pass, solemnly and unanimously, a resolution that there never was and never can be, either inside or outside of statutes or constitutions, law for slavery; and then another resolution that whoever shall attempt to put the yoke of slavery on however humble a neck, black or white, deserves to be put to death.

A word further in regard to the proposed Amendment. Were the impudent and monstrous claim of its being law set up for murder, no one would propose an amendment of the Constitution forbidding murder. The only step in that case would be to make the penalty for the crime more sure and if possible more severe. Such an amendment would be strenuously objected to, in that it would stain the Constitution with the implication that murder had been constitutional. And now, if we shall have a Constitutional Amendment, which, in terms, forbids slavery, (it is already forbidden by the spirit, principles, and even provisions of the Constitution,) shall we not be virtually admitting to the world and to posterity that this nation had been guilty of tolerating, if not indeed of positively authorizing, in its Constitution the highest crime of earth o God save us from an admission, which shall serve both to stamp us with infamy and to perpetuate the infamy!

PETERBoro, April 26, 1864.

SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 260; Gerrit Smith, Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith (from January 1863, to January 1864), on the Rebellion,  Volume 2, p. 7-13