APPENDIX.
The sequel of this speech, which occupied two days in the delivery, will appear, first, in the Debate and Votes that ensued, and, secondly, in its reception by the country, as illustrated by the Press and Correspondence.
DEBATE AND VOTES.
The speech of Mr. Sumner was followed by a succession of speeches extending over a month, with considerable variation by a concurrent resolution from the House of Representatives involving the same questions.
Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, on the day after Mr. Sumner, spoke at length. In the course of his remarks he said:—
“I take it no one contends, I think the honorable Senator from Massachusetts himself, who is the great champion of Universal Suffrage, would hardly contend, that now, at this time, the whole mass of the population of the recent Slave States is fit to be admitted to the exercise of the right of suffrage.”
Then again:—
“While the honorable Senator from Massachusetts argued, and argued with great force, that every man should have that right, and that he should only be subject to disabilities which he could overcome, his argument, connected with the other principle that he laid down, and the application of it that he made, that taxation and representation should go together, would just as well apply to women as to men; but I noticed that the honorable Senator dodged that part of the proposition very carefully.”
He criticized the substitute offered by Mr. Sumner, when the latter remarked:—
“Last Friday this Senate solemnly declared, that, under the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, it had power to decree the equal rights of all persons everywhere throughout the United States, without distinction of color. The moment that was declared, I said to friends about me that the duty of Congress was fixed with regard to political rights also. If Congress can decree equality in civil rights, by the same reason, if not a fortiori, it can decree equality in political rights; and as the preamble to my proposition recited two reasons or moving causes, one the guaranty clause, and the other the Constitutional Amendment, I felt it my duty, acting upon the vote of the Senate, to insist that the declaration of equality for all should be coextensive with the Republic, claiming as I do under the guaranty clause that it operates within all the States where there has been a lapse of government, and that under the Constitutional Amendment it operates everywhere within the limits of the Republic.”
In confining the guaranty clause to States that had “lapsed,” Mr. Sumner was cautious not to make his proposition too broad, although his judgment was that it was applicable to all the States, and authorized a prohibition by Congress of unrepublican provisions in any State.
Mr. Fessenden said: “The Senator says we may secure it in the States which have lapsed. That is a new phrase, but perhaps it is as good as any other.” But he was unwilling to accept this power.
Mr. Lane, of Indiana, said, in answer to Mr. Sumner:—
“If Congress had the undoubted and unquestionable authority to pass such a law, it gets at the result more readily than does the Constitutional Amendment; but it is doubtful to my mind whether Congress has this power. I believe, under the Constitution, the right to determine the qualifications of electors is left with the several States.”
Then of the counter proposition he said:—
“It is a noble declaration, but a simple declaration,—a paper bullet, that kills no one, and fixes and maintains the rights of no one.”
Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, Mr. Williams, of Oregon, Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, Mr. Yates, of Illinois, Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Pomeroy, of Kansas, Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, Mr. Morrill, of Maine, and Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, all spoke at length. Of these, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Yates, and Mr. Pomeroy sustained Mr. Sumner, in opposition to the House expedient, although the first preferred to assure suffrage by a Constitutional Amendment ordaining it: while insisting upon the ballot for the colored citizen, he doubted the power of Congress. Mr. Johnson thought the claim of our fathers, in their cry against Taxation without Representation, was for communities, and not for individuals. Mr. Sumner afterwards replied at length to this opinion.[197] In the course of Mr. Henderson’s speech, occupying two days, the following colloquy occurred.
Mr. Sumner. Do I understand my friend as insisting that the denial of the franchise is consistent with a republican government? Take the State of South Carolina, which denies the franchise to more than half its population.
Mr. Henderson. In theory it is not. Under the Constitution it was regarded as a republican State at the time of the adoption of the instrument.
Mr. Sumner. It did not deny the franchise to half its citizens and more. I say citizens. Most excluded were slaves.
Mr. Henderson. It then had only one hundred and forty thousand whites, and had one hundred and seven thousand slaves. It also had eighteen hundred free negroes. I think it more nearly a republican State now than then. Practically, the question of suffrage was left to the States——
Mr. Sumner. But that is the question, whether they were left to deny suffrage to any freeman on account of color.
Mr. Henderson. If that be the question, then the point is against my friend; for both South Carolina and Virginia did deny the suffrage to the free negroes on account of color only, at the time when the Constitution was made, and when it was adopted. Virginia had upward of twelve thousand free negroes thus denied.
Mr. Sumner. But the question is—I cannot anticipate my friend’s conclusion on that point——
Mr. Henderson. My conclusion is, that a mistake was made in recognizing a Constitution as republican that permitted Slavery. I know of no way to get rid of it except by Constitutional Amendment. I think another mistake was committed in leaving each State to so far abridge the right of suffrage as to change, in theory, the republican form. But such is the Constitution, and you cannot change it by Act of Congress. That is my conclusion.
Mr. Sumner. You are wrong. It is a question of theory with regard to republican government, and I say that the Constitution must be interpreted according to this theory.
Mr. Henderson. But our fathers did not deal with it in the Constitution as a question of theory, but as a question of fact. Whatever may have been their theories, I mean only to say that the text of the Constitution does not carry them out——
Mr. Sumner. The practical point is, Did our fathers concede to any State the power of disfranchising citizens on account of color? I utterly deny it, and I challenge my friend to show any authority for it.
Mr. Henderson. Why, Mr. President, if I have already failed to show it, I must fail in the future. I have shown that the suffrage was left to the States, and that they did exclude their negroes,—that they held in slavery in Virginia almost half of their population,[198] and that Virginia was called a republican State. Indeed, she was most prominent in making the very provisions we are discussing. She excluded the slaves and——
Mr. Sumner. Ah! slaves. That is another thing. The question is, whether you are allowed to disfranchise freemen on account of color,—whether you are allowed to deny freemen rights as citizens. That I deny. The exception was slaves, who were not regarded as members of the “body politic.” They were treated as minors, or as women, represented by their masters. But every freeman, no matter what his color, was recognized as entitled to all the privileges of citizenship; he was one of the sovereigns. The proposition cannot be met, if my friend will consult the history of his country.
Mr. Henderson. It was not slaves only that were disfranchised, but I have shown that free negroes were also disfranchised. But I have no controversy with the Senator in what we mutually aim at.
Mr. Sumner. I know that, and I concede to my excellent friend all that I claim for myself. We are in search of the best. I applaud his zeal, and thank him for his courtesy.
Mr. Henderson. I am certainly very much obliged to the Senator from Massachusetts. I feel now ten times better than I did before. [Laughter.]—I cannot longer detain the Senate in presenting objections to the exercise of legislative power under the guaranty clause. It is sufficient to control my own action, that I believe by the letter, and even spirit of the Constitution, the suffrage was placed exclusively under the control of State action. I think that the error of so placing it is as clear as the error made in tolerating Slavery. To rid ourselves of the evil, however, we must amend the Constitution.
Mr. Sumner. Do I understand my friend that a State might adopt a rule founded on the color of the hair, so that all men with light hair should be excluded from suffrage? I insist that a State is not authorized, under the Constitution, to make any exclusion on account of color.
Mr. Henderson. It ought not to be, you mean.
Mr. Sumner. No,—it cannot be. Color cannot be a qualification. There may be a qualification founded on age, or residence, or knowledge, or crime.
Mr. Henderson. You are now coming in conflict with the Committee of Fifteen, who declare by their resolution that the States now have the power, and may yet exclude everybody of a particular race or color.
Mr. Sumner. The Committee propose to place that in the Constitution, which is one reason why I object to their report. I say that they propose to do what our fathers never did.
Mr. Henderson. The Senator from Massachusetts is in theory, perhaps, correct. He is speaking, however, of an ideal Constitution.
The following colloquy also occurred.
Mr. Henderson. The Senator from Massachusetts proposes to do by an Act of Congress what I think can only be done by a Constitutional Amendment. That is the difference now between the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Yates] and myself. I think the Amendment can be adopted. Indeed, I feel confident of it.
Mr. Sumner. What Amendment?
Mr. Henderson. An Amendment to the Constitution preventing any discrimination against the negro in the right of suffrage because of color.
Mr. Sumner. It cannot.
Mr. Henderson. I thought in the bright lexicon of the Senator from Massachusetts there was no such word as “fail.”
Mr. Sumner. I thought the Senator meant that this proposition of the Reconstruction Committee could be adopted.
Mr. Henderson. Oh, no! I never thought that.
Mr. Sumner. I believe that the Senator’s proposition can be adopted—gratefully adopted—by the country; but the other cannot be.
Mr. Williams, of Oregon, hesitated with regard to Mr. Sumner’s substitute, although he seemed to sympathize with the speech.
“Sir, I listened with profound admiration to the speech which the Senator delivered in favor of the proposed substitute. It was worthy of the subject, worthy of the occasion, worthy of the author; and when those who heard it shall be forgotten, the echoes of its lofty and majestic periods will linger and repeat themselves among the corridors of History. I cordially indorse the prevailing sentiment of that speech. I believe that the founders of this Republic intended that all freemen should participate in the political and civil rights of the country. I think the distinction which they made was not between white men and black men: that distinction is of modern origin: but the distinction which they made was between freemen and slaves.”
He took objection to the substitute.
“Pass that law at this session, and it becomes an issue in the next political campaign; and those who sustain it and pass it here will be committed to its support, and those who oppose it will strive to elect men in favor of its repeal. A majority of this Congress may believe in the constitutionality and expediency of such legislation; but another Congress, if a majority should happen to sympathize with the honorable Senator from Kentucky, would abrogate the law, and so the political rights of millions of people would be as varying as the capricious fortunes of the political parties of the country.”
In the intervening debate on the Reconstruction Resolution of the House of Representatives, Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, made an elaborate speech on the pending Amendment, in which he pictured the compromise involved in it.
“This Committee proposes in this Amendment to sell out four million (radical count) negroes to the bad people of those States forever and ever. In consideration of what? I am asked. O shame, where is thy blush? I answer, in dust and ashes, For about sixteen members of Congress. Has there ever been before, Sir, in the history of this or any other country, such a stupendous sale of negroes as that? Never! never! It is saying to the Southern States, You may have these millions of human beings, whom we love so dearly, and about whom we have said so much, and for whom we have done so much,—you may do with them as you please in the way of legislative discrimination against them, if you will only agree not to count them at the next census, except as your sheep and oxen are counted; waive your right to sixteen members of Congress, and the great compromise is sealed, the long agony is over, the nation’s dead are avenged, the nation’s tears are dried, and the nation’s politics are relieved of the negro.”
March 7th, Mr. Sumner spoke at length in reply to Mr. Fessenden and others who had opposed his substitute. This speech appears in the present volume, according to its date.[199] He was followed by his colleague, Mr. Wilson, who was strenuous for the House Amendment.
“Mr. President, there are indications, not to be mistaken, that this Amendment is doomed to defeat. To me this result will be a subject of sincere and profound regret. My heart, my conscience, and my judgment approve of this Amendment, and I support it without qualification or reservation.”
March 9th, Mr. Fessenden spoke again, criticizing especially Mr. Yates and Mr. Sumner.
Mr. Sumner followed Mr. Fessenden in a brief reply, which will be found under its date.[200]
Mr. Wilson declared again his adhesion to the pending Amendment, saying: “I would go to the scaffold joyfully before the sun goes down, if I could put this proposed Amendment into the Constitution of my country; for, if it were there, there would be but one result and one end to it, and that is the enfranchisement of every black man within the bounds of the United States.”
The voting then commenced on the various substitutes for the Amendment adopted by the House of Representatives.
First came the counter proposition of Mr. Sumner, altered, in conformity with the original draught,[201] so as to be applicable only to States that had lapsed, being “lately declared to be in rebellion,” without republican government.
Mr. Henderson moved to strike out all of the counter proposition, and in lieu of it insert a Constitutional Amendment securing the suffrage to colored citizens:—
“Article 14. No State, in prescribing the qualifications requisite for electors therein, shall discriminate against any person on account of color or race.”
Mr. Henderson felt obliged to move his amendment as a substitute for the counter proposition of Mr. Sumner in order to compel a vote upon it.
Mr. Sumner stated that he was for this proposition, and that he should vote for it, and, on its failure, press his own.
The question, being taken by yeas and nays on Mr. Henderson’s amendment, resulted—Yeas 10, Nays 37—as follows:—
Yeas,—Messrs. Brown, Chandler, Clark, Henderson, Howe, Pomeroy, Sumner, Wade, Wilson, and Yates.
Nays,—Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Conness, Cowan, Cragin, Creswell, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Guthrie, Harris, Hendricks, Johnson, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, McDougall, Morgan, Morrill, Nesmith, Norton, Nye, Poland, Ramsey, Riddle, Saulsbury, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Stockton, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey, and Williams.
Absent,—Messrs. Foot, Howard, and Wright.
So the amendment to the amendment was rejected.
The question then recurred on the substitute of Mr. Sumner, when the vote stood,—Yeas 8, Nays 39; so it was rejected. Those voting in the affirmative were Messrs. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, Chandler, of Michigan, Howe, of Wisconsin, Pomeroy, of Kansas, Sumner, Wade, of Ohio, Wilson, of Massachusetts, and Yates, of Illinois.
Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, then moved to amend the House proposition by striking out the proviso and inserting these words, being an amplification of the proviso:—
“Whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State in the election of Representatives to Congress, or of any other officer, municipal, State, or national, on account of race, color, descent, or previous condition of servitude, or by any provision of law not equally applicable to all races and descents, all persons of such race, color, descent, and condition shall be excluded from the basis of representation, as prescribed in the second section of the first article of the Constitution.”
This amendment was adopted,—Yeas 26, Nays 20. It was afterwards withdrawn by the mover, with the unanimous consent of the Senate.
The next question was on a legislative substitute, not unlike that of Mr. Sumner, moved by Mr. Yates:—
“That no State or Territory of the United States shall, by any constitution, law, or other regulation whatever, heretofore in force or hereafter to be adopted, make, or enforce, or in any manner recognize, any distinction between citizens of the United States, or of any State or Territory, on account of race or color or previous condition of slavery; and that hereafter all citizens, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of slavery, shall be protected in the full and equal enjoyment and exercise of all their civil and political rights, including the right of suffrage.”
This was rejected,—Yeas 7, Nays 38.
Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, then moved to amend the proposition of the House of Representatives by inserting after the word “legislatures” the words “next hereafter to be chosen in each State.” The motion was rejected,—Yeas 12, Nays 31.
Mr. Sumner then moved to strike out the proviso in the House proposition, as amended on the motion of Mr. Clark, and in lieu thereof insert,—
“And the elective franchise shall not be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color.”
In moving this Constitutional Amendment, Mr. Sumner remarked that it was “a direct, positive proposition, slightly different from that [Mr. Henderson’s] on which the Senate had voted.” It was rejected,—Yeas 8, Nays 38.
Mr. Sumner then moved to add at the end of the House proposition the words, “And they shall be exempt from taxation of all kinds.”
Before the vote he remarked:—
“It is proposed, by a solemn provision of the Constitution, to declare that certain persons shall not be included in the basis of representation. I think, in justice to them, they should not be taxed. You ought not to repeat in the Constitution the tyranny of taxation without representation. In so many words, you are about to despoil fellow-citizens of representation, and I say, that, not to be inconsistent with your own institutions and with the principles upon which your government is founded, you must exempt them from taxation.”
The amendment was rejected.
The question then came on the passage of the House proposition, when the vote stood,—
Yeas,—Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, McDougall, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Trumbull, Wade, Williams, and Wilson.
Nays,—Messrs. Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, Lane of Kansas, Nesmith, Norton, Pomeroy, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stewart, Stockton, Sumner, Van Winkle, Willey, and Yates.
Absent,—Messrs. Foot, Howard, and Wright.
The Chair then declared: “On this question the Yeas are 25 and the Nays 22. Two thirds of the Senators present not having voted for the joint resolution, it is not agreed to.”
This vote showed the judgment of the Senate at that time. But, in order to keep the question open, it was, on motion of Mr. Henderson, reconsidered. Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, then moved a substitute, basing representation on qualified voters, and also regulating direct taxes. Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, offered another substitute, founded on qualified voters, but with nothing on direct taxes. While these were pending, the subject was postponed on motion of Mr. Fessenden, and never resumed.
Much feeling was manifested by some of the supporters of the House attempt at amendment, when its defeat was known. Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, took an early occasion to say:—
“It was slaughtered by a puerile and pedantic criticism, by a perversion of philological definition, which, if, when I taught school, a lad who had studied Lindley Murray had assumed, I would have expelled him from the institution as unfit to waste education upon.… The murderers must answer to the suffering race. I would not have been the perpetrator. A load of misery must sit heavy on their souls.… Let us again try and see whether we cannot devise some way to overcome the united forces of self-righteous Republicans and unrighteous Copperheads.”[202]
The Fourteenth Amendment followed, and was adopted by both Houses of Congress during the present session. While undertaking to regulate representation, this Amendment had no recognition of exclusion from the elective franchise on account of “race or color.” Though failing in directness, there was nothing in it to injure the text of the Constitution, or impair the idea of a republican form of government, always with Mr. Sumner a cardinal point. There were also other important clauses, defining citizenship, assuring for all “the equal protection of the laws,” disqualifying certain persons from office until the removal of such disability by a vote of two thirds of each House of Congress, protecting the public debt of the United States, and annulling all debts in aid of rebellion or on account of the loss or emancipation of any slave.
The original object of the clause relating to representation was accomplished directly, before its ratification as part of the Constitution. After much debate, Congress yielded to the claim of power, and took jurisdiction of the elective franchise in the Rebel States, requiring, that, in voting on any State constitution in the reconstruction of the Rebel States, there should be no exclusion on account of race or color, and that this prohibition should be embodied in the new State constitutions.[203] The Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment on equal suffrage followed.
Unquestionably the establishment of the equal rights of colored citizens at the ballot-box was one of the most important events in our political history. With few supporters at first, the cause grew in interest and strength until final success in the Acts of Reconstruction, and then in the Constitutional Amendment. This great result was accomplished by discussion and the gradual recognition of the national exigency.
PRESS AND CORRESPONDENCE.
Mr. Sumner’s speech was extensively circulated, and awakened much attention. The response of the country will be seen in the contemporary press and in letters addressed to him, which, while illustrating the speech, reflect light on the times.
The Washington correspondents concurred in accounts of the speech, and of the interest it created.
Henry C. Bowen, proprietor of the New York Independent, then on a visit to Washington, wrote to his paper of the first day of the speech:—
“Senate Chamber, Monday Afternoon.
“Whatever may be said in regard to the political opinions of Hon. Charles Sumner, no one can deny his eminent ability as an orator and scholar, and to-day this world-renowned friend of the poor and the oppressed is speaking in the Senate,—I had almost said as orator and scholar never spoke before. His theme is the Rights of Man. The floor and galleries of the Senate Chamber are crowded with most attentive listeners, and such a spectacle as it is now my unspeakable privilege to witness is worthy of a thousand miles’ journey.… Never before have I heard in these halls such solemn appeals, never such noble and eloquent utterances. May the great Author of truth and justice continue to inspire the great Senator now speaking to do His will to the glory of His name!”
So also the correspondent of the Boston Daily Advertiser:—
“The finest audience of the session came out to-day to hear Mr. Sumner’s great speech on the Amendment to the Constitution. Many persons were in the galleries before the Senate was called together at noon, and long before one o’clock, the hour at which the proposition was to be taken up, they were crowded to their utmost capacity. The morning hour was occupied with minor business, and it was a quarter past one when Mr. Fessenden called for the special order. He of course was entitled to open the debate, but, being unwell to-day, he yielded the floor to Mr. Sumner.
“The scene, when he rose to speak, was one that could not fail to touch the most indifferent heart. One fourth of the gentlemen’s gallery was filled with colored soldiers, and the other seats and aisles of the remaining part of the galleries were closely packed with an intent and appreciative auditory, while on the floor were a large number of members from the House and several members of the foreign delegations resident in the city.”
So also the correspondent of the Pittsburg Commercial:—
“The great event of the day and of the session in the Senate was Mr. Sumner’s speech. The galleries were crowded to excess, as they have not been on any occasion before in a long time. Frederick Douglass was in the gallery, one of the most attentive listeners, and evidently the best-pleased man in the Chamber, as he heard the distinguished champion of his race plead so eloquently in its behalf. Nearly every member of the Senate listened with rapt attention to Mr. Sumner.”
So also the correspondent of the Boston Commonwealth:—
“Mr. Sumner’s great speech upon what constitutes a republican government is now being delivered in the Senate. It is the most powerful oration of his life,—the crowning glory of his scholarship and statesmanship. Never yet has any American statesman swept so wide a range of learning, so complete a circle of public law, history, philosophy, and jurisprudence, in support of so noble a principle as the one underlying republican government. Mr. Sumner spoke two hours yesterday, and will occupy about the same time to-day. The galleries were filled to overflowing. The Senatorial chairs were all occupied, while the floor was thronged by Representatives and others having the entrée.”
The correspondent of the Boston Journal wrote of the second day:—
“Senator Sumner was honored to-day by such an audience as is rarely seen in the Senate Chamber. The Senators, wheeling around their chairs so as to face the speaker, listened with marked attention. Scores of Representatives filled the sofas or the floor and stood in groups, and the galleries were literally packed with earnest men and women, who drank in every word as the gifted orator proceeded. When he closed, the galleries applauded loudly, until Senator Pomeroy, who occupied the chair, secured order, while those on the floor crowded around Senator Sumner to offer earnest congratulations.”
So also the correspondent of the New York Tribune:—
“Senator Sumner concluded his great effort at fifty-five minutes past two, having commenced at one. Diplomats, two Cabinet Ministers, and a much larger number of Congressmen than yesterday were on the floor, while all the galleries and approaches were densely packed with attentive listeners. As the argument of the speaker culminated, he became grandly eloquent, and his elaborate plea, which might rather be denominated an essay than a speech, for negro enfranchisement, unquestionably made a profound impression upon every intelligent listener. At its conclusion the floor and galleries broke forth in applause.”
A few days later, the correspondent of the New York Tribune, after mentioning President Johnson’s interview with the delegation of colored people headed by Frederick Douglass and George T. Downing, wrote:—
“As to Mr. Sumner’s grand vindication of the fundamental principles underlying republicanism, it is unnecessary to repeat what has been said of the immediate effect it produced upon those who listened to it,—of the overcrowded galleries, the silent attention of the Senate, the members of the House who had left their own seats and eagerly thronged the floor of the Senate Chamber.… And even now, since the sound has died away and there has been ample time for searching criticism, you can hear men who are not in the habit of following Mr. Sumner’s views of policy say with heartfelt satisfaction, it was a grand speech, worthy of the Senate, worthy of the cause it defended, worthy of this Republic. I have hardly seen a Republican here who was not as proud of it as if he had made it himself. Even Mr. Sumner’s opponents, the Democrats of the Senate and the House, yielded to it the tribute of their respect. That respect will go all over this country, and even beyond its boundaries; and while no thinking man in this Republic will take it up without feeling the irresistible weight of its logic and the ennobling power of its sentiments, it will abroad do more honor to American republicanism than any public act since the decree of Emancipation.”
The correspondent of the New Orleans Tribune wrote:—
“You will of course give to your readers the great speech of Senator Sumner. His speech is one of the best ever delivered in the Senate, and it was delivered in the greatest of causes,—that of Human Liberty. It differs from the tone so common among so-called ‘Democratic’ orators for years past, both North and South, inasmuch as it contained neither abusive, personal, nor vindictive language. But it was calm, manly, dignified,—full of the subject in hand, treating it with frankness,—alluding to the opposite view with fairness, and even respect, while showing up their errors and weaknesses as one would those of a wayward child. For historical and legal research, critical analysis, and logical argument, it is unsurpassed. Concise, pithy, full of effective and happy illustrations, it was admirably conceived and presented.”
The correspondent of the Richmond Republic, with equal appreciation, but less faith, wrote:—
“In the Senate, the day was devoted to Sumner. He began speaking about one o’clock, and concluded his exhaustive argument in an hour and forty minutes. The burden of the whole of it was the absolute political and civil equality of all men, and his peroration was a loftier flight of majestic eloquence than the Senate has heard since the best days of Clay and Webster. While very few agree with Sumner in the present practicability of his ideas, and still fewer indorse them at all as tenets of political faith, yet there is but one opinion of the speech he has been making for two days,—that, simply as a monument of laborious research and good English, it is unsurpassed. When he concluded to-night, the densely crowded galleries could not be restrained, and burst out into vehement applause; but it was a tribute to the grandly classical language in which his ideas were clothed, and not to the ideas themselves. Charles Sumner may possibly be a patriot, but he is certainly a political philanthropist, and as such there is no probability that he will live to see his tenets practically enforced in the legislation of the country.”
The correspondent of the New York Times wrote:—
“He exhausted ancient and modern history in gathering maxims and examples for the illustration of the points which he made. Portions of the speech were marked by great felicity of language and beauty of imagery. It exhibited, perhaps, more of the speculative theorist than of the practical statesman. Though he took pains to disavow everything of this character, and to present his views as the basis and guide of practical action, it was by far the most elaborate and comprehensive speech made in Congress for many years, and was heard with great attention by the Senate and crowded galleries.”
A few extracts from newspapers will show how the speech was received at a distance.
The Independent, of New York, in printing the speech, thus noticed it:—
“Charles Sumner’s argument for the Rights of Men ought to be printed by the hundred thousand, and scattered like seed-grain throughout the nation. It is a speech worth a lifetime to have achieved,—the greatest of all Mr. Sumner’s great speeches. Standing in some respects almost alone in the Senate, his position is all the more morally grand for his isolation, and his plea all the more eloquent for his moral heroism. Generous readers will overlook their minor differences of opinion from Mr. Sumner, for the sake of agreeing with him to the full in the masterly, unanswerable, and incomparable argument which he has made in behalf of securing to every American citizen his just rights before the law.”
The New York Tribune said:—
“Mr. Sumner concluded yesterday a great speech on the true basis of a Republic. We believe it will exalt his reputation as a statesman, a scholar, and a devotee of Liberty. It is elaborate; but his theme demanded thorough treatment, and we think very few who read the speech will find it too long. He will not convince the majority that the Federal Constitution, as it stands, empowers Congress to extend and guaranty the right of suffrage in the States lately in revolt to the black race, and especially to the freedmen; but he has very clearly demonstrated that it ought to be so extended,—that the rights of the humble, the hated, the scorned ought especially to be protected by their right to vote. Hear what he says on this point.”
The Boston Daily Advertiser said:—
“There has been a good deal of amusement expressed at the evidence of industry, during the recess of Congress, presented by the sheaf of bills and resolutions offered by Mr. Sumner at the opening of the session. The copious use of authorities in his speech of this week shows that these numerous measures were not prepared without a careful survey of the ground upon principle and in history, nor without very profound inquiry into the underlying doctrines upon which the true glory of our institutions is established.”
The Adams Transcript, of Massachusetts, said:—
“In this work of clearing away the rubbish of lies which Slavery has heaped upon the real doctrines and purposes of the Fathers, and bringing out into clear, glorious relief the great truth and work of the Revolution, Mr. Sumner has performed a service which no public man of our politics has equalled. The whole of our history is searched and illumined, and the most overwhelming mass of evidence produced to the point, that a true construction of the Constitution gives all men who pay taxes representation and the ballot, thus basing free government upon the consent of the governed. No such argument for free government has been made in our day. For learning, cogency of logic, wealth of illustration, felicity and splendor of diction, nobility of tone and sentiment, and genuine eloquence, it will take rank with the highest of forensic efforts. Already its effect is visible in the political atmosphere. The public feeling and thought have received an obvious elevation.”
The Rochester Democrat, of New York, said:—
“It will be observed, as a remarkable characteristic of this great speech, that it is but slightly controversial in its character, but is devoted mainly to the elucidation of the general principles of republican government, which are discussed with an elevation of sentiment, a depth of learning, and a power of logic that entitle it to a place far above the transient expressions of the views and passions of the hour. It will stand for ages, a noble and enduring monument of the highest range and scope of American statesmanship, and will be read with profit and admiration long after the questions of the day have been settled and forgotten, or remembered only by students of history. Its immediate effect, however, on public sentiment cannot fail to be vast and beneficial.
The Dayton Journal, of Ohio, said:—
“As an exposition of the American theory of Republicanism, this speech is unsurpassed in the history of American oratory. It is a magnificent contribution to our political literature. It is candid and temperate, the speech of a statesman and patriot who earnestly seeks the welfare of all his countrymen. It abounds in splendid passages, and is a model of classic strength and elegant style. The partisan sneers of demagogues cannot prevail against it.”
The Portland Daily Press, of Maine, said:—
“It is not only the great speech of Charles Sumner’s life, but it is the great speech of the age. It is perfectly exhaustive, free from all personalities, free from all idiosyncrasies, statesmanlike, philosophical, and calculated to become a lasting memorial of its author’s research, patient investigation, power of analysis, and, above all, his undying devotion to the cause of popular liberty and human rights.”
The Progressive Age, of Belfast, Maine, said:—
“It is beyond question the greatest effort of our most distinguished New England statesman, and will make his name dear to every friend of freedom and equal rights in all coming time. It is throughout the language of the calm, conscientious statesman. Avoiding all mere expedients and controversies concerning details, it fixes the attention upon the great principles of a free republican government; and never in our history have those principles been so clearly and forcibly elucidated.”
The Bangor Jeffersonian, also of Maine, said:—
“In the United States Senate, on Monday and Tuesday of last week, Mr. Sumner made a speech which will occupy a very conspicuous place in the history of the American Union, not so much for its advocacy of any merely formal plan or scheme of national legislation for Reconstruction as for its closer relations to the great fundamental principles which constitute the ideal of a truly republican government It goes to the very foundation of things.”
In a leading article of more than two columns, the New York Herald said, in a different vein:—
“Mr. Sumner’s Oration.—Negro Suffrage the Whole Duty of the Nation, and the Only Escape from our Difficulties.—Mr. Sumner, in his Senatorial pleading in the case of the negro, has given to the country an elaborate evidence of the utterly impracticable and visionary character of his political views. His oration is admirable in all purely literary respects, and indicates an abundant industry and research; but its theories of society, its interpretations of the Constitution, and its assumptions as to the history of the country and of the war are inadmissible, excepting only what is said of the Constitutional Amendment.…
“Those parts of the oration which claim suffrage for the negro, as a necessary policy of the nation, will require but little answer by argument; for the country and the world—all men outside the Radical Republican party—will completely deny the truth of the points from which they start.…
“We quite agree with Mr. Sumner in the grand fact that the Constitutional Amendment gives Congress full power to settle the position of the negro in the Southern States, and even to give him the suffrage. We are quite sure that this oration has not shown the necessity, the justice, or even the expediency of this gift. Still it may be expedient, necessary, and just.”
The speech attracted attention in Europe. In the Revue des Deux Mondes, of Paris, which is so comprehensive a representative of the French mind, a leading article by M. Forcade presents a parallel between Mr. Sumner’s speech and the famous speech of the time in the French Assembly by M. Thiers, where Liberty was the theme.
“The very day when M. Thiers delivered his speech we were occupied in reading the remarkable speech which Mr. Sumner has just pronounced in the Senate at Washington, and which the last mail from America has brought us. The speech of Mr. Sumner is the recent political event in the United States.
“The illustrious American Senator, the chief of the radical party in the Senate, proposed to himself to deduce from the most careful examination of the Constitution of his country those principles according to which should be settled that difficult problem which the Americans call Reconstruction,—that is to say, the return of the Rebel States into the Union. We shall not undertake to judge the practical bearing of the opinions of Mr. Sumner on the great question which agitates the United States; but it is impossible for us not to render homage to the patriotic piety which breathes in his beautiful discourse. As M. Thiers wished to derive the liberal destinies of France from the great principles of the Revolution, so Mr. Sumner applied himself to exhibit in the origin of the Constitution of the United States the fundamental principles of republican government of modern times.…
“Is it not a remarkable coincidence, that these voices of two great patriots, who, almost at the same moment, without any concert, obey instinctively the mysterious law which moves the people destined to guide civilization, answer to each other with so much splendor from opposite sides of the Atlantic? All the news from the United States show that the effect produced by the speech of Mr. Sumner has been immense.… The habitual adversaries of Mr. Sumner, the Democrats in Congress, covered themselves with honor in uniting in the testimonials of respect which were so universally rendered to the radical Senator. In the pride inspired by this beautiful and good oratorical plea, the Americans turn in a friendly spirit toward our Old World, and do not dissemble the hope that this speech will do them more honor in Europe than any public act in their country since the decree of Emancipation. We are charmed, for our part, to justify this hope.”[204]
CORRESPONDENCE.
Numerous letters, from various persons and quarters, attest the general interest, marked in many cases by feeling and personal gratitude seeking to express itself. Brief extracts from a portion only are given.
Theodore Tilton, editor of the New York Independent, wrote just before the speech:—
“I protested with all my heart against the Amendment offered by the Committee of Fifteen. It don’t execute justice. It leaves the negro to the decision of the Rebel. It proves that a republic is ungrateful.
“I am glad to notice by the Tribune of this morning that you are to move an Amendment, or rather a substitute for that Amendment.”
[FROM MASSACHUSETTS.]
William Lloyd Garrison, the early Abolitionist, always persistent against Slavery, wrote from Boston:—
“I have perused your eloquent and unanswerable speech on the Suffrage question, and need not say that it contains the noblest sentiments, to which all the faculties and powers which God has given me thrillingly respond. It will doubtless be more efficacious out of the Senate than in it, as it will help to educate the popular mind up to the point of abolishing all complexional distinctions before the law, North and South.… Your speech, based as it is upon absolute justice and eternal right, is an admirable elementary treatise, and I trust will have the widest circulation.…
“What assiduity and perseverance, what courage and determination, what devotion and inflexible purpose you have shown, through fiery trials and at the risk of martyrdom, ‘in season and out of season,’ to effect the downfall of the atrocious slave system, and thereby elevate and save the Republic! If to this extent the year of jubilee has come, you have done much towards ushering it in, and have a right to be specially glad and grateful that Heaven has been pleased to make you so potential an instrumentality in bringing about its beneficent designs.”
Wendell Phillips, who never failed to sympathize with efforts for Human Rights, wrote from Boston:—
“We are all inexpressibly grateful for your brave position and words. You and half a dozen others redeem Congress. Your arguments have been grand and exhaustive. You never linked so many hearts to you as during the last two months.”
Elizur Wright, the veteran Abolitionist, wrote from Boston:—
“Your speech and vote on the Blaine Amendment ought to produce a thrill of life and joy and hope through every spinal column that supports a loyal soul. We can’t afford any of the old nonsense. We took our sable friends into our boat when it was bulleting; and if we allow them to be thrown overboard by the traitors now it is balloting, we sink, in short.”
George Bemis, the eminent lawyer and publicist, wrote from Boston:—
“I think that you may justly rank it among your greatest efforts, and that it will go into history as the great statement of the Freedman’s claim to participate in the government of the country of which he makes part. The general student of governmental law and civil polity will also constantly refer to it as a new and important development of the connection between representation and executive sovereignty, and as a powerful exposé of the true basis of republican institutions. You have done a great service to the colored race, to the science of statesmanship, and to your country, all at once.”
Hon. Charles P. Huntington, for some time an able Judge of the Superior Court, wrote from Boston:—
“If your opposition does not just now reflect the feeling of New England Republicans, it anticipates their sober judgment. Theoretically, at least, it deprives the black race of representation, and punishes them for acts of legislation in which they have no voice.”
Hon. Theophilus P. Chandler, able lawyer and Assistant Treasurer, wrote from the United States Treasury, Boston:—
“Eloquent, exhaustive, unanswerable.”
Hon. George B. Loring, afterwards Chairman of the State Committee of the Republican party in Massachusetts, and President of the Massachusetts Senate, wrote from Salem:—
“Your masterly speech will one day be reached by Congress and the people,—I trust, in your day and mine. The best minds believe in it; the best hearts take courage from it.”
Hon. E. L. Pierce, afterwards Secretary of the Board of Charities in Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:—
“I read last evening, at one session, your last speech in the Senate. It is a noble one, and right in all respects. One passage near the close reminds me of the famous passages of Curran and Brougham about Freedom. I agree with you about the proposed Amendment.”
Thomas Sherwin, head master of the Boston High School, father of General Sherwin, and a tutor of Mr. Sumner at Harvard College, wrote from Dedham:—
“Allow me, as an old friend, to congratulate you and to thank you for your noble speech in the Senate on the 5th. I obtained it last evening, and read the whole before I slept. In humanity of sentiment, in true patriotism, in completeness of argument, in fulness of illustration, you have left nothing to be desired.
“This Reconstruction is, indeed, a momentous affair, and I feel a greater doubt of its just determination than I felt for that of arms while the war raged.”
Rev. John T. Sargent, always swift to sympathize with Mr. Sumner, wrote from Boston:—
“It is emphatically the speech of the time and crisis, absorbing, superseding, and transcending every other. God bless you for these timely words! They ought to be widely circulated, and reprinted in every corner of our land, East, West, North, and South.”
Rev. George C. Beckwith, Congregational clergyman, and Secretary of the American Peace Society, wrote from Boston:—
“Nothing but the constant feeling that you are constantly overtasked has kept me from writing you on several occasions. I will only just say now, that I owe you a thousand thanks for the great and noble services you are rendering. God give you strength and life and full opportunity to complete your work!”
Rev. R. S. Storrs, the eminent Congregational clergyman, wrote from Braintree:—
“I am sure that I express but the common sentiment of the people all about me, when I say that your own course meets with more than a hearty approval, even admiration and gratitude. May God give you wisdom and firmness equal to the emergency, and crown your arduous labors with the success they deserve!”
E. E. Williamson, one of the earnest men of Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:—
“Your whole argument is founded upon righteousness and justice, and cannot be overthrown. What a glorious record you are making for future generations to peruse with gladness, and by which record your name is made as imperishable as the hills of your native State! I hope God will spare you to finish the good work you are in, and many years after to reap a slight portion of your reward.”
Nathaniel C. Nash, a merchant devoted to the national cause, wrote from Boston:—
“The multitude who thronged to the Senate Chamber, together with the representatives of foreign governments, to listen to your speech (which I term the New Testament of the Nineteenth Century), was an exhibition of the world’s interest in how well or ill you finish the great battle for human freedom, not for one continent, but for civilized man.”
Hon. Charles G. Davis, a stanch Antislavery Republican, wrote from Plymouth:—
“Your course is fully approved here by a majority of the Republicans, and by all who have opinions. Besides all this, you will be historically right, now that the Amendment is defeated.… It is the greatest work of your life, unless your opposition to Lincoln’s Louisiana scheme may prove such, if you even succeed in keeping out the mongrel States.”
Augustine G. Stimson, desiring to express his sympathies as a constituent, wrote from Boston:—
“Last evening I read your speech from beginning to end, with an interest that awakened admiration and gratitude. The Equal Rights of All is the only sure guaranty for the present and future of mankind.”
William E. Chase, formerly a private in the national army, wrote from North Uxbridge:—
“Please accept the thanks of a poor private for your noble, courageous, and Christian efforts in the great cause of Right, Justice, and Liberty, when Justice is unpopular, and you are obliged by duty to meet both friend and foe in this conflict.”
F. W. Pelton wrote from Boston:—
“I desire to thank you for your late noble speech in favor of legal equality in this country. I read it with deep interest. Your propositions are sound, and the great lights of history you marshal up to sustain them impressed me forcibly.”
William Plumer wrote from Lexington:—
“Please accept my thanks for the copies of your very able and learned speech on the right of universal suffrage. Whatever may be the practicability of this principle at the present time, and however the country or Congress may settle the question in the future, your arguments are certainly unanswerable, and will ever remain an enduring monument of your earnest labors in behalf of the Freedman.”
Richard L. Pease, Clerk of Courts, wrote from Edgartown:—
“It was with feelings of intense satisfaction that I read the report of your recent speech on equal suffrage, as it appeared in the Boston Journal. The argument is so clear and able that it would seem that no intelligent man of candor could deny the conclusions. Adherence to the Right because it is the Right will never fail to commend itself to all right-thinking men.”
Rev. Robert Crawford wrote from Deerfield:—
“I thank you for that noble speech, … so logical, so happily illustrated, so full of earnestness and soul, and withal so convincing. I rejoice that there is one in our highest councils who feels as you do on the subject, and who has the ability and the courage to make such a speech.”
Rev. Patrick V. Moyce, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, wrote from Northampton:—
“I am often reading your admirable speech of March 7th, and so much am I impressed with the justice of the principles it inculcates with so much classical ability and statesmanly wisdom and foresight, that I cannot possibly deny myself the honor of taking this method of testifying to you my heartfelt congratulations. You are the one man among many who seems to have studied the present exigencies of your noble country, and to have judged aright the requirements of the age you and we all live in at present. The benevolent qualities of heart which distinguish you in this great speech are in perfect keeping with the towering majesty of your well-cultivated intellect. Go on. Lead and triumph, and accept the blessing and prayers of a Roman Catholic priest, who begs to subscribe himself, with profound esteem and high consideration, your most humble and devoted servant.”
The New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, meeting at Chicopee, Massachusetts, March 28th, adopted a resolution, officially communicated to Mr. Sumner, which, after declaring approbation of both Houses of Congress, proceeds:—
“Especially do we offer our sympathies and prayers for our own honored Senators, one of whom has endured in the past, with a martyr’s fortitude, the barbarous assaults upon his person of the champion of Slavery, and has lately been called to endure an equally unjustifiable assault upon his reputation by the present Chief Magistrate of the United States.”
[OUT OF MASSACHUSETTS.]
Hon. Israel Washburn, Collector of the port of Portland, formerly Governor of Maine and a distinguished Representative in Congress, wrote from Portland:—
“When I obtained Wilson’s bill, which prohibited the denial by the States of civil rights to persons on account of color or race, I wrote him to inquire why he had not said also political. The authority is certainly as clear for the latter as for the former. So, when, last evening, I read your resolution and speech, I was strengthened and rejoiced. Your positions are impregnable, and your speech, I think, the greatest of your life. We must stand there, or not at all.”
In another letter, Mr. Washburn wrote:—
“When men as patriotic and sincere as I am, and a great deal wiser, sustain the Blaine Amendment, I am confounded, and don’t know what to make of it. To my mind it is most abhorrent, and I hope it will not receive the assent of Congress.”
Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins, a Unitarian clergyman, wrote from Portland, Maine:—
“You have fought a good fight. The Amendment proposed was defeated. Laus Deo! It was a blot too dark and foul to be permitted to stain the Constitution. To speak of ‘race and color’ in that instrument would be an insult to the men who framed it.”
Rev. A. Battles wrote from Bangor, Maine:—
“As a native of Massachusetts, and more than that, as a lover of my race, I want to thank you for your timely and eloquent words in behalf of universal and impartial justice. I thank you also for voting against the Blaine Amendment. Though it might accomplish one desirable object, it was a concession to prejudice against color. The black man could hope for nothing through it. We want no more compromise.”
Hon. William Greene, an enlightened citizen, who has held various public offices in Rhode Island, wrote from East Greenwich:—
“I beg to congratulate you as a friend, and to thank you as an American citizen, for the great speech recently delivered by you in the Senate. You have opened a new field of thought to American statesmen, and furnished a new book of elementary political lessons to the American people. It would seem almost impossible that such an effort should not tell grandly upon both.”
Hon. Gerrit Smith, the devoted Abolitionist, formerly a Representative in Congress, wrote from Peterboro, New York:—
“God bless you for this noble speech which you have made against the Apportionment Amendment! I have this day read the part of it in yesterday’s New York Tribune. I long to read the whole of it.”
In another letter, Mr. Smith wrote:—
“You are the keystone of our arch. If you fail, all falls.”
Hon. N. Niles, formerly in the diplomatic service, wrote from New York:—
“I admire and applaud the tenacity with which you advocate the equal rights of all men of all races under one Constitution and Government.… I hope you will stand up for the Asiatics as well as for the negroes. They are now treated as brutes in some of our States.”
Cephas Brainerd, lawyer, and arbitrator under the last treaty with England against the Slave Trade, wrote from New York:—
“Nearly all the copies of your great speech that I obtained have been circulated, and I don’t find any one who dares deny the correctness of the doctrines you lay down. It has my hearty assent, and I have subjected it to the examination which the argument of an opposing counsel receives from me. I consider that very many of your Senatorial speeches will be quite as permanent as any of Burke’s productions; but this last seems to be as enduring as the Constitution of our country, whether as the foundation of a government or as a matter of mere study.”
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, always on the watch-tower, wrote from Brooklyn, New York:—
“Although I do not think with you on the specific change in the Amendment which you advocate, I cannot forbear expressing my thanks for your noble speech, which has the merit of rising far above the occasion and object for which it was uttered, and covering a ground which will abide after all temporary questions of special legislation have passed away.
“I wish that your oration might be in every school library in the Union. May your life be prolonged, and every year add some new jewel to the crown of fame, that, when you go to a higher sphere, men will place upon your name!”
Rev. A. P. Putnam, Unitarian clergyman, also wrote from Brooklyn, New York:—
“I bless God for the firm and lofty stand you have taken, and the people will yet see, if they do not now see, that it is the only wise and sure one for Union- and Freedom-loving men to take. Would that all loyal men, especially the great Union party, could see it to be their duty and their interest to meet boldly and grandly the issue which the President seems determined to force upon them!”
Rev. F. C. Ewer, anxious against compromise, wrote from New York:—
“I am but one of thousands whom you little think of as watching you with anxiety, and to whom your present firm position has given great cheer and comfort. Of course there are many who have always stood with you, and who must be sources of encouragement; but we are new recruits, who have had enough of ‘compromise,’ and who see no hope of permanent peace ahead except under a thorough adjusting of the Constitution to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.”
James P. Lee and fourteen others united in a letter from Herkimer, New York:—
“In this centre of the Empire State there are not a few who would express their thanks to you personally, if they could, but more especially to God, our Heavenly Father, for having endowed you, as Joshua of old, with the determination to lead His oppressed people to the promised land, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ (not with disgrace), after their Moses had been taken from them.”
F. Hawley wrote with much feeling, from Cazenovia, New York:—
“In God’s name, in the name of Justice and Freedom, and in behalf of the millions of God’s outraged poor, I thank you for your noble speech. Brooks could not kill you. God predetermined that you should live to be mouth for Him, that this preëminently guilty nation might know their duty, and that the great idea that lies at the foundation of all righteous civil government might be vindicated. It is to be regretted that your proposition could not have been brought forward before the House had committed itself to that miserable Amendment.”
Alexander Ostrander, a lawyer, wrote from New York:—
“I thank God that we have a man in the Senate bold enough and capable enough to point the nation the road back to the foundation principles of the Government.”
E. W. Stewart, originally of the Liberty party, wrote from North Evans, New York:—
“Having read your truly noble plea for the ‘great guaranty’ of personal and political rights under the Constitution, in the Senate, I write to thank you with my whole heart. It is the right word spoken at the right time and in the right place, and it will reach the hearts of the people and produce there a deep conviction, if it does not in Congress.… The positions in your speech are unanswerable.”
Dr. Henry A. Hartt, a radical Abolitionist, wrote from New York:—
“I must tell you how proud I feel, as a man and as an American citizen, on account of the position you have taken. When the Amendment of the Committee was proposed, I felt chagrined and mortified beyond expression, and I did fervently pray that we might be saved from the intolerable infamy of putting into our Constitution a sanction, even by implication, of the right of a State to deny or abridge the franchise in consequence of race or color. You may, then, imagine my joy, when I saw you break loose from all considerations of policy and party, and place yourself immovably upon the elevated platform of a just and righteous statesmanship.
“I have read the report of your speech in the extra of the Tribune, and I am sure that history will confirm the verdict which I give, when I say that it was equal to the great occasion.”
Edward Cary, editor of the Brooklyn Daily Union, wrote from that place:—
“The loyal people in Brooklyn have felt very keenly the outrage and insult you have suffered at the hands of Mr. Johnson. They honor and trust you, and will uphold you. The mention of your name by Mr. Garrison, on Tuesday evening, drew from the large audience rounds of applause, which died away only to be renewed, until it was the most prolonged I ever heard.”
William Silvey, of New Jersey, earnest in patriotism and Antislavery, wrote from Alexandria, Virginia:—
“How all the hearts of the true lovers of their country, even in this rebellious city, are thrilling with gratitude and thankfulness for your uniform noble efforts, which have opened and will continue to open the eyes of the citizens of our country and the whole world as to the true significance or meaning of what constitutes a republican government, which has been so sadly perverted by our practice as a nation!”
W. H. Ashhurst, an eminent merchant, wrote from Philadelphia:—
“I have read nothing for a long while that has moved me so much as your speech in the Senate on the 5th and 6th inst.”
George D. Parrish, an earnest friend of peace, wrote from Philadelphia:—
“I have written you more than once before, but, having no personal acquaintance, hesitated to thank you for the strength and instruction which really called for thanks and congratulations. You have done nobly, Sir, for your country and for this generation.”
Joseph T. Thomas, of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, wrote from Harrisburg:—
“You may be vilified and abused, and no doubt are, as all great benefactors of their race are in their day and generation. But future ages will do you full justice, and your name will be illustrious when the names of your revilers will be consigned to the most ignoble oblivion.”
T. E. Hall wrote from Galion, Ohio:—
“In the joy of my heart I congratulate the people of this Government that the old ship of state has at its helm a statesman who, despite the storms, the howling tempests, the Cimmerian darkness which enshrouds us, stands boldly and fearlessly at his post, unawed, calm, self-possessed, ready for any emergency.
“The great speech, portions of which it has been my privilege to peruse, is only second in importance to President Lincoln’s proclamation which liberated four millions of slaves; and, indeed, this speech carried out is virtually but the fulfilling of that proclamation.”
Rev. George Duffield wrote from Detroit, Michigan:—
“I feel constrained, though entirely unknown to you, to thank you most cordially for the intense pleasure I have enjoyed in the perusal of your great oration on the question of Universal Enfranchisement, as involved in the proposed Constitutional Amendment, looking towards universal suffrage. Its lucid didactic statements, its admirable analysis, its irresistible logic, and its glowing, brilliant eloquence, with its valuable historic instruction and its burning love of freedom and humanity, have both convinced my understanding and captivated my heart.”
Rev. Charles H. Brigham, an accomplished Unitarian clergyman, in a letter describing an exhibition at the University of Michigan, wrote from Ann Arbor:—
“But the most attractive piece on the programme, which brought the house down with the most prolonged and hearty applause, was Number Four [entitled “Charles Sumner”], in which a most glowing and animated tribute was paid to the scholarship, industry, fidelity, patriotism, love of justice, and love of man, of the Senator whom Massachusetts delights to honor. It was a delight, I assure you, to a Massachusetts man, and a friend of yours, to hear, out here in the West, among these ‘Fogies’ and ‘Copperheads,’ such noble words about the old Bay State and her representative man, and to hear the response to them from the great audience.”
Hon. Charles V. Dyer, a Judge under the final treaty with England against the Slave Trade, wrote from Chicago:—
“I am greatly your debtor for your two speeches, in a form for preservation and re-perusal, and any word of mine in regard to their ability or patriotism is quite needless. But I will say that the courage that can face cold looks of friends, cruel animadversions of one’s own party press, and, what is easier, the unceasing abuse and bullyism of the enemies of all good, is so rare that it commands my admiration.”
Jesse W. Fell wrote from Normal, Illinois:—
“I have just finished reading your late speech on Reconstruction, and I cannot forbear dropping you a line to say how much I have been gratified by its perusal. I will not characterize it as under different circumstances I should be tempted to. Suffice it to say, in my poor judgment it is the noblest, ablest effort of your life, and is just the document to send broadcast over the land.”
James H. Alderman wrote from Jacksonville, Illinois:—
“A thousand thanks for your incomparable speech, expounding and defining the true theory of a republican government. Yes, I say a thousand thanks. I have always believed the Constitution was fully adequate for every exigency. Congress, therefore, must of necessity guaranty to every State a republican form of government.”
Worthington G. Snethen, an Abolitionist, of Baltimore, wrote:—
“Thanks, thanks for your two great speeches. They will live and breathe and stir the heart of humanity, when the memory of A. Johnson and his Republican renegade sycophants will be forgotten, or brought to mind only to be execrated. Millions of black men bless you now, and hundreds of millions of God’s dusky skins will bless you in the ages to come, for these two grand and eloquent vindications of human liberty from the assaults of despotism, caste, and the white man’s meanness; and the white world, too, far down in the future, will bless your name. The spirit of prophecy pervades every line of these speeches, and lights up every step you take with the blaze of logic and truth.…
“Your resistance to the Trojan horse of the Apportionment Amendment I sincerely hope was crowned with success in to-day’s vote. That Amendment is the basest compromise that has yet bubbled to the surface of the cesspool of American politics.…
“You must all come to it, sooner or later. Congress must legislate impartial suffrage into all the States by direct statute. Strange that the States in Congress cannot do what the States separately out of Congress can do!”
Hon. R. Stockett Mathews, the orator and lawyer, wrote from Baltimore:—
“I thank you most profoundly for the seasonable courage which will admonish others of their duty, although I have but small hope of witnessing any immediate fruition of the good work you have done for us all.”
F. W. Alexander, of Maryland, who served patriotically in the war, wrote from New York:—
“I read your speech in the paper this morning, and I write to express my gratification that you have refused to accept any half-measures, but have sought to induce Congress to proceed in its work of Reconstruction on the only sure foundation, that of justice to all. Whether the measure is carried or not, your speech will not be lost, and it is a mere question of time.”
S. F. Chapman wrote from Alexandria, Virginia:—
“I thank you for your speech. I think it an honor to the age in which you live, and believe it will remain a monument to your genius and eloquence. I am proud of it, and that you sent it to me. I shall preserve it, and leave it to my children, as one of the noblest consecrations to Liberty and Man.”
John W. Osborne, Hospital Steward of the United States Army, wrote from Washington:—
“That elaborate exposition will endure for ages as a monument of your noble patriotism and unparalleled eloquence. Its sentences will be read with grateful emotion by the freedom-loving people of all nations, and their prayers for your welfare and warfare will daily ascend to Heaven.”
Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, a colored clergyman and orator, for some time settled in New York, wrote from Washington, where he was on a visit:—
“I was one of the many who heard your speech which you concluded yesterday afternoon in the Senate of the United States, and I take this opportunity to tender you my thanks and undying gratitude for that glorious and inspired production. I think that I may safely say that you have the gratitude of my entire race for your fearless and radical advocacy of the rights of all men, as I know you have their sincere and ardent love.
“After having slept upon your speech, and the excitement which was produced at the moment of its delivery is somewhat subdued, I must say, that, if I were able, I would cause a million of copies to be printed and scattered over the land.”
This was followed by the presentation of the Memorial Discourse by Mr. Garnet in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Washington, February 12, 1866, with the inscription, “To the Hon. Charles Sumner, as a small and humble token of respect, and admiration of the ablest speech ever delivered in the Senate of the United States.”
Among the most enlightened women of the country the pending question awakened a deep interest; nor was their testimony wanting.
Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, devoted to good works in Washington, and especially to the care and protection of poor colored people, young and old, wrote from Washington:—
“I hope I shall not be considered intrusive in expressing to you my deep gratitude for and high estimation of your unparalleled speech, made in the United States Senate, February 5th and 6th, not only as contrasted with that of President Johnson to the colored delegation, but as an independent effort, the greatest, because the broadest in its application, of any ever made before the American people.”
Mrs. L. M. Worden, sister of the late Mrs. William H. Seward, and always a warm Abolitionist, wrote from Auburn, New York:—
“Please accept my thanks for your noble speech of the 5th and 6th of February, which I have read and re-read with great attention and deep gratitude and admiration. This ‘testimony of the truth’ will add yet another bright page to the record of your undeviating fidelity to the cause of Justice and Humanity.”
Mrs. Horace Mann, widow of the philanthropist, teacher, and Representative in Congress, wrote from Concord, Massachusetts:—
“I presume you will receive a thousand letters expressive of the satisfaction and delight that your speech upon the Suffrage question has given; and yet I must add mine, for it is but rarely that one feels that a moral subject is exhausted, and you appear to have accomplished this astonishing result. It is difficult to conceive how Congress can act otherwise than in the highest manner, after listening to it and reading it.”
Miss Susan B. Anthony, so earnest to secure suffrage for her own sex, was not less earnest for the colored race:—
“A thousand thanks for your renewed, repeated protest against that proposed Amendment. You stand in the Senate almost the lone man to vindicate the absolute Right. May you be spared these many years, thus to stand and thus to speak!”
PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND HIS COUNTER MANIFESTATIONS.
An immediate effect of the speech was to hasten yet more the issue with President Johnson. On the day after its delivery he was visited by a delegation of colored citizens, who pleaded especially for the ballot. The President answered with feeling, that he had always been a friend of the colored race, and said:—
“I do not like to be arraigned by some who can get up handsomely rounded periods, and deal in rhetoric, and talk about abstract ideas of Liberty, who never perilled life, liberty, or property. This kind of theoretical, hollow, unpractical friendship amounts to but very little. While I say that I am a friend of the colored man, I do not want to adopt a policy that I believe will end in a contest between the races, which, if persisted in, will result in the extermination of one or the other.”
The idea of “a contest between the races” recurred in stronger language, when, alluding to the colored man, he spoke of “the sacrifice of his life and the shedding of his blood.… I feel what I say, and I feel well assured, that, if the policy urged by some be persisted in, it will result in great injury to the white as well as to the colored man.… The query comes up right there, whether we don’t commence a war of races.… I do not want to be engaged in a work that will commence a war of races.… I feel a conviction that driving this matter upon the people, upon the community, will result in the injury of both races, and the ruin of one or the other.”[205]
Shortly afterwards he was reported in the press as saying to a colored delegation of North Carolina, “I suppose Sumner is your God”; to which the spokesman replied, “We respect and love Mr. Sumner, Sir, but no man is our God.”
Then came the incendiary speech of the 22d February, when the President, standing on the steps of the Executive Mansion, threw away all reserve.
“I am opposed to the Davises, the Toombses, the Slidells, and the long list of such. But when I perceive, on the other hand, men [A voice, “Call them off!”]—I care not by what name you call them—still opposed to the Union, I am free to say to you that I am still with the people. I am still for the preservation of these States, for the preservation of this Union, and in favor of this great Government accomplishing its destiny.”
Here the President was called upon to give the names of three of the Members of Congress to whom he had alluded as being opposed to the Union.
“The gentleman calls for three names. I am talking to my friends and fellow-citizens here. Suppose I should name to you those whom I look upon as being opposed to the fundamental principles of this Government, and as now laboring to destroy them. I say Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania; I say Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts; I say Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts.”
Becoming excited in speech, the President followed the charge of opposition to the fundamental principles of this Government with an accusation of a different character.
“Are those who want to destroy our institutions and change the character of the Government not satisfied with the blood that has been shed? Are they not satisfied with one martyr? Does not the blood of Lincoln appease the vengeance and wrath of the opponents of this Government? Is their thirst still unslaked? Do they want more blood? Have they not honor and courage enough to effect the removal of the Presidential obstacle otherwise than through the hands of the assassin?”[206]
Mr. Sumner never made answer or allusion to this Presidential attack, but others did. It became the subject of debate in the House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Legislature, on resolutions by Hon. George B. Loring, the Representative of Salem, already mentioned in this Appendix.[207] His reasons for vindication of Mr. Sumner were private and public, according to the report of the debate.
“The first men to congratulate him on his change [from the Democratic party] were John A. Andrew and Charles Sumner; and he should not forget that Mr. Sumner, against whom he had warred so long, was the first to extend sympathy to him, and had led him on till this day.
“Passing now to the public reasons for his advocacy of the fourth resolution, Mr. Loring paid a high eulogium to Senator Sumner, who, he said, would live in history with Adams and Hancock, for his adherence to and courageous advocacy of great principles, and his remarkable record since the war of the Rebellion broke out. Men might say that Mr. Sumner was an impracticable theorist; but it was to him, more than to any other man, that we owed the defeat of the iniquitous Louisiana proposition in the last Congress, the success of which would have established a precedent fraught with great danger to the nation.”[208]
The resolution, adopted by the House March 14, and the Senate April 7, 1866, was as follows:—
“Resolved, That, while thus expressing our confidence in our Senatorial and Representative delegations in Congress, and the determination of the people to stand by them, we are also impelled to take notice of the recent charges made by name against one of the Senators of this State, Hon. Charles Sumner, in the lately published speech of the President of the United States, and to declare that the language used and the charges made by the President are unbecoming the elevated station occupied by him, an unjust reflection upon Massachusetts, and without the shadow of justification or defence founded upon the private or public record of our eminent Senator.”
A copy of the resolutions, containing the foregoing, engrossed on parchment, was forwarded to Mr. Sumner by the Governor of Massachusetts, Hon. Alexander H. Bullock, with a letter, saying, “This I take great personal pleasure in asking you to accept and preserve.”
The Aldermen of Boston, by a resolution, under date of March 2d, interposed their “indignant conviction of the utter falsehood” of the charges against Mr. Sumner.[209]
This testimony may be closed by that of a Massachusetts pen. In the New York Independent, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, replying to the President, said:—
“Let any man capable of forming an opinion independent of party prejudice look candidly at the whole course of the Hon. Charles Sumner, and say whether any nation was ever blessed with a public man intellectually more able and consistent, and morally more courageous, pure, and noble. What a tower of strength he has been in times of difficulty and danger! How brave and steadfast he has been in the midst of denunciations and threats! How much he has suffered in the cause of Freedom! and how calmly and heroically he suffered, never boasting or complaining! What herculean labor he has performed, and every particle of that labor to sustain and advance those principles of justice and freedom which form the only sure basis of a republic! I am glad to see that Boston has, at last, by the voice of its city government, shown due appreciation of the services rendered to the country by that truly great and good man.”
Such was the conflict then raging, with Truth gaining new strength daily.
PERSONAL SAFETY.
From his first arrival in Washington as a Senator, as far back as 1851, Mr. Sumner had been pursued by menace of personal violence. At the beginning of the present session he received a warning,[210] while the head of the military police reported to him at least one conspiracy against his life, with regard to which he had evidence. The prevailing bitterness, especially after the speech of President Johnson, arrested the attention of Hon. A. P. Granger, a retired Representative in Congress from the State of New York, whose experience in the anxious days of Kansas, when Mr. Sumner suffered personal violence, put him on his guard. In a letter from Syracuse, New York, he expressed his present anxiety:—
“Permit me to say a word as to your personal safety. There are many of our best men who think more of that than you do. No man living that Treason would so much rejoice to see struck down as yourself; and many there are who would strike, if they dared. I know you think little of danger; but fear for your country, if not for yourself. Do not keep your room alone, night or day. Seldom or never go out after nightfall, and let your painful experience and the character of the foe teach you to be ever on guard.”
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE REPUBLIC OF DOMINICA.
Bill in the Senate, February 6, 1866.
Dominica was a colored government, occupying part of the island of Hayti.
In pursuance of a message from President Johnson, Mr. Sumner, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, reported the following bill, which was read and passed to a second reading.
A Bill to authorize the President of the United States to appoint a diplomatic representative to the Republic of Dominica.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, authorized, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint a diplomatic representative of the United States to the Republic of Dominica, who shall be accredited as Commissioner and Consul General, and shall receive the compensation of a Commissioner, according to the Act of Congress approved August eighteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-six.
The object of this bill was accomplished by specific appropriation in the Consular and Diplomatic Bill.[211]
PROTECTION OF CIVIL RIGHTS.
Remarks in the Senate, February 9, 1866.
January 5, 1866, Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, introduced “a bill to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication,” which was referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was Chairman. By this bill all courts, National and State, were opened to colored persons as parties and witnesses as to white citizens, and they were subject to like punishments. January 11th, he reported it to the Senate with amendments, and the next day the Senate proceeded to its consideration. The amendments were adopted, when, on motion of Mr. Trumbull, it was postponed. January 25th, its consideration was resumed, and continued until February 2d, when it passed the Senate,—Yeas 33, Nays 12.
March 13th, the bill passed the House of Representatives, with amendments,—Yeas 111, Nays 38. The Senate promptly concurred in the House amendments.
March 27th, President Johnson returned the bill to the Senate with his objections.
April 6th, after debate of several days, the bill passed the Senate again, notwithstanding the veto of the President, two thirds agreeing,—Yeas 33, Nays 15.
April 9th, it passed the House again, notwithstanding the veto of the President, two thirds agreeing,—Yeas 122, Nays 41.
Mr. Sumner, on the first day of the session, had introduced a “Bill supplying appropriate legislation to enforce the Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting Slavery.”[212] He had also succeeded at an earlier day in opening the courts of the District of Columbia,[213] and then the courts of the United States, to colored testimony.[214] The bill of Mr. Trumbull was introduced after consultation with Mr. Sumner, who watched its progress with absorbing interest, not doubting that it would be a precedent for a similar bill securing political rights. That the latter were embraced in civil rights was ably stated by Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, in the House of Representatives, while the Civil Rights Bill was under discussion.
“A distinction is taken, I know very well, in modern times, between civil and political rights. I submit with all respect that the term ‘political rights’ is only a limitation of the term ‘civil rights,’ and by general acceptation signifies that class of civil rights which are more directly exercised by the citizen in connection with the government of his country. If this be so, are not political rights all embraced in the term ‘civil rights,’ and must it not of necessity be so interpreted? Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Common Law are so exact in definition, uses in that classic of the law the terms ‘civil liberty’ and ‘political liberty’ everywhere as synonymous. It never occurred to him that there was a colorable distinction between them.”[215]
Another point equally clear to Mr. Sumner was, that a bill to secure equal rights at the ballot-box was “appropriate legislation” in enforcement of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, just as much as the Civil Rights Bill. If the latter was constitutional, so also was the former. This appears in the speech of February 5th and 6th, and also in that of March 7th. But he took care to present it briefly in the debate on the Constitutional Amendment.
February 9th, interrupting Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, with his permission, Mr. Sumner, after reading the operative words of the Civil Rights Bill, which had already passed the Senate and was then pending in the House, said:—
As I understand it, this bill, which, as the Senator will see, actually annuls all State laws, everywhere throughout the United States, fixing any inequality in civil rights, is founded upon the second clause of the recent Amendment to the Constitution abolishing Slavery. Now the point to which I ask the attention of the Senator, before he passes from this branch of the discussion, is, whether, if we can annul all State laws declaring inequality in civil rights, we cannot also annul all State laws declaring inequality in political rights? whether, if this bill is constitutional, as I believe it is, such a bill as I propose would not also be constitutional? And in this connection I call attention to the famous judgment of Chief Justice Marshall, which the Senator remembers so well, in the case of M’Culloch v. The State of Maryland,[216] where the Chief Justice distinctly announces, having the point before him, that it is within the power of Congress to select its means, provided the means are appropriate to the end, and it is not for the Supreme Court, or any other branch of the Government, to sit in judgment on the means Congress chose to select. Therefore, if Congress now think, that, to enforce the abolition of Slavery, it is necessary, in the first place, to annul all inequality of civil rights, and, in the second place, to annul all inequality of political rights, I ask the Senator whether the latter proposition can be called in question?—whether an Act of Congress annulling all State laws declaring inequality of political rights is not absolutely constitutional, being “appropriate legislation” to enforce the Constitutional Amendment?
Mr. Johnson replied, that he had stated more than once that the bill on which Mr. Sumner “now relies is unconstitutional,” and then said:—
“But even supposing it to be within the power of Congress to pass a law of that kind, it by no means follows that I think it has power to pass a law placing all the inhabitants of the States on the same political ground.”
Later in his speech Mr. Sumner interrupted Mr. Johnson again, with his permission:—
My argument is, that, if, to carry out the prohibition of Slavery, and to complete the duty of Abolition, it shall be regarded necessary to confer the franchise, it is within the power of Congress so to do. And now I ask my honorable friend to give the Senate the benefit of his opinion on this precise point. If Congress, under the Constitutional Amendment, can secure equality of civil rights, may it not, a fortiori, secure equality in political rights, under the same clause? I do not ask the Senator whether in his opinion it may under that clause confer equality in civil rights. I assume that it can, and the Senator knows well that the Senate has acted accordingly. Senators all about me assume that power; and now I ask the Senator, as a Constitutional lawyer to whom we refer daily, whether, if you can do the one, you cannot do the other?
Mr. Johnson replied at once: “I answer that in the negative very decidedly, and have only time to give a few reasons for it.”
The following remarks, sketched for a speech on the veto of the Civil Rights Bill, and not delivered, are presented here in illustration of opinion at that time.
If I have not taken part in this debate, it is not from lack of interest in the question, but because on other occasions I have expressed my views on our duty to maintain the freedmen in their rights, civil and political, and since the cause, in the hands of the able Chairman of the Judiciary Committee [Mr. Trumbull], needed no assistance from me. I cannot disguise my joy that a measure like that now pending should receive the support it does. This is an augury for the future. If I were disposed to despair on other questions, I should take heart, when I see how Senators, once lukewarm, indifferent, or perhaps hostile, now generously unite in securing protection to the freedman by Act of Congress.
But, Mr. President, I am unwilling that this debate should close without at least one remark applicable to the future. You are about to decree that colored persons shall enjoy the same civil rights as white persons,—in other words, that with regard to civil rights there shall be no distinction of color; and this you do under the Constitutional Amendment by which Congress is empowered to “enforce” the prohibition of Slavery by “appropriate legislation.” Rightly you regard the present proposition as “appropriate legislation” to this end. It is so, unquestionably. But I should fail in frankness, if I did not give notice that at the proper time I shall insist that every reason, every argument, every consideration, by which you assert the power of Congress for the protection of colored persons in civil rights, is equally strong for their protection in political rights. There is no difference between the two cases. In each you legislate to the same end,—that the freedman may be maintained in that liberty so tardily accorded; and the legislation is just as appropriate in one case as in the other.
All this, Sir, I have seen from the beginning; but I have been unwilling to embarrass the present bill by any additional proposition. The protection of colored persons in their civil rights by Act of Congress will be a great event. It will be great in itself. It will be greater still because it establishes the power of Congress, without further Amendment of the Constitution, to protect colored persons in all their rights, including of course the elective franchise. The power is ample. I trust that you will not hesitate to exercise it.
…
The able and exhaustive argument of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] has rendered all minute discussion of the veto superfluous. He has taken it up paragraph by paragraph, and has shown how absolutely unfounded it is in reason or authority. And then again, when the Senator from Maryland [Mr. Johnson] attempted to vindicate it, he has most successfully quoted that Senator against himself. If argument could avail, the veto is already lost, even without a vote.
But there are considerations of a more general character, which I desire to present very briefly; for at this stage of the debate I cannot venture to trespass on your attention.
Sir, you do not forget the Dred Scott decision, pronounced just as Mr. Buchanan was coming into power,—fit decision to inaugurate such a Presidency. Take it all in all, that decision must always stand forth in bad eminence, as perhaps the most thoroughly perverse and reprehensible in judicial history. Whether regarded in the light of morals or politics or jurisprudence, or of juridical history, it was simply shocking. It was an insult to conscience, to reason, and to truth.
The essential element of this decision was, that persons “guilty of a skin not colored like our own” could not be citizens of the United States; and this postulate was sustained by that remarkable assertion, outrageously false in history, that at the adoption of the Constitution colored persons were regarded as having no rights which the white man was bound to respect,—when, in point of fact, at that time they enjoyed the right of citizens in several States of the Union, while in England, Scotland, France, and Holland, to say nothing of other countries, it had been solemnly declared that all men within their respective borders were free.
In the lapse of time this decision passed out of sight. It seemed to be dead. Blasted at once by an indignant public sentiment, it received a more formal condemnation on two separate occasions: first, when the Attorney General, in an elaborate opinion, declared that a colored person was a citizen of the United States;[217] and, secondly, when the Supreme Court of the United States admitted a colored person as a counsellor at its bar.[218] We all thought this decision dead, and the whole practice of the Government was altered accordingly. Passports were issued to colored persons as citizens, and licenses to enter into the country trade were awarded to colored persons as citizens. For the time being that ill-begotten decision was practically dead.
But now it is once more alive. Bursting the cerements of the grave, it again stalks into this Chamber to fright us from our propriety. Not now from the Supreme Court does it come, but from the President. That public opinion which did not hesitate to condemn the Supreme Court cannot hesitate now to condemn the President.
The veto does not undertake to declare precisely that colored persons are not citizens under the Constitution, but it forbids all legislation positively declaring this citizenship. It is the Dred Scott decision in a new draught. It is the same thing, only with a new shake of the kaleidoscope. You cannot adopt this veto without practically overturning the recent practice of the Government, and setting aside that opinion of Attorney-General Bates which is one of the most illustrious acts in the Administration of President Lincoln. For myself, I have always regarded that production as of the first importance in our recent history. The future historian, as he records the events by which the Republic has been elevated, must dwell with pride upon that simple act, where a single officer of the Government did so much to fix the liberties of a race.
I have said that this veto revives the Dred Scott decision. It does more. It is bad to revive the worst decision in our history; but this veto practically sets aside one of the best decisions in our history. I refer to the case of M’Culloch v. Bank of Maryland, where our great magistrate, Chief Justice Marshall, expended all his marvellous talent in expounding the powers of Congress under the Constitution. In all the annals of the Supreme Court there is no decision more carefully considered or wrought with a finer skill. In this remarkable judgment it has been positively declared, that, where the Constitution confers upon Congress certain powers, it is within the discretion of Congress to determine when and how they shall be exercised. Here are the precise words:—
“The government which has a right to do an act, and has imposed on it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means; and those who contend that it may not select any appropriate means, that one particular mode of effecting the object is excepted, take upon themselves the burden of establishing that exception.… Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional.”[219]
According to this authoritative text, Congress must determine the “means” it will employ in the exercise of its powers. But this veto pretends to despoil Congress of this discretion.
In the exercise of its discretion, Congress has undertaken to assure civil rights to colored persons. It has been moved to this especially in pursuance of the second clause of the Thirteenth Amendment, where it is empowered to enforce the prohibition of Slavery by appropriate legislation. The present bill is regarded as essential to enforce the prohibition of Slavery, and Congress, in the exercise of its discretion under the Constitution, has passed it. But the veto comes to arrest this discretion. So far as its influence goes, it will neutralize and nullify the great Amendment by which Slavery has been abolished. It leaves the letter in the Constitution, but it takes away the powers by which that letter is made a living soul.
I have said enough to condemn the veto. I have shown, first, that it revives a most odious judgment, and, secondly, that it subverts a received rule of interpretation, and degrades that Constitutional Amendment which is the glory of our recent history. But I go further.
…
THE CITY OF BOSTON AND MR. SUMNER.
Letter to the Mayor of Boston, in Acknowledgment of a Resolution of the Board of Aldermen, March 5, 1866.
March 2d, the Board of Aldermen of Boston adopted unanimously the following resolution, which was communicated to Mr. Sumner by the Mayor.
“Resolved, That we deem it fitting time to express our profound sense of the eminent loyalty, patriotism, and statesmanship of our distinguished Senator, Charles Sumner,—to acknowledge the measureless debt of gratitude which the Commonwealth and the nation owe him for his wise counsels and constant and efficient services in this great struggle to establish justice and to secure the prosperity of the Union,—and our indignant conviction of the utter falsehood of any accusation, no matter by whom made, which likens him, either in theory or practice, to the traitor chiefs of the Rebellion, or which charges him with any lack of devotion or loyalty to that great cause of Freedom and Nationality which he has watched with such untiring vigilance and served with such masterly ability.
“Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be forwarded by his Honor the Mayor to Mr. Sumner.”
This resolution was plainly aimed at President Johnson on account of his speech of February 22d.[220]
In reply Mr. Sumner wrote:—
Senate Chamber, March 5, 1866.
DEAR SIR,—I have been honored by your communication of March 2d, covering a resolution of the Board of Aldermen of the city of Boston, expressing in most flattering terms the good feelings of the Board toward me.
I have read with pride and gratification this emphatic token of confidence and regard. Coming as it does from the highest functionaries of the city where I was born, educated, and have always had my home, it has a value of its own. It is precious as the approbation of friends and neighbors.
While disclaiming all title to the praise so generously accorded for the services I have been able to render in the discharge of public duties, I have no hesitation in claiming for myself such credit as may come from early, faithful, and persistent devotion to the principles of Republican Government, and especially to those ideas which from the beginning have been the glory of Massachusetts. For these principles and these ideas I have labored, and I shall continue to labor so long as life lasts. If at any moment I could hesitate, your words would be an encouragement to constancy. And permit me to add, the result cannot be doubtful. Even through the present darkness it is plainly visible.
Please tender to the Board of Aldermen my best thanks for the honor they have done me, and believe me, Mr. Mayor, with much respect,
Your faithful fellow-citizen,
Charles Sumner.
Hon. F. W. Lincoln, Jr., Mayor, &c.
POLITICAL EQUALITY WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF COLOR.
NO COMPROMISE OF HUMAN RIGHTS.
Second Speech in the Senate on the Proposed Amendment of the Constitution fixing the Basis of Representation, March 7, 1866.
This second speech was in continuation of the debate on the proposed Constitutional Amendment, and in reply to those who had spoken after Mr. Sumner, especially Mr. Fessenden. The history of the debate and its result appear in the Appendix to the speech of February 5th and 6th.[221]
MR. PRESIDENT,—I hesitate to intrude again into this debate, which now, after the interposition of another debate on another question, is again renewed. I do it with unfeigned reluctance, and I hope not to trespass too much on your patience.
The question before us, even in its simplest form, is of incalculable importance; but it has added interest, as opening the whole vast subject of Reconstruction. Into this field I shall not be tempted, except to express a brief opinion on the general principles we should seek to establish. Treason must be made odious, and to this end power should be secured to loyal fellow-citizens. In doing this, two indispensable conditions cannot be forgotten: first, all who have been untrue to the Republic must, for a certain time, constituting the transition period, be excluded from the partnership of government; and, secondly, all who have been true to the Republic must be admitted into the partnership of government, according to the sovereign rule of the Constitution, which knows no distinction of color. Following these two simple commandments, there will be safety and peace, together with power and renown; neglecting these two simple commandments, there must be peril and distraction, together with imbecility and dishonor. In the one way, Reconstruction is easy; in the other way, it is in any just sense impossible. It may seem for the moment to succeed; but it must fail in the end. This is all I have to say at present on Reconstruction, and I turn at once to the precise question before us.
Pardon me, Sir, if I remind you that there are two modes of debate. One is to attack the previous speaker with personality of criticism or manner. The other is to speak plainly on the question, and to deal directly, according to your convictions, with the principles involved. Sometimes the two modes are allowed to intermingle. If ever there was occasion when the first should be carefully avoided, when the question alone should be handled, and not the previous speaker, when attention should be directed exclusively to principles involved, and not to any subordinate point of mere form, it is now, when we are asked to insert a new provision in the Constitution, fixing the basis of political power at the expense of fellow-citizens counted by millions. In this spirit I shall try to speak. To my mind, the occasion is too solemn for personal controversy, and I shall not be drawn into it.
The proposition before you is the most important ever brought into Congress, unless, perhaps, we except the Amendment abolishing Slavery; and to my mind it is the most reprehensible. The sentiment which inspired us to hail the abolition of Slavery with gratitude, as the triumph of justice, should make us reject with indignation a device to crystallize into organic law the disfranchisement of a race. With intense regret I differ from valued friends about me, but I cannot do otherwise. I bespeak in advance their candor, and most cheerfully concede to all from whom I differ the indulgence which I claim for myself. With me there is no alternative. Seeing this proposition as I do, I must speak frankly, as on other occasions, in exposing the crime against Kansas, or the infamy of that enactment which turned the whole North into a hunting-ground where man was the game. The attempt now is on a larger scale, if not more essentially bad. Such a measure, so obnoxious to every argument of reason, justice, and feeling, so perilous to the national peace, and so injurious to the good name of the Republic, must be encountered as a public enemy. There is no language which can adequately depict its character. Thinking of it, I am reminded of words of Chatham, where he held up to undying judgment a barbarous measure of the British Ministry. The Englishman did not hesitate, nor did he tame his words, but exclaimed:—
“I am astonished, shocked, to hear such principles confessed,—to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country,—principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and un-christian.… I call upon your Lordships and the united powers of the State to stamp upon them an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence.”
Then, rising to still higher flight, he cried out:—
“My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.”[222]
But what was the measure which thus aroused the veteran orator, compared with that before us? It was only a transient act of wrong, small in proportions. Here is an act of wrong permanent in influence, colossal in proportions, operating in an extensive region, affecting millions of citizens, positively endangering the peace of the country, and covering its name with dishonor. Such is the character of the present attempt. I exhibit it as I see it. Others may not see it so. Of course, its supporters cannot see it so. The British Ministry did not see the measure which Chatham denounced as he saw it, and as history now sees it. Senators would not support the present proposition, if they thought it disgraceful; nor would the British Ministry have supported that earlier proposition, had they thought it disgraceful. Unhappily, they did not think it so; but I trust you will be warned by their example.
With the eloquence of Chatham, another also from his place in the House of Lords held up to reprobation that apprentice system which, under the sanction of both Houses of Parliament, followed Emancipation in the British West Indies. I refer to Brougham. He did not hesitate to exclaim, “Prodigious, portentous injustice!” And then, continuing, he denounced it as “the gross, the foul, the outrageous, the monstrous, the incredible injustice of which we are daily and hourly guilty towards the whole of the ill-fated African race.”[223] But how small the injustice which aroused his reprobation, compared with that you are asked to perpetuate in Constitutional Law! The wrong he arraigned was against eight hundred thousand persons in distant islands, to whom the people of Great Britain were bound by no peculiar ties, and who were to them only fellow-men. The wrong I now arraign is against four million persons, constituting a considerable portion of the “people” of the United States, to whom we are bound by ties of gratitude, and who are to us fellow-citizens.
From the moment I heard this proposition first read at the desk I have not been able to think of it without pain. The reflection that it may find place in the National Constitution, or even that it may be sanctioned by Congress, is intolerable. And this becomes more so, when I call to mind the circumstances by which we are surrounded and the exigency of the hour.
Lord Bacon tells us that the highest function which men can be called to perform on earth is that of founders of states, or, as he expresses it, conditores imperiorum.[224] Such is our present duty. We are to help in this great work by a fundamental provision fixing the basis of our political system for an indefinite future. There are none among the great lawgivers of history who have had a sublimer task.
This duty is enhanced, when we consider that it is the consequence and sequel of an unparalleled war. At a moment of peace such a duty would be commanding; but it is now reinforced by exceptional considerations arising from the exceptional condition of affairs. For four years, Rebellion, of the greatest magnitude known to authentic history, raged among us, threatening to rend the Republic in twain. Millions of treasure were sacrificed. Lives more precious than any treasure were heaped in hecatombs. Families were filled with mourning. In the terrible struggle, while the country was bleeding at every pore and the scales of battle hung doubtful, assistance came from an unexpected quarter. Intermixed with the false men who warred on the Republic were nearly four million slaves, shut out from rights of all kinds, and compelled to do the bidding of masters. These slaves became our benefactors. They were kind to our captive soldiers, sheltering them, feeding them, supplying their wants, and guiding them to safety. Thus in the very heart of the Rebellion there was a filial throb for the Republic. At last arms were put into their hands, and two hundred thousand brave allies, representatives of an unmustered host, leaped forward in defence of the national cause. The Republic was saved. The Rebellion was at an end. Meanwhile the good President who at that time guided our affairs put forth his immortal Proclamation, declaring that these slaves “are and henceforward shall be free”; and not stopping with this declaration, he proceeded to announce that “the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.” Thus was the Republic solemnly pledged to these benefactors, first, by ties of gratitude that should be enduring, and, secondly, by an open promise in the face of the civilized world. And this pledge was taken up and adopted by the people of the United States, when, by Constitutional Amendment, they expressly empowered Congress to maintain this freedom by appropriate legislation.
And now, Sir, called to readjust the foundations of political power, which are naturally changed by the disappearance of Slavery, and called also to perform sacred promises to benefactors, in harmony with sacred promises of our fathers, while at the same time we save the name of the Republic from dishonor and see that the national peace is not imperilled, Congress is about to liquidate all these inviolable obligations by a new compromise of Human Rights, and, so far as it can, to place this compromise in the text of the Constitution, thus establishing a false foundation of political power, violating the national faith, dishonoring the name of Republic, and imperilling the national peace. Others have dwelt on the inadequacy of this attempt, even for its avowed purposes. This is plain. Conceived in a desire to do indirectly what ought to be done directly, it must naturally share the conditions of such a device.
Looking at the proposition in its most general aspect, it reminds me, if you will pardon the illustration, of that leg of mutton, served for dinner on the road from London to Oxford, which Dr. Johnson, with characteristic pungency, described “as bad as bad could be,—ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed.”[225] So this measure—I adopt the saying of an eminent friend, who insists that it cannot be called an “amendment,” but rather a “detriment,” to the Constitution—is as bad as bad can be; and even for its avowed purpose uncertain, loose, cracked, and rickety. Regarding it as a proposition from Congress to meet the unparalleled exigencies of the hour, it is no better than the “muscipular abortion” sent into the world by the “parturient mountain.”[226] But only when we look at the chance of good is it “muscipular.” In every other aspect it is gigantic, inasmuch as it makes the Constitution a well-spring of insupportable thraldom, and once more lifts the sluices of blood destined to run until it rises to the horse’s bridle. Adopt it, and you put millions of fellow-citizens under the ban of excommunication, you hand them over to a new anathema maranatha, you declare that they have no political rights “which the white man is bound to respect,”—thus repeating in new form the abomination that has blackened the name of Taney. Adopt it, and you stimulate anew the war of race upon race. Slavery itself was a war of race upon race, and this is only a new form of the terrible war. The proposition is as hardy as gigantic; for it takes no account of the moral sense of mankind, which is the same as if in rearing a monument we took no account of the law of gravitation. It is the paragon and master-piece of ingratitude, showing more than any other act of history what is so often charged and we so fondly deny, that republics are ungrateful. The freedmen ask for bread, and you send them a stone. With piteous voice they ask for protection; you thrust them back defenceless into the cruel den of former masters. Such an attempt, thus bad as bad can be, thus abortive for all good, thus perilous, thus pregnant with a war of race upon race, thus shocking to the moral sense, and thus treacherous to those whom we are bound to protect, cannot be otherwise than shameful.
I shall not content myself with describing the device. This is not enough. You have seen it in its general character only. You shall see it now in its guilty parts, each one of which is sufficient to arouse the conscience against it.
1. Of course you cannot fail to be struck by its language. Here words become things. In express terms there is admission of the idea of Inequality of Rights founded on race or color. That this unrepublican idea should be allowed to find place in the text of the Constitution must excite especial wonder, when it is considered how conscientiously our fathers excluded from that text the kindred idea of property in man. The saying of Mr. Madison cannot be too often repeated:—
“He thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.”[227]
But is it less wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of Inequality of Rights founded on race or color? Surely the authors of this proposition have acted inconsiderately and with little regard to the spirit of the Fathers. Imagine it introduced into the Convention which framed the Constitution. Not many words would have been used; but evidently it would have found no place in that text, which, with pious care, was to be guarded against degradation. And now mark the change. After the lapse of generations, when our obligations have increased with increasing light, at an epoch of history when mankind are more than ever before sensitive to the claims of human rights, and when among ourselves there is more than ever before a desire and a duty to fulfil all the promises of the Declaration of Independence, we are invited to make the Constitution disown the Declaration of Independence, insult the conscience of mankind, and disregard all the obligations pressing upon us. But this is a mild way of stating the character of the attempt plainly apparent in the words. Its essential uncleanness is not disclosed. Adopt this proposition, and you will imitate those ancient birds who defiled the feast that was spread. The Constitution is the feast spread for our country, and you hurry to drop into its text a political obscenity, and to diffuse over its page a disgusting ordure,—
“Defiling all you find,
And parting leave a loathsome stench behind.”[228]
Only by plain language can this attempt be adequately exposed. Only in this way can it be seen in its true character. Only in this way can you be moved to shrink from it with proper repugnance. In this spirit the religious press of the country is beginning to speak. The Boston “Recorder,” the most venerable of all the religious papers of New England, and perhaps of the whole country, which for more than half a century has been a weekly teacher at uncounted firesides, thus solemnly appeals to the conscience of patriots and of statesmen:—
“The proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which passed the House of Representatives last week by a vote of 120 to 46, will, if it should become the fundamental law of the land, inflict upon our free institutions greater infamy than anything contained in our written Constitution. There are things there which were sufficiently disgraceful in their intent and purpose. That the slave-trade should not be prohibited before 1808, that three fifths of the slaves should be represented in Congress by the votes of their owners, that fugitive slaves should be returned to their owners,—these were scandalous provisions to which our noble fathers submitted only because without them we could have no common national existence. But they couched these offensive propositions in terms that, on the cessation of Slavery, would have no objectionable meaning. This event they anticipated much earlier than it has actually occurred. And now that it is a fact, no one wishes the clauses of the Constitution to which we have alluded to be stricken out.
“But now it is proposed to ingraft upon this revered instrument a principle implying that a State may decree that all men are not born equal, and may disfranchise a majority of her citizens and their sons and their sons’ sons forever! Good jurists have declared that the Constitution, as it now stands, would forbid any such State action, and that all constitutions and laws disfranchising citizens because of their parentage, color, race, or descent, are null and void.… We are not aware of any attempt to refute this view with a shadow of success.
“And now it cannot be that we shall give up our vantage-ground, and stain the triumph bought with so much precious blood with a concession which might be turned to so base a use.
“Let every patriot, to whom the good name of America is dear, bestir himself. Let every Christian who believes that God is no respecter of persons, let every father who would not leave to his children a legacy of national discord and a birthright in a nation yet to bleed in Helot conspiracies, let every statesman who believes that even justice is the only sure foundation of national tranquillity, arouse himself.”[229]
I have heard somewhere a strange apology for this amendment. It is said that it is “punitive,” and that the idea of Inequality of Rights is to be admitted into the Constitution for punishment, and not for sanction. As well say that the term “three fifths of all other persons” in the Constitution was “punitive.” It was no such thing. It was a compromise; and such is the precise character of the present attempt, which, by its very words, is a plain license to tyranny, in consideration that the tyrants pay in political power. The primary element, standing out in “darkness visible,” is the license; the secondary element is the pay. Here is nothing less than a mighty house that shall be nameless, which it is proposed to license constitutionally for a consideration. Even if political power is curtailed, it is only as a consideration for the license. It is a new sale of “indulgences,” on a larger scale than that of Tetzel. The latter, returning from Rome into Germany, became vendor of licenses for adultery, robbery, theft; but the outrage aroused Martin Luther, and the Reformation began. As well say, that, since pay was required, therefore the indulgences of Tetzel were “punitive.”
Thus far I have spoken of the attempt only as it appears in its words, without analyzing it in detail.
2. One of its elementary parts and consequences is that it sanctions the acknowledged tyranny of taxation without representation. A whole race, constituting a considerable part of the people of the United States, and embraced under the words of the preamble to the Constitution, “We the people,” are left without representation in the Government, but nevertheless held within the grasp of taxation, direct and indirect, tariff and excise, State and National. Sir, this is tyranny,—or else our fathers were wrong, when they protested against a kindred injustice. The principle is fundamental. You cannot violate it without again dishonoring the Fathers.
To the application of this principle there have been two replies: first, that in its origin it was a claim of representation for communities only, and not for individuals; and, secondly, that in its nature it embraces women as well as men. And from these two considerations it is argued that it cannot be invoked for the protection of four million people whose only offence is a dark skin. Even if it had been originally a claim for communities only, and not for individuals, it is difficult to see how it can be rejected as a rule in determining the rights of fellow-citizens counted by millions. Our fathers, when they cried out that taxation without representation is tyranny, were not more than two millions and a half. Our fellow-citizens now renewing the same cry are more than four millions, possessing the weight of numbers, if not of organization. But it is a mistake to suppose that the original claim was for communities only, and not for individuals. This is a question of history, to be considered with the gravity of history, and as such I ask attention to it.
In opening this debate, I carried you to that Provincial Court in Massachusetts, where, in assailing Writs of Assistance, James Otis first launched the thunderbolt, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” You remember how careful he was to insist that without representation there could be no taxation of any kind, direct or indirect, on land or on trade, and that the representation must be substantial, real, and not merely imaginary, or, as it was expressed at that time, “virtual.” In developing this principle, he announced the equal rights of all, without distinction of color. On this ground he stood, when he uttered those memorable words, which the whole country adopted at once with patriotic frenzy, and which I insist you shall not deny in our organic law.
But, to show more precisely the meaning of Otis, I let him be his own interpreter. Again and again he asserts the equality of men. This was his fundamental principle, which on an important occasion he thus expressed: “The first simple principle is equality and the power of the whole.”[230] Nor did he allow this to be limited in application by any distinction of color. John Adams, who was present when the orator first raised his great cry, says: “Nor were the poor negroes forgotten. Not a Quaker in Philadelphia, or Mr. Jefferson, of Virginia, ever asserted the rights of negroes in stronger terms.”[231] Otis, in another form, assailed directly the distinction of color, saying: “Will short, curled hair, like wool, instead of Christian hair, as ’tis called by those whose hearts are as hard as the nether millstone, help the argument?”[232] Such, then, were his premises,—the equal rights of all, without distinction of color. From these his conclusion was easy:—
“The very act of taxing, exercised over those who are not represented, appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and, if continued, seems to be, in effect, an entire disfranchisement of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush, after a man’s property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure, without his consent? If a man is not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone, or lays entirely at the mercy of others.”[233]
Stronger words for universal suffrage could not be employed. His argument is, that, if men are taxed without being represented, they are deprived of essential rights, and the continuance of this deprivation despoils them of every civil right,—thus making the latter depend upon the right of suffrage, which by curious neologism is known as political instead of civil. Then, giving point to his argument, the patriot insists, that, in determining taxation, “a man must be his own assessor, in person or by deputy,” without which his liberty is entirely at the mercy of others. Here, again, in different form, is the original thunderbolt; and the claim is made not merely for communities, but for “a man.”
Such a principle naturally encountered opposition at that time, even as now in this Chamber; but Otis was ready at all points. To the argument, that Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, like America, returned no members to Parliament, he flashed forth in reply:—
“If they are not represented, they ought to be. Every man of a sound mind should have his vote.”
And then again, taking up the reply, he exclaimed:—
“Lord Coke declares that it is against Magna Charta, and against the franchises of the land, for freemen to be taxed but by their own consent.”[234]
Thus does he interpret again the flaming words, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
But, while thus positive, there is reason to believe that Otis so far yielded to prevailing sentiment, and especially to the opinions of Harrington, whose “Oceana” was much read at that time, as sometimes to recognize property in determining the basis of political power. On one occasion he said that Government could not be “rightfully founded on property alone,” thus seeming to intimate that property might enter into the foundation, although, as he derisively remarks, “the possessor of it may not have much more wit than a mole or a musquash.”[235] But it was doubtless obvious to his clear intelligence that a claim of power founded on property was very different from a claim of power founded on color. Property may be acquired; but color, from its nature, is an insurmountable condition. The original Constitution of Massachusetts recognized property as an element of political power; but it rejected all discrimination founded on color. If, therefore, under the maxim of Otis, there may be discrimination founded on property, most clearly, according to reason and early practice, there can be none founded on color; so that at the present hour his maxim is of vital force as a claim, not merely for the community, but for the individual. Let the country now, as aforetime, take it up and repeat it until it becomes the watchword of patriotism.
But Otis was not the only interpreter of this maxim of Liberty. The Legislature of Massachusetts, on repeated occasions, made the same claim. In solemn resolutions, drawn by Samuel Adams, and adopted unanimously, it declared, in substance, that, “by the Law of Nature, no man has a right to impose laws more than to levy taxes upon another”; that “the freeman pays no tax, as the freeman submits to no law, but such as emanates from the body in which he is represented.”[236] Surely this claim is not merely for the community, but for the individual freeman also.
Virginia was not behind Massachusetts. In her Declaration of Rights, drawn by that determined patriot, George Mason, and adopted June 12, 1776, anterior to the Declaration of Independence, is the following emphatic claim:—
“All men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with and attachment to the community have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not in like manner assented for the public good.”[237]
Here again the claim is not merely for the community, but for “all men,” and it is set forth thus positively in a Declaration of Rights.
And now listen to Benjamin Franklin. I quote a statement found among his papers, and placed by his excellent editor under date of 1768-9, while the Colonists were echoing the cry, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
“That every man of the commonalty, excepting infants, insane persons, and criminals, is of common right, and by the laws of God, a freeman, and entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty.
“That liberty or freedom, consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every man’s life, property, and peace; for the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another, and the poor man has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the Legislature than the rich one.
“That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf.”[238]
Here is no claim for communities merely, but expressly for “every man,” including especially “the poor man,” and without distinction of color.
This American testimony is fitly crowned by the Declaration of Independence, which, beginning with the proclamation that “all men are created equal,” proceeds to assert that governments “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Here again is no claim for communities, but for “all men”; and this is the most authoritative interpretation of the original claim thundered forth by Otis, and echoed throughout the land. It is idle to show that in certain instances the Fathers failed to apply the sublime principles they declared. Their failure can be no apology for us, on whom the duty is now cast.
But there is still another interpreter. The maxim of Otis was not original with him. It is found in the writings of John Locke, so remarkable for masculine sense and an exalted love of liberty. On a former occasion I adduced his authority, which is plain and positive. Pardon me, if I call attention to it once more. After asserting that Government cannot take the property of any one without his own consent, being the consent of the majority, the philosopher thus expresses himself:—
“For, if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property and subverts the end of government; for what property have I in that which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself?”[239]
Mr. Hallam, commenting on this text, does not hesitate to say, that it “in some measure seems to charge with usurpation all the established governments of Europe,”—that “neither the Revolution of 1688 nor the administration of William the Third could have borne the test by which Locke has tried the legitimacy of government.”[240]
A later English writer, Mr. Tremenheere, commenting also on this text, sets forth its two propositions as follows: “First, that a political society can only be bound by the act of the majority; second, that taxation without representation is tyranny.”[241] Such are the two propositions this English writer finds in Locke, and which he cites for condemnation. Thus, if we repair with Otis to the very source from which he drew, we find that there was no claim for communities merely, but for the individual man, without distinction of color.
Mr. Bright, our English friend, in one of his admirable speeches,[242] has recently furnished an additional illustration. He has brought to light a resolution from no less an authority than Lord Somers, on an important occasion, kindred to the present, when it was proposed to disfranchise all who were not of the Established Church, as it is now proposed to disfranchise all who are not of a certain color. Speaking for the House of Lords, in conference with the Commons, this great constitutional lawyer insisted:—
“That though the Lords allow that no man hath a place by birthright, or but few such examples in our Government, yet that giving a vote for a Representative in Parliament is the essential privilege whereby every Englishman preserves his property, and that whatsoever deprives him of such vote deprives him of his birthright.”[243]
Here again is the very cry of Otis; and you cannot fail to observe that the claim is not for communities merely, but for “every Englishman,” without distinction of color.
Surely this is enough. But it is said that the claim is as applicable to women as to men, especially where women are tax-payers. To this I reply, that Locke, Somers, Otis, and Franklin, in making the claim, did not give it any such extent, and the question which I submit is simply as to their meaning in the words “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” Clearly their claim was for men, believing, as they did, that women were represented through men; and it is hardly candid to embarrass the present debate, involving the rights of an oppressed race, by another question entirely independent. In saying that the claim was for men, I content myself with the authority of Theophilus Parsons, afterward the eminent Chief Justice of Massachusetts, who, in a masterly state-paper, known as the “Essex Result,” which was the prelude to the Constitution of Massachusetts, thus discloses the opinion of the Fathers on this precise point:—
“Every freeman, who hath sufficient discretion, should have a voice in the election of his legislators.… All the members of the State are qualified to make the election, unless they have not sufficient discretion, or are so situated as to have no wills of their own. Persons not twenty-one years old are deemed of the former class, from their want of years and experience.… Women, what age soever they are of, are also considered as not having a sufficient acquired discretion,—not from a deficiency in their mental powers, but from the natural tenderness and delicacy of their minds, their retired mode of life, and various domestic duties. These, concurring, prevent that promiscuous intercourse with the world which is necessary to qualify them for electors. Slaves are of the latter class, and have no wills.”[244]
The reasons assigned for the exclusion of women may be very unsatisfactory; but they show at least that the Fathers, when insisting that taxation and representation must go together, did not regard women, any more than minors, within the sphere of this commanding principle. And here I leave this head of the argument, concluding as I began, that you cannot adopt this pretended Amendment without setting at defiance the great maxim of constitutional liberty which was the rallying cry of our fathers.
3. Continuing the dissection, I exhibit this proposition as a new form of concession to State Rights. Such it is plainly on its face; such it is in reality; and the more you examine it, the more complete the concession appears. Already it has been announced as such by those who seek to commend it in quarters of doubtful loyalty. Here, for instance, is a speech of Hon. John E. King, claimant of a seat in Congress from Louisiana, only a few days ago addressed to the Legislature of his State, where, after calling attention to the present attempt, he exults in what seemed to him the prospect of its adoption:—
“The present Congress is proceeding to amend without the eleven States that are unrepresented in that body. However, there is some good in all this evil. If this Amendment should pass,—and the speaker said that himself and colleagues had no doubt that it would,—it will settle forever the right of the States to legislate, each for itself, as to who shall be the voters therein.”[245]
Thus, while deprecating Amendments to the Constitution in the absence of the eleven Rebel States, the partisan of State Rights is reconciled to the pending proposition, inasmuch as it is a triumph of this sectional pretension. Alas, that now, at the close of a rebellion in the name of State Rights, we should be considering calmly how to assure this pernicious heresy new support in the Constitution itself!
Let me be understood. I suggest no interference with the just rights of the States. These belong to the harmonies of the Union. But, in the name of Justice, I insist that nothing further shall be done to invest the States with peculiar local power. If not taught by the lessons of the late war, then be taught by the principles avowed at the very beginning of the Government.
The object of the Constitution was to ordain, under authority of the people, a national government possessing unity and power. The Confederation had been merely an agreement “between the States,” styled “a league of firm friendship.” Found to be feeble and inoperative, through the pretension of State Rights, it gave way to the Constitution, which, instead of a “league,” created a “Union” in the name of the people of the United States. Beginning with these inspiring and enacting words, “We, the people,” it was popular and national. Here was no concession to State Rights, but a recognition of the power of the people, from whom the Constitution proceeded. The States are acknowledged; but they are all treated as component parts of the Union in which they are absorbed under the National Constitution, which is the supreme law. There is but one sovereignty, and that is the sovereignty of the people of the United States.
On this very account the adoption of the Constitution was opposed by Patrick Henry and George Mason. The first pronounced: “That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear.” “The question turns on that poor little thing, the expression, ‘We, the people,’ instead of ‘the States’ of America.”[246] The second exclaimed: “Whether the Constitution be good or bad, the present clause [‘We, the people’] clearly discovers that it is a national government, and no longer a confederation.”[247] But against this powerful opposition the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people of the United States. Throughout the discussion, State Rights were treated with little favor. Madison said, the States were “only political societies,” and “never possessed the essential rights of sovereignty.”[248] Gerry said, the States had “only corporate rights.”[249] Wilson, the philanthropic member from Pennsylvania, afterward a learned judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and author of the “Lectures on Law,” said: “Will a regard to State Rights justify the sacrifice of the Rights of Men? If we proceed on any other foundation than the last, our building will neither be solid nor lasting.”[250] Such were the voices at that heroic day. And now, at the end of an unparalleled war to abase State Rights, we are asked to naturalize in the Constitution a new provision confirming to the States an odious pretension, shocking to the moral sense. But its character belongs to another head.
4. Proceeding with the dissection, I now exhibit the proposition, not only as a concession to State Rights, which is admitted by a Louisiana supporter, but, if unhappily adopted, as the constitutional recognition of an Oligarchy, Aristocracy, Caste, and Monopoly founded on color. All this appears on the face; and as you examine it, the intolerable consequence becomes still more apparent. Thus far we have been saved from such shame. The proposition before us assumes that the elective franchise may be denied or abridged constitutionally on account of race or color, and thus sanctions the usurpation,—thereby investing those who deny or abridge it with exclusive political control, without regard to number, though they may be a minority or even a small fraction of the people. What, Sir, is this rancid pretension, if it be not an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color, under sanction of the Constitution? It is all these together, having beyond question the distinctive features of each and the distinctive discredit of each,—therefore odious in government, odious in religion, odious in economy, and altogether constituting an outrageous indecency.
It is idle to say that this is done already in the States. It may be done in fact. But now you propose to give this criminal fact the support of the Constitution, and lift it into perpetual vigor.
The country has been harassed and degraded for generations by the Slave Power, which was nothing but an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly; and now, when this power has been overcome in battle, it is proposed to inaugurate it anew, with slight change of name, but with the same field of action, and the same malignant spirit to wield its energies. By your concession it tyrannized before, and now by your concession it will tyrannize again. The citizens it once trampled on as slaves it will continue to trample on as outcasts, and it will set up your permission emblazoned in the Constitution itself.
5. Proceeding with this proposition, I exhibit it as petrifying in the Constitution the wretched pretension of a white man’s government. At this moment, when we are striking the word “white” from the national statutes, when this word has disappeared even from Post-Office laws, when, by a vote of the House of Representatives, it has been condemned in the laws regulating the elective franchise in the District of Columbia, it is proposed to insert an equivalent in the Constitution itself. To exhibit this shame is surely enough to make you turn away from it. Do not say that this is not proposed. What is the concession that the elective franchise may be denied or abridged “on account of race or color” but an insertion of the word “white” in the National Constitution? In that text, as it still stands, from beginning to end, from the preamble to the signature of George Washington, or the last word of the last Amendment, there is no recognition of “color.” For the sake of decency, keep it so.
6. Proceeding still further with the proposition, I exhibit it as assuming, what is false in Constitutional Law, that color can be a qualification for an elector. The Constitution says that “the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.” Of course this leaves open the question, What is meant by “qualifications”? But this word must be interpreted in the light of the Constitution, which knows no “color,” and again in the light of the Declaration of Independence, which knows no “color,” and yet again in the light of common sense, which refuses to recognize “color” as a “qualification,” in any just sense of the term. Consult the dictionaries of the day, and you will find it means “fitness,” “ability,” “accomplishment,” “the state of being qualified”; but it does not mean “color.” It is applicable to the conditions of age, residence, character, education, property, and the payment of taxes; but it cannot be applicable to “color.” The English dictionaries most in vogue at the time of our fathers were those of Bailey and Johnson. According to Bailey, who was the earliest, “qualification” is defined:—
“(1.) That which fits any person or thing for any particular purpose.”
“(2.) A particular faculty or endowment, an accomplishment.”
According to Johnson, who is the highest authority, it is defined:—
“(1.) That which makes any person or thing fit for anything.”
“Example.—It is in the power of the prince to make piety and virtue become the fashion, if he would make them necessary qualifications for preferment.—Swift.”
“(2.) Accomplishment.”
“Example.—Good qualifications of mind enable a magistrate to perform his duty, and tend to create a public esteem of him.—Atterbury.”
According to these definitions “qualification” means “fitness” or “accomplishment,” and according to examples from classical writers it means qualities like “piety” and “virtue,” or like “mind.” Obviously it cannot embrace color, which is a physical condition, insurmountable in nature. An insurmountable condition is not a qualification, but a disfranchisement. As well say that the quality of the hair or the length of the foot should be a “qualification,” as the color of the skin. The whole pretension is one of the false glosses fastened upon the National Constitution by Slavery, which must now be sloughed off.
7. Again, I exhibit the proposition as positively tying the hands of Congress in its interpretation of a republican government, so that, under the guaranty clause, it must recognize an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color, with the tyranny of taxation without representation, as republican in character, which I insist they are not. At present the hands of Congress are not tied. Congress is free to act generously, nobly, truly, according to the highest idea of a republic, discountenancing all inequality of rights and the tyranny of taxation without representation. Let this pretension find place in the Constitution, and the guaranty clause will be restricted in operation. The two clauses taken together, as they must be, will read substantially: “The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government: it being understood that the denial or abridgment of the elective franchise on account of race or color, and the tyranny of taxation without representation, are not inconsistent with a republican government.” In other words the denial or abridgment of the elective franchise on account of race or color, and the tyranny of taxation without representation, will be recognized in the Constitution as republican in character. Of course all attempt to enforce this guaranty against an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color, or against the tyranny of taxation without representation, will be from this time impossible. The precious power now existing will be lost forever.
8. Again, I exhibit the proposition as positively tying the hands of Congress in completing and consummating the abolition of Slavery. By the second clause of the recent Constitutional Amendment Congress is expressly empowered to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery by “appropriate legislation.” Accordingly, the Senate, by what is known as the Civil Rights Bill, has already undertaken to establish equality of civil rights in all the States and Territories, so that hereafter, in our courts at least, there shall be no discrimination of color. It was justly insisted that such “legislation” is needed to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery, and on this account is constitutional. The Senate acted accordingly. The bill has passed this body by more than a two-thirds vote. Obviously by the same title equality in political rights can be established also under this Amendment, if such equality shall be deemed important to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery, or, in other words, to complete and consummate the good work. In the exercise of a granted power Congress is sole judge of the “means” it employs; and this conclusion is sustained not only by reason, but by the Supreme Court of the United States in solemn judgments. You will remember the familiar precedents, which I insist are decisive. And now, in the face of these judgments, in the face of reason, and with the authoritative precedent of the Senate establishing equality of civil rights before us, it is proposed to insert in the Constitution a provision despoiling Congress of its power under the Constitutional Amendment, so that hereafter that Amendment, which should be interpreted generously and to advance Liberty, will be changed so as to read: “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation: it being understood that it shall not interfere for this purpose with any denial or abridgment of the elective franchise in any State on account of race or color.” Thus again will a beneficent power be lost at a moment when all is needed for the safety and renown of the Republic.
9. Again, I exhibit this proposition as installing recent rebels to govern loyal citizens under sanction of the Constitution. The ruling class began and sustained the Rebellion. The citizens you disfranchise were loyal, and some of them poured out their red blood for the Republic; and yet we are asked to intrench this ruling class in the Constitution, so that they can wield unchecked power, while loyal millions are humbled at their feet. The bare statement offends reason and conscience.
Pray, who may justly look to the Republic for protection? Is it the rebel or the loyal? Is it the citizen who has caused all your woes, and now gnashes his teeth at your triumph,—or is it the citizen who has watched your flag with sympathetic pride, and now rejoices in your triumph? Who can hesitate? And yet the proposition before the Senate gives the palm of power and honor to the rebel class, and fixes this preëminence in the National Constitution. You cannot say, more than Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” You are your brother’s keeper; and you must see that he is saved from cruel oppression.
10. And, lastly, I denounce this proposition as a compromise of human rights, the most questionable of any in our history. Persons out of the Senate have sought to vindicate it, as other compromises in times past, by representing it as something which it is not. This is done by exhibiting one side only of the compromise, and thus calling it “punitive”; as if in 1850 the admission of California, which was one side of the compromise, had been exhibited, while the unutterable atrocity of the Fugitive Slave Bill, which was the other side, had been concealed from view. The present compromise, like other compromises, has two sides; in other words, it is a concession for a consideration. On one side it is conceded that the States may, under the Constitution, exclude citizens counted by the million from the body politic, and practise the tyranny of taxation without representation, provided, on the other side, there is a corresponding diminution of representative power in the lower House of Congress, without, however, touching the representative power in the Senate. The glaring feature of this compromise is the criminal concession, constituting the sacrifice of brave defenders, and even of a whole race, to whom we owe protection. The consideration is small. It will be forgotten, when the monstrous concession looms in history as a landmark of dishonor.
There have been other compromises of human rights in times past. But, considering the grandeur of the occasion, the promises of the Fathers, the extent of present obligations, the promptings of gratitude, the demands of public faith, the exigencies of public security, and the good name of the Republic, all now involved, I am sure that no compromise so discreditable and disastrous was ever before proposed. A feeble prototype may be found in that intolerable treaty known as the Assiento, from which every Englishman turns with a blush, where, at the end of an unprecedented war, England bartered all that had been won by the victories of Marlborough for the privilege of supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies. The slave-trade received solemn sanction, and England pocketed the dishonest profits,—just as now a kindred offence on a grander scale is to receive solemn sanction, and we who sanction it are to pocket the profits in political power. Do not talk, Sir, of this measure as “punitive,” unless you mean that it is punitive of benefactors,—for this is the only character it can bear in history. On a former occasion I entreated you not to copy the example of Pontius Pilate, who handed over the Saviour of the world, in whom he found no fault at all, to be scourged and crucified. It is my duty now to remind you that you go further than Pontius Pilate. He was a mocker and a jester;[251] but he received nothing for what he did. You do. Not content with resolving the Senate into a Prætorium, I feel rather that you imitate Judas, who betrayed the Saviour for thirty pieces of silver, and imitate the soldiers who appropriated to themselves the raiment of the Saviour. Do not answer me with a sneer. Has not the Saviour himself told us that what we do to the least we do to Him? Ay, Sir, in offering fellow-citizens to be sacrificed, in betraying them for less than “thirty” Representatives in Congress, and in appropriating their political raiment, you do all this to the Saviour himself. Pardon this necessary plainness. I speak for my country, which I seek to save from dishonor; I speak for fellow-citizens whom I would save from outrage; and I speak for that public faith and public security in which is bound up the welfare of all.
Mr. President, such is the argument for the rejection of this pretended Amendment. Following it from the beginning, you have seen, first, how it carries into the Constitution the idea of Inequality of Rights, thus defiling that unspotted text; secondly, how it is an express sanction of the acknowledged tyranny of taxation without representation; thirdly, how it is a concession to State Rights at a moment when we are recovering from a terrible war waged against us in the name of State Rights; fourthly, how it is the constitutional recognition of an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color; fifthly, how it petrifies in the Constitution the wretched pretension of a white man’s government; sixthly, how it assumes, what is false in Constitutional Law, that color can be a “qualification” for an elector; seventhly, how it positively ties the hands of Congress in fixing the meaning of a republican government, so that under the guaranty clause it will be constrained to recognize an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color, together with the tyranny of taxation without representation, as not inconsistent with such a government; eighthly, how it positively ties the hands of Congress in completing and consummating the abolition of Slavery according to the second clause of the Constitutional Amendment, so that it cannot for this purpose interfere with the denial of the elective franchise on account of color; ninthly, how it installs recent rebels in permanent power over loyal citizens; and, tenthly, how it shows forth its unmistakable character as a compromise of human rights, the most questionable of any in our history.
And now the question occurs, What shall be done? To this I answer, Reject at once the pretended Amendment; show it no favor; give it no quarter. Let the country see that you are impatient of its presence. But there are other propositions, in the form of substitutes. For any one of these I can vote. They may differ in efficiency, but there is nothing in them immoral or shameful. There is, first, the proposition to found representation on voters instead of population, and, secondly, the proposition to secure equality in political rights by Constitutional Amendment or by Act of Congress.
The proposition to found representation on voters instead of population was originally introduced by me during the last Congress. Almost at the same time I presented a series of resolutions declaring not only the power, but the duty, of the United States to guaranty republican governments in the Rebel States on the basis of the Declaration of Independence, so that the new governments should be founded on the consent of the governed and the equality of all persons before the law. Thus, while proposing to found representation on voters, I at the same time asserted the power of Congress under the Constitution to secure equality in political rights. The proposition with regard to voters was much discussed during the recess of Congress. At the beginning of the present session it seemed to find favor. But at last statistics were adduced tending to show that it would transfer power from Eastern States to Western States in proportion to the excess of females over males in the former; and this abnormal circumstance was made an argument against it. Since then it has given place to the offensive attempt now pending.
The proposition to found representation on voters instead of population may be seen, first, in what it does not, and, secondly, in what it does.
Seeing it in what it does not, all will confess that it does not carry into the Constitution itself the idea of Inequality of Rights, thus defiling that unspotted text; that it gives no sanction to the acknowledged tyranny of taxation without representation; that it makes no concession to State Rights, at a moment when we are recovering from a terrible war waged against us in the name of State Rights; that it does not recognize an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color; that it does not petrify in the Constitution the wretched pretension of a white man’s government; that it does not assume, what is false in Constitutional Law, that color can be a “qualification” for a voter; that it does not positively tie the hands of Congress in fixing the meaning of a republican government, so that under the guaranty clause it will be constrained to recognize an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color, together with the tyranny of taxation without representation, as not inconsistent with such a government; that it does not positively tie the hands of Congress in completing and consummating the abolition of Slavery according to the second clause of the Constitutional Amendment; that it does not install recent rebels in permanent power over loyal citizens; that it does not show forth in unmistakable character as a compromise of human rights, the most questionable of any in our history. All these things, so offensive to the conscience and the reason, this proposition avoids. In all these respects it is at least blameless.
On the other hand, without inflicting any stigma upon the Constitution or upon the Republic, without abandoning any principle, without making any concession to the States, without tying the hands of Congress, and without any compromise of human rights, it does rearrange the basis of representation so as to accomplish all that is proposed even by the most sanguine supporters of the other attempt, and it does this effectually, without the opportunity for evasion afforded by the other proposition. The alleged inequality in operation, owing to excess of females over males in certain States, may make you hesitate; but better take representation founded on voters, even with any such alleged inequality, than do a grievous wrong. Better wrong yourselves than wrong others.
Let me confess that I was tempted to this proposition by the conviction that I was carrying out the cherished idea of Massachusetts embodied in her own Constitution. According to a recent Amendment, the representation in both branches of the Legislature is founded on “legal voters,” and not on population. Here are the words.
“A census of the legal voters of each city and town on the first day of May shall be taken and returned into the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.… The enumeration aforesaid shall determine the apportionment of Representatives for the periods between the taking of the census.
“The House of Representatives shall consist of two hundred and forty members, which shall be apportioned by the Legislature, at its first session after the return of each enumeration as aforesaid, to the several counties of the Commonwealth, equally, as nearly as may be, according to their relative numbers of legal voters, as ascertained by the next preceding special enumeration.…
“The Senate shall consist of forty members. The General Court shall, at its first session after each next preceding special enumeration, divide the Commonwealth into forty districts of adjacent territory, each district to contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of legal voters, according to the enumeration aforesaid.… Each district shall elect one Senator.”[252]
Obviously, in adopting this rule, Massachusetts has followed what seems a correct principle. Representative government is an invention of modern times. It was unknown in antiquity. Athens was a democracy where the people met in public assembly for the government of the state: there was no representative body chosen by the people for this purpose. The public assembly was practicable in that age, as the state was small, and the assembly seldom exceeded six thousand citizens,—a large town meeting, or mass meeting, which Milton has termed “that fierce democratie.” But where the territory was extensive and the population scattered and numerous, there could be no assembly of the whole body of citizens. To meet this precise difficulty the representative system was devised. By a machinery so obvious that we are astonished it was not employed in the ancient commonwealths, the people, though scattered and numerous, are gathered, through their chosen representatives, into a small and deliberative assembly, where, without tumult or rashness, they may consider and determine all questions which concern them. In every representative body properly constituted the people are practically present.
If, then, the representative body is a substitute for the people themselves meeting in primary assemblies, it would seem that it must be founded upon the people who compose the primary assemblies,—in other words, upon legal voters. Ordinarily there may be little difference between the proportion of legal voters and the proportion of population; but, strictly, the representative system is the agent of legal voters, and therefore the logic of the case is better satisfied, if it be founded on legal voters rather than on population. With me this is no new idea. On another occasion, in my own State, I asserted it. This was in a Convention for revising the Constitution of Massachusetts, as long ago as 1853. Pardon me, if I read a brief passage from a speech in that Convention, not from any importance which I attach to it, but as showing how completely at that time this rule seemed to me just.
“A practical question arises here, whether this rule should be applied to the whole body of population, including women, children, and unnaturalized foreigners, or to those only who exercise the electoral franchise,—in other words, to voters. It is probable that the rule would produce nearly similar results in both cases, as voters, except in few places, would bear a uniform proportion to the whole population. But it is easy to determine what the principle of the Representative system requires. Since its object is to provide a practical substitute for meetings of the people, it should be founded, in just proportion, on the numbers of those who, according to our Constitution, can take part in those meetings,—that is, upon the qualified voters. The representative body should be a miniature or abridgment of the electoral body,—in other words, of those allowed to participate in public affairs.”[253]
In this view I found myself supported by two illustrious names in our history. Mr. Jefferson, shortly after the victory at Yorktown had rescued Virginia from invasion and secured national independence, prepared the draught of a Constitution for his native State, which expressly provided that “the number of delegates which each county may send shall be in proportion to the number of its qualified electors, and the whole number of delegates for the State shall be proportioned to the whole number of qualified electors in it.”[254] This proposition, which is substantially the Rule of Three applied to voters, was not adopted, but it remains a record of opinion. Some time afterward, in the debates in the Convention which framed the National Constitution, Mr. Madison gave his authority to the same conclusion.
“It had been very properly observed that representation was an expedient by which the meeting of the people themselves was rendered unnecessary, and that the representatives ought, therefore, to bear a proportion to the voters which their constituents, if convened, would respectively have.”[255]
Thus representation founded on voters seems commended by authority and principle. Its adoption would at least give symmetry to our national system, and make the representative more precisely the embodied presence of his constituents, while at the same time it would tend to enlarge the suffrage, and to harmonize sectional pretensions with the national will, when exerted for human rights. If representation were founded on voters, the States would care little, if Congress should annul all inequality in the elective franchise on account of color. The way would be open to Congress.
There are other propositions to my mind more satisfactory, because they reach the special necessity of the hour, and provide the only effectual remedy. Speaking in the name of national justice and for the national safety, they cannot be put aside with indifference; nor is it wise to say that any measure of justice is not practical. I refer, of course, to the propositions, in different forms, to secure that great guaranty, equality in political rights, by Constitutional Amendment, or by Act of Congress, or by both.
A Constitutional Amendment placing equality of political rights under the safeguard of a specific text may be superfluous, but it is not unconstitutional or immoral. It will be supplementary to provisions already in the Constitution, and in the nature of a declaratory statute removing all doubts and cavils. It will be like an additional force in mechanics, or like a reinforcement in the field. It will be reduplication in a new form. On such an occasion, where such a cause is in issue, I welcome every alliance; and such I regard the proposition of the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Henderson].
The other proposition, looking to the direct action of Congress under the National Constitution and existing Amendments, is obviously the simplest and most practical, inasmuch as it deals with the exigency promptly, frankly, and according to the necessities of the hour. It does not undertake to act by indirection; nor does it postpone to an indefinite future what cannot be postponed without detriment to the Republic. Refusing to procrastinate, it saves all. Such a proposition is commended by every argument of reason, humanity, and patriotism. To say that it is not constitutional is to say that the Constitution itself is not constitutional; for it is derived from the very heart of the Constitution, and is filled with all its best life-blood.
Something has been said of the form in which the proposition is presented. There is the bill of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Yates], which he has maintained in a speech of singular originality and power, that has not been answered, and I do not hesitate to say cannot be answered. By this bill it is provided that all citizens in any State or Territory shall be protected in the full and equal enjoyment and exercise of civil and political rights, including the right of suffrage. This is founded on the consideration that by the abolition of Slavery the slave became at once a citizen, subject only to such disabilities as are common to other citizens, and that by the second clause of the Constitutional Amendment Congress is empowered to enforce the abolition of Slavery by appropriate legislation. On this foundation the Senator places his bill, assuming, that, to complete the abolition of Slavery, all restrictions, penalties, or deprivations of right, resulting from Slavery in any State or Territory, must be made to cease. The proposition that I have had the honor of presenting is a joint resolution, which, after declaring the duty of Congress to guaranty a republican form of government in States where the governments have lapsed, and also the duty to complete the abolition of Slavery by the removal of all relics of this wrong, proceeds to provide that there shall be no oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, or monopoly, nor any denial of rights, civil or political, on account of race or color, but all persons shall be equal before the law, whether in the court-room or at the ballot-box.[256] Not doubting the power of Congress to carry out this principle everywhere within the jurisdiction of the United States, I content myself for the present by asserting it only in the lapsed States lately in rebellion, where the twofold duty to guaranty a republican government and to enforce the abolition of Slavery is beyond question. To that extent I now urge it.
Both these propositions are opposed as informal and inoperative, because without machinery or penalty. Such is the objection, if I understand it. As it has been made, I answer it. Each on its face is an Act of Congress prohibiting denial of certain rights on account of color. In this respect each is at least a Congressional interpretation of the Constitution, and it is by no means clear that it could not be enforced in the courts. The bill which has already passed the House of Representatives, striking out the word “white” in the electoral laws of the District of Columbia, is without machinery or penalty; but it is at least a Congressional declaration, to be followed, of course, by other legislation with proper machinery and penalty; and this is the precise character of the measures presented by the Senator from Illinois and myself. Objection, if valid at all, must be equally valid against the bill for enfranchisement in the District of Columbia, and against every other Congressional declaration without machinery or penalty. It is, at most, one of form, which I put aside and advance to the substance. The question is too vast and the times are too serious for a special demurrer. It must be tried on its merits. The question is on the power of Congress to establish equality of political rights, at least in the Rebel States. If Congress has this beneficent power, then exercise it in such form as shall seem best, with machinery and penalty or without machinery and penalty; but, in God’s name, exercise it, for the sake of the country, which suffers from your delay.
Has Congress power to secure equality of political rights, at least in the Rebel States? I do not at this time raise the question of its power throughout the United States, but in the Rebel States. If this question were less transcendent in its relations, or if it could be approached calmly and without prejudice, in the light of reason, I cannot doubt the judgment. But you must bring to its determination the same simple desire for truth, undisturbed by external influences, which would control a judicial tribunal; for, in the determination of your powers under the Constitution, you are a judicial tribunal. It will not be enough to deny the beneficent power, or to mock at those who find it in the Constitution. You must answer their arguments.
1. I need not dwell on what has been so often discussed and so much misunderstood; and yet I must remind you of the power of Congress over the Rebel States from the necessity of the case; because, after the overthrow of legitimate governments, whose members were sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, there was no other rule possible for these States than that of Congress,—precisely as the Territories, according to Chief Justice Marshall, in a famous judgment, fell under “the power and jurisdiction of the United States” from the necessity of the case.[257] I do not say that a State becomes a technical Territory, as that term is understood among us; but I do say, that, in the lapse of the Rebel States, and in the absence of legitimate governments with members sworn to support the Constitution, these States fell under “the power and jurisdiction of the United States,”—meaning, practically, Congress,—until such time as they are reorganized according to the requirement of the Constitution. In the exercise of such a power and jurisdiction thus cast upon it, Congress must see that all loyal citizens, without distinction of color, take part in the formation of the new governments.[258]
2. Nor need I dwell on another source of power, found in the rights of war; but this, too, must be made plain. Nobody doubts that the United States were justified in asserting supremacy in the Rebel States by force of arms. But the war, when once begun, was subject to all the conditions of war, according to the rights of war found in the Law of Nations,—doubly obligatory on us, first, because we belong to the family of nations, and, secondly, because the Law of Nations is expressly recognized by the Constitution itself. Now, according to the rights of war found in the Law of Nations, a conquering power is justified in requiring not only indemnity for the past, but security for the future. It depends upon the people of the United States, represented in Congress, to determine the guaranties of this security. In support of this conclusion, I ask attention to a familiar authority, whose statement seems to cover the case. I read from Vattel:—
“The whole right of the conqueror comes from that just self-defence which comprehends the maintenance and prosecution of his rights. When, therefore, he has entirely subdued a hostile nation, he may undoubtedly, in the first place, do himself justice with regard to that which gave rise to the war, and indemnify himself for the expenses and damages it has caused him; he may, according to the exigency of the case, impose penalties upon the conquered nation by way of example; he may even, if prudence require, render it incapable of doing harm so easily in future.”[259]
The offending party, when conquered, may be rendered incapable of doing harm so easily in future. This is according to natural justice. Then again the same familiar authority says:—
“If the inhabitants have been personally guilty of any criminal attempt against the conqueror, he may by way of punishment deprive them of their rights and franchises. This, again, he may do, if the inhabitants have taken up arms against him and thus directly rendered themselves his enemies. He then owes them nothing more than what is due from a humane and equitable conqueror to subjugated enemies.”[260]
Surely, out of this ample power Congress cannot hesitate in requiring justice to the wards and allies of the Republic through whom the Rebellion was crushed, especially when without justice to them security in the future is nothing but a mockery and a phantasmagoria.
3. From these sources of power I pass to that other found in the constitutional obligation to guaranty to every State of the Union a republican form of government. Here is the text:—
“The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government.”
This obligation is peremptory, and not discretionary. It is shall, and not may. The United States must do it. Of course, in executing the guaranty, you must affix a meaning to the term “republican form of government.” To do this I have in this debate endeavored to show the essential principles our fathers had at heart when they founded the Republic. I shall not weary you again with the historic statement. It is enough, if I present the conclusion. According to the Fathers, all men are equal in rights, and, as corollaries from this truth, all just government is founded on the consent of the governed, and taxation without representation is tyranny. Such was their idea of a republican government.
It is idle to allege against this definition, that there were property “qualifications” in most of the States, by which the number of voters was essentially limited. This is true. But it must not be forgotten that a property “qualification,” unless unreasonably large, is not a disfranchisement. It is a condition, sometimes onerous, but not in its nature insurmountable, as the condition of color, and it is equally applicable to all. And yet it is apparent, from the recorded opinions of the Fathers, that even this “qualification” was regarded as inconsistent with the genius of republican institutions.
It is idle also to allege against this definition the toleration of Slavery. This was sad enough; but the Fathers who tolerated Slavery regarded it as absolutely exceptional. According to the definition of a slave, he has no will of his own, and can give no “consent” to government. Therefore he was not considered as belonging to the “body politic.” But not being represented, he was not taxed, except as property. Indeed, a careful examination of his relations to the government shows how completely in his case the rights of “the people” are left untouched. He was not regarded as one of “the people,” and therefore was not under the safeguard of the rights of “the people.” But all this was changed when he became a freeman. He was then one of “the people,” whose property could not be taken by taxation without representation, and whose consent was essential to government. The difference was not between whites and blacks, but between slaves and freemen. All freemen, without distinction of color, were citizens. Listen, if you please, to the “Federalist,” in an article attributed to each of the three eminent authors of that collection, and which the Senator from Maryland [Mr. Johnson] assumed was by Madison, but which is claimed for Hamilton, in the last edition of the “Federalist,” by his son. I quote a second time the important words:—
“It is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place is denied to them in the computation of numbers; AND IT IS ADMITTED, THAT, IF THE LAWS WERE TO RESTORE THE RIGHTS WHICH HAVE BEEN TAKEN AWAY, THE NEGROES COULD NO LONGER BE REFUSED AN EQUAL SHARE OF REPRESENTATION WITH THE OTHER INHABITANTS.”[261]
Such is the exposition of the actual Constitution by Hamilton. According to him, “If the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants.” But this very hour has sounded. The laws have restored the rights which had been taken away, and it is now your duty to see that the people who have regained their rights are no longer refused an equal share of representation. The opinion of Hamilton on this vital question is still further attested by his saying that the liberty for which our fathers fought was the right of “each individual” to “a share in the government”;[262] that “the electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States”;[263] and still further, by the proposition in his Plan of a Constitution:—
“Representatives shall be chosen, except in the first instance, by the free male citizens and inhabitants of the several States comprehended in the Union, all of whom, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, shall be entitled to an equal vote.”[264]
In this proposition, which, though not adopted in terms, may be regarded as the pole-star of our fathers, the distinguished author followed the Continental Congress, which recommended the apportionment of the war expenses among the “free citizens and inhabitants,” without distinction of color.[265]
This rule is in entire conformity with that matured by ancient experience, especially in Greece, where, according to the universal master, Aristotle,—
“The whole body of the inhabitants of a country enjoying the protection of its laws, including the young who are still under the legal age, and the very old who have passed the time of action, and all others under any other species of disability, are in a certain wide and general sense citizens; but the full and complete definition of a citizen is confined to those who participate in the governing power.”[266]
Proving, as I have, that colored persons are citizens, this very definition teaches that they cannot be refused participation in the governing power.
The historian Thirlwall, in his studies of Greek polity, recognized this rule, when he wrote:—
“But a finished democracy, that which fully satisfied the Greek notion, was one in which every attribute of sovereignty might be shared, without respect to rank or property, by every freeman.”[267]
In recognizing the right of “every freeman” to the full enjoyment of the elective franchise, our fathers followed the early example.
Curiously enough, we find confirmation of the true principle, where you would little expect it, in that very Dred Scott decision which undertook to blast a race. Chief Justice Taney on that occasion laid down a rule which at this moment is applicable to every “citizen,” without distinction of color:—
“The words, ‘people of the United States’ and ‘citizens’ are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body, who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the ‘sovereign people’; and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty.”[268]
This is strong enough; but Mr. Justice Daniel is still more precise:—
“There is not, it is believed, to be found in the theories of writers on Government, or in any actual experiment heretofore tried, an exposition of the term citizen, which has not been understood as conferring the actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment, of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political.”[269]
Thus does that terrible judgment, once a ban to the colored race, now testify to their indisputable rights as “citizens.”
Therefore I cannot hesitate to say, that, when the slaves of our country became “citizens,” they took their place in the “body politic” as a component part of the “people,” entitled to equal rights, and under protection of two guardian principles,—first, that all just government stands on the consent of the governed, and, secondly, that taxation without representation is tyranny; and these rights it is the duty of Congress to guaranty as essential to the idea of a republic. The aspiration of Abraham Lincoln, in his marvellous utterance at Gettysburg, was, that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the earth.” But who will venture to exclude from the “people” millions of citizens?
If governments in the Rebel States are brought to this criterion, they must fail. The departure from the true standard is not merely theoretical, as it might be regarded in States where the disfranchised are few in number, but there is an absolute failure to come within the conditions required. It is not decent to call a State republican, where more than a majority of its “people,” constituting the larger part of the “body politic,” is permanently disfranchised; nor is it decent to call a State republican, where any considerable portion of the “people,” constituting an essential part of the “body politic,” is permanently disfranchised. If in times past such a State could have been treated as republican, it will not do to treat it so now. It lacks the vital elements, and must be treated accordingly. I do not dwell on this point, for it seems absurd to call it in question.
Clearly it is your duty to enforce the guaranty. By your oaths to support the Constitution, you must take care that in all the States where governments have lapsed this guaranty shall be carried out. In performance of this duty you may proceed either by an enabling act, establishing in advance the conditions of restoration to “practical relation with the Union,” or by an act directly annulling all constitutions and laws inconsistent with a republican government. The power is in Congress. It has been recognized in formal terms by the Supreme Court; and you are the final judge of the “means” to be employed. To say that you have not the power is to abdicate at a great exigency and renounce the very means of salvation. It is to fling away your arms in the very face of the enemy. It is to spike the Constitution at a moment when its full cannonade is needed for the overthrow of wrong. Clearly the power is yours, and upon your heads will be the fearful responsibility, if you fail to exercise it.
4. From this power in the Constitution I pass to another, also in the Constitution, supplied by the second clause of the Constitutional Amendment. It is there provided that Congress shall “enforce” the abolition of Slavery by “appropriate legislation.” Here, according to all rules of interpretation and the judgments of the Supreme Court, Congress is empowered to do what in its discretion seems best to this end. It may adopt any “means” which seem “appropriate.” It may select any weapon in the arsenal. I do not stop to cite judgments of the Court, or to dwell on this power. The case is clear, and I challenge contradiction. As the grant is recent, it is not open to any suggestion of loss or waiver by desuetude or non-user. It is fresh as the abolition of Slavery itself, and at this moment is just as vital. You may as well deny the one as the other.
Here, even at the cost of repetition, allow me to remind you that already, during the present session, the Senate, in pursuance of this power, has undertaken to pass “a bill to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication.” The declared object of the bill, in its very title, is the protection of all persons in the United States in their civil rights; and this object is carried out by the following provision:—
“There shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the inhabitants of any State or Territory of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery.”
The bill proceeds to provide machinery and penalties for the enforcement of this prohibition. Mark, if you please, that this is not merely in the Rebel States, nor even in the States where Slavery was recently abolished, but everywhere throughout the United States. All this is done by virtue of that very clause of the Constitutional Amendment which I adduce. It is done by Congress, in the exercise of its discretion, in order to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery. It is the “means” which Congress adopts. It is the weapon which Congress selects from the arsenal. But surely, if Congress, in order to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery, can secure all persons throughout the United States in civil rights, it can, out of the same abundant power, secure all persons throughout the United States in political rights; and this is precisely what is proposed by the bill of the Senator from Illinois. My own proposition, as I now present it, aims for the present at securing political rights throughout the Rebel States; but the irresistible argument is the same in each case. Each is to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery.
I do not stop to exhibit the elective franchise as essential to the security of the freedman, without which he will be the prey of Slavery in some new form, and cannot rise to the stature of manhood. In opening this debate I presented the argument fully. Suffice it to say, that Emancipation will fail in beneficence, if you do not assure to the former slave all the rights of the citizen. Until you do this, your work will be only half done, and the freedman only half a man.
Such, Sir, are four sources of power,—each ample: first, the necessity of the case, as with Territories, where there is no other jurisdiction; secondly, the rights of war, under which all needful safeguards for the future may be required; thirdly, the duty to guaranty to every State in the Union a republican form of government; and, fourthly, the authority to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery by “appropriate legislation.” Out of each and all Congress may derive its power. It only remains that it should act as becomes the representatives of the American people.
Mr. President, as I am about to close, allow me to remind you once more, that, from the nature of the case and from the character of your obligations, the work of Emancipation must be completed by the National Government. It cannot be left to become the sport of sectional prejudice or wayward passion. It began with you, and it is for you to give it that final assurance to be found only in Enfranchisement. It is for you to “maintain” the former slave in the liberty he received at your hands. Such a duty cannot be renounced or delegated. It must be sacredly performed by the National Government, according to its original pledge in the Proclamation of Emancipation, and according to all the suggestions of reason. Humanity, too, joins in the cry. You cannot consent that the child Emancipation, born of your breath, shall be surrendered to the custody of enemies. Take it in your arms, I entreat you, and nurse it into strength. Be instructed by the examples of history, teaching that the masters of slaves cannot be trusted to legislate for them,—a conclusion announced by the best English statesmen, speaking from their experience, in words which I have often quoted. I refer to the concurring voice of Edmund Burke, George Canning, and Henry Brougham. Thus, by testimony as well as by reason, in harmony with the national pledge, we are admonished that the work must be done by the Nation.
Do not say that you have not the power, when the will only is needed. It is the part of a good judge to amplify his jurisdiction: Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem. Such is an approved maxim of law, handed down from early days. Kindred in character are other maxims, which enjoin the duty of inclining always in favor of Liberty, to the extent of catching at anything, even a twine thread, by which to save it. But on this occasion the good Congress need not amplify its jurisdiction. Enough, if it enforces what plainly exists. It need not catch at any twine thread to save Liberty. The great cables of the Constitution, with mighty anchors, are at command.
Sir, the freedman must be protected, and not sacrificed. You can do it, but only in one way. Paper will not do it. Parchment will not do it. Compromise will not do it. Give him the strength which comes from the fulness of citizenship, and he will then be protected. Only principles can be followed. They are like Divine promises, which, when properly understood and applied, answer every case of difficulty or distress, and, as in the Pilgrim’s Progress, “will open any lock in Doubting Castle.” Have faith. Before the earnest man difficulties disappear. To the boatman who said it was impossible to brave the storm then raging, William Tell, inspired by patriotic purpose, replied, “I know not whether it be possible, but I know that it must be attempted,”—and the deliverer reached his destination. The same courage is needed now. The attempt at least must be made; and who can say that it will fail? On its side will be Providence, the prayers of good men, Nature in her manifold attributes, and the awakened judgment of the civilized world. The time has gone by, when the spirit of caste can continue to bear sway. See to it, Senators, that this spirit has no foothold in the Constitution of our country. To this duty I summon you now, by every obligation of statesmanship, for the sake of the Republic and for your own sakes. To the spirit of caste answer back in the spirit of that Christian truth which you have been taught. Recall the precious words of the early English writer, who, describing “the Good Sea-Captain,” tells us that he “counts the image of God nevertheless His image, cut in ebony, as if done in ivory.”[270] The good statesman must be like the good sea-captain. His ship is the State, which he keeps safe on its track. He, too, must see the image of God in all his fellow-men, and, in the discharge of his responsible duties, must set his face forever against any recognition of inequality in human rights. Other things you may do; but this you must not do.
OPPOSITE SIDES ON THE MEANING OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
Final Speech in the Senate on this Amendment, March 9, 1866.
When Mr. Fessenden sat down, after his closing speech, Mr. Sumner took the floor and made the following remarks.
MR. PRESIDENT,—Allow me to remind you of that famous shield suspended in the highway, and so often adduced as a lesson of candor. Two travellers approaching from opposite quarters, and standing face to face, read the inscription as each saw it. Straightway there was difference and contest. Each insisted; but closer observation showed that the two sides were different. So it is on the present occasion. The measure before the Senate has two sides. The Senator from Maine [Mr. Fessenden], as he approaches it, sees only the side which limits the representation. As I approach it, I see the recognition of a caste and the disfranchisement of a race. He defends it; I condemn it. But he defends only what he sees; I condemn only what I see. It is the misfortune of the measure that it has two sides with two opposite inscriptions. This is especially unhappy at this moment, when we are bound to be frank and loyal, and to do nothing which may be interpreted in a double sense. Above all should this be the case with regard to an Amendment of the Constitution. But the present proposition does not fall within these conditions. It is enough that there are at this moment two opposite opinions with regard to its meaning.
Now, Sir, it will not be denied that there are opposite opinions on its meaning. The Senator from Maine affixes one meaning; I affix another. The Senator sees nothing bad; I see nothing good,—or rather, all that it proposes is absorbed, merged, and lost in the evil. Against it I am earnest, and I speak so. For those from whom I differ I have nothing but personal kindness; but I must condemn the text they seek to inject into the Constitution. What is debate? It is the expression of opinions, conclusions, and convictions. These must be expressed fully, freely, and according to the conscience of the speaker. If a measure is deemed bad, unjust, scandalous, founded in wrong principles, and calculated to produce infinite mischief, all this must be said; and it must be said with plainness, according to the nature of the exigency. To this end language is given. The measure must be exposed. There are no terms to be spared which may be needed in this exposition, whether to reach the judgment or the feelings. Of course, on this occasion I see only the subject. The Senator reminds you of the friends whose votes I arraign,—cherished colleagues in both Houses, valued associates in political opinion, and two thirds of the House of Representatives. All this increases my sorrow. It gives me a pang; but it cannot make me change convictions springing from the very depths of conscience,—nor my course.
But I am not alone in my interpretation. Only the other day I presented the petition of the editor of the Boston “Recorder,” in which he was moved to protest against it in strongest terms, inasmuch as it disfranchised a race and offended against the Declaration of Independence. I have here papers and testimonies showing how extensively this interpretation prevails. Here, for instance, is a communication from an honored citizen of New York, once a member of the other House, one of the Old Guard of Abolitionists, who, from the first gun at Fort Sumter, has seen our duties with a sensitive conscience and a patriotic soul: I mean Gerrit Smith. Mark, if you please, that I cite his words simply as showing how an ingenuous nature is touched by this attempt.
“I see that the House of Representatives approves, and by a very strong vote, the proposed Apportionment Amendment of the Constitution. I see, too, that nearly all the members who are the most radical friends of Freedom are included in this vote, and that there is, therefore, no room in the case for questioning motives. Freedom may, however, be wounded unwittingly. Nay, she may be wounded even in the house of her friends. Such is her fate in the present instance. And no less deep and dangerous is the wound, but, on the contrary, all the deeper and more dangerous, because inflicted by hands which aimed not to harm, but to help her. Moreover, though it is always consoling to be able to trace an error to the understanding, the error may, nevertheless, be quite as pernicious as if the heart were involved in it.
…
“A disgraceful, if not indeed fatal, blot upon the Constitution and country will be this one. Disgraceful is it to a government to license the gambling-house, even though it be on the condition of being paid for the license. Disgraceful to it to license the brothel or the dram-shop, even though on such condition. But how emphatically disgraceful for a government to license Slavery, that crime of crimes, even though the consideration in return for the license be very great, and the pay very tempting! This, however, is the deep disgrace with which the Apportionment Amendment threatens the Constitution and the country.… It is true that Slavery is not literally in the Amendment. It is true, too, that proscription from the ballot-box does not always mean Slavery. But it is also true, that, where such proscription is of one race by another, there is an instance where the proscribed are enslaved. The power, therefore, which this Amendment will give the Southern whites to withhold the ballot from the Southern blacks will be the power to enslave them. If they shall withhold from them the ballot, they will also withhold from them freedom.
…
“I notice that a common excuse among the friends of Freedom for favoring this Apportionment Amendment is, that we can get nothing better. I know not how that may be; but I do know that we can get nothing much worse, and that it would be far better to get nothing than to get this.”
I have also presented the petition of George T. Downing, Frederick Douglass, and others, representing the colored race in Washington, in which they give their opinions. Protesting against this proposition, as authorizing disfranchisement on account of race or color, they pray Congress
“To favor no Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which will grant or allow any one or all of the States of this Union to disfranchise any class of citizens on the ground of race or color.”
They then proceed:—
“In the Constitution, as it now stands, there is not a sentence nor syllable conveying any shadow of right or authority by which any State may make color or race a disqualification for the exercise of the right of suffrage, and the undersigned will regard as a real calamity the introduction of any words expressly or by implication giving any State or States such power; and we respectfully submit, that, if the Amendment now pending shall be adopted, it will enable any State to deprive any class of citizens of the elective franchise.”
Such is the testimony of these very intelligent representatives of colored fellow-citizens. They speak with peculiar authority, from the interest they necessarily have in the question. They speak for the freedmen.
Mr. President, I do not wish to argue the main question again. I have said enough,—the Senator has reminded you several times how much. I am sorry to have trespassed so often and so long. I will not trespass now. Of course, there is a radical difference between the Senator and myself. We see opposite things, when we look at this proposition; and permit me to say, we see opposite things, when we look at the Constitution itself. I cannot see as he sees. I do not believe, that, under the Constitution, even as it exists, the disfranchisement of a considerable portion of fellow-citizens is consistent with a republican government. Still further, I do not believe that “color” can be a “qualification” for an elector. He does. And here is a point of divergence which carries us far apart. He consents willingly to this fatal text. I cannot.
I have listened to all that has been said. But the proposition is to me as obnoxious as ever. I cannot see it otherwise. Feeling that caste and disfranchisement on account of color are utterly irreligious, unrepublican, and scandalous, you must pardon me, if I strive to prevent their introduction into the Constitution of my country, especially at a moment when we are under such obligations of gratitude to these outcasts, and when injustice to them is so full of peril to the Republic. I have spoken strongly; you will pardon it to the ardor of my nature and to the strength of my convictions. I have fought a long battle with Slavery, and I confess solicitude, when I see anything looking like concession to this wrong. It is not enough to show me that a measure is expedient; you must show me also that it is right. Ah, Sir, can anything be expedient which is not right? From the beginning of our history, the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned. I insist that this shall cease. After all its trials, the country needs repose,—it deserves repose; but repose can be found only in everlasting principles. It cannot be found by inserting in your Constitution the disfranchisement of a race.
This proposition can be fully appreciated in its “bad eminence” only when it is considered as the offering of Congress at this time for the protection of fellow-citizens to whom we are under obligations of gratitude. This is our panacea, our balm of Gilead. This is what we are to do. And the Senate is warned not to give the protection found in the elective franchise, either by Constitutional Amendment or by Act of Congress,—that such a Constitutional Amendment would not be adopted by the people, and therefore we ought not to present it,—and that Congress has not the power to establish equality in political rights. Sir, I do not despair of the Republic,—I will not, I cannot. But, if ever I were disposed to despair, it would be when listening to such arguments and excuses. The people are in advance, and will sustain us, if we are courageous. They will adopt any Constitutional Amendment that ought to be adopted. They will adopt anything that is true, just, and noble, for the protection of benefactors, and to carry out the principles of our Government; they will sustain any legislation having such object. This is what they expect. It is what the freedmen expect. It is what the Unionists of the South expect. Not willingly will they be surrendered to the tender mercies of Rebels. They ask Congress to protect them; and they see that this can be only by giving the ballot to the freedmen. I have in my hand a letter from one Southern Unionist addressed to another, and received only yesterday, dated February 25th, and written in the very heart of Alabama, which thus speaks of this very question:—
“All men of common sense must now see that there can now be no loyal civil governments in these States, if the negroes are not permitted to neutralize with their votes the votes of Rebels. On this account I do hope the joint resolution recently introduced in the Senate by Mr. Sumner will prevail. Whatever may have been our former notions in regard to the negro, it is now very evident that practically they are better citizens than the majority of whites, in some portion of the Rebel States. The Declaration of Independence is the true and just basis upon which these State governments must be founded.”
Such is the voice of a Unionist of Alabama. He looks to Congress. God forbid that Congress should abdicate its beneficent powers! They are all needed for the safety and welfare of the Republic. I cannot, I dare not, help in any such abdication.
The history of the debate and its result appear in the Appendix to the Speech of February 5th and 6th.[271]
NO MORE STATES WITH THE WORD “WHITE” IN THE STATE CONSTITUTION.
Speeches in the Senate, on the Bill for the Admission of the State of Colorado into the Union, March 12 and 13, April 17, 19, and 24, and May 21, 1866.
March 12th, in the Senate, the bill for the admission of the State of Colorado was taken up for consideration, when Mr. Sumner commenced an opposition, in which he persevered. The question was, in his judgment, of peculiar importance, as involving the true principle of Reconstruction; so that, while insisting upon equal rights in Colorado, he was contributing to the same cause.
In a speech of some length he set forth “three distinct objections at this moment to the admission of Colorado as a State,” which he considered in their order: first, the irregularity of the proceedings, ending in the seeming adoption of the Constitution; secondly, the smallness of the population; and, thirdly, that its Constitution was not republican in form, and consistent with the Declaration of Independence, according to the requirement of the Enabling Act. In the course of his remarks on the two latter heads, he said:—
I have here a table of the total vote at the elections in different years. In August, 1861, it was 10,580; in December, 1861, 9,354; in October, 1862, 8,224; in September, 1864, 5,769; in September, 1865, 5,895: so that you will perceive from 1861 to 1865 the vote constantly diminishing, being at the beginning upward of 10,000, and at the end less than 6,000. And when the Constitution was submitted, only 3,025 voted for it, while 2,870 voted against it. The present question is, whether 5,895 voters shall be invested with the powers of a State; whether they shall send into this Chamber two Senators, whose votes shall be equal to the vote of New York, of Pennsylvania, of Ohio, or of Massachusetts. Is that just? Is it fair? When a State is once admitted into the Union, we all know, that, under the National Constitution, it is on a footing of perfect equality; therefore, in advance, before we receive a State into that high equality, we should well consider whether it is in its population entitled to such eminence.
It is no answer to say that Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts have large political weight in the other House, which this new State, if received, will not have. The question is, whether in the Senate it will not have a weight to which such a number of voters cannot be justly entitled. This leads me to consider for one moment the functions of the Senate. The Senate of the United States is a peculiar body, utterly without precedent or parallel in the history of any other constitutional government, differing from the upper House of the English Parliament, from the upper House of the French Chambers, from the upper House in Prussia, from the upper House in Italy, inasmuch as it has three functions,—one legislative, one diplomatic, and one executive. By its legislative function, it acts, in coöperation with the other House, in the making of laws; by its diplomatic function, it acts, without coöperation with the other House, on treaties with foreign powers; and by its executive function, it acts, without the other House, on the nominations of the President. A preponderance of power possessed by the larger States in the House of Representatives cannot affect the last two functions, the diplomatic and the executive; and the precise question is, whether a few voters, not numbering six thousand, in a distant Territory, shall be organized so as to enter this Chamber, and on questions of diplomacy and on executive questions to neutralize the vote of a large State. Even conceding that on legislative questions, through the preponderance of the large States in the other House, there may be a certain remedy to this disorder, there is no such remedy in the exercise of these two other important functions of the Senate. I submit, therefore, that it is not advisable at this moment to invest this small number of voters with these vast political powers. They must wait a little longer,—wait until they are more numerous,—at least until entitled to one Representative in the other House. At the proper time we shall gladly welcome them; but the time has not come.
There is another objection, which stands forth on the face of their constitution. It is not republican in form, or in harmony with the Declaration of Independence. The requirement of the Enabling Act, under which they pretend to proceed, but which, as I have shown, was already exhausted before they entered upon these proceedings, has these words:—
“That the Constitution, when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.”[272]
Look now at this Constitution. Article III., entitled “Suffrage and Elections,” begins as follows:—
“Section 1. Every white male citizen of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who is by birth, or has become by naturalization or by treaty, or shall have declared his intention to become, a citizen of the United States according to the laws thereof, and who shall have resided in the State of Colorado for six months preceding any election, and shall have been a resident for ten days of the precinct or election district where he offers to vote, shall be deemed a qualified elector, and entitled to vote at the same.”
Note well the text, “every white male citizen”: in other words, nobody who is not “white,” under this constitution, is recognized as entitled to the elective franchise. Now, Sir, I insist—and I here challenge reply from any Senator on this floor—that such a constitution does not comply with the requirement of the Enabling Act, that it is not republican, and that it is repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. I say that it is not republican; for the first principle of republican government is equality. Let that be denied, and you fail in republican government.
Mr. McDougall [of California]. In what age of the world was there a republic where there was equality? Please answer me that.… I would like to have the single instance where it existed in ancient times, in the middle ages, or in the modern ages.
Mr. Sumner. Speaking on that subject lately, I took occasion to show that there was no such case. The Senator is nearly right. There had been no such case. It was for our fathers, it was left to them, when they undertook to constitute a new government, to declare equality the essential and cardinal principle of a republic. My answer is precise: there had been no such case. But the true idea of a republican government began with our fathers, and its definition is found in their Declaration of Independence. Were they not sufficiently explicit? Is their language vague? Call it “a glittering generality,”—but there it is, in immortal text, whose truth will be recognized more and more as time advances. You may not recognize it now, but others after you will do it reverence.
I say, therefore, that this constitution is repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. I say that the government which it constitutes is not a republican government. And now the question is, how that difficulty shall be met. I know well that Senators may say, But there are States in the Union with the same discrimination. Connecticut has it; New York also. But permit me to say, these instances do not at all touch the argument. We are not called now to review the constitution of Connecticut or New York, but we are called at this moment, in the discharge of a solemn duty, to review the constitution of this proposed State. If called in this Chamber, under the responsibilities of official position, to review the constitution of Connecticut or New York, my course would be clear to say that it was not republican in form; but there is no such occasion, and therefore we have no such responsibility. There are other States with regard to which we have at this moment that responsibility, and I allude to them for illustration: I mean the States lately in rebellion. Their constitutions have been overthrown or subverted; new constitutions have been set up, which it becomes the solemn duty of Congress to examine, to see whether they are republican in form, and not repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. We have, in relation to those States, the very responsibility now pressing upon us with regard to this new candidate, distant Colorado. We must examine the constitutions, and see whether or not they are in conformity with those sublime principles which enter into the true idea of a republican government.
Again, Sir, I would urge, that, at this moment, when the whole country is agitated by the great question, What shall be done for the protection of the colored race?—to what extent we shall exercise the high powers of Congress to carry that protection into the Rebel States,—it will be hardly decent for us, in reviewing the constitution of a new State, not to apply the highest possible test. It will not do for us now to recognize this constitution of Colorado as republican in form. We owe it to ourselves to set an example, and to require that in a State organized under our influence a good example shall prevail. How many of us heard with regret the result last autumn in Connecticut, and again in Wisconsin, by which suffrage to the colored race was denied! We felt that by those two votes Liberty had suffered, that an enfranchised race was placed in jeopardy, that its rights were dishonored by those who ought to have upheld them; and now, Sir, you have cast upon you in this Chamber that same identical responsibility. You are, with reference to the constitution of Colorado, in the precise position of the people of Connecticut with regard to their own constitution, and the people of Wisconsin with regard to theirs. Some of us have regretted poignantly the policy of those two States: I hope there will be no occasion to regret any similar policy in this Chamber. And now, Sir, in order to bring the Senate to a vote on that question, I send to the Chair an amendment to the bill.
The Secretary read the amendment, namely:—
“Insert at the end of the second section the following proviso:—
“Provided, That this Act shall not take effect except upon the fundamental condition that within the State there shall be no denial of the electoral franchise, or of any other rights, on account of race or color, but all persons shall be equal before the law. And the people of the Territory shall, by a majority of the voters, at public meetings to be convened by the Governor of the Territory, declare their assent to this fundamental condition; and the Governor shall transmit to the President of the United States an authentic statement of such assent, whenever the same shall be given, upon receipt whereof he shall by proclamation announce the fact; whereupon, without any other proceedings on the part of Congress, this Act shall take effect.”
This amendment was similar to that offered by Mr. Sumner on the Louisiana Bill,[273] and was modelled on what is known as the Missouri precedent, which he proceeded to explain, and then said:—
Possibly a question may arise as to the effect of such a fundamental condition. I do not think there can be any question. I do not doubt that such a fundamental condition, especially if sanctioned by the popular vote according to the terms of the proviso, will be absolutely obligatory on the State. I believe that you may apply to it the language of Mr. Webster’s great speech in reply to Mr. Hayne, where, describing and vindicating the Ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory, he used this very striking, and, to my mind, exquisitely beautiful language, as simple as it is expressive:—
“It laid the interdict against personal servitude in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper also than all local constitutions.”[274]
Now, Sir, I call upon the Senate to do for this far Western Territory the same in kind as was done by our fathers for the whole vast Northwest Territory,—to lay an interdict against all inequality of rights in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper than all local constitutions. Let that be done, and one of the objections to the admission of Colorado will be removed.
Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, followed Mr. Sumner.
March 13th, the debate was resumed, when Mr. Pomeroy, of Kansas, Mr. Lane, of Kansas, Mr. McDougall, of California, Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, Mr. Cragin, of New Hampshire, Mr. Ramsey, of Minnesota, and Mr. Williams, of Oregon, spoke for the admission; Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, Mr. Wade, of Ohio, Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and Mr. Conness, of California, spoke against the admission. The chief topics were the Enabling Act and the want of population. In the course of the debate, Mr. Sumner insisted that the population had diminished, and then said:—
But, unhappily, this is not the only way in which this community has fallen,—fallen in population, as my friend says,—fallen, as I shall proceed to show positively, in another respect, far more important than population.
He then showed[275] that the Legislative Assembly of the Territory, at its first session under the organic act, by an act approved November 6, 1861, had provided “that every male person” with qualification of residence should be deemed a qualified voter; but that was amended by another act, approved March 11, 1864, by inserting the words “not being a negro or mulatto,” which reappeared in the limitation of the constitution before the Senate. He then said:—
Between the introduction of the Enabling Act and the date of its approval, the legislative body of this distant Territory undertook to make this fundamental change in its electoral law; and then I say that people fell more than in the fall of their population. Their population has diminished; but they, unhappily, have deteriorated in political character, and have not now the same noble elements of political life by which they were once commended.
Sir, I might say more on the question, whether any power can be derived under this Enabling Act. I think, however, that has been enough discussed. All must see, that, whatever its original character, whatever powers may have proceeded from it, they have all been exhausted, and the act has practically expired; it is functus officio,—it is a dead act; and this Territory is no more authorized to proceed under it than any other Territory is authorized to proceed under it. It is not in any respect applicable. It has ceased to have any legislative potentiality. Therefore, Sir, whatever this people have undertaken to do they have done without any Enabling Act; they are a voluntary body, proceeding by voluntary action, without previous sanction of Congress, and all that they do is submitted to the judgment of Congress, which is in no respect bound or compromised in the least by any previous proceeding. We approach the question now precisely as if there had been no Enabling Act,—as if the name of Colorado (a pleasant name I trust it may be hereafter in these Halls) had never before found echo here. The whole question is absolutely new from beginning to end; and we must approach it under all the responsibilities of our position, looking at it on the evidence, according to the facts, in order to determine whether now, at this moment, under these circumstances, we shall be justified in ceding to this community all these great powers.
There was one argument of the Senator from Kansas [Mr. Lane] which was an appeal to us personally,—to my excellent friend from Ohio, to my excellent colleague, and to other Senators who had been here in other days, when Kansas was in danger, and in that
“well-foughten field
We kept together in our chivalry.”
Sir, it is the pride of my life that at that time I was able to do something for the State which the Senator represents on this floor. I did it sincerely, honestly believing it my duty at the time, because I saw well the peril of dependent condition, and that it could be saved only by the interference of Congress, the swiftest intervention, which would not brook delay. Therefore, Sir, for the sake of peace, and as I would succor a fellow-man in agony, I exerted myself in every way to invest Kansas with all the privileges and self-protecting powers of a State. The case was peculiar and exceptional; it was also historic. It cannot be cited as a precedent now. As well cite what you do to save a drowning man just sinking for the last time, as a proper precedent for conduct in daily life. The case of Colorado is to be met on the facts; it is not an exceptional case; it is a simple case. Meet it, therefore, on the facts and on its simplicity.
At the suggestion of others, and in order to reach an immediate vote on the bill, Mr. Sumner withdrew his amendment.
On the question of its engrossment for a third reading, the bill was rejected,—Yeas 14, Nays 21.
March 14th, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, who had voted with the majority, moved that the Senate reconsider the vote rejecting the bill, thus keeping the question open for further debate.
April 17th, the motion to reconsider was taken up during the morning hour, when Mr. Sumner declared his continued opposition to the proposed State, and his sense of the mistake the Senate would make in reconsidering the late vote. In the course of these remarks, he said:—
I hope, therefore, that the Senate will not proceed to reconsider the vote which, to their honor, they have already recorded. They did well, when, after two days’ debate, by a large vote, they deliberately refused to receive this Territory into the Union. Has anything occurred since to cause a reversal of opinion? Is there any new evidence? Are there new facts? Is there anything which can change your responsibilities, or make you see your duty in a different light? Has that constitution been amended? Has the word “white” been struck out? Why, Sir, at this moment the most important practical question before the country is, whether we shall allow the word “white” in the constitutions of the late Rebel States. Sir, with what just weight can you insist that this word shall be excluded from those constitutions, when you deliberately receive into the Union a new State openly announcing this rule of exclusion? I say, therefore, for the sake of my country, for the sake of public tranquillity, and in loyalty to those fundamental principles on which so much depends, and which, whether as Senator or citizen, I can never forget, I appeal to you, Sir, and to my associates on this floor, not to allow this question to be revived. Let Colorado wait at least until she recognizes the Declaration of Independence.
The morning hour expired as Mr. Sumner finished, and the question was dropped.
April 19th, Mr. Wilson moved that the Senate proceed with the motion to reconsider. Mr. Sumner then said:—
Mr. President, I hope the Senate will not proceed with that question to-day, and I assign two reasons. The first is, that, looking about the Senate, I see many absent who ought to be here. The second is, that this day, here in the national capital, is dedicated to the cause of human freedom and human rights,—the great cause of Emancipation. The streets to-day are filled with a happy people, emancipated by Act of Congress, and now celebrating the anniversary of their rights. It is, Sir, no proper day to recognize human inequality by receiving into the Union a community which chooses to appear here with a constitution setting at defiance the fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence. Sir, this is no day for the consideration of that question. I insist that this day shall be kept sacred to human rights,—not be given up to their overthrow.
I may be told, Sir, that there are but ninety colored persons in this distant Territory,—only ninety to be sacrificed. If there were but one, that would be enough to justify my opposition. Out of those ninety, more than seventy-five have borne arms for you in the late war; and yet these people are now positively disfranchised in the constitution it is proposed to recognize. Sir, if you choose to do it, if you do not hesitate to insult the public sentiment of the age by such an act, do not do it to-day.
Mr. Wilson followed. He said, that, on the 3d day of March, 1863, his colleague voted that the people of Colorado should be authorized to frame a constitution; that he did not then propose that she should not make the offensive discrimination; that he never suggested it; that he did not dream of it; that he did not think it fair play to refuse the application of this Territory on account of a distinction they have made, when we imposed no conditions on them, and did not even suggest any.
Mr. Lane, of Indiana, said: “I believe that there is no instance in the whole history of the admission of new States where that word ‘white’ has not been the prefix to the qualification for holding office and voting.”
Mr. Sumner. Is it not time to begin?
Mr. Lane. It is perhaps time to begin; but we should have begun when we passed the Enabling Act, and the vigilance of the Senator from Massachusetts should not have slumbered on that occasion.
Mr. Sumner. It did not, as I shall show you presently.
Mr. Trumbull also insisted that in good faith Congress was committed to the people of Colorado by the Enabling Act. In the course of reply, Mr. Sumner said:—
…
What I did say, however, was this: that on that occasion the suggestion was made, which my excellent colleague made to-day, that I was guilty of inconsistency; and I said that then and there I answered that argument. My colleague, not being here, did not hear the answer, and therefore to-day, without knowing the facts, he has revived the charge.
…
I showed you, that, when the Enabling Act was pending in the Senate, all persons, without distinction of color, were authorized to vote. That was my answer before; it is my answer now. Therefore, Sir, do I say that I did not vote with any idea that there could be a discrimination founded on color; on the contrary, I voted with the positive conviction that all possibility of such discrimination was excluded,—and, still further, knowing that this Act contained words in themselves an antidote to any such wrong:—
“The constitution, when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.”
Now, Sir, I insist that the constitution presented to us is not republican; and I further insist that it is inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence. My excellent colleague will certainly not maintain the contrary. He will not say that a constitution which undertakes to exclude persons from equal rights on account of color is consistent with the fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence; and that, Sir, is the very requirement of the Enabling Act.
…
I think it ought not to be proceeded with at all. I think the cause of human rights suffers every moment you give to this question. But I began this morning by simply opposing the consideration of it to-day. If you choose to make a sacrifice of human rights, do it on some other day than this.
After interchange of opinion, the question was postponed till the next Tuesday, the 24th instant, when it was made the special order.
April 24th, the debate was renewed, when Mr. Sumner said:—
Mr. President, on the 13th of March last, after a debate of two days, the Senate rejected a bill for the admission of Colorado as a State into the Union. This was by a vote of 21 nays to 14 yeas, being a majority of 7. And now, after an interval of more than a month, a motion is brought forward to reconsider that vote. An attempt is made to revive a question which at that time seemed buried. Of course, those who press this motion have a right to do so, if they are satisfied in their minds that it ought to be pressed. I do not complain of them. But I meet the attempt on the threshold. I do not content myself with waiting to another stage and entering into the discussion after we have allowed the reconsideration. I oppose the reconsideration. I insist that this subject, once closed by such a majority, and on such good grounds, shall not again be opened here.
Sir, the proposition is nothing less than the admission of a State into this Union. I need not remind you that in other days no such attempt could be made in this Chamber without exciting great and wide-spread interest. Some of the most remarkable debates in the Senate have been on such occasions. The proposition has two aspects: first, as it concerns the people in the Territory itself, who, I submit, are not prepared to assume the responsibilities of a State government; and, secondly, as it concerns the other States in the Union, who, I submit also, ought not to be obliged at this moment to receive this community into full equality as a State.
Formerly I felt it my duty to remind you of the position, the responsibilities, the powers, and the prerogatives of a State in this Union. I held up before you what you would convey to this small community, if you invested it with the character of a State. I showed you that you would impart to it a full equality in this Chamber with the largest States in the Union,—with New York, with Pennsylvania, with Ohio, with Massachusetts,—and that, in the exercise of this constitutional equality, Senators from this small community, on all questions of legislation, of diplomacy, and of appointments, might counterbalance the Senators of one of these large States. Assuming that this small community was already a State in the Union, I had no criticism to make on that equality of power; but I did present to you as an unanswerable argument, that a community so small in the proper attributes of a State should not be admitted to the enjoyment of that high equality.
Permit me to say, Sir, that you cannot adequately consider this case without giving some attention to the present condition of the country. We are, happily, at the close of a long, bloody, and most expensive war, throughout which there was one question dominating all others: it was the question of justice to the colored race. And now, Sir, that the war is closed, and our soldiers are no longer in the tented field, that same question enters perpetually into your debates, challenging decision; it is before you at every stage of legislation. With this question staring you in the face, what do we behold? A small community in a remote part of the country, petty in population,—even according to the statements of its friends not amounting in numbers to more than twenty-five or thirty thousand people, according to the statements of others even as few in numbers as ten or fifteen thousand,—with agricultural products already diminishing, with mining resources that during the last two or three years have been constantly failing, with accounts at the Post-Office which during the past year have been reduced,—we have this small community coming forward and asking admission to equality as a State in the Union, with a constitution that tramples on human rights. This new candidate, pressing for recognition, holds up a constitution excluding all persons from the electoral franchise who are not white; and the question before you is, whether this small body, so slender in every respect, of such inferior condition, and with a declaration of human inequality in its constitution, shall be admitted to the equality of States in this Union. You are not obliged to admit it. Your discretion is ample. The language of the Constitution is plain: “New States may be admitted into this Union,”—not must, but “may.” You may admit, or you may reject. Therefore, when called to act, you must exercise your discretion. You cannot decline to exercise it. You must bring your judgment to bear upon the case; you must consider well all the facts and all the elements which enter into the civilization of this candidate community; you must consider, of course, its population, its resources, and also the character of its constitution. In doing so, you can have no feeling except of kindness and sympathy for the people there. God knows that I wish them well from the bottom of my heart; there is no aspiration which I do not offer for their welfare; but on this occasion we must consider the requirements of duty. And here the way is clear.
With these few words of introduction, I arrive at this proposition: that such a community as now exists in Colorado, deficient in population, declining already in agriculture, failing also in mineral resources, and with a constitution which sets at defiance the first principle of human rights, should not at this moment be recognized as a State of the Union. Mark me, if you please,—I say at this moment, and under these circumstances; for, whatever might be done at another time and under other circumstances, I insist that this thing is impossible now, when by every obligation we are solemnly bound to maintain the rights of the colored race. Oh, no! we cannot give the hand to such a community, so inferior in population and resources, with a constitution audaciously denying those rights.
Thus much, Sir, I have to say by way of introduction; all this simply opens in one word the magnitude of the question, and the general principles which govern it; but before I sit down it will be my duty to consider with some minuteness the actual condition and prospects of this Territory.
…
Sir, consider, that, when this Territorial Act was passed, in March, 1864, the country was still struggling in that terrible war involving the great question of justice to the colored race. At that moment, this secluded people, already aspiring to be a State, undertook to put their feet upon the colored population beginning to gather under their jurisdiction. We are told they are few in number,—perhaps a hundred; yet out of that hundred are some seventy who promptly went forth as soldiers to do battle for your flag, but, returning to their homes, they found the franchise they had enjoyed taken from them,—that they who had perilled life to save the Republic and to aid in establishing the rights of all, when once more at their own firesides, were despoiled of their own. Sir, am I wrong, when I say that here was retrogression in republican principles,—that here was departure from those fundamental truths essential to our Government? It was, I say, departure and retrogression,—because this community had begun right. It began by recognizing these truths; but, as if blasted by some evil genius, the same failure that attended it in population, in agriculture, in mining, and in other respects, descended upon its moral sense.
I do not use too strong language. I say it was a fall, when this community, which had solemnly enacted justice, after the lapse of three years reversed its own decree, and solemnly enacted injustice. There it stands on the statute-book. You must recognize it. You cannot avoid it. You cannot be insensible to such a thing. It is a fact in the history of this Territory. No other Territory in our national history has ever been thus guilty. No other Territory which has risen to the height of justice has ever descended again so low. No other Territory which has recognized the rights of man has afterward undertaken to overthrow them.
The Governor of the Territory, in the message which I hold in my hand, speaking of this question, says, in language which does him honor: “It seems incredible, and, were it not for the record, it would be incredible, that such a measure could have been adopted at such a time.”
The Governor, in the same message, shows that these same colored men, while despoiled of the elective franchise, are nevertheless compelled by taxation to support the public schools, from which their children are excluded. Some of the more prosperous, in order to secure education for their children, have sent them to distant parts of the country, to repair the wrong done by this churlish and unjust community. All this is set forth by the Governor in his formal message. He then adds:—
“I do not propose in this connection to discuss the question of equality of race, about which so many words and so much labor have been wasted; but I submit without argument the fact that the colored people in Denver and various parts of the Territory are taxed to pay for educating white children, while their own children are excluded from the public schools; and your action will determine how long the humiliating spectacle shall be presented to the world.”[276]
Could anything be more flagrant? Yet this community now appeals for your favor and countenance and welcome as a State!
I have quoted from the message of the Governor. I cite another authority, being a telegraphic despatch from a colored citizen of Colorado, which has travelled over the wires a very long distance.
“Denver City, Colorado, January 15, 1866.
“The law adopted by the Territorial Legislature in 1861 allowed all persons over twenty-one to vote, without distinction of color. The law passed in 1864, signed by Governor Evans, deprived colored citizens of the right, at the very time when appealing to them to help save the country. The admission of Colorado under her present constitution makes that law permanent. If not admitted now, this can be corrected.
“William J. Harding,
A colored citizen.”
After adducing additional evidence, Mr. Sumner proceeded to consider the obligations upon Congress from the Enabling Act, and here he said:—
If I understand the argument, it is, that Congress, by a statute, pledged itself in advance to admit this community as a State into the Union; that we are bound by such statute, so that we cannot escape the obligation; that, in short, we are tied up by our own statute. This is a strong assumption; but I believe it is an accurate statement of the position of the other side.
Now, Sir, I think I can easily show that here is a great mistake. I may remind you that the President, to whom the question was naturally submitted, has expressly stated in a message to the Senate that in his opinion the new constitution was not formed in pursuance of the Enabling Act.
…
I have said that the Enabling Act had expired. These parties can claim nothing under it. It is like an obsolete statute, which we read in the statute-book, but never adduce for authority. It stands as a monument, showing what Congress required, and showing also what this community failed to perform. In adducing it, you bring authority against the present pretension; for you show clearly that the pretension had no foundation in the statute.
But, Sir, even assuming that the Enabling Act was in a condition to be employed for the organization of this Territory,—which I claim it was not,—then it is my duty to go further, and show you that these parties, as the colored telegraphic correspondent from Denver alleges, did not in any respect comply with the Enabling Act.[277] Why, Sir? By the Enabling Act the Convention was to be called by the Governor. But it was called by the executive committees of political parties, being so many caucuses. Such was the origin of the convention to give you a new State. What authority for that do you find in the Enabling Act? Be good enough to point out a single word to justify any such transaction. And yet we are gravely told that this strange political hocus-pocus was by virtue of the Enabling Act,—as if in every respect it was not plainly inconsistent with the Act.
But the Enabling Act declares that “the constitution, when formed, shall be republican.” This is a fundamental condition. And here I repeat what I have so often said, but which at this hour cannot be too often sounded in the ears of the Senate. I affirm with confidence, that a constitution which denies the first principle of human rights cannot be republican in form. Do you answer, that there are States having such constitutions? Then I reply: We are not called to sit in judgment on those constitutions; we have no power to revise them; we are not to vote upon them; but we are called to sit in judgment upon this constitution, to revise it, and to vote upon it. You are now to declare by your votes whether this constitution which tramples upon the principle of human equality is republican in form. I insist that it is not.
Still further, this Enabling Act declares that “the constitution shall not be repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.” Need I ask you, What is the first principle of the Declaration of Independence? Is it not, in solemn words, that “all men are created equal,” and that all just government stands on “the consent of the governed”? Does any one deny that these are the words? You know them by heart; your children learn them in their earliest infancy; and whatever is done in the Territory is to be brought to this great ordinance, as to a touchstone. Such is the requirement of the Enabling Act. Therefore, even if you argue that the Enabling Act is authority for this proceeding, then do I reply, that this community has not in any respect brought itself within its terms. It has not complied with its requirements of principle or of proceeding. The proceedings were not according to the Enabling Act; the principles are in defiance of the Enabling Act. Tried by either standard, the whole effort must miserably fail.
Mr. Sumner was here interrupted by Mr. Trumbull, who, quoting from the Territorial election law of 1861 a provision requiring voters to be citizens, remarked, that, while he would not be understood as saying that in his opinion a colored person is not a citizen, such was the understanding in Colorado. Mr. Sumner replied:—
The Governor of the Territory, whose message I hold in my hand, does not put upon the statute the interpretation the Senator does.[278] I have great respect for the opinion of my friend, as he knows; but on this matter I submit, that the Governor of the Territory, on the spot, in a formal communication to the Legislature, is a better authority even than my honorable friend.
Mr. Trumbull. Better than the statute?
Mr. Sumner. I am coming to that. The statute enumerates first in the class of voters citizens of the United States; and my honorable friend himself is obliged to confess that in his opinion colored persons are citizens of the United States. He does not doubt it. If he did, it would be my duty to remind him of an opinion by the Attorney-General of the United States, in 1862, more than a year prior to the Enabling Act, declaring colored persons citizens of the United States.[279] I refer to this opinion with something more than respect: I refer to it with reverence. I do think, humbly speaking, that this opinion was one of the most remarkable and one of the grandest acts in the history of the late Administration. I do not doubt that hereafter, when the annals of these times are written, the historian will dwell with honest pride upon that admirable document, where one man reversed the whole policy of the Nation, fixing the law of this country forever,—that all colored persons are citizens of the United States. And that was the law of Colorado. The Senator from Illinois does not doubt it. Therefore, when the Territorial Legislature added the words “citizens of the United States,” it did not alter the case by a hair’s breadth: all persons could vote, without distinction of color. The Senator is informed that no colored persons did vote. I have been informed the contrary. But I insist, that, beyond all question, by the Territorial statute colored persons were entitled to vote.
…
Mr. President, such are the facts against the admission of Colorado as a State into this Union. I do not see how you can admit it, without, in the first place, injustice to its own population, at this moment unable to bear the burdens of a State government; secondly, without injustice to the other States, which ought not to find themselves “paired” in this Chamber by two Senators from this small community; and, in the third place, without sacrificing a principle which at this moment is of incalculable importance to the peace of the country. In other times we have heard the cry, No more Slave States! There is kindred cry which must be ours,—No more States with inequality of rights! Against all this I catch a whisper, not an argument. It is breathed that we need two more votes on this floor. Sir, there is something that you need more than two more votes. It is constancy in the support of that great principle so essential to the harmony of the Republic. Better far than any number of votes will be loyalty to this commanding cause. Tell me not that it is expedient to create two more votes in this Chamber. Nothing can be expedient that is not right. If I were now about to pronounce the last words that I could ever utter in this Chamber, I would say to you, Senators, do not forget that right is always the highest expediency. You can never sacrifice the right without suffering for it.
April 25th, the question was taken on Mr. Wilson’s motion to reconsider, and was carried,—Yeas 19, Nays 13. The bill was again before the Senate.
Mr. Sumner then moved his proviso, that the Act should not take effect except upon the fundamental condition that within the State there should be no denial of the elective franchise or of any other rights on account of color or race, which was lost,—Yeas 7, Nays 27.
The bill was then passed by the Senate,—Yeas 19, Nays 13. Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, Mr. Foster, of Connecticut, Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, Mr. Morgan, of New York, Mr. Poland, of Vermont, and Mr. Sumner were the only Republicans voting in the negative.
May 3d, the bill passed the House of Representatives,—Yeas 81, Nays 57,—among the latter Mr. Stevens,—and was duly presented to the President for his signature.
May 16th, the bill was returned to the Senate, with the objections of the President to its becoming a law. On motion of Mr. Wade, of Ohio, the message was laid on the table. May 21st, on motion of Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, it was taken up and made the special order for May 29th. On this motion, Mr. Sumner, after discussing the order of business, remarked:—
I have said enough in answer to observations on the order of business by Senators who have preceded me; but there seems to have been a disposition to open the main question. Senators have expressed opinions with more or less fulness on that. I shall not follow them. This is not the time for such a discussion. That time may come. It has already been in this Chamber, and then I had ample opportunity to say what I chose. I may deem it proper to take another opportunity; but I am in no haste. I have no disposition to press the matter.
I cannot take my seat, however, without one remark, in reply to my friend from Ohio. He says that he is for the admission of Colorado now, notwithstanding the veto of the President. I rejoin, that I am against the admission of Colorado now, with or without the veto of the President. If alone, I mean to insist always, that, from this time forward, no State shall be received into the Union with a constitution disavowing the first principle of the Declaration of Independence; and I shall take advantage of every opportunity to uphold that principle, whether given me by a Senator on this floor or by the President of the United States.
The veto was never considered, and the effort for the admission of Colorado expired for that session. Had the veto been considered, Mr. Sumner would have said:—
Months have passed since the application of Colorado was presented to Congress, with a constitution disregarding that vital principle which constitutes the essential element of republican government, without which a republican government is a name and nothing more. For months representatives of Colorado have struggled to triumph over this benign principle. Meanwhile the popular voice has been heard, sounding in the ears of members of Congress, and still the efforts of these representatives of Colorado are continued. I regret this much. I regret that they did not return home and crown their labors by making the new State an example to the country.
On this occasion I shall sustain the veto of the President. I must do this, because I agree with him, that Colorado should not now be admitted as a State.
There are reasons assigned by the President which are applicable and sufficient. There is at least one other assigned by him which is inapplicable, and, of course, insufficient. When he objects to the reception of a new State with so small a population as Colorado, to exercise equal power, legislative, diplomatic, and executive, with New York, in this Chamber,—and when again he objects to this new State on the ground that the people there are not yet ripe and ready for the responsibilities of a State government,—clearly, in these two cases he has reason on his side. All that he says is at once applicable and sufficient. But I must be pardoned, if I cannot adopt his other reason,—that we should not undertake to admit new States while our late Rebel States are still unrepresented in Congress. This reason is obviously inapplicable, and, of course, insufficient. He might as well object to the validity of elections because criminals have not been let out of the prisons and penitentiaries to vote. States hardly yet washed clean from the blood of rebellion cannot expect to be received instantly into the great copartnership of the National Government. For the present, the business must be done by the loyal members.
There is another reason, at once applicable and sufficient, which the President has forgotten to assign. That he should forget it may seem strange, when we consider, that, on an important occasion in Tennessee, standing on the steps of the Capitol, he openly announced himself as the “Moses” of an oppressed race. But, Sir, are we not told by the poet that the soul can reach heights which it cannot keep? Clearly, in this utterance, so grandiose in promise, our President reached heights he has not been able to keep. He is mortal, and the early inspiration has passed from him. Had it been otherwise, he would not have forgotten to rebuke this young Colorado coming forward with a constitution that openly sets at nought that equality of rights which attaches to the loyal citizens of an oppressed race. Here is reason enough for the rejection. As in times past there has been the cry, “No more Slave States!” the cry now must be, “No more States with the word ‘white’!” I trust the Territories west of the Mississippi will take notice, and govern themselves accordingly.
At the next session, another bill was promptly introduced by Mr. Wade, and then reported by him from the Committee on Territories. Meanwhile a bill for the admission of Nebraska was taken up, and, after a protracted discussion, in which Mr. Sumner took part, that Territory was admitted as a State, on the fundamental condition of Equal Rights.[280]
January 9, 1867, immediately on the passage of the Nebraska Bill in the Senate, the bill for the admission of Colorado was taken up. The proviso requiring equal rights as a fundamental condition was adopted,—Yeas 21, Nays 18,—and the bill then passed the Senate,—Yeas 23, Nays 11,—Mr. Sumner voting in the affirmative.
January 15th, in the House of Representatives, the proviso adopted by the Senate was changed so as to require the assent of the State Legislature,—Yeas 84, Nays 65,—and the bill then passed the House,—Yeas 90, Nays 60. The Senate concurred, but President Johnson returned the bill with his objections.
March 1st, on the question of the passage of the bill, notwithstanding the objections of the President, the vote stood, Yeas 29, Nays 19. Two thirds not having voted for the bill, it did not become a law. Nebraska was more fortunate.
Although Colorado failed to be admitted as a State, the long and earnest debate was not without result. The power of Congress to require Equal Rights as a fundamental condition was affirmed.
OPPOSITION TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ON THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION.
Letter to the Boston Daily Advertiser, March 15, 1866.
Senate Chamber, March 15, 1866.
To the Editors of the Boston Daily Advertiser.
GENTLEMEN,—My attention has been called to an editorial article in your paper,[281] where you say that Mr. Sumner “aided in defeating” the proposed Constitutional Amendment, “because in his opinion it fell short of what was needed.”
Permit me to say that this does not state my position accurately.
My objection to the proposed Amendment was twofold: first, that it carried into the Constitution by express words the idea of inequality of rights, which, in my opinion, would be a defilement of the text; and, secondly, that it lent the sanction of the Constitution to a wholesale disfranchisement on account of race or color. Thus far, nothing of the kind had been allowed to find place in its text. To my mind it was clear that nothing of the kind could rightly be allowed to find place in its text.
You will see, therefore, that my opposition was not because the proposed Amendment “fell short of what was needed,”—although this was too true,—but because it did what in my judgment ought not to be done. Its objectionable character became more apparent, when it was considered that it did this at a crisis when complete justice to the freedmen was at once the prompting of gratitude and the requirement of necessity for the sake of national peace and the good name of the Republic. But the special objection to the proposed Amendment was not that it “fell short,” but that it was bad in itself. It is sometimes said, “Half a loaf is better than no bread,” and this has been called “half a loaf.” But nobody would accept “half a loaf,” if it were poisoned. Here was a poisonous ingredient. The proposition to found representation on voters, besides being more surely effective to the same end, had no poison in it.
Others did not see the proposed Amendment as I did. Had they seen it so, they must have voted against it. But, seeing it as I did, I think you will agree that I could not hesitate in opposition to it.
I do not write now for any purpose of controversy, but simply that my position may not be misunderstood.
I am, Gentlemen, your faithful servant,
Charles Sumner.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Afterwards Minister and Consul General to the Government of Hayti.
[2] Post, Vol. XIV. pp. 228-231.
[3] Blackstone, Commentaries, Vol. IV. p. 278.
[4] Post, p. 22.
[5] Post, pp. 113, 123.
[6] Post, p. 271.
[7] Post, pp. 315, seqq.
[8] This same oath appears in another bill, introduced by Mr. Sumner on the same day, entitled “A Bill prescribing an oath to maintain a republican form of government in the Rebel States”; this oath to be taken by every person in any State lately declared to be in rebellion, before he shall be allowed to vote at any election, State or National, or before he shall enter upon the duties of any office, State or National, or become entitled to the salary or other emoluments thereof. See, ante, p. 12.
[9] Statutes at Large, Vol. XII. pp. 255-258.
[10] The Senate Chamber.
[11] Mr. Butler.
[12] Congressional Globe, 34th Cong. 1st Sess., p. 640, March 12, 1856.
[13] See the engraving of Retzsch.
[14] Ante, Vol. XI. p. 365: Speech of Mr. Sumner on the Recognition of Arkansas, June 13, 1864.
[15] First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801: Writings, Vol. VIII. p. 4.
[16] Act of July 13, 1861: Statutes at Large, Vol. XII. pp. 255-258.
[17] Congressional Globe, 38th Cong. 2d Sess., February 4, 1865, p. 591.
[18] Horne, Commentary on the Psalms: Ps. xi. 3.
[19] See, ante, p. 42.
[20] Executive Documents, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., Senate, No. 1, pp. 2-105.
[21] Burke, Letter to Henry Dundas, April 9, 1792: Works (Boston, 1865-67), Vol. VI. p. 261.
[22] Ante, Vol. XII. pp. 312-314.
[23] Affranchissement des Serfs: Traduction des Documents Officiels, Résumés Explicatifs et Annotations (St. Petersburg, 1861).
[24] Constitution of Massachusetts, Declaration of Rights, drawn by John Adams.
[25] Ante, p. 17.
[26] Ante, p. 14.
[27] Post, pp. 136, seqq.
[28] Letters from New Orleans, October, 1865: Nation, October 26, 1865, Vol. I. pp. 523, 524.
[29] He had already united with President Johnson in his “policy.”
[30] Act to establish and regulate the Domestic Relations of Persons of Color, etc., Sec. XVII. [Approved December 21, 1865.]
[31] Ibid., Sections L., LII., LIII.
[32] Later evidence showed that this hope was without foundation.
[33] Senate Journal, 1865-66, p. 151.
[34] Code of Tennessee, § 3808.
[35] Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV. p. 50.
[36] The Necessity of Universal Suffrage in Reconstruction; Letter to the Editor of the New York Nation, October, 1865: Speeches and Addresses, pp. 585-596.
[37] Speech in the House of Commons, on the Address of Thanks, December 13, 1792: Hansard’s Parliamentary History, Vol. XXX. col. 13.
[38] Ante, p. 14.
[39] Post, p. 123.
[40] Debates in the Federal Convention, August 25, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. III. pp. 1429, 1430.
[41] Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication. It passed the Senate February 2d, and became a law, notwithstanding the veto of President Johnson, April 9th.—Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV. p. 27.
[42] Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun: Characters, prefixed to Political Works, (Glasgow, 1749,) p. viii.
[43] Ante, p. 113.
[44] Ante, Vol. X. p. 167, Our Domestic Relations, Power of Congress over the Rebel States; Vol. XII. p. 305, The National Security and the National Faith. See, also, Vol. IX. p. 1, Rights of Sovereignty and Rights of War.
[45] Speech in Washington, April 11, 1865: McPherson’s Political History of the United States during the Rebellion, p. 609.
[46] Constitution of the Confederate States, Art. IV., Sec. 3, Clause 4: Statutes at Large (Richmond, 1864), p. 21. See, also, Appleton’s Annual Cyclopædia, 1861, art. Public Documents.
[47] Of Reformation in England, Book II.: Works (London, 1851), Vol. III. p. 34.
[48] No. XXI.
[49] Notes on the Confederacy, April, 1787: Letters and other Writings, Vol. I. p. 322.
[50] Madison Papers, Vol. III., Appendix, No. 5.
[51] Works, Vol. II. pp. 463-466.
[52] Debates in the Federal Convention, May 29, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. II. pp. 731, 734.
[53] Ibid., June 20, 1787, p. 913.
[54] Ibid., May 29, 1787, p. 734.
[55] Debates in the Federal Convention, June 11 and July 18, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. II. pp. 844, 1139, 1141.
[56] Ibid., August 6, 30, and September 12, 15, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. II. p. 1241, Vol. III. pp. 1466, 1467, 1558, 1590, 1621.
[57] The Federalist, No. XLIII. See, also, Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution, Vol. III. § 1811.
[58] Argument in the Supreme Court of the United States, January 27, 1848, in the Case of Luther v. Borden et als.: Works, Vol. VI. p. 230.
[59] Politics, Book I. ch. 1.
[60] Ibid., Book III. ch. 1.
[61] Ibid., Book III. ch. 7.
[62] Politics, Book IV. ch. 4.
[63] De Republica, Lib. I. c. 25.
[64] Ibid., c. 31.
[65] John Adams, Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States: Works, Vol. IV. p. 370.
[66] Brief of Argument on the Constitution of the United States: Works, Vol. II. p. 463.
[67] Defence of the Constitutions: Works, Vol. V. p. 453.
[68] Letter to J. H. Tiffany, March 31, 1819: Ibid., Vol. X. pp. 377, 378.
[69] Letter to J. H. Tiffany, April 30, 1819: Works, Vol. X. p. 378.
[70] Defence of the Constitutions: Ibid., Vol. IV. p. 358.
[71] De l’Esprit des Lois, Liv. III. ch. 3; IV. 5; V. 2, 3.
[72] Ibid., Liv. II. chs. 1, 2.
[73] De Republica, Lib. II. c. 1.
[74] Histoire de nostre Temps, de l’Estat de la Religion et de la République de France, soubz le Roy Henry second, François second et Charles neuviesme: Vies des Hommes Illustres et Capitaines François, Discours LVIII.: Œuvres Complètes du Seigneur de Brantôme (Paris, 1822), Tom. II. p. 310.
[75] Brantôme, Vies des Hommes Illustres et Capitaines François, Discours LXII.: Œuvres, Tom. II. p. 395.
[76] Histoire de France (4me édit.), Tom. IX. p. 391.
[77] John Adams, Novanglus: Works, Vol. IV. p. 106.
[78] Politics, Book III. ch. 16.
[79] Historical View of the English Government (London, 1818), Vol. III. p. 326.
[80] John Adams, Letter to J. H. Tiffany, March 31, 1819: Works, Vol. X. p. 378.
[81] Enquiry into Vulgar and Common Errors, Book III. ch. 27, § 3.
[82] Du Contrat Social, Liv. III. ch. 4: Œuvres (Paris, 1821), Tom. V. p. 175.
[83] Letter to John Penn: Works, Vol. IV. p. 204. See also Letter to George Wythe: Ibid., p. 194.
[84] Speech on Motion for a Reform in Parliament, May 7, 1793: Hansard’s Parliamentary History, Vol. XXX. col. 915.
[85] Three Letters to Governor Shirley, December, 1754: Works, ed. Sparks, Vol. III. pp. 56, seqq.
[86] Discourses concerning Government (London, 1751), pp. 14, 54, Ch. I. §§ 6, 20.
[87] Two Treatises on Government, Book II. ch. 11, § 140: Works (London, 1812), Vol. V. pp. 422, 423.
[88] Introduction to the Literature of Europe (London, 1847), Vol. III. p. 445, Part IV. ch. 4, § 95.
[89] Mémoires, Liv. V. ch. 19: Petitot, Mémoires relatifs à l’Historie de France, Tom. XII. p. 298.
[90] Preface to Vol. III. Thucydides, p. xv (Oxford, 1842).
[91] Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I. p. 403.
[92] Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. IX. p. 110.
[93] John Adams, Letter to William Tudor, December 18, 1816: Works, Vol. X. p. 233.
[94] John Adams, Letter to William Tudor, June 9, 1818: Works, Vol. X. p. 319.
[95] John Adams, Works, Vol. II. pp. 521-525; Vol. X. pp. 244-249, 314-362. Tudor’s Life of Otis, Chs. V., VI.
[96] Letter to William Tudor, March 29, 1817: Works, Vol. X. pp. 247, 248.
[97] Letter to William Tudor, March 29, 1817: Works, Vol. X. p. 248.
[98] John Adams, Letter to William Tudor, April 5, 1818: Works, Vol. X. pp. 300-312.
[99] See Bancroft’s History of the United States, Vol. V. pp. 290, 291.
[100] Rights of the British Colonies, p. 14.
[101] Ibid., p. 37.
[102] Rights of the British Colonies, p. 37.
[103] Ibid., p. 29.
[104] Ibid., p. 38.
[105] Rights of the British Colonies, Appendix, p. 69. Wells’s Life of Samuel Adams, Vol. I. pp. 46-48.
[106] Resolves, October 26, 1765: Journal of House of Representatives, pp. 151-153; Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts, Vol. III. pp. 476-478, Appendix.
[107] Answer to Governor’s Speech, October 24, 1765: Journal of House of Representatives, p. 135; Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts, Vol. III. p. 474, Appendix.
[108] Ante, p. 157.
[109] Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British Colonies (2d edit., London, 1766), p. 5 and Preface.
[110] Wirt’s Life of Patrick Henry (3d edit.), p. 63.
[111] Resolves, September 21, 1765: Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, Vol. V. p. 426.
[112] Authentic Account of the Proceedings of the Congress held at New York in 1765 (London, 1767), pp. 5, 6.
[113] The Justice and Necessity of Taxing the American Colonies Demonstrated (London, 1766), pp. 13, 14.
[114] Votes and Proceedings of the Town of Boston, October 28th and November 2d, 20th, 1772, pp. 9, 10. Wells’s Life of Samuel Adams, Vol. I. p. 506.
[115] Bancroft’s History of the United States, Vol. V. p. 294.
[116] Instructions to the Delegates from Hanover County to the Virginia Convention, August 1, 1774: Wirt’s Life of Patrick Henry, p. 99, note.
[117] Novanglus, No. VIII.: Works, Vol. IV. p. 131.
[118] Journals of Congress, Vol. I. p. 29, October 12, 1774.
[119] Ibid., pp. 38, 39, October 21, 1774.
[120] Journals of Congress, Vol. I. p. 60, October 26, 1774.
[121] Ibid., p. 70, October 26, 1774.
[122] Speech on Motion for withdrawing Confidence from Ministers, March 15, 1782: Hansard’s Parliamentary History, Vol. XXII. col. 1184.
[123] Speech on the Address of Thanks, January 14, 1766: Ibid., Vol. XVI. col. 100.
[124] Journal of Congress, April 26, 1783, Vol. VIII. p. 201.
[125] Writings, ed. Sparks, Vol. VIII. pp. 567, 568, Appendix, No. XIII.
[126] On Government, No. I.: Works, ed. Sparks, Vol. II. p. 279.
[127] Some Good Whig Principles: Ibid., pp. 372, 373.
[128] Writings, Vol. VII. p. 75.
[129] Ibid., Vol. VI. p. 605.
[130] Writings, Vol. VI. p. 607.
[131] Notes on Virginia, Query XIV.: Ibid., Vol. VIII. p. 385.
[132] Thoughts on Lotteries, February, 1826: Ibid., Vol. IX. p. 508.
[133] Debates in the Federal Convention, June 6, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. II. pp. 805, 806.
[134] Ibid., August 7, 1787, Vol. III. p. 1253.
[135] Ibid., Note to Speech of August 7, 1787, Appendix, No. 4, Vol. III. p. ix.
[136] Ibid., p. xii.
[137] Ibid., p. xiii.
[138] Federalist, No. XXXIX.
[139] Letters and other Writings, Vol. I. p. 322.
[140] Letters and other Writings, Vol. III. p. 190.
[141] Ibid., Vol. IV. p. 60.
[142] Remarks in the Federal Convention: Works, Vol. II. pp. 416, 417.
[143] Remarks in the Federal Convention: Works, Vol. II. p. 418.
[144] Phocion, Letter II.: Ibid., pp. 315, 316.
[145] Ibid., p. 316.
[146] The Federalist, No. LIV.—J. C. Hamilton, in the Historical Notice prefixed to his edition of the Federalist (Philadelphia, 1864), furnishes strong grounds for ascribing this important paper to his father. See pp. xcv-cvi, and cxix-cxxvii.
[147] Correspondence between John Adams and Samuel Adams on Government, Letter IV., November 20, 1790: Works of John Adams, Vol. VI. p. 421.
[148] Correspondence on the Constitution, Letter I., July 20, 1789: Ibid., p. 437.
[149] Works, Vol. IV. p. 293.
[150] Speech in the South Carolina Convention, May 14, 1788: Elliot’s Debates (2d edit.), Vol. IV. pp. 326, 328.
[151] Debates in the Federal Convention, August 21, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. III. p. 1388.
[152] Elliot’s Debates, Vol. I. p. 374.
[153] Debates in the Federal Convention, August 7, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. III. p. 1252.
[154] Construction Construed, p. 312.
[155] Address at laying the Corner-Stone of the Addition to the Capitol, July 4, 1851: Works, Vol. II. p. 601.
[156] Argument in the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Case of Luther v. Borden, January 27, 1848: Works, Vol. VI. p. 222.
[157] The State v. Manuel, 4 Devereux and Battle, R., 25.
[158] Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. IV. pp. 133, 134.
[159] Opinion of Richard West, January 16, 1723, addressed to the Right Honorable the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, on an Act of Virginia “tending to prevent free black men from voting at elections.”—Chalmers, Opinions of Eminent Lawyers on Various Points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, Vol. II. p. 113.
[160] Petition of Joseph Boone to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina: Dalcho, Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, p. 83. See, also, p. 178.
[161] Essais, Liv. I. chs. 3, 19.
[162] See, ante, p. 149.
[163] P. Janet, Histoire de la Philosophie Morale et Politique, Tom. II. p. 371.
[164] Considérations sur le Gouvernement de la France, quoted by Henri Martin, Histoire de France, Tom. XV. p. 358. See, also, his Mémoires, Tom. III. p. 313, Tom. V. p. 312.
[165] Idées Républicaines, §§ 13, 43: Œuvres (1784), Tom. XXIX. pp. 190, 203.
[166] Dictionnaire Philosophique, art. Démocratie: Ibid., Tom. XXXIX. p. 254.
[167] Ce que les Citoyens ont Droit d’attendre de leurs Représentants, 10 Avril, 1793: Œuvres, par O’Connor et Arago, (Paris, 1847-49,) Tom. XII. p. 567.
[168] Institutions du Droit de la Nature et des Gens (Paris, 1851), Tom. I. pp. 51, 52, Liv. I. ch. 5, § 4.
[169] Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution Française, Tom. XXXVIII. p. 458.
[170] Proclamation, 10 Juillet, 1802, pour l’Anniversaire du 14 Juillet, 1789: Correspondance du Napoléon I., No. 6180, (Paris, 1861, Imprim. Impér. 4to,) Tom. VII. p. 660.
[171] Garnier-Pagès, Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, Tom. V. p. 338.
[172] Ibid., p. 348.
[173] Garnier-Pagès, Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, Tom. VII. p. 407.
[174] De la Démocratie en Amérique (14me édit.), Tom. III. pp. 526, 527, Ch. 7.
[175] Block, Dictionnaire de la Politique, art. République.
[176] Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty (London, 1777), Introduction, p. ix.
[177] Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations (New York, 1845), p. 751.
[178] Ashby v. White et als., Lord Raymond, R., 953.
[179] No. XIV.
[180] De Republica, Lib. II. c. 6.
[181] Literature of Europe, Part II. ch. 4, § 52.
[182] Politics, Book III. ch. 7 [12].
[183] Sarpi, Opinione come debba governarsi internamente la Republica di Venezia per avere il perpetuo Dominio, p. 13.
[184] Luther v. Borden et al.: 7 Howard, R., 42.
[185] Elliot’s Debates (2d edit.), Vol. III. p. 367.
[186] M’Culloch v. Bank of Maryland: 4 Wheaton, R., pp. 409, 421.
[187] Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee: 1 Wheaton, R., 326.
[188] Lives, tr. Langhorne: Solon, c. 14.
[189] Morals, ed. Goodwin: Of Brotherly Love, c. 12.
[190] Virgil, Æneid, tr. Pitt, Book VI., 204, 205 [143, 144].
[191] Gray, Ode for Music, st. v.
[192] Coke, Institutes, Third Part, p. 44.
[193] Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris, Ch. IX.
[194] Euripides, The Suppliants: Tragedies, tr. Wodhull, Vol. II. p. 20.—Milton, in his Answer to Salmasius, has used this text; and in the English repetition of that tract he has turned it into prose: “I have advanced the people themselves into the throne, having freed the city from slavery, and admitted the people to a share in the government, by giving them an equal right of suffrage.”—Defence of the People of England, in Answer to Salmasius, Ch. VI.: Works (London, 1851), Vol. VIII. p. 163.
[195] Ezekiel, xxxvii. 19.
[196] Speech on the Bill to establish a Territorial Government in Oregon, June 27, 1848: Works, Vol. IV. pp. 511, 512.
[197] Post, pp. 294, seqq.
[198] Less than two fifths. By census of 1790, whole population 748,308; slaves 293,427.
[199] Post, p. 282.
[200] Post, p. 338.
[201] Ante, p. 114.
[202] May 8, 1866: Congressional Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., pp. 2459-60.
[203] Act of March 2, 1867: Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV. p. 429.
[204] Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 Mars, 1866, Tom. LXII. pp. 245, 246.
[205] McPherson’s Political History of the United States during Reconstruction, pp. 53-55.
[206] Ibid., p. 61.
[207] Ante, p. 255.
[208] Boston Daily Advertiser, March 3, 1866.
[209] See, post, p. 280.
[210] Ante, p. 4.
[211] Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV. pp. 225, 226.
[212] Ante, p. 2.
[213] Ante, Vol. VIII. pp. 305, seqq.
[214] Ante, Vol. XI. pp. 389, seqq.
[215] Congressional Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., p. 1291, March 9, 1866.
[216] 4 Wheaton, R., 316.
[217] Attorney-General Bates, On Citizenship, November 29, 1862: Opinions of Attorneys General, Vol. X. pp. 382, seqq.
[218] See, ante, Vol. XII. pp. 97, seqq.
[219] 4 Wheaton, R., pp. 409-421.
[220] Ante, p. 267.
[221] Ante, pp. 238, seqq.
[222] Speech on the Employment of Indians in the American War, November 20, 1777: Hansard’s Parliamentary History, Vol. XIX. col. 368-370.
[223] Speech on Negro Emancipation, February 20, 1838: Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 3d Ser. Vol. XL. col. 1307, 1308.
[224] Essays: Of Honor and Reputation.
[225] Boswell’s Life of Johnson, ed. Croker, (London, 1853,) Vol. VIII. p. 285, June 3, 1784.
[226] “Parturient mountains have ere now produced muscipular abortions.”—Johnson’s Ghost: Rejected Addresses.
[227] Debates in the Federal Convention, August 25, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. III. pp. 1429, 1430.
[228] Æneid, tr. Dryden, Book III. 295, 296 [227, 228].
[229] Boston Recorder, February 9, 1866.
[230] Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston, 1764), p. 14.
[231] Letter to William Tudor, June 1, 1818: Works, Vol. X. p. 315.
[232] Rights of the British Colonies, p. 29.
[233] Ibid., p. 38.
[234] Hutchinson’s Correspondence, quoted by Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. V. pp. 290, 291.
[235] Rights of the British Colonies, p. 8.
[236] Life of John Adams, by C. F. Adams; Works, Vol. I. p. 78.
[237] Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. IX. p. 110.
[238] Some Good Whig Principles: Works, ed. Sparks, Vol. II. p. 372.
[239] Two Treatises of Government: Of Civil Government, Book II. ch. 11, § 140: Works (London, 1812), Vol. V. p. 423.
[240] Introduction to the Literature of Europe (London, 1847), Vol. III. pp. 445, 448, Part IV. ch. 4, §§ 95, 100.
[241] Political Experience of the Ancients, p. 129.
[242] Addressed to his constituents, and appearing in the newspapers. See also a later speech, in the House of Commons, March 13, 1866: Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 3d Ser., Vol. CLXXXII. col. 223.
[243] Free Conference on the Bill of Occasional Conformity, December 16, 1702: Chandler’s History and Proceedings of the House of Commons, Vol. III. p. 229; Hansard’s Parliamentary History, Vol. VI. col. 80.
[244] Memoirs of Theophilus Parsons by his Son, Appendix, pp. 375, 376.
[245] New Orleans Delta, February 13, 1866.
[246] Debates in the Virginia Convention, June 4 and 5, 1788: Elliot (2d edit.), Vol. III. pp. 22, 44.
[247] Ibid., June 4, 1788: Elliot, Vol. III. p. 29.
[248] Yates’s Minutes of the Debates of the Federal Convention, June 29, 1787: Elliot, Vol. I. p. 461.
[249] Ibid., p. 464.
[250] Ibid., June 30, 1787, p. 467.
[251] “‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”—Bacon, Essays: Of Truth.
[252] Articles of Amendment, XXI., XXII.
[253] Speech on the Representative System, July 7, 1853: Ante, Vol. IV. p. 46.
[254] Notes on Virginia, Appendix, No. II.: Writings, Vol. VIII. p. 443.
[255] Debates in the Federal Convention, July 14, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. II. p. 1102.
[256] Ante, pp. 113, 114.
[257] American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Peters, S. C. R., 542.
[258] This was done in the Act of March 2, 1867, “to provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States.”—Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV. p. 428.
[259] Le Droit des Gens, Liv. III. ch. 13, § 201.
[260] Ibid., § 199.
[261] The Federalist, No. LIV.
[262] Phocion, Letter II.: Works, Vol. II. p. 316.
[263] The Federalist, No. LVII.
[264] Works, Vol. II. p. 396. Madison Papers, Vol. III., Appendix, No. 5, p. xxi.
[265] Ante, p. 189.
[266] Politics, Book III. ch. 1. See abstract by Tremenheere, Political Experience of the Ancients, p. 11.
[267] History of Greece (London, 1835), Vol. I. p. 409, Ch. X.
[268] Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 Howard, R., 404.
[269] Ibid., 476.
[270] Fuller, Holy State: The Good Sea-Captain.
[271] Ante, pp. 238, seqq.
[272] Section 4.
[273] Ante, Vol. XII. p. 185.
[274] Works, Vol. III. p. 264.
[275] From Acts of the Legislative Assembly, as quoted in Special Message of the Governor, January 23, 1866, pp. 1, 2.
[276] Special Message of Governor Cummings to the Legislative Assembly, Colorado Territory, January 23, 1866, pp. 2, 3.
[277] Despatch, January 18, 1866: Congressional Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., p. 2139.
[278] See, ante, p. 353.
[279] Opinion of Attorney-General Bates, November 29, 1862: Official Opinions of the Attorneys General of the United States, Vol. X. pp. 382, seqq.
[280] Post, Vol. XIV. p. 147.
[281] March 12, 1866.