SPEECH.
The Senate having under consideration the Bill for funding the National Debt and for the Conversion of the Notes of the United States, Mr. Sumner said:—
MR. PRESIDENT,—After a tempest sweeping sea and land, strewing the coast with wrecks, and tumbling houses to the ground, Nature must become propitious before the energy of man can repair the various losses. Time must intervene. At last ships are launched again, and houses are built, in larger numbers and fairer forms than before. A tempest has swept over us, scourging in every direction; and now that its violence has ceased, we are occupied in the work of restoration. Nature is already propitious, and time, too, is silently preparing the way, while the national energies are applied to the work.
To know what to do, we must comprehend the actual condition of things, and how it was brought about. All this is easy to see, if we will only look.
It is a mistake of too constant occurrence to treat the financial question by itself, without considering its dependence upon the abnormal condition through which the country has passed. The financial question, in all its branches, depends upon the political, and cannot be separated. I might use stronger language. It is a part of the political question; and now that Reconstruction seems about to be accomplished, it is that enduring part which still remains.
Our present responsibilities, whether political or financial, have a common origin in that vast Rebellion, when the people of eleven States, maddened by Slavery, rose against the Nation. As the Rebellion was without example in its declared object, so it was without example in the extent and intensity of its operations. It sought nothing less than the dismemberment of our Nation and the establishment of a new power with Slavery as its quickening principle. The desperate means enlisted by such a cause could be encountered only by the most strenuous exertions in the name of Country and of Human Rights. Here was Slavery, barbarous, brutal, vindictive, warring for recognition. The tempest or tornado can typify only feebly the ravage that ensued. There were days of darkness and despair, when the national existence was in peril. Rebel armies menaced the Capitol, and Slavery seemed about to vindicate its wicked supremacy.
Looking at the scene in its political aspects, we behold one class of disorders, and looking at it in its financial aspects, we behold still another,—both together constituting a fearful sum-total, where financial disorder mingles with political. Turn, first, to the political, and you will see States, one after another, renouncing their relations with the Nation, and constituting a new government, under the name of Confederacy, with a new Constitution, making Slavery its corner-stone,—all of which they sought to maintain by arms, while, in aggravation of these perils, Foreign Powers gave ominous signs of speedy recognition and support. Look next to the financial side, and you will see business in some places entirely prostrate, in others suddenly assuming new forms; immense interests destroyed; property annihilated; the whole people turned from the thoughts of peace to the thoughts of war; vast armies set on foot, in which the youthful and strong were changed from producers to destroyers, while life itself was consumed; an unprecedented taxation, commensurate with the unprecedented exigency; and all this followed by the common incidents of war in other countries and times,—first, the creation of a national debt, and, secondly, the substitution of inconvertible paper as a currency. In this catalogue of calamities, political and financial, who shall say which was the worst? Certainly it is difficult to distinguish between them. One grew out of the other, so that they belong together and constitute one group, all derived ultimately from the Rebellion, and directly depending upon it. So long as Slavery continued in arms, each and all waxed in vastness; and now, so long as any of these remain, they testify to this same unnatural crime. The tax-gatherer, taking so much from honest industry, was born of the Rebellion. Inconvertible paper, deranging the business of the country at home and abroad, had the same monstrous birth. Our enormous taxation is only a prolongation of the Rebellion. Every greenback is red with the blood of fellow-citizens.
To repair these calamities, political and financial, the first stage was the overthrow of the Rebellion in the field, thus enabling the Nation to reduce its armaments, to arrest its accumulating debt, and to cease anxiety on account of foreign intervention so constantly menaced. Thus relieved, we were brought to a resting-place, and the Nation found itself in condition to begin the work of restoration.
Foremost came the suppression of Slavery, in which the Rebellion had its origin. Common prudence, to say nothing of common humanity, required this consummation, without which there would have been a short-lived truce only. So great a change necessarily involved other changes, while there was the ever-present duty to obtain from the defeated Rebels, if not indemnity for the past, at least security for the future. It was impossible to stop with the suppression of Slavery. That whole barbarous code of wrong and outrage, whose first article was the denial of all rights to an oppressed race, was grossly inconsistent with the new order of things. It was necessary that it should yield to the Equal Rights of All, promised by the Declaration of Independence. The citizen, lifted from Slavery, must be secured in all his rights, civil and political. Loyal governments, republican in form, must be substituted for Rebel governments. All this being done, the States, thus transformed, will assume once more their ancient relations to the Nation. This is the work of Political Reconstruction, constituting the new stage after the overthrow of the Rebellion.
Meanwhile there has been an effort and a longing for Financial Reconstruction also,—sometimes without sufficiently reflecting that there can be small chance for any success in this direction until after Political Reconstruction. Here also we must follow Nature, and restore by removing the disturbing cause. This is the natural process. Vain all attempt to reconstruct the national finances while the Rebellion was still in arms. This must be obvious to all. Vain also while Slavery still domineered. Vain also while Equal Rights are without a sure defence against the oppressor. Vain also while the Nation still palpitates with its efforts to obtain security for the future. Vain also until the States are all once more harmonious in their native spheres, like the planets, receiving and dispensing light.
Nothing is more sensitive than Credit, which is the essential element of financial restoration. A breath will make it flutter. How can you expect to restore the national credit, now unnaturally sensitive, while the Nation is still uneasy from those Rebel pretensions which have cost so much? Security is the first condition of Financial Reconstruction; and I am at a loss to find any road to it, except through Political Reconstruction. All this seems so plain that I ought to apologize for dwelling on it. And yet there are many, who, while professing a desire for an improvement in our financial condition, perversely turn their backs upon the only means by which this can be accomplished. Never was there equal folly. Language cannot picture it. Every denial of Equal Rights, every impediment to a just reconstruction in conformity with the Declaration of Independence, every pretension of a “white man’s government” in horrid mockery of self-evident truths declared by our fathers, and of that brotherhood of mankind declared by the Sermon on Mars Hill, is a bar to that Financial Reconstruction without which the Rebellion still lingers among us. So long as a dollar of irredeemable paper is forced upon the country, the Rebellion still lives, in its spurious progeny.
Party organization and Presidential antagonism have thus far stood in the way, while at each stage individual perverseness has played its part. The President has set himself obstinately against Political Reconstruction; so also has the Democratic Party; others have followed, according to the prejudices of their nature; and so the national finances have suffered. Not the least of the offences of Andrew Johnson is the adverse influence he has exerted on this question. All that he has done from the beginning has tended to protract the Rebellion and to extend the disorder of our finances. And yet there are many not indifferent to the latter who have looked with indifference upon his criminal conduct. So far as their personal interests depended on an improved condition of the finances, they have already suffered; but it is hard that the country should suffer also. Andrew Johnson has postponed specie payments, and his supporters of all degrees must share the responsibility.
Such is my confidence in the resources of our country, in the industry of its people, and in the grandeur of its destinies, that I cannot doubt the transcendent future. Alas that it should be interrupted by unwise counsels, even for a day! Financial Reconstruction is postponed only. It must come at last. Here I have no panacea that is not as simple as Nature. I know of no device or trick or medicine by which this cure can be accomplished. It will come with the general health of the body politic. It will come with the renovated life of the Nation, when it is once more complete in form, when every part is in sympathy with the whole, and the Rebellion, with all its offspring, is trampled out forever. In such a condition of affairs, inconvertible paper would be an impossibility, as much as a bill of sale for a human being.
Meanwhile there are certain practical points which must not be forgotten. Foremost among these I put the absolute dependence of the national finances upon the faithful performance of all our obligations to the national freedmen. Pardoned Rebels will never look with complacency upon the national debt, or the interest which testifies semiannually to its magnitude. Their political colleagues at the North will be apt to sympathize with them. Should the scales at any time hang doubtful, it is to others that we must turn to adjust the balance. Therefore, for the sake of the national finances, I insist that the national freedmen shall be secured and maintained in Equal Rights, so that local prejudices and party cries shall be unavailing against them. You who have at heart the national credit, on which so much depends, must never fail to cherish the national freedmen, treating their enemies as if they were your enemies. Every blow at them will rebound upon yourselves.
In dealing with the financial question, there are two other points of ever-present importance: first, the necessity of diminishing, so far as practicable, the heavy burden of taxation so oppressive to the people; and, secondly, the necessity of substituting specie for inconvertible paper. Here are two objects, which, when accomplished, will add infinitely to the wealth and happiness of the country, besides being the assurance that the Nation has at last reached that condition of repose so much longed for.
Before considering these two points in detail, I venture to remark that there is one condition, preliminary in character and equally essential to both, through which taxation will be lightened and specie payments will be hastened. I refer to the Public Faith, which must be sacredly preserved above all question or suspicion. The word of our Nation must be as good as its bond; and nobody must attempt to take a tittle from either. Nothing short of universal wreck can justify any such bankruptcy. Let the Public Faith be preserved, and all that you now seek will be easy.
A virtuous king of early Rome dedicated a temple on the Capitol Hill itself to a divinity under the name of Publica Fides, who was represented with a wreath of laurel about her head, carrying ears of corn and a basket of fruit,—typical of honor and abundance sure to follow in her footprints. In the same spirit another temple was dedicated to the god Terminus, who presided over boundaries. The stones set up to mark the limits of estates were sacred, and on these very stones there were religious offerings to the god. The heathen maledictions upon the violator were echoed also by the Hebrews, when they said: “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s landmark: and all the people shall say, Amen.”[235] In those early Roman and Hebrew days there was no national debt divided into bonds; there was nothing but land. But a national bond is as well defined as a piece of land. Here, then, is a place for the god Terminus. Every obligation is like a landmark, not to be removed without curses. Here, also, is a place for that other divinity, Publica Fides, with laurelled head, and hands filled with corn and fruit.
Public Faith may be seen in the evil which springs from its loss and in the good which overflows from its preservation. It is like honor: and yet, once lost, more than dishonor is the consequence; once assured, more than honor is the reward. It is a possession surpassing all others in value. The gold and silver in your Treasury may be counted; it stands recorded, dollar for dollar, in the national ledger; but the sums which the unsuspected credit of a magnanimous nation can command are beyond the record of any ledger. Public Faith is more than mines of silver or gold. Only from Arabian story can a fit illustration be found, as when, after all human effort had failed, the Genius of the Lamp reared the costly palace and stored it with beauty. Public Faith is in itself a treasury, a tariff, and an internal revenue, all in one. These you may lose; but if the other is preserved, it will be only for a day. The Treasury will be replenished, the tariff will be renewed, the internal revenue will be restored. With Public Faith as an unfailing law, the Nation, like Pactolus, will sweep over golden sands; or, like Midas, it will change into gold whatever it touches. Keep, then, the Public Faith as the “open sesame” to all that you can desire; keep it as you would keep the philosopher’s stone of fable, having which, you have all.
And yet, in the face of this plain commandment, on which hangs so much of all that is most prized in national existence, we are called to break faith. It is proposed to tax the national bonds, in violation of the original bargain on which the money was lent. Sometimes the tax is to be by the Nation, and sometimes by the States. The power to do this wrong you may possess, but the right never. Do what you will, there is one thing you cannot do: you cannot make wrong right. It is in vain that you undertake to set aside the perpetual obligation which you have assumed. Against every such pretension, whether by speech or vote, there is this living duty, which will survive Congress and politician alike. Puny as the hand of a child is the effort to undo this original bargain. The Nation has promised six per cent. interest, payable semiannually in coin, nor more nor less, without any abatement; and then, having bound itself, it proceeds to guard against the States by declaring specifically that the bonds shall be “exempt from taxation by or under State authority.” Such is the bargain. There it is; and it must continue unchanged, except by the consent of the parties, until the laws of the universe tumble into chaos.
The rogue in Shakespeare exclaims, “What a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman!” In equal levity it is said, “Tax the bonds,” although, by the original bargain on which the money was obtained, amid the trials of war for the safety of the Nation, it was expressly stipulated that these bonds should not be taxed. Nevertheless, tax the bonds! Of course, by taxing the bonds the bargain is brutally broken,—and this, too, after the Nation has used the money. Such a transaction in common life, except where bankruptcy had supervened, would be intolerable. A proud Nation, justly sensitive to national honor, as the great Republic through whose example liberal institutions are commended to mankind, cannot do this thing.
The proposition to tax the bonds, in open violation of the original bargain, is similar in spirit to that other enterprise, which, under various discordant ensigns, proposes to pay the national bonds with inconvertible paper. Here at once, and on the threshold, Public Faith interposes a summary protest. On such a question debate even is dangerous; the man who doubts is lost. The money was borrowed and lent on the undoubting faith that it was to be paid in coin. Nothing to the contrary was suggested, imagined, or dreamed, at the time. Behind all forms of language, and even all omissions, this obligation stands forth, in the nature of the case, explained and confirmed by the history of our national loans, and by the official acts of successive Secretaries of the Treasury interpreting the obligations of the Nation.
So much stress is laid upon the language of the five-twenties that I cannot let it pass. The terms employed were precisely those in previous bonds of the United States where the principal was paid in coin, some of which are still outstanding. Had there been any doubt about the meaning, it was fixed by the general understanding, and by special declarations of responsible persons speaking for the Nation. On 26th May, 1863, Mr. Harrington, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in an official letter, says: “These bonds will, therefore, be paid in gold.” On 15th February, 1864, Mr. Field, also Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, writes: “I am directed by the Secretary to say that it is the purpose of the Government to pay said bonds, like other bonds of the United States, in coin, at maturity.” On 18th May, 1864, Mr. Chase, at the time Secretary of the Treasury, wrote: “These bonds, according to the usage of the Government, are payable in coin.” Mr. Fessenden, while Secretary of the Treasury, in his annual report to Congress, expressed the same conclusion; and his successor, Mr. McCulloch, in a letter of 15th November, 1866, says: “I regard, as did also my predecessors, all bonds of the United States as payable in coin.” There are also numerous advertisements from the Treasury, and from its business agents, all in the same sense.
Here is a succession of authorities, embracing high functionaries of the United States, all concurring in affixing upon these bonds the obligation to pay in coin. As testimony to the meaning of the bonds, it is important; but considering that all these persons represented the National Treasury, and that they were the agents of the Nation for the sale of these very bonds, their representations are more than testimony. Until their authority is disowned by Congress, and their representations discarded, it is difficult to see why their language must not be treated as part of the contract, at least in all sales subsequent to its publication. It must not be forgotten that these original sales were mainly to bankers and brokers, and in large amounts, for the purpose of resale to small purchasers seeking investments. It was in reply to parties interested in these resales that the letters of Assistant Secretary Field and Mr. Chase were written, pledging the Nation to payment in coin. At the date of these important letters Congress was in session, and, although the opportunity was constant, there was no protest against the meaning thus authoritatively affixed to these obligations. The bonds were in the market, advertised and sold daily, with a value established by the representations of these national agents; and Congress did not interfere to set aside these representations. By subsequent Acts similar loans were authorized, and nobody protested. There was the supplementary clause of 3d March, 1864, for the issue of eleven millions of these bonds, to cover an excess subscribed above the amount authorized by the original Act. This was debated in the Senate on the 1st of March; but you will search the “Globe” in vain for any protest. Then came other Acts, at different dates, by which the loan was further enlarged to its present extent, and all the time these representations were uncontradicted. Against them there was no Act of Congress, no protest, nothing. If this is not “acquiescence,” then I am at a loss to know how acquiescence can be shown. Therefore do I insist that these representations are a part of the contract by which the Nation is bound.
It is said that in the five-twenty bonds there are words promising interest in coin, but nothing with regard to the principal. Forgetting the contemporary understanding and the official interpretation, and assuming that at maturity the bond is no better than a greenback, it becomes important to know the character of this obligation. On its face a greenback is a promise to pay a certain number of dollars. It is paper, and it promises to pay “dollars.” Here is an example, which I take from my pocket: “The United States promise to pay to the bearer five dollars”—not five dollars in paper, or in some other substituted promise, but “five dollars,” which can mean nothing else than the coin known over the world with the stamp of Spain, Mexico, and the United States, being a fixed value, which passes current in every zone and at the antipodes. The “dollar” is an established measure of value, like the five-franc piece of France, or the pound sterling of England. As well say, that, on a promise to pay so many francs in France, or so many pounds sterling in England, you could honestly acquit yourself by handing over a scrap of printed paper, inconvertible in value. This could not be done. The promise in our greenbacks carries with it an ultimate obligation to pay the silver dollar whose chink is so familiar in the commerce of the world. The convertibility of the greenback is for the present suspended; but when paid, it must be in coin. To pay with another promise is to renew, and not to discharge the debt. But the obligation in our bonds is to pay “dollars” also, whenever the bonds are paid; it may be after five years, or, in the discretion of the Nation, not till twenty years, but, when paid, it must be in “dollars.” Such is the stipulation; nor could the addition of “coin” or “gold” essentially change this obligation. It is contrary to reason that a bond should be paid in an inferior obligation. It is dishonest to force inconvertible paper without interest in payment of an interest-bearing obligation. The statement of the case is enough. Such an attempt disturbs the reason and shocks the moral sense.
Between the bond and the greenback there is an obvious distinction, doubly attested by the Act of Congress creating them both,—for they were created together. This distinction appears, first, in the title of the Act, and, secondly, in its provisions. According to its title, it is “An Act to authorize the issue of United States notes, and for the redemption or funding thereof, and for funding the floating debt of the United States.”[236] In brief, greenbacks were made a legal tender, and authority was given to fund them in these bonds. This appears in the very title of the Act. Now the object of funding is to bring what is uncertain and floating into a permanent form; and accordingly greenbacks were funded and placed on interest. The bonds were a substitute for the greenbacks; but the new theory makes the greenbacks a substitute for the bonds. To carry forward still further the policy of the Act, it was provided that the greenbacks might be exchanged at once for bonds; and then, by the Act of 11th July, 1862,[237] it was further provided that these very greenbacks “may be paid in coin,” at the direction of the Secretary, instead of being received in exchange for certificates of deposit, which were convertible into bonds,—thus treating the bonds as the equivalent of coin. The subsequent repeal of these provisions does not alter their testimony to the character of these bonds. Thus, at every turn, we are brought to the same conclusion. The dishonor of these obligations, whatever form it may assume, and whatever pretext it may adopt, is nothing but Repudiation.
The word Repudiation, now so generally used to denote the refusal to pay national obligations, has been known in this sense only recently. In the early dictionaries of our language it had no such signification. According to Dr. Johnson, it meant simply “divorce,” “rejection,” as when a man put away his wife. It began to be known in its present sense when Mississippi, the State of Jefferson Davis, dishonored her bonds. From that time the word has been too familiar in our public discussions. It was not unnatural that a State mad with Slavery should dishonor its bonds. Rejecting all obligations of humanity and justice, it easily rejected the obligations of Public Faith. Slavery was in itself a perpetual repudiation, and slave-masters were unblushing repudiators. Such an example is not fit for our Nation at this great period of its history.
It is one of the calamities of war, that, while it compels the employment of large means, it blunts the moral sense, and breeds too frequently an insensibility to the obligations incurred. A national debt shares for the time the exceptional character of war itself. Contracted hastily, it is little regarded except as a burden. At last, when business is restored and all things assume their natural proportions, it is recognized in its true character. The country accommodates itself to the pressure. This time is now at hand among us, if not arrested by disturbing influences. Unhappily, the demands of Public Faith are met by higgling and chaffering, and we are gravely reminded that the “bloated bond-holders” now expect more than they gave,—forgetting that they gave in the darkness of the war, at the appeal of the Nation, and to keep those armies in the field through which its existence was preserved,—forgetting also that among these bond-holders, now so foully stigmatized, were the poor, as well as the rich, all giving according to their means. It was not in the ordinary spirit of money-lending that those contributions were made. Love of country entered into them, and made them more than money. If the interest was considerable, it was only in proportion to the risk. Every loan at that time was a contract of bottomry on the Nation,—like money lent to a ship in a strange port, and conditioned on its arrival safe at home,—so that it failed entirely, if Slavery, by the aid of Foreign Powers, established its supremacy. God be praised, the enemy has been overcome! It remains now that we should overcome that other enemy, which, hardly less malignant than war itself, would despoil the Nation of its good name and take from it all the might of honesty. And here to every citizen, and especially to every legislator, I would address those incomparable words of Milton in his sonnet to Fairfax:—
“Oh, yet a nobler task awaits thy hand,
(For what can war but endless war still breed?)
Till truth and right from violence be freed,
And Public Faith cleared from the shameful brand
Of public fraud.”
The proposition to pay bonds in greenbacks becomes futile and fatuous, when it is considered that such an operation would be nothing more than the substitution of greenbacks for bonds, and not a payment of anything. The form of the debt would be changed, but the debt would remain. Of the twenty-five hundred millions which we now owe, whether in greenbacks or bonds, every dollar must be paid, sooner or later, or be ignobly repudiated. By paying the interest of the bonds in coin, instead of greenbacks, the annual increase of the debt to this extent is prevented. But the principal remains to be paid. If this be attempted in greenbacks, it will be by an issue far beyond all the demands of the currency. There will be a deluge of greenbacks. The country must suffer inconceivably under such a dispensation. The interest on the bonds may be stopped by the substitution, but the currency will be depreciated infinitely beyond any such dishonest saving. The country will be bankrupt. Inconvertible paper will overspread the land, to the exclusion of coin or any chance of coin for some time to come. Farewell then to specie payments! Greenbacks will be everywhere. The multitudinous rats that swam the Rhine and devoured Bishop Hatto in his tower were not more destructive. The cloud of locusts described by Milton as “warping on the eastern wind” and “darkening all the land of Nile,” were not more pestilential.
I am now brought to the practical question, to which I have already alluded: How the public burdens shall be lightened. Of course, in this work, the Public Faith, if kept sacred, will be a constant and omnipresent agency, powerful in itself, and powerful also in its reinforcement of all other agencies.
It will not seem trivial, if I insist on systematic economy in the administration of the Government. All needless expenditure must be lopped off. Our swollen appropriations must be compressed. Extravagance and recklessness, so natural during a period of war, must give way to moderation and thrift. All this without any denial of what is just or beneficent. The rule should be economy without niggardliness. Always there must be a good reason for whatever we spend. Every dollar, as it leaves the National Treasury, must be able to exhibit its passport. Doubtless the army and navy can be further reduced without detriment to the public service. Beyond this great saving there should be a constant watchfulness against those schemes of public plunder, great and small, from which the Nation has latterly suffered so much. All these things are so plain as to be little more than truisms.
Another help will be found in the simplification of our system of taxation, so that it shall be less complex and shall apply to fewer objects. In Europe taxation has become a science, according to which the largest possible amounts are obtained at the smallest possible inconvenience. Instead of sweeping through all the highways and byways of life, leaving no single thing unvisited, the English system has a narrow range and visits a few select articles only. I see no reason why we should not profit by this example, much to the convenience of the Government and of the citizen. The tax-gatherer will never be a very welcome guest, but he may be less of an intruder than now. A proper tax on two articles, whiskey and tobacco, with proper securities for its collection, would go far to support the Government.
Still another agency will be found in some proper scheme for a diminution of the interest on our national debt, so far as this can be done without a violation of Public Faith; and this brings me to the very bill now before the Senate.
All are anxious to relieve the country from recurring liabilities, which come round like the seasons. How can this be done best? First, by the strict performance of all existing engagements, so that the Public Faith shall be our inseparable ally; and, secondly, by funding the existing debt in such ways as to provide a reduced rate of interest. A longer term would justify a smaller interest. There may be differences as to the form of the substitute, but it would seem as if something of this kind must be done.
Immediately after the close of the war, as the smoke of battle was disappearing, but before the national ledger was sufficiently examined to justify a comparison between liabilities and resources, there was a generous inclination to proceed at once to the payment of the national debt. Volunteers came forward with their contributions for this purpose, in the hope that the generation which suppressed the Rebellion might have the added glory of removing this great burden. This ardor was momentary. It was soon seen that the task was too extensive, and that it justly belonged to another generation, with aggrandized population and resources, in presence of which the existing debt, large to us, would be small. Here the census has its instructive lesson. According to the rate of increase in past years, our population will advance in the following proportion:—
| In 1870, | 42,323,341 |
| In 1880, | 56,967,216 |
| In 1890, | 76,677,872 |
| In 1900, | 103,208,415 |
| In 1910, | 138,918,526 |
The resources of the country, already so vast, will swell in still larger proportions. Population increasing beyond example, improved systems of communication expanding in every direction, and the mechanical arts with their infinite activities old and new,—all these must carry the Nation forward beyond any present calculation, so that the imagination tires in the effort to grasp the mighty result. Therefore to the future we may tranquilly leave the final settlement of the national debt, meanwhile discharging our own incidental duty, so that the Public Faith shall be preserved.
Here is a notable difference between the United States and other countries, where population and resources have arrived at such a point that future advance is very gradual. With us each decade is a leap forward; with them it marks a gradation sometimes scarcely appreciable. This difference must not be forgotten in the estimate of our capacity to deal with a debt larger than that of any European power except England. But we must confess our humiliation, as we find that our debt, with its large interest in coin, secured by mortgage on the immeasurable future of the Nation, is less regarded abroad than the English debt, with its smaller interest and its more limited security. Our sixes will command only seventy-four per cent. in the market of London, while the three per cent. consols of England are freely bought at ninety-four per cent. One of our bonds brings twenty per cent. less than an English bond, although the interest on it is one hundred per cent. more. I know no substantial reason for this enormous difference, except in the superior credit established by England. With the national credit above suspicion, our debt must stand as well, and, as our multiplying resources become known, even better still. Thus constantly are we brought to the same lesson of Public Faith.
In spite of the general discredit of our national stocks abroad, Massachusetts fives payable in 1894 sell at the nominal price of 84, with the pound sterling at $4.44, equal to 91½ in our gold, with the pound sterling at $4.83. There can be no other reason for this higher price than the superior credit enjoyed by Massachusetts; and thus again is Public Faith exalted. Why should not the Nation, with its infinite resources, surpass Massachusetts?
The bill before us proposes a new issue of bonds, redeemable in coin after twenty, thirty, and forty years, with interest at five per cent., four and one half per cent., and four per cent., in coin, exempt from State or municipal taxation, and also from national taxation, except the general tax on income,—these bonds to be used exclusively for the conversion of an equal amount of the interest-bearing debt of the United States, except the existing five per cent. bonds and the three per cent. certificates. These proposed bonds have the advantage of being explicit in their terms. The obligations of the Government are fixed clearly and unchangeably beyond the assaults of politicians.
A glance at the national debt will show the operation of this measure. The sum-total on the 1st of February, 1868, according to the statement from the Treasury, was $2,514,315,373, being, in round numbers, twenty-five hundred millions. Out of this may be deducted legal-tender and fractional notes, as currency, amounting to $388,405,565, and several other smaller items. The following amounts represent the portions of debt provided for by this bill:—
| Six per cent., due 1881, | $ 283,676,600 |
| Six per cent., five-twenties, | 1,398,488,850 |
| Seven and three tenths Treasury notes, convertible into five-twenty bonds at maturity, | 214,953,850 |
| $1,897,119,300 |
This considerable sum may be funded under the proposed bill.
If this large portion of the national debt, with its six per cent. interest in coin, can be funded at a less interest, there will be a corresponding relief to the country. But there is one way only in which this can be successfully accomplished. It is by making the Public Faith so manifest that the holders will be induced to come into the change for the sake of the longer term. All that is done by them must be voluntary. Every holder must be free to choose. He may prefer his short bond at six per cent., or a long bond at five per cent., or a longer at four and one half per cent., or a still longer at four per cent. This is his affair. There must be no compulsion. Any menace of compulsion will defeat the transaction. It will be nothing less than Repudiation, with a certain loss of credit, which no saving of interest can repay. You must continue to borrow on a large scale; but who will lend to the repudiator, unless at a destructive discount? Any reduction of interest without the consent of the holders will reduce your capacity to borrow. A forced reduction of interest will be like a forced loan. While seeming to save interest, you will lose capital. Do not be deceived. Any compulsory conversion is only another form of Repudiation. It is tantamount to this declared crime. It is the same misdeed, taking still another shape,—as Proteus was the same heathen god in all his various transformations. It is Repudiation under an alias.
Happily the bill before us is free from any such damning imputation. The new bonds are authorized; but the holders of existing obligations are left free to exercise their judgment in making the change. I am assured by those who, from practical acquaintance with business, ought to know, that these bonds will be rapidly taken for the five-twenties.
The same bill, in its second section, sets apart $135,000,000 annually to the payment of the interest and the reduction of the principal of the national debt; and this is to be in lieu of a sinking fund. This is an additional security. It is another assurance of our determination to deal honestly.
The third section of the same bill is newer in its provisions, and, perhaps, more open to doubt. But, though uncertain with regard to it in the beginning, I have found that it commended itself on careful examination. On its face it provides for a system of conversion and reconversion. The holder of lawful money to the amount of $1,000, or any multiple of $1,000, may convert the same into the funded debt for an equal amount; and any holder of the funded debt may receive for the same at the Treasury lawful money, unless the notes then outstanding shall be equal to $400,000,000. If bonds in the funded debt shall be worth more than greenbacks, the latter would be converted into bonds according to the ordinary laws of trade. The latest relation of these two is as follows: $100 greenbacks equal seventy-one dollars gold; $100 five per cent. equal seventy-six dollars gold. If the greenbacks are convertible into the five per cent., they will, of course, be converted while the above relation continues. This must be so long as the national credit is maintained abroad and the demand for our securities continues there. By this process our greenbacks will be gradually absorbed, and those that are not absorbed will be lifted in value. It would seem as if bonds and greenbacks must both gain from this business, and with them the country must gain also. Here would be a new step to specie payments.
The bill closes with a provision authorizing contracts in coin, instead of greenbacks, according to the agreement of parties. This authority is in harmony with the other provisions of the bill, and is still another step toward specie payments.
I am now brought to the last branch of this discussion, in which all the others are absorbed: I mean the necessity of specie payments, or, in other words, the necessity of coin in the place of inconvertible paper. Other things are means to this end: this is the end itself. Until this is accomplished, Financial Reconstruction exists in aspiration only, and not in reality.
The suspension of specie payments was originally a war measure, like the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. It was so declared by myself at the time it was authorized. Pardon me, if I quote my own words in the debate on the bill:—
“It is a discretion kindred to that under which the Habeas Corpus is suspended, so that citizens are arrested without the forms of law,—kindred to that under which an extensive territory is declared to be in a condition of insurrection, so that all business with its inhabitants is suspended,—kindred to that, which unquestionably exists, to obtain soldiers, if necessary, by draft or conscription instead of the free offering of volunteers,—kindred to that under which private property is taken for public uses,—and kindred, also, to that undoubted discretion which sanctions the completest exercise of the transcendent right of self-defence.”[238]
As a war measure, it should cease with the war, or so soon thereafter as practicable. It should not be continued a day beyond positive exigency. While the war lasted, it was a necessity, as the war itself. Its continuance now prolongs into peace this belligerent agency, and projects its disturbing influence into the most distant places. Like war, whose greatest engine it was, it is the cause of incalculable evil. Like war, it troubles the entire Nation, deranges business, and demoralizes the people. As I hate war, so do I hate all its incidents, and long to see them disappear. Already in these remarks I have pictured the financial anarchy of our country, the natural reflection of the political; but the strongest illustration is in a disordered currency, which is present to everybody with a dollar in his pocket.
The derangement of business may be seen at home and abroad. It is not merely derangement; it is dislocation. Everything is out of joint. Business has its disease also, showing itself in opposite conditions: shrunk at times, as with paralysis; swollen at times to unhealthy proportions, as with elephantiasis. The first condition of business is stability, which is only another form of security; but this is impossible, when nobody can tell from day to day the value of the currency. It may change in a night. The reasonable contract of to-day may become onerous beyond calculation to-morrow. There is no fixed standard. The seller is afraid to sell, the buyer afraid to buy. Nobody can sell or buy a farm, nobody can build or mortgage a house, except at an unnatural hazard. Salaries and all fixed incomes suffer. The pay of every soldier in the army, every sailor in the navy, every office-holder from the President to the humblest postmaster, is brought under this tyrannical influence. Harder still, innocent pensioners, wards of the Nation, must bear the same doom. Maimed soldiers, bereaved widows, helpless orphans, whose cup is already full, are compelled to see their scanty dole shrink before their sight till it seems ready to vanish in smoke.
A greenback is a piece of paper with a promise on its face and green on its back, declared to be money by Act of Congress, but which the Government refuses to pay. It is “failed paper” of the Government. The mischief of such a currency is everywhere, enveloping the whole country and penetrating all its parts. It covers all and enters all. It is a discredit to the national name, from which the Nation suffers in whole and in detail. It weakens the Nation and hampers the citizen. There is no national enterprise which it does not impede. The Pacific Railroad feels it. There is not a manufacture or business which does not feel it also. There is not a town, or village, or distant place, which it does not visit.
A practical instance will show one way in which individuals suffer on an extensive scale, being generally those who are least able. I follow an ingenious merchant, Mr. Atkinson, of Boston, whose figures sustain his conclusion, when I insist that our present currency, from its unstable character, operates as an extra tax of more than one hundred millions annually on the labor and business of the country; and this vast sum is taken from the pockets of the people, not for the support of the Government, but to swell the unreported fund out of which the excesses of the present day are maintained. There are few business men who would not put the annual loss in their affairs, from the fluctuation in the currency, somewhere from one to five per cent. One per cent. is the lowest. Mr. Hazard, of Rhode Island, puts it at two per cent. Now the aggregate sales in the fiscal year ending June, 1867, were over eleven thousand millions ($11,000,000,000) in currency, excluding sales of stocks or bonds. One per cent. on this prodigious amount represents a tax of one hundred and ten millions, paid annually by consumers, according to their consumption, and not in any degree according to their ability. This is one instance only of the damages annually paid on account of our currency. If we estimate the annual tax at more than one per cent., the sum-total will be proportionally larger. Even at the smallest rate, it is many millions more than all the annual expenses of our Government immediately preceding the Rebellion.
Fluctuations in the measure of value are as inconvenient and fatal as fluctuations in the measures of length and bulk. A dollar which has to-day one value and to-morrow another is no better than a yard which has to-day one length and another to-morrow, or a bushel which has to-day one capacity and another to-morrow. It is as uncertain as “Equity” measured by the varying foot of successive chancellors, sometimes long and sometimes short, according to the pleasant illustration of Selden in his “Table-Talk.” Such fluctuations are more than a match for any prudence. Business is turned into a guess, or a game of hazard, where the prevailing anarchy is overruled by accident:—
“Chaos umpire sits,
And by decision more embroils the fray
By which he reigns; next him high arbiter
Chance governs all.”
In such a condition of things the gamblers have the advantage. The stock exchange becomes little better than a faro bank. By such scenes the country is demoralized. The temptation of excessive gains leads from the beaten path of business. Speculation without money takes the place of honest industry, extending from the stock exchange everywhere. The failed paper of the Government teaches the lesson of bankruptcy. The Government refuses to take up its notes, and others do likewise. These things cannot be without a shock to public morals. Honesty ceases to be even a policy. Broken contracts prepare the way for crime, which comes to complete the picture.
Our foreign commerce is not less disturbed; for here we are brought within the sphere of other laws than our own. Gold is the standard of business throughout the civilized world. Until it becomes again the standard among us, we are not, according to the familiar phrase of President Lincoln, in “practical relation” with the civilized world. We are States out of the great Union. Our currency has the stamp of legality at home, but it is worthless abroad. In all foreign transactions we are driven to purchase gold at a premium, or to adopt a system of barter which belongs to the earlier stages of commerce. Corn, wheat, and cotton are exchanged for the products we desire, and this traffic is the coarse substitute for that refined and plastic system of exchanges which adapts itself so easily to all the demands of business. Commerce with foreign powers is prosecuted at an incalculable disadvantage. Our shipping, which in times past has been the pride of the Nation, whitening every sea with its sails, is reduced in number and value. Driven from the ocean by pirate flags during the Rebellion, it cannot struggle back to its ancient supremacy until the accustomed laws of trade once more resume their rule.
There are few who will deny the transcendent evil which I have set forth. There are few who will advocate inconvertible paper as currency. How shall the remedy be applied? On this question, so interesting to the business and good name of the country, there are theories without number,—some so ingenious as to be artificial rather than natural. What is natural is simple; and I am persuaded that our remedy must be of this character.
The legal-tender note, which we wish to expel from our currency, has two different characters: first, as mere currency, for use in the transactions of business; and, secondly, as real value, from the assurance that ultimately it will be paid in coin, according to its promise. These two different characters may be sententiously expressed as availability and convertibility. The notes are now available without being convertible. Our desire is to make them convertible,—in other words, the equivalent of coin in value, dollar for dollar. On the 1st of June last past these notes were $388,675,802 in amount.
Discarding theories, however ingenious, and following Nature, I call attention to a few practical points, before reverting to those cardinal principles applicable to this subject, from which there can be no appeal.
First. The present proposition for funding is an excellent measure for this purpose, being at once simple and practical: not that it contains any direct promise for the redemption of our currency, but because it places the national debt on a permanent footing at a smaller interest than is now paid. By this change three things essential to financial reconstruction are promoted: economy, stability, and national credit. With these once established, specie payments cannot be long postponed.
Secondly. Another measure of immediate value is the legalization of contracts in coin, so that henceforth all agreements made in coin may be legally enforced in coin or its equivalent. This would establish specie payments wherever parties desired, and to this extent begin the much-desired change. Contracts in coin would increase and multiply, until the exception became the rule. There would for a time be two currencies; but the better must gradually prevail. The essential equity of the new system would be apparent, while there would be a charm in once more looking upon familiar faces long hidden from sight, as the hoarded coin came forth. Nor can any possible injury ensue. The legalization is applicable only to future contracts, as the parties mutually agree. Every citizen in this respect would be a law to himself. If he chose in his own business to resume specie payments, he could do so. There would be a voluntary resumption by the people, one by one. But this influence could not be confined to the immediate parties. Beyond the contagion of its example, there would be a positive necessity on the part of the banks that they should adapt themselves to the exigency by the substitution of proper commercial equivalents; and thus again we take another step in specie payments.
Thirdly. Another measure of practical value is the contraction of the existing currency, so as to bring it on a par with coin, dollar for dollar. Before alluding to any of the expedients to accomplish this precious object, it is important to arrive at some idea of the amount of currency of all kinds required for the business of the country. To do this, we may look at the currency before the Rebellion, when business was in its normal condition. I shall not occupy space with tables, although they are now before me, but content myself with results. From the official report of the Treasury it appears that on the 1st of January, 1860, the whole active circulation of the country, including bank circulation, bank deposits available as currency, specie in bank, specie in Treasury, estimated specie in circulation, and deducting reserves, amounted to $542,097,264. It may be assumed that this sum-total was the amount of currency required at the time. From the same official tables it appears that on the 1st of October, 1867, the whole active circulation of the country, beginning with greenbacks and fractional currency, and including all the items in the other account, amounted to $1,245,138,193. Thus from 1860, when the currency was normal, to 1867, some time after the suspension of specie payments, there was an increase of one hundred and thirty per cent. Omitting bank deposits for both years, the increase was one hundred and forty-six per cent. Making due allowance for the increase of population, business, and Government transactions, there remains a considerable portion of this advance which must be attributed to the abnormal condition of the currency. I follow various estimates in putting this at sixty or seventy per cent., representing the difference of prices at the two different periods, and the corresponding excess of currency above the requirements of the country. Therefore, for the reduction of prices, there must be a reduction of the currency; and this must be to the amount of $300,000,000. So it seems, unless these figures err.
Against the movement for contraction, which is commended by its simplicity and its tendency to a normal condition of things, we have two adverse policies,—one, the stand-still policy, and the other, worse yet, the policy of inflation. By the first the currency is left in statu quo,—stationary,—subject to the influence of other conditions, which may operate to reduce it. Better stand still than move in a wrong direction. By the latter the currency is enlarged at the expense of the people,—being at once a tax and a derangement of values. You pamper the morbid appetite for paper money, and play the discarded part of John Law. You blow up a bladder, without thinking that it is nothing but a bladder, ready to burst. As the volume of currency is increased, the purchasing power of each dollar is reduced in proportion. As you add to the currency, you take from the dollar. You do little more than mark your goods at higher prices, and imagine that they have increased in value. Already the price is too high. Do not make it higher. Already the currency is corrupted. Do not corrupt it more. The cream has been reduced to skimmed milk. Do not let it be reduced to chalk and water. Let there be national cream for all the people.
Obviously any contraction of the currency must be conducted with caution, so as to interfere as little as possible with existing interests. It should be understood in advance, so that business may adapt itself to the change. Once understood, it must be pursued wisely to the end. I call attention to a few of the expedients by which this contraction may be made.
1. Any holder may have liberty to fund his greenbacks in bonds, as he may desire; so that, as coin increases, they will be merged in the funded debt, and the currency be reduced in corresponding proportion.
2. Greenbacks, when received at the Treasury, may be cancelled, or they may be redeemed directly, so far as the coin on hand will permit.
3. Greenbacks may be converted into compound-interest notes, to be funded in monthly instalments, running over a term of years, thus reaching specie payments within a brief period.
4. Another expedient, more active still, is the application of the coin on hand to the payment of greenbacks at a given rate,—say $6,000,000 a month,—selecting for payment those holders who present the largest amount of five-twenties for conversion into the long bonds at a low rate of interest, or shall pay the highest premium on such bonds.
I mention these as expedients, having the authority of financial names, calculated to operate in the same direction, without violent change or spasmodic action. Under their mild and beneficent influence the currency would be gradually reduced, so that the final step, when taken, would be hardly felt. With so great an object in view, I do not doubt its accomplishment at an early day, if the Nation only wills it. “Where there is a will, there is a way”; and never was this proverb truer than on this occasion. To my mind it is clear, that, when the Nation wills a currency in coin, then must this victory over the Rebellion be won,—provided always that there is no failure in those other things on which I have also dwelt as the conditions precedent of this final victory.
How vain it is to expect Financial Reconstruction until Political Reconstruction has been completed I have already shown. How vain to expect specie payments until the Nation has once more gained its natural vigor, and it has become one in reality as in name! Let this be, and the Nation will be like a strong man, in the full enjoyment of all his forces, coping with the trials of life.
There must also be peace within our borders, so that there shall be no discord between President and Congress. Therefore, so long as Andrew Johnson is President, the return to specie payments is impossible. So long as a great party, called Democratic, better now called Rebel, wars on that Political Reconstruction which Congress has organized, there can be no specie payments. So long as any President, or any political party, denies the Equal Rights of the freedman, it is vain to expect specie payments. Whoso would have equity must do equity; and now, if you would have specie payments, you must do this great equity. The rest will follow. When General Grant said, “Let us have peace,” he said also, “Let us have specie payments.” Among all the blessed gifts of peace there is none more certain.
Nor must it be forgotten that there can be no departure in any way from the requirements of Public Faith. This is a perpetual obligation, complete in all respects, and just as applicable to the freedman as to the bond-holder. Repudiation in all its forms, direct or indirect, whether of the freedman or the bond-holder, must be repudiated. The freedman and bond-holder are under the same safeguard, and there is the same certain disaster from any repudiation of either. Unless the Public Faith is preserved inviolate, you cannot fund your debt at a smaller interest, you cannot convert your greenbacks, you cannot comply with the essential terms of Reconstruction. Amid all surrounding abundance you are poor and powerless, for you are dishonored. Do not say, as an apology, that all should have the same currency. True as this may be, it is a cheat, when used to cover dishonor. The currency of all should be coin, and you should lift all the national creditors to this solid platform rather than drag a single citizen down. A just Equality is sought by levelling up instead of levelling down. In this way the national credit will be maintained, so that it will be a source of wealth, prosperity, and renown.
Pardon me, if now, by way of recapitulation, I call your attention to three things in which all others centre. The first is the Public Faith. The second is the Public Faith. The third is the Public Faith. Let these be sacredly preserved, and there is nothing of power or fame which can be wanting. All things will pay tribute to you, even from the uttermost parts of the sea. All the sheaves will stand about, as in the dream of Joseph, and make obeisance to your sheaf. Good people, especially all concerned in business, whether commerce, banking, or labor, our own compatriots or the people of other lands, will honor and uphold the nation which, against all temptation, keeps its word.
NO REPRISALS ON INNOCENT PERSONS.
Speech in the Senate, on the Bill concerning the Rights of American Citizens, July 18, 1868.
The Senate had under consideration the Bill concerning the Rights of American Citizens in Foreign States, which had already passed the House of Representatives. As it came from the House it contained the following section:—
“Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That, whenever it shall be duly made known to the President that any citizen of the United States has been arrested and is detained by any foreign Government, in contravention of the intent and purposes of this Act, upon the allegation that naturalization in the United States does not operate to dissolve his allegiance to his native sovereign, or if any citizen shall have been arrested and detained, whose release upon demand shall have been unreasonably delayed or refused, the President shall be, and hereby is, empowered to suspend, in part or wholly, commercial relations with the said Government, or, in case no other remedy is available, to order the arrest and to detain in custody any subject or citizen of such foreign Government who may be found within the jurisdiction of the United States, and who has not declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, except ambassadors and other public ministers and their domestics and domestic servants; and the President shall without delay give information to Congress of any proceedings under this Act.”
Mr. Sumner reported an amendment, to strike out the words in Italic authorizing the suspension of commercial relations and reprisals on persons, and substitute therefor these words:—
“It shall be the duty of the President forthwith to report to Congress all the circumstances of any such arrest and detention, and any proceedings for the release of the citizen so arrested and detained, that Congress may take prompt action to secure to every citizen of the United States his just rights.”
On this amendment Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.
MR. PRESIDENT,—Before entering upon this discussion, I wish to read a brief telegram, which came by the cable last evening, as follows:—
“London, July 17.—In the House, last evening, Stanley, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, made an important statement in answer to a question asking for information. In reply, he said he had already sent to the United States Government a note on the matter of Naturalization, the substance of which was, that the British ministry was ready to accept the American views of the question. He therefore thought a misunderstanding between the two nations impossible.”
Add to this important information the well-known fact, that the United States have already ratified treaties with North Germany and Bavaria, and that we are engaged in negotiating treaties with other powers, for the settlement of this vexed question, and we may surely approach this discussion without any anxiety, except for the honor of our country.
Permit me to say, at the outset, that the declared object of the present bill is all lost in certain special features, which are nothing less than monstrous, and utterly unworthy of a generous Republic hoping to give an example to mankind. Surely, Sir, it is noble to reach out and protect the rights of the citizen at home and abroad; but no zeal in this behalf should betray us into conduct which cannot be regarded without a blush.
This bill proposes to confer upon the President prodigious powers, such as have never been lavished before in our history. They are without precedent. On this account alone they should be considered carefully; and they should not be granted, unless on good reason. If it be shown that they are not only without precedent, but that they are inconsistent with the requirements of modern civilization, that they are of evil example, and that they tend directly to war,—then, on this account, we should hesitate still more before we venture to grant them. Not lightly can a nation set itself against the requirements of civilization; not lightly can a nation do an act of evil example; not lightly can a nation take any step toward war. The whole business is solemn. Nothing graver could challenge the attention of the Senate.
Two powers are conferred upon the President: first, to suspend commercial relations with a foreign government, and, secondly, to arrest and detain in custody any subject of a foreign government found within the jurisdiction of the United States. The suspension of commercial relations, and the arrest of innocent foreigners, simply at the will of the President,—these are the two powers. It would be difficult to imagine greater.
We have had in our own history the instance of an embargo, when all our merchant ships were kept at home and forbidden to embark in foreign commerce. That measure was intended to save our commerce from insult and our sailors from impressment. This was done by Act of Congress. I am not aware of any instance, in our own history or in the history of any other country, where there has been a suspension of commercial relations with any foreign power, unless as an act of war. The moment war is declared, there is, from the fact of war, a suspension of commercial relations with the hostile power. Commerce with that power is impossible, and there can be no contract even between the citizens or subjects of the two powers. But this is war. It is now proposed to do this same thing and to call it peace. The proposition is new, absolutely new. Not an instance of history, not a phrase in the Law of Nations, sanctions it. I need not say how little congenial it is with the age in which we live. The present object of good men is to make war difficult, if not impossible. Here is a way to make war easy. To the President is given this alarming power. In Europe war proceeds from the sovereign: in England, from the Queen in Council; in France, from Louis Napoleon. This is according to the genius of monarchies. By the Constitution of our Republic it is Congress alone that can declare war. And yet by this bill One Man, in his discretion, may do little short of declaring war. He may hurl one of the bolts of war, and sever the commercial relations of two great powers. Consider well what must ensue. Suppose the bolt is hurled at England. All that various commerce on which so much depends, all that interchange of goods which contributes so infinitely to the wants of each, all that shipping and all those steamers traversing the ocean between the two, all the multitudinous threads of business by which the two peoples are woven together, warp and woof, as in a mighty loom,—all these must be severed.
The next power conferred on the President is like unto the first in its abnormal character. It is nothing less than authority, in his discretion, to make reprisals, by seizing innocent foreigners happening to be in the United States. The more this is considered, the more it must be regarded with distrust.
Reprisals belong to the incidents of war in the earlier ages, before civilization had tempered the rudeness of mankind. All reprisals are of doubtful character. Reprisals on persons are barbarous. I do not say, that, according to the received rights of war, some terrible occasion may not arise even for this barbarous agency; but I insist that it is frowned upon by all the best authorities even in our own country, that it is contrary to enlightened reason, and that it is utterly without any recent example. Admitting that such reprisals are not entirely discarded by writers on the Law of Nations, they are nevertheless condemned. By the rights of war, as once declared, the lives of prisoners taken on the field of battle were forfeit. Early history attests the frequency of this bloody sacrifice. Who now would order the execution of prisoners of war? The day has passed when any such outrage can be tolerated. But it is hardly less barbarous to seize innocent persons whom business or pleasure has brought within your peaceful jurisdiction, under the guaranty of the Public Faith.
I am unwilling to occupy time on a matter which is so clear in the light of modern civilization, and of that enlightened reason which is the handmaid to civilization. And yet the present effort will justify me in exposing the true character of reprisals, as seen in the light of history.
Reprisals were recognized by the Greeks, but disowned by the Romans. According to Bynkershoek, who is so much quoted on the Law of Nations, “there is no instance of such wickedness in the history of that magnanimous people; neither do their laws exhibit the least trace of it.”[239] This is strong language, and is in itself a condemnation of this whole agency. It is of the more weight, as the author is our austerest authority on questions of the Law of Nations, giving to the rights of war the strongest statement. According to him, reprisals are nothing less than “wickedness” (improbitas), and unworthy of a magnanimous people. During the Middle Ages, and afterwards, reprisals were in vogue; but they never found favor. They have been constantly reprobated. Even when formally sanctioned, they have been practically excluded by safeguards and conditions. In a treaty between Cromwell and the States-General there was a stipulation against reprisals, “unless the prince whose subject shall conceive himself to have been injured shall first lay his complaint before the sovereign whose subject is supposed to have committed the tortious act, and unless that sovereign shall not cause justice to be rendered to him within three months after his application.”[240] This stipulation was renewed under Charles the Second.[241] The same principle was declared by the Grand Pensionary, De Witt, who, in the name of the United Provinces, protested, “that reprisals cannot be granted, except in case of an open denial of justice,” and “that, even in case of a denial of justice, a sovereign cannot empower his subjects to make reprisals, until he has repeatedly demanded justice for them.”[242] A similar rule was also declared in the famous letter to the King of Prussia, in the case of the Silesian loan, written by Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield, and much praised by Montesquieu and by Vattel.[243] Here it is said: “The Law of Nations, founded upon justice, equity, convenience, and the reason of the thing, and confirmed by long usage, does not allow of reprisals, except in case of violent injuries, directed or supported by the State, and justice absolutely denied, in re minime dubia, by all the tribunals, and afterwards by the prince.”[244] This is clear and strong. I might quote authorities without end to the same point. I content myself with adding the words of General Halleck, who, after saying, in his admirable manual, that “reprisals bring us to the awful confines of actual war,” proceeds to lay down the rule, that reprisals, even on property, can be only “where justice has been plainly denied or most unreasonably delayed.”[245] This rule commends itself as proper and just. It is your duty to apply it on the present occasion. But, in the face of the authorities in our own country, judges, jurists, publicists, and commentators, in long array, according to whom our own claim of allegiance is coincident with that of England,—and then, again, in face of the well-known and much-heralded disposition of foreign powers, including England, to settle this whole question by treaty, is it not absurd to say that here is a case for reprisals of any kind?
In the early days reprisals were directed against persons as well as property. Even against property it was done with hesitation, only in cases free from all doubt, and after ample appeal to the sovereign for justice. Against persons it was done very rarely. Grotius, our greatest master, who brought the rules of International Law to the touchstone of reason, asserts that all reprisals are vindicated by custom rather than by Nature. His language is, that this rule “is not indeed authorized by Nature, but generally received by custom.”[246] Since then the tendency has been to a constant mitigation of this pretension, even as regards property. Without burdening this discussion with cases, which are numerous, I give a summary of Wheaton in these words: “It appears to be the modern rule of international usage, that property of the enemy found within the territory of the belligerent state, or debts due to his subjects by the Government or individuals, at the commencement of hostilities, are not liable to be seized and confiscated as prize of war.”[247] This rule, which is applicable to the condition of things on the breaking out of war, attests the care with which the modern Law of Nations watches the rights of individuals, and how it avoids making them suffer. Thus even debts are not liable to seizure. How much more should an innocent person be exempt from any such outrage!
It is when we consider the modern rule with regard to persons, instead of property, that we are impressed still more by its benignity. Here I quote, first a British authority, and then an American. Mr. Phillimore, the author of the very elaborate and candid treatise on the Law of Nations, so full of various learning, after admitting that reprisals, “strictly speaking, affect the persons as well as the goods,” proceeds to say, that, “in modern times, however, they have been chiefly confined to goods”; and then adds, in words worthy of consideration now, that “it is to be hoped that the reprisal of persons has fallen, with other unnecessary and unchristian severities, into desuetude; and certainly, to seize travellers, by way of reprisal, is a breach of the tacit faith pledged to them by the State, when they were allowed to enter her borders.”[248] The same enlightened conclusion is expressed by Dana, in his excellent notes to Wheaton, as follows: “The right of making reprisals is not limited to property, but extends to persons; still, the practice of modern times discountenances the arrest and detention of innocent persons strictly in the way of reprisal.”[249] Thus do British and American publicists concur in homage to a common civilization.
If we look at the reason of the modern rule which spares persons, we shall find it in two different considerations, each of controlling authority: first, that an innocent person cannot be seized in a foreign country without a violation of the Public Faith; and, secondly, that no private individual can be justly held responsible for the act of his Government. On the first head Vattel speaks as follows: “The sovereign who declares war can no more detain the subjects of the enemy who are found in his states at the time of the declaration than he can their effects. They have come into his dominions on the Public Faith. In permitting them to enter his territories and continue there he tacitly promised them full liberty and full security for their return.”[250] In the same sense Halleck says, “Travellers and passing guests are in general excepted from such liability.”[251] Here again Grotius speaks with the authority of a Christian lawgiver, saying that by the Law of Nations there can be no reprisals “on travellers or sojourners.”[252] The other reason was assigned by Mr. Webster, in his correspondence with the British Government in relation to the “Caroline.” The British Government having acknowledged the act of McLeod in burning this vessel as their act, Mr. Webster at once declared, that, after this avowal, the individuals engaged in it could not be held personally responsible, and he added words worthy of memory at this juncture: “The President presumes that it can hardly be necessary to say that the American people, not distrustful of their ability to redress public wrongs by public means, cannot desire the punishment of individuals, when the act complained of is declared to have been an act of the Government itself.”[253] Weighty words, by which our country is forever bound. The same principle is adopted by Halleck, in his text-book, when he says, “No individual is justly chargeable with the guilt of a personal crime for the act of the community of which he is a member.”[254] All these authorities furnish us the same lesson, and warn against the present proposition. Shall we at the same time violate the Public Faith and wreak a dishonorable vengeance on an innocent traveller or sojourner, making him the scapegoat of his country? Shall we do this outrage to the stranger within our gates?
Another argument may be found in the extent to which reprisal on persons has been discarded by modern precedents. It is denounced, not only by authority, but also by practice. I have already said that the proposition to suspend commercial relations is without an example in history. The other proposition is without example since the hateful act of the first Napoleon, condemned afterward by himself, when, at the breaking of the short-lived Peace of Amiens, he seized innocent Englishmen who happened to be in France, and detained them as prisoners, precisely as is now proposed under the present bill. Among the numerous victims of this tyrannical decree was Lord Elgin, the father of the late Sir Frederick Bruce, on his return from Constantinople, where he had been ambassador. There was also an ingenious scholar, of feeble health, but exquisite attainments, Joseph Forsyth, author of one of the best books ever written on Italy.[255] He, too, was seized. In the preface to his admirable work his family have recorded the outrage. Read it, if you would know the judgment that awaits such a transaction. There is also another record in the pages of the English historian who has pictured the events of that time.
“This declaration of war was immediately followed by an act as unnecessary as it was barbarous, and which contributed more, perhaps, than any other circumstance to produce that strong feeling of animosity against Napoleon which pervaded all classes of the English during the remainder of the contest. Two French vessels had been captured, under the English letters of marque, in the Bay of Audierne, and the First Consul made it a pretence for ordering the arrest of all the English then travelling in France between the ages of eighteen and sixty years. Under this savage decree, unprecedented in the annals of modern warfare, above ten thousand innocent individuals, who had repaired to France in pursuit of business, science, or amusement, on the faith of the Law of Nations, which never extended hostilities to persons in such circumstances, were at once thrown into prison, from whence great numbers of them were never liberated till the invasion of the Allies in 1814.”[256]
Napoleon himself, at a later day, when reason resumed its sway, condemned the act. In his conversations at St. Helena with Las Cases, he said: “The greater part of these English were wealthy or noble persons, who were travelling for their amusement. The more novel the act was, the more flagrant its injustice, the more it answered my purpose.”[257] Here, then, was an admission that the act was at once novel and unjust. The generals that surrounded him at the time most reluctantly enforced it. From the Memoirs of the Duchess D’Abrantès, we learn how poignantly her gallant husband, Junot, took it to heart and protested. He was unwilling to have anything to do with such an infamy. Recovering at last from the stupor caused by the order, the brave soldier said: “My General, you know not only my attachment to your person, but my absolute devotion to everything which concerns you. It is that devotion which induces me to hesitate at obeying your orders, before imploring you to take a few hours to reflect on the measure which you have now commanded.… Demand my blood; demand my life; I will surrender them without hesitation; but to ask a thing which must cover us with—— … I am sure, that, when you come to yourself, and are no longer fascinated by those around you, who compel you to violent measures, you will be of my opinion.”[258] Every word of this earnest expostulation may now be justly addressed to the Senate. You, too, Senators, should you unhappily yield to those who now insist upon violent measures, will regret the surrender. You will grieve that your country has been permitted through you to fall from the great example which it owes to mankind. Save your country; save yourselves.
Suppose the law is passed, and the authority conferred upon the President. Whom shall he seize? What innocent foreigner? What trustful traveller? What honored guest? It may be Mr. Dickens, or Mr. Trollope, or Rev. Newman Hall; or it may be some merchant here on business, guiltless of any wrong and under the constant safeguard of the Public Faith. Permit me to say, Sir, that, the moment you do this, you will cover the country with shame, of which the present bill will be the painful prelude. You will be guilty of a barbarism kindred to that of the Abyssinian king Theodorus. You will degrade the national name, and make it a byword of reproach. Sir, now is the time to arrest this dishonor. See to it by your votes that it is impossible forever.
Sir, it is hard to treat this pretension with composure. Argument, denunciation, and ridicule are insufficient. It must be trampled under foot, so as to become a hissing and a scorn. With all the granting of legislation, it is solemnly proposed that good men shall suffer for acts in which they had no part. Innocence is no excuse against the present pretension. The whole attempt is out of time; it is an anachronism, no better than the revival of the Prügel-knabe, who was kept at the German courts of former days to receive the stripes which the prince had merited for his misdeeds. Surely, if anybody is to suffer, let it be the offending Government, or those who represent it and share its responsibilities, instead of private persons, who in no way represent their Government, and may condemn it. Seize the ambassador or minister. You will then audaciously violate the Law of Nations. The absurdity of your act will be lost in its madness. In the seizure which is now proposed there will be absurdity to make the world shake with laughter, if for a moment it can cease to see the flagrant cruelty and meanness of your conduct.
A debate ensued, which ran into the next day, in the course of which Mr. Conness, of California, insisted that the striking out of the reprisals clause would impair the efficiency of the bill, and make it nothing but “air.” At the close of the debate, immediately before the vote on the amendment, Mr. Sumner summed up his objection as follows:—
My objection to the text of the bill which it is proposed to strike out is, that it is a proposal of unutterable barbarism, which, if adopted, would disgrace this country.
The question, being taken by yeas and nays, resulted,—Yeas 30, Nays 7; as follows:—
Yeas,—Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Corbett, Cragin, Davis, Fessenden, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Howe, Kellogg, McDonald, Morgan, Morrill of Vermont, Osborn, Patterson of New Hampshire, Patterson of Tennessee, Pomeroy, Rice, Sumner, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers, Willey, Williams, and Wilson,—30.
Nays,—Messrs. Conness, Nye, Sprague, Stewart, Thayer, Tipton, and Whyte,—7.
For the section thus amended, Mr. Williams, of Oregon, moved a substitute; whereupon the debate was resumed, and Mr. Sumner spoke again.
The amendment of the Senator, and the remarks that he has made, it seems to me, go on a mistaken hypothesis. They accept the idea that there has been some failure on the part of our Government with reference to citizens abroad.
Mr. Wilson [of Massachusetts]. Is not that true?
Mr. Sumner. I think it is not true; and if time would allow now, I could go into the evidence and show that it is not true. I have the documents here. But we are entering upon this question to-night with an understanding, almost a compact, that there shall be no debate. I do not wish to break that compact. But here are documents lying on my table containing all the facts of record with regard to every American citizen who has been taken into custody abroad. Examine that record, and you will see how strenuous and steadfast our Government has been.
Permit me to say that the argument of the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Williams] proceeds on a misunderstanding of the facts. There is no occasion now for any such legislative prompting to the Government of the United States.
Mr. Williams. I should like to ask the Senator a question.
Mr. Sumner. Certainly.
Mr. Williams. Why is it, if everything has been so smooth and so placid upon this subject, that both of the political parties of this country have seen proper to put in their platforms resolutions in reference to the rights of American citizens abroad?
Mr. Sumner. I have not said that things were placid or smooth; but I have said that our Government has been strenuous and steadfast in the maintenance of the rights of American citizens, whether native-born or naturalized; and the record will show the truth of what I say. Where has there been a failure? Has it been in Germany? Read the correspondence, running now over several years, between the United States and the different powers of Germany, and see the fidelity with which the rights of our naturalized citizens have been maintained there.
I wish to be as brief as possible. If the Senator will take the trouble to read the documents on the table, he will see that among all the numerous applications made by the United States to the Government of Prussia, the leading power of Germany, there is hardly an instance where this power did not meet us kindly and generously. I speak according to the record. I have been over every one of these cases; and I must say, as I read them I felt a new gratification in the power of my country, which made itself felt for the protection of its citizens in those distant places, and also a new sense of the comity of nations. A letter went forth from one of our ministers, and though at that time this difficult question of expatriation was still unsettled, yet, out of regard to our country, or out of regard, it might be, sometimes, to the personal character of our minister, the claim was abandoned. You can hardly find an instance——
Mr. Conness rose.
Mr. Sumner. Will the Senator let me finish my sentence?
Mr. Conness. Certainly.
Mr. Sumner. You can hardly find an instance in that voluminous correspondence where the claim has been persisted in on the part of the Prussian Government. The abstract question was left unsettled; but the individual was left free, without claim of allegiance or military service. All this was anterior to the treaty, by which this whole question is happily settled forever.
But it is not my purpose to discuss the conduct of foreign Governments. My simple aim is to show the conduct of our own. That was the point with which I began. I said that it needed no quickening such as the Senator from Oregon proposes to apply. There is no evidence that our Government has not been persistent and earnest for the protection of its citizens abroad, whether native-born or naturalized, and I alluded to Prussia only by way of illustration. Pass that by. We have then the greater and more complex case of England. But I would rather not enter upon this. Here are the documents on my table, the passages all marked, which would illustrate the conduct of the British Government and the British tribunals toward every one of these persons whose names have been brought in question. I do not wish to go into this question. I should be misunderstood; and it is not necessary. I am speaking now of the conduct of our own Government, rather than of the conduct of any other Government. Mark, Sir, my reply to the Senator from Oregon was, that our Government did not need any additional power or any additional impulse to activity in this behalf. Already it has the power to do everything permitted by the Law of Nations, and it ought not to do anything else.
Mr. Conness followed in support of the bill, and to a correction from Mr. Sumner retorted:—
“The honorable Senator would be very quick to demand the interference of all the powers of this Government in behalf of an arrested American citizen, if he were black. But, Sir, those arrested happen to be of another color,—not a color which appeals to his sympathies, but a color that allows him to belittle their arrest and incarceration,—that enables him to say here in the Senate that our Government have done everything that they could do, all that was necessary. It is true in his judgment, I have no doubt; for, if you only write letters, if you only publish and utter productions of the brain, if you only present views, the honorable Senator is satisfied. Those are his means, except when the progress through the thoroughfares of the city or the country of an American citizen of African descent is involved. Then views are at once thrown to the dogs, and he demands the interference of the Government, the police authority; if it be a railroad company, repeal their acts of incorporation! No matter how much capital stands in the way,—it may be $10,000,000 that is affected,—repeal their acts at once! How dare they impiously set up their tyranny over one human being who is stamped with American citizenship?… The law as proposed to be passed under the direction of the honorable Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations amounts to nothing.… I hope, without detaining the Senate any longer, that we shall not add to our too great delay upon these questions the offence and insult that the passage of this Act would be as proposed by the Committee.[259]
To this attack Mr. Sumner replied as follows:—
I hesitate very much to say another word; and yet I think the Senate will pardon me, if I make a brief reply to the charge, so absolutely unjust, of the Senator from California. He throws upon me the reproach of indifference to foreigners. Sir, I deny the imputation, and challenge comparison on this head with any Senator on this floor. Here I know that I am without blame. Sir, you do not forget that more than ten years ago there was a storm that passed over this country which had a name more familiar than polite: I mean Know-nothing-ism. It was everywhere, and enveloped my own State. At that time I had the honor of holding the position which I now hold. Did I yield to this storm, when it was carrying all before it? Sir, at that time I went down to Faneuil Hall, and in the presence of one of the largest audiences ever there assembled, and knowing well the prevailing sentiment, I made a speech vindicating the rights of emigrants to our country and promising them welcome. I have that speech here now, and I will read a few sentences from it. This was on the 2d of November, 1855,—nearly thirteen years ago. Pardon me for reading this record of other days; but I am justified by the attacks to which I have been exposed. If any foreign-born citizen is disposed to hearken to the Senator from California impeaching me, I ask him to bear in mind how I stood for his rights at another time, when there were fewer ready to stand for them than now. I read from this forgotten speech, as reported at that time.
Mr. Sumner read the first two paragraphs on the thirteenth page of the pamphlet edition.[260]
Such was my argument for the rights of the foreign-born among us. To all of them I offered such welcome as I could:—
“There are our broad lands, stretching towards the setting sun; let them come and take them. Ourselves children of the Pilgrims of a former generation, let us not turn from the Pilgrims of the present. Let the home founded by our emigrant fathers continue open in its many mansions to the emigrants of to-day.”[261]
Sir, those were the words which I uttered in Faneuil Hall at a time when the opposition to foreigners was scouring over the whole country. Others yielded to that tempest, but I did not yield. All my votes in this Chamber, from the first day that I entered it down to this moment, have been in the same direction, and for that welcome which I thus early announced. Never have I missed an occasion to vote for their protection; never shall I miss any such occasion. I was the first in the Senate to announce the essential incompatibility between the claim of perpetual allegiance and the license of unlimited emigration which we had witnessed, saying that every Irishman or German leaving with the consent of his Government was a living witness to the hollowness of the original pretension. And now I am most anxious to see expatriation a law as well as a fact. If I do not adopt the expedients proposed, it is because I regard them as less calculated to produce the much-desired result than other means equally at hand, to the end that the rights of our naturalized citizens may find adequate safeguard everywhere. The present bill can do little good, and may do harm. It will not protect a single citizen; but it may be a drag on those pending negotiations by which the rights of all will be secured. Too studious of the Law of Nations, perhaps, to be willing to treat it with distrust or neglect, I look to that prevailing agency rather than to the more limited instrumentality of Municipal Law. It is the province of Municipal Law to determine rights at home,—how a foreign-born person may be naturalized in our country,—how he may be admitted to all the transcendent privileges of American citizenship; but it belongs to another system of law to determine what shall be his privileges, should he return to the country which gave him birth. We may, by our declarations, by our diplomacy, by our power, do much; but it is by our treaties that we shall fix all these rights in adamant. The Senator seems to have no higher idea than to write them in the fleeting passions of party. My vote will never be wanting to elevate them above all such fitful condition, and to place them under the perpetual sanction of International Law,—the only law which can bind two different powers. Sir, the Senator from California shall not go before me; he shall not be more swift than I; he shall not take one single step in advance of me. Be the person Irish or German or African or Chinese, he shall have from me the same equal protection. Can the Senator say as much?
THE CHINESE EMBASSY, AND OUR RELATIONS WITH CHINA.
Speech at the Banquet by the City of Boston to the Chinese Embassy, August 21, 1868.
The year 1868 was memorable for the Chinese Embassy, with Hon. Anson Burlingame at its head, which, arriving first at Washington by the way of San Francisco, negotiated a treaty with the United States, and then visited Europe. The abundant hospitality with which it was received throughout the United States was marked at Boston by a distinguished reception and entertainment on the part of the municipal authorities. August 20th, the Embassy was received by Hon. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Mayor, and escorted in public procession through the principal streets, and with the customary diplomatic salutes, to the Parker House, where they were lodged as the guests of the city. The next day at noon they were publicly received at Faneuil Hall, which was decorated for the occasion. In the evening they were entertained at a banquet at the St. James Hotel, where were present about two hundred and twenty-five gentlemen, including the City Government.
The company is thus described in the official report:—
“Hon. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Mayor, presided. On his right were seated Hon. Anson Burlingame, Chief of the Embassy; His Excellency Alexander H. Bullock, Governor of the Commonwealth; Teh Lao-yeh, English Interpreter attached to the Embassy; Hon. Charles Sumner, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate; Hon. Caleb Cushing; Major-General Irwin McDowell, U. S. A.; Commodore John Rodgers, U. S. N.; Charles G. Nazro, Esq., President of the Board of Trade. On the left of the Mayor were seated Chih Ta-jin, Associate Minister; Mr. McLeavy Brown, Secretary to the Embassy; Sun Ta-jin, Associate Minister; M. Émile Dechamps, Secretary to the Embassy; Fung Lao-yeh, English Interpreter; Ralph Waldo Emerson, LL.D.; Rev. George Putnam, D. D.; Mr. Edwin P. Whipple.
“Among the other distinguished guests present were: Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes; Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks, Hon. George S. Boutwell, and Hon. Ginery Twichell, Members of Congress; Rev. Thomas Hill, D. D., President of Harvard College; Hon. George S. Hillard, United States District Attorney; Hon. George O. Brastow, President of the Senate; Hon. Harvey Jewell, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Brevet Major-General H. W. Benham, and Brevet Major-General J. G. Foster, U. S. Engineer Corps; Major-General James H. Carleton, U. S. A.; Brevet Brigadier-General Henry H. Prince, Paymaster U. S. A.; Major-General James A. Cunningham, Adjutant-General; Hon. Henry J. Gardner, Ex-Governor of the Commonwealth; Hon. Josiah Quincy; Hon. Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr.; Dr. Peter Parker, formerly Commissioner to China; Hon. Isaac Livermore; Sr. Frederico Granados, Spanish Consul; Mr. G. M. Finotti, Italian Consul; Mr. Joseph Iasigi, Turkish Consul; Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, President of the Board of Agriculture; Rev. N. G. Clark, D. D., Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions; and many of the leading merchants and professional men of Boston.”
At the banquet speeches were made by the Mayor, Mr. Burlingame, Governor Bullock, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Cushing, Mr. Emerson, General Banks, Mr. Nazro, and Mr. Whipple.
The Mayor announced as the fifth regular toast, “The Supplementary Treaty with China,” and called upon Mr. Sumner to respond. Mr. Burlingame had already said in his speech, while declining any elaborate exposition of the Treaty: “No, Sir,—I leave the exposition of that treaty to the distinguished Senator on my right, who was its champion in the Senate, and who procured for it a unanimous vote.”
Mr. Sumner said:—
MR. MAYOR,—I cannot speak on this interesting occasion without first declaring the happiness I enjoy at meeting my friend of many years in the exalted position he now holds. Besides this personal relation, he was also an honored associate in representing the good people of this community, and in advancing a great cause, which he championed with memorable eloquence and fidelity. Such are no common ties.
The splendid welcome now offered by the municipal authorities of Boston is only a natural expression of prevailing sentiments. Here his labors and triumphs began. In your early applause and approving voices he first tasted of that honor which is now his in such ample measure. He is one of us, who, going forth into a strange country, has come back with its highest trusts and dignities. Once the representative of a single Congressional district, he now represents the most populous nation of the globe. Once the representative of little more than a third part of Boston, he is now the representative of more than a third part of the human race. The population of the globe is estimated at twelve hundred millions; that of China at more than four hundred and sometimes even at five hundred millions.
If in this position there be much to excite wonder, there is still more for gratitude in the unparalleled opportunity it affords. What we all ask is opportunity. Here is opportunity on a surpassing scale,—employed, I am sure, to advance the best interests of the human family; and if these are advanced, no nation can suffer. Each is contained in all. With justice and generosity as the reciprocal rule,—and nothing else can be the aim of this great Embassy,—there can be no limits to the immeasurable consequences. Nor can I hesitate to say that concessions and privileges are of less consequence than that spirit of friendship and good neighborhood, embracing alike the distant and the near, which, once established, renders all else easy.
The necessary result of the present experiment in diplomacy will be to make the countries it visits better known to the Chinese, and also to make the Chinese better known to them. Each will know the other better, and better comprehend that condition of mutual dependence which is the law of humanity. In relations among nations, as in common life, this is of infinite value. Thus far, I fear the Chinese are poorly informed with regard to us. I am sure we are poorly informed with regard to them. We know them through the porcelain on our tables, with its lawless perspective, and the tea-chest, with its unintelligible hieroglyphics. There are two pictures of them in the literature of our language, which cannot fail to leave an impression. The first is in “Paradise Lost,” where Milton, always learned, even in his poetry, represents Satan descending in his flight
“on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany wagons light.”[262]
The other is in that admirable “Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations,” where Sir James Mackintosh, in words of singular felicity, points to “the tame, but ancient and immovable civilization of China.”[263] It is for us at last to enlarge these pictures, and to fill the canvas with life.
I do not know if it has occurred to our honored guest that he is not the first stranger who, after sojourning in this distant, unknown land, has come back loaded with its honors, and with messages to the Christian powers. He is not without a predecessor in his mission. There is another career as marvellous as his own. I refer to the Venetian Marco Polo, whose reports, once discredited as the fables of a traveller, are now recognized among the sources of history, and especially of geographical knowledge. Nobody can read them without feeling their verity. It was in the latter part of the far-away thirteenth century that this enterprising Venetian, with his father and uncle, all merchants, journeyed from Venice, by the way of Constantinople, Trebizond on the Black Sea, and Central Asia, until they reached first the land of Prester John, and then that golden country known as Cathay, where the lofty ruler, Kublaï Khan, treated them with gracious consideration, and employed young Polo as his ambassador. This was none other than China, and the lofty ruler, called the Grand Khan, was none other than the first of its Mongolian dynasty, having his imperial residence in the immense city of Kambalu, or Peking. After many years of illustrious service, the Venetian, with his companions, was dismissed with splendor and riches, charged with letters for European sovereigns, as our Bostonian is charged with similar letters now. There were letters for the Pope, the King of France, the King of Spain, and other Christian princes. It does not appear that England was expressly designated. Her name, so great now, was not at that time on the visiting list of the distant Emperor. Such are the contrasts in national life. Marco Polo reached Venice, on his return, in 1295, at the very time when Dante, in Florence, was meditating his divine poem, and Roger Bacon, in England, was astonishing the age with his knowledge. These were his two greatest contemporaries, constituting with himself the triumvirate of the century.
The return of the Venetian to his native city was attended by incidents which have not occurred among us. Bronzed by long residence under the sun of the East, wearing the dress of a Tartar, and speaking his native language with difficulty, it was some time before his friends could be persuaded of his identity. Happily there is no question on the identity of our returned fellow-citizen; and surely it cannot be said that he speaks his native language with difficulty. A dinner was spread at Venice as here at Boston, and now, after the lapse of nearly six hundred years, the Venetian dinner still lives in glowing description. Marco Polo, with his companions, appeared first in long robes of crimson satin reaching to the floor, which, when the guests had washed their hands, were changed for other robes of crimson damask, and then again, after the first course, for other robes of crimson velvet, and at the conclusion of the banquet, for the ordinary dress worn by the rest of the company. Meanwhile the other costly garments were distributed among the attendants at the table. In all your magnificence to-night, Mr. Mayor, I have seen no such largess. Then were brought forward the coarse threadbare garments in which they had travelled, when, on ripping the lining and patches with a knife, costly jewels, in sparkling showers, leaped forth before the eyes of the company, who for a time were motionless with wonder. Then at last, says the Italian chronicler, every doubt was banished, and all were satisfied that these were the valiant and honorable gentlemen of the house of Polo. I do not relate this history to suggest any such operation on the dress of our returned fellow-citizen. No such evidence is needed to assure us of his identity.
The success of Marco Polo is amply attested. From his habit of speaking of “millions” of people and “millions” of money, he was known as Messer Millioni, or the millionaire, being the earliest instance in history of a designation so common in our prosperous age. But better than “millions” was the knowledge he imparted, and the impulse he gave to that science which teaches the configuration of the globe and the place of nations on its face. His travels, dictated by him, were reproduced in various languages, and, after the invention of printing, the book was multiplied in more than fifty editions. Unquestionably it prepared the way for the two greatest geographical discoveries of modern times,—the Cape of Good Hope, by Vasco da Gama, and the New World, by Christopher Columbus. One of his admirers, a French savant, does not hesitate to say, that, “when, in the long series of ages, we seek the three men who, by the magnitude and influence of their discoveries, have most contributed to the progress of geography or the knowledge of the globe, the modest name of the Venetian traveller finds a place in the same line with those of Alexander the Great and Christopher Columbus.”[264] It is well known that the imagination of the Genoese navigator was fired by the revelations of the Venetian, and that, in his mind, the countries embraced by his transcendent discovery were none other than the famed Cathay, with its various dependencies. In his report to the Spanish sovereigns, Cuba was nothing else than Zipangu, or Japan, as described by the Venetian, and he thought himself near a Grand Khan,—meaning, as he says, a king of kings. Columbus was mistaken. He had not reached Cathay or the Grand Khan; but he had discovered a new world, destined in the history of civilization to be more than Cathay, and, in the lapse of time, to welcome the Ambassador of the Grand Khan.
The Venetian, returning home, journeyed out of the East, westward; our Marco Polo, returning home, journeyed out of the West, eastward. And yet they both came from the same region: their common starting-point was Peking. This change is typical of the surpassing revolution under whose influence the Orient will become the Occident. Journeying westward, the first welcome is from the nations of Europe; journeying eastward, the first welcome is from our Republic. It remains that this welcome should be extended, until, opening a pathway for the mightiest commerce of the world, it embraces within the sphere of American activity that ancient ancestral empire, where population, industry, and education, on an unprecedented scale, create resources and necessities on an unprecedented scale also. See to it, merchants of the United States, and you, merchants of Boston, that this opportunity is not lost.
And this brings me, Mr. Mayor, to the Treaty, which you invited me to discuss. But I will not now enter upon this topic. If you did not call me to order for speaking too long, I fear I should be called to order in another place for undertaking to speak of a treaty not yet proclaimed by the President. One remark I will make, and take the consequences. The Treaty does not propose much; but it is an excellent beginning, and, I trust, through the good offices of our fellow-citizen, the honored plenipotentiary, will unlock those great Chinese gates which have been bolted and barred for long centuries. The Embassy is more than the Treaty, because it prepares the way for further intercourse, and helps that new order of things which is among the promises of the Future.
Mr. Burlingame’s sudden death, at St. Petersburg, February 23, 1870, arrested the remarkable career he had begun, leaving uncertain what he might have accomplished for China with European powers, and also uncertain the possible influence he might have exercised with the great nation he represented, in opening its avenues of approach, and bringing it within the sphere of Western civilization.
THE REBEL PARTY.
Speech at the Flag-Raising of the Grant and Colfax Club, in Ward Six, Boston, on the Evening of September 14, 1868.
I find a special motive for being here to-night in the circumstance that this is the ward where I was born and have always voted, and where I expect to vote at the coming election. Here I voted twice for Abraham Lincoln, and here I expect to vote for Grant and Colfax. According to familiar phrase, this is my ward. This, also, is my Congressional District. Though representing the Commonwealth in the Senate, I am not without a representative in the other House. Your Congressional representative is my representative. Therefore I confess a peculiar interest in this ward and this district.
In hanging out the national flag at the beginning of the campaign, you follow the usage of other times; but to my mind it is peculiarly appropriate at the present election. The national flag is the emblem of loyalty, and the very question on which you are to vote in the present election is whether loyalty or rebellion shall prevail. It is whether the national flag shall wave gloriously over a united people in the peaceful enjoyment of Equal Rights for All, or whether it shall be dishonored by traitors. This is the question. Under all forms of statement or all resolutions, it comes back to this. As during the war all of you voted for the national flag, while some carried it forward in the face of peril, so now all of you must vote for it, and be ready to carry it forward again, if need be, in the face of peril.
As loyalty is the distinctive characteristic of our party, so is disloyalty the distinctive characteristic of the opposition. I would not use too strong language, or go beyond the strictest warrant of facts; but I am obliged to say that we cannot recognize the opposition at this time as anything else but the Rebel Party in disguise, or the Rebel Party under the alias of Democracy. The Rebels have taken the name of Democrats, and with this historic name hope to deceive people into their support. But, whatever name they adopt, they are the same Rebels who, after defeat on many bloody fields, at last surrendered to General Grant, and, by the blessing of God and the exertions of the good people, will surrender to him again.
I am unwilling to call such a party democratic. It is not so in any sense. It is not so according to the natural meaning of the term, for a Democrat is a friend of popular rights; nor is it so according to the examples of our history, for all these disown the policy of the opposition. Thomas Jefferson was an original Democrat; but he drew with his own hand the Declaration of Independence, which announces that all men are equal in rights, and that just government stands only on the consent of the governed. Andrew Jackson was another Democrat; but he put down South Carolina treason with a strong hand, and gave the famous toast, “The Union, it must be preserved.” These were Democrats, representative Democrats, boldly announcing the Equal Rights of All and the Unity of the Nation. Thus looking at the word, in its natural bearing or in the great examples of our history, we find it entirely inapplicable to a party which denies equal rights and palters with Rebellion itself. Such a party is the Rebel Party, and nothing else; and this is the name by which it should be known.
Look at the history of their leaders,—Rebels all, Rebels all. I mention those only who take an active part. A party, like a man, is known by the company it keeps. What a company! Here is Forrest, with the blood of Fort Pillow still dripping from his hands; Semmes, fresh from the Alabama, glorying in his piracies on our commerce; Wade Hampton, the South Carolina slave-master and cavalry officer of the Rebellion; Beauregard, the Rebel general, who telegraphed for the execution of Abolition prisoners; Stephens, Toombs, and Cobb, a Georgia triumvirate of Rebels; and at the head of this troop is none other than Horatio Seymour of New York, who, without actually enlisting in the Rebellion, dallied with it, and addressed its fiendish representatives in New York as “friends.” A party with such leaders and such a chief is the Rebel Party.
Such a party, so filled and permeated with treason, cannot utter any shibboleth of loyalty. Every loyal word must stick in its throat, as “Amen” stuck in the throat of Macbeth, after the murder of his royal guest. Therefore, I say again, let it be called the Rebel Party. This is a truthful designation, stamping upon the party its real character. By this name I now summon it to judgment. If I could make my voice heard over the Republic, it should carry everywhere this just summons. It should go forth from this schoolhouse, traversing the land, echoing from valley to valley, from village to village, from town to town, and warning all who love their country against a party which is nothing but a continuation of the Rebellion. How can such a party pretend to hang out the national flag? I do not wonder that its Presidential candidate has cried out in his distress, “Press the financial question!” Yes, press anything to make the country forget the disloyalty of the party,—anything to divert attention from the national flag, which they would dishonor. But on the financial question, as everywhere else, they are disloyal. Repudiation is disloyalty, early taught by Jefferson Davis in his own State, and now adopted by the Rebel Party, North and South.
Here I come back to the point with which I began. Hang out the national flag! It is the flag of our country, our whole country, beaming with all its inseparable stars, and proclaiming in all its folds the strength, the glory, and the beauty of Union. Let that flag be the light to your footsteps. By this conquer! And surely you will conquer. The people are not ready to join with Rebels or submit to Rebel yoke. They will stand by the flag at the ballot-box, as they stood by it on the bloody field. History has recorded the triumphant election of Abraham Lincoln, as the representative of Loyalty against Rebellion. Thank God, it will soon make the same joyful record with regard to Grant and Colfax, the present representatives of Loyalty against Rebellion.
Every man must do his duty, each in his way, according to his ability,—some by voice, and others by efforts of a different kind, but all must work and vote. The cause is that of our country and its transcendent future, pictured in the flag. And permit me to remind you that our Congressional District has obligations it cannot forget. It must be true to itself and to its own example. At the last Presidential election there was a report, which travelled all the way to Washington, that ours was a doubtful district. On the evening of the election, as soon as the result was known, I had the happiness of telegraphing to the President that in this district the majority was some five thousand for himself and Mr. Hooper. It so happened that it was the first despatch received from any quarter announcing the triumph of that great day. On reading it, the President remarked, with his humorous point: “Five thousand majority! If this is a specimen of the doubtful districts, what may we expect of the whole country?” This victory must be repeated. There must be another five thousand majority; and let General Grant, like Abraham Lincoln, measure from our majority the majorities throughout the country, giving assurance that the Rebel Party is defeated and utterly routed in its last desperate struggle. This is Beacon Hill, the highest point of Boston, where in early days were lighted the beacon fires which flashed over the country. The fires which we light on Beacon Hill will be of congratulation and joy.
ENFRANCHISEMENT IN MISSOURI: WHY WAIT?
Letter to a Citizen of St. Louis, October 3, 1868.
The following letter appeared in the St. Louis Democrat.
Boston, October 3, 1868.
DEAR SIR,—I am pained to learn that there can be any question among good Republicans with regard to the enfranchisement of the colored race, especially as declared in the Constitutional Amendment now pending in Missouri. When shall this great question be settled, if not now? Why wait? Why prolong the agony? There is only one way in which it can be settled. Why not at once? All who vote against it only vote to continue the agitation, which will never end except with the establishment of the Equal Rights of All.
Only in this way can the Declaration of Independence be vindicated in its self-evident truths. As long as men are excluded from the suffrage on account of color, it is gross impudence for any nation to say that they are equal in rights. Of course, men are not equal in strength, size, or other endowments, physical or mental; but they are equal in rights, which is what our fathers declared. They are equal before God, equal before the divine law; they should be made equal before human law. Equality before the Law is the true rule.
How can any possible evil result from a rule which is so natural and just? There can be no conflict of races where there is no denial of rights. It is only when rights are denied that conflict begins. See to it that all are treated with justice, and there will be that peace which is the aspiration of good men. For the sake of peace I pray that this great opportunity be not lost.
I hear a strange cry about the supremacy of one race over another. Of course I am against this with my whole heart and soul. I was against it when it showed itself in the terrible pretensions of the slave-master; and now I am against it, as it shows itself in the most shameful oligarchy of which history has made mention,—an oligarchy of the skin. Reason, humanity, religion, and common sense, all reject the wretched thing. Even if the whites are afraid that the blacks will become an oligarchy and rule their former masters, this is no reason for a continued denial of rights. But this inquietude on account of what is nicknamed “negro supremacy” is as amusing as it is incredible. It is one of the curiosities of history. Occupied as I am at this moment, I should be tempted to put aside all other things and journey to the Mississippi in order to look at a company of whites who will openly avow their fear of “negro supremacy.” I should like to see their pallid faces, and hear the confession from their own trembling lips. Such a company of whites would be a sight to behold. Falstaff’s sorry troops were nothing to them.
Such foolish fears and foolish arguments cannot prevail against the great cause of Equal Rights. Spite of all obstacles and all prejudices, this truth must triumph. Was it not declared by our fathers? What they declared is a promise perpetually binding on us, their children.
Accept my best wishes, and believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
ISSUES AT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
Speech at the City Hall, Cambridge, October 29, 1868.
At the Republican State Convention, held at Worcester, September 9, 1868, of which Hon. George S. Boutwell was President, the following was the last resolution of the platform, which was unanimously adopted:—
“That the public life of the Honorable Charles Sumner, during three terms of service in the Senate of the United States, has fully justified the confidence which has been successively reposed in him; that his eloquent, fearless, and persistent devotion to the sacred cause of Human Rights, as well in its early struggles as in its later triumphs,—his beneficent efforts, after the abolition of Slavery, in extirpating all the incidents thereof,—his constant solicitude for the material interests of the country,—his diligence and success, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, in vindicating the policy of maintaining the just rights of the Government against foreign powers, and at the same time preserving peace with the nations,—all present a public record of rare usefulness and honor; and that his fidelity, experience, and honorable identification with our national history call for his reëlection to the high office in which he has rendered such illustrious service to his country and to mankind.”
The report of the Boston Daily Advertiser stated that “the reading of the resolutions was accompanied by repeated applause,—the last one, relating to Mr. Sumner, calling forth a perfect tempest of approval.”
January 19, 1869, Mr. Sumner was reëlected Senator for the term of six years, beginning with March 4th following, by the concurrent vote of the two Houses of the Legislature. The vote was as follows:—
| In the Senate. | |
| Charles Sumner, | 37 |
| Josiah G. Abbott, | 2 |
| In the House. | |
| Charles Sumner, | 216 |
| Josiah G. Abbott, | 15 |
| Nathaniel P. Banks, | 1 |