Senator Mahone’s Reply to Senator Hill
in Extra Senate Session, March 28th, 1881.
Mr. Mahone. Mr. President, my profound respect for the wisdom and experience of my seniors in this Chamber compels me to renew expression of the reluctance with which I so soon intrude upon its deliberations. Senators and the country will concede that to this seeming forwardness I have been provoked.
If I do not challenge generous consideration from those who would appear to have found pleasure in their unjustifiable assaults, I do not doubt that I shall command the respect of the brave and independent here, as I know I shall command that of my own people. I shall not complain of the intolerance and indirection which have characterized the allusions of some Senators to myself. Doubtless they comport entirely with their own sense of manly deportment and senatorial dignity, however little they do with mine. Virginia is accustomed to meet occasions where the independent spirit of the Anglo-Saxon is required to assert itself; Virginia has ever met, with fortitude and dignity, every duty that destiny has imposed, always, however, with much contempt for small party tactics where principles were involved to which her faith and her honor were committed.
With absolute confidence in my loyalty to her and my devotion to every interest of her people, I shall not relax my purpose to repel every impeachment of the constituency which sent me here with clearly defined duties which they and I comprehend. I was elected to the Senate of the United States to do their will, not to a caucus to do its petty bidding. Virginia earned her title of the Old Dominion by the proud and independent action of her own people, by the loyalty of her sons to the instincts of independence, without help at the hands of those who would now interfere with her affairs.
However feebly I may assert that spirit against the gratuitous and hypocritical concern for her of strangers to her trials, her sacrifices, and her will, I feel that the spirit of my people inspires me when I scornfully repel for them and for myself ungracious attempts to instruct a Virginia Senator as to his duty to them and to himself. Senators should learn to deal with their constituencies, while I answer to mine.
To him who would insinuate that my action in respect to the organization of the committees of this body and the proposed election of its officers has been governed or controlled by impure considerations—and I am loth to believe that any honorable Senator has so intended—in the language of another, I say:
If thou saidst I am not peer
To any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied!
And now, Mr. President, permit me to say that Senators can no more realize my regret than they can measure my amazement that my colleague should have felt it incumbent upon him to join the assaulting column in this Chamber. He first introduces the consideration of my political consistency, and he next introduces me, with the eighty-odd thousand of his fellow-citizens who sent me here, to this honorable body as a repudiator of public obligations. The sense of justice of fellow Senators renders it unnecessary for me to apologize for noticing my colleague’s criticisms on the one hand and his perversions on the other. However much he and his friends may endeavor, by the chop-logic of the attorney, to demonstrate what I ought to be, I know by my convictions and by my sense of duty what I am. In this particular I have largely the advantage of my colleague; for if I take him by his record, diminutive as it is, he neither knows what he was, what he is, or what duty he came here to perform. A very brief recital of Virginia political history, covering but a decade, will give a clear view of the Virginia situation as it is represented on this floor. My colleague gave the first page, and then, like the lazy, truant school-boy, skipped many pages, or, like the shifty lawyer, read only so much of the authority as suited his case. I am duly grateful to him for the small meed of praise he would deal out to me for the humble part I bore in the great liberal movement of 1869, which was undertaken to return our State to her normal condition in the Union.
I am the more grateful because the organs of the faction he represents here have recently published columns to prove that I was breathed into political existence subsequently to that momentous period. Not being sworn, my colleague thought it was sufficient for him to tell the truth without the usual obligation to tell the whole truth. It is now my privilege, as well as duty, to supply all deficiencies. The views I entertained then I still adhere to, and though, as far as my information goes, we had no material assistance from him in that severe and trying ordeal of 1869, I do know that after his election to this body he confessed himself in entire accord with all that had been done by Virginia as a condition precedent to her restoration, and with the zeal of a new convert expressed the hope that other States of the Union without the same propelling cause should do likewise. In a letter addressed to the then governor of Virginia (Walker) he wrote as follows:
JOHNSTON TO GOVERNOR WALKER IN 1869.
Believing fully not only that we in Virginia could not prosper, but that our continued exclusion from the Union interfered with the business of the whole country, I have been anxious for an early compliance with the reconstruction laws, and that the State should itself inaugurate some movement similar to that which resulted in your election for the purpose, and not wait, like Micawber, “for something to turn up.”
The fifteenth amendment, which I trust will soon be adopted by States enough to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States, will end a question which has agitated the country for half a century. I entirely approve of the principles of that amendment, and as we have invested the freedman with the right to vote, let us give him a fair opportunity to vote understandingly. He has civil rights, and it is our interest he should know their value.
That we are apparently so near to the consummation of reconstruction we are greatly indebted to President Grant’s kind offices. The State was in a dilemma; it wanted a constitution; but the one made for it has at least two very objectionable features. We felt that we were suffering in all our material interests by staying out of the Union, and yet to go in under the constitution with all its provisions would have been worse.
The Gordian knot was happily cut by the President’s first message to Congress and the prompt response of that body. Up to this time the conduct of the administration has been liberal, and if the same policy is pursued hereafter it ought to have the hearty support of this State. If we cast dead issues behind us and look only to that line of conduct which shall restore quiet and confidence, and encourage enterprise and industry, we shall even see the country richer and more prosperous than it has ever been.
This movement in 1869 accomplished the restoration of our State under the expurgated constitution and gave us representation here in the persons of my colleague and ex-Senator Lewis. We were relieved of military government, became rehabilitated in our sovereignty, with entire control of our local autonomy. Thus, for a period, Virginia seemed to be enjoying the full freedom of her long-deferred hope for peace.
In the curious panoramic exhibition of my colleague I next appear as a candidate for governor in 1877. To be a candidate in Virginia is a privilege which every qualified voter may constitutionally exercise, and in that year there were three prominent candidates other than those named by the Senator. Two of them had been major-generals and one a brigadier-general. What an omission! Shades of departed glory defend us! when a United States Senator of the Bourbon persuasion can omit imposing titles in detailing events with which they were intimately associated. ’Tis true I was not nominated, lacking forty votes of a certain majority of a convention composed of over fourteen hundred delegates against a combination of five candidates, one of whom my colleague preferred, that preference perhaps being based upon motives as unselfish as are usual in veteran politicians and office-holders.
Mr. President, I can scarcely hope, in the presence of this body, where my colleague has served for many years, and where the altitude of his statesmanship frowns contemptuously down upon all who would aspire to reach its summit, to attain the awful diffidence with which I should undertake to correct any of his statements. He is one of the conscript fathers of the Senate, old in all its ways and usages; and long absence from his constituency and perpetual service to the national democratic party in helping to organize its numerous defeats make him forgetful of recent events in Virginia. Hence the necessity of my attempting to inform him as to certain matters of recent history at home.
“The next event,” says my colleague, “was that the readjusters separated themselves from the democratic party;” and after treating this at some length he says, “This brings us down to what is called Mozart Hall convention,” in which, he adds, “I spoke of the conservative party as though I belonged to it.”
Mr. President, I confess my inability to understand all this curious mixture of the odds and ends of my colleague’s scrap-book. He parades his facts in curiously-contrived array. He empties his ill-assorted jewels of information and “chunks of wisdom,” and seems to rely upon Senators to give them that consecutive arrangement as to fact and date which they have, possibly, in his own great mind. But, sir, the fact is there was no remarkable incident in Virginia politics between the election of 1877 and 1879, the month of February of the latter year being, the date of the assembling of the Mozart Hall convention. Certainly until February, 1879, there was no change in the status of parties in Virginia within that period. There was no organization of readjusters until February, 1879, and there was no declared democratic party until 1880.
This brings me, Mr. President, to a period when I propose to do more than follow my colleague in his half-way candid and nearly always inaccurate statement. It is at this juncture, he says, that Mr. Riddleberger and I are so much identified that he cannot separate us. It is at this point the organization of the readjusters begins; and it is at this point he appears to seek to make an impression wholly unwarranted by any act of the readjusters in Virginia. It is at this point, too, Mr. President, that I am constrained by a sense of duty to my people, my State, and myself to treat the question of our State debt as it presents itself in Virginia. In doing this, I wish it distinctly understood that I hold this to be a matter belonging exclusively to the State of Virginia, and I should repel any Federal interference with this as I would with any other question of mere State concern. I shall presume upon the indulgence of Senators because they have heard but one side, and that more than once, and I know they will be willing to hear a defense of Virginia against unjust attacks from those who ought to be her defenders.
Sir, there is not a fact upon which to base any one of the statements or arguments of my colleague. Instead of the Mozart Hall convention being held to effect a repeal of an irrepealable contract, it was a body of people assembled on a call of members of the General Assembly opposed to what is known in Virginia as the “brokers’ bill.” They assembled before that bill had passed either House of the General Assembly, and, coming fresh from the people, expressed their unqualified disapproval of that measure. It was apparent the measure was to pass, and organized opposition began. But, Mr. President, this is neither the beginning nor the end of this question. It was in 1871 that the first funding bill was enacted, and this we know in Virginia as the first contract.
I will not go into the details of this measure, as I shall ask the clerk to read a review of all the Virginia funding acts before concluding my remarks. It is my purpose now only to notice the speeches of Senators, notably that of my colleague, in this Chamber. It will be news to Senators to hear to-day that the readjusters never repealed either of the funding contracts. That enacted and only partially executed in 1866–’67 was in effect repealed by the Assembly which passed it, and the work of repeal was consummated by the Legislature that enacted the more obnoxious measure of 1871. This in turn was repealed by the Assembly of 1872, the propounder of the repeal measure being the present lieutenant-governor of the State, subsequently in full fellowship with the alleged debt-payers. Indeed this measure was so obnoxious that Governor Walker, who was conceded to be its author, subsequently urged that the Federal Government should assume the debts of the Southern States.
Mr. President, I might pause to inquire if that is a part of the doctrine of my colleague and the Senators who co-operate with him, when they stand here to represent the party for which Governor Walker then spoke, the pretended debt-payers of Virginia? It was this repeal bill which the Virginia court of appeals held to be unconstitutional, and here the matter rested until the State had accumulated interest arrears to over five million dollars, beside diverting one and a half million dollars which was dedicated by the constitution to the public free schools.
In 1877 what is known as the Barbour bill was proposed and passed, not a few of the latter-day self-styled debt-payers being among its most zealous supporters. Although this did not repeal in terms the original funding bill, it was nevertheless vetoed by the governor.
Such was our condition at the succeeding election—schools reduced 50 per cent., length of sessions abridged, asylums sustained by money borrowed from the banks—after exhausting every possible expedient even to a reduction of judicial salaries, that a Legislature was returned pledged to a resettlement of this debt.
That settlement came in the form of the brokers’ bill, for which my colleague stands at home and here the champion, aided and abetted by distinguished gentlemen on this floor. I commend the virtuous democracy of this Chamber to read that bill, and then tell this Senate whether there ever was a more undemocratic measure than the bill propounded in Virginia by the party whose cause they espouse.
That settlement came in the form of the broker’s bill, as I have said, and this was the last repeal of the original contract. Yet my colleague would say the readjusters of to-day disregard the court decisions. Surely he has not forgotten that he was upon the hustings in Virginia advocating each of the successive measures repealing the “irrepealable” contract, while in every instance the readjusters proper opposed the new measure.
But here again I am called upon to answer the charge of personal inconsistency. My colleague cannot ascertain that I opposed the funding scheme of 1871—a measure which, I assert without the fear of contradiction, not only repudiated but forcibly repudiated what my colleague understands to be one-third of the debt of Virginia. I suggest to my fellow-Senators on the opposite side to take care of that contamination of which they have warned the country in respect to the readjusters of Virginia.
My colleague adverted to the Richmond Whig, and proclaimed it as my mouthpiece. Mr. President, nobody speaks for me; I speak for myself. Why not have ascertained from the same source how I stood on the funding bill of 1871? Senators will not find that I ever supported the measure of 1871.
Passing over what appears in my colleague’s speech as extracts from newspapers, to whose misstatements he has contributed a full share, I come now to notice his animadversions on the Riddleberger bill. If his criticisms were based on fact and a proper understanding of that measure, they would be unanswerable. He says that “the ‘Riddleberger bill’ has been substantially pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.” I ask him in what particular? Is it in this—that it does not recognize the interest that accrued during the war? If so, will my learned colleague inform me upon what principle of right he last summer sustained a measure which repudiated one-half of the interest that has accrued since the complete restoration of our State? Does he not know that that measure of forcible readjustment absolutely repudiated one-half of the accrued and unfunded interest, while the Riddleberger bill provides for paying it dollar for dollar? The difference is simply this: that since 1871 we have denied the right of the creditor to exact war interest and proposed to pay him all else in full. Our adversaries would and did fund that war interest and proposed to repudiate one-half of that which we are in honor and in law bound to pay.
Is it unconstitutional in that it pays but 3 per cent.? The only measure ever passed by the Virginia Assembly to pay as much as 4 per cent. and the only one under which one-third of our creditors have received a penny of interest, was introduced and patronized by Mr. Riddleberger. The first time that our Legislature ever voiced 3 per cent. was when they passed the brokers’ job, the pet scheme of my colleague, so ably re-enforced in his advocacy of it on this floor by distinguished gentlemen on the other side, the Legislature then themselves admitting and declaring in the preamble of their bill that this is all the State can pay for ten years “without destroying its industries;” and last winter every legislator of their party voted to run the 3 per cent. for the whole time.
Is it unconstitutional in that it does not exempt the bonds from taxation forever, as the brokers’ bill attempted to do, a feature peculiar to that measure for paying the debt of Virginia which my colleague advocates here? If so, I would respectfully refer my colleague to his State constitution, which says that all property shall be taxed equally and uniformly; that no one species of property shall be taxed higher than another, and that only such property as is used for religious, educational, and charitable purposes may be exempt from taxation. My learned colleague, who so unkindly characterized the patron of that bill as a county court lawyer, cites only Hartman vs. Greenhow as the case which holds this bill unconstitutional. That case decided no principle that this bill infringes. The Riddleberger bill imposes no tax upon bonds held either in or out of the State. It simply does not exempt any. By what authority, I would ask my colleague, can such a tax be made and collected? He must answer to the party which he undertakes to represent here for doing an unconstitutional act: to tax bonds of the State of Virginia held by a non-resident. The Riddleberger bill does not tax them. Whenever the General Assembly, carrying out the Riddleberger bill, shall endeavor to tax bonds held out of the State, it will be time for the Senator to renew the test in the Supreme Court of the United States and cite the precedent of Hartman vs. Greenhow.
Is it the much-discussed fourteenth section which is unconstitutional? If so I would remind my legal colleague that it is a verbatim copy of a statute passed by the State of Tennessee, adjudicated by the Supreme Court of the United States, and not only held by that high tribunal to be constitutional but proper legislation for the protection and maintenance of government. Is it unconstitutional in what is called its force feature? If so it has precedent in the bill of ’71, which forbade the payment of any interest to a creditor who did not accept a reduction of one-third. It has precedent in the brokers’ bill, which provided tax certificates to compete at a reduced price with the receivable coupon, and both of these measures found a hustings advocate in my colleague.
But he would imply that our debt was ascertained at a certain sum in pursuance of the State Constitution, which he says was $29,667,304.76.
Mr. President, if there is any man in the party which my colleague represents who agrees with another member of that party in Virginia as to what the debt of that State is, we have yet to find the concurrence; it is with one leader this figure, with another leader another figure; by one report of their officers one sum, and then by another report of other officers a different sum. Grant that sum to be the true one; but let the Senator state that our constitution recognized no specific sum. It says there shall first be a settlement with West Virginia, which has not yet been had, and commands payment of what Virginia shall owe. That is the language, that is the instruction of the constitution of Virginia; that, after a settlement with West Virginia, covering one-third of old Virginia’s territory, shall have been arrived at by an adjustment of their relative proportions of the public debt, Virginia will provide for her share. Now I would like the Senators from West Virginia in this cry against readjusters as repudiators to tell the country what answer they have made to their obligation for one-third of the debt contracted by the old Commonwealth of Virginia. Will they tell the country where they have ever made a proposition to pay one stiver of their share of the public debt of that State to maintain the honor and the dignity of their own Commonwealth? Let them answer.
It was the party of my colleague, that repudiated the settlement of 1871 by the passage of the brokers’ bill in 1879, and in turn attempted to repudiate the latter by unanimously indorsing what is known as the “Ross Hamilton bill.” I suppose it would not suit my colleague to tell this audience who Ross Hamilton is. Yet, I beg Senators to take notice that the party of my colleague, after a winter spent in the vain effort to find a leader capable of devising means to overthrow the popular will, discovered such, as they supposed, in the person of Ross Hamilton, a colored republican member of the Legislature from the county of Mecklenburg, and blindly followed him to defeat. Hamilton’s bill, which was thus unanimously supported by my colleague’s party, not only in effect repealed their pet scheme, the brokers’ bill, but all other acts in respect to the public debt of Virginia.
I come now to perform a duty—the most unpleasant in one sense and the most agreeable in another. It is to repel the charge flippantly, I hope inconsiderately, made on this floor that we are repudiators and our proposed measure dishonorable. To the first I reply that my colleague’s party in eight years of administration of our State affairs paid 2 per cent. installments of interest on ten millions of our public debt just six times, or 12 per cent. in all; 6 times 8 would be 48 per cent. Instead of that they paid 12 per cent., and that is debt-paying!
Let this suffice. But when Senators apply the word dishonorable, they do not know either whom or what they characterize. Two things they have endeavored to demonstrate, and one is that I received a majority of the white conservative vote of both branches of the Virginia General Assembly. Proudly do I proclaim the truth of this. Every one of those who voted for me to come to this Chamber gave an unqualified vote for the Riddleberger bill. Are they dishonorable men? Scornfully do I repel the charge that any one of them is capable of dishonorable action.
Were it true, what a sad commentary it would be upon those honorable gentlemen whom it is said I am not representing here. Mr. President, my colleague comes from what we call in Virginia the great Southwest, a noble and prosperous section of Virginia. Fifteen white Conservative counties compose his congressional district, and though the ablest of the orators of my colleague’s party canvassed it thoroughly against me and the views set forth in this measure, but two delegates and no senator of the gentleman’s party came to the Legislature. To a man they supported the Riddleberger bill. Every senator and every delegate from my colleague’s own congressional district, save and except two delegates, supported me for the Senate and the Riddleberger bill as a measure for debt-paying. He would do well to spend a little more time with his constituents!
Whatever our differences on this question, it seems to me those people should have had a defender in him against such foul and slanderous accusations as have been made—that they are dishonorable men. O Shame! where is thy blush? Dishonorable in Virginia to beg the privilege of paying every dollar she borrowed—that is, her rightful share, instead of not only paying that but also the share of West Virginia—dishonorable to pay every dollar she borrowed, only abating the war interest! Dishonorable, too, in the opinion of the gentlemen who represent States on this floor and municipalities which have by arbitrary legislation reduced their indebtedness from $243,000,000 down to $84,000,000! Dishonorable in Virginia not only to assume her full share of her public obligations, as measured by her territory in this division of it, but offering to tax her people to an extent threatening the destruction of her industrial interests! Is that dishonorable in that people? If so, what have you to say of this tier of Southern States whose public indebtedness, whose plighted faith, whose sacred obligations—as sacred as are those of my State of Virginia—have been reduced from $243,000,000 by one or another method of repudiation, upon one or another excuse, down to $84,000,000, with a reduced interest rate upon the curtailed principal, and only proposing to pay interest in some cases at 2 per cent. and in others 3 and in others 4 on the reduced principal? Is it dishonorable in Virginia to assume $20,000,000 of the debt of the old State and then to tax her industries within the verge of endurance to pay on that sum the highest rate of interest? Let Senators who assail unjustly the conduct of Virginia in this respect put their own houses in order. I want, Mr. President, the Secretary to read from the International Review the measures of readjustment in the Southern States that Senators may know how fashionable readjustment had been in that section of this great country on which northern democrats rely in a presidential election.
The Chief Clerk read as follows:
| Fluctuation of the Debts of twelve Southern States since the year 1842. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| States. | 1842. | 1852. | 1860. | 1870. |
| West Virginia | ||||
| Virginia | $6,994,307 | $13,573,355 | $31,779,062 | $47,390,839 |
| North Carolina | None. | 977,000 | 9,699,000 | 29,900,045 |
| South Carolina | 5,691,234 | 3,144,931 | 4,046,540 | 7,665,909 |
| Georgia | 1,309,750 | 2,801,972 | 2,670,750 | 6,544,500 |
| Florida | 4,000,000 | 2,800 | 4,120,000 | 1,288,697 |
| Alabama | 15,400,060 | 8,500,000 | 6,700,000 | 8,478,018 |
| Mississippi | 7,000,000 | 7,271,707 | None. | 1,796,230 |
| Louisiana | 23,985,000 | 11,492,566 | 4,561,109 | 25,021,734 |
| Texas | 5,725,671 | None. | 508,641 | |
| Arkansas | 2,676,000 | 1,506,562 | 3,092,624 | 3,459,557 |
| Tennessee | 3,198,166 | 3,776,856 | 20,896,606 | 38,539,802 |
| Kentucky | 3,085,500 | 5,726,307 | 5,479,244 | 3,892,480 |
| Totals | 73,340,017 | 64,499,727 | 93,046,934 | 174,486,452 |
| States. | Date after the war when debt reached highest. | 1880. | Amount of debt repudiated bet. period wh. highest & June, 1880 |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Virginia | No debt. | ||
| Virginia | $47,390,839 | $29,345,226 | $18,045,613 |
| North Carolina | 29,900,045 | 3,629,511 | 26,270,534 |
| South Carolina | 24,782,906 | 7,175,454 | 17,607,452 |
| Georgia | 20,197,500 | 10,334,000 | 9,863,500 |
| Florida | 5,512,268 | 1,391,357 | 4,120,911 |
| Alabama | 31,952,000 | 11,613,670 | 20,338,830 |
| Mississippi | 3,226,847 | 379,485 | 2,847,362 |
| Louisiana | 40,416,734 | 12,635,810 | 27,780,924 |
| Texas | 5,782,887 | 5,782,887 | |
| Arkansas | 18,287,273 | 5,813,627 | 12,473,646 |
| Tennessee | 41,863,406 | 25,685,822 | 16,177,584 |
| Kentucky | 3,892,480 | 180,394 | 3,712,086 |
| Totals | 273,205,185 | 113,967,243 | 159,237,942 |
Mr. Mahone. There is no mere readjustment there; I will not say it is repudiation. “Repudiation” is honorable, perhaps; “readjustment” dishonorable.
Oh, Virginia! It was for this you bared your bosom to soldier’s tread and horse’s hoof. It was for this you laid waste your fields. It was for this you displayed your noble virtues of fortitude and courage, your heroic suffering and sacrifice. It was for this you suffered the dismemberment of your territory and sent your sons to the field to return to the ruins where were once their homes. It was for this you so reluctantly abandoned your allegiance to a common country to be the last to make war and the last to surrender. O Ingratitude, thou basest and meanest of crimes!
And now, Mr. President, at the time of my election who constituted my opponents? Already, as you have been advised, another representing distinctly the Bourbon democracy of Virginia and the so-called democracy of this Chamber, another representing distinctly the republican party of Virginia—these were the candidates before the Legislature which elected me to this body. I received not only a majority of the so-called democratic readjusters but of the so-called republican readjusters. And now what were the efforts, known there if not here to gentlemen, to defeat me? Were not combinations sought to be made? It is known of all men there at the capital of my State, if not here, that every influence from whatsoever quarter it could be adduced, whether democratic or republican, was brought together at Richmond for the purpose by combination of defeating my election, of defeating the sovereign will of the people of that Commonwealth as expressed on the 4th of November, 1879.
There was a democracy which sought to secure the election of an orthodox, simon-pure, unadulterated republican, but of that kind called Bourbons in Virginia—a democracy which was not only willing but ready and anxious to send here in the place I have the honor to hold a republican whom they would otherwise profess to despise. What for? For the consideration well known there, that they might elect certain county judges and control the State offices, and by that means prevent the disclosures which have subsequently followed since the readjusters have gotten possession of the capitol. That democracy which like Cæsar’s wife would stand “above suspicion,” were ready to trade a seat in the United States Senate so that a few county judges might be preserved, that the offices in the capitol at Richmond might be retained in their control; I say in order, perhaps, that the disclosures which have followed the advent of the party I represent might have been longer concealed; moreover that control of the ballot-box in the State might continue where it had been; so certainly I believe; and all this by those who professed to represent the party which had declared in national convention for a full vote, a free ballot, and an honest count.
Such were the considerations, such I say were the inducements which prompted that democracy to its efforts to send to this Chamber a republican beyond question since these many long and weary years. If that is the democracy that the gentlemen on that side love, I proclaim my inability to co-operate with them.
I supported neither of the candidates for Congress in my district, and emphatically declared that purpose on more than one public occasion, because one was a candidate of that party, the Bourbon reactionists, and the other a Bourbon republican with accommodating views on the debt question.
To obey the behests of the democratic caucus of this body, whose leadership on this floor, whose representative national authority—the one here and the other elsewhere—have championed the cause of the Bourbon-funder party in Virginia, would be an obsequious surrender of our State policy and self-condemnation of our independent action.
The desire of our people for cordial relations with all sections of a common country and the people of all the States of the Union, their devotion to popular education, their efforts for the free enjoyment of a priceless suffrage and an honest count of ballots, their determination to make Virginia, in the public belief, a desirable home for all men, wherever their birthplace, whatever their opinions, and to open her fields and her mines to enterprise and capital, and to stay the retrograde movement of years, so as to bring her back from the fifteenth in grade to her original position among the first in the sisterhood of States, forbid that my action here should be controlled or influenced by a caucus whose party has waged war upon my constituency and where party success is held paramount to what I conceive to be the interests of Virginia and the welfare of the whole country.
The readjusters of Virginia have no feeling of hostility, no words of unkindness for the colored man. His freedom has come, and whether by purpose or by accident, thank God, that among other issues which so long distracted our country and restrained its growth, was concluded, and I trust forever, by the results of the sanguinary struggle between the sections.
I have faith, and it is my earnest hope, that the march of an enlightened civilization and the progress of human freedom will proceed until God’s great family shall everywhere enjoy the products of their own labor and the blessings of civil, political, and religious liberty.
The colored man was loyal to Virginia in all the days of conflict and devastation which came of the heroic struggle in the war of sections that made her fields historic. By no act of his was either the clash of arms provoked or freedom secured. He did not solve his duty by consideration of self-interest.