“We owe more than this to ourselves; we owe more than this to the South. We must regenerate the South.”[[319]]
This discriminating tribute to the character and genius of Mr. Lincoln was paid by no servile flatterer; it was not the eulogy of even a supporter of the Presidential plan of reconstruction; nor was it designed as a discharge of, or uttered in expectation of compelling, Executive favors, but appears rather to have been the spontaneous testimony of a keen interpreter of men and measures not less creditable to the insight of the speaker than to the subject of his remarks. Others, it is true, refrained from misrepresenting the President’s attitude and cheerfully ascribed to him patriotic and enlightened motives in his public conduct. Mr. Donnelly alone condensed into a paragraph a panegyric with which the judgment of posterity is in complete accord. This portion of his speech is quoted both to show that there were men in Congress who fully appreciated the greatness of the President, and that criticism of his measures was not in many instances suggested by feelings of personal hostility.
Very different were the remarks of Mr. Dennison, who declared that “The passage of this law will be the final gathering up of the reserved rights of States, and the last vestige of protection of the citizen under State constitutions will be taken away, and all power centralized in the General Government.” He opposed the bill for the additional reason that it was intended to legalize and perpetuate the unconstitutional acts of the President. “There does not exist on the earth a more despotic government than that of Abraham Lincoln. He is a despot in fact if not in name.”[[320]] These excerpts sufficiently indicate the character of his invective.
“I have offered a substitute to the bill of the committee,” said Thaddeus Stevens, “because that does not, in my judgment, meet the evil. It partially acknowledges the rebel States to have rights under the Constitution, which I deny, as war has abrogated them all. I do not inquire what rights we have under it, but they have none. The bill takes for granted that the President may partially interfere in their civil administration, not as conqueror but as President of the United States. It adopts in some measure the idea that less than a majority may regulate to some extent the affairs of a republic.”[[321]] The chief objection of Mr. Stevens, however, was that it removed the opportunity of confiscating the property of the disloyal.
Representative Wadsworth, of Kentucky, he said, agreed with him that the people of the South could plead none of the constitutional provisions in their defence. Whatever rights they possessed were those of belligerents engaged in war. “When we come to enforce the rights of conquest,” continued the Pennsylvania member, “we should be justified in insisting upon the extreme rights of war, without yielding to the mitigations dictated by modern usage with regard to belligerents originally composed of foreign nations engaged in war which they deemed just.” Explaining former recommendations which in many quarters had called forth severe criticism, he said: “I thought that the women and children, the non-combatants, and those who were forced by the laws of their State into the armies, should be spared; and the property of the guilty, morally as well as politically guilty, only should be taken. And yet we hear a howl of horror from conservative gentlemen at the inhumanity of the proposition.” He still further explained his sentiments on this occasion. After stating that the people of the Confederate States were sovereign and acted through their representatives, he asserted that they had commenced and were continuing to wage an unjust war and therefore their private property was liable to confiscation. The right to take their property existed, but no one, he said, “advises the execution of the extreme right. But the right exists and ought to be enforced against the most guilty. To allow them to return with their estates untouched, on the theory that they have never gone out of the Union, seems to me rank injustice to loyal men.” Of those who denied that the Confederate States had gone out of the Union he inquired, “What are we making war upon them for? For seceding; for going out of the Union against law. The law forbids a man to rob or murder, and yet robbery and murder exist de facto but not de jure.” Hence the Constitution does not allow the States to go out of the Union. He referred also in his speech to a resolution introduced by Mr. Schenck, of Ohio, which passed the House without a division and declared the Confederate States a public enemy, engaged in a public war.[[322]]
On the same day, May 2, Representative Strouse remarked that immediately after the disaster of Bull Run the House almost unanimously passed the Crittenden Resolutions, which declared that “This war is not waged in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of these States.” This announcement, he asserted, brought volunteers, whereas now, 1864, county, State and Federal bounties combined could not induce men to enlist, and the cause of the apathy was that the war had been perverted from the purpose announced in the resolutions referred to. The entire speech had little reference to the bill of Mr. Davis, but seemed rather designed, by an attack on the Administration, to please his Democratic constituents.[[323]]
Mr. Cravens said that the dominant party did not distinguish between loyalty to the Administration and loyalty to the Government. The time for compromise had passed when the Republican party refused to accept the Crittenden Resolutions. That organization was in all essentials an abolition party. If there ever was a distinction it no longer existed. He cited a rather complete list of all the measures acted upon by Congress showing their concern for the negro; he charged neglect of the white soldier, his widow and orphans; quoted from the speech of Thaddeus Stevens on the admission of West Virginia, and named Representative Julian as uttering sentiments little behind the Pennsylvania member in boldness and exhibiting no more reverence for the Constitution. The incapacity and dire wickedness of the President and his “courtiers” came in for a share of criticism.
Mr. Gooch on the following day, May 3, remarked that the rebellion was but the military phase of the conflict of ideas which began with the adoption of the Constitution. “When we shall have crushed the rebellion and restored peace to all parts of the country we shall hold this territory, not by a new title, but by the old, not as territory acquired by conquest, but territory defended and maintained against revolt.... I can see no reason why the President, as Commander-in-Chief, should not, in the meantime, so use the military power as to aid and assist the loyal people of any one of these States in the organization of a loyal State government.... All these acts by the President, or the military power under him, in thus aiding and assisting the loyal people in these States, impose no obligation upon Congress to recognize them until such time as it shall deem proper to do so, and any recognition the military power may see fit to give to these governments can never fix their status in the Union. Congress alone has the power to determine what government is the legitimate one in a State, and its decision is binding on the other departments of the Government.”[[324]]
Mr. Perry, of New Jersey, spoke of the duration of the war, predicted the general bankruptcy which its great expense would bring about, and calculated that in eleven years the cost of the war would equal the assessed value of property.
Speaking of the Executive plan he said: “And here the President’s design is perfectly evident, to secure a majority of the delegates to the nominating convention of his party, and to provide for his own election by the House of Representatives in the event of there not being an election by the people. By this plan the narrow foothold maintained by our armies in North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, and elsewhere may send the pretended full delegations of those States to this House. Mr. Speaker, I denominate the whole plan a political trick worthy of the most adroit and unscrupulous wire-puller of our ward primary meetings.” The State governments had not been destroyed, he added, “nor can they be destroyed unless the rebels are finally victorious, and establish their independence.”[[325]]