But, while holding this ground of prudence, I desire to disclaim every sentiment of vengeance or punishment, and also every thought of delay or procrastination. Here I do not yield to the President, or to any other person. Nobody more anxious than I to see this chasm closed forever.
There is a long way and a short way. There is a long time and a short time. If there be any whose policy is for the longest way or for the longest time, I am not of the number. I am for the shortest way, and also for the shortest time. And I object to the interference of the President, because, whether intentionally or unintentionally, he interposes delay and keeps the chasm open. More than all others, the President, by officious assumptions, has lengthened the way and lengthened the time. Of this there can be no doubt.
From all quarters we learn that after the surrender of Lee the Rebels were ready for any terms, if they could escape with life. They were vanquished, and they knew it. The Rebellion was crushed, and they knew it. They hardly expected to save a small fraction of property. They did not expect to save political power. They were too sensible not to see that participants in rebellion could not pass at once into the copartnership of government. They made up their minds to exclusion. They were submissive. There was nothing they would not do, even to the extent of enfranchising the freedmen and providing for them homesteads. Had the National Government taken advantage of this plastic condition, it might have stamped Equal Rights upon the whole people, as upon molten wax, while it fixed the immutable conditions of permanent peace. The question of Reconstruction would have been settled before it arose. It is sad to think that this was not done. Perhaps in all history there is no instance of such an opportunity lost. Truly should our country say in penitential supplication, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.”
Do not take this on my authority. Listen to those on the spot, who have seen with their own eyes. A brave officer of our army writes from Alabama:—
“I believe the mass of the people could have been easily controlled, if none of the excepted classes had received pardon. These classes did not expect anything more than life, and even feared for that. Let me condense the whole subject. At the surrender, the South could have been moulded at will; but it is now as stiff-necked and rebellious as ever.”
In the same vein another officer testifies from Texas:—
“There is one thing, however, that is making against the speedy return of quietness, not only in this State, but throughout the entire South, and that is the Reconstruction policy of President Johnson. It is doing more to unsettle this country than people who are not practical observers of its workings have any idea of. Before this policy was made known, the people were prepared to accept anything. They expected to be treated as rebels,—their leaders being punished, and the property of others confiscated. But the moment it was made known, all their assurance returned. Rebels have again become arrogant and exacting; Treason stalks through the land unabashed.”
This testimony might be multiplied indefinitely. From city and country, from highway and by-way, there is but one voice. When, therefore, the President, in opprobrious terms, complains of Congress as interposing delay, I reply to him: “No, Sir, it is you, who, by unexpected and most perverse assumption, have put off the glad day of security and reconciliation, so much longed for. It is you who have inaugurated anew that malignant sectionalism, which, so long as it exists, will keep the Union divided in fact, if not in name. Sir, you are the Disunionist.”