To that security one thing is needed,—simply this: All men must be safe in their rights, so that affairs, whether of government or business, shall have a free and natural course. But there are two special classes still in jeopardy, as in the autumn of 1865,—the National Freedman and the National Creditor,—each a creditor of the nation and entitled to protection, each under the guardianship of the public faith; and behind these are faithful Unionists, now suffering terribly from the growing reaction.
For the protection of the national freedman a Constitutional Amendment is presented for ratification, placing his right to vote under the perpetual safeguard of the nation; but I am obliged to remind you that this Amendment has not yet obtained the requisite number of States, nor can I say surely when it will. The Democratic Party is arrayed against it, and the Rebel interest unites with the Democracy. Naturally they go together. They are old cronies. Here let me say frankly that I have never ceased to regret,—I do now most profoundly regret,—that Congress, in its plenary powers under the Constitution, especially in its great unquestionable power to guaranty a republican government in the States, did not summarily settle this whole question, so that it should no longer disturb the country. It was for Congress to fix the definition of a republican government; nor need it go further than our own Declaration of Independence, where is a definition from which there is no appeal. There it is, as it came from our fathers, in lofty, self-evident truth; and Congress should have applied it. Or it might have gone to the speech of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, where again is the same great definition. There was also a decisive precedent. As Congress made a Civil Rights Law, so should it have made a Political Rights Law. In each case the power is identical. If it can be done in the one, it can be done in the other. To my mind nothing is clearer. Thus far Congress has thought otherwise. There remains, then, the slow process of Constitutional Amendment, to which the country must be rallied.
But this is not enough. No mere text of Constitution or Law is sufficient. Behind these must be a prevailing Public Opinion and a sympathetic Administration. Both are needed. The Administration must reinforce Public Opinion, and Public Opinion must reinforce the Administration. Such is all experience. Without these the strongest text and most cunning in its requirements is only a phantom, it may be of terror, as was the case with the Fugitive Slave Bill,—but not a living letter. It is not practically obeyed; sometimes it is evaded, sometimes openly set at nought. And now it is my duty to warn you that the national freedman still needs your care. His ancient master is already in the field conspiring against him. That traditional experience, that infinite audacity, that insensibility to Human Rights, which so long upheld Slavery, are aroused anew. No longer able to hold him as slave, the ancient master means to hold him as dependant, and to keep him in his service, personal and political,—thus substituting a new bondage for the old. Unhappily, he finds at the North a political party which the Rebellion has not weaned from that unnatural Southern breast whence it drew its primitive nutriment; and this political party now fraternizes in the dismal work by which peace is postponed: for until the national freedman is safe in Equal Rights there can be no peace. You may call it peace, but I tell you it is not peace. It is peace only in name. Who does not feel that he treads still on smothered fires? Who does not feel his feet burn as he moves over the treacherous ashes? If I wished any new motive for opposition to the Democracy, I should find it in this hostile alliance. Because I am for peace so that this whole people may be at work, because I desire tranquillity so that all may be happy, because I seek reconciliation so that there shall be completest harmony, therefore I oppose the Democracy and now denounce it as Disturber of the National Peace.
The information from the South is most painful. Old Rebels are crawling from hiding-places to resume their former rule; and what a rule! Such as might be expected from the representatives of Slavery. It is the rule of misrule, where the “Ku-Klux-Klan” takes the place of missionary and schoolmaster. Murder is unloosed. The national freedman is the victim; and so is the Unionist. Not one of these States where intimidation, with death in its train, does not play its part. Take that whole Southern tier from Georgia to Texas, and add to it Tennessee, and, I fear, North Carolina and Virginia also,—for the crime is contagious,—and there is small justice for those to whom you owe so much. That these things should occur under Andrew Johnson was natural; that Reconstruction should encounter difficulties after his defection was natural. Andrew Johnson is now out of the way, and in his place a patriot President. Public Opinion must come to his support in this necessary work. There is but one thing these disturbers feel; it is power; and this they must be made to feel: I mean the power of an awakened people, directed by a Republican Administration, vigorously, constantly, surely, so that there shall be no rest for the wicked.
If I could forget the course of the Democracy on these things,—as I cannot,—there is still another chapter for exposure; and the more it is seen, the worse it appears. It is that standing menace of Repudiation, by which the national credit at home and abroad suffers so much, and our taxes are so largely increased. It will not do to say that no National Convention has yet announced this dishonesty. I charge it upon the Party. A party which repudiates the fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence, which repudiates Equality before the Law, which repudiates the self-evident truth that government is founded only on the consent of the governed, which repudiates what is most precious and good in our recent history, and whose chiefs are now engaged in cunning assault upon the national creditor, is a party of Repudiation. This is its just designation. A Democrat is a Repudiator. What is Slavery itself but an enormous wholesale repudiation of all rights, all truths, and all decencies? How easy for a party accepting this degradation to repudiate pecuniary obligations! These are small, compared with the other. Naturally the Democracy is once more in conjunction with the old Slave-Masters. The Repudiation Gospel according to Mr. Pendleton is now preaching in Ohio; and nothing is more certain than that the triumph of the Democracy would be a fatal blow not only at the national freedman, but also at the national creditor. There would be repudiation for each.
The word “Repudiation,” in its present sense, is not old. It first appeared in Mississippi, a Democratic State intensely devoted to Slavery. If the thing were known before, never before did it assume the same hardihood of name. It was in 1841 that a Mississippi Governor, in a Message to the Legislature, used this word with regard to certain State bonds, and thus began that policy by which Mississippi was first dishonored and then kept poor: for capital was naturally shy of such a State. Constantly, from that time, Mississippi had this “bad eminence”; nor is the State more known as the home of Jefferson Davis than as the home of Repudiation. Unhappily, the nation suffered also; and even now, as I understand, it is argued in Europe, to our discredit, that, because Mississippi repudiated, the nation may repudiate also. If I refer to this example, it is because I would illustrate the mischief of the Democratic policy and summon Mississippi to tardy justice. A regenerated State cannot afford to bear the burden of Repudiation; nor can the nation and the sisterhood of States forget misconduct so injurious to all.