History of the Indiana democracy, 1816-1916, Part 29

Author: Stoll, John B., 1843-1926
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : Indiana Democratic Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1104

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[CHAPTER XXIX.]

GOVERNOR MORTON'S RICHMOND SPEECH

IN FAVOR OF ANDREW JOHNSON'S RECONSTRUCTION POLICY AND AGAINST NEGRO SUFFRAGE

T HAT Oliver P. Morton was a man of extraordinary intellect- ual power will not be seriously questioned by any one at all familiar with his career as po- litical leader, Governor or United States Senator. As a platform speaker he was neither ornate nor eloquent. He disdained indulgence in flowery rhetoric. His preference ran de- cidedly to "sledge-hammer" argument. With all the vigor of his masterful mind he marshaled his facts and drove his points into the understanding of his hear- ers. It may be assumed that he was sub- ject to mental anguish if he suspected that he did not make himself clearly under- stood or failed to carry conviction to his audience. Intense earnestness marked all of his more important utterances on ques- tions of great moment.

The reconstruction of the Southern States lately in rebellion engaged popular attention to an eminent degree. It be- came the "paramount issue," soon follow- ing the suppression of the rebellion. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth imposed the duties and re- sponsibilities of the presidential office on Andrew Johnson, whom Lincoln himself desired as his running mate in the cam- paign of 1864. Johnson was at the break- ing out of the rebellion a United States Senator from Tennessee, elected by a Democratic legislature. He had always been a Democrat. His place of residence was in East Tennessee, where public sen- timent was intensely loyal to the Union. Secession was hated and rebellion stoutly condemned and resisted. As the war pro-

gressed it was deemed wise to make John- son military governor of Tennessee, in which capacity he could serve the Union cause far more effectively than in the Sen- ate at Washington. It was Lincoln's opin- ion that the spirit of patriotism displayed by War Democrats throughout the coun- try, but especially in the South, ought to be given deserved and substantial recogni- tion. There was much in Andrew John- son's career that commended itself to Lin- coln's favor. Like himself, Johnson was of humble origin. Dependent upon his own resources in his boyhood days, no educa- tional advantages were within his reach. Instead of being made the beneficiary of schooling he served an apprenticeship in a tailor shop. A charming Tennessee girl attracted his attention and challenged his admiration. In course of time this ambitious young man and this buoyant maiden were united in marriage. She chanced to be an apt teacher, he an apt pupil. She taught him to read and write. With the acquisition of this educational facility came an intense longing for read- ing books and acquiring knowledge. Young Johnson made rapid progress. A fine specimen of manhood, he soon ingrati- ated himself in popular favor, was elected to various offices, became Governor of his State, and toward the expiration of his term was chosen United States Senator. In the latter capacity he made an en- viable record in championing the home- stead policy for bona fide settlers in the territories and kindred measures in the interest of struggling humanity. To An- drew Johnson belongs the credit of having first urged in Congress the election of

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United States Senators by direct vote of the people. He was an intensely earnest, thoroughly honest and ruggedly patriotic Tennesseean and American.

Mr. Lincoln was neither personally nor politically averse to Vice-President Han- nibal Hamlin, his running mate in 1860, but, as already stated, he believed that his associate on the 1864 ticket ought to be a war Democrat. And he preferred John- son to all others because he had formed the opinion that the nomination of a Southerner would have the effect of pre- venting the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by England and France-a danger then quite imminent.

For some time after Johnson's acces- sion to the Presidency the belief was quite common that Lincoln's developed program for the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion would be carried out without encountering serious opposition. The fear that found most expression was that Johnson, by reason of personal animosity to Southern leaders who had grossly ma- ligned and persecuted him before, during and after the rebellion, would be far more strenuous in imposing terms of punish- ment than Lincoln would have been had he lived. There was some ground for this belief, but circumstances shaped affairs differently. There was in the Republican camp an element that did not take kindly to Lincoln's conservative and conciliatory policy. The leader of this faction was Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, a man of marked ability and of intense hating predilection. Amazingly unscrupulous, he hesitated at nothing after determining to accomplish a purpose. He came near plunging Pennsylvania into war during the thirties when he had autocratically resolved to retain Joseph Ritner in the gubernatorial chair after being defeated at the polls. The Stevens conspiracy was prevented by the appearance at the State Capitol in Harrisburg of a company of men from Philadelphia whose sternness

of purpose admitted of no doubt as to what they would do to Thaddeus if he persisted in counting in the man who had been voted out at the election in October.

It may be stated that Stevens was very much opposed to the nomination of An- drew Johnson to the vice-presidency in 1864. To the last he persisted in insisting on the renomination of Hannibal Hamlin. He couldn't see either sense or propriety in taking up for the second highest office a man whose habitation was in a "d - d rebel province."

Stevens was a bachelor, club-footed, hard-faced, vindictive. When a Republi- can contested the seat of a Democrat in Congress Stevens did not pay the slightest attention to the evidence adduced in the case. He simply inquired of some one in interest, "What is the name of our ras- cal?" and at once voted to seat him in place of the man really elected. He was passionately fond of a game of poker, de- nied the existence of a God, and hooted at the idea of man being the creation of what was called "the Almighty." On the latter point he was wont to say that an engine could be taken apart; if any of the machinery within was worn out it could be replaced and the engine again made serviceable. Not so with man. "When his interior becomes impaired," Stevens used to say, "there is no repair- ing or replacing of worn-out parts. He is done for; he dies and is buried."

Stevens' plan of reconstruction was radically different from that of Lincoln. Punishment, not restoration, was his pro- gram. To accomplish his purpose, he availed himself of every opportunity to discredit the Johnson administration and cast odium upon it. With ghoulish glee grossly exaggerated and perverted stories about Johnson having been drunk when inaugurated as Vice-President were re- vamped. Conservative, conscientious Re- publicans were dismayed over these mani- festations of bitterness and malignancy.

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Governor Morton, himself originally a Democrat and still a believer in the firmly established doctrine of "an indissoluble Union of indestructible States," felt im- pelled to come to the support of President Johnson. He chose the principal town of the county (Wayne) in which he grew to manhood and prominence-the Quaker city of Richmond-as the place for de- livering a carefully prepared speech in de- fense of President Johnson's reconstruc- tion policy and in opposition to the mon- strous proposition to make voters of the lately emancipated slaves of the South. So able was this speech in its presentation, so conclusive in argument, so clear and convincing, that Governor Morton never attempted to explain it away after he had changed front and championed the very opposite of what he contended for at Richmond on September 29, 1865.

The only copy of this speech now known to be in existence is on file in the State Library at Indianapolis. For obvious rea- sons scant reference is made to it in the biographies of Oliver P. Morton, and yet it may fairly be said to have been the ablest and most statesman-like speech ever made by this intellectual giant. What a pity that he did not join such Repub- lican Senators as James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania, James Dixon of Connecticut, Daniel S. Norton of Minnesota, and others of that type in upholding the hands of Andrew Johnson in carrying out the humane program mapped out by Lincoln for the establish- ment of constitutional government in the South. Had he stood by the doctrines laid down in his Richmond speech, had he adhered firmly to the Lincoln-Johnson plan of unification and pacification, there is reason to believe that conservatism would have triumphed and radicalism would not have been permitted to do its demoralizing and destructive work. The pages of American history might thus have been kept clear and clean of recitals

of the outrageously corrupt and disgrace- ful performances that for years charac- terized carpet-bag rule in Southern States. The stupendous folly of forcing into the Constitution of the United States the fif- teenth amendment, conferring upon vast hordes of densely ignorant beings the right of suffrage, might not now fill with apprehension the minds of discerning stu- dents of government. The thought that in a number of States in the South public safety imperatively demands organized denial of the unrestricted exercise of this constitutional grant awakens suspicion that sanity must have been dangerously clouded and obscured when that vicious assault upon the purity and beneficence of the ballot was first conceived and finally perpetrated. As long as the present status of pacific submission is maintained, and sanctioned by overwhelming public senti- ment North and South, the utter perni- ciousness of this license for the pollution of the ballot may not be revealed in all its hideousness; but when the situation changes and the subdued mass becomes aware of its latent power, a conflict of races may prove as irrepressible as was the conflict between slavery and freedom in the Fifties and early Sixties.

SPEECH OF GOV. MORTON AT RICH- MOND, IND., SEPT. 29, 1865, ON RE- CONSTRUCTION AND NEGRO SUF- FRAGE.

"So that Mr. Johnson has restricted from taking the oath eight classes per- mitted by Mr. Lincoln, and so far his plan is more stringent than Mr. Lincoln's was. Mr. Lincoln, in his plan of reconstruction, declared all persons should have the right to vote for the delegates to the conventions which might be called in the States to form State constitutions, who had taken the oath prescribed by him, and who were law- ful voters according to the laws of the State in which they resided before the pas- sage of the ordinance of secession. Mr. Johnson has made precisely the same con- dition. Mr. Lincoln then provided for the appointment of Provisional Governors, giv- ing to them the power of calling State con-

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ventions, with a view of forming State constitutions, for the purpose of being re- ceived back into full practical relations with the Government. Mr. Lincoln did the same. Each required that the constitu- tions thus formed should be Republican in form. Mr. Lincoln put forth no require- ment of condition that was not equally contained in Mr. Johnson's proclamation. Their plans of amnesty and reconstruction cannot be distinguished from each other, except in the particulars I have already mentioned, that Mr. Johnson restricts cer- tain persons from taking the oath, unless they first have a special pardon from him, whom Mr. Lincoln permitted to come for- ward and take the oath without it; and in the further difference before mentioned, that Mr. Lincoln required one-tenth of the people of the State to show a willingness to take the oath, while Mr. Johnson has said nothing whatever about that. This was Mr. Lincoln's favorite policy. It was presented by him to Congress on the 8th of January, 1863, accompanied by a message. In the course of the next year, 1864, on several occasions, Mr. Lincoln distinctly presented, again and again, this policy of amnesty and reconstruction to the people of the South. It was his settled and favorite policy at the time he was re- nominated for election by the Union con- vention at Baltimore last summer, and in that convention the party sustained him and strongly endorsed his whole policy, of which this was a prominent part. Mr. Lincoln was triumphantly and overwhelm- ingly elected upon that policy, and soon after his election, in December, 1864, in his last annual message to Congress, he again brings forward this same policy of his and presents it to the Nation. And again, on the 12th of April, only two days before his death, he referred to and presented this policy of amnesty and reconstruction. That speech may be called his last speech, his dying words to the people, and I desire to refer to it. You remember the occasion. It was after Richmond had been evacuated. It was the day after they had received the news of Lee's surrender. Washington city was illuminated. A large crowd came in front of the White House and Mr. Lin- coln spoke to them from one of the win- dows. He referred to the organization of Louisiana under his plan of amnesty and reconstruction, and, in speaking of it, he gave the history of his policy. He said:

In my annual message of December, 1863, and accompanying the proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, would be acceptable, and sustained by the Executive Gov- ernment of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was a plan which might possibly be accept- able, and also distinctly protested that the Exec- utive claimed no right to say when or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such States.

"I want to make one remark right here. It is said that, under Mr. Johnson's policy of reconstruction, the men who originated and carried on the rebellion can be returned to seats in Congress as Senators and Rep- resentatives. The gentlemen who talk that way forget that on the 2nd of July, 1862, Congress passed an act, which has never been repealed, and is now in full force and effect, prohibiting any person from holding any Federal office, high or low, great or small, who has directly or indirectly been concerned in this rebellion, and there is no danger of the rebel leaders going into Con- gress unless the members of that body shall prove recreant to their trust and fail to enforce a law now unrepealed upon the statute books. Mr. Lincoln referred to the act of Congress, and said distinctly that he claimed no power to influence the admis- sion of members of Congress, and no power to bring forward a man who had been dis- franchised and rendered ineligible by an act of Congress. Mr. Johnson has never for a moment claimed that he could do such a thing. The act of Congress was binding upon Mr. Lincoln, and it is no less binding upon Mr. Johnson, and it has not been pro- posed by the plan of either to interfere with the operation of a statute, or bring any man into Congress or into the posses- sion of any Federal office who has been made ineligible by law. 'This plan,' says Mr. Lincoln, speaking of his plan of re- construction-'This plan was, in advance, submitted to the Cabinet, and approved by every member of it. One of them sug- gested that I should then apply the Eman- cipation Proclamation thereto, except in parts of Virginia and Louisiana, and that I should drop the suggestion about appren- ticeship, for freed people, and that I should omit the protest against my own power in regard to admission of members of Con- gress, but even then he approved every part and parcel of the plan, which has since been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana.'

"Here Mr. Lincoln, just before his death,

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gives the history of his plan of reconstruc- tion. He says it was submitted to every member of his Cabinet-and who were the members of his Cabinet at that time? Chief Justice Chase, Edwin M. Stanton and Wm. H. Seward were among them, and surely the indorsement of such men as these must give additional weight to any measure. Mr. Lincoln goes on:

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation for the whole State, practically applies the proclamation to that part previously exempted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to Con- gress. As it applied to Louisiana, every member of Congress fully approved the plan of the mes- sage. I received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal, and not a single objec- tion from any professed emancipationist, until after news was received at Washington that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accord- ance with it, from about July, 1864.

"In conclusion, upon this subject he used the following language:

Such has been my only agency in the Louisiana movement. My promise is made, as I have previ- ously stated, but as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it whenever I shall be con- vinced that keeping it is adverse to the public in- terest. But I have not yet been so convinced.

"Now, we find Mr. Lincoln, just before his death, referring in warm and strong terms to his policy of amnesty and recon- struction, and giving it his endorsement, giving to the world that which had never been given before-the history of that plan and policy, stating that it had been pre- sented and endorsed by every member of that able and distinguished Cabinet of 1863. Mr. Lincoln may be said to have died holding out to the Nation his policy of amnesty and reconstruction. It was held out by him at the very time the rebels laid down their arms.

"Mr. Lincoln died by the hand of an as- sassin, and Mr. Johnson came into power. He took Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet as he had left it, and he took Mr. Lincoln's policy of amnesty and reconstruction as he had left it, and as he had presented it to the world only two days before his death. Mr. John- son has honestly and faithfully attempted to administer that policy, which had been bequeathed by that man around whose grave a whole world has gathered as mourners.

"I refer to these facts for the purpose of showing that Mr. Johnson's policy is

not a new one, but that he is simply carry- ing out the policy left to him by his la- mented predecessor-a policy that had been endorsed by the whole nation in the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, and had been promulgated to the whole world nearly one year before the time of his last election.

"I want to remark one thing more upon that subject. I want to refer to the action of Congress in reference to the question of reconstruction. You will remember that some time in the month of April, Hen- ry Winter Davis, a very distinguished Con- gressman from Maryland, introduced a bill called the Winter Davis Bill. It provided a plan for the reconstruction of the rebel States, to bring them back into practical relations with the Government. It dif- fered from the plan of Mr. Lincoln's in some important respects, one of which was that, in electing delegates to the State convention that was to reorganize the State government, he allowed no man to vote who had been concerned in the rebel- lion in any way. I want to call your at- tention very briefly to that bill and show you how far Congress was committed by its own direct action to the main points in Mr. Johnson's policy of reconstruction. This bill, a copy of which I have here, pro- vided for the appointment of Provisional Governors in these States, just as Mr. Lin- coln's plan had done and Mr. Johnson's now does. It provided that these Provi- sional Governors might call State conven- tions for the purpose of forming State constitutions, and in this particular, also, it conformed to Mr. Lincoln's plan. It then went on to define the question of the right of suffrage for delegates to these con- ventions. It provided that the delegates shall be elected by the loyal white male citizens of the United States of the age of twenty-one years, and residents at the time in the county, parish or district in which they shall offer to vote.

"I call your attention to the fact that Congress itself, only a little over a year ago, when it assumed to take the whole question of reconstruction out of the hands of the President, expressly excluded the negro from the right of suffrage in voting for the men who were to frame the new constitutions for the rebel States. Not only that, but it went on to state what the constitutions should contain, and provided that if the constitutions to be formed by these conventions should conform to the

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provisions of this bill, then those States should be entitled to come back at once. What were these conditions? They only required that the constitution should con- tain three things: first, it shall contain a provision to the effect that no person who has held or exercised any office, civil or military, except offices merely ministerial, and military offices below the grade of colonel, State or Confederate, under the usurping power, shall vote for, or be a member of, the Legislature, or Governor. In other words, the bill required that these conventions should exclude from the right of suffrage in the South all persons who had been in the rebel army above the rank of colonel, thereby conceding very plainly that they might give the right of suffrage to all persons below that rank. The bill provides, secondly, that involuntary servi- tude must be forever prohibited and the freedom of all persons guaranteed in such States; and that no debt or obligation created by or under the sanction of the usurping power shall be recognized or paid by the State.

"These were all the conditions that were imposed upon the constitutions to be framed under the Henry Winter Davis bill. It simply required, if you please, that the constitution of South Carolina should not give the right of suffrage to any man who had held office in the rebel army above the rank of colonel; and that involuntary servitude should be abolished, and that they should not assume any Confederate debt; but it did not require that any pro- vision be made to confer the right of suf- frage upon the negro at any time. It did not require that they should make provi- sion for the education of the negro, or for giving him the right of testifying in courts of justice, or for preserving, in any partic- ular way, what may be called his civil rights. Mr. Lincoln, as you remember, re- fused to sign that bill. He put it in his pocket. Though it had received a majority in both Houses. being passed in the House by a vote of 74 to 66, and by a much larger vote in the Senate, it failed to become a law. Some of you may, perhaps, remem- ber the angry manifesto put forth in con- sequence of Mr. Lincoln's course in that matter by Mr. Davis and Mr. Wade, and you will not forget that the result was to create strife and division in the ranks of the Union party.

"If Mr. Lincoln had not refused to sign

that bill there would today be an act of Congress on the statute books absolutely prohibiting negroes from any participa- tion in the work of reorganization and pledging the Government in advance to ac- cept of the constitutions that might be formed under the bill, although they made no provision for the negro beyond the fact of his personal liberty. If that bill had become a law, and the rebel States had formed their constitutions under it, sim- ply guaranteeing the negro his personal liberty, but making no provision for suf- frage or any other rights, they could pre- sent their members of Congress and you could not keep them out, except by tram- pling on one of the acts of Congress. But Mr. Lincoln refused to sign it, giving his reason for doing so, and it is only another act for which we ought to thank him. So that while Mr. Lincoln did not require negro suffrage in his plan of reconstruc- tion, we here have a solemn act of Con- gress absolutely prohibiting the negro from any participation in the reconstruc- tion of the Southern States. Now, how is it with Mr. Johnson? Mr. Lincoln re- quired that they should come back to the Union with constitutions free from slav- ery. Mr. Johnson has said so time and again-he said it to the South Carolina delegation. He said to the Freedmen's delegation : 'It is one condition of the re- admission of these States that slavery shall be forever extinguished, and that the rights of the freedmen shall be preserved and respected.' I am very glad to see that many of the Southern States are making commendable progress in this matter of the abolition of slavery. I see that the convention in Alabama has adopted by 83 to. 3 a provision forever abolishing and prohibiting slavery in that State-and not only so, but requiring the Legislature to make provision for the protection of the freedmen in the enjoyment of their civil rights. (Applause.)

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History of the Indiana democracy, 1816-1916, Part 29

Author: Stoll, John B., 1843-1926 Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Indianapolis : Indiana Democratic Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1104

Author: Stoll, John B., 1843-1926
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : Indiana Democratic Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1104