A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction (40 page)

You may expel us, gentlemen, but I firmly believe that you will some day repent it. The black man cannot protect a country, if the country doesn't protect him; and if, tomorrow, a war should arise, I would not raise a musket to defend a country where my manhood is denied. The fashionable way in Georgia, when hard work is to be done, is for the white man to sit at his ease while the black man does the work; but, sir, I will say this much to the colored men of Georgia, as, if I should be killed in this campaign, I may have no opportunity of telling them at any other time: Never lift a finger nor raise a hand in defense of Georgia, until Georgia acknowledges that you are men and invests you with the rights pertaining to manhood. Pay your taxes, however, obey all orders from your employers, take good counsel from friends, work faithfully, earn an honest living, and show, by your conduct, that you can be good citizens.

Go on with your oppressions. Babylon fell. Where is Greece? Where is Nineveh? And where is Rome, the Mistress Empire of the world? Why is it that she stands, today, in broken fragments throughout Europe? Because oppression killed her. Every act that we commit is like a bounding ball. If you curse a man, that curse rebounds upon you; and when you bless a man, the blessing returns to you; and when you oppress a man, the oppression also will rebound. Where have you ever heard of four millions of freemen being governed by laws, and yet have no hand in their making? Search the records of the world, and you will find no example. “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” How dare you to make laws by which to try me and my wife and children, and deny me a voice in the making of these laws? I know you can establish a monarchy, an autocracy, an oligarchy, or any other kind of
ocracy
that you please; and that you can declare whom you please to be sovereign; but tell me, sir, how you can clothe me with more power than another, where all are sovereigns alike? How can you say you have a republican form of government, when you make such distinction and enact such proscriptive laws?

Gentlemen talk a good deal about the Negroes “building no monuments.” I can tell the gentlemen one thing: that is, that we could have built monuments of fire while the war was in progress. We could have fired your woods, your barns and fences, and called you home. Did we do it? No, sir! And God grant that the Negro may never do it, or do anything else that would destroy the good opinion of his friends. No epithet is sufficiently opprobrious for us now. I saw, sir, that we have built a monument of docility, of obedience, of respect, and of self-control, that will endure longer than the Pyramids of Egypt.

We are a persecuted people. Luther was persecuted; Galileo was persecuted; good men in all nations have been persecuted; but the persecutors have been handed down to posterity with shame and ignominy. If you pass this bill, you will never get Congress to pardon or enfranchise another rebel in your lives. You are going to fix an everlasting disfranchisement upon Mr. Toombs and the other leading men of Georgia. You may think you are doing yourselves honor by expelling us from this House; but when we go, we will do as Wickliffe and as Latimer did. We will light a torch of truth that will never be extinguished—the impression that will run through the country, as people picture in their mind's eye these poor black men, in all parts of this Southern country, pleading for their rights. When you expel us, you make us forever your political foes, and you will never find a black man to vote a Democratic ticket again; for, so help me God, I will go through all the length and breadth of the land, where a man of my race is to be found, and advise him to beware of the Democratic party. Justice is the great doctrine taught in the Bible. God's Eternal Justice is founded upon Truth, and the man who steps from Justice steps from Truth, and cannot make his principles to prevail.

(January 1869)

On Sunday, October 25, 1868, William E. Matthews, an agent of the A.M.E. Church responsible for missionary work in the South, spoke before the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher's famous Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York. Matthews noted that during Reconstruction his denomination had organized five hundred congregations and erected three hundred church buildings in the former Confederate states. As slaves, Matthews added, the people reveled in ignorance and superstition. As freedpeople and as members of the A.M.E. Church, they radiated “praise and prayer from every hill-top and plain from Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico.” Beecher informed his congregation that the experiences of the freedpeople since emancipation reaffirmed “the duty of the strong to bear with the weak.”

Christian Friends: I thank you, as I have no word to express, for this manifestation of practical Christianity in giving me an opportunity to present to your sympathy and support the cause I represent. I am not insensible to the fact—I am almost overwhelmed by it—of standing on the platform of Plymouth Church, face to face with this people, and in presence of the man who has done so much for the millions of my brethren. For the battle you have fought, and for the words of cheer and hope spoken when all around them was dark with despair, I can only say—I thank you.

I come from Baltimore, where I was born and reared, and I come bearing letters of recommendation from the Hon. Hugh L. Bond, the Rev. Edwin Johnson, Rev. John F. W. Ware, Rev. Dr. Sutherland, of Washington, Major-General Howard, and other noble men in that section of the country, who know me and the cause I represent.

I am here as the representative of the missionary work now being performed at the South by the African Methodist Episcopal Church—a church organized and governed entirely by colored men.

This African Methodist Church was organized fifty-two years ago, in 1816; so you see that I do not come with some new-born experiment, but for an organization which has been tested, and which, under God, has been instrumental in presenting to American Christianity the largest body of Christianized Africans to be found the world over.

I will as briefly as possible give the history of its rise and progress, what it has achieved and what it still desires to perform. Prior to the year 1816, there were a great many colored people in the State of Pennsylvania who were members of the great Methodist Church of this country. All the rights and Christian courtesies which others enjoyed were accorded to them; but about this time you know how the great spirit of caste overleaped the plantations of the South and entered your Northern homes—how it even entered the sacred temple of worship, and ignoring that great truth proclaimed by Paul on Mars' Hill, that “God of a truth had made of one blood all men, to dwell on all the face of the earth,” the ministers of this church plainly told the colored portion of the membership that such was the condition of public opinion that they could no longer remain with them, and the sooner they took themselves away the better it would be for all concerned. A few of the more intelligent of the colored men—Richard Allen, David Coaker, and six others—feeling the great wrong done them, resolved to form a church of their own, where they could worship God under their own vine and fig-tree, with none to molest or make afraid. These men, poor in pocket but rich in heart, rented a loft over a blacksmith's shop, and in the month of April, 1816, they there formed this African Methodist Episcopal Church. From that small commencement of eight men for a congregation, and a loft for a sanctuary, this communion has increased, east, west, north, south, until, as I before stated, we possess the largest body of black Christians to be found the world over.

We now number a membership of two hundred and twenty-five thousand. We have some eight hundred church edifices scattered throughout the country; one college, (Wilberforce,) near Xenia, Ohio; a training-school for ministers in South-Carolina; and a newspaper, the
Christian Recorder,
of Philadelphia, with a circulation of from eight to ten thousand; and all this the work
of colored men
. All the money required, all the power of head and heart needed in propelling so great a work, has come from black men.

But you must know that, prior to the rebellion, no organization could exist at the South that had not at its head a white man; and as this was a church governed entirely by colored men, our church had no existence in the South, the only exceptions to this rule being the States of Maryland, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia. In these States we have a large membership and fine church property; but whenever we attempted to plant our church in Virginia, the Carolinas, or Georgia, or any of the States where our people mostly lived, the law would interpose. In some instances, a
posse
of police would enter, arrest the minister and as many of the congregation as they could manage. This was done to the Rev. John M. Brown, now Bishop Brown, in the city of New-Orleans, not many years since.

When the war of the rebellion broke forth, and when our government (for, thank God! I can now say
our
government) had been educated up to the idea of accepting black men to help fight its battles, the ministers of this church were among the first to offer their services. Indeed, our churches in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and this city were turned into recruiting rendezvous, where mass meetings were held, and our leading ministers came before the people and told them to forget the past, and to buckle on their armor and go forth to vindicate the country's honor and preserve the nation's flag; and they did go forth, and Rev. H. M. Turner, then the pastor of one of our churches in Washington, but now engaged in organizing churches in Georgia, and one of the men recently expelled from the legislature of that State on account of color, was the first colored man to receive a commission from the United States—that as chaplain of the First U. S Colored troops, which he raised almost by himself, by the power of his own influence. When Turner and others of our ministers went into the Southern States and saw the deplorable spiritual condition of the blacks, their utter ignorance of the elements which are required for a fully developed Christian character, they determined that our church must be planted there in order that the Gospel might be preached to them in all the richness of its promise and all its breadth and depth. For you must know that these millions had never been permitted to listen to a “whole gospel.” In many of the Southern States, they had no church privileges at all. In others they were permitted to occupy the loft in the white churches, and at the close of the minister's regular discourse he would address a few words to his black hearers. No matter what text his sermon had been based upon, the text from which he spoke to the colored people would always be,
“Servants, obey your masters,”
telling them that, if they would only obey the superior will of some one else,
no matter what that will was,
they might possibly get into some corner of heaven; but even of this there was no absolute certainty. They were taught nothing about the importance of Christian character or the meaning and force of that little word
integrity
.

Now, this African Church is endeavoring to supply this need. They are sending into the South men of broad, comprehensive views, men who know the needs of the people, and who are endeavoring to hedge them about by such influences as will enable them to emerge from their transition state healthier, stronger, and wiser, so that they may be a blessing to themselves, their country, and their age. We have already succeeded in organizing some five hundred congregations and erecting some three hundred church buildings south of the Potomac. Indeed, we have already succeeded in making that South-land, which a few years ago was black with its ignorance and superstitions, resound with praise and prayer from every hill-top and plain from Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico.

In all the large cities our churches are in a healthy condition—not only self-supporting, but giving a surplus for more destitute regions; but in Texas, Arkansas, Georgia, and other portions of the South where labor is disorganized, the people are unable to raise money enough to meet the common necessities of life. They, therefore, have no money to give to the men whom we send them. The consequence is, that we have some eighty men who are either wholly or partly dependent upon our Missionary Society for their support; and it is for this purpose, Christian friends, that I invoke your sympathy, and, I trust, your material help.

Time will not permit me to go more fully into the details of this work. My appeal is before you, and in those beautiful words of Bishop Heber I would ask you,

 

Shall you whose minds are lighted

With wisdom from on high,

Shall you to men benighted

The lamp of life deny?

Salvation! O salvation!

The joyful sound proclaim,

Till earth's remotest nation

Has learnt Messiah's name.

 

Help us to help these woe-smitten children up to manhood and to God, and you shall receive that benediction sweeter than any joy the world can give. It will be the voice of the Master, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to these my little ones, ye have done it unto me.”

(March 4, 1869)

Grant, the Union's great war hero, stayed as neutral as possible in the bitter quarrel between Johnson and the Radicals. Victorious over New York Democrat Horatio Seymour in the presidential election of 1868 (winning 214 electoral votes to 80), Grant promised in his first inaugural address to work harmoniously with Congress and, even when he disagreed with legislators, to execute the laws faithfully. Grant obviously had paid close attention to Johnson's travails. In his speech, Grant pledged to try to heal sectional wounds and expressed confidence that the Fifteenth Amendment (passed by Congress on February 26, 1869) would be ratified during his presidency. Indeed, ratification of the amendment and the restoration of all of the Southern states to their congressional privileges were among the major accomplishments of Grant's White House years.

 

CITIZENS OF THE UNITED
STATES

Your suffrages having elected me to the office of President of the United States, I have, in conformity to the Constitution of our country, taken the oath of office prescribed therein. I have taken this oath without mental reservation, and with the determination to do to the best of my ability all that it requires of me. The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought; I commence its duties untrammelled. I bring to it a conscious desire and determination to fill it to the best of my ability to the satisfaction of the people.

On all leading questions agitating the public mind I will always express my views to Congress, and urge them according to my judgment; and when I think it advisable, will exercise the constitutional privilege of interposing a veto to defeat measures which I oppose. But all laws will be faithfully executed whether they meet my approval or not.

I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike, those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

The country having just emerged from a great rebellion, many questions will come before it for settlement in the next four years which preceding Administrations have never had to deal with. In meeting these it is desirable that they should be approached calmly, without prejudice, hate or sectional pride, remembering that the greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be attained.

This requires security of person, property, and free religious and political opinion in every part of our common country, without regard to local prejudice. All laws to secure these ends will receive my best efforts for their enforcement.

A great debt has been contracted in securing to us and our posterity the Union. The payment of this, principal and interest, as well as the return to a specie basis, as soon as it can be accomplished without material detriment to the debtor class or to the country at large, must be provided for. To protect the national honor every dollar of government indebtedness should be paid in gold, unless otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract. Let it be understood that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public place, and it will go far towards strengthening a credit which ought to be the best in the world, and will ultimately enable us to replace the debt with bonds bearing less interest than we now pay. To this should be added a faithful collection of the revenue, a strict accountability to the treasury for every dollar collected, and the greatest practicable retrenchment in expenditure in every department of government.

When we compare the paying capacity of the country now—with the ten States in poverty from the effects of war, but soon to emerge, I trust, into greater prosperity than ever before—with its paying capacity twenty-five years ago, and calculate what it probably will be twenty-five years hence, who can doubt the feasibility of paying every dollar then with more ease than we now pay for useless luxuries? Why, it looks as though Providence had bestowed upon us a strong box in the precious metals locked up in the sterile mountains of the far west, and which we are now forging the key to unlock, to meet the very contingency that is now upon us.

Ultimately it may be necessary to insure the facilities to reach these riches, and it may be necessary also that the general government should give its aid to secure this access. But that should only be when a dollar of obligation to pay secures precisely the same sort of dollar to use now, and not before. Whilst the question of specie payments is in abeyance, the prudent business man is careful about contracting debts payable in the distant future. The nation should follow the same rule. A prostrate commerce is to be rebuilt and all industries encouraged.

The young men of the country, those who from their age must be its rulers twenty-five years hence, have a peculiar interest in maintaining the national honor. A moment's reflection as to what will be our commanding influence among the nations of the earth in their day, if they are only true to themselves, should inspire them with national pride. All divisions, geographical, political, and religious, can join in this common sentiment. How the public debt is to be paid, or specie payments resumed, is not so important as that a plan should be adopted and acquiesced in.

A united determination to do is worth more than divided counsels upon the method of doing. Legislation upon this subject may not be necessary now, nor even advisable, but it will be when the civil law is more fully restored in all parts of the country, and trade resumes its wonted channels.

It will be my endeavor to execute all laws in good faith, to collect all revenues assessed, and to have them properly accounted for and economically disbursed. I will, to the best of my ability, appoint to office those only who will carry out this design.

In regard to foreign policy, I would deal with nations as equitable law requires individuals to deal with each other, and I would protect the law-abiding citizen, whether of native or foreign birth, wherever his rights are jeopardized or the flag of our country floats. I would respect the rights of all nations, demanding equal respect for our own. If others depart from this rule in their dealings with us, we may be compelled to follow their precedent.

The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land, the Indians, is one deserving of careful study. I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.

The question of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion of the citizens of the nation are excluded from its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this question should be settled now, and I entertain the hope and express the desire that it may be by the ratification of the fifteenth article of amendment to the Constitution.

In conclusion, I ask patient forbearance one toward another throughout the land, and a determined effort on the part of every citizen to do his share toward cementing a happy Union, and I ask the prayers of the nation to Almighty God in behalf of this consummation.