A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction (43 page)

For this reason I earnestly deprecate those hazardous interpretations which have been applied to that clause of the Constitution which makes it the duty of the United States to guarantee to every State a republican form of government. I certainly recognize that duty as a great, solemn and sacred one; but I deny that it confers upon the National Government the power to do all within the range of the human imagination. I deny that it authorizes or enables us to use the arm of the National authority for the purpose of realizing by force what conception each of us may entertain of the “ideal republic.”

In whatever way political philosophers may define the term “a republican form of government,” it seems to me that the Constitution of the United States in its amended, or, as our Democratic friends would have it, in its revolutionized state, has provisions which give a fair index of the powers conferred upon Congress by the guaranty clause. There we read that Congress shall see to it that no State establishes or maintains slavery or involuntary servitude; there we read that Congress shall see to it that every man born upon this soil or naturalized, and therefore a citizen of the United States, shall be protected in all the rights, privileges and immunities of citizens in every State of this Union; there we read that Congress shall see to it that every citizen of the United States shall be protected in his right to the ballot, irrespective of race or color.

But the Constitutional revolution has enlarged the powers of Congress for the purpose of establishing and securing true and general self-government in all of these States, not for the purpose of circumscribing its scope and functions within narrower limits. It has, indeed, overthrown what I call State wrongs; but it was not designed to abolish what I would call the legitimate sphere of State-rights. And I venture to say—and I cannot repeat this warning too often—the party which would attempt to carry that revolution much farther in the direction of an undue centralization of power would run against a popular instinct far stronger than party allegiance has ever proved to be.

But, sir, on the other hand, the party that would refuse to recognize and acquiesce in the great results of this beneficent revolution; the party that would attempt to subvert the institution of general self-government under National protection, as now established in the Constitution; the party that would strive to overthrow this new order of things, such a party certainly cannot fail to encounter the condemnation of the people and to meet disgrace and destruction, for such a party openly, by its own confession, constitutes itself the enemy of the peace and glory of this Republic. And I would say to my friend from New Jersey that I did not come to this country, where I hope to enjoy the blessings of liberty and self-government, to aid any party in designs like these.

Now, sir, permit me to address a few words to the leaders of the Democratic organization on this floor; and they know I speak to them as men whose character and ability I esteem, and whose personal friendship I value. You, gentlemen, tell us that you are in favor of true self-government. If you really are, look around you and see how much you can do to contribute to its success and security. In your party are the men who threaten and endanger it by the most iniquitous attempts to deprive certain classes of people of their political rights by fraud, intimidation and violence; thus to subvert the new order of things, throwing the country into chaos again. Your voices are potent with them; not ours. If you really are true friends to self-government, then let your voices be heard in condemnation of the disastrous course so many of your friends are still following. Let them be loudly heard in favor of the great principle of equal rights, the only basis upon which the political future of this Republic can develop itself.

You, gentlemen, tell us that you are opposed to an undue assumption and exercise of power on the part of the General Government. If you are, see how powerfully you can aid in preventing it by removing all those reasons and causes and pretexts which may bring it on. What are those reasons and causes? Do they not consist in those disorders which are troubling the people of the South as to the safety of the Unionists and the rights of the newly-enfranchised, disorders invariably excited by men who profess to belong to your party? And do you not know as well as I that as soon as the people of the United States once apprehend that a serious reaction, with only an apparent chance of success, is set on foot against the great results of the war, the tide of public sentiment will just as surely and promptly set back in favor of a more extended and vigorous exertion of the National power, and you will be impotent to arrest it? For there are certain things in regard to which the American people will not permit themselves to be trifled with; and foremost among those things stand the great results which we have so laboriously evolved out of the civil war now behind us. There is the danger; and he who is no enemy to self-government, he who is no friend to a dangerous accumulation of power, will certainly use every endeavor to avert it. For our part we would much rather reason down the disturbers of the peace in the South than strike them down; but to our voices they will not listen; to yours they will. They are within the reach of your persuasion. There is the field where you can prove your devotion to self-government and your dislike of centralized power.

You tell us also, gentlemen, that legislation like this is odious to you. Look around you and see how much you can do to make it superfluous. We, too, should be glad never to be under the necessity of resorting to it. If you want to avoid it the means is simple. Prevail upon your friends never to threaten or trouble any class of voters in the free exercise of their rights, have those rights secured and protected by appropriate State legislation, and that State legislation respected by your friends, and such measures as this will never be practically applied. Nay, more than that, if you are really in earnest, then I would advise you to accept this measure as a gage of good faith instead of opposing it. It would be far better than your attempts to throw doubt upon the legality of the Constitutional amendments, your studious efforts to hold out to your partisans the prospect of their overthrow, and of the subversion of all that has been accomplished for the final settlement of our controversies and the peace of the country.

Yes, make up your minds, gentlemen, to the fact that your old doctrines are exploded forever and cannot be revived. Give up your useless and disturbing agitation against accomplished results. Go to your Southern friends and counsel them not to ruin themselves by vainly resisting the inevitable. Thus you will do more for the cause of self-government, more to prevent a dangerous centralization of power, you will render a far higher service to this generation and to posterity, than by indulging in those lugubrious wails and lamentations to which you have accustomed us on the floor of the Senate—the lamentation that we are governed by an atrocious despotism because one man shall no longer have the right to deprive another man of his rights; that self-government has received its death-blow because nobody shall henceforth be excluded from its exercise, and that liberty has fled forever from these shores because at last the Republic has thrown her protecting shield over the rights of all, even the lowliest of her children.

Mr. President, I do not stand here to plead the cause of my party only. If I did so, if there were nothing nearer and dearer to my heart than partisan success and partisan power, I should hold very different language. I would then say to my Democratic friends, “By all means go on with your opposition against the results of the war; go on with your mischievous warfare against the new order of things; go on with vain and disturbing agitation to restore what has ceased to be and can never again be;” for if they do, they will only prove that they are still living in a past which this Nation has long outgrown; that they are still bent upon sacrificing the interests of the living generation to idols which are dead; that they are still bound to keep open the wounds of the past, and to defeat those hopes of peace and good understanding which the country so fondly cherishes, and the realization of which depends entirely upon a final settlement of the controversies which the war has left to us. And thus exhibiting their unwillingness to understand and appreciate the exigencies of the present, they will demonstrate even to the dullest mind their incapacity to control our future; and then the people of the United States, sagacious and prudent as they are, will appreciate the fact and treat them accordingly. Acting thus, our opponents will only condemn themselves to continued impotency.

If, therefore, I pleaded for nothing but the interest of my party I would encourage them to persevere in their course. But I plead for the cause of our country—for its peace, its prosperity, its happiness and its good name; and I cannot permit myself to forget that the people will not be secure in the enjoyment of those blessings as long as there is a large and influential party insidiously striving to undermine the foundation upon which alone they can grow, and to plunge the country again into the confusion of endless and bitter struggles. It is for this reason that I entreat our Democratic friends to desist from their disturbing and most mischievous agitation.

Some time ago my friend from New Jersey closed his speech on the admission of the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. R
EVELS
], who is the first representative of the colored race on this floor, with a most eloquent and touching appeal in favor of peace, harmony and good understanding; so eloquent, indeed, as to cause the usual decorum of the Senate to be broken by demonstrations of applause. I take that Senator at his word. Yes, let there be peace and harmony and good understanding, and let us all unite in doing the one thing needful to bring it about. The Senator must instinctively feel what that one thing needful is. He cannot conceal from his own eyes that there is but one settlement of our present controversy possible; that only one can be final, permanent and conclusive; and that is, the settlement which we advocate. He must see that the black man, being once admitted to the polls, the decree cannot be reversed. He must see that those broad hints, so frequently thrown out by Democratic Senators in the course of this very debate, that the fifteenth amendment is invalid and may still at some future time be overthrown, can only serve to encourage the false hopes of the rebel element in the South, can only serve to excite the worst impulses in an unthinking multitude in the North and can result in nothing but mischief, the most wanton, the most cruel mischief.

If the honorable Senator from New Jersey is really so ardent a friend of peace, harmony and fraternal feeling, let him go among his associates and tell them,

Enough of this; it is better to be right by the light of today than to be consistent with the errors of yesterday. If there lingers in your hearts a doubt as to the legality of the ratification of these Constitutional amendments, in the name of all that is good and great, waive that doubt; waive it for the peace of the country; waive it for the sake of those great interests which we are all called upon to serve. Do not insist upon exciting the evil passions which with so much trouble we have at last succeeded in quieting; do not tear open the wounds of the past again; do not torment the country with new struggles about those fearful questions which have kept the people so long in restless agitation, and are now at last on the point of final settlement, if we only permit them to be settled.

In uniting his party upon such a platform, the platform of such noble and conciliatory sentiments, my friend from New Jersey, who addressed me so eloquently yesterday, would do an act worthy of himself; he would render an inestimable service to our common country; and he might then at last even stagger my conviction, a conviction I have been compelled to entertain so far, that the blessings of liberty and self-government which I came to enjoy in this country, would be very unsafe if unfortunately the party of which he is a member should again obtain possession of the powers of the National Government.

But, sir, if the leaders of the Democratic party will not listen to language like this, then I think we shall be safe in taking an appeal to the masses. The people of the United States will see, if the Democratic leaders do not, that of all the policies thought of for the settlement of pending controversies, that proposed by the Republican party, the settlement of equal rights and general self-government, is the only one which by any possibility can be final and conclusive, for it is the only one in full accordance with the genius of republican institutions. The people will see, if the Democratic leaders do not, that the highest interests of the country demand that settlement to be made promptly and without cavil; for without it we shall not obtain that peace which is necessary to enable us to devote our whole attention to those moral and material problems of the present and future which so loudly call for solution. The people will, if the Democratic leaders do not, appreciate the greatness and beneficence of the idea upon which the new order of things, the settlement we propose, rests—true and general self-government exercised in and through the States; States whose power moves independently in its appropriate sphere; potent in doing that which is right; impotent to abridge the rights of even the meanest of their people; and the protecting shield of the National authority thrown over all.

The transcendent greatness of this consummation the American people will appreciate and I trust they will take good care not to put the National power into the hands of any men or of any organization of men who still speak of overthrowing the great Constitutional amendments, the price of so much blood and anxiety and struggle, the only safe foundation for the future peace and glory of this Republic.

(May 31, 1870)

The first Enforcement Act signaled a shift away from legislative to judicial and executive authority in protecting constitutional rights. It specified stiff financial penalties for those persons who wrongfully prevented qualified persons from voting. The act made it a felony for groups such as the Klan to conspire against, harass, or deny persons the franchise.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That all citizens of the United States who are or shall be otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any State, Territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; any constitution, law, custom, usage, or regulation of any State or Territory, or by or under its authority, to the contrary notwithstanding.

S
EC
. 2.
And be it further enacted,
That if by or under the authority of the constitution or laws of any State, or the laws of any Territory, any act is or shall be required to be done as a prerequisite or qualification for voting, and by such constitution or laws persons or officers are or shall be charged with the performance of duties in furnishing to citizens an opportunity to perform such prerequisite, or to become qualified to vote, it shall be the duty of every such person and officer to give to all citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform such prerequisite, and to become qualified to vote without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and if any such person or officer shall refuse or knowingly omit to give full effect to this section, he shall, for every such offence, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered by an action on the case, with full costs, and such allowance for counsel fees as the court shall deem just, and shall also, for every such offence, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be fined not less than five hundred dollars, or be imprisoned not less than one month and not more than one year, or both, at the discretion of the court. . . .

S
EC
. 4.
And be it further enacted,
That if any person, by force, bribery, threats, intimidation, or other unlawful means, shall hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct, or shall combine and confederate with others to hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct, any citizen from doing any act required to be done to qualify him to vote or from voting at any election as aforesaid, such person shall for every such offence forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered by an action on the case, with full costs, and such allowance for counsel fees as the court shall deem just, and shall also for every such offence be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be fined not less than five hundred dollars, or be imprisoned not less than one month and not more than one year, or both, at the discretion of the court.

S
EC
. 5.
And be it further enacted,
That if any person shall prevent, hinder, control, or intimidate, or shall attempt to prevent, hinder, control, or intimidate, any person from exercising or in exercising the right of suffrage, to whom the right of suffrage is secured or guaranteed by the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, by means of bribery, threats, or threats of depriving such person of employment or occupation, or of ejecting such person from rented house, lands, or other property, or by threats of refusing to renew leases or contracts for labor, or by threats of violence to himself or family, such person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be fined not less than five hundred dollars, or be imprisoned not less than one month and not more than one year, or both, at the discretion of the court. . . .

S
EC
. 9.
And be it further enacted
, That the district attorneys, marshals, and deputy marshals of the United States, the commissioners appointed by the circuit and territorial courts of the United States, with powers of arresting, imprisoning, or bailing offenders against the laws of the United States, and every other officer who may be specially empowered by the President of the United States, shall be, and they are hereby, specially authorized and required, at the expense of the United States, to institute proceedings against all and every person who shall violate the provisions of this act, and cause him or them to be arrested and imprisoned, or bailed, as the case may be, for trial before such court of the United States or territorial court as has cognizance of the offence. And with a view to afford reasonable protection to all persons in their constitutional right to vote without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and to the prompt discharge of the duties of this act, it shall be the duty of the circuit courts of the United States, and the superior courts of the Territories of the United States, from time to time, to increase the number of commissioners, so as to afford a speedy and convenient means for the arrest and examination of persons charged with a violation of this act; and such commissioners are hereby authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred on them by this act, and the same duties with regard to offences created by this act as they are authorized by law to exercise with regard to other offences against the laws of the United States.