Part 25

Are you ready for the revival of Slavery? I put this question plainly; for this is involved in the irreversibility of the Reconstruction Acts. Let these be overthrown or abandoned, and I know no adequate safeguard against an outrageous oppression of the freedman, which will be Slavery under another name. The original type, as received from Africa and perpetuated here, might not appear; but this is not the only form of the hateful wrong. Not to speak of peonage, as it existed in Mexico, there is a denial of rights, with exclusion from all participation in the Government and subjection to oppressive restraints, which of itself is a most direful slavery, under which the wretched bondman smarts as beneath the lash. And such a slavery has been deliberately planned by the Rebels. It would be organized, if they again had power. Of this there can be no doubt. The evidence is explicit and authentic.

I have here a Congressional document, containing the cruel legislation of the Rebel States immediately after the close of the Rebellion, under the inspiration of the Johnson governments.[272] Here are its diabolical statutes, fashioned in the spirit of Slavery, with all that heartlessness which gave to Slavery its distinctive character. The emancipated African, shut out from all participation in the Government, despoiled of the ballot, was enmeshed in a web of laws which left him no better than a fly in the toils of a spider. If he moved away from his place of work, he was caught as a “vagrant”; if he sought work as a mechanic or by the job, he was constrained by the requirement of a “license”; if he complained of a white man, he was subjected to the most cunning impediments; if he bought arms for self-defence, he was a violator of law;--and thus, wherever he went, or whatever he attempted, he was a perpetual victim. In Mississippi he could not “rent or lease any lands or tenements except in incorporated towns or cities,” thus keeping him a serf attached to the soil of his master. Looking at these provisions critically, it appears, that, while pretending to regulate vagrants, apprentices, licenses, and civil rights, the freedman was degraded to the most abject condition; and then, under a pretence for the public peace, he was shut out from opportunities of knowledge, and also from keeping arms, while he was subjected to odious and exceptional punishments, as the pillory, the stocks, the whipping-post, and sale for fine and costs. Behind all these was violence, assassination, murder, with the Ku-Klux-Klan constituting the lawless police of this new system. The whole picture is too horrible; but it is true as horrible. In the face of this unanswerable evidence, who will say that it was not proposed to revive Slavery? To call such a condition Liberty is preposterous. If not a slave of the old type, the freedman was a slave of a new type, invented by his unrepentant master as the substitute for what he had surrendered to the power of the Nation. Beginning with a caste as offensive and irreligious as that of Hindostan, and adding to it the pretensions of an oligarchy in government, the representatives of the old system were preparing to trample upon an oppressed race. The soul sickens at the thought.

* * * * *

With all this indubitable record staring us in the eyes, with the daily report of inconceivable outrage darkening the air, with wrong in every form let loose upon the long-suffering freedman, General Lee breaks the respectable silence of his parole to deny that “the Southern people are hostile to the negroes, and would oppress them, if in their power to do it.” The report, he asserts, is “entirely unfounded,”--that is the phrase,--“entirely unfounded”; and then he dwells on the old patriarchal relation, with the habit from childhood of “looking upon them with kindness” (witness the history of Slavery in its authentic instances!); and then he insists that “the change in the relations of the two races has wrought no change in feelings towards them,” that “without their labor the land of the South would be comparatively unproductive, and therefore _self-interest would prompt the whites of the South to extend to the negroes care and protection_.” Here is the threadbare pretension with which we were so familiar through all the dreary days of the old Barbarism, now brought forward by the Generalissimo of the Rebellion to vindicate the new,--and all this with an unabashed effrontery, which shows, that, in surrendering his sword, he did not surrender that insensibility to justice and humanity which is the distinctive character of the slave-master. The freedman does not need the “care and protection” of any such person. He needs the rights of an American citizen; and you are to declare by your votes if he shall have them.

* * * * *

The opposition to the Reconstruction Acts manifests itself in an inconceivable brutality, kindred to that of Slavery, and fit prelude to the revival of this odious wrong. Shall this continue? Outrage in every form is directed against loyal persons, without distinction of color. It is enough that a man is a patriot for Rebels to make war upon him. Insulted, abused, and despoiled of everything, he is murdered on the highway, on the railway, or, it may be, in his own house. Nowhere is he safe. The terrible atrocity of these acts is aggravated by the rallying cries of the murderers. If the victim is black, then it is a “war of races”; if white, then he is nothing but a “carpet-bagger”; and so, whether black or white, he is a victim. History has few scenes of equal guilt. Persecution in all its untold cruelties, ending in martyrdom, rages over a wide-spread land.

If there be a “war of races,” as is the apologetic defence of the murderers, then it is war declared and carried on by whites. The other race is inoffensive and makes no war, asking only its rights. The whole pretension of a “war of races” is an invention to cover the brutality of the oppressors. Not less wicked is the loud-mouthed attack on immigrants, whom Rebels choose to call “carpet-baggers,”--that is, American citizens, who, in the exercise of the rights of citizenship, carry to the South the blood, the capital, and the ideas of the North. This term of reproach does not belong to the Northerner alone. The carpet-bag is the symbol of our whole population: there is nobody who is not a “carpet-bagger,” or at least the descendant of one. Constantly the country opens its arms to welcome “carpet-baggers” from foreign lands. And yet the cry ascends that “carpet-baggers” are to be driven from the South. Here permit me to say, that, if anybody is driven from anywhere, it will not be the loyal citizen, whether old or new.

On all this you are to vote. It will be for you to determine if there shall be peace between the two races, and if American citizens shall enjoy everywhere within the jurisdiction of the Republic all the rights of citizenship, free from harm or menace, and with the liberty of uttering their freest thoughts.

There is another issue at this election. It is with regard to the unpatriotic, denationalizing pretensions of State Rights. In their name was the Rebellion begun, and now in their name is every measure of Reconstruction opposed. Important as are the functions of a State in the administration of local government, especially in resisting an overbearing centralization, they must not be exalted above the Nation in its own appropriate sphere. Great as is the magic of a State, there is to my mind a greater magic in the Nation. The true patriot would not consent to see the sacrifice of the Nation more than the true mother before King Solomon would consent to see the sacrifice of her child. It is as a Nation--all together making one--that we have a place at the council-board of the world, to excite the pride of the patriot and the respect of foreign powers. It is as a Nation that we can do all that becomes a civilized government; and “who dares do more is none.” But all this will be changed, just in proportion as any State claims for itself a sovereignty which belongs to all, and reduces the Nation within its borders to be little more than a tenant-at-will,--just in proportion as the National Unity is assailed or called in question,--just in proportion as the Nation ceases to be a complete and harmonious body, in which each State performs its ancillary part, as hand or foot to the natural body. There is an irresistible protest against such a sacrifice, which comes from the very heart of our history. It was in the name of “the good people of these Colonies,” called “one people,” that our fathers put forth the Declaration of Independence, with its preamble of Unity, and its dedication of the new Nation to Human Rights. And now it is for us, their children, to keep this Unity, and to perform all the national promises thus announced. The Nation is solemnly pledged to guard its Unity, and to make Human Rights coextensive with its boundaries. Nor can it allow any pretension of State Rights to interfere with this commanding duty.

* * * * *

There is still another issue, which is subordinate to Reconstruction and dependent upon it, so, indeed, as to be a part of it. I refer to the Financial Question, with the menace of Repudiation in different forms. Let the Reconstruction Acts be maintained in peace, in other words, let peace be established in the Rebel States, and the menace of Repudiation will disappear from the scene,--none so poor to do it reverence. If it find any acceptance now, it is only in that revolutionary spirit which assails all the guaranties of peace. Repudiation of the Reconstruction Acts, with all their securities for Equal Rights, is naturally followed by repudiation of the National Debt. The Acts and the Debt are parts of one system, being the means and price of peace. So strongly am I convinced of the potency of this influence, that I do not doubt the entire practicability of specie payments on the fourth of July next after the inauguration of General Grant.

Nay, more, it is my conviction, not only that we _can_ have specie payments at that time, but that we _ought_ to have them. If we can, we ought; for this is nothing but the honest payment of what we owe. A failure to pay may be excused, but never justified. Our failure was originally sanctioned only under the urgency of war; but this sanction cannot extend beyond the urgency. It is sometimes said that necessity renders an action just, and Latin authority is quoted: _Id enim justissimum quod necessarium_. But it is none the less untrue. Necessity may excuse an action not in itself just, but it is without the force to render it just; for justice is immutable. The taking of the property of another under the instigation of famine is excused, and so is the taking of the property of citizens by the Government during war,--in both cases from necessity. But as the necessity ceases, the obligations of justice revive. Necessity has no rights, but only privileges, which disappear with the exigency. Therefore do I say that the time has passed when the Nation can be excused for refusing to pay according to its promise. But it is vain to expect this important change from a political party which emblazons Repudiation on its banners.

* * * * *

It is in two conspicuous forms that Repudiation flaunts: first, in the barefaced proposition to tax the bonds, contrary to the contract at the time the money was lent; and the other, not less barefaced, to pay interest-bearing bonds with greenbacks, or, in other words, mere promises to pay without interest.

* * * * *

The exemption from taxation was a part of the original obligation, having, of course, a positive value, which entered into the price of the bond at the time of subscription. This additional price was taken from the pocket of the subscriber and transferred to the National Treasury, where it has been used for the public advantage. It is so much property to the credit of the bond-holder, which it is gravely proposed to confiscate. Rebel property you will not confiscate; but you are considering how to confiscate that of the loyal citizen. Taxation of the bonds is confiscation.

The whole case can be stated with perfect simplicity. To tax the bonds is to break the contract _because you have the power_. It is an imitation of the Roman governor, a lieutenant of Cæsar, who, after an agreement by the people of Gaul to pay a certain subsidy monthly, arbitrarily changed the number of months to fourteen. The subtraction from the interest by taxation is kindred in dishonesty to the increase of the Gaulish subsidy by adding to the months. Of course, in private contracts between merchant and merchant no such thing could be done. But there can be no rule of good faith binding on private individuals which is not binding on the Nation, while there are exceptional reasons for extraordinary scrupulousness on the part of the Nation. As the transaction is vast, and especially as the Nation is conspicuous, what is done becomes an example to the world which history cannot forget. A Nation cannot afford to do a mean thing. There is another reason, founded on the helpless condition of the creditor, who has no power to enforce his claim, whether of principal or interest. It was Charles James Fox who once exclaimed against a proposition kindred to that now made: “Oh, no, no! His claims are doubly binding who trusts to the rectitude of another.” This is only according to an admitted principle in the Laws of War, constraining the stronger power to the best of faith in dealing with a weaker power, because the latter is without the capacity to redress a wrong. This benign principle, borrowed from the Laws of War, cannot be out of place in the Laws of Peace; and I invoke it now as a sufficient protection against taxation of the bonds, even if common sense in its plainest lessons, and the rule of right in its most imperious precepts, did not forbid this thing.

The cheat of paying interest-bearing bonds in promises without interest is kindred in character to that of taxing the bonds. It is flat Repudiation. No subtlety of technicality, no ingenuity of citation, no skill in arranging texts of statutes, can make it anything else. It is so on the face, and it is so the more the transaction is examined. Here again I invoke that rule of conduct to a weaker party, and I insist, that, if, from any failure of explicitness excluding all contrary conclusion, there can be any reason for Repudiation, every such suggestion must be dismissed as the frightful well-spring of disastrous consequences impossible to estimate, while it is inconsistent with that Public Faith which is the supreme law.

Elsewhere I have considered this question so fully,[273] that I content myself now with conclusions only. Do you covet the mines of Mexico and Peru, the profits of extended commerce, or the harvest of your own teeming fields? All these and more you will multiply infinitely, if you will keep the Public Faith inviolate. Do you seek stability in the currency, with the assurance of solid business, so that extravagance and gambling speculations shall cease? This, too, you will have through the Public Faith. Just in proportion as this is discredited, the Nation is degraded and impoverished. If nobody had breathed Repudiation, we should all be richer, and the national debt would be at a lower interest, saving to the Nation millions of dollars annually. Talk of taxation; here is an annual tax of millions imposed by these praters of Repudiation.

Careless of all the teachings of history, you are exhorted to pay the national debt in greenbacks, knowing that this can be done only by creating successive batches, counted by hundreds of millions, which will bring our currency to the condition of Continental money, when a night’s lodging cost a thousand dollars, or the condition of the French _assignats_, the paper currency of the Revolution, which was increased to a fearful amount, precisely as it is now proposed to increase ours, until the story of Continental money was repeated. Talk of clipping the coin, or enfeebling it with alloy, as in mediæval times; talk of the disgraceful frauds of French monarchs, who, one after another in long succession, debased their money and swore the officers of the Mint to conceal the debasement; talk of persistent reductions in England, from Edward the First to Elizabeth, until coin was only the half of itself; talk of unhappy Africa, where Mungo Park found that a gallon of rum, which was the unit of value, was half water;--talk of all these; you have them on a colossal scale in the cheat of paying bonds with greenbacks. If not taught by our own memorable experience, when Continental money, which was the currency of the time, was lost, like the river Rhine at its mouth, in an enormous outstretched quicksand, then be taught by the experience of another country. Authentic history discloses the condition to which France was reduced. Carlyle, in his picturesque work on the Revolution, says: “There is, so to speak, no trade whatever, for the time being. _Assignats_, long sinking, emitted in such quantities, sink now with an alacrity beyond parallel.” The hackney-coachman on the street, when asked his fare, replied, “Six thousand livres.”[274] And still the _assignats_ sunk, until at last the nation was a pauper. The Directory, invested for the time with supreme power, on repairing to the palace of the Luxembourg, found it without a single article of furniture. Borrowing from the door-keeper a rickety table, an inkstand, and a sheet of letter-paper, they draughted their first official message, announcing the new government. There was not a solitary piece of coin in the Treasury; but there was a printing-press at command. _Assignats_ were fabricated in the night, and sent forth in the morning wet from the press.[275] At last they ended in nothing,--but not until a great and generous people was enveloped in bankruptcy and every family was a sufferer. Bankruptcy has its tragedies hardly inferior to those which throb beneath the “sceptred pall.”

Similar misconduct among us must result in similar consequences, with all the tragedies of bankruptcy. Not a bank, not a corporation, not an institution of charity, which would not suffer,--each sweeping multitudes into the abyss which it could not avoid. Business would be disorganized, values would be uncertain; nobody would know that the paper in his pocket to-day would buy a dinner to-morrow. There is no limit to the depreciation of inconvertible paper. Down, down it descends, as the plummet, to the bottom, or up, up, as the bubble in the air, until, whether down or up, it disappears. It is hard to think of the poor, or of those who depend on daily wages, under the trials of this condition. The rich may, for the time, live from their abundance; but the less favored class can have no such refuge. Therefore, for the poor, and for all who labor, do I now plead, when I ask that you shall not hearken to this painful proposition.

I plead, also, for the business of the country. So long as the currency continues in its present uncertainty, it cannot answer the demands of business. It is a diseased limb, no better than what is known in India as a “Cochin leg,” or an excrescence not unlike the pendulous goitre which is the pitiful sight of an Alpine village. But it must be uncertain, unless we have peace. Therefore, for the sake of the currency, do I unite with our candidate in his longing. Business must be emancipated. How often are we told by the lawyers, in a saying handed down from antiquity, that “a wretched servitude exists where the law is uncertain”! But this is not true of the law only. Nothing short of that servitude which denies God-given rights can be more wretched than the servitude of an uncertain currency. And now that, by the blessing of God, we are banishing that terrible wrong which was so long the curse and shame of our Nation, let us apply ourselves to this other servitude, whose yoke we are all condemned to bear in daily life.

Looking into the travels of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, you will find that he encountered in China paper money on a large scale, being an inconvertible currency standing on the credit of the Grand Khan, not unlike our greenbacks. Describing the celestial city of Kin-sai, the famous traveller says, “The inhabitants are idolaters, and they use paper money”; and then describing another celestial city, Ta-pin-zu, he says, “The inhabitants worship idols, and use paper money.”[276] I know not if Marco Polo intended by this association to suggest any dependence of paper money upon the worship of idols. It is enough that he puts them together. To my mind they are equally forbidden by the Ten Commandments. If one Commandment enjoins upon us not to worship any graven image, does not another say expressly, “Thou shalt not steal”?

* * * * *

There is another consideration, which I have reserved for the last, and which I would call an issue in the pending election. It is nothing less than the good name of the Republic, and its character as an example to the Nations. All this is directly in question. If you are true to the great principles of Equal Rights, declared by our fathers as the foundation of just government,--if you stand by the freedman and maintain him in well-earned citizenship,--if you require full payment of the national debt in coin, principal and interest, at the pleasure of the holder, so that the Republic shall have the crown of perfect honesty, as also of perfect freedom,--I do not doubt that it will exercise a far-reaching sway. Nothing captivates more than the example of virtue,--not even the example of vice. _By this sign conquer_: by fidelity to declared principles, by the performance of all promises, by a good name. Then will American history supply the long-sought definition of a Republic, and our Western star will illumine the Nations.

Reverse the picture, let the Rebel Party prevail, and what do we behold? The bonds of the Nation repudiated, and the Equal Rights of the freedman, which are nothing but bonds of the Nation, repudiated also. Alas! the example of the Republic is lost, and our Western star is quenched in darkness. But this cannot be without a shock, as when our first parents tasted the forbidden fruit:--

“Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost.”

The shock will begin at home; but it will spread wherever there are hearts to thrill with anguish. The struggling people in foreign lands, now turned to us with hope, will sink in despair as they observe the disastrous eclipse.

I would not seem too confident in the destinies of my country; but I cannot doubt, that, if only true to herself, there is nothing too vast for her peaceful ambition. Here again I catch the aspiration of our leader in war, “Let us have peace.” Out of peace will spring all else. Abroad there will be welcome and acceptance, with the might of our example constantly increasing. At home there will be safety and opportunity for all within our borders, with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of travel, and the equal rights of citizenship, like the rights of the national creditor, all under the perpetual safeguard of that Public Faith which is the golden cord of the Republic. Let despots break promises, but not our Republic. A Republic is where every man has his due. Equality of rights is the standing promise of Nature to man, and the Republic has succeeded to this promise.