Part 1

Transcriber’s Note: There is a printer’s error in footnote 102; the Statutes at Large volume reference is missing from the original.

Statesman Edition VOL. XVII

Charles Sumner

HIS COMPLETE WORKS

With Introduction BY HON. GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR

BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD MCM

COPYRIGHT, 1880, BY FRANCIS V. BALCH, EXECUTOR.

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY LEE AND SHEPARD.

Statesman Edition.

LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COPIES. OF WHICH THIS IS

No. Extra

Norwood Press: NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XVII.

PAGE

CHEAP OCEAN POSTAGE. Resolution in the Senate, December 7, 1868 1

THE LATE HON. THADDEUS STEVENS, REPRESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA. Remarks in the Senate on his Death, December 18, 1868 2

CLAIMS OF CITIZENS IN THE REBEL STATES. Speeches in the Senate, January 12 and 15, 1869 10

TRIBUTE TO HON. JAMES HINDS, REPRESENTATIVE OF ARKANSAS. Speech in the Senate, January 23, 1869 32

POWERS OF CONGRESS TO PROHIBIT INEQUALITY, CASTE, AND OLIGARCHY OF THE SKIN. Speech in the Senate, February 5, 1869 34

CLAIMS ON ENGLAND,--INDIVIDUAL AND NATIONAL. Speech on the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, in Executive Session of the Senate, April 13, 1869 53

LOCALITY IN APPOINTMENT TO OFFICE. Remarks in the Senate, April 21, 1869 94

NATIONAL AFFAIRS AT HOME AND ABROAD. Speech at the Republican State Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, September 22, 1869 98

THE QUESTION OF CASTE. Lecture delivered in the Music Hall, Boston, October 21, 1869 131

CURRENCY. Remarks in the Senate, on introducing a Bill to amend the Banking Act, and to promote the Return to Specie Payments, December 7, 1869 184

COLORED PHYSICIANS. Resolution and Remarks in the Senate, on the Exclusion of Colored Physicians from the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, December 9, 1869 186

THE LATE HON. WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN, SENATOR OF MAINE. Remarks in the Senate on his Death, December 14, 1869 189

CUBAN BELLIGERENCY. Remarks in the Senate, December 15, 1869 195

ADMISSION OF VIRGINIA TO REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS. Speeches in the Senate, January 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 21, 1870 204

FINANCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AND SPECIE PAYMENTS. Speeches in the Senate, January 12, 26, February 1, March 2, 10, 11, 1870 234

MAJOR-GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE, OF THE REVOLUTION. Speech in the Senate, on the Presentation of his Statue, January 20, 1870 299

PERSONAL RECORD ON RECONSTRUCTION WITH COLORED SUFFRAGE. Remarks in the Senate, January 21 and February 10, 1870 303

CHEAP OCEAN POSTAGE.

RESOLUTION IN THE SENATE, DECEMBER 7, 1868.

Whereas the inland postage on a letter throughout the United States is three cents, while the ocean postage on a similar letter to Great Britain, under a recent convention, is twelve cents, and on a letter to France is thirty cents, being a burdensome tax, amounting often to a prohibition of foreign correspondence, yet letters can be carried at less cost on sea than on land; and whereas, by increasing correspondence, and also by bringing into the mails mailable matter often now clandestinely conveyed, cheap ocean postage would become self-supporting; and whereas cheap ocean postage would tend to quicken commerce, to diffuse knowledge, to promote the intercourse of families and friends separated by the ocean, to multiply the bonds of peace and good-will among men and nations, to advance the progress of liberal ideas, and thus, while important to every citizen, it would become the active ally of the merchant, the emigrant, the philanthropist, and the friend of liberty: Therefore

_Be it resolved_, That the President of the United States be requested to open negotiations with the European powers, particularly with Great Britain, France, and Germany, for the establishment of cheap ocean postage.

THE LATE HON. THADDEUS STEVENS, REPRESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE ON HIS DEATH, DECEMBER 18, 1868.

MR. PRESIDENT,--The visitor to the House of Commons, as he paces the vestibule, stops with reverence before the marble statues of men who for two centuries of English history filled that famous chamber. There are twelve in all, each speaking to the memory as he spoke in life, beginning with the learned Selden and the patriot Hampden, with Falkland so sweet and loyal, Somers so great as defender of constitutional liberty, and embracing in the historic group the silver-tongued Murray, the two Pitts, father and son, masters of eloquence, Fox, always first in debate, and that orator whose speeches contribute to the wealth of English literature, Edmund Burke.

In the lapse of time, as our history extends, similar monuments will illustrate the approach to our House of Representatives, arresting the reverence of the visitor. If our group is confined to those whose fame has been won in the House alone, it will be small; for members of the House are mostly birds of passage, only perching on the way to another place. Few remain so as to become identified with the House, or their service there is forgotten in the blaze of service elsewhere,--as was the case with Madison, Marshall, Clay, Webster, and Lincoln. It is not difficult to see who will find a place in this small company. There must be a statue of Josiah Quincy, whose series of eloquent speeches is the most complete of our history before Webster pleaded for Greece,--and also a statue of Joshua R. Giddings, whose faithful championship of Freedom throughout a long and terrible conflict makes him one of the great names of our country. And there must be a statue of THADDEUS STEVENS, who was perhaps the most remarkable character identified with the House, unless we except John Quincy Adams; but the fame of the latter is not of a Representative alone, for he was already illustrious from various service before he entered the House.

All of these hated Slavery, and labored for its overthrow. On this account they were a mark for obloquy, and were generally in a minority. Already compensation has begun. As the cause they upheld so bravely is exalted, so is their fame. By the side of their far-sighted, far-reaching, and heroic efforts, how diminutive is all that was done by others at the time! How vile the spirit that raged against them!

Stevens was a child of New England, as were Quincy and Adams; but, after completing his education, he found a home in Pennsylvania, which had already given birth to Giddings. If this great central State can claim one of these remarkable men by adoption only, it may claim the other by maternity. Their names are among its best glories.

Two things Stevens did for his adopted State, by which he repaid largely all her hospitality and favor. He taught her to cherish Education for the People, and he taught her respect for Human Rights. The latter lesson was slower learned than the former. In the prime of life, when his faculties were in their highest vigor, he became conspicuous for earnest effort, crowned by most persuasive speech, whose echoes have not yet died away, for those Common Schools, which, more even than railways, are handmaids of civilization, besides being the true support of republican government. His powerful word turned the scale, and a great cause was won. This same powerful word was given promptly and without hesitation to that other cause, suffering then from constant and most cruel outrage. Here he stood always like a pillar. Suffice it to say that he was one of the earliest of Abolitionists, accepting the name and bearing the reproach. Not a child in Pennsylvania, conning a spelling-book beneath the humble rafters of a village school, who does not owe him gratitude; not a citizen, rejoicing in that security obtained only in liberal institutions founded on the Equal Rights of All, who is not his debtor.

When he entered Congress, it was as champion. His conclusions were already matured, and he saw his duty plain before him. The English poet foreshadows him, when he pictures

“one in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition.”[1]

Slavery was wrong, and he would not tolerate it. Slave-masters, brimming with Slavery, were imperious and lawless. From him they learned to see themselves as others saw them. Strong in his cause and in the consciousness of power, he did not shrink from encounter; and when it was joined, he used not only argument and history, but all those other weapons by which a bad cause is exposed to scorn and contempt. Nobody said more in fewer words, or gave to language a sharper bite. Speech was with him at times a cat-o’-nine-tails, and woe to the victim on whom the terrible lash descended!

Does any one doubt the justifiableness of such debate? Sarcasm, satire, and ridicule are not given in vain. They have an office to perform in the economies of life. They are faculties to be employed prudently in support of truth and justice. A good cause is helped, if its enemies are driven back; and it cannot be doubted that the supporters of wrong and the procrastinators shrank often before the weapons he wielded. Soft words turn away wrath; but there is a time for strong words as for soft words. Did not the Saviour seize the thongs with which to drive the money-changers from the Temple? Our money-changers long ago planted themselves within our temple. Was it not right to lash them away? Such an exercise of power in a generous cause must not be confounded with that personality of debate which has its origin in nothing higher than irritability, jealousy, or spite. In this sense Thaddeus Stevens was never personal. No personal thought or motive controlled him. What he said was for his country and mankind.

As the Rebellion assumed its giant proportions, he saw clearly that it could be smitten only through Slavery; and when, after a bloody struggle, it was too tardily vanquished, he saw clearly that there could be no true peace, except by new governments built on the Equal Rights of All. And this policy he urged with a lofty dogmatism as beneficent as uncompromising. The Rebels had burned his property in Pennsylvania, and there were weaklings who attributed his conduct to smart at pecuniary loss. How little they understood his nature! Injury provokes and sometimes excuses resentment. But it was not in him to allow private grief to influence public conduct. The losses of the iron-master were forgotten in the duties of the statesman. He asked nothing for himself. He did not ask his own rights, except as the Rights of Man.

I know not if he could be called orator. Perhaps, like Fox, he were better called debater. And yet I doubt if words were ever delivered with more effect than when, broken with years and decay, he stood before the Senate and in the name of the House of Representatives and of all the people of the United States impeached Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors in office. Who can forget his steady, solemn utterance of this great arraignment? The words were few, but they will sound through the ages. The personal triumph in his position at that moment was merged in the historic grandeur of the scene. For a long time, against opposition of all kinds, against misconceptions of the law, and against apologies for transactions without apology, he had insisted on impeachment; and now this old man, tottering to your door, dragged the Chief Magistrate of the Republic to judgment. It was he who did this thing; and I should do poor justice to his life, if on this occasion I failed to declare my gratitude for the heroic deed. His merit is none the less because other influences prevailed in the end. His example will remain forever.

In the House, which was the scene of his triumphs, I never heard him but once; and I cannot forget the noble eloquence of that brief speech. I was there by accident just as he rose. He did not speak more than ten minutes, but every sentence seemed an oration. With unhesitating plainness he arraigned Pennsylvania for her denial of equal rights to an oppressed race, and, rising with the theme, declared that this State had not a republican government.[2] His explicitness was the more striking because he was a Representative of Pennsylvania. Nobody, who has considered with any care what constitutes a republican government, especially since the definition supplied by our Declaration of Independence, can doubt that he was right. His words will live as the courageous testimony of a great character on this important question.

The last earnest object of his life was the establishment of Equal Rights throughout the whole country by the recognition of the requirement of the Declaration of Independence. I have before me two letters in which he records his convictions, which are perhaps more weighty because the result of most careful consideration, when age had furnished experience and tempered the judgment. “I have,” says he, “long, and with such ability as I could command, reflected upon the subject of the Declaration of Independence, and finally have come to the sincere conclusion that Universal Suffrage was one of the inalienable rights intended to be embraced in that instrument.” It is difficult to see how there can be hesitation on this point, when the great title-deed expressly says that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. But this is not the only instance in which he was constrained by the habits of that profession which he practised so successfully. A great Parliamentarian of France has said: “The more one is a lawyer, the less he is a Senator,”--_Plus on est avocat, moins on est Sénateur._ If Stevens reached his conclusion slowly, it was because he had not completely emancipated himself from that technical reasoning which is the boast of the lawyer rather than of the statesman. The pretension that the power to determine the “qualifications” of voters embraced the power to exclude for color, and that this same power to exclude for color was included in the asserted power of the States to make “regulations” for the elective franchise, seems at first to have deceived him; as if it were not insulting to reason and shocking to the moral sense to suppose that any unalterable physical condition, such as color of hair, eyes, or skin, could be a “qualification,”--and as if it were not equally offensive to suppose, that, under a power to determine “qualifications” or to make “regulations,” a race could be disfranchised. Of course this whole pretension is a technicality set up against Human Rights. Nothing can be plainer than that a technicality may be employed in favor of Human Rights, but never against them. Stevens came to his conclusion at last, and rested in it firmly. His final aspiration was to see it prevail. He had seen much for which he had striven embodied in the institutions of his country. He had seen Slavery abolished. He had seen the freedman of the National Capital lifted to equality of political rights by Act of Congress; he had seen the colored race throughout the whole land lifted to equality of civil rights by Act of Congress. It only remained that he should see them throughout the whole land lifted to the same equality in political rights; and then the promises of the Declaration of Independence would be all fulfilled. But he was called away before this final triumph. A great writer of Antiquity, a perpetual authority, tells us that “the chief duty of friends is not to follow the departed with idle lamentation, but to remember their wishes and to execute their commands.”[3] These are the words of Tacitus. I venture to add that we shall best honor him we now celebrate, if we adopt his aspiration and strive for its fulfilment.

It is as Defender of Human Rights that Thaddeus Stevens deserves homage. Here he is supreme. On other questions he erred. On the finances his errors were signal. But history will forget these and other failings, as it bends with reverence before the exalted labors by which humanity has been advanced. Already he takes his place among illustrious names which are the common property of mankind. I see him now, as so often during life. His venerable form moves slowly and with uncertain steps; but the gathered strength of years is in his countenance, and the light of victory on his path. Politician, calculator, timeserver, stand aside! A hero-statesman passes to his reward.

CLAIMS OF CITIZENS IN THE REBEL STATES.

SPEECHES IN THE SENATE, JANUARY 12 AND 15, 1869.

MR. PRESIDENT,--This discussion, so unexpectedly prolonged, has already brought us to see two things,--first, the magnitude of the interests involved, and, secondly, the simplicity of the principle which must determine our judgment. It is difficult to exaggerate the amount of claims which will be let loose to feed on the country, if you recognize that now before us; nor can I imagine anything more authoritative than the principle which bars all these claims, except so far as Congress in its bounty chooses to recognize them.

* * * * *

By the Report of the Committee on Claims[4] it appears that the house of Miss Sue Murphey, of Decatur, Alabama, was destroyed, so that not a vestige remained, by order of the commander at that place, on the 19th March, 1864, under instructions from General Sherman to make it a military post. It is also stated that Miss Murphey was loyal. These are the important facts. Assuming the loyalty of the petitioner, which I have been led to doubt, the simple question is, whether the Nation is bound to indemnify a citizen, domiciled in a Rebel State, for property in that State, taken for the building of a fort by the United States against the Rebels.

Here it is proper to observe three things,--one concerning the petitioner, and two concerning the property taken: first, that the petitioner was domiciled in a Rebel State, or, to use more technical language, in a State declared by public proclamation to be in rebellion; secondly, that the property was situated within the Rebel State; and, thirdly, that the property was taken under the necessities of war, and for the national defence. On these three several points there can be no question. They are facts which have not been denied in this debate. Thus far I confine myself to a statement of facts, in order to prepare the way for the consideration of the legal consequences.

Bearing in mind these facts, several difficulties which have been presented during this debate disappear. For instance, a question was put by a learned Senator [Mr. DAVIS, of Kentucky] as to the validity of an imagined seizure of the property of the eminent Judge Wayne, situated in the District of Columbia. But it is obvious that the facts in the imagined case of the eminent judge are different from those in the actual case before us. Judge Wayne, unlike the petitioner, was domiciled in a loyal part of the country; and his property, unlike that of the petitioner, was situated in a loyal part of the country. This difference between the two cases serves to illustrate the position of the petitioner. Because property situated in the District of Columbia and belonging to a loyal judge domiciled here could not be taken, it by no means follows that property situated in a Rebel State and belonging to a person domiciled there can enjoy the same immunity.

Behind the fact of domicile, and the fact that the property was situated in a Rebel State, is that other fact, equally incontrovertible, that it was taken in the exigencies of war. The military order under which the taking occurred declares that “the necessities of the Army require the use of every building in Decatur,”--not merely the building in question, but every building; and the Report of the Committee says that “General Sherman had previously issued an order to fortify Decatur for a military post.” I might quote more to illustrate this point; but I quote enough. It is plain and indisputable that the taking was under an exigency of war. To deny this is to assail the military order under which it was done, and also the Report of the Committee.

* * * * *

Three men once governed the mighty Roman world. Three facts govern the present case, with the power of a triumvirate,--the domicile of the petitioner, the situation of the property, and the exigency of war. If I dwell on these three facts, it is because I am unwilling that either should drop out of sight; each is important. Together they present a case which it is easy to decide, however painful the conclusion. And this brings me to the principle which I said at the beginning was so simple. Indeed, let the facts be admitted, and it is difficult to see how there can be any question in the present case. But the facts, as I have stated them, are indubitable.

On these facts two questions arise: first, as to the rule of International Law applicable to property of persons domiciled in an enemy country; and, secondly, as to the applicability of this rule to the present case. Of the rule there can be no question; its applicability is sustained by reason, and also by authority from which there can be no appeal.

In stating and enforcing the rule I might array writers, precedents, and courts; but I content myself with a paragraph from a writer who in expounding the Laws of War is perhaps the highest authority. I refer to the Dutch publicist of the last century, Bynkershoek, whose work is always quoted in the final resort on these questions. This great writer expresses himself as follows:--

“Could it be doubted whether under the name of enemies may be understood also our friends who having been conquered are with the enemy, their city perhaps being occupied by him?… I should think that they also were to be so understood, certainly as regards goods which they have under the government of the enemy.… I know upon what ground others say the contrary,--namely, that our friends, although they are with the enemy, have no spirit of hostility to us; for that it is not of their free will that they are there, and that it is only from the _animus_ that the case is to be judged. But the case does not depend upon the _animus_ alone; because neither are all the rest of our enemy’s subjects, at any rate very few of them, carried away by a spirit of hostility to us; but it depends upon the right by which those goods are with the enemy, and upon the advantage which they afford him for our destruction.”[5]

Nothing could be stronger in determining the liability from domicile. Its sweeping extent, under the exigency of war, is proclaimed by this same writer in words of peculiar weight:--

“Since it is the condition of war that enemies are despoiled and proscribed as to every right, it stands to reason that everything found with the enemy changes its owner and goes to the Treasury.… If we follow the mere Law of War, even _immovable_ property may be sold and its price turned into the Treasury, as in the case of movable property.”[6]