Part 22

Of Quaker extraction, Greene was originally a Quaker. The Quaker became a soldier and commander of armies. Such was the requirement of the epoch. Should a soldier and commander of armies in our day accept ideas which enter into the life of the Quaker, the change would only be in harmony with those principles which must soon prevail, ordaining peace and good-will among men. Looking at his statue, with military coat and with sword in hand, I seem to see his early garb beneath. The Quaker general could never have been other than the friend of peace.

Standing always in that beautiful Hall, the statue will be a perpetual, though silent orator. The marble will speak; nor is it difficult to divine the lesson it must teach. He lived for his country, and his whole country,--nothing less. Born in the North, he died in the South, which he had made his home. The grateful South honored him as the North had already done. His life exhibits the beauty and the reward of patriotism. How can his marble speak except for country in all its parts and at all points of the compass? It was for the whole country that he drew his sword of “ice-brook temper.” So also for the whole country was the sword drawn in these latter days. And yet there was a difference between the two occasions easy to state.

Our country’s cause for which Greene contended was National Independence. Our country’s cause recently triumphant in bloodiest war was Liberty and Equality, the declared heritage of all mankind. The first war was for separation from the mother country, according to the terms of the Declaration, “That these United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States,”--the object being elevated by the great principles announced. The second war was for the establishment of these great principles, without which republican government is a name and nothing more. But both were for country. The larger masses, with the larger scale of military operations, in the latter may eclipse the earlier; and it is impossible not to see that a war for Liberty and Equality, making the promises of the Declaration a reality, and giving to mankind an irresistible example, is loftier in character than a war for separation. If hereafter Greene finds rivals near his statue, they will be those who represented our country’s cause in its later peril and its larger triumph. Just in proportion as ideas are involved is conflict elevated, especially if those ideas concern the Equal Rights of All.

Greene died at the South, and nobody knows the place of his burial. He lies without epitaph or tombstone. To-day a grateful country writes his epitaph and gives him a monument in the Capitol.

PERSONAL RECORD ON RECONSTRUCTION WITH COLORED SUFFRAGE.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE, JANUARY 21 AND FEBRUARY 10, 1870.

The arraignment of Mr. Sumner by Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, in the closing debate on the Virginia Bill, January 21st, included, as remarked in that connection,[228] a reference to matters of earlier date,--specifically among these being the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867, conferring upon the colored people of the Rebel States equality of suffrage with the whites.[229] Adverting to the fact that this bill was an amendment in the nature of a substitute for one from the House, and then reading the names of the Senators who voted for it, Mr. Trumbull asked,--

“Mr. President, do you miss the name of any Senator from that list of Yeas?--That was the vote by which that amendment was adopted.--The ‘Absent’ were, among others, ‘Mr. Sumner.’”

And upon this showing, Mr. Trumbull concluded, that,

“Unfortunately the colored citizens of the South have nothing to thank the Senator from Massachusetts for, in having the right of suffrage conferred upon them.”

Mr. Trumbull continued:--

“Mr. President, this was not the only vote. A vote was taken, after this amendment was adopted, upon the passage of the bill thus amended; and the vote on the passage of the bill was Yeas 29, Nays 10, and among those Yeas is not found the name of the Senator from Massachusetts.

“But, Sir, it sometimes happens that malice and hatred will produce results which reason and good-will can never accomplish; and when we passed this bill giving the right of suffrage to the colored men in the South without the aid of the Senator from Massachusetts and sent it to the President [Mr. JOHNSON] he vetoed it, and on the question of passing it over his veto the Senator from Massachusetts voted with us. His affection for the President was not such as to allow him to coincide with him in anything. So we got his vote at last, but we had two-thirds without him.

“This is the record, Mr. President.”

Mr. Sumner answered:--

This assault to-day compels me to make a statement now which I never supposed I should be called to make. I make it now with hesitation, but rather to show the Senator’s course than my own. Sir, I am the author of the provision in that Act conferring suffrage; and when I brought it forward, the Senator from Illinois was one of my opponents,--then as now. Senators who were here at that time remember well that this whole subject was practically taken for the time from the jurisdiction of the Senate into a caucus of the Republican party, where a committee was created to whom all pending measures of Reconstruction were referred. I had the honor of being a member of that committee. So was the Senator from Illinois. So was my friend from Michigan [Mr. HOWARD]. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN] was our chairman. In that committee this Reconstruction Bill was debated and matured sentence by sentence, word for word; and then and there, in that committee, I moved that we should require the suffrage of all persons, without distinction of color, in the organization of new governments, and in all the constitutions to be made.

In making this proposition at that time I only followed the proposition I had made in the Senate two years before,[230] which I had urged upon the people in an elaborate address at a political convention in Massachusetts,[231] which I had again upheld in an elaborate effort for two days in this Chamber,[232] and which from the beginning I had never lost from my mind or heart. It was natural that I should press it in committee; but I was overruled,--the Senator opposing me with his accustomed determination. I was voted down. The chairman observed my discontent and said, “You can renew your motion in caucus.” I did so, stating that I had been voted down in committee, but that I appealed from the committee to the caucus. My colleague [Mr. WILSON], who sits before me, called out, “Do so”; and then rising, said, in language which he will pardon me for quoting, but which will do him honor always, “The report of the committee will leave a great question open to debate on every square mile of the South. We must close that question up.” Another Senator, who is not now here,--I can therefore name him,--Mr. Gratz Brown [of Missouri], cried out most earnestly, “Push it to a vote; we will stand by you.” I needed no such encouragement, for my determination was fixed. There sat the Senator from Illinois, sullen in his accustomed opposition. I pushed it to a vote, and it was carried by only two majority, Senators rising to be counted. My colleague, in his joy on the occasion, exclaimed, “This is the greatest vote that has been taken on this continent!” He felt, I felt, we all felt, that the question of the suffrage was then and there secured. By that vote the committee was directed to make it a part of Reconstruction. This was done, and the measure thus amended was reported by the Senator from Ohio as chairman of the committee.

I am compelled to this statement by the assault of the Senator. I had no disposition to make it. I do not claim anything for myself. I did nothing but my duty. Had I done less, I should have been faithless,--I should have been where the Senator from Illinois placed himself.

The Senator read from the “Globe” the vote on the passage of the bill, and exulted because my name was not there. Sir, is there any Senator in this Chamber whose name will be found oftener on the yeas and nays than my own? Is there any Senator in this Chamber who is away from his seat less than I am? There was a reason for my absence on that occasion. I left this Chamber at midnight, fatigued, not well, knowing that the great cause was assured, notwithstanding the opposition of the Senator from Illinois,--knowing that at last the right of the colored people to suffrage was recognized. I had seen it placed in the bill reported from the committee. There it was on my motion, safe against the assaults of the Senator from Illinois. Why should I, fatigued, and not well, remain till morning to swell the large and ascertained majority which it was destined to receive?[233] I have no occasion to make up any such record. You know my fidelity to this cause. You know if I am in the habit of avoiding the responsibilities of my position. I cannot disguise, also, that there was another influence on my mind. Reconstruction, even with the suffrage, was defective. More was needed. There should have been a system of public schools, greater protection to the freedmen, and more security against the Rebels, all of which I sought in vain to obtain in committee, and I found all effort in the Senate foreclosed by our action in caucus. Pained by this failure, and feeling that there was nothing more for me to do, after midnight I withdrew. On the return of the Act to the Senate on the veto of the President, I recorded my vote in its favor.

What Mr. Trumbull calls “the record” in this case, and which Mr. Sumner, in the surprise of the occasion, seemingly accepts, according to the obvious import of the term, as substantially the complete record, inspection of either the Congressional Globe or the Senate Journal shows to be very far from complete. The vote following the Presidential veto was by no means the only one in which Mr. Sumner’s name appears: between this and the vote which would seem from the representation to have next preceded, designated as “the vote on the passage of the bill,” there intervened another, involving in an important degree the character and fate of the whole measure.

The bill in its original form, as it came from the House, was purely, as indicated by its title, “a bill to provide for the more efficient government of the insurrectionary States,” dividing them into military districts and placing them under military rule,--this being deemed the only effectual means of suppressing the outrages continually perpetrated upon the loyalists of the South, black and white,--its Reconstruction features, which included the provision for colored suffrage, being engrafted upon it by the Senate, coupled with considerable modifications of its military details. It was on the votes at this stage, February 16th, that Mr. Sumner’s name was wanting.

On the return of the bill to the House for concurrence in these amendments, it at once encountered on the Republican side severe animadversion, aptly expressed in the remark,--“We sent to the Senate a proposition to meet the necessities of the hour, which was Protection without Reconstruction, and it sends back another which is Reconstruction without Protection.” Concurrence was refused, and a committee of conference asked. The Senate insisting, and declining the proposed conference, the House proceeded alone, supplementing the Reconstruction provisions with others guarding against Rebel domination,[234] and crowning their work with the emphatic vote of 128 Yeas to 46 Nays. To this vote the Senate yielded, by a concurrent vote of Yeas 35, Nays 7,--with “the effect,” as announced, “of passing the bill.” Mr. Sumner, hailing these amendments as what he had required, of course voted with the Yeas,--and his name so stands on both of the official registers, in immediate conjunction with Mr. Trumbull’s.[235] This was on the 20th of February. The vote consequent upon the Veto was ten days later, when his name was again recorded with the Yeas.[236] These two were the only votes in the Senate on the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867, in the completeness of its provisions, as it appears in the Statute-Book.[237]

* * * * *

February 10th, 1870, the bill for the admission of Mississippi having come up for consideration in the Senate, Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, availed himself of the opportunity to reopen the personal controversy with Mr. Sumner, in an acrimonious speech denying his claim to the authorship of the provision for colored suffrage in the Reconstruction Act of 1867, and ascribing it to Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, a member of the other House,--quoting Mr. Sumner’s opening declaration on this point, but resisting the reading of what followed in explanation and support of that declaration, under the plea that “he did not want it printed as part of his own speech.”[238]

On the conclusion of Mr. Stewart’s speech, Mr. Sumner answered as follows:--

MR. PRESIDENT,--You will bear witness that I am no volunteer now. I have been no volunteer on any of these recurring occasions when I have been assailed in this Chamber. I have begun no question. I began no question with the Senator from Nevada. I began no question with the other Senator on my right [Mr. TRUMBULL]. I began no question yesterday with the Senator from New York [Mr. CONKLING].[239] I began no question, either, with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. CARPENTER].[240] But I am here to answer; and I begin by asking to have read at the desk what I did say, and what the Senator from Nevada was unwilling, as he declared, to have incorporated in his speech. I can understand that he was very unwilling. I send the passage to the Chair.

The passage referred to, embracing the first three paragraphs of Mr. Sumner’s statement in answer to Mr. Trumbull, January 21st,[241] having been read, he proceeded:--

That statement is to the effect that on my motion that important proposition was put into the bill. Does anybody question it? Has the impeachment of the Senator to-day impaired that statement by a hair’s-breadth? He shows that in another part of this Capitol patriot Representatives were striving in the same direction. All honor to them! God forbid that I should ever grudge to any of my associates in this great controversy any of the fame that belongs to them! There is enough for all, provided we have been faithful. Sir, it is not in my nature to take from any one credit, character, fame, to which he is justly entitled. The world is wide enough for all. Let each enjoy what he has earned. I ask nothing for myself. I asked nothing the other day; what I said was only in reply to the impeachment, the arraignment let me call it, by the Senator from Illinois.

I then simply said it was on my motion that this identical requirement went into the bill. The Senator, in reply, seeks to show that in the other Chamber a similar proposition was brought forward; but it did not become a part of the bill. He shows that it was brought forward in this Chamber, but did not become a part of the bill. It was on my motion that it did become a part of the bill. It was not unnatural, perhaps, that I should go further, as I did, and say that in making this motion I only acted in harmony with my life and best exertions for years. I have the whole record here. Shall I open it? I hesitate. In doing so I break a vow with myself. And yet it cannot be necessary. You know me in this Chamber; you know how I have devoted myself from the beginning to this idea, how constantly I have maintained it and urged it from the earliest date.

* * * * *

The first stage in this series--you [Mr. ANTHONY, of Rhode Island, in the chair] remember it; you were here; the Senator from Nevada was not here--goes to February 11, 1862, when

“Mr. Sumner submitted resolutions declaratory of the relations between the United States and the territory once occupied by certain States, and now usurped by pretended governments without constitutional or legal right.”

In these resolutions it is declared, that, after an act of secession followed by war,

“The territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, as other territory, and the State becomes, according to the language of the law, _felo de se_.”

The resolutions conclude as follows:--

“And that, in pursuance of this duty cast upon Congress, and further enjoined by the Constitution, Congress will assume complete jurisdiction of such vacated territory where such unconstitutional and illegal things have been attempted, and will proceed to establish therein republican forms of government under the Constitution, and, in the execution of this trust, will provide carefully for the protection of all the inhabitants thereof, for the security of families, the organization of labor, the encouragement of industry, and the welfare of society, and will in every way discharge the duties of a just, merciful, and paternal government.”[242]

Sir, there was the beginning of Reconstruction in this Chamber. That was its earliest expression.

On the 8th of February, 1864, it appears that

“Mr. Sumner submitted resolutions defining the character of the national contest, and protesting against any premature restoration of Rebel States without proper guaranties and safeguards against Slavery and for the protection of freedmen.”[243]

And on the same day it appears that he submitted the following Amendment to the Constitution, which, had it been adopted then, would have cured many of the difficulties that have since occurred, entitled--

“Amendment of the Constitution, securing Equality before the Law and the Abolition of Slavery.”

It is as follows:--

“All persons are equal before the law, so that no person can hold another as a slave; and the Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to carry this declaration into effect everywhere within the United States and the jurisdiction thereof.”[244]

There, Sir, was the beginning of Civil-Rights Bills and Political-Rights Bills. On the same day it appears that Mr. Sumner introduced into the Senate “A bill to secure equality before the law in the courts of the United States.”[245]

The debate went on. On the 25th of February, 1865, a resolution of the Judiciary Committee was pending, recognizing the State Government of Louisiana. Mr. Sumner on that day introduced resolutions thus entitled:--

“Resolutions declaring the duty of the United States to guaranty Republican Governments in the Rebel States on the basis of the Declaration of Independence, so that _the new governments_”--

that is, the reconstructed governments--

“shall be founded on the consent of the governed and the equality of all persons before the law.”

Of this series of resolutions I will read two.

“That the path of justice is also the path of peace; and that for the sake of peace it is better to obey the Constitution, and, in conformity with its requirements, in the performance of the guaranty, to reëstablish State governments on the consent of the governed and the equality of all persons before the law, to the end that the foundations thereof may be permanent, and that no loyal majorities may be again overthrown or ruled by any oligarchical class.”

Then comes another resolution:--

“That considerations of expediency are in harmony with the requirements of the Constitution and the dictates of justice and reason, especially now, when colored soldiers have shown their military value; that, as their muskets are needed for the national defence against Rebels in the field, so are their ballots yet more needed against the subtle enemies of the Union at home; and that without their support at the ballot-box the cause of Human Rights and of the Union itself will be in constant peril.”[246]

On the resolution reported by the Senator from Illinois for the admission of Louisiana without Equal Rights, I had the honor of moving the very proposition now in question, under date of February 25, 1865:--

“_Provided_, That this shall not take effect, except upon the fundamental condition _that within the State there shall be no denial of the electoral franchise or of any other rights on account of color or race, but all persons shall be equal before the law_.”[247]

Here was the first motion in this Chamber for equality of suffrage as a measure of Reconstruction. I entitled it at the time “the corner-stone of Reconstruction.” But here, Sir, it was my misfortune to encounter the strenuous opposition of the Senator from Illinois. I allude to this with reluctance; I have not opened this debate; and I quote what I do now simply in reply to the Senator from Nevada. Replying on that occasion to the Senator from Illinois, I said:--

“The United States are bound by the Constitution to ‘guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government.’ Now, when called to perform this guaranty, it is proposed to recognize an oligarchy of the skin. The pretended State government in Louisiana is utterly indefensible, whether you look at its origin or its character. To describe it, I must use plain language. It is a mere seven-months’ abortion, begotten by the bayonet in criminal conjunction with the spirit of Caste, and born before its time, rickety, unformed, unfinished, whose continued existence will be a burden, a reproach, and a wrong. That is the whole case; and yet the Senator from Illinois now presses it upon the Senate at this moment, to the exclusion of the important public business of the country.”[248]

The Louisiana Bill, though pressed by the Senator from Illinois, was defeated; and the equal rights of the colored race were happily vindicated. His opposition was strenuous.

But, Sir, I did not content myself with action in this Chamber. Our good President was assassinated. The Vice-President succeeded to his place. Being here in Washington, I entered at once into relations with him,--hoping to bring, if possible, his great influence in favor of this measure of Reconstruction; and here is a record, made shortly afterward, which I will read.

“During this period I saw the President frequently,--sometimes at the private house he then occupied, and sometimes at his office in the Treasury. On these occasions the constant topic was ‘Reconstruction,’ which was considered in every variety of aspect. More than once I ventured to press upon him the duty and the renown of carrying out the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and of founding the new governments in the Rebel States on the consent of the governed, without any distinction of color. To this earnest appeal he replied, on one occasion, as I sat with him alone, in words which I can never forget: ‘On this question, Mr. Sumner, there is no difference between us: you and I are alike.’ Need I say that I was touched to the heart by this annunciation, which seemed to promise a victory without a battle? Accustomed to controversy, I saw clearly, that, if the President declared himself in favor of the Equal Rights of All, the good cause must prevail without controversy.”[249]

Then followed another incident:--