UNITED STATES. 



805 



question. Discussion before the people would not 

 secure colored suffrage for twenty-five years. The 

 right must be conceded at once to secure the nation 

 from serious trouble and perhaps disaster. The con- 

 dition of every black man was to-day no better than 

 in 1833, and he did not see how any_ man could say 

 slavery was abolished and give up his efforts in the 

 antislavery cause. No man could say whether he 

 could own property, protect his wife, testify in court, 

 or exercise any other natural right. The white men 

 of each State claimed the privilege to regulate all 

 this, and the Tennessee Legislature had just enacted 

 a law concerning free colored people. Do they enact 

 laws regarding Free white people ? All that concerns 

 the colored people is to be regulated by the whites, 

 and what will the whites do when their States are 

 reconstructed without the negro franchise ? They 

 would unite with the old Democratic party in the 

 last Congress of Johnson's presidency, and show the 

 friends of liberty who it is that has really been 

 whipped in this last hour of the war. 



The views thus expressed met with a re- 

 sponse in various parts of the Northern States, 

 particularly those portions on the outer verge 

 of the country. No political bodies during the 

 year expressed dissent to the measures of recon- 

 struction. On .the contrary, conventions of both 

 political parties approved of them ; but the Re- 

 publican conventions, at the same time, adopted 

 resolutions demanding "equal and exact jus- 

 tice " for all. It will be seen, by reference to 

 the reorganization proceedings in the respec- 

 tive Southern. States, that not only was the 

 emancipation of the slaves within their borders 

 ratified, and measures to secure to them the 

 rights of property, personal freedom, and legal 

 protection adopted, but they were required 

 to declare null and void the ordinances 

 of secession, to repudiate the State debts con- 

 tracted to carry on the war, and to adopt the 

 amendment of the Federal Constitution respect- 

 ing slavery. Those who expressed a desire for 

 more concessions on the part" of the Southern 

 States, asked for suffrage and eligibility to office 

 for the freedmen ; a few wished for a general 

 confiscation of property and a distribution 

 among the negroes, and a general system of 

 free schools for them. But these views were 

 not approved by the President. 



The views of the President later in the year 

 were very frankly expressed to a delegation of 

 some fifty or sixty persons from the Southern 

 States, on September llth. The delegation was 

 presented to President Johnson by Mr. McFar- 

 land, of Virginia, who said : 



MB. PRESIDENT : The gentlemen accompanying me, 

 and whom I have the honor of introducing to you, 

 constitute a number of the most respectable citizens 

 of nine of the Southern States. They come, sir, for 

 the purpose of manifesting the sincere respect and 

 regard they entertain for you, and to express their 

 sincere determination to cooperate with you in what- 

 ever shall tend to promote the interests and welfare 

 of our common country, and to say that they are as 

 earnest now and faithful to their allegiance to the 

 United States and to the Constitution of the Union 

 as in the past, and that they have great confidence in 

 your wisdom to heal the wounds that have been 

 made, and in your disposition to exercise all the leni- 

 ency which can be commended by a sound and ju- 

 dicious policy. That they are assured, in doing 

 this, of your desire and intention to sustain and 



maintain Southern rights in the Union of the United 

 States. 



The President, evidently surprised at the im- 

 posing appearance of the delegation, with much 

 feeling said : . 



GENTLEMEN : I can only say, in reply to the re- 

 marks of your chairman, that I am highly gratified 

 to receive the assurances he has given me. They 

 are more than I could have expected under the cir- 

 cumstances. I must say I was unprepared to receive 

 so numerous a delegation on this occasion ; it was 

 unexpected ; I had no idea it was to be so large or 

 represent so many States. When I expressed, as I 

 did, my willingness to see at any time so many of 

 you as chose to do me the honor to call upon me, 

 and stated that I should be gratified at receiving any 

 manifestations of regard you might think proper to 

 make, I was totally unprepared for any thing equal 

 to the present demonstration. I am free to say it 

 excites in my mind feelings and emotions that lan- 

 guage is totally inadequate to express. When I 

 look back upon my past actions, and recall a period 

 scarcely more than four short years ago, when I 

 stood battling for principles which many of vou op- 

 posed and thought were wrong, I was "battling for 

 the same principles that actuate me to-day, and 

 which principles, I thank my God, you have come 

 forward on this occasion to manifest a disposition to 

 support. I say now, as I have said on many former 

 occasions, that I entertain no personal resentments, 

 enmities, or animosities, to any living soul south of 

 Mason and Dixon's line, however much he may have 

 differed from me in principle. The stand I then took 

 I claim to have been the only true one. I remember 

 how I stood pleading with my Southern brethren 

 when they stood with their hats in their hands ready 

 to turn their backs upon the United States ; how I 

 implored them to stand with me there and maintain 

 our rights and fight our battles under the laws and 

 Constitution of the United States. I think now, as 

 I thought then, and endeavored to induce them to 

 believe, that our true position was under the law and 

 under the Constitution of the Union, with the insti- 

 tution of slavery in it; but if that principle made an 

 issue that rendered a disintegration possible if that 

 made an issue which should prevent us from trans- 

 mitting to our children a country as bequeathed to 

 us by our fathers I had nothing else to do but stand 

 by the Government, be the consequences what they 

 might; I said then, what you all know, that I was 

 for the institutions of the country as guaranteed by 

 the Constitution, but above all things I was for the 

 Union of the States. I remember the taunts, the 

 jeers, the scowls, with which I was treated. I re- 

 member the circle that stood around me, and remem- 

 ber the threats and intimidations that were freelv 

 uttered by the men who opposed me, and whom "I 

 wanted to befriend and guide by the light that led 

 me; but feeling conscious in my own integrity, and 

 that I was right, I heeded not what they might say 

 or do to me, and was inspired and encouraged to do 

 my duty regardless of aught else, and have lived to 

 see the realization of my predictions and the fatal 

 error of those whom I vainly essayed to save from 

 the results I could not but foresee. Gentlemen, we 

 have passed through this rebellion. I say we, for it 

 is we who are responsible for it. Yes, the South 

 made the issue, and I know the nature of the South- 

 ern people well enough to know that when they have 

 become convinced of an error they frankly acknowl- 

 edge it, in a manly, open, direct manner ; and now, 

 in the performance of that duty, or, indeed, in any 

 act they undertake to perform, they do it heartily 

 and frankly; and now that they come to me, I 

 understand them as saving that' "Wie made the 

 issue. We set up the Union of the States against 

 the institution of slavery; we selected as arbitrator 

 the God of battles ; the arbitrament was the sword. 

 The issue was fairly and honorably met. Both the 



