CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



167 



ing to leave the matter to their amnesty oath 

 or to the proclamation of President Lincoln, 

 l>ul IK- demanded of them the incorporation in 

 their State constitutions of a prohibition of 

 slavery, and tin- adoption by their Legislatures 

 of tin- constitutional amendment, so as to secure 

 beyond peradventuro the abolition of slavery 

 forever and ever throughout the United States. 

 This he required in every order issued to the 

 Soiitli, and demanded it as a first and prelim- 

 inary condition to any effort toward recon- 

 ;on. Next, he demanded a repudiation 

 I tin* ivliel debt,' and a guaranty put into the 

 constitutions of the respective States that they 

 \vould, under any circumstances, pay any 

 portion of the rebel debt. Next,*he secured 

 the enforcement of the test oath, so that every 

 officer in the Southern States, under the act of 

 Congress, was compelled to take that oath ; or 

 if he could not find officers there to do it, he 

 sent officers from the Northern States to do it, 

 so that this law, the most objectionable of any 

 to the Southern people, was enforced in all in- 

 stances at the South. It is true he appointed 

 some provisional governors who could not take 

 the test oath ; but why ? Because it was held 

 that these provisional governors were not 

 officers under the law. They were not officers 

 whose commission was provided for by law ; 

 they were simply executive agents for the time 

 being to carry into execution the plan of recon- 

 struction ; and he felt that if he could use any 

 of these people in the Southern States for the 

 purpose of performing this temporary duty, he 

 had a right to do it It was not prohibited by 

 any law. The test oath only applied to officers 

 of the United States who were provided for by 

 law. 



"Next, he enforced in every case full and 

 ample protection to the freedmen of the South- 

 ern States. As I said before, no case was ever 

 brought to his knowledge, so far as I can gather, 

 in which he did not do full and substantial jus- 

 tice. 



" Now, what are the objections to this policy ? 

 The first objection, that I have heard made 

 most commonly, and which I have made my- 

 self, is, that the President was too liberal in 

 exercising the pardoning power. But when we 

 remember the fact that there were more than 

 five times as many included in his exceptions as 

 were included in the exceptions to the procla- 

 mation of Mr. Lincoln, and that the number 

 of pardons in comparison with the whole num- 

 ber of persons excepted is substantially insig- 

 nificant, and that we cannot know all the cir- 

 cumstances which surrounded every particular 

 case of pardon, it is hardly fair for ns to arraign 

 the President of the United States. We can 

 limit his power to pardon in these cases. The 

 President of the United States has no power 

 to pardon under the Constitution of the United 

 States in cases like this. That power is derived 

 from the amnesty law which wo passed at an 

 early period of the war. The constitutional 

 power to pardon given to him by that instru- 



ment extends only to cases where there bad 

 been a legal accusation by indictment or affi- 

 davit, or to cases where a man had been 

 and convicted of a crime. That is the kind of 

 pardon contemplated by the Constitution, but 

 the authority which we gave him by law to 

 extend pardon and amnesty to the rebels is as 

 broad as the insurrection itself. We conferred 

 upon the President of the United States the 

 unlimited power of amnesty, and he has ex- 

 ercised that power only to a very moderate 

 depr< 



" But the principal objection that has been 

 made to his policy is that he did not extend his 

 invitation to all the loyal men of the Southern 

 States, including the colored as well as the 

 white people. If I were now required to state 

 the leading objection made to the policy of the 

 President in this particular, I should use the 

 language of an eminent statesman, and say that 

 when the President found before him an open 

 field, with no law of Congress to impede him, 

 with the power to dictate a policy hi the South, 

 to impose conditions on it, he ought to have 

 addressed his proclamation to every loyal man 

 above the age of twenty-one years. That would 

 be the plan of the Senator from Massachusetts." 



Mr. Sumner : " Every loyal man ? " 



Mr. Sherman : " I mean every loyal man of 

 sound mind. Now, let us look at that question. 

 In every one of the eleven seceded States, 

 before the rebellion, the negro was excluded 

 from the right of voting by their laws. It is 

 true the Senator from Massachusetts would say 

 these are all swept away. Admit that, but in 

 a majority of the Northern States to this hour 

 there is a denial of the right of suffrage to the 

 colored population. In Ohio, Pennsylvania, 

 and New York that right is limited, and these 

 three States contain one-third of the people of 

 the United States. In a large majority of the 

 States, including the most populous, negro suf- 

 frage is prohibited. And yet you ask President 

 Johnson, by a simple mandatory proclamation 

 or military order, to confer the franchise on a 

 class of people who are not only prohibited from 

 voting in the eleven Southern States, but in a 

 majority of the Northern States, and, indeed, I 

 think in all the States except six. 



" Further, it cannot be denied that the pre- 

 judice of the army of the United States, who 

 were called upon to enforce this proclamation 

 within these States, was against negro suf- 

 frage. Whether that prejudice is wise or un- 

 wise, blinded or aided by the light of reason, I 

 shall not say. I never myself could see any 

 reason why, because a man was black, he should 

 not vote; and yet, in making laws, as the 

 President was then doing, for the government 

 of the community, you must regard the pre- 

 judices not only of the people among whom 

 the laws are to be executed, but the prejudices 

 of the army, and the people who are to execute 

 those laws, and no man can doubt but what at 

 that time there was a strong and powerful pre- 

 judice in the army and among all classes of 



