348 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



tainly not offensive and defiant, and they should 

 evince an utter repudiation of all hostility to the Gen- 

 eral Government, by an acceptance of such just and 

 reasonable conditions as that Government should 

 think the public safety demands. Has this been 

 done ? Let us look at the facts shown by the evi- 

 dence taken by the committee. 



Hardly has the War closed before the people of 

 these insurrectionary States come forward and 

 haughtily claim, as a right, the privilege of partici- 

 pating at once in that Government which they had 

 for four years been fighting to destroy. Allowed 

 and encouraged by the Executive to organize State 

 governments, they at once place in power _ leading 

 rebels, unrepentant and unpardoned, excluding with 

 contempt those who had manifested an attachment 

 to the Union, and preferring in many instances those 

 who had rendered themselves most obnoxious. In 

 the face of the law requiring an oath of office which 

 would necessarily exclude all such from Federal of- 

 fices, they elect, with very few exceptions, as Senators 



sary to instance the election to the Senate of the late 

 Vice-President of the Confederacy, a man who, against 

 his own acknowledged ability and of his influence as 

 a most prominent public man to the cause of the re- 

 bellion, and who, unpardoned rebel that he is, with 

 that oath staring him in the face, bad the assurance 

 to lay his credentials on the table of the Senate. 

 Other rebels, of scarcely less note or notoriety, were 

 selected from other quarters, professing no repent- 

 ance, glorying apparently in the crime they had 

 committed, avowing still, as the uncontradicted tes- 

 timony of Mr. Stephens and others proves, an adher- 

 ence to the pernicious doctrine of secession, and de- 

 claring that they only yielded to necessity, they insist, 

 with unanimous voice, upon their rights as States, 

 and proclaim that they will submit to no conditions 

 whatever as preliminary to their resumption of pow- 

 ers under that Constitution which they still claim 

 the right to repudiate. 



Examining the evidence taken by your committee 

 still further in connection with facts too notorious 

 to be disputed, it appears that the Southern press, 

 with few exceptions, and those mostly newspapers 

 recently established by Northern men, abounds with 

 weekly and daily abuses of the institutions of the 

 people of the loyal States, defends the men who led 

 and the principles which incited the rebellion, de- 

 nounces and reviles Southern men who adhered to 

 the Union, and strives constantly and unscrupulous- 

 ly, by any means in its power, to keep alive the 

 nre of hate and discord between the two sections; 

 calling upon the President to violate his oath of of- 

 fice and overturn the Government by force of arms 

 and drive the representatives of the people from their 

 seats in Congress. The national banner is openly in- 

 sulted, not only by an ignorant population, but at 

 public meetings, aud once, among other notable in- 

 stances, at a dinner given in honor of a notorious reb- 

 el who had violated his oath and abandoned his flag. 

 The same individual is elected to an important office 

 in the leading city of his State, although an unpar- 

 doned rebel, and so offensive that the press silently 

 allows him to enter upon his official duties. In an- 

 other State the leading general of the rebel armies 

 is openly nominated for Governor bv the Speaker of 

 the House of Delegates, and the nomination is hailed 

 by the people with shouts of satisfaction and openly 

 indorsed by the press. 



Looking still further at the evidence taken by your 

 committee, it is found to be clearly shown by wit- 

 nesses of the highest character, and having the best 

 means of information, that the Freedinen s Bureau, 

 instituted for the relief and protection of the freed- 

 men and refugees, is almost universal!^ opposed by 

 the mass of the population, and is in an efficient con- 

 dition only under military protection ; while the 



Union men of the South are earnest in its defence, 

 declaring in one voice that without its protection the 

 colored man could not labor at fair prices, and hardly 

 live in safety. They also testify that without the 

 protection of the United States troops, Union men, 

 whether of Northern or Southern birth, would be 

 obliged to abandon their homes. The feeling in many 

 portions of the country toward emancipated slaves, 

 especially among the uneducated and ignorant, is 

 one of vindictive and malicious hatred. This deep 

 seated prejudice against color is assiduously culti- 

 vated by the public journals, and leads to acts of 

 cruelty, oppression, and murder, which the local au- 

 thorities are at no pains to prevent or punish. There 

 is no disposition to place the colored man, constitu- 

 ting at least two-fifths of the population, upon terms 

 of even civil equality. While many instances maybe 

 found where Iprge planters and men of the better 

 class accept the situation, and honorably strive to 

 bring about a better order of things, by employing 

 the freedmen at fair wages, and treating them Kindly, 

 the general feeling and disposition among all classes 

 are yet totally averse to the toleration of any class 

 of people frie_ndly to the Union, be they white or 

 black, and this aversion is not unfrequently mani- 

 fested in an insulting and offensive manner. 



The witnesses examined as to the willingness of 

 the people of the South to contribute, under exist- 

 ing laws, to the payment of the national debt, prove 

 that the taxes levied by the United States will be 

 paid only by compulsion, and with great reluctance, 

 while there prevails to a considerable extent a be- 

 lief that compensation will be made for slaves eman- 

 cipated, and property destroyed during the war. 

 The testimony on this point comes from officers of 

 the Union army, officers of the late rebel army, 

 Union men of the Southern States, and avovyed se- 

 cessionists, almost all of whom state that, in their 

 opinion, the people of the rebellious States would, if 

 they should see a prospect of success, repudiate the 

 national debt. 



While there is scarcely any hope or desire among 

 leading men to renew the attempt at secession at 

 any future time, there is still, according to a large 

 number of witnesses, including A. H. Stephens, who 

 may be regarded as good authority on that point, a 

 generally prevailing opinion which defends the legal 

 right of secession, and upholds the doctrine that the 

 first allegiance of the people is due to the States, and 

 not to the United States. This belief evidently pre- 

 vails among leading and prominent men, as well as 

 among the masses, everywhere except in some of the 

 northern counties of Alabama and the eastern coun- 

 ties of Tennessee. 



The evidence of an intense hostility to the Federal 

 Union, and an equally intense love of the late Con- 

 federacy, nurtured by the war, is decisive. While it 

 appears that nearly all are willing to submit, at least 

 for the timn being, to Federal authority, it is equally 

 clear that the ruling motive is a desire to obtain the 

 advantages which will be derived from a representa- 

 tion in Congress. Officers of the Union army on 

 duty, and Northern men who go even to engage in 

 business, are generally detested and persecuted. 

 Men who adhered to the Union are bitterly hated 

 and relentlessly persecuted. In some localities pros- 

 ecutions have been instituted in State courts against 

 Union officers for acts done in the line of official 

 duty, and similar prosecutions are threatened else- 

 where as soon as the United States troops are re- 

 moved. All such demonstrations show a state of 

 feeling against which it is unmistakably necessary to 

 guard. 



The testimony is conclusive that after the collapse 

 of the Confederacy, the feeling of the people in the 

 rebellious States was that of abject submission. 

 Having appealed to the tribunal of arms, they had 

 no hope except that, by the magnanimity of their 

 conquerors, their lives, and possibly their property, 

 might be preserved. Unfortunately, ^e general 



