636 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



worthy, our Government will be preserved upon the 

 principles of the Constitution inherited from our 

 fathers. It follows, therefore, that in admitting to 

 the ballot-box a new class of voters not qualified .for 

 the exercise of the elective franchise, we weaken our 

 system of government, instead of adding to its 

 strength and durability." "I yield to no one in at- 

 tachment to that rule of general suffrage which dis- 

 tinguishes our policy as a nation. But there is a 

 limit, wisely observed hitherto, which makes the bal- 

 lot a privilege and a trust, and which requires of 

 some classes a time suitable for probation and prep- 

 aration. To give it indiscriminately to a new class, 

 wholly unprepared by previous habits and oppor- 

 tunities, to perform the trust which it demands, is 

 to degrade it, and finally to destroy its power; for it 

 may be safely assumed that no pclitical truth is 

 better established than that such indiscriminate and 

 all-embracing extension of popular suffrage must 

 end at last in its overthrow and destruction." 



I repeat the expression of my willingness to join 

 in any plan within the scope of our constitutional 

 authority which promises to better the condition of 

 the negroes in the South, by encouraging them in 

 industry, enlightening their minds, improving their 

 morals, and giving protection to all their just rights 

 as freedmen. But the transfer of our political in- 

 heritance to them would, in my opinion, be an aban- 

 donment of a duty which we owe alike to the mem- 

 ory of our fathers and the rights of our children. 



The plan of putting the Southern States wholly, 

 and the General Government partially, into the 

 hands of negroes, is proposed at a time peculiarly 

 unpropitious. The foundations of society have been 

 broken up by civil war. Industry must be reor- 

 ganized, justice reestablished, public credit main- 

 tained, and order brought out of confusion. To 

 accomplish these ends would require all the wisdom 

 and virtue of the great men who formed our institu- 

 tions originally. I confidently believe that their 

 descendants vyill be equal to the arduous task before 

 them, but it is worse than madness to expect that 

 negroes will perform it for us. Certainly we ought 

 not to ask their assistance until we despair of our 

 own competency. 



The great difference between the two races in 

 physical, mental, and moral characteristics will pre- 

 vent an amalgamation or fusion of them together in 

 one homogeneous mass. If the inferior obtains the 

 ascendency over the other, it will govern with refer- 

 ence only to its own interests for it will recognize 

 no common interest and create such a tyranny as 

 this continent has never yet witnessed. Already the 

 negroes are influenced by promises of confiscation 

 and plunder. They are taught to regard as an 

 enemy every white man who has any respect for 

 the rights of his own race. If this continues, it must 

 become worse and worse, until all order will be sub- 

 verted, all industry cease, and the fertile fields of 

 the South grow up into a wilderness. Of all the 

 dangers which our nation has yet encountered, none 

 are equal to those which must result from the suc- 

 cess of the effort now making to Africanize the half 

 of our country. 



I would not put considerations ,of money in com- 

 petition with justice and right. 'But the expenses 

 incident to "reconstruction" under the system 

 adopted by Congress aggravate what I regard as the 

 intrinsic wrong of the measure itself. It has cost 

 uncounted millions already, and if persisted in will 

 add largely to the weight of taxation, already too 

 oppressive to be borne without just complaint, and 

 may finally reduce the Treasury of the nation to a 

 condition of bankruptcy. We must not delude our- 

 selves. It will require a strong standing army, and 

 probably more than two hundred millions of dollars 

 per annum to maintain the supremacy of negro, gov- 

 ernments after they are established. The sum thus 

 thrown away would, if properly used, form a sinking- 

 fund large enough to pay the whole national debt 



in fifteen years. It is vain to hope that negroes 

 will maintain their ascendency themselves. With- 

 out military power they are wholly incapable of 

 holding in subjection the white people of the 

 South. 



I submit to the judgment of Congress whether the 

 public credit may not be injuriously affected by a 

 system of measures like this. With our debt and the 

 vast private interests which are complicated with it, 

 we cannot be too cautious of a policy which might, 

 by possibility, impair the confidence of the world in 

 our Government. That confidence can only be re- 

 tained by carefully inculcating the principles of jus- 

 tice and honor on the popular mind, and by the most 

 scrupulous fidelity to all our engagements of every 

 sort. Any serious breach of the organic law, per- 

 sisted in for a considerable time, cannot but create 

 fears for the stability of our institutions. Habitual 

 violation of prescribed rules, which we bind our- 

 selves to observe, must demoralize the people. Our 

 only standard of civil duty being set at naught, the 

 sheet-anchor of our political morality is lost, the 

 public conscience swings from its moorings, and 

 yields to every impulse of passion and interest. If 

 we repudiate the Constitution, we will not be ex- 

 pected to care much for mere pecuniary obligations. 

 The violation of such a pledge as we made on the 22d 

 day of July, 1861, will assuredly diminish the mar- 

 ket value of our other promises. Besides, if we now 

 acknowledge that the national debt was created not 

 to hold the States in the Union, as the taxpayers 

 were led to suppose, but to expel them from it, and 

 hand them over to be governed by negroes, the 

 moral duty to pay it may seem much less clear. I 

 say it may seem so ; for I do not admit that this or 

 any other argument in favor of repudiation can be 

 entertained as sound ; but its influence on some 

 classes of minds may well be apprehended. The 

 financial honor of a great commercial nation, largely 

 indebted, and with a republican form of government, 

 administered by agents of the popular choice, is a 

 thing of such delicate texture that the destruction of 

 it would be followed by such unspeakable calamity, 

 that every true patriot must desire to avoid whatever 

 might expose it to the slightest danger. 



The great interests of the country require imme- 

 diate relief from these enactments. Business in the 

 South is paralyzed by a sense of general insecurity, 

 by the terror of confiscation, and the dread of negro 

 supremacy. The Southern trade, from which the 

 North would have derived so great a profit under a 

 government of law, still languishes, and can never 

 be revived until it ceases to be fettered by the arbi- 

 trary power which makes all its operations unsafe. 

 That rich country the richest in natural resources 

 the world ever saw is worse than lost if it be not 

 soon placed under the protection of a free Constitu- 

 tion. Instead of being, as it ought to be, a source 

 of wealth and power, it will become an intolerable 

 burden upon the rest of the nation. 



Another reason for retracing our steps will doubt- 

 less be seen by Congress in the late manifestations 

 of public opinion upon this subject. We live in a 

 country where the popular will always enforces 

 obedience to itself, sooner or later. It is vain to 

 think of opposing it with any thing short of legal 

 authority, backed by overwhelming force. It cannot 

 have escaped your attention that from the day on 

 which Congress fairly and formally presented the 

 proposition'to govern the Southern States by mili- 

 tary force, with a view to the ultimate establishment 

 of negro supremacy, every expression of the general 

 sentiment has been more or less adverse to it. The 

 affections of this generation cannot be detached 

 from the institutions of their ancestors. Their de- 

 termination to preserve the inheritance of free gov- 

 ernment in their own hands, and transmit it undi- 

 vided and unimpaired to their own posterity, is too 

 strong to be successfully opposed. Every weaker 

 passion will disappear before that love of liberty and 



