30. THADDEUS STEVENS, OF PENNSYLVANIA.-RAD

ICAL VIEW OF RECONSTRUCTION

(Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, January 3, 1867.)

PRESIDENT JOHNSON, proceeding along the lines indicated in the foregoing message, sought to punish only the persons chiefly responsible for the rebellion, while restoring the seceded States to their rights as soon as they formed loyal State governments. Congress, however, refused to admit the Senators and Representatives which these States chose. The radicals in Congress were strengthened in their position by the action of the provisional governments in enacting statutes concerning "vagrancy" and "labor contracts" which seemed designed to keep the negro in a permanent state of subjection, and also by the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by all the Southern States except Tennessee (1866). Meanwhile, open warfare broke out between the President and Congress over Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act and other radical measures. In 1867 Congress prepared openly to take charge of the whole work of Reconstruction. The result was the passage (March 2), over the President's veto, of the First Reconstruction Act, which (1) practically superseded Johnson's provisional governments, by dividing the late Confederate States into five military districts, each under the rule of a general of the

THADDEUS STEVENS. Born in Vermont, 1792; graduated from Dartmouth College, 1814; admitted to Maryland bar, and removed to Gettysburg, Pa., 1816; in Pennsylvania legislature, 1833-35, 1837-38, 1841, especially championing the cause of common school education; member of the State Constitutional Convention, 1836, where he labored to secure the franchise for negroes; in Congress 1849-53 as a Whig, and 1859-68 as a Republican; died, 1868.

army, and (2) conditioned the admission of representatives in Congress from these States upon the adoption of constitutions containing negro enfranchisement, disfranchisement of the former political leaders of the South, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The historian Rhodes considers the refusal of Congress to adopt the President's policy as due to "the assertion by Congress of its prerogative, a disposition on the part of the Southern States to claim rights instead of submitting to conditions, harsh laws of the Southern legislatures concerning the freedmen, denial by them of complete civil rights and qualified suffrage to the negroes, outrages upon the colored people, Southern hatred of Northerners, Southern and Democratic support of the President." (History of the United States from 1850, V, p. 565.)

The unquestioned leader of the radicals in the lower house was Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. In spite of his seventy-odd years, he was a powerful debater; and he was a true patriot and philanthropist, in spite of his fierce and bigoted partisanship. The speech which follows was delivered at an early stage of the discussion which led eventually to the passage of the First Reconstruction Act. It represents a point of view more radical than that which Congress embodied in that measure, or which was generally approved by Republicans. It should be noted that the main contention of Stevens,-that the States which seceded had perished and were now conquered provinces to be administered at pleasure by the conquerors,―was rejected by the United States Supreme Court in 1868 in Texas vs. White. The court held that the States as political organizations were indestructible, but that their temporary exclusion from Congress was justifiable under the clause of the Constitution which guarantees to every State "a republican form of government."

M

[THADDEUS STEVENS, in the U. S. House of Representatives,

possible, without curtailing debate, this House shall come to some conclusion as to what shall be done with the rebel States.

men.

Since the surrender of the armies of the Confederate States of America a little has been done toward establishing this government upon the true principles of liberty and justice; and but little if we stop here. We have broken the material shackles of four million slaves. We have unchained them from the stake so as to allow them locomotion, provided they do not walk in paths which are trod by white We have imposed upon them the privilege of fighting our battles, of dying in defense of freedom, and of bearing their equal portion of taxes; but where have we given them the privilege of ever participating in the formation of the laws for the government of their native land? Call you this liberty? Think not I would slander my native land; I would reform it. Twenty years ago I denounced it as a despotism. Then, twenty million white men enchained four million black men. I pronounce it no nearer to a true republic now when twenty-five million of a privileged class exclude five million from all participation in the rights of government.

What are the great questions which now divide the nation? In the midst of the political Babel which has been produced by the intermingling of secessionists, rebels, pardoned traitors, hissing Copperheads, and apostate Republicans, such a confusion of tongues is heard that it is difficult to understand either the questions that are asked or the answers that are given. Ask, what is the "President's policy?" and it is difficult to define it. Ask, what is the "policy of Congress?" and the answer is not always at hand.

A few moments may be profitably spent in seeking the meaning of these terms. Nearly six years ago a bloody war arose between different sections of the United States.

Eleven States, possessing a very large extent of territory, and ten or twelve million people, aimed to sever their connection with the Union, and to form an independent empire, founded on the avowed principle of human slavery and excluding every free State from this Confederacy.

On the result of the war depended the fate and ulterior condition of the contending parties. No one then pretended that the eleven States had any rights under the Constitution of the United States, or any right to interfere in the legislation of the country.

The Federal arms triumphed. The Confederate armies and government surrendered unconditionally. The law of nations then fixed their condition. They were subject to the controlling power of the conquerors. No former laws, no former compacts or treaties existed to bind the belligerents. They had all been melted and consumed in the fierce fires of the terrible war. The United States, according to the usage of nations, appointed military provisional governors to regulate their municipal institutions until the lawmaking power of the conqueror should fix their condition and the law by which they should be permanently governed.

. No one then supposed that those States had any governments, except such as they had formed under their rebel organization. No sane man believed that they had any organic municipal laws which the United States were bound to respect. Whoever had then asserted that those States had remained unfractured, and entitled to all the rights and privileges which they enjoyed before the Rebellion, and were on a level with their loyal conquerors, would have been deemed a fool, and would have been found insane by any inquisition de lunatico inquirendo.

In monarchical governments, where the sovereign power rests in the Crown, the king would have fixed the condition of the conquered provinces. He might have extended the laws of this empire over them, allowed them to retain portions of their old institutions, or, by conditions of peace, have fixed upon them new and exceptional laws.

In this country the whole sovereignty rests with the people, and is exercised through their representatives in Congress assembled. The legislative power is the sole guardian. of that sovereignty. No other branch of the government, no other department, no other officer of the government, possesses one single particle of the sovereignty of the nation. No government official, from the President and Chief Justice down, can do any one act which is not prescribed and directed by the legislative power. Suppose the government were now to be organized for the first time under the Constitution, and the President had been elected and the judiciary appointed: what could either do until Congress passed laws to regulate their proceedings?

What power would the President have over any one subject of government until Congress had legislated on that subject? The President could not even create bureaus or Departments to facilitate his executive operations. He must ask leave of Congress. Since, then, the President can not enact, alter, or modify a single law; can not even create a petty office within his own sphere of duties; if, in short, he is the mere servant of the people, who issue their commands to him through Congress, whence does he derive the constitutional power to create new States; to remodel old ones; to dictate organic laws; to fix the qualifications of voters; to declare that States are republican and entitled to command Congress to admit their representatives? To my mind it is either the most ignorant and shallow mistake of his duties, or the most brazen and impudent usurpation of power. It is claimed for him by some as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. How absurd that a mere executive officer should claim creative powers! Though Commander-in-Chief by the Constitution, he would have nothing to command, either by land or water, until Congress raised both Army and Navy. Congress prescribes the rules and regulations to govern the Army. Even that is not left to the Commander-in-Chief.

Though the President is Commander-in-Chief, Congress