Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  For the present year, a better condition of affairs than that now prevailing can hardly be looked for. An influx of immigrants from Europe and from the Northern States, increasing the proportion of the white inhabitants to the blacks, dividing into smaller farms the arable lands of the South, and introducing a system of money payments for labor, together with the gradual education of the negroes themselves, will, it is to be hoped, bring order out of this chaos. The plan adopted by the Commission is only meant to compose matters, as far as possible, in order that the crops may be tilled and reaped. It will give the members great satisfaction to be relieved by the adoption of some general plan, from duties which are very arduous and responsible, and in the discharge of which, through the want of a mounted police force, they cannot avoid disappointing many applicants, and neglecting a large number of cases which should properly demand their attention.

  In addition to the form for contracts, is enclosed an address to the colored people of the District, which embodies all that the visiting officers include in their speeches. All the points upon which any doubt or question has arisen are touched upon and explained in the simplest and most familiar terms which can be used.

  Awaiting instructions for the future, I have the honor, General, to remain Your obedient servant,

  Charles C. Soule

  To the Freed People of Orangeburg District.

  You have heard many stories about your condition as freemen. You do not know what to believe: you are talking too much; wanting too much; asking for too much. If you can find out the truth about this matter, you will settle down quietly to your work. Listen, then, and try to understand just how you are situated.

  You are now free, but you must know that the only difference you can feel yet, between slavery and freedom, is that neither you nor your children can be bought or sold. You may have a harder time this year than you have ever had before; it will be the price you pay for your freedom. You will have to work hard, and get very little to eat, and very few clothes to wear. If you get through this year alive and well, you should be thankful. Do not expect to save up anything, or to have much corn or provisions ahead at the end of the year. You must not ask for more pay than free people get at the North. There, a field hand is paid in money, but has to spend all his pay every week, in buying food and clothes for his family, and in paying rent for his house. You cannot be paid in money,—for there is no good money in the District,—nothing but Confederate paper. Then, what can you be paid with? Why, with food, with clothes, with the free use of your little houses and lots. You do not own a cent’s worth except yourselves. The plantation you live on is not yours, nor the houses, nor the cattle, mules and horses; the seed you planted with was not yours, and the ploughs and hoes do not belong to you. Now you must get something to eat and something to wear, and houses to live in. How can you get these things? By hard work—and nothing else, and it will be a good thing for you if you get them until next year, for yourselves and for your families. You must remember that your children, your old people, and the cripples, belong to you to support now, and all that is given to them is so much pay to you for your work. If you ask for anything more; if you ask for a half of the crop, or even a third, you ask too much; you wish to get more than you could get if you had been free all your lives. Do not ask for Saturday either: free people everywhere else work Saturday, and you have no more right to the day than they have. If your employer is willing to give you part of the day, or to set a task that you can finish early, be thankful for the kindness, but do not think it is something you must have. When you work, work hard. Begin early—at sunrise, and do not take more than two hours at noon. Do not think, because you are free you can choose your own kind of work. Every man must work under orders. The soldiers, who are free, work under officers, the officers under the general, and the general under the president. There must be a head man everywhere, and on a plantation the head man, who gives all the orders, is the owner of the place. Whatever he tells you to do you must do at once, and cheerfully. Never give him a cross word or an impudent answer. If the work is hard, do not stop to talk about it, but do it first and rest afterwards. If you are told to go into the field and hoe, see who can go first and lead the row. If you are told to build a fence, build it better than any fence you know of. If you are told to drive the carriage Sunday, or to mind the cattle, do it, for necessary work must be done even on the Sabbath. Whatever the order is, try and obey it without a word.

  There are different kinds of work. One man is a doctor, another is a minister, another a soldier. One black man may be a field hand, one a blacksmith, one a carpenter, and still another a house-servant. Every man has his own place, his own trade that he was brought up to, and he must stick to it. The house-servants must not want to go into the field, nor the field hands into the house. If a man works, no matter in what business, he is doing well. The only shame is to be idle and lazy.

  You do not understand why some of the white people who used to own you, do not have to work in the field. It is because they are rich. If every man were poor, and worked in his own field, there would be no big farms, and very little cotton or corn raised to sell; there would be no money, and nothing to buy. Some people must be rich, to pay the others, and they have the right to do no work except to look out after their property. It is so everywhere, and perhaps by hard work some of you may by-and-by become rich yourselves.

  Remember that all your working time belongs to the man who hires you: therefore you must not leave work without his leave not even to nurse a child, or to go and visit a wife or husband. When you wish to go off the place, get a pass as you used to, and then you will run no danger of being taken up by our soldiers. If you leave work for a day, or if you are sick, you cannot expect to be paid for what you do not do; and the man who hires you must pay less at the end of the year.

  Do not think of leaving the plantation where you belong. If you try to go to Charleston, or any other city, you will find no work to do, and nothing to eat. You will starve, or fall sick and die. Stay where you are, in your own homes, even if you are suffering. There is no better place for you anywhere else.

  You will want to know what to do when a husband and wife live on different places. Of course they ought to be together, but this year, they have their crops planted on their own places, and they must stay to work them. At the end of the year they can live together. Until then they must see each other only once in a while.

  In every set of men there are some bad men and some fools; who have to be looked after and punished when they go wrong. The Government will punish grown people now, and punish them severely, if they steal, lie idle, or hang around a man’s place when he does not want them there, or if they are impudent. You ought to be civil to one another, and to the man you work for. Watch folks who have always been free, and you will see that the best people are the most civil.

  The children have to be punished more than those who are grown up, for they are full of mischief. Fathers and mothers should punish their own children, but if they happen to be off, or if a child is caught stealing or behaving badly about the big house, the owner of the plantation must switch him, just as he should his own children.

  Do not grumble if you cannot get as much pay on your place as some one else, for on one place they have more children than on others, on one place the land is poor, on another it is rich; on one place, Sherman took everything, on another, perhaps, almost everything was left safe. One man can afford to pay more than another. Do not grumble, either, because, the meat is gone or the salt hard to get. Make the best of everything, and if there is anything which you think is wrong, or hard to bear, try to reason it out: if you cannot, ask leave to send one man to town to see an officer. Never stop work on any account, for the whole crop must be raised and got in, or we shall starve. The old men, and the men who mean to do right, must agree to keep order on every plantation. When they see a hand getting lazy or shiftless, they must talk to him, and if talk will do no good, they must take him to
the owner of the plantation.

  In short, do just about as the good men among you have always done. Remember that even if you are badly off, no one can buy or sell you: remember that if you help yourselves, GOD will help you, and trust hopefully that next year and the year after will bring some new blessing to you.

  Washington D.C. June 21, 1865

  Captain Your report has been received and carefully read. I doubt not the Commission is to do all you can to secure harmony and good will in society, and that you must meet many difficulties. My views are set forth in the accompanying Circulars. I do not expect to meet every difficulty arising under the new State of things. The belief on the part of old masters, that freedmen is impracticable, shows the existence of a prejudice, which time and experience alone can cure. The sophistries of planters are often insidious and hard to refute If they cannot get slavery, they try for a despotism next to it. Equality before the law is what we must aim at. I mean a black, red, yellow or white thief should have punishment for his theft without regard to the color of his skin. The same equitable rule applies with regard to rights of property. Under the guise of a desire to secure order the planter wishes United States Officers to put into his hands absolute power, or at the best he asks us to exercise that power. Now while we show the freedmen, how freemen support themselves at the North by labor, we ought to let him taste somewhat of the freemans privileges. The masters are prejudiced and mostly ignorant of the workings of free labor. you had better therefore draw up an address to them, also explaining their duties and obligations—

  I have provided in my Circular No 5. for cases in dispute not taken cognizance of by military tribunals. Punishments are not prescribed. It will be necessary to call upon the military or police force for the execution of such punishment—An order No 102 of 1865 from the War Dept. will enable you to do this. Your form of contract is good. Genl Saxton is the Asst Commissioner for S.C. Please send reports to him or his Agent at Charleston,

  O. O Howard

  P.S. Why are wheat and rye excepted in the contract?

  “THE GRASP OF WAR”:

  MASSACHUSETTS, JUNE 1865

  Richard Henry Dana:

  Speech at Boston

  Mr. President,—It was hoped by those who have summoned us together this morning, that a voice might go out from Faneuil Hall, to which the people of the United States would listen, as in times past.

  We deprecate, especially, anything like political agitation of the questions before us; but a calm consideration of them by the people, is a duty and a necessity. For, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, the questions pressing upon this country are the most vast and momentous that have ever presented themselves for solution by a free people.

  We wish to know, I suppose, first, What are our powers. That is the first question—what are our just powers? Second—What ought we to do? Third—How ought we to do it? With your leave, I propose to attempt an answer to these three questions.

  What are our just powers? Well, my friends, that depends upon the answer to one question—Have we been at war, or have we not? In what have we been engaged for the last four years?—has it been a war, or has it been something else and other than war? I take it upon myself to assert, that we have been in a condition of public and perfect war. It has been no mere suppression, by municipal powers, of an insurrection for the redress of grievances. It has been a perfect public war. The government has a right to exercise, at its discretion, every belligerent power. [Applause.] We are not bound to exercise them; the enemy can not compel us to do it; but, at our discretion, we may exercise every belligerent power. Do you doubt it? Does any man doubt it? [Voices—“No.”]

  I will tell you why you must not doubt it. In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States has, by an unanimous decision, held that we are in a public war, and that the government can exercise every belligerent power. The court differed as to the time when we entered upon such a war, and whether recognition of war by Congress was necessary, but that we came to a war at last, was their unanimous decision. The Prize Courts, like the Temple of Janus, are closed in peace, and open only in war. The Prize Courts have been thrown open, and every prize that has been condemned in this country has been condemned upon the principle of a public war. Congress gave us no rules for municipal condemnation, but left the Prize Courts to the rules which govern public international war. We have condemned the prizes upon the same rules, and no other, than those by which we condemned them in the war with Great Britain in 1812. This course of the Prize Courts has been sustained by the Supreme Court, acted upon by the Executive, and recognized by Congress. The statutes, too, have called it a war, in terms. The soldiers that are enlisted—what are they enlisted for? Why, they are enlisted “for the war,” are they not? How is it at this moment? Is not the Executive holding those States by military occupation? Are we not holding them in the grasp of war? You cannot justify the great acts of our government for the last three years upon any other principle than the existence of war. You look in vain in the municipal rules of a constitution, to find authority for what we are doing now. You might as well look into the Constitution to find rules for sinking the Alabama in the British Channel,—to find rules for taking Richmond. You might as well look there to find rules for lighting General Grant’s cigar. [Laughter.] No; we stand upon the ground of war, and we exercise the powers of war.

  Now, my fellow-citizens, what are those powers and rights? What is a WAR? War is not an attempt to kill, to destroy; but it is coërcion for a purpose. When a nation goes into war, she does it to secure an end, and the war does not cease until the end is secured. A boxing match, a trial of strength or skill, is over when one party stops. A war is over, when its purpose is secured. It is a fatal mistake to hold that this war is over, because the fighting has ceased. [Applause.] This war is not over. We are in the attitude and in the status of war today. There is the solution of this question. Why, suppose a man has attacked your life, my friend, in the highway, at night, armed, and after a death-struggle, you get him down—what then? When he says he has done fighting, are you obliged to release him? Can you not hold him, until you have got some security against his weapons? [Applause.] Can you not hold him until you have searched him, and taken his weapons from him? Are you obliged to let him up to begin a new fight for your life? The same principle governs war between nations. When one nation has conquered another, in a war, the victorious nation does not retreat from the country and give up possession of it, because the fighting has ceased. No; it holds the conquered enemy in the grasp of war until it has secured whatever it has a right to require. [Applause.] I put that proposition fearlessly—The conquering party may hold the other in the grasp of war, until it has secured whatever it has a right to require.

  But, what have we a right to require? We have no right to require our conquered foe to adopt all our notions, our opinions, our systems, however much we may be attached to them, however good we may think them; but we have a right to require whatever the public safety and public faith make necessary. [Applause.] That is the proposition. Then, we come to this:—We have a right to hold the rebels in the grasp of war until we have obtained whatever the public safety and the public faith require. [Applause and cries of “good.”] Is not that a solid foundation to stand upon? Will it not bear examination? and are we not upon it today?

  I take up my next question. We have settled what our just powers are. Need I ask an audience, in Faneuil Hall, what it is that the public safety and the public faith demand? Is there a man here who doubts? In the progress of this war, we found it necessary to proclaim the emancipation of every slave. [Applause.] On the first day of January, 1863, Abraham Lincoln, of blessed memory, declared the emancipation of every slave. It was a military act, not a civil act. Military acts depend upon military power, and the measure of military power is the length of the military arm. That proclamation of the first of January did not emancipate the slaves, but the military arm emancipated them, as it was stretched forth and
made bare. [Applause.] District after district, region after region, State after State, have been brought within the grasp of the military arm, until at last, today, the whole rebel territory lies within and beneath the military arm. [Loud applause.] Therefore, in State after State, region after region, the slaves have been emancipated, until at last, over the whole country, every slave is emancipated. [Renewed applause.] I would undertake to maintain, before any impartial neutral tribunal in Christendom, the proposition that we have today an adequate military occupation of the whole rebel country, sufficient to effect the emancipation of every slave, by admitted laws of war. Whatever differences of opinion there may have been as to the manner in which the proclamation operated, there is no doubt left as to the result; because we have all the ground the slaves have stood upon within our military occupation.

  The slaves are emancipated. In form, this is true. But the public faith stands pledged to them, that they and their posterity forever shall have a complete and perfect freedom. [Prolonged applause.] Not merely our safety; no, the PUBLIC FAITH is pledged that every man, woman and child of them, and their posterity forever, shall have a complete and perfect freedom. [Applause.] Do you mean to “palter with them in a double sense”? Are you willing that the great republic shall cheat these poor negroes, “keeping the word of promise to the ear, and breaking it to the hope”? Then, how shall we secure to them a complete and perfect freedom? The constitution of every slave State is cemented in slavery. Their statute-books are full of slavery. It is the corner-stone of every rebel State. If you allow them to come back at once, without condition, into the exercise of all their State functions, what guaranty have you for the complete freedom of the men you have emancipated. There must, therefore, not merely be an emancipation of the actual, living slaves, but there must be an abolition of the slave system. [Applause.] Every State must have the abolition of slavery in its constitution, or else we must have the amendment of the Constitution, ratified by three-fourths of the States. Yes, that little railroad-ridden republic, New Jersey, must be shamed into adopting the amendment to the Constitution. [Applause.] New Jersey, whose vote, seventy years ago, alone prevented the adoption of Jefferson’s great ordinance, making subsequently acquired territories free, and which now stands alone among the free States against this proposition of amendment—must be shamed into its adoption. [Renewed applause.] Louisiana will adopt it before her; Kentucky, perhaps, may adopt it before her. They may come into the kingdom, when the children of the kingdom shut themselves out. [Applause.]