Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  I know that there are some who have got their little pieces and sayings to repeat on public occasions, like parrots, that have been placed in their mouths by their superiors, who have not the courage and the manhood to come forward and tell them themselves, but have their understrappers to do their work for them. [Cheers.] I know there is some that talk about this universal elective franchise, upon which they wanted to upturn the Government of Louisiana and institute another; who contended that we must send men there to control, govern, and manage their slave population, because they are incompetent to do it themselves. And yet they turn round when they get there and say they are competent to go to Congress, and manage the affairs of State. [Cheers.] Before you commence throwing your stones, you ought to be sure you don’t live in a glass house. Then, why all this clamor! Don’t you see, my countrymen, it is a question of power; and being in power as they are, their object is to perpetuate their power? Hence, when you talk about turning any of them out of office, oh, they talk about “bread and butter.” [Laughter.] Yes, these men are the most perfect and complete “bread and butter party” that has ever appeared in this government. [Great cheering.] When you make an effort, or struggle to take the nipple out of their mouths, how they clamor! They have staid at home here five or six years, held the offices, grown fat, and enjoyed all the emoluments of position; and now, when you talk about turning one of them out, “oh, it is proscription;” and hence they come forward and propose in Congress to do what? To pass laws to prevent the Executive from turning anybody out. [Voice, “Put ’em out.”] Hence, don’t you see what the policy was to be? I believe in the good old doctrine advocated by Washington, Jefferson and Madison, of rotation in office. These people who have been enjoying these offices seem to have lost sight of this doctrine. I believe that when one set of men have enjoyed the emoluments of office long enough, they should let another portion of the people have a chance. [Cheers.] How are these men to be got out—[Voice, “Kick ’em out.” Cheers and laughter] unless your Executive can put them out, unless you can reach them through the President? Congress says he shall not turn them out, and they are trying to pass laws to prevent it being done. Well, let me say to you, if you will stand by me in this action, [cheers,] if you will stand by me in trying to give the people a fair chance, soldiers and citizens, to participate in those offices, God being willing, I will “kick them out” just as fast as I can. [Great cheering.] Let me say to you in concluding, what I have said, and I intended to say but little, but was provoked into this rather than otherwise, I care not for the menaces, the taunts and the jeers. I care not for the threats; I do not intend to be bullied by my enemies nor overawed by my friends [cheers]; but, God willing, with your help, I will veto their measures whenever they come to me. [Cheers.] I place myself upon the ramparts of the Constitution, and when I see the enemy approaching, so long as I have eyes to see, or ears to hear, or a tongue to sound the alarm, so help me God, I will do it and call on the people to be my judges. [Cheers.] I tell you here to-night that the Constitution of the country is being encroached upon. I tell you here to-night that the citadel of liberty is being endangered. [A voice—“Go it, Andy.”]

  I say to you then, go to work; take the Constitution as your palladium of civil and religious liberty; take it as our chief ark of safety. Just let me ask you here to-night to cling to the Constitution in this great struggle for freedom, and for its preservation, as the ship wrecked mariner clings to the mast when the midnight tempest closes around him. [Cheers.] So far as my public life has been advanced, the people of Missouri, as well as other States, know that my efforts have been devoted in that direction which would ameliorate and elevate the interests of the great mass of the people. [Voice: “That’s so.”] Why, where’s the speech, where’s the vote to be got of mine, but what has always had a tendency to elevate the great working classes of this people? [Cheers.] When they talk about tyranny and despotism, where’s one act of Andy Johnson’s that ever encroached upon the rights of a freeman in this land? But because I have stood as a faithful sentinel upon the watch tower of freedom to sound the alarm, hence all this traduction and detraction that has been heaped upon me. [“Bully for Andy Johnson.”] I now, then, in conclusion, my countrymen, hand over to you the flag of your country with thirty six stars upon it. I hand over to you your Constitution with the charge and responsibility of preserving it intact. I hand over to you to-night the Union of these States, the great magic circle which embraces them all. I hand them all over to you, the people, in whom I have always trusted in all great emergencies—questions which are of such vital interest—I hand them over to you as men who can rise above party, who can stand around the altar of a common country with their faces upturned to heaven, swearing by Him that lives forever and ever that the altar and all shall sink in the dust, but that the Constitution and the Union shall be preserved. Let us stand by the union of these States, let us fight enemies of the Government, come from what quarter they may. My stand has been taken. You understand what my position is, and in parting with you now, leave the Government in your hands, with the confidence I have always had that the people will ultimately redress all wrongs and set the Government right. Then, gentlemen, in conclusion, for the cordial welcome you have given me in this great city of the Northwest, whose destiny no one can foretell. Now, [Voice: “Three cheers for Johnson,”] then, in bidding you good night, I leave all in your charge, and thank you for the cordial welcome you have given me in this spontaneous outpouring of the people of your city.

  September 8, 1866

  “CONGRESS IS THE SOVEREIGN POWER”:

  PENNSYLVANIA, SEPTEMBER 1866

  Thaddeus Stevens:

  Speech at Lancaster

  I COME NOT to make a speech, but for the want of one. When I left Washington I was somewhat worn down by labors and disease, and I was directed by my physician neither to think, to speak nor to read until the next session of Congress, or I should not regain my strength. I have followed the first injunction most religiously, for I believe I have not let an idea pass through my mind to trouble me since Congress adjourned. The second one, not to speak, I was seduced from keeping by some noble friends in the mountain districts of Pennsylvania, and I made a speech at Bedford, the only one I have made. The third one, not to read, I have followed almost literally. It is true I have amused myself with a little light frivolous reading. I have taken up the dailies and publications of that kind, and read things which would make no impression upon the mind. For instance, there was a serial account from day to day of a very remarkable circus that travelled through the country [laughter] from Washington to Chicago, and St. Louis and Louisville back to Washington. [Renewed laughter.] I read that with some interest, expecting to see in so celebrated an establishment—one which, from its heralding, was to beat Dan Rice and all the old circuses that ever went forth. I expected great wit from the celebrated character of its clowns. [Great laughter.] They were well provided with clowns; instead of one there were two, as the circus was to have a large circulation. One of these clowns was high in office and somewhat advanced in age; the other was a little less advanced in office, but older in years. They started out with a very respectable stock company. In order to attract attention they took with them, for instance, a celebrated general; they took with them an eminent naval officer, and they chained him to the rigging so that he could not get away, though he tried to do so once or twice. They announced the most respectable stock company that ever went forth with a manager or circus, though they had no very good man for the spring boards; but they took with them for a short distance a very good man, accustomed to ground and lofty tumbling, called Montgomery Blair. [Laughter.] And as they wanted to get up side-shows, as is always precedent where anything is to be made out of these concerns, they switched him off in various directions with a hand-organ and a monkey. [Laughter.] In the East they called his monkey Senator, Doolittle, because he looked so much like one. [Laughter.] Up through the mountain region, where I encountered them, Mo
ntgomery Blair was there, with Judge Kimmel, whom they called his monkey, as the two beasts looked and acted alike. But the circus went on all the time, giving performances at different points, sometimes one clown performing and sometimes the other. So far as I was able to judge the younger clown was the most vigorous, and had the most energy and malignity. The elder clown, owing to the wear and tear of age and suffering—you know he had his arm broken and his jaw broken, and his neck broken almost—[laughter] inducing a necessity for certain opiates, which had very much worn down his vigor—I looked upon his performance as rather silly; for instance the younger clown told them in the language of the ancient heroes who trod the stage, that he had it in his power, if he choose, to be Dictator. The elder clown pointed to the other one, and said to the people, “Will you have him for President, or will you take him for king?” [Laughter.] He left you but one alternative. You are obliged to take him for one or the other, either for President or king, if “My Policy” prevails. I am not following them all around. I shall not describe to you how sometimes they cut outside the circle and entered into street broils with common blackguards; how they fought at Cleveland and Indianapolis and other points. I shall not tell you; for is it not all written down in Colonel Forney’s Chronicle? [Laughter and cheers.] But coming round, they told you, or one of them did, that he had been everything but one. He had been a tailor, I think he did not say drunken tailor; no, he had been a a tailor [­laughter]—he had been a constable—[laughter]—he had been a city alderman—[renewed laughter]—he had been in the Legislature. God help that Legislature! [Great merriment.] He had been in Congress, and now he was President. He had been everything but one—he had never been hangman and he asked the leave to hang Thad Stevens. [Laughter.]

  Now, I have given you badinage enough. As I stated that I would not make a speech, I will state one point of some substance. The great question between the President and Congress is not how we shall reconstruct the States, but who shall have the power. That is the great question for this nation to determine, and upon your decision depends the security or the despotism of this Government. When the Southern States went out of the Union, through rebellion, and all the ties that bound them to the Union were consumed in the hot fires of the war, they became conquered provinces under our armies. By the law of nations, the sovereign power of this nation was to fix their fate. Who is that sovereign power? [Cries of “Congress,” “Congress.”] If that power is the President, then he is right, and may go on reconstructing the States in his own way. But if Congress has the sovereign power, then the issue is in our favor. As I said, the sovereignty of the nation must fix the status of the new States and of conquered nations. By the Constitution of the United States, in a single sentence, the first paragraph of the first article in the Constitution says that all legislative power shall be vested in a Congress, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. There is the whole legislative power of the nation. You cannot find a word in the Constitution which gives to any other branch of the Government one particle of legislative power. How, then, is it that the sovereign power rests in the President? In this country there is but one depository of sovereign power, of the sovereignty of the nation. It rests in the people, and nowhere else; and the people speak through Congress to all their servants. Therefore, it is you, the sovereigns of the nation, who are reconstructing these States. In no other branch of the government can you find a particle of sovereignty. The President cannot even erect a bureau. He cannot do a legislative act. He is the servant of the people as they order through Congress. Now, then, Congress is the sovereign power, because the people speak through them; and Andrew Johnson must learn that he is your servant, [cheers,] and that as Congress shall order he must obey. [Cheers.] There is no escape from it. God forbid that he should have one title of power except what he derives through Congress and the Constitution. [Cheers.] This is the whole question. The question of how our States shall be reconstructed is another one, to which I shall not now refer. I shall only apologize for having detained you.

  Mr. Stevens here retired, but the calls for his reappearance were so prolonged that he again came forward, and, amid loud cheering, said:

  I suppose you never fought chickens in your young days. [Laughter.] If you had you know there was a breed that they called the “Wheelers.” They would fight awhile and then go back, and then turn and fight again. I must be a Wheeler, I suppose. [Cheers and laughter.] And since you have called me out, and I am able to speak, I will explain one single point, which I have been informed my friend Mr. Doolittle made particularly upon me, and which, I have no doubt, some of my Republican friends considered particularly well made to put me below the ticket. I cannot blame them in this. I shall not blame them for anything of the kind, but I shall be just as good friends with them as before.

  But let me explain: He spoke of negro equality. Let me tell you exactly how it is. He, I understand, found fault with me, particularly because I advocated what he called negro equality. Under our law there is not a word said in either the civil-rights’ bill or the new proposed amendment about color. It simply provides that the same law which punishes one man shall punish any other for the same offence; it simply provides that the law which gives a verdict to one man shall render the same verdict to another, whether he is Dutch, Irish or negro. [Cheers.] Is there anything wrong in that? [Voices, “No!” “No!”] That is the doctrine of negro equality. There is nothing which prohibits the negro from learning to read and write and say his prayers. There is nothing in it which says he shall have anything superior to another.

  I admit that these Copperheads have some cause to complain that there is such a proviso, for there is great danger that those who find fault with this provision will find rivals among the colored race in business and in life. There is one thing, however, which I noticed Mr. Doolittle alluded to—a bill which I introduced for fixing the condition of the Southern States—and since I am here I will say one word in explanation of that. I introduced a bill into Congress for the purpose of enabling the rebel states, under certain conditions, to form loyal governments. They have no governments now except some counterfeits put up by Andy Johnson. [“Three cheers for Thad Stevens.”]