Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  Although those who demand “Woman’s Suffrage” on principle are few, those who would oppose “Negro Suffrage” from prejudice are many, hence the only way to secure the latter, is to end all this talk of class legislation, bury the negro in the citizen, and claim the suffrage for all men and women, as a natural, inalienable right. The friends of the negro never made a greater blunder, than when, at the close of the war, they timidly refused to lead the nation, in demanding suffrage for all. If even Wendell Phillips and Gerrit Smith, the very apostles of liberty on this continent, failed at that point, how can we wonder at the vacillation and confusion of politicians at this hour. We had hoped that the elections of ’67, with their overwhelming majorities in every state against Negro Suffrage, would have proved to all alike, how futile is compromise, how short-sighted is policy. We have pressed these considerations so often on Mr. Phillips and Mr. Smith, during the last four years, that we fear we have entirely forfeited the friendship of the one, and diminished the confidence of the other in our good judgment; but time, that rights all wrongs, will surely bring them back to the standpoint of principle.  E. C. S.

  The Revolution, January 14, 1869

  WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 1869

  Joint Resolution Proposing the Fifteenth Amendment

  A Resolution proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

  Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two thirds of both houses concurring,) That the following article be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three fourths of said legislatures, shall be valid as part of the Constitution, namely:

  ARTICLE XV.

  SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

  SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

  SCHUYLER COLFAX,

  Speaker of the House of Representatives.

  B. F. WADE,

  President of the Senate pro tempore.

  Attest:

   EDWD. MCPHERSON,

    Clerk of House of Representatives.

   GEO. C. GORHAM,

    Sec’y of Senate U. S.

  Received at Department of State February 27, 1869.

  “LET US HAVE PEACE”

  1869–1873

  When Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1869, Republicans breathed a sigh of relief. They hoped that with an ally in the White House, they could bring Reconstruction to a successful conclusion. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in February 1870 seemed to secure black male suffrage across the nation. It evaded the difficult process of amending northern state constitutions through measures subject to popular referendums while seemingly preventing southern states from committing future acts of disenfranchisement should they again fall under Democratic control. The readmission of Texas, Virginia, and Mississippi to congressional representation in early 1870 promised to bring an end to congressional Reconstruction, although the decision to remand Georgia to congressional supervision after the state legislature expelled its black members served as a reminder of the depths of white resistance to biracial democracy. That the Fifteenth Amendment did not address women’s suffrage continued to be a source of contention with those who did not want to limit Reconstruction to issues of race and reconciliation but sought an even broader restructuring of the republic. It was a reminder that Reconstruction, while revolutionary in the minds of many observers, had failed to go far enough to please other activists.

  In his inaugural address Grant called for the nation to come together, accept the results of the war, and move forward. In March 1870 he celebrated the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment as a sign that Americans had repudiated the ­legacy of the Dred Scott decision. All that remained was to treat the freed people as American citizens who were equal before the law. Yet it soon became apparent that such was not to be the case. Even as northern Democrats weighed the possibility of a “New Departure” that would allow the party to put the war and Reconstruction behind it, southern Democrats embraced terrorism as a tactic to help overthrow Republican state governments. This upsurge in violence challenged the notion that Reconstruction at the federal level had ended with the restoration of civil government throughout the South. Republicans divided over how to respond to terrorism in a debate that included South Carolina representatives Robert Brown Elliott and Joseph H. Rainey, two of the first African Americans to sit in Congress. That committed emancipationists such as Ohio congressman James Garfield and Missouri senator Carl Schurz now opposed additional federal measures to protect voters from violence helped demonstrate the limits of what was politically possible to achieve. Their concerns regarding the proper constitutional balance between the federal government and the states failed to impress black congressmen, who knew firsthand the threat posed by terrorist violence to any hopes of establishing a biracial democracy. Congress eventually passed the Enforcement Act of 1871, sometimes called the Third Force Act or the Ku Klux Klan Act, which gave the president the power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and employ military force to suppress “unlawful combinations.” The act required offenders to be tried in federal court, while limiting the duration of the president’s power to suspend habeas corpus to the end of the second session of the Forty-second Congress (June 1872). Prosecutions under the act in Mississippi and South Carolina dealt a significant blow to the Klan in 1871–72, but failed to prevent the emergence of other white supremacist terrorist groups.

  President Grant made his share of enemies during his first term, and not all of them were Democrats. Some Republicans questioned his approach to Reconstruction; others disagreed with his stance on a host of issues, ranging from foreign and economic policy to civil service reform. A few raised questions about his handling of patronage or found allegations of corruption troubling. By the end of 1871, dissident Republicans were forging a coalition designed to block his reelection. What became known as the Liberal Republican movement reached its climax at Cincinnati in May 1872. The decision of the Liberal Republican convention to nominate New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley, who was later endorsed by the Democrats, proved disastrous. Greeley’s plea for sectional reconciliation overlooked evidence of continuing violence and resistance by white southerners; in the fall contest Grant won reelection overwhelmingly. While the president interpreted his triumph as a personal vindication, it remained to be seen if it was also an endorsement of his Reconstruction policy.

  WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 1869

  Ulysses S. Grant:

  First Inaugural Address

  Citizens of the United States:

  Your suffrages having elected me to the office of President of the United States, I have, in conformity to the Constitution of our country, taken the oath of office prescribed therein. I have taken this oath without mental reservation and with the determination to do to the best of my ability all that is required of me. The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought; I commence its duties untrammeled. I bring to it a conscious desire and determination to fill it to the best of my ability to the satisfaction of the people.

  On all leading questions agitating the public mind I will always express my views to Congress and urge them according to my judgment, and when I think it advisable will exercise the constitutional privilege of interposing a veto to defeat measures which I oppose; but all laws will be faithfully executed, whether they meet my approval or not.

  I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike—those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent executio
n.

  The country having just emerged from a great rebellion, many questions will come before it for settlement in the next four years which preceding Administrations have never had to deal with. In meeting these it is desirable that they should be approached calmly, without prejudice, hate, or sectional pride, remembering that the greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be attained.

  This requires security of person, property, and free religious and political opinion in every part of our common country, without regard to local prejudice. All laws to secure these ends will receive my best efforts for their enforcement.

  A great debt has been contracted in securing to us and our posterity the Union. The payment of this, principal and interest, as well as the return to a specie basis as soon as it can be accomplished without material detriment to the debtor class or to the country at large, must be provided for. To protect the national honor, every dollar of Government indebtedness should be paid in gold, unless otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract. Let it be understood that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public place, and it will go far toward strengthening a credit which ought to be the best in the world, and will ultimately enable us to replace the debt with bonds bearing less interest than we now pay. To this should be added a faithful collection of the revenue, a strict accountability to the Treasury for every dollar collected, and the greatest practicable retrenchment in expenditure in every department of Government.

  When we compare the paying capacity of the country now, with the ten States in poverty from the effects of war, but soon to emerge, I trust, into greater prosperity than ever before, with its paying capacity twenty-five years ago, and calculate what it probably will be twenty-five years hence, who can doubt the feasibility of paying every dollar then with more ease than we now pay for useless luxuries? Why, it looks as though Providence had bestowed upon us a strong box in the precious metals locked up in the sterile mountains of the far West, and which we are now forging the key to unlock, to meet the very contingency that is now upon us.

  Ultimately it may be necessary to insure the facilities to reach these riches, and it may be necessary also that the General Government should give its aid to secure this access; but that should only be when a dollar of obligation to pay secures precisely the same sort of dollar to use now, and not before. Whilst the question of specie payments is in abeyance the prudent business man is careful about contracting debts payable in the distant future. The nation should follow the same rule. A prostrate commerce is to be rebuilt and all industries encouraged.

  The young men of the country—those who from their age must be its rulers twenty-five years hence—have a peculiar interest in maintaining the national honor. A moment’s reflection as to what will be our commanding influence among the nations of the earth in their day, if they are only true to themselves, should inspire them with national pride. All divisions—geographical, political, and religious—can join in this common sentiment. How the public debt is to be paid or specie payments resumed is not so important as that a plan should be adopted and acquiesced in. A united determination to do is worth more than divided counsels upon the method of doing. Legislation upon this subject may not be necessary now, nor even advisable, but it will be when the civil law is more fully restored in all parts of the country and trade resumes its wonted channels.

  It will be my endeavor to execute all laws in good faith, to collect all revenues assessed, and to have them properly accounted for and economically disbursed. I will to the best of my ability appoint to office those only who will carry out this design.

  In regard to foreign policy, I would deal with nations as equitable law requires individuals to deal with each other, and I would protect the law-abiding citizen, whether of native or foreign birth, wherever his rights are jeopardized or the flag of our country floats. I would respect the rights of all nations, demanding equal respect for our own. If others depart from this rule in their dealings with us, we may be compelled to follow their precedent.

  The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land—the Indians—is one deserving of careful study. I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.

  The question of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion of the citizens of the nation are excluded from its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this question should be settled now, and I entertain the hope and express the desire that it may be by the ratification of the fifteenth article of amendment to the Constitution.

  In conclusion I ask patient forbearance one toward another throughout the land, and a determined effort on the part of every citizen to do his share toward cementing a happy union; and I ask the prayers of the nation to Almighty God in behalf of this consummation.

  March 4, 1869.

  “THE QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE”:

  NEW YORK, MAY 1869

  Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony:

  Exchange on Suffrage

  THIS GENTLEMAN commenced to speak in a low voice, when Miss Anthony said to the audience: Mr. Douglass has a weak voice in debate and he is not used to public speaking. [Laughter.]

  Mr. Douglass—I came here more as a listener than to speak, and I listened with a great deal of pleasure to the eloquent address of the Rev. Mr. Frothingham and the splendid address of the President. There is no name greater than that of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the matter of Woman’s Rights and Equal Rights, but my sentiments are tinged a little against the Revolution. There was in the address to which I allude a sentiment in reference to employment and certain names, such as “Sambo,” and the gardener and the bootblack and the daughter of Jefferson and Washington, and all the rest that I cannot coincide with. I have asked what difference there is between the daughters of Jefferson and Washington and other daughters. [Laughter.] I must say that I do not see how any one can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to the woman as to the negro. With us, the matter is a question of life or death. It is a matter of existence, at least, in fifteen States of the Union. When women, because they are women, are hunted down through the cities of New York and New Orleans; when they are dragged from their houses and hung upon lamp-posts; when their children are torn from their arms, and their brains dashed out upon the pavement; when she is an object of insult and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools, then she will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own. [Great applause.]

  A voice—Is that not all true about black women?

  Mr. Douglass—Yes, yes, yes, it is true of the black woman, but not because she is a woman but because she is black. [Applause.]Julia Ward Howe at the conclusion of her great speech delivered at the convention in Boston last year, said, “I am willing that the negro shall get in before me.” [Applause.] Woman! why she has ten thousand modes of grappling with her difficulties. I believe that all the virtue of the world can take care of all the evil. I believe that all the intelligence can take care of all the ignorance. [Applause.] I am in favor of woman’s suffrage in order that we shall have all the virtue and all the vice confronted. Let me tell you that when there were few houses in which the black man could have put his head, this woolley head of mine found a refuge in the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and if I had been blacker than sixteen midnights, without a single star, it have been the same. [Applause.]

  Miss Susan B Anthony said: The question of precedence has no place on an equal rights platform. The only reason why it ever found a place here was that there were some who insisted that woman must stand back & wait until another class should be enfranchised. In answer to that, my friend Mrs Stanton & others of us have said, If you will not give the whole loaf of justice to the entire people, if you are determined to give it, piece by piece, then give it first to women, to the most intelligent & capable portion of
the women at least, because in the present state of government it is intelligence, it is morality which is needed. We have never brought the question upon the platform, whether women should be enfranchised first or last. I remember having a long discussion with Tilton, Powell, & Phillips on this very question, when we were about to carry up our petitions to the Constitutional Convention. We took the name of an Equal Rights association, & were thinking of making another person president. I remember then that Mr Tilton said to me that we should urge the amendment to our Constitution to strike out the word “white” as the thing to be accomplished by that Convention, & he added, “The question of striking out the word ‘male’ we shall of course, as an Equal Rights association, urge as an intellectual theory, but we cannot demand it as a practical thing to be accomplished at this Convention.” Mr Phillips acceded to that, & I think all the men acceded to that, all over the State. But there was one woman there who did not. My friend Mrs Stanton kept very good natured in the discussion; but I was boiling over with wrath; so much so that my friend Tilton noticed it & said, “What ails Susan? I never saw her behave so badly before.” I will tell you what ailed Susan. It was the downright insolence of those two men, when I had canvassed the entire State from one end to the other, county by county, with petitions in my hand asking for woman suffrage,—if those two men, among the most advanced & glorious men of the nation, that they should dare to look me in the face & speak of this great earnest purpose of mine as an “intellectual theory” but not to be practised, or for us to hope to attain. [Applause.]