Belief 5 - Reading 1 of 9, The Reconstruction Convention

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Belief 5 - Reading 1 of 9

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THE PRESIDENT’S POSITION

Harper's Weekly, December 23, 1865, page 802 (Editorial)

In its temper, simplicity, and patriotic fidelity the Message is a model, and has been received with unprecedented unanimity of approbation. This result is due, on the one hand, to the hearty sympathy of the Union party with the aims and views of the President whom they elected; and, on the other, to the frantic hope of the rump of the rebellion that it can excite jealousies and dessensions between the President and his friends by ostentatiously patronizing him and insisting that he had deserted his friends. But the hope and the effort are vain. Mr. Johnson has not Tylerized. He has not asked the rebellious States to take their old places without conditions. He has been steadfastly true to the emancipation policy. He declares himself, in his conversation with Mr. Stearns, in favor of impartial suffrage. If his position upon these questions is not that of the Union party, what is? If it is not directly opposed to the whole doctrine and action of "the Democracy," nothing can be. The "Democratic" plan, announced last April, was that every rebel State should fling down its arms and send representatives to Congress, on the ground that it was not in rebellion, and had never been out of the Union. The President and the country have disposed of that folly, and forever. We feel a very comfortable faith that they will be equal to every similar sophistry thereafter.

In treating our domestic affairs the President frankly and clearly states his view of the character of the Government and the limitations of the State and National powers; and reaffirms, in a manly and noble strain, certain fundamental truths which seemed before the war to have faded from the national consciousness. "The American system," he says, "rests on the assertion of the equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; to freedom of conscience; to the culture and exercise of all his faculties." A man who sincerely believes that need not be doubted.

In his reasoning upon Reorganization the President’s logic seems to us in one point at fault. If, as he says, the sole right of the National Government is to enable the States whose functions are "suspended" to resume the, it certainly can not impose arbitrary conditions upon the resumption. For if it may it is of course the judge of the conditions, and must decide solely by considerations of the national welfare. The President says: "After the close of the war it is not competent for the General Government to extend the elective franchise in the several States." Yet he had just said, in speaking of the emancipation amendment, "It is not too much to ask of the States which are now resuming their places in the family of the Union to give this pledge of perpetual loyalty and peace." But why? If the states are merely in abeyance, with their powers all unimpaired, what can we do more than to enable them to resume their functions, and when they are in full possession of their powers, let them decide for themselves whether they will give such a pledge? Is it not perfectly plain that if we may make the resumption depend upon their assent to a constitutional amendment which is not yet declared to be law, we do it because we think the public safety requires it? And if we are of opinion that the public safety requires the same States to assent to a modified suffrage, we have exactly the same right to demand that "pledge of perpetual loyalty and peace" before allowing those States to resume their functions.

But theories are of small importance when action is so plain and firm as the President’s has hitherto been. The important point in reorganization is, that the suspended States shall resume their powers at the earliest moment compatible with the welfare of the Union. The President holds this point clearly in view. He informs the new Governors elected in those States that they will not exercise their power until authorized by the National Government; and while he individually prefers to leave the further modification of suffrage in the suspended States to those whom he has already empowered to vote, he adds that he considers the national faith pledge to the protection of the personal rights of the emancipated class.

The tone of the Message in discussing foreign affairs is masterly. Its calm and compact statement of the position of England and the inevitable consequence of persistence in her peremptory refusal even to argue the question of the Alabama is singularly felicitous. There is no threat, no bluster. "If you choose to make your bed so, you must lie in it without wincing." In like manner the right and the duty of the United States to defend themselves against armed foreign interference in the politics of their neighbors are expressed in a tone of such passionless and absolute politeness that it can not fail to impress profoundly whomsoever it may concern.

In fine, the Message is one that will make no Union man regret that he voted for Andrew Johnson. Like Abraham Lincoln, he aims singly to execute the national will. Like his great predecessor, he has no way but the people’s way; and confiding fully in them, and stating plainly his own views, he leaves the practical solution of the grave questions of the hour to the people assembled by their representatives in Congress.

Harper's Weekly, December 23, 1865, page 802 (Editorial)

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