Reconstruction
Douglass, Frederick, 1817?-1895
Atlantic Monthly 18 (1866):
761-765.
THE assembling of the Second Session of the
Thirty-ninth Congress may very properly be made the occasion of a few earnest
words on the already much-worn topic of reconstruction.
Seldom has any legislative body been the
subject of a solicitude more intense, or of aspirations more sincere and ardent.
There are the best of reasons for this profound interest. Questions of vast
moment, left undecided by the last session of Congress, must be manfully
grappled with by this. No political skirmishing will avail. The occasion demands
statesmanship.
Whether the tremendous war so heroically fought
and so victoriously ended shall pass into history a miserable failure, barren of
permanent results, -- a scandalous and shocking waste of blood and treasure, --
a strife for empire, as Earl Russell characterized it, of no value to liberty or
civilization, -- an attempt to re-establish a Union by force, which must be the
merest mockery of a Union, -- an effort to bring under Federal authority States
into which no loyal man from the North may safely enter, and to bring men into
the national councils who deliberate with daggers and vote with revolvers, and
who do not even conceal their deadly hate of the country that conquered them; or
whether, on the other hand, we shall, as the rightful reward of victory over
treason, have a solid nation, entirely delivered from all contradictions and
social antagonisms, based upon loyalty, liberty, and equality, must be
determined one way or the other by the present session of Congress. The last
session really did nothing which can be considered final as to these questions.
The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed
constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as
the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole
structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something
like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal
regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. While
there remains such an idea as the right of each State to control its own local
affairs, -- an idea, by the way, more
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deeply rooted in the minds of men of all
sections of the country than perhaps any one other political idea, -- no general
assertion of human rights can be of any practical value. To change the character
of the government at this point is neither possible nor desirable. All that is
necessary to be done is to make the government consistent with itself, and
render the rights of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human
nature.
The arm of the Federal government is long, but
it is far too short to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of
distant States. They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go
unprotected, spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the
national statute-book.
Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong,
founded in the depths of human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not
neglected its own conservation. It has steadily exerted an influence upon all
around it favorable to its own continuance. And to-day it is so strong that it
could exist, not only without law, but even against law. Custom, manners,
morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere in the South; and when you add
the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the intelligence and accustomed
authority of the master, you have the conditions, not out of which slavery will
again grow, but under which it is impossible for the Federal government to
wholly destroy it, unless the Federal government be armed with despotic power,
to blot out State authority, and to station a Federal officer at every
cross-road. This, of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it could. The
true way and the easiest way is to make our government entirely consistent with
itself, and give to every loyal citizen the elective franchise, -- a right and
power which will be ever present, and will form a wall of fire for his
protection.
One of the invaluable compensations of the late
Rebellion is the highly instructive disclosure it made of the true source of
danger to republican government. Whatever may be tolerated in monarchical and
despotic governments, no republic is safe that tolerates a privileged class, or
denies to any of its citizens equal rights and equal means to maintain them.
What was theory before the war has been made fact by the war.
There is cause to be thankful even for
rebellion. It is an impressive teacher, though a stern and terrible one. In both
characters it has come to us, and it was perhaps needed in both. It is an
instructor never a day before its time, for it comes only when all other means
of progress and enlightenment have failed. Whether the oppressed and despairing
bondman, no longer able to repress his deep yearnings for manhood, or the
tyrant, in his pride and impatience, takes the initiative, and strikes the blow
for a firmer hold and a longer lease of oppression, the result is the same, --
society is instructed, or may be.
Such are the limitations of the common mind,
and so thoroughly engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few
among men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity the
dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have come up to our
very gates, and are already within striking distance. The yawning seam and
corroded bolt conceal their defects from the mariner until the storm calls all
hands to the pumps. Prophets, indeed, were abundant before the war; but who
cares for prophets while their predictions remain unfulfilled, and the
calamities of which they tell are masked behind a blinding blaze of national
prosperity?
It is asked, said Henry Clay, on a memorable
occasion, Will slavery never come to an end? That question, said he, was asked
fifty years ago, and it has been answered by fifty years of unprecedented
prosperity. Spite of the eloquence of the earnest Abolitionists, -- poured out
against slavery during thirty years, -- even they must confess, that, in all the
probabilities of the case, that system of barbarism would
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have continued its horrors far beyond the
limits of the nineteenth century but for the Rebellion, and perhaps only have
disappeared at last in a fiery conflict, even more fierce and bloody than that
which has now been suppressed.
It is no disparagement to truth, that it can
only prevail where reason prevails. War begins where reason ends. The thing
worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion. What that thing is, we
have been taught to our cost. It remains now to be seen whether we have the
needed courage to have that cause entirely removed from the Republic. At any
rate, to this grand work of national regeneration and entire purification
Congress must now address Itself, with full purpose that the work shall this
time be thoroughly done. The deadly upas, root and branch, leaf and fibre, body
and sap, must be utterly destroyed. The country is evidently not in a condition
to listen patiently to pleas for postponement, however plausible, nor will it
permit the responsibility to be shifted to other shoulders. Authority and power
are here commensurate with the duty imposed. There are no cloud-flung shadows to
obscure the way. Truth shines with brighter light and intenser heat at every
moment, and a country torn and rent and bleeding implores relief from its
distress and agony.
If time was at first needed, Congress has now
had time. All the requisite materials from which to form an intelligent judgment
are now before it. Whether its members look at the origin, the progress, the
termination of the war, or at the mockery of a peace now existing, they will
find only one unbroken chain of argument in favor of a radical policy of
reconstruction. For the omissions of the last session, some excuses may be
allowed. A treacherous President stood in the way; and it can be easily seen how
reluctant good men might be to admit an apostasy which involved so much of
baseness and ingratitude. It was natural that they should seek to save him by
bending to him even when he leaned to the side of error. But all is changed now.
Congress knows now that it must go on without his aid, and even against his
machinations. The advantage of the present session over the last is immense.
Where that investigated, this has the facts. Where that walked by faith, this
may walk by sight. Where that halted, this must go forward, and where that
failed, this must succeed, giving the country whole measures where that gave us
half-measures, merely as a means of saving the elections in a few doubtful
districts. That Congress saw what was right, but distrusted the enlightenment of
the loyal masses; but what was forborne in distrust of the people must now be
done with a full knowledge that the people expect and require it. The members go
to Washington fresh from the inspiring presence of the people. In every
considerable public meeting, and in almost every conceivable way, whether at
court-house, school-house, or cross-roads, in doors and out, the subject has
been discussed, and the people have emphatically pronounced in favor of a
radical policy. Listening to the doctrines of expediency and compromise with
pity, impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere broken into demonstrations
of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word has been spoken in favor of equal
rights and impartial suffrage. Radicalism, so far from being odious, is not the
popular passport to power. The men most bitterly charged with it go to Congress
with the largest majorities, while the timid and doubtful are sent by lean
majorities, or else left at home. The strange controversy between the President
and the Congress, at one time so threatening, is disposed of by the people. The
high reconstructive powers which he so confidently, ostentatiously, and
haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and utterly repudiated;
while those claimed by Congress have been confirmed.
Of the spirit and magnitude of the canvass
nothing need be said. The
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appeal was to the people, and the verdict was
worthy of the tribunal. Upon an occasion of his own selection, with the advice
and approval of his astute Secretary, soon after the members of the Congress had
returned to their constituents, the President quitted the executive mansion,
sandwiched himself between two recognized heroes, -- men whom the whole country
delighted to honor, -- and, with all the advantage which such company could give
him, stumped the country from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, advocating
everywhere his policy as against that of Congress. It was a strange sight, and
perhaps the most disgraceful exhibition ever made by any President; but, as no
evil is entirely unmixed, good has come of this, as from many others. Ambitious,
unscrupulous, energetic, indefatigable, voluble, and plausible, -- a political
gladiator, ready for a "set-to" in any crowd, -- he is beaten in his own chosen
field, and stands to-day before the country as a convicted usurper, a political
criminal, guilty of a bold and persistent attempt to possess himself of the
legislative powers solemnly secured to Congress by the Constitution. No
vindication could be more complete, no condemnation could be more absolute and
humiliating. Unless reopened by the sword, as recklessly threatened in some
circles, this question is now closed for all time.
Without attempting to settle here the
metaphysical and somewhat theological question (about which so much has already
been said and written), whether once in the Union means always in the Union, --
agreeably to the formula, Once in grace always in grace, -- it is obvious to
common sense that the rebellious States stand to-day, in point of law, precisely
where they stood when, exhausted, beaten, conquered, they fell powerless at the
feet of Federal authority. Their State governments were overthrown, and the
lives and property of the leaders of the Rebellion were forfeited. In
reconstructing the institutions of these shattered and overthrown States,
Congress should begin with a clean slate, and make clean work of it. Let there
be no hesitation. It would be a cowardly deference to a defeated and treacherous
President, if any account were made of the illegitimate, one-sided, sham
governments hurried into existence for a malign purpose in the absence of
Congress. These pretended governments, which were never submitted to the people,
and from participation in which four millions of the loyal people were excluded
by Presidential order, should now be treated according to their true character,
as shams and impositions, and supplanted by true and legitimate governments, in
the formation of which loyal men, black and white, shall participate.
It is not, however, within the scope of this
paper to point out the precise steps to be taken, and the means to be employed.
The people are less concerned about these than the grand end to be attained.
They demand such a reconstruction as shall put an end to the present anarchical
state of things in the late rebellious States, -- where frightful murders and
wholesale massacres are perpetrated in the very presence of Federal soldiers.
This horrible business they require shall cease. They want a reconstruction such
as will protect loyal men, black and white, in their persons and property; such
a one as will cause Northern industry, Northern capital, and Northern
civilization to flow into the South, and make a man from New England as much at
home in Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic. No Chinese wall can now be
tolerated. The South must be opened to the light of law and liberty, and this
session of Congress is relied upon to accomplish this important work.
The plain, common-sense way of doing this work,
as intimated at the beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law, one
government, one administration of justice, one condition to the exercise of the
elective franchise, for men of all races and colors alike. This great measure is
sought as earnestly
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by loyal white men as by loyal blacks, and is
needed alike by both. Let sound political prescience but take the place of an
unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.
Men denounce the negro for his prominence in
this discussion; but it is no fault of his that in peace as in war, that in
conquering Rebel armies as in reconstructing the rebellious States, the right of
the negro is the true solution of our national troubles. The stern logic of
events, which goes directly to the point, disdaining all concern for the color
or features of men, has determined the interests of the country as identical
with and inseparable from those of the negro.
The policy that emancipated and armed the negro
-- now seen to have been wise and proper by the dullest -- was not certainly
more sternly demanded than is now the policy of enfranchisement. If with the
negro was success in war, and without him failure, so in peace it will be found
that the nation must fall or flourish with the negro.
Fortunately, the Constitution of the United
States knows no distinction between citizens on account of color. Neither does
it know any difference between a citizen of a State and a citizen of the United
States. Citizenship evidently includes all the rights of citizens, whether State
or national. If the Constitution knows none, it is clearly no part of the duty
of a Republican Congress now to institute one. The mistake of the last session
was the attempt to do this very thing, by a renunciation of its power to secure
political rights to any class of citizens, with the obvious purpose to allow the
rebellious States to disfranchise, if they should see fit, their colored
citizens. This unfortunate blunder must now be retrieved, and the emasculated
citizenship given to the negro supplanted by that contemplated in the
Constitution of the United States, which declares that the citizens of each
State shall enjoy all the rights and immunities of citizens of the several
States, -- so that a legal voter in any State shall be a legal voter in all the
States.
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