Cobbs-Hoffman Elizabeth, Blum Edward J., Gjerde Jon. Major Problems in American History, Volume I, 3 edition (ENG)
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their organic laws. Holding them “like clay in the hands of the potter,” we must
see that no vessel is made for destruction. Having now no governments, they
must have enabling acts. The law of last session with regard to Territories settled
the principles of such acts. Impartial suffrage, both in electing the delegates and
ratifying their proceedings, is now the fixed rule. There is more reason why co-
lored voters should be admitted in the rebel States than in the Territories. In the
States they form the great mass of the loyal men. Possibly with their aid loyal
governments may be established in most of those States. Without it all are sure
to be ruled by traitors; and loyal men, black and white, will be oppressed, exiled,
or murdered. There are several good reasons for the passage of this bill. In the
first place, it is just. I am now confining my argument to negro suffrage in the
rebel States. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers and
make laws as rebel whites? In the second place, it is a necessity in order to pro-
tect the loyal white men in the seceded States. The white Union men are in a
great minority in each of those States. With them the blacks would act in
a body; and it is believed that in each of said States, except one, the two united
would form a majority, control the States, and protect themselves. Now they are
the victims of daily murder. They must suffer constant persecution or be exiled.
The convention of southern loyalists, lately held in Philadelphia, almost unani-
mously agreed to such a bill as an absolute necessity.
Another good reason is, it would insure the ascendancy of the Union party.
Do you avow the party purpose? exclaims some horror-stricken demagogue.
I do. For I believe, on my conscience, that on the continued ascendancy of
that party depends the safety of this great nation. If impartial suffrage is excluded
in rebel States then every one of them is sure to send a solid rebel representative
delegation to Congress, and cast a solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their
kindred Copperheads of the North, would always elect the President and control
Congress. While slavery sat upon her defiant throne, and insulted and intimi-
dated the trembling North, the South frequently divided on questions of policy
between Whigs and Democrats, and gave victory alternately to the sections.
Now, you must divide them between loyalists, without regard to color, and dis-
loyalists, or you will be the perpetual vassals of the free-trade, irritated, revenge-
ful South. For these, among other reasons, I am for negro suffrage in every rebel
State. If it be just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be
adopted; if it be a punishment to traitors, they deserve it.
But it will be said, as it has been said, “This is negro equality!” What is ne-
gro equality, about which so much is said by knaves, and some of which is be-
lieved by men who are not fools? It means, as understood by honest
Republicans, just this much, and no more: every man, no matter what his race
or color; every earthly being who has an immortal soul, has an equal right to
justice, honesty, and fair play with every other man; and the law should secure
him those rights. The same law which condemns or acquits an African should
condemn or acquit a white man. The same law which gives a verdict in a white
man’s favor should give a verdict in a black man’s favor on the same state of facts.
Such is the law of God and such ought to be the law of man. This doctrine does
not mean that a negro shall sit on the same seat or eat at the same table with a
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white man. That is a matter of taste which every man must decide for himself.
The law has nothing to do with it.
6. Representative Benjamin Butler Argues That President
Andrew Johnson Be Impeached, 1868
This, then, is the plain and inevitable issue before the Senate and the American
people:
Has the President, under the Constitution, the more than kingly prerogative
at will to remove from office and suspend from office indefinitely, all executive
officers of the United States, either civil, military, or naval, at any and all times,
and fill the vacancies with creatures of his own appointment, for his own pur-
poses, without any restraint whatever, or possibility of restraint by the Senate or
by Congress through laws duly enacted?
The House of Representatives, in behalf of the people, join this issue by
affirming that the exercise of such powers is a high misdemeanor in office….
Who does not know that Andrew Johnson initiated, of his own will, a
course of reconstruction of the rebel States, which at the time be claimed was
provisional only, and until the meeting of Congress and its action thereon?
Who does not know that when Congress met and undertook to legislate upon
the very subject of reconstruction, of which he had advised them in his message,
which they alone had the constitutional power to do, Andrew Johnson last
aforesaid again changed his course, and declared that Congress had no power to
legislate upon that subject; that the two houses had only the power separately to
judge of the qualifications of the members who might be sent to each by rebel-
lious constituencies, acting under State organization which Andrew Johnson had
called into existence by his late fiat, the electors of which were voting by his
permission and under his limitations? Who does not know that when Congress,
assuming its rightful power to propose amendments to the Constitution, had
passed such an amendment, and had submitted it to the States as a measure of
pacification, Andrew Johnson advised and counselled the legislatures of the States
lately in rebellion, as well as others, to reject the amendment, so that it might not
operate as a law, and thus establish equality of suffrage in all the States, and
equality of right in the members of the electoral college, and in the number of
the representatives to the Congress of the United States?…
Who does not know that from the hour he began these, his usurpations of
power, he everywhere denounced Congress, the legality and constitutionality of
its action, and defied its legitimate powers, and, for that purpose, announced his
intentions and carried out his purpose, as far as he was able, of removing every true
man from office who sustained the Congress of the United States? And it is to
carry out this plan of action that he claims the unlimited power of removal, for
Trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, on Impeachment by the House of Representatives for High Crimes and
Misdemeanors (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1868), 96, 121–123.
454 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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the illegal exercise of which he stands before you this day. Who does not know
that, in pursuance of the same plan, he used his veto power indiscriminately to
prevent the passage of wholesome laws, enacted for the pacification of the country
and, when laws were passed by the constitutional majority over his vetoes, he
made the most determined opposition, both open and convert, to them, and, for
the purpose of making that opposition effectual, he endeavored to array and did
array all the people lately in rebellion to set themselves against Congress and
against the true and loyal men, their neighbors, so that murders, assassinations,
and massacres were rife all over the southern States, which he encouraged by his
refusal to consent that a single murderer be punished, though thousands of good
men have been slain; and further, that he attempted by military orders to prevent
the execution of acts of Congress by the military commanders who were charged
therewith. These and his concurrent acts show conclusively that his attempt to
get the control of the military force of the government, by the seizing of the
Department of War, was done in pursuance of his general design, if it were possi-
ble, to overthrow the Congress of the United States; and he now claims by his
answer the right to control at his own will, for the execution of this very design,
every officer of the army, navy, civil, and diplomatic service of the United States.
He asks you here, Senators, by your solemn adjudication to confirm him in that
right, to invest him with that power, to be used with the intents and for the pur-
poses which he has already shown.
The responsibility is with you; that safeguards of the Constitution against
usurpation are in your hands; the interests and hopes of free institutions wait
upon your verdict. The House of Representatives has done its duty. We have
presented the facts in the constitutional manner; we have brought the criminal
to your bar, and demand judgment at your hands for his so great crimes.
Never again, if Andrew Johnson go quit and free this day, can the people of
this or any other country by constitutional checks or guards stay the usurpations
of executive power.
I speak, therefore, not the language of exaggeration, but the words of truth
and soberness, that the future political welfare and liberties of all men hang trem-
bling on the decision of the hour.
7. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Questions Abolitionist Support
for Female Enfranchisement, 1868
To what a depth of degradation must the women of this nation have fallen to be
willing to stand aside, silent and indifferent spectators in the reconstruction of the
nation, while all the lower stratas of manhood are to legislate in their interests,
political, religious, educational, social and sanitary, moulding to their untutored
will the institutions of a mighty continent….
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Who Are Our Friends?” The Revolution, 15 (January 1868).
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While leading Democrats have been thus favorably disposed, what have our
best friends said when, for the first time since the agitation of the question [the
enfranchisement of women], they have had an opportunity to frame their ideas
into statutes to amend the constitutions of two States in the Union.
Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips, with
one consent, bid the women of the nation stand aside and behold the salvation
of the negro. Wendell Phillips says, “one idea for a generation,” to come up in
the order of their importance. First negro suffrage, then temperance, then the
eight hour movement, then woman’s suffrage. In 1958, three generations hence,
thirty years to a generation, Phillips and Providence permitting, woman’s suffrage
will be in order. What an insult to the women who have labored thirty years for
the emancipation of the slave, now when he is their political equal, to propose to
lift him above their heads. Gerrit Smith, forgetting that our great American idea
is “individual rights,” in which abolitionists have ever based their strongest argu-
ments for emancipation, says, this is the time to settle the rights of races; unless
we do justice to the negro we shall bring down on ourselves another bloody
revolution, another four years’ war, but we have nothing to fear from woman,
she will not revenge herself!…
Horace Greeley has advocated this cause for the last twenty years, but to-day
it is too new, revolutionary for practical consideration. The enfranchisement of
woman, revolutionizing, as it will, our political, religious and social condition, is
not a measure too radical and all-pervading to meet the moral necessities of this
day and generation.
Why fear new things; all old things were once new….Welivetodonew
things! When Abraham Li ncoln issued the proclamation of emanci pation, it
was a new thing. When the Republican party g ave the ba llot to the ne gro, it
was a new thing, startling too, to the people of the South, very revolutionary
to their institutions, but Mr. Greeley did not object to all this because it
was new….
And now, while men like these have used all their influence for the last
four years, to paralyze every effort we hav e put forth to rouse the women of
the nation, to demand their true position in the reconstruction, they trium-
phantly turn to us, and say the greatest barrier in the way of your demand is
that “the women themselves do not wish to vote.” What a libel on the intelli-
gence of the women of the nineteenth century. What means the 12,000 peti-
tions presen ted by John Stuart Mill in the British Parliament from the first
women in England, demanding household suffrage? What means the late action
in Kansas, 10,000 women petitioned there for the right of suffrag e, and 9,000
votes at the last election was th e answer. What means the agitation in every
State in the Union? In the very hour when Horace Greeley brought in his ad-
verse report in the Co nstitutional Convention of New York, at least twenty
membe rs rose in their places and presented peti tions from every part of the
State, demanding woman’s suffrage. What means that eloqu ent speech of
George W. Curtis in the Convention, but to show that the ablest minds in
the State are ready for this onward step?
456 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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8. Lucy McMillan, a Former Slave in South Carolina,
Testifies About White Violence, 1871
SPARTANBURGH, SOUTH CAROLINA, July 10, 1871.
LUCY McMILLAN (colored) sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q
UESTION. Where do you live?
A
NSWER. Up in the country. I live on McMillan’s place, right at the foot of
the road.
Q
UESTION. How far is it?
A
NSWER. Twelve miles.
Q
UESTION. Are you married?
A
NSWER. I am not married. I am single now. I was married. My husband was
taken away from me and carried off twelve years ago….
Q
UESTION. How old are you now?
A
NSWER. I am called forty-six. I am forty-five or six.
Q
UESTION. Did the Ku-Klux come where you live at any time?
A
NSWER. They came there once before they burned my house down. The
way it was was this: John Hunter’s wife came to my house on
Saturday morning, and told they were going to whip me. I was
afraid of them; there was so much talk of Ku-Klux drowning people,
and whipping people, and killing them. My house was only a little
piece from the river, so I laid out at night in the woods. The Sunday
evening after Isham McCrary was whipped I went up, and a white
man, John McMillan, came along and says to me, “Lucy, you had
better stay at home, for they will whip you anyhow.” I said if they
have to, they might whip me in the woods, for I am afraid to stay
there. Monday night they came in and burned my house down; I
dodged out alongside of the road not far off, and saw them. I was
sitting right not far off, and as they came along the river I know
some of them. I know John McMillan, and Kennedy McMillan, and
Billy Bush, and John Hunter. They were all together. I was not far
off, and I saw them. They went right on to my house. When they
passed me I run further up on the hill to get out of the way of them.
They went there and knocked down and beat my house a right smart
while. And then they all got still, and directly I saw the fire rise.
Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire Into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States: South
Carolina, Volume 4 (1872).
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QUESTION. How many of these men were there?
A
NSWER. A good many; I couldn’t tell how many, but these I knew. The
others I didn’t.
Q
UESTION. Were these on foot or on horseback?
A
NSWER. These were walking that I could call the names of, but the others
were riding. I work with these boys everyday. One of them I raised
from a child, and I knew them. I have lived with them twelve years.
Q
UESTION. How were they dressed?
A
NSWER. They had just such cloth as this white cotton frock made into old
gowns; and some had black faces, and some red, and some had horns
on their heads before, and they came a-talking by me and I knew
their voices.
Q
UESTION. How far were you from where they were?
A
NSWER. Not very far. I was in the woods, squatted down, and staid still until
they passed; but then I run further up the hill.
Q
UESTION. Have you any family with you there?
A
NSWER. I had one little daughter with me. I had one grown daughter, but my
grown daughter had been up the country to my mother’s staying,
and my little girl was staying there with me.
Q
UESTION. Had you your little girl out with you?
A
NSWER. Yes, sir; I could not leave her there.
Q
UESTION. What was the reason given for burning your house?
A
NSWER. There was speaking down there last year and I came to it. They all
kept at me to go. I went home and they quizzed me to hear what
was said, and I told them as far as my senses allowed me.
Q
UESTION. Where was the speaking?
A
NSWER. Here in this town. I went on and told them, and then they all said I
was making laws; or going to have the land, and the Ku-Klux were
going to beat me for bragging that I would have land. John Hunter
told them on me, I suppose, that I said I was going to have land….
9. Father Abram Ryan Proclaims Undying Love
for the Confederate States of America, 1879
C. S. A.
Do we weep for the heroes who died for us?
Who living were true and tried for us,
And dying sleep side by side for us;—
Father Ryan’s Poems (Mobile: John L. Rapier and Company Publishers, 1879).
458 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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The Martyr-band
That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us.
Ah! fearless on many a day for us
They stood in the front of the fray for us,
And held the foeman at bay for us,
And tears should fall
Fore’er o’er all
Who fell while wearing the gray for us.
How many a glorious name for us,
How many a story of fame for us,
They left, —would it not be a blame for us,
If their memories part
From our land and heart,
And a wrong to them, and shame for us?
No—no—no—they were brave for us,
And bright were the lives they gave for us,—
The land they struggled to save for us
Will not forget
Its warriors yet
Who sleep in so many a grave for us.
On many and many a plain for us
Their blood poured down all in vain for us,
Red, rich and pure,—like a rain for us;
They bleed,—we weep,
We live,—they sleep—
“All Lost”—the only refrain for us,
But their memories e’er shall remain for us,
And their names, bright names, without stain for us,—
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The glory they won shall not wane for us,
In legend and lay
Our heroes in gray
Shall forever live over again for us.
10. Francis Miles Finch Mourns and Celebrates
Civil War Soldiers from the South and North, 1867
The Blue and the Gray
By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray….
From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray.
So with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all:
Frances M. Finch, “The Blue and the Gray: And Other Verses” (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1909), 1–3.
460 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue,
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Wet with the rain, the Blue
Wet with the rain, the Gray.
Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done,
In the storm of the years that are fading
No braver battle was won:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue,
Under the garlands, the Gray
No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.
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ESSAYS
The collapse of Reconstruction had enormous costs for the African-American
population of the South. Arguably, its failure also postponed the economic and
social recovery of the entire region until well into the twentieth century. Histor-
ians have long debated the meaning of Reconstruction and particularly the rea-
sons for its abandonment. In the first essay, Steven Hahn of the University of
Pennsylvania shows that former slaves and Confederates were both prepared to
mount an armed defense of their goals, reflecting a long tradition of Southern
violence that had previously undergirded slavery. He argues that Reconstruction
came to an end when freedmen lost the military support of the North, which
had tired of the sixteen-year conflict (1861–1877). Essentially, the freedmen
were outgunned. David W. Blight of Yale University takes a somewhat different
tack. He depicts Reconstruction as a process in which two important but incom-
patible goals vied for attention: reconciliation and emancipation. The nation
needed to heal the sectional divide in order to function as one country, yet it
had also fought the war, at least in part, to bring justice to the former slaves. As
it turned out, Southern resistance narrowed the terms on which reconciliation
was possible. The emancipationist promise of the war was stunted as a result,
and eventually forgotten in the attempt to minimize the differences between
“the Blue and the Gray.” Reconstruction became a contest over the memory
and meaning of the war. Black southerners lost.
Continuing the War: White and Black Violence
During Reconstruction
STEVEN HAHN
In March 1867, nearly two years after the Confederate armies had begun to sur-
render and more than a year after Congress had refused to seat representatives
from the former Confederate states, the mark of Radicalism was indelibly in-
scribed into the cornerstone of the reconstructed American republic. It did not
herald the draconian policies—imprisonments and executions, massive disfranch-
isement, or confiscation of landed estates—that some Republicans had advocated
and many Rebels had initially feared. And it required a combination of white
southern arrogance and vindictiveness, presidential intransigence, and mounting
African American agitation before it could be set. But with the Military Recon-
struction Acts, Congress gave the federal government unprecedented power to
reorganize the ex-Confederate South politically, imposed political disabilities on
leaders of the rebellion, and, most stunning of all, extended the elective franchise
to southern black males, the great majority of whom had been slaves. Never
Reprinted by permission of the publisher from A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South by
Steven Hahn, pp. 165, 177, 178–181, 183, 184, 186, 189, 190, 219, 224–226, 265–269, 280, 281, 286, 288–292, 307,
308, 310–312, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 2003 by the President
and Fellows of Harvard College.
462 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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