A Long Step Forward
The order of General Grant, defining the military authority of the United
States in the late rebellious States, should reassure our friends who fear that the
Government is too ready to imperil the public peace by delivering the whole authority of
those States unconditionally into the hands of a class which can not be expected to use it
in good faith.The
Generals reply to the request of Governor Parsons, of Alabama, that the national
forces should be withdrawn and the local militia armed, is also significant and sensible.
It is as follows:
"For the present, and until there is full security
for equitably maintaining the right and safety of all classes of citizens in the States
lately in rebellion, I would not recommend the withdrawal of the United States troops from
them. The number of interior garrisons might be reduced, but a movable force sufficient to
insure tranquility should be retained. While such a force is retained in the South, I
doubt the propriety of putting arms in the hands of the militia."
The bill of Senator Trumbulls
continuing the Freedmens Bureau and extending its operations to every part of the
country in which freedmen are to be found in large numbers, is the complement of these
military orders. It will undoubtedly be approved by the President and become a law.
This is another of the plain signs that neither the President nor Congress wish to make
haste unwisely, and should certainly tend to temper the acrimony of debate upon the
general subject.
Senator Trumbulls bill recognizes
two vital and fundamental truths of the situation. First, that the National Government
means to protect and secure the personal liberty which it has conferred; and second, that
it is essential the freedmen should become landholders. Without that provision every other
device will be futile.
At this moment, it should be remembered,
the freedmen, excepting those settled upon the sea islands by General Sherman, and whose
freehold Mr. Trumbulls bill confirms, are without land and without the means of
buying it. They are helpless in the midst of a population which is generally hostile to
them, and they have no chance of livelihood except from the landowners who may choose to
employ them. Any landholder may say to them: "You are free to go. I do not wish to
employ you. Get off my land." That all will not and do not say this, is true. But
vast numbers do. And the laborer has no remedy. He must "move on," and beg,
steal, or starve. The tragedy of his situation can hardly be exaggerated; and although the
feeling against him may mellow with the lapse of time, and although the necessities of the
case will gradually persuade the landholders not to quarrel with their bread and butter,
yet meanwhile, under these winter skies, and among those wintry hearts, the suffering of
the freedmen is terrible and incalculable, and the duty of the country is plain and
imperative.
The freedmen are placed by General
Grants timely order under the protection of the military power. But that power can
not feed them, nor house them, nor enable them to work and be paid for working. Mr.
Trumbulls bill authorizes the President to reserve for them 3,000,000 acres of good,
unoccupied land in Florida, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Each laborer or family is to have
forty acres at a rent agreed upon by the Commissioner and the freedmen. Afterward the
tenants may buy the land at a price to be named by the Commissioner and approved by the
President. Meanwhile the pauper freedmen are to be provided with such lands as the United
States may buy in any district, and necessary schools and asylums are to be built upon
them; while as the paupers become productive laborers the land may be sold to them under
fair conditions.
The necessity of immediate and decisive
action upon the subject is urgent. Give the freedmen land from which they can not be
expelled; protect their rights against all aggressors by the national power; and Time, the
great mediator and educator, will gradually show the present class landholders in the late
rebel States that their interest is one with that of their late slaves, now become
citizens; while the occupancy of land, the laws of labor, and the education for which the
freedmen are so anxious and so ripe will develop the self-respecting and independent
manhood which will fit them for the political power which can not long be withheld.
Articles Relating to Johnson's First Vetoes:
A Long Step
Forward
January 27, 1866, page 50
Congress
February 10, 1866, page 83
Education of the
Freedmen
February 10, 1866, page 83
The Veto Message
March 3, 1866, page 130
The Freedmens
Bureau
March 10, 1866, page 146
The Presidents Speech
March 10, 1866, page 147
The Political
Situation
April 14, 1866, page 226
The Civil Rights
Bill
April 14, 1866, page 226
The Civil Rights
Bill
April 21, 1866, page 243
The Congressional
Plan of Reorganization
May 12, 1866, page 290
The Trial of the
Government
May 26, 1866, page 322
Making Treason
Odious
June 2, 1866, page 338
The Final Report of
the Reconstruction Committee
June 23, 1866, page 387
The Report of the
Congressional Committee
June 23, 1866, page 386
The Case Stated
August 4, 1866, page 482
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