The Veto Message
The Senate did wisely in
adjourning after the Veto Message was read. Legislation under such excitement is not
likely to be dignified or sagacious. That the Message was a sore disappointment to the
truest friends of the President can not be denied. Their regret may be measured by the
rejoicing of those who would fain use him for their own purposes. Whether those friends
are to be found among those who most earnestly advocated his election, or those who most
strenuously opposed it, whether those who were in bloody rebellion at the South, and those
who heartily supported them at the North are really the wisest advisers upon the great
problem of reorganization, are questions which time will adequately answer.Of the Presidents sincerity there is no
doubt. That he honestly wishes, as he says, to secure to the Freedmen the full enjoyment
of their liberty we fully believe. But he seems to us not entirely master of his own
positions. Thus he acknowledges the usefulness of the Freedmens Bureau as
established by the act of last March. But he regards it as a war measure, and war having
ceased, he is of opinion that the matter should be left to the States. Yet, if war has
ceased, why does he support General Terrys military order reversing the action of
the Virginia Legislature? So the President says that in his judgment the late rebel States
"have been fully restored, and are to be deemed to be entitled to enjoy their
constitutional rights as members of the Union." Yet if this be so, why in his late
proclamation restoring the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus did he except the
late rebel States? The Constitution defines the conditions under which the right of
suspending the privilege may be exercised. It is only when in case of rebellion or
invasion the public safety may require it. Yet he expressly exhorts us in the Message not
to suppose that the United States are in a condition of civil war.
The Freedmens Bureau is
exceptional, but it is so only because the condition of the country is exceptional. All
the Presidents acts in initiating the reorganization of the late rebel States were
exceptional. But the question of the hour is very simple in itself, however difficult it
may be to answer. How can the United States most surely and judiciously and temperately
secure the fruit of the victory they have won? Having given liberty to millions of slaves,
how can the authority that conferred it maintain its perpetuity? To suppose that a coerced
adoption of the Emancipation Amendment, without any specific method of enforcing it, will
produce this result is as idle as to imagine that a declaratory resolution would effect
it. The Constitution itself contains a guarantee of free speech for every citizen, but it
did not secure it in half the country. Why should we expect of an amendment a virtue which
does no inhere in the original instrument? The President says that a system for the
support of indigent persons was never contemplated by the authors of the Constitution.
Certainly not, and this bill is no more such a system than an appropriation for military
hospitals would be. It is a simple necessity of the situation. Shall these homeless,
landless, forlorn persons be left to the mercies of those who despise and hate them, or
shall the United States say, "We cut the bonds that bound you to the ground, and we
will protect you while you are struggling to get upon your feet?"
If the President believes that the word
of the nation sacredly pledged to the freedmen will be kept by the black codes of South
Carolina and Mississippi, his faith would remove mountains. And if he proposes to abandon
the freedmen to civil authorities created exclusively by those who think that the colored
race should be eternally enslaved, who deny the constitutionality of emancipation, and who
have now a peculiarly envenomed hostility to the whole class, we can only pray God that
the result may be what we have no doubt he honestly wishes it to be. We believe that he is
faithful to what he conceives to be the best interest of the whole country. And while upon
this question we wholly differ from him, we differ with no aspersion or suspicion.
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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