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HarpWeek
Commentary: This article refers to the failure of the Southern States to approve
the proposed Fourteenth Amendment (guaranteeing citizenship to blacks) in their state
constitutions. Therefore, Reconstruction which had been viewed as an experiment in
mid-1865 had been a decided failure from Harpers Weeklys
viewpoint. |
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WHAT NEXT?
The North Carolina Legislature, by a vote of 93 to 10 in the Lower House,
and 44 to 1 in the Upper, has rejected the Amendment. Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida have
done likewise. Governor Humphreys recommends its rejection to the Mississippi Legislature,
and Governor Orr to that of South Carolina. The Georgia Legislature would prefer a
Territorial Government, according to the telegram, rather than the Amendment; and the
President of its Senate, "amidst great applause," declared that "human
forbearance has its limits, and the worm will turn if trodden on." Mr. Raphael
Semmes, Moral Philosopher, announces, in a lecture at Galveston, that he has been at home
endeavoring to restore his State to her place in the Union without tarnishing her honor.
The Milledgeville Southern Recorder declares that "if this Union is to stand,
the rights of the South must be respected." Mr. Alexander H. Stephens is equally
strenuous against the Amendment, and for "the continuous rights of States."
Every leader of opinion, every newspaper of influence, the Legislatures and the Governors
in the unrestored States, are unanimous against the Amendment. Not a single powerful voice
in those States has been raised for it.
Meanwhile the petition of the loyal
Louisianians, signed by Governor Wells and others? the declaration of Ex-Governor Holden,
the Presidents Provisional Governor of North Carolina, and of a Committee from that
State - and the statements of the Southern Loyalist Association in Washington, all agree
that the governments of the unrestored States are in the hands of men hostile to the
National Government - that the Union men in these States are consequently oppressed and in
constant danger - that the liberty and property of the Freedmen are virtually at the mercy
of the disloyal - that justice for loyal men in the civil courts is uncertain, and
military protection inadequate. To these statements must be added the reports of great
destitution in certain districts; the general apathy or sense of insecurity which springs
from the consciousness of a radical derangement of local public affairs; the unwillingness
of capital or labor to move toward disturbed States, and the necessary paralysis of
industry. Looking at these facts, with a due knowledge of history and experience of human
nature, it is not very difficult to understand the situation with which the country is now
called to deal.
The Amendment we must consider virtually
rejected as a condition of restoration. The Presidents policy, or experiment, has
also failed. The unrestored States must therefore be considered as substantially in the
condition in which they were when the Presidential experiment began with this
advantage, however, that their real spirit has been fully revealed. Yet we would not be
unjust to those who have honestly acquiesced: who took up arms and fought; were beaten,
and own it, and now ask only that the conditions of restoration shall be just in
themselves, consonant with the spirit of the Constitution and with the national safety.
But such are not the men nor the sentiments which control the action of the unrestored
States.
In this situation, then, the first
question is, whether Congress should hope for a reaction of opinion, and for the adoption
of the Amendment by the unrestored States, and postpone further action of its own toward
restoration? But upon what ground can a change of feeling be reasonably expected? The
first response to the offer of the Amendment was the New Orleans massacre, when the
controlling opinion of the late rebel States relied upon the Executive to sweep out
Congress with a bayonet. Then came the Philadelphia August Convention, stimulating the
unrestored States to refuse the Amendment, and claiming to represent the true sentiment of
the country upon the subject. It was not surprising that those States then sneered at the
Amendment. But when the question was formally submitted to the people, and they
universally and overwhelmingly approved the Amendment as the condition of restoration; and
after the author of the Philadelphia address, which incited the States to oppose the
Amendment, told them distinctly that they must accept it or prepare for more stringent
measures, there is a general haughty refusal. Undoubtedly the country believed that
conditions so just and generous would be, if not heartily, yet at least silently accepted.
Their imperious rejection reveals a state of mind which indicates the wisdom and necessity
of other measures. The refusal of the Amendment must dispel a great deal of the doubt
which many loyal men had of the actual national necessity of more stringent and radical
measures. They perhaps believed in a kind and reasonable feeling in the unrestored States,
which it is now evident does not exist, or does not control State action.
It would appear, then, that Congress, the
only adequate authority, must begin exactly where the President did. The people of the
unrestored States rebelled, and framed new local governments, which were overthrown by the
National arms. They were left without any lawful government in their States, nor can they
lawfully acquire any except such as is initiated and approved by Congress. Congress must
therefore specify by whom the first step toward such a Government shall be taken; and when
its Constitution is finished it must be, in the judgment of Congress, of such a republican
form that the guarantee of the Union may be pledge to it. This leaves in the limbo of
political metaphysics, where they belong, all theories of Territorial condition or State
suicide. Those are abstractions which Mr. Lincoln properly described as pernicious.
Equally so is the Presidents assertion, and that of the Democrats who support him,
that the States having been prevented from seceding have all their rights unimpaired. Why,
then, did he appoint Provisional Governors, and define the qualifications of the suffrage?
There is no need of entangling ourselves
with theories and definitions. The one imperative necessity is, that the measures which
Congress takes to restore the governments of the States shall be just, wise, generous, and
in the spirit of the Constitution. And we reserve to another day comments upon the various
propositions already made.
Articles Related to the Initial Impeachment
Discussions:
The President Judged by Himself
August 25, 1866, page 530
Reconstruction and How
it Works (cartoon)
September 1, 1866, pages 552-553
Which Is The More
Illegal (cartoon)
September 8, 1866, page 569
The New Orleans Report
October 20, 1866, page 658
The New Orleans Massacre
IMarch 30, 1867, page 202
Text from Illustration of Andys Trip
October 27, 1866, pages 680-681
The Great Campaign of
66
September 29, 1866, page 610
What Next?
October 27, 1866, page 674
King Andy (cartoon)
November 3, 1866 page 696
Shall the President be
Impeached?
November 3, 1866, page 690
The Popular Will
November 24, 1866, page 738
Andy Makes a Call on
Uncle Sam, Who Rises to the Occasion (cartoon)
December 1, 1866, page 768
Impeachment and General
Butler
December 15, 1866, page 786
Congress
December 22, 1866, page 803
What Next?
December 29, 1866, page 818