SPRATS AND VETOES
There is a very old story of which President Johnsons vetoes are
sure to remind every one who ever heard it. A man and his wife quarreled at the table
about a certain fish. Were they sprats or smelts? The wife vehemently declared for sprats,
until in the violence of her action and gesticulation she broke down her chair and sank
upon the floor. But as she fell, not knowing what fate was in reserve, she shouted
triumphantly, "Sprats! Sprats! If I die for it!" So, in the long debate between
the President and the country, he will not make even a sign of surrender. Congress
declaring that rebel States shall be restored only upon certain conditions enacts laws and
submits them to the Executive. His argument is long since outworn, but for the twelfth
time, on Saturday, the 23d March, he retorted that the States were in the Union and
Congress was a usurper: "Sprats! Sprats! If I die for it!"As he was the first so the President seems resolved to be the last
serious obstacle to a reconstruction of the Union. He came into office, metaphorically
speaking, foaming at the mouth. He was so tremendous in his denunciations of treason, and
smiled so savagely that "rebels must take back seats" in the work of
reconstruction, that sensible men were afraid that wisdom was to be swallowed up in wrath,
and revenge defy reason. But although the roaring was appalling the author of the noise
soon whispered that he was only Snug the joiner, and that we need not fear that anything
would happen. Instantly the men who had supposed when they were conquered that they must
yield began to hope that they might recover by craft what they had failed to retain by
force. Instantly loyal men were compelled by the treatment they received from the
Government and the late rebels, to ask what they had gained by their loyalty? Instantly
the conquered citizens began to sneer that the Government was afraid of them, and did not
understand its own victory or dare to use it. And this restless insolence rapidly poisoned
the public mind in the Southern States, carefully fostered by the President and Mr.
Seward, until it actually mastered, through its Northern supporters, the Doolittle
Philadelphia Convention, which was, upon the whole, as ludicrous as it was lachrymose, and
is by far the most utterly absurd Convention in our political history.
This hope at the South of recovering
power without paying any penalty for one of the greatest crimes in history?
for so mankind must always regard a bloody war to destroy a mild Government not charged
with oppression, and to destroy it in order to perpetuate human Slavery? was due to the
President. He declaimed, he protested, he raged against the conscience and common-
sense of the country until with one vast indignant voice the country replied that it had
won a victory and meant to secure it. But sprats, sprats was the reply. Veto after veto
fell, until Congress passed a simple act reorganizing the rebel States upon Republican
principles, and prescribing the details of the method. From that moment the future was
clear. Men like Ex-Governor Brown, Wade Hampton, and General Longstreet, who did the hard
work of the rebellion, and who, educated by Slavery, understand when aye means aye and no
no, begin at once to counsel submission and co-operation. They understand that their cause
is lost, and they act accordingly.
The Presidents last veto is the
weakest of all the vetoes. The bill secures equal protection in life and liberty by the
only power which experience has shown to be equal to the occasion and it provides for a
Government based upon all the people, excluding certain rebels, at the pleasure of
Congress. Nothing simpler, more necessary, more humane, more American and Republican,
could be devised. But the President throws at it the feeble remnants of his old argument.
He even has the hardihood to declare in his extremity that "in all these States there
are existing Constitutions formed in the accustomed way by the people." It is the
last expiring shriek of "Sprats! Sprats! If I die for it!"
Articles Related to Military Reconstruction:
News Items
January 19, 1867, page 35
Impeachment
January 26, 1867, page 50
Congress and
Impeachment
February 16, 1867, page 98
The Probability of
Impeachment
February 23, 1867, page 114
The Louisiana Bill
March 2, 1867, page 130
Reconstruction
March 9, 1867, page 146
The Thirty-Ninth
Congress
March 9, 1867, page 146
The Veto of the Reconstruction Bill
March 16, 1867, page 162
The Fortieth Congress
March 30, 1867, page 195
The Fortieth Congress
April 6, 1867, page 211
Sprats and Vetoes
April 6, 1867, page 210
Adjournment of Congress
April 13, 1867, page 226
Prometheus Bound
March 2, 1867, page 137
The Result
March 30, 1867, page 194
The Southern Commanders
April 6, 1867, page 218
The Debate upon Impeachment
March 23, 1867, page 178
We Accept the Situation (cartoon)
April 13, 1867, page 240
The Big Thing (cartoon)
April 20, 1867, page 256
The End of Impeachment
June 22, 1867, page 386
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