THE VETO OF THE RECONSTRUCTION BILL
If the moderation and propriety of tone which mark the Veto Messages of
the President were ever to be found in his speeches he would be at least respected by the
country, although his views might be rejected. The Messages, indeed, have no individual
character, no raciness and quaintness, like those of his predecessor, but they are
decorous and inoffensive, and becoming his position. They are all disheartening, however,
from the narrow technical grasp and total want of the vital comprehension which the
situation demands. They are the special pleas of a dull advocate who has taken a side; not
the words of a statesman who regards only the commonwealth.The veto of the Reconstruction bill illustrates what we say. It is
a long paper, but it begs the whole question from beginning to end. There is not a good
suggestion in it which is not wholly inapplicable. Being asked what he thinks of an eagle,
the President proceeds to prove that a buzzard is not a nightingale. He makes an assertion
contradicting the fundamental assertion of the bill, and goes on with his argument from
premises which no one but himself concedes. The bill declares that there is no lawful
government in any of the late rebel States. The President replies that "to pronounce
the supreme law-making power of an established State illegal is to say that law itself is
unlawful." What is an established South Carolina? If not, how is there any
establishment there which is valid in the view of the National Government? And if the
Presidents will established the State, where does the Constitution, which he so
earnestly commends, grant him the authority? Having thus assumed the whole case the
President sweeps on with generalizations which have no relation to the facts, and
statements which are disproved by the most ample evidence.
The President argues at great length that
the Constitution does not authorize military depostisms in the States of the Union in a
time of peace. He shows in detail that despotic will is the will of the despot. He quotes
the late Indiana decision of the Supreme Court that in a time of peace the only valid
military law is the Congressional law for the government of the army, and declares that
the bill denies the right of trial by jury to nine millions of citizens. He points out
that the bill enfranchises the negroes, who have not asked to be enfranchised, and that
the Constitution gives no power to Congress to legislate upon suffrage in the States. Then
he shows that the bill invalidates the governments of ten States which have already
adopted the Emancipation Amendment, and that the Amendment falls if their assent was
illegal. Finally, he celebrates the excellence of the Constitution itself, and its
adequacy to every emergency.
Throughout this long document there is no
sign of the least consciousness that the country is not at peace, but is settling the
conditions of peace. It is not, indeed, bello flagrante, but it is bello
cessante. The President has proclaimed that the rebellion has ceased, but that no more
makes peace than his appointment of Provisional Governors establishes States. Congress
alone can declare war and raise and support armies and navies, and Congress alone
therefore can say when war has ceased. The President as usual returns to the Congressional
declaration of July, 1861, that the war was not for subjugation, and he argues that it was
merely the suppression of an insurrection. But the Supreme Court, upon which he relies,
has decided that it was a war, and when a insurrection has proceeded upon the scale of the
late war it is for Congress, and Congress alone, to decide when it has ended. The
President merely repeats Alexander Stephens doctrine of the continuous right of
States. There has been a riot, he says, like the Shay rebellion in Massachusetts, like the
whisky insurrection in Pennsylvania, and the riot being suppressed, every thing reverts to
its previous condition. And this is urged by a man who insisted, after the surrender of
Lee, that "traitors should take a back seat in the work of restoration," and who
declared that if there were five thousand men in Tennessee loyal to the Constitution, to
freedom, and to justice, they should absolutely control the work of reorganization, while
every rebel should be "subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored to
citizenship." The President who says that the rebellion of a State does not destroy
or interrupt its relations in the Union is the same President who, within two years,
required the rebel States to adopt the Emancipation Amendment, to repudiate their rebel
debt, and to disavow their secession ordinances as conditions of their return to the
Union.
Every argument of the Veto Message is
fatal to the policy which the President has pursued; every assertion is contrary to the
express evidence, and every appeal to the Constitution is futile from a man who denies to
the people in Congress a power which he alone has not hesitated to exercise. It is plain
that the President has nothing more to say. His position has been as fully and ably
explained as it can be, and it is utterly and indignantly repudiated by the people. Since,
then, his oath binds him to execute the laws, and since the most vital laws, in his
judgment, are unconstitutional, why does he consent to be an instrument of what he
considers fatally destructive measures? He tells us that he is a patriot. Do patriots
remain in place when they think that they are to be used to destroy the liberties of their
country?
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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