DOCSLIB.ORG

The Principal Actors in the Drama of Reconstruction Were President Abraham Lincoln, Radical Republicans Sen

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Principal Actors in the Drama of Reconstruction Were President Abraham Lincoln, Radical Republicans Sen LINCOLN SUMNER STEVENS w JOHNSON w GRANT HAYES The principal actors in the drama of Reconstruction were President Abraham Lincoln, Radical Republicans Sen. Charles Sumner of Massa- chusetts and Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, President Andrew Johnson, and President Rutherford B. Hayes, elected in 1876. Reconstruction The Reconstruction era after the Civil War has been called "the bloody battleground of American historians1'-so fierce have been the scholarly arguments over the missed opportunities fol- lowing black emancipation, the readmission of Southern states to the Union, and other critical developments of the 1865-1877 period. The successes and failures of Reconstruction retain a special relevance to the civil rights issues of the present day. Here, three noted historians offer their interpretations: Armstead L. Robinson reviews the politics of Reconstruction; James L. Roark analyzes the postwar Southern plantation econ- omy; and James M. McPherson compares the first and second Reconstructions. THE POLITICS OF RECONSTRUCTION by Armstead L. Robinson The first Reconstruction was one of the most critical and turbulent episodes in the American experience. Few periods in the nation's history have produced greater controversy or left a greater legacy of unresolved social issues to afflict future gener- ations. The postwar period-from General Robert E. Lee's surren- der at Appomattox in April 1865 through President Rutherford B. Hayes's inauguration in March 1877-was marked by bitter partisan politics. In essence, the recurring question was how the @ 1978 by Armstead L. Robinson The Wilson QuarterlyISpring 1978 107 RECONSTRUCTION Northern states would follow up their hardwon victory in the Civil War. The downfall of the Confederacy not only assured the permanence of the federal union but also confirmed the destruc- tion of the "peculiar institution" of slavery. How to readmit 11 former Confederate states and how to guarantee the rights of 3.5 million former slaves became the central issues of Reconstruction. To the extent that our society, a century later, continues to experience racial crises, and that our national politics must reckon with the remnants of a self- consciously "Solid South," it is clear that the first Reconstruc- tion failed to resolve these central issues completely. Thus, the ambiguous heritage of this failure remains relevant to contem- porarv America. he partisan battles in Washington during Reconstruction raised very basic questions, questions then focused around Southern readmission and emancipation. The struggle between Congress and the President for control over the process of read- mission foreshadowed the subsequent political crises generated by conflicts between an expansive modern Presidency and the statutory powers of the legislative branch. Reconstruction also produced America's first truly national political scandals, especially the Credit Mobilier and the Whis- key Ring episodes. These scandals forced the country to wrestle with the conflict arising when certain practices condoned in the world of business were transferred to the arena of public trust. And, lastly, Reconstruction raised the question of how far the government would go in the resolution of racial inequality in America. Confusion and conflict marred the nation's post-Civil War years. What renders Reconstruction such an enigma is the per- vasive sense that somehow American society bungled the proc- ess of national reconciliation. So complete was the Northern military victory in 1865 that the way seemed clear to make good on Abraham Lincoln's promise, in his second inaugural, of reunification "with malice toward none and charity toward all." Yet malice proved to be the stock in trade of many Reconstruc- tion politicians, and charity is difficult to discern amid the fury Arrnstead L. Robinson,31, is assistant professor of history at the Univer- sity of California, Los Angeles. Born in New Orleans, he was educated at Yale (B.A. 1968) and the University of Rochester (Ph.D. 1976). Before joining the UCLA faculty, he taught at the State University ofNew York. He is the editor of Black Studies in the University: A Symposium (1969)and author of Bitter Fruits of Bondage: Slavery's Demise and the Collapse of the Confederacy, 1861-1 865 (forthcoming). The Wilson QuarterlyISpring 1978 108 RECONSTRUCTION of Ku Klux Klan violence. Far from generating a national politi- cal consensus, Reconstruction was marked by confusing discon- tinuities as first Lincoln, then Andrew Johnson, then the Radical Republicans, and then Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes took turns directing and misdirecting Washington's ef- forts to cope with the ebb and flow of the intertwined national and local struggles over readmission and emancipation. We normally think of Reconstruction as beginning with the end of the Civil War. However, the political struggles of the postwar period make no sense whatsoever unless viewed as part of a sustained debate whose roots lay in the war itself. Both emancipation and readmission influenced the conduct of the Civil War. Indeed, much of the postwar bickering between the President and Congress must be understood as an attempt to resolve questions raised during the war but left unresolved at its conclusion. The Spoils of War The struggle between Lincoln and some of the Republicans in Congress for control over the readmission process opened almost as soon as the war began. In July 1861, a sharp debate arose over a proposal by Illinois Republican Senator Lyman Trumbull that would have given Congress the right to control military governments established in areas recaptured from the Confederacy. The battle over emancipation followed a similar course. The prominent New York abolitionist Lewis Tappan, for example, published a pamphlet on May 14, 1861 that insisted, 'Slavery is the cause of the present war . What then is the remedy? . Immediate Universal Emancipation." Thus, pressure from antislavery radicals to transform Lin- coln's struggle to save the Union into a war against slavery went hand in hand with congressional insistence that the legislature ought to control readmission of the rebel states. Paralleling the military struggle to win the Civil War were a series of disputes about how best to conduct it and how to get the most from the hoped-for victory. The wartime argument within the ruling Republican Party over the readmission question turned upon the theoretical issue of how to describe the process of secession. Radicals such as Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania argued that secession ought to be viewed as "state suicide," while Lincoln insisted that se- cession was the result of treasonous political leadership. Be- neath these semantic differences lay the substance of their dis- The Wilson QuarterlyISpring 1978 109 RECONSTRUCTION pute. For if the state suicide theory prevailed, then Articles I and IV* of the Constitution gave Congress the obligation to establish the terms upon which these former states could be re-created. But if the treasonous leadership concept was accepted, then all a president had to do was use his power as commander in chief to punish the traitors and restore civil order. Having done so, he could then empower loyal Union men to revive the state and restore it to its former status. By recognizing a phantom government headed by Francis H. Pierpont at Wheeling as the legitimate government of Vir- ginia, Lincoln actually began presidential Reconstruction in June 1861. This regime had no power. However, Lincoln hoped that the Northern army would install Pierpont as Virginia's governor as soon as Richmond fell. But the Confederacy blocked this plan by clinging stubbornly to its national capital. In the end, Lincoln found himself compelled in late 1862 to accept the creation by Congress of a new state, West Virginia, which was carved out of Virginia's territory. Pierpont was replaced. The new state clearly owed its legitimacy to congressional action and not to presidential dispensation. Lincoln's inability to coerce Congress on the readmission question dogged his wartime Reconstruction efforts. He could and did appoint military governors to manage civil affairs in states conquered by the Union army. However, he could not compel Congress to accept representatives elected by these gov- ernments. And as long as Congress refused to accept these repre- sentatives, the states would continue to be excluded from the federal government. The Price of Readmission The process of wartime presidential Reconstruction went furthest in Louisiana because the Union army managed to cap- ture the state's capital at Baton Rouge as well as its major commercial center, New Orleans. In Louisiana, representatives elected in 1863 were actually seated by Congress. Heartened by apparent congressional acquiescence, Lincoln proceeded in December 1863 to promulgate his famous 10 per- cent amnesty plan, a plan that offered readmission whenever a number of voters equal to 10 percent of the state's vote in the 'Article I, Section 5-"Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifica- tions of its own members. ." Article IV, Section 3-"New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdic- tion of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress." The
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Note Cards 651. Clara Barton Launched the American Red Cross
    Note Cards 651. Clara Barton Launched the American Red Cross in 1881. An "angel" in the Civil War, she treated the wounded in the field. 652. Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan Former Confederate states would be readmitted to the Union if 10% of their citizens took a loyalty oath and the state agreed to ratify the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery. Not put into effect because Lincoln was assassinated. 653. Assassination of April 14, 1865 While sitting in his box at Ford's Theatre watching "Our American Cousin", President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. 654. John Wilkes Booth An actor, planned with others for six months to abduct Lincoln at the start of the war, but they were foiled when Lincoln didn't arrive at the scheduled place. April 14, 1865, he shot Lincoln at Ford's Theatre and cried, "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" ("Thus always to tyrants!") When he jumped down onto the stage his spur caught in the American flag draped over the balcony and he fell and broke his leg. He escaped on a waiting horse and fled town. He was found several days later in a barn. He refused to come out; the barn was set on fire. Booth was shot, either by himself or a soldier. 655. Ex Parte Milligan 1866 - Supreme Court ruled that military trials of civilians were illegal unless the civil courts are inoperative or the region is under marshall law. 656. Radical Republicans After the Civil War, a group that believed the South should be harshly punished and thought that Lincoln was sometimes too compassionate towards the South.
    [Show full text]
  • William Seward and the Trent Affair
    William Seward and the Trent Affair http://civilwar150.longwood.edu In late December, 1861, the Trent Affair continued to dominate national and international news, with President Lincoln and his secretary of state, William Seward, both playing major roles in ending the controversy. Born in Orange County, New York in 1801, William H. Seward was one of the most prominent anti-slavery politicians of the mid-1800s, first as a Whig and then as a Republican. He had studied law at Union College in 1820 and within a few years entered the world of politics. Starting in 1830, Seward served in the New York state senate, and in 1838 he became governor of New York for the first of two terms. Even though Seward was born into a slave owning family, his abolitionist stance made him well known and in 1849 and 1855 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. In the aftermath of the Compromise of 1850 he had gained prominence for his “Higher Law” speech opposing the expansion of slavery. Seward hoped to obtain the Republican nomination for president in 1860, and was disappointed when the party chose Abraham Lincoln as its standard bearer. After Lincoln won the presidential election, Seward accepted the position of Secretary of State, hoping he could influence the less- experienced president. Seward and Lincoln clashed over various issues during the early months of the administration, but he eventually developed into an able and loyal cabinet member. In early November 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes of the U.S.S. San Jacinto had seized Confederate diplomats James Mason and John Slidell from British ship Trent.
    [Show full text]
  • Abraham Lincoln Papers
    Abraham Lincoln papers 1 From Britton A. Hill to Abraham Lincoln , October 3, 1864 1 Britton A. Hill practiced law in Washington with Orville Hickman Browning after the latter had been unseated in the Senate in 1863 by a Democratic Illinois General Assembly. Confidential Washington Oct 3d, 1864 Mr President; 2 It gives me great pleasure to state, that Mr Browning has been misrepresented as to his speech 3 4 in Quincy— “He merely said, that if Genl. Fremont or Genl McClellan were elected he would not commit suicide; but would endeavor to support the govt faithfully, as he had done under your 5 administration”. He has spoken always in favor of yr administration & reelection. 2 Orville H. Browning 3 At the end of May 1864 a convention primarily composed of Radical Republicans and German-Americans met at Cleveland and nominated General John C. Fremont for the presidency. Fremont withdrew from the campaign in September. 4 General George B. McClellan was the 1864 presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. 5 Republicans were eager to obtain Browning's endorsement, but his support for Lincoln's reelection was lukewarm at best. In an October 3, 1864 letter to William D. Henderson, Browning stated his desire to see the rebellion crushed, however he refused to endorse either Lincoln or McClellan. While Browning admired McClellan's patriotism, he could not support the platform of the party that had nominated him. This refusal to support the so-called “peace plank” of the Democratic platform was the closest Browning came to an endorsement of Lincoln. Browning's letter to Henderson was published in the newspapers and Republican wags spun it as an endorsement.
    [Show full text]
  • H.Doc. 108-224 Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007
    “The Negroes’ Temporary Farewell” JIM CROW AND THE EXCLUSION OF AFRICAN AMERICANS FROM CONGRESS, 1887–1929 On December 5, 1887, for the first time in almost two decades, Congress convened without an African-American Member. “All the men who stood up in awkward squads to be sworn in on Monday had white faces,” noted a correspondent for the Philadelphia Record of the Members who took the oath of office on the House Floor. “The negro is not only out of Congress, he is practically out of politics.”1 Though three black men served in the next Congress (51st, 1889–1891), the number of African Americans serving on Capitol Hill diminished significantly as the congressional focus on racial equality faded. Only five African Americans were elected to the House in the next decade: Henry Cheatham and George White of North Carolina, Thomas Miller and George Murray of South Carolina, and John M. Langston of Virginia. But despite their isolation, these men sought to represent the interests of all African Americans. Like their predecessors, they confronted violent and contested elections, difficulty procuring desirable committee assignments, and an inability to pass their legislative initiatives. Moreover, these black Members faced further impediments in the form of legalized segregation and disfranchisement, general disinterest in progressive racial legislation, and the increasing power of southern conservatives in Congress. John M. Langston took his seat in Congress after contesting the election results in his district. One of the first African Americans in the nation elected to public office, he was clerk of the Brownhelm (Ohio) Townshipn i 1855.
    [Show full text]
  • Diplomacy and the American Civil War: the Impact on Anglo- American Relations
    James Madison University JMU Scholarly Commons Masters Theses, 2020-current The Graduate School 5-8-2020 Diplomacy and the American Civil War: The impact on Anglo- American relations Johnathan Seitz Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/masters202029 Part of the Diplomatic History Commons, Public History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Seitz, Johnathan, "Diplomacy and the American Civil War: The impact on Anglo-American relations" (2020). Masters Theses, 2020-current. 56. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/masters202029/56 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the The Graduate School at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses, 2020-current by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Diplomacy and the American Civil War: The Impact on Anglo-American Relations Johnathan Bryant Seitz A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History May 2020 FACULTY COMMITTEE: Committee Chair: Dr. Steven Guerrier Committee Members/ Readers: Dr. David Dillard Dr. John Butt Table of Contents List of Figures..................................................................................................................iii Abstract............................................................................................................................iv Introduction.......................................................................................................................1
    [Show full text]
  • The World of Ulysses S. Grant a Book Series from Southern Illinois University Press Edited by John F
    The World of Ulysses S. Grant A BOOK SERIES FROM SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS EDITED BY JOHN F. MARSZALEK AND TIMOTHY B. SMITH After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant To further our understanding of Ulysses S. Grant became the most popular American alive. He symbolized the through a close analysis of his life and work, this innovative Federal victory, the destruction of slavery, and the preserva- book series provides a thorough examination of particular tion of the Union. Grant remained a popular topic among events and periods of Grant’s life in order to present impor- historians who have written about those years, but over time tant insights into his generalship, presidency, influence and scholars and the public removed Grant from his place in the reputation. Books in the series explore Grant’s character pantheon of leading Americans. As the decades passed and as well as his role in American history. By delving into the attitudes toward the Civil War and war itself changed, the deeper detail and context of what Grant did and saw, this public’s perception of Grant devolved: no longer a national series aims to break new ground and provide the histori- idol, Grant was instead written off as a heartless general and cal profession and the general reading public with accurate, corrupt president. In the early twenty-first century, however, readable perspectives showing Grant’s significant contribu- Grant’s place in history is being reinterpreted. Now he is in- tions to the world he lived in and to the years that followed.
    [Show full text]
  • Reconstruction What Went Wrong?
    M16_UNGE0784_04_SE_C16.qxd 1/25/10 11:39 AM Page 355 16 Reconstruction What Went Wrong? 1863 Lincoln announces his Ten-Percent Plan for reconstruction 1863–65 Arkansas and Louisiana accept Lincoln’s conditions, but Congress does not readmit them to the Union 1864 Lincoln vetoes Congress’s Wade–Davis Reconstruction Bill 1865 Johnson succeeds Lincoln; The Freedmen’s Bureau overrides Johnson’s veto of the Civil Rights Act; Johnson announces his Reconstruction plan; All-white southern legislatures begin to pass Black Codes; The Thirteenth Amendment 1866 Congress adopts the Fourteenth Amendment, but it is not ratified until 1868; The Ku Klux Klan is formed; Tennessee is readmitted to the Union 1867 Congress passes the first of four Reconstruction Acts; Tenure of Office Act; Johnson suspends Secretary of War Edwin Stanton 1868 Johnson is impeached by the House and acquitted in the Senate; Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana are readmitted to the Union; Ulysses S. Grant elected president 1869 Woman suffrage associations are organized in response to women’s disappointment with the Fourteenth Amendment 1870 Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia are readmitted to the Union 1870, 1871 Congress passes Force Bills 1875 Blacks are guaranteed access to public places by Congress; Mississippi redeemers successfully oust black and white Republican officeholders 1876 Presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden 1877 Compromise of 1877: Hayes is chosen as president, and all remaining federal troops are withdrawn from the South By 1880 The share-crop system of agriculture is well established in the South 355 M16_UNGE0784_04_SE_C16.qxd 1/25/10 11:39 AM Page 356 356 Chapter 16 • Reconstruction n the past almost no one had anything good to say about Reconstruction, the process by which the South was restored to the Union and the nation returned to peacetime pursuits and Irelations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Redeemers
    CHAPTER I THE REDEEMERS y honest genealogy of the ruling family of Southern Demo• crats would reveal a strain of mixed blood. The mixture A sprang from a forced union with the house that had been Democracy's bitter rival for the throne. A Mississippian once whimsically acknowledged this union. "A few years after the war," he wrote, "all lovers of good government in the South concluded to celebrate a marriage. The high contracting parties were Whiggism and Democracy and the ceremony took place in 1875, though the betrothal may antedate that time .... As is usual in such cases the parties have now one and the same name, but the Whig party is no more dead than is one of our fair damsels, because she has concluded to cast her lot with the man of her choice for weal or for woe." 1 The fact was that instead of assuming the submissive role sug• gested by a change of name, Whiggery often took the dominant position-along with the bulk of desirable offices. A North Caro• lina editor who described himself as one of the "unterrified Democ• racy" boasted that "the Democratic nominees for Governor since the war had been Worth, a Whig; Ashe, a Whig; Merrimon, a Whig; Vance, a Whig; and Jarvis, who was too young before the War to have had much political leaning one way or another." The Democrats of the First North Carolina District had in that period nominated five men for Congress, "every one of them former Whigs," and the state supreme court was "composed of three ster• ling Democrats, all former Whigs." By 1884 it appeared that "the Democrats of today admire Henry Clay just as much as the men of 1Ja ckson Clarion, September 19, 1883.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Ingersoll: the ^Aristocrat As Copperhead
    Charles Ingersoll: The ^Aristocrat as Copperhead HE INGERSOLL FAMILY is one of America's oldest. The first Ingersoll came to America in 1629, just nine years after the T^Mayflower. The first Philadelphia Ingersoll was Jared Inger- soll, who came to the city in 1771 as presiding judge of the King's vice-admiralty court. Previously, he had been the King's colonial agent and stamp master in Connecticut. During the Revolution, Jared remained loyal to the Crown. He stayed in Philadelphia for the first two years of the war, but in 1777, when he and other Tories were forced to leave, he returned to Connecticut, where he lived quietly until his death in 1781.1 Jared's son, Jared, Jr., was the first prominent Philadelphia Inger- soll. He came to Philadelphia with his father in 1771, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1778. Unlike his father, Jared, Jr., wholeheartedly supported the Revolution. Subsequently, he was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a member of the city council, city solicitor, attorney general of Pennsylvania, and United States District Attorney. Politically, he was an ardent Fed- eralist, but politics and affairs of state were never his prime interest; his real interest was the law, and most of his time and energy was devoted to his legal practice.2 Jared, Jr.'s, son, Charles Jared Ingersoll, was probably the most interesting of the Philadelphia Ingersolls. Like his father, grand- father, and most of the succeeding generations of Ingersolls, Charles Jared was a lawyer. He began a practice in Philadelphia in 1802, but devoted much of his time to politics.
    [Show full text]
  • Episode 113: a Place Worse Than Hell Week of December 2 – 8, 1862
    Episode 113: A Place Worse Than Hell Week of December 2 – 8, 1862 http://civilwar150.longwood.edu “If there is a worse place than hell,” Lincoln told a visitor in December 1862, “I am in it.” The fall state and congressional elections had not gone well. Radical Republicans, angered that the President had remained loyal to McClellan so long, failed to campaign wholeheartedly, leaving the field to the Democrats, who accused the administration of incompetence on the battlefield and of unconstitutional abuse of its power, both in curbing dissent and in daring to speak of freeing slaves. Asked for his reaction to all this bad news, Lincoln said he felt like the boy who stubbed his toe – he was too big to cry, and it hurt too much to laugh. “The fact is that the country is done for unless something is done at once…..” said Senator Zachariah Chandler. “The President is a weak man, too weak for the occasion, and those fool or traitor generals are wasting time and yet more precious blood in indecisive battles and delays.” Rumors circulated that Lincoln would resign in favor of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and that McClellan would somehow be recalled to Washington to assume dictatorial power. This attack on his leadership by men of his own party at such a critical time deeply distressed Lincoln: “We are now on the brink of destruction,” he told an aide. “It appears to me that the Almighty is against us.” Generally the public press supported the President. The Washington Chronicle saw “a perfect balance of thoroughly sound faculties, great calmness of temper, firmness of purpose, supreme moral principle and intense patriotism”.
    [Show full text]
  • “Sunset” Cox and the Etheridge Conspiracy of 1863
    Power Grab: “Sunset” Cox and the Etheridge Conspiracy of 1863 By Fergus M. Bordewich The National Capital Washington DC, winter 1863-64, just after "Freedom" had been installed Shortly after noon on the afternoon of December 2, 1863 workmen hoisted the classical head of a goddess over the scree of construction detritus, blocks of marble, and thousands of expectant, freezing citizens three hundred feet to the top of the Capitol’s dome, and lowered it onto the shoulders of the cast-iron effigy of Freedom. Her figure, it was hoped, would gaze forever over the Federal City with its multitudes of battle-worn soldiers, ragged contrabands, government clerks, and harried politicians, and beyond them toward a nation soon to be triumphantly reunited by the armies of the Union. Cannon boomed and onlookers huzzahed as the head settled into place. Beneath the magnificent new dome, however, all was not well. In the marble halls below, a parliamentary coup was afoot that threatened to unravel the coalition that had steered the nation through almost three stormy years of war. Wrote an anxious Rep. Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, “I can think of nothing but a Bull Run so disastrous to our cause as that they might hear in Richmond and abroad that our own House of Representatives was in a state of revolution.” In keeping with the laws of the time, the new Thirty-Eighth Congress that had been elected in 1862 was only now, more than a year later, being seated. Anti-administration House Democrats had made substantial and worrisome gains, gaining twenty-seven seats in the House of Representatives.
    [Show full text]
  • The Crime Against Kansas. the Apologies for The
    THE CHIME AGAINST KANSAS. THE APOLOGIES FOR THE CRIME, THE TRUE REMEDY. SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 19th and 20th May, 1856. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY. CLEYELAND, OHIO: . JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. NEW YOKE: SHELDON, BLAEEMAN & CO. 1856. /? (^ /Lo.^-, - ^'^<^'^^ THE CRIME AGAIKST KANSAS. THE APOLOaiES FOK THE CRIME. THE TRUE REMEDY. SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNEE, IN T H S SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 19th and 20th May, 1856. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR, & WORTHINGTON. NEW YORK : SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO 1856. In the Senate, 13th March, 1856, Mr, Douglas, from the Committee on Territories, presented and read a very long Report on affairs in Kansas. Mr. CoLLAMER also presented and read a Minority Report. As soon as the reading was completed, Mr. Sumner took the floor, and made the following remarks : ]Mr. Somner. In those two reports, the whole subject is presented character- istically on both sides. In the report of the majority, the true issue is smoth- ered ; in that of the minority, the true issue stands forth as a pillar of fire to guide the country. The first report proceeds from four senators ; but against it I put, fearlessly, the report signed by a single senator [Mr. Collamer], to whom I offer my thanks for this service. Let the two go abroad together. Error is harmless, while reason is left free to combat it. I have no desire to precipitate the debate on this important question, under which the country already shakes from side to side, and which threatens to scatter from its folds civil war.
    [Show full text]