Mr. DAVIS. Reconstruction. SPEECH OF HON. THOS. T. DAVIS, of NEWYORK, February 13, 1867, Upon the bill to provide for the more efficient government of the rebellious States. Mr. Speaker, it is clearly the duty of Congress to do whatever it may for the restoration of harmony among the States of the ision and of prosperity to the whole republic. p Ten States, once independent, once bound by the silken and beneficent ties of constitutional restraint to the Federal Union, no longer answer to the roll call in the Halls of congress; practically they are excluded from the enjoyment of those privileges which the constitution was intended to secure. The fact that these States, or their representatives, withdrew from Congress was no fault of the loyal States of the Union. The withdrawal left, of necessity, the administration of the Government and the conduct of the war that followed rebellion, in the hands of the loyal States and of the Union party, which alone sustained the administration of the government; and when the rebellion was suppressed, the duty of restoring the insurrectionary States clearly belonged to the Union party of the country. The rebels could not claim a right at once, unrepentant and unfor given, to aid in carrying on a Government which for 4 years they had in every mode of honorable and dishonorable warfare attempted to destroy; nor could the Democratic party, as such, having as a political organization pronounced the war a failure, and that peace ought to be attained by the sacrifice of all for which the war was prosecuted, solicit a a prominent place in the work of restoration or reconstruction. But, Mr. Speaker, the Union party, in its work of reconstruction, is bound to regard the organic law of the Republic, and so far as possible to conform to those republican principles which alone, impressed upon the laws and institutions of the country, give value to its Government. Nothing can excuse the disre rd of these duties save absolute necessity. !he Constitution enjoins upon Congress the duty of guarantying a form of government to each State of the Union, and this means a representative government, based upon just and equal laws and conferring equal rights and protection before its laws upon all citizens. It means no government of pure military force, where the edicts of a military chief are substituted for the body of the civil law, and the will perhaps of a single man, responsible to no power and bound by no restraint save his own volition, is the government and law of 9 million people. Yet, sir, this bill, as now introduced and advocated here, which proposes “to provide for the more efficient government of the insurrectionary States, divides ten States of this Union into 5 military districts and establishes martial law throughout them all, assigns a general of the Army to each district, and provides a military force sufficient to enable such officer to perform his duties, and enforce his authority within his district. Those duties are prescribed by the 3rd section of the bill in these words: SEC. 3. Abife:, That it duty shall be the of each officer assigned as aforesaid to protect all persons in their rights of person, and property, to suppressinsurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of public peace the and criminals, and to this end he may allow civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, when in his judgment it may be sary neces for the trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions or purpose, anything tribunals for that in the constitution and laws of the socalled States to the contrary notwithstanding: and all legislative or judicial proceedings, or processes to prevent or control the proceedings of military tribunals, said and all interference by said pretended state governments with the exercise of mili. Authority under this act, shall be void and of no eitec Here, Mr. Speaker, are the positive ele ments of an absolute government. The officer is to punish or cause to be punished all disturbers of the public peace and criminals. He may decree such punishment as he o deem best, and he may invoke the aid of such civil tribunals as shall exist by his permission, or he may institute military commissions at his pleasure. But these positive elements of despotic power are fortified by the inhibition of the 4th section upon the officers of the Federal courts: SEc. 4. Abife:, That courts and judicial officersof the U.S shall not issue writs of habeascorpus in behalf of persons in military custody, unless some commissioned officer on duty in the district wherein, the person is detained shall indorse upon said petition a statement certifying, upon honor, that he has knowledge or information as to the causeand circumstances of the alleged detention, and that he believes the same to wrongful; be and further, that he believes that the indorsed petition is preferred in good faith, and, in furtherance of justice, and not to hinder or delay tmhielita punishment of crime. All persons put under arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or punishment unusual shall be inflicted. There, Mr. Speaker, are such powers as in no constitutional or representative Government have ever been lodged in the Chief Magistrate. They are such as relate only to despotism on the one hand, and a subject race on the other. Sir, I have no available apology to offer for that blind fatuity of the people of the South which, in attempting the destruction of the Union to maintain slavery, destroyed absolutely and forever the very institution it sought to preserve. In fact, in the terse expression of another, “it essayed murder, but committed only suicide.” The southern States waged war for more than 4 years against a Government that had never harmed them, to perpetuate a system which was a curse to them and to the : Their armies were beaten and discomfited; their seaports were seized; their capital was beleaguered; and when the marshaled legions of Grant encircled Richmond and surrounded Lee there seemed no possible escape from absolute, unquestioning, and unconditional submission to our arms. By a dire misfortune, through undeserved clemency, the terms of surrender permitted by Mr. Lincoln to the armies of Lee and his asso ciate generals were such as yielded half of the advantages of victory to the vanquished. They condoned all treason and treasonable action on the part of every soldier of the confederacy coming within the list of the surrendered, and 120,000 missionaries of discord and dissatisfaction were let loose to roam over the southern States, amen able to no law for former crimes and punish able only for future offenses. Again, when Mr. JOHNson acceded to the duties of the presidency, with a magnanimity quite equal to that which inspired the policy of the lamented Lincoln, he pardoned in civil life many who had been prominent in rebellion, and who by that prominence had forfeited all claim to favor. Now, Mr. Speaker, I submit that when the armies of rebellion laid down their arms and gave up the contest, it was with the confession and consciousness that full effect was to be given to the proclamation of emancipation, and that equality of right in the freedman before the law, was no more to be questioned or denied; for that equality was assured by the proclamation, and the faith of the Government plighted to its maintenance. Again, I submit that the South, insurren dering to a power they could no longer resist, well understood that the Government were bound by every consideration to protect the loyal citizen, who, at the South during the war, proscribed, maligned, persecuted, and despoiled, had still been unfailing in his fidelity to his flag and his country. I hold, therefore, that it was the duty of the southern people at the close of hostilities to accept the consequences involved, under, the conditions stated, in their submission. These were: the entire and perpetual annihilation of slavery; the social changes resulting from the destruction of that institution; the concession of all the rights of the freedmen flowing from their emancipation; the claims to immunity of all citizens of the southern States who during the war had remained faithful to the Federal Government; and then such changes in State constitutions and laws as should be requisite to produce conformity, with these altered conditions. These were clear and obvious duties, and their honest performance, I fully believe, would before this day have secured representation to these States with the cheerful assent of Congress. Unfortunately, the people of the South assumed a different attitude, and although defeated in battle and deserving of severe punishments, clothed themselves with the vestments of injured innocence, and asserted rights of citizens of the U.S. which they had forfeited by U.S. rebellion against the I do not propose, sir, at this time to detain the House by recitals of evidence existing on the files of the House in respect to the condition and action of the southern States since the war. This has been so frequently referred to, and so much other evidence is before the country, that I shall simply state as the conclusions to be derived from that evidence the following propositions: 1. That a state of insubordination and lawlessness prevails very generally in the States lately in rebellion, which is attributable in great degree to a determination not to regard in any wise the enactments of Congress for the preservation of order. 2. That the liberties and rights of the freed. men have been ignored and trampled on, and that they have often been foully abused, out raged, and murdered, without the arrest, trial, or conviction of the guilty parties, and even without inquiry into the circumstances by any civil magistrate or court. 3. That men of known loyalty have been [rosc.ribed, their property seized, their houses their estates despoiled, and their lives destroyed by combinations of the sympathizers with rebellion, and that the local courts have neither instigated nor entertained complaints of such enormities, nor have any remedies been addressed to their correction or punishment. 4. That men prominent in rebellion can alone be elected to political offices throughout these States, where treason is rewarded and where loyalty is a crime. 5. That with singular unanimity these States have rejected the amendment of the Constitution, which became necessary by their rebellion, because a people whose history for 4 years was one consistent record of piracy and violence and murder, who tortured the prisoners taken from our Army by the fortunes of war, in the charnel houses of Richmond, Belle Isle, and Andersonville by slow starvation, who murdered them in cold blood, and who suffered them to be reduced to skeletons by privations and exposure that they might never again enter the Federal ranks as efficient soldiers, could not submit to the adoption of the amendment consistently with their honor. 6. That the belief in the heresy of State sovereignty, for the maintenance of which the South appealed to the arbitrament of arms, and which appeal was decided adversely to the appellants, is still the prevalent creed of the southern people, who would, if practicable, again assert it at any period when the reestablishment of African slavery could be effected. I concede, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that the present is no time to be over scrupulous in the exercise of that power over the southern States to which I believe a nation may resort for the preservation of its own life and the discharge of its high duties to its own citizens. But I am unwilling to forget justice and reason while inflicting punishment. The purpose of punishment is not to inflict torture on the victim, but to reform him, and to teach to the people that law must be obeyed. Justice delights not in the agonies of the prisoner whose nerves and muscles and limbs, writhing and contorted, as he hangs suspended from the gal lows, waken sympathy even in the heart of his executioner. In the case of our erring countrymen the purpose of punishment is to reform, not to destroy them; and we ought, as wise legislators, to see that the punishments we inflict upon a whole people shall not render their reformation oither more difficult or alto gether impossible. I believe, sir, in my conscience that the terms prescribed by the bill under consideration are unwise, inexpedient, and aggressive, and they cannot, without amendment, receive my approbation. Within a few short days my responsibilities as a Representative will cease, and I shall go forth from this Hall with the consciousness that while I have ever been willing to assert the ultimate power of this Government, and to employ its entire Army and Navy in givin protection to those to whom we had pledge it, I have never been willing to inflict one unnecessary pang or to impose one avoidable hardship upon any portion of the American people. I deem it a duty to look, at the prepositions before us in the light of philosophy and in the absence of prejudice, and ask here, in the name of reason, in the light of experience, and upon the basis of a philosophical inquiry into cause, and consequence, as exhibited in the individual or the collective history of a }. whether we can expect reconstruction, armony, loyalty, peace, or prosperity to flow from the establishment of a military despotism in osouthern States as a process of reformation I believe, sir, that we must not forget in the legislation we propose to enact for the restoration of the peace of the Republic, that whatever differences may exist between the southern and the northern States, in soil, climate, social institutions, or political views, human nature is the same in both. Human nature, here or elsewhere, defies legislation. Education, expe: rience, observation, often modify the natural disposition of the individual, but neither the decrees of despotic power nor inquisitorial tortures ever changed a religious conviction. No legislative act ever changed a political faith, nor will it ever. A sincere conviction in reference to a religious system or a political faith is utterly beyond the province of legislation, be: cause legislation can act only through physical agencies, and physical agencies are powerless over intellectual organizations. 1000acts of Parliament could not have made Russell a monarchist nor Strafford a republican. Wi. we believe, Mr. Speaker, we believe from education, and education consists not only of what may be taught us in our youth by the schoolmaster, but of that which is impressed upon us by our own observations and experience in life, or that which we receive from intellects more powerful or more persuasive than our own.. If we look now at the relations existing betweenthe northern and the southern States at the period of the Confederation, we shall observe that education was teaching to the respective parties theories which resulted in the clear and distinct issues between loyalty and rebellion in the great struggle which terminated on the soil of Virginia in 1865. The southern States were largely slave holding States; the northern, but nominally such. To the northern States slavery was not felt as an evil per se, because the%age of the black to the white race was so unimportant. But in the South slavery was the support of manual and menial labor, and to labor became a reproach to a white man. Aristocracy grew up on slavery, and society consisted of 3 classes: 1. An aristocracy; rich, as owning both land and labor; 2. The common whites, who hired slave labor because labor was disgraceful in a white man; and 3. Of slaves, who, kept in abject ignorance, supported their masters by involuntary toil and submitted to a social system which made slavery an abomination. This system of slavery, even then regarded by the northern States with aversion, was recognized in the Confederation and in the Constitution, because by its recognition alone could the Confederation be perfected, and by it alone, afterward, was the adoption of the Constitution secured. We began existence as a Republic, with the concession that slavery was not inconsistent with republicanism as then defined, and the southern States have held that slavery and aristocracy both were proper appurtenances to a republican Government. Moreover, it is true that from the organization of the Union southern statesmen have maintained the doctrine of independent sovereignty in the States, and asserted the heresy that each State might terminate its connection with the Federal Government at any time and for any reason it might deem proper. The ablest philosopher of this school of statesmen sedulously taught this doctrine to the South for a whole lifetime, and foresaw in the advancing wealth and power of the North the approach of that day when the southern States could maintain their political ascendency only by a separation from the NewEngland and her northern associate States. The philosophy of Calhoun became the faith of many of the political leaders of the southern States, and through them took extensive though not entire possession of the public mind. This philosophy inaugurated and sustained the and hecatombs of miserable victims were sac rificed in its honor. I am not prepared, Mr. Speaker, to say to the masses of the southern people thus if cated and thus controlled were not assine , in the support of rebellion and in theirto tenance of the right of secession as were lofs members of this House in putting down a rebellion. In truth, sir, I believe that larf of those who endured and suffered most foo confederate cause were just as sincere in the sentiments as you, Mr. Speaker, in your, or as I am in mine. What follows?. We have conquered and subdued them, and unless they will surrender their convictions and profess to be loyal citizens you propose to annihilate them, fo! subject them to military rule, unlimited as fo the extent of power or the period of duration Even the kind hearted Gentfrom ( oMr. GARFIELD] proclaimed upon thisfor that as the constitutional amendmenthadbeen rejected, the door of mercy should be closed forever; but it is due to say that on reflection he retracted the unworthy utterance, or thought erhaps that he uttered it in a sensesigif }. I ask myself, if I hadbeen a southern man, educated with southernviews and surrounded by southern institutions would I have been a secessionis?? And I answerver, likely I should have been; and I am satisfied that many on this floor who advocate the or tremest radical doctrines would have been in the same circumstances, active abettors of rebellion. StPaul was sincere and conscien: tious when he persecuted the saints; and Lof doubt not, was sincere when he cast his lot with the confederacy and attempted the overthrow of the Government. Now, I think that we are insane when wo attempt to legislate the southern soldierson: supporters of rebellion into love of the Government. They revolted against the Goo ment, in great part because theybelieved in the right of revolution or secession as a Principle of the Government, and that the to assigned justified the revolution. Confinetion in prison; will imprisonment change their to: victions?' Put them under martial law, and strike down commerce and production and o dustry and development; will that at " them loyal which deprives them of theirmo" of livelihood, by ta o away thatprotection without which industry dies, production” and commerce suspends its beneficien.” ences? Put them under the restrain! of of tary laws alone, close their court.". courts martial for the trial of civilians o promissory notes, for the smallero criminal offenses, assault and bao o slander, larceny, and the like, and ho o courts martial, how many soldiers." o required to make and to enforce the judge of your commissions. Sir, this bill proposes no jo. evils it inflicts, no term as a limit.". cise of the power it confers. ando. to those who become the victims of ments. o Reluctant as I am to adopt sewoo o: as to the constitutionality of who d muc doubts may arise, I am willing" o0 assen! to the exigencies of the present, ided the to the exercise of military power, Po" ied by authority shall be precede ". a provision authorizing the esto". under civil governments in those socontrol, author'f and the maintenance of the military. of the t of thereby granted by sary, until through the him." civil law, respected and ont, may be brought again to th of the Carolinas, of Georgio.”. Who and peace shall resume its so or disliking a Government which they theirow" beyond forgiveness, are yet, o' the fort" will or by the power of the law o, of arms, to be compelled to ontity and obey its laws. While I a sir, to impose unnecessary, restrictions on the late confederates on the subject of representation, I must express my hearty contempt for the consummate folly exhibited by the southern States in refusing terms of reconciliation more generous than any which in the history of the world were ever before offered by a sovereign suppressing a revolt to subjects abetting a revolt. As they withdrew from us of their own volition, they must return to us only when they can return with our volition. In this matter Congress and Congress alone is absolute, and however much Congress might yield as a matter of generosity it can be asked to yield nothing as a matter of right. I believe, sir, it to be the interest of the South to return to the Union on any terms that Congress sees fit to impose, because with the present generation the hostilities of the present will pass away and be forgotten; but if they shall madly refuse to submit to the conditions heretofore imposed they may defer indefinitely their return to the Union, but they will not destroy the Federal Government. That like the sun in respect to the planets of our system, will still control the order and establish the relations in which they shall stand to each other. In some unknown&ge of the past, in the vast interval which separates Mars from Jupiter, a lanet held its course around the sun in silent omage to its power. The spirit of secession seized it, and with heat engendered by internal strife in its attempt at secession, it was rent into 1000fragments, and these, broken, shattered, amorphous, and azoic, still bound by the law of their original constitution, roll on around the central sun in eternal silence and eternal desolation. Yet the solar system is not destroyed. Yet the sun, whose light was spurned and whose power was repudiated, is still to the loyal planets the source of light, the fountain of life, the center of attraction. How long this anomaly in the harmonious relations of the solar system has existed God only knows, and how long the anomaly in the existing relations of the disloyal States to the Federal Government can continue I shall not attempt to predict; but so long as those States shall continue proudly to despise or deride the powers to which all they ever attained of great ness was due, so long, like the asteroids, will they remain devoid of beauty, desolate, and lifeless. It has ever seemed to me, Mr. Speaker, that we should impose such and if restraints only upon these States as shall secure their due submission to the laws which may be properly enacted by Congress, having in view the speedy return of their people to the paths of.; and prosperity, and that so far as is consistent with the safety of the loyal citizen and freedmen the administration of justice should be left to the civil tribunals of the country. If, as it seems, these courts will not redress the wrongs of loyal men, if they will not protect the rights of the emancipated slave, we must interfere by the strong arm until justice shall be meted out to all. But why close the door to deliverance from military domination, as this bill proposes to do; why set up a government as despotic as that which characterized the confederacy itself? such a government can neither create nor maintain peace, neither the loyal nor the disloyal will prosper under it, and the sympathies of the world will be enlisted for those who, though erring and criminal, are made the helpless victims o military misrule., Time and prosperity will bring their heal. influences to wounds yet bleeding and painful. The sentiments o asperity which have grown upon, northern soil will be mollified by } s, and the bitterness of southern feeling,ing from war and the ruin it has wrought, will be forgotten when thrift shallcrown indus. y, with merited reward. It is well known, Mr. Speaker, that I have ver obeyed the dictation of the leading Radicals of the 39th Congress, and I have been the subject alike of criticism and ostracism because I have not. I am content with either or with both. The love which I bear my country, from the source of the Mississippi to the hot waters of the tropic Gulf, from the bold headlands of NewEngland to that shore where the Pacific waves break upon golden sands, is too deep to be affected by the considerations which are alone personal to myself. I have opposed the policy of the extreme Radicals in. ress because I do not believe it to be founded either upon real unaffected patriotism, upon substantial justice, or upon sound statesmanship. Under that policy we have had forced upon our consideration schemes of confiscation at war with every sentiment of patriotism, philanthropy, or law. We have asserted that within the lines of the confederate States all citizens, loyal or disloyal, to the federal Government were public and alien ene mies; and yet that they were traitors whose property of every nature was confiscated by the act of 1862, and ought to be held for the payment of the war debt of the Government. One of the grave charges against the president by way of impeachment is, that he has restored property o confiscated by the act of 1862 to its former owners. This doctrine of universal confiscation, as asserted by our legislation, is a disgrace to any civilized nation under Heaven living under a Government of reason or constitutional law; and our advocacy of it has been one of the cardinal difficulties in the way of restoration or If reconstruction. the rebellion resulted in a public war between North, and South, and the citizens thus became public enemies, the private property of such citizens could not be confiscated for treason, although while the war was raging, “dum bello flagrante, ”, all property of an enemy might be seized within E.of disputed possession, yet the property of a friend or ally occupying the same location was liable to the same seizure. The ground of seizure in either case rests upon the fact that property thus situated is i. to be taken by the enemy to support a hostile force. No other ground was ever taken to justify the seizure of the property of a friend or an ally, until the venerable Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. STEvens] proclaimed it in this all. I said then, as I say now, that the whole theory is an outrage upon reason, and as far removed from all true statesmanship as is Sirius from the sun. Statesmanship is passionless. Calm amid the tumults of war or the strife of parties it looks steadily at the permanent interests of a country committed to its care, and so far as possible holds in check every movement calculated to endanger and impair these interests. nd here, sir, statesmanship has its eye upon the unity of the Republic, upon the control on the one hand of the disloyal sentiment of the southern people and on the other of the vindictive sentiment of northern partisans, that by prudence, judgment, and reason, our country may safely pass the ordeal which now tests the strength and endurance of the Government, and come forth with true loyalty every where in ascendency over the spirit of disunion, with no principle of republicanism sacgificed to temporary expediency, and with the Constitution modified only in the interests of liberty, marred by no violence, and prostituted by no oppression. Mr. Speaker, with such views I have never hesitated to sustain any measure that I deemed essential for the protection of the Republic in its unity and its sovereignty, although I have withheld my support from what I have considered schemes for the maintenance of party interests alone. I care not, sir, by what organization the safety of the Republic be assured, if only its safety be rendered certain. The interests of individuals and of parties sink into utter insignificance when compared with the interests of the Union. Individual life and party organizations are ephemeral, while forms of government, established upon the principles of justice and right, may survive from generation to generation, and become coeval with the compact of society. Good government, Mr. Speaker, is not the creation of a moment; it is the growth of o: And the idea of aothe best form of government yet devised by man, springing into existence far away in the dark centuries of the past, has not yet put on the vestments of perfection. The philosophy of government may well assume, what the philosophy of natural forces is ready to concede, that in each dept more remains to be learned than has yet been compassed. Progress and development are the ends of our existence here; and when research and inventive genius shall have extorted from nature the secrets of her alchemy and the mysteries of her power; when in the world of morals no new truth shall be revealed to the profound inquirer: when no new legislation can be enacted without impairing the value of existing statutes; when government shall be immutable because it is immaculate, then will the human race have performed its mission and have fulfilled its destiny. He, sir, who expects by legislation to wrin from the present year those moral, social, political results which are due only to time and to those laws of development and progress which have never yet disregarded time as an essential element in their operation, is no wiser than he who expects by legislation to compel the fig tree of i. spring to yield instantly the ripened fruit that belongs only to the autumn. I am content with gradual development. I am satisfied with allowing nature to assert her authority alike over the physical and moral constitution of the world. The old clock, whose endulum moved by a uniform force, swings oand forward within prescribed limits and with regulated motion, indicates by the hand upon the dial, the true time, while if the swaying pendulum be struck by the hand of a madman with insane force and driven contin uously far beyond its appropriate position, the index points out a false time and deceives all who trust it. Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to be deceived. I would not deceive others, but I feel assured that we can commit no graver error than by: to restore this Union by a Hotmeasure of legislation which arouses naturally the hostility of those whose friendship and submission it is our avowed purpose to secure. We are expecting to hasten the return of loyalty by measures which would strangle it at its birth. Were I, as a southerner, to be subject to the operation of this bill without a limitation upon its term, without a provision by which the military government it sanctions might be abro gated, without the power of seeking any protection save at the hands of a military commission, I would either flee from the country or resist your law. And I submit that the enforcement of the provisions of this act will do as much to depopulate the South as did the ravages of the war itself. But, sir, without saying much that I desired, I must draw my remarks to a close. In its present form I cannot sustain this measur. but if the amendment suggested by my friendfrom Maine [Mr shall be incorporated in it, by which provision is made for the establishment of civil governments in these States, I shall feel constrained to support it, not because I shall approve it in all its. but because I believe that the South are responsible in a great measure for the ". condition of public affairs, and that they should endure inconveniences and restraint and an noyance, rather than that power should be at once surrendered to the wicked men who struck at the life of the Republic, and still justify the attempted patricide. [from APPENDIX]