Kitabı oku: «The Negro in The American Rebellion», sayfa 19

“After shooting these three defenceless men, the chivalrous knights robbed old Uncle Peter of a thousand dollars in treasury notes, and completely stripped the two colored soldiers of all their outer clothing and their boots. We hear Northern copperheads, who have never been south of Mason and Dixon’s Line, constantly prating about the unconstitutionality of arming the slaves of rebels; and often these prejudiced people accuse the negro troops of cowardice. After the bloody proof at Milliken’s Bend, Port Hudson, and at Fort Wagner in front of Charleston, it would seem that nothing more was needed to substantiate the resolution and undaunted courage of the slave when arrayed against his master, fighting for the freedom of his race. The following incident speaks for itself: —

“In the attack on Fort Anderson, Sergt. Robert Thompson exhibited traits of courage worthy of record. A party of eight guerillas surrounded Sergt. Thompson of Company I, Eleventh Louisiana, and Corp. Robinson of the same regiment. The two prisoners were threatened with torture and death, and were finally placed in charge of three guerillas, while the balance of their party were harassing our troops. Seeing a revolver in the sergeant’s belt, they ordered him to give it up. As he fumbled around his belt, he touched the corporal with his elbow as a signal to be ready. Drawing it slowly from his belt, he cocked it, and, ere the rebel could give the alarm, he fell a corpse from his horse. At the same time, Corp. Robinson shot another; and the third guerilla, without waiting for further instructions, put the spurs to his horse, and in a few seconds was out of sight. The two brave men are now on duty ready for another guerilla visit.” —Correspondence of The Tribune.

Kindness to Union men and all Northerners was a leading trait in the character of the colored people of the South throughout the war. James Henri Brown, special correspondent of “The New-York Tribune,” in his very interesting work, “Four years in Secessia,” says, “The negro who had guided us to the railway had told us of another of his color to whom we could apply for shelter and food at the terminus of our second stage. We could not find him until nearly dawn; and, when we did, he directed us to a large barn filled with corn-husks. Into that we crept with our dripping garments, and lay there for fifteen hours, until we could again venture forth. Floundering about in the husks, we lost our haversacks, pipes, and a hat. About nine o’clock, we procured a hearty supper from the generous negro, who even gave me his hat, – an appropriate presentation, as one of iny companions remarked, by an ‘intelligent contraband’ to the reliable gentleman of ‘The New-York Tribune.’ The negro did picket-duty while we hastily ate our meal, and stood by his blazing fire. The old African and his wife gave us ‘God bless you, massa!’ with trembling voice and moistened eyes, as we parted from them with grateful hearts. ‘God bless negroes!’ say I, with earnest lips. During our entire captivity, and after our escape, they were ever our firm, brave, unflinching friends. We never made an appeal to them they did not answer. They never hesitated to do us a service at the risk even of life; and, under the most trying circumstances, revealed a devotion and a spirit of self-sacrifice that were heroic.

“The magic word ‘Yankee,’ opened all their hearts, and elicited the loftiest virtues. They were ignorant, oppressed, enslaved; but they always cherished a simple and beautiful faith in the cause of the Union, and its ultimate triumph, and never abandoned or turned aside from a man who sought food or shelter on his way to freedom.”

“On the march of Grant’s army from Spottsylvania to the North Anna, at intervals of every few miles, families of negroes were gathered along the roadside, exchanging words of salutation to our soldiers as they passed, and grinning all over their faces. ‘Massa’s gone away, gemmen,’ was the answer in almost all cases where the query in relation to their master’s whereabouts was raised. ‘Specs he gwan to Richmon’. Dun know. He went away in a right smart hurry last night: dat’s all I knows.’ A sight of the fine, athletic, plump appearance of some of these negroes, of both sexes and all ages, would have driven a negro-trader crazy, especially when he became convinced of the fact that, according to the terms of President Lincoln’s proclamation, these negroes are free the moment the lines of the Union army closed in upon them. It was a pleasing spectacle, and commingled with not a little pathos, to hear the benedictions which the aged and infirm negroes poured out upon our soldiers as they marched by. ‘I’se been waitin’ for you,’ said an old negro, whose eyesight was almost entirely gone, and whose head was covered with the frosts of some eighty-five winters. ‘Ah! I’se been waitin’ for you gemmen some time. I knew you was comin’, kase I heerd massa and missus often talkin’ about you;’ and then the old hero chuckled, and almost ground his ivories out of his head.”

No heroism surpasses that of the poor slave-boy Sam, on board the gunboat “Pawnee,” who, while passing shell from the magazine, had both legs shot away by a ball from the rebel guns; but, still holding the shell, cried out at the top of his voice, “Pass up de shell, boys. Nebber mine me: my time is up.” The greatest fidelity of the white man to the Union finds its parallel in the nameless negro, who, when his master sent him out to saddle his horse, mounted the animal, rode in haste to the Federal lines, and pointed out the road of safety to the harassed, retreating Army of the Potomac; then, returning for his wife and children, was caught by the rebels, and shot. When the rebels made their raid into the State of Pennsylvania, and the governor called the people to arms for defence, it is a well-known fact that a company of colored men from Philadelphia were the first to report at Harrisburg for service. These men were among the most substantial of the colored citizens in point of wealth and moral culture. Yet these patriotic individuals, together with all of their class, are disfranchised in that State.

In the engagement on James Island between the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts and the rebels, the latter surrounded three companies of the former, which were on picket-duty, and ordered them to surrender; the colored troops replied by making the best possible use of their muskets. In the fight, Sergt. Wilson, of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, fought bravely, having fired his last cartridge, used the butt of his gun upon his enemies, and, even after being severely wounded, still struggled against the foe with his unloaded weapon. The enemy, seeing this, called repeatedly to the negro to surrender; but Wilson refused, and fought till he was shot dead.

CHAPTER XL – FALL OF THE CONFEDERACY, AND DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

Flight of Jeff. Davis from Richmond. – Visit of President Lincoln to the Rebel Capital. – Welcome by the Blacks. – Surrender of Gen. Lee. – Death of Abraham Lincoln. – The Nation in Tears.

Jefferson Davis and his cabinet had hastily quitted Richmond, on Sunday, the third day of April, 1865; the Union troops had taken possession the day following; and Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and the best-hated man by the rebels, entered the city a short time after. For the following account of the President’s visit, I am indebted to a correspondent of “The Boston Journal:”

“I was standing upon the bank of the river, viewing the scene of desolation, when a boat, pulled by twelve sailors, came up stream. It contained President Lincoln and his son, Admiral Porter, Capt. Penrose of the army, Capt. A. H. Adams of the navy, Lieut. W. W. Clements of the signal corps. Somehow the negroes on the bank of the river ascertained that the tall man wearing the black hat was President Lincoln. There was a sudden shout. An officer who had just picked up fifty negroes to do work on the dock found himself alone. They left work, and crowded round the President. As he approached, I said to a colored woman, —

“‘There is the man who made you free.’

“‘What, massa?’

“‘That is President Lincoln.’

“‘Dat President Linkum?’

“‘Yes.’

“She gazed at him a moment, clapped her hands, and jumped straight up and down, shouting, ‘Glory, glory, glory!’ till her voice was lost in a universal cheer.

“There was no carriage near; so the President, leading his son, walked three-quarters of a mile up to Gen. Weitzel’s headquarters, – Jeff. Davis’s mansion. What a spectacle it was! Such a hurly-burly, such wild, indescribable, ecstatic joy I never witnessed. A colored man acted as guide. Six sailors, wearing their round blue caps and short jackets and bagging pants, with navy carbines, were the advance-guard. Then came the President and Admiral Porter, flanked by the officers accompanying him, and the correspondent of ‘The Journal;’ then six more sailors with carbines, – twenty of us all told, – amid a surging mass of men, women, and children, black, white, and yellow, running, shouting, dancing, swinging their caps, bonnets, and handkerchiefs. The soldiers saw him, and swelled the crowd, cheering in wild enthusiasm. All could see him, he was so tall, so conspicuous.

“One colored woman, standing in a doorway as the president passed along the sidewalk, shouted, ‘Thank you, dear Jesus, for this! thank you, Jesus!’ Another standing by her side was clapping her hands, and shouting, ‘Bless de Lord!’

“A colored woman snatched her bonnet from her head, and whirled it in the air, screaming with all her might, ‘God bless you, Massa Linkum!’

“A few white women looking out from the houses waved their handkerchiefs. One lady in a large and elegant building looked a while, and turned away her head as if it was a disgusting sight.

“President Lincoln walked in silence, acknowledging the salutes of officers and soldiers, and of the citizens, black and white. It was the man of the people among the people. It was the great deliverer meeting the delivered. Yesterday morning the majority of the thousands who crowded the streets and hindered our advance were slaves: now they were free, and beholding him who had given them their liberty.”

On the 9th of the same month, Gen. Lee, with his whole army, surrendered to Gen. Grant; and thus fell the Southern Confederacy, the enemy of the negro and of Republican government. The people of the North, already tired of the war, at once gave themselves up to rejoicing all over the free States.

But the time of merry-making was doomed to be short; for slavery, the cause of the Rebellion, was dying hard. The tyrants of the South, so long accustomed to rule, were now determined to ruin. Slavery must have its victim. If it could not conquer, it must at least die an honorable death; and nothing could give it more satisfaction than to commit some great crime in its last struggles.

Therefore the death of Abraham Lincoln by the hand of an assassin was but the work of slavery. It murdered Lovejoy at Alton, it slowly assassinated Torrey in a Maryland prison, it struck down Sumner in the Senate, it had taken the lives, by starvation, of hundreds at Anderson, Richmond, and Salisbury; why spare the great liberator?

President Lincoln fell a sacrifice to his country’s salvation as absolutely and palpably, as though he had been struck down while leading an assault on the ramparts of Petersburg. The wretch who killed him was impelled by no private malice, but imagined himself an avenger of that downcast idol, which, disliking to be known simply as slavery, styles itself “The South.” He was murdered, not that slavery might live; but that it might bring down its most conspicuous enemy in its fall.

The tears of four millions of slaves whom he had liberated, five hundred thousand free blacks whose future condition he had made better, and the twenty millions of whites in the free States, stricken as they never had been before by the death of a single individual, followed his body to the grave. No nation ever mourned more sincerely the loss of its head than did the people of the United States that of President Lincoln. We all love his memory still.

 
“His name is not a sculptured thing, where old Renown has reared
Her marble in the wilderness, by smoke of battle seared;
But graven on life-leaping hearts, where Freedom’s banners wave,
It gleams to bid the tyrant back, and loose the fettered slave.”
 

Faults he had; but we forget them all in his death. It seemed to us that God had raised this man up to do a great work; and when he had finished his mission, flushed with success over the enemies of his country, while the peals of exultation for the accomplishment of the noble deed were yet ringing in his ears, and while our hearts were palpitating more generously for him, he permitted him to fall, that we should be humbled, and learn our own weakness, and be taught to put more dependence in the ruler of the universe than in man.

 
‘So sleep the good, who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest.
When Spring with dewy fingers cold
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod:
By forms unseen, their dirge is sung;
By fairy hands, their knell is rung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.”
 

CHAPTER XLI – PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON

Origin of Andrew Johnson. – His Speeches in Tennessee. – The Negro’s Moses. – The Deceived Brahmin. – The Comparison. – Interview with Southerners. – Northern Delegation. – Delegation of Colored Men. – Their Appeal.

Springing from the highest circle of the lowest class of whites of the South, gradually rising, coming up over a tailor’s board, and all the obstacles that slaveholding society places between an humbly-born man and social and political elevation, Andrew Johnson entered upon his presidential duties, at the death of Mr. Lincoln, with the hearty good feeling of the American people. True, he had taken a glass too much on the day of his inauguration as vice-president, and the nation had not forgotten it; yet there were many palliating circumstances to be offered. The weather was cold, his ride from Tennessee had been long and fatiguing, he had met with a host of friends, who, like himself, were not afraid of the “critter.” And, after all, who amongst that vast concourse of politicians, on that fourth day of March, had not taken a “Tom and Jerry,” a “whiskey punch,” a “brandy smash,“or a “cocktail”? Again: the people had been robbed of their idol, and suddenly plunged into grief, and felt like looking up the commendable acts of the new President, rather than finding fault, and were desirous to see how far he was capable of filling the gap so recently made vacant.

They remembered that when the secessionists were withdrawing from Congress, in 1860, Mr. Johnson said,

“If I were president, I would try them for treason, and, if convicted, I would hang them.” This was mark number one in his favor. They had not forgotten his address to the Tennessee Convention, which, in the preceding January, had, by an almost unanimous vote, declared slavery in that State forever abolished.

This speech was made on the 14th of January, and is very uncompromising and eloquent. “Yesterday,” said he to the Convention, “you broke the tyrant’s rod, and set the captive free. (Loud applause.) Yes, gentlemen, yesterday you sounded the death-knell of negro aristocracy, and performed the funeral obsequies of that thing called slavery… I feel that God smiles on what you have done. Oh, how it contrasts with the shrieks and cries and wailings which the institution of slavery has brought on the land!”

And his speech to the colored people of Nashville in the preceding October was exceedingly touching, by reason of its tender, heartfelt compassion for all the degradation, insult, and cruelty which had been heaped upon that poor and unoffending people so long. Its scorn and sarcasm were terrible as he arraigned the “master” class for their long career of lust, tyranny, and crime. He hoped a Moses would arise to lead this persecuted people to their promised land of freedom. “You are our Moses,” shouted first one, and then a great multitude of voices. But the speaker went on,

“God, no doubt, has prepared, somewhere, an instrument for the great work he designs to perform in behalf of this outraged people; and in due time your leader will come forth, – your Moses will be revealed to you.”

“We want no Moses but you!” again shouted the crowd. “Well, then,” replied Mr. Johnson, “humble and unworthy as I am, if no better shall be found, I will indeed be your Moses, and lead you through the Red Sea of war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace.”

These were brave words in behalf of the rights of man, and weighed heavily in Mr. Johnson’s favor. Also in his first public words, after taking the oath as President of the United States, Mr. Johnson referred to the past of his life as an indication of his course and policy in the future, rather than to make any verbal declarations now; thereby manifesting an honorable willingness to be judged by his acts, and a consciousness that the record was one which he need not be ashamed to own.

What better words or greater promises could be demanded? And, moreover, the American people are admirers of self-made men. Indeed, it is the foundation of true republican principles; and those who come to the surface by their own genius or energies are sure to be well received by the masses. But was Andrew Johnson a genius? was he shrewd? was he smart? If not, how could he have attained to such a high position in his own State? Were the people there all fools, that they should send a mountebank to the United-States Senate? Or were they, as well as the National-Republican Convention that nominated him in 1864 for the Vice-Presidency, deceived?

Macaulay, in his Criticism on the Poems of Robert Montgomery, says, “A pious Brahmin, it is written, made a vow, that, on a certain day, he would sacrifice a sheep; and on the appointed morning he went forth to buy one. There lived in his neighborhood three rogues, who knew his vow, and laid a scheme for profiting by it. The first met him, and said, ‘O Brahmin! wilt thou buy a sheep? I have one fit for sacrifice.’ – ‘It is for that very purpose,’ said the holy man, ‘that I came forth this day.’ Then the impostor opened a bag, and brought out of it an unclean beast, – an ugly dog, lame and blind. ‘Thereon the Brahmin cried out, ‘Wretch, who touchest things impure, and utterest things untrue, callest thou that cur a sheep?’ – ‘Truly,’ answered the other, ‘it is a sheep of the finest fleece, and of the sweetest flesh. O Brahmin! it will be an offering most acceptable to the gods!’ – ‘Friend,’ said the Brahmin, ‘either thou or I must be blind.’ Just then, one of the accomplices came up. ‘Praised be the gods,’ said this second rogue, ‘that I have been saved the trouble of going to the market for a sheep! This is such a sheep as I wanted. For how much wilt thou sell it?’ When the Brahmin heard this, his mind waved to and fro, like one swinging in the air at a holy festival. ‘Sir,’ said he to the new-comer, ‘take heed what thou dost. This is no sheep, but an unclean cur.’ – ‘O Brahmin!’ said the new-comer, ‘thou art drunk or mad.’ At this time, the third confederate drew near. ‘Let us ask this man,’ said the Brahmin, ‘what the creature is; and I will stand by what he shall say.’ To this the others agreed; and the Brahmin called out, ‘O stranger! what dost thou call this beast?’ – ‘Surely, O Brahmin!’ said the knave, ‘it is a fine sheep.’ Then the Brahmin said, ‘Surely the gods have taken away my senses!’ and he asked pardon of him who carried the dog, and bought it for a measure of rice and a pot of ghee; and offered it up to the gods, who, being wroth at this unclean sacrifice, smote him with a sore disease in all his joints!”

The poor Brahmin was never more thoroughly imposed upon in receiving the dog for a sheep than were the American people in accepting Andrew Johnson as a statesman, or even as a friend of liberty and republican institutions. That he hated the slaveocracy, there is not the slightest doubt; for they were far above him, and all his efforts to be recognized by them as an equal had failed.

But did he like the negro any better than the master? It is said, that while in his apprenticeship, on one occasion, young Johnson was passing along the street with a pair of pants upon his arm, when a well-dressed free negro accidentally ran against him, pushing the tailor into a ditch; whereupon, the latter threw a handful of mud at the black man, soiling his clothes very much. The negro turned, and indignantly said, “You better mind what you ‘bout, you low white clodhopper, poor white trash!” This retort of the negro no doubt touched a tender chord; for it reminded the rising young man of the “pit from whence he was digged,” and it is said he hated the race ever after. But it must be acknowledged that Mr. Johnson is a big man in little things; that he showed some shrewdness in taking advantage of the Union feeling, and especially the antislavery sentiment, of the North, in wiggling himself into the Republican party by his bunkum speeches. After all, what is the real character of the man?

 
“Great Judas of the nineteenth century,
Foul political traitor of the age,
Persistent speeechmaker, covered with falsity,
Come, sit now for your portrait. I will paint
As others see you, – men who love their God,
And hate not even you, aye you, attaint
With love of self, and power that’s outlawed.
Behold the picture! See a drunken man
Whose age brings nothing but increase of sin, —
A deceptive ‘policy,’ a hateful plan
To deceive the people, and reenslave the sons of Ham!
Now see it stretching out a slimy palm,
And striking hands with rebels. Nay, nay!
It grasps Columbia by the throat and arm,
And seeks to give her to that beast of prey.”
 

Intensely in love with himself, egotistical, without dignity, tyrannical, ungrateful, and fond of flattery, Mr. Johnson was entirely unprepared to successfully resist the overtures of the slaveholding aristocracy, by whom he had so long wished to be recognized. It was some weeks after the death of the good President, that a committee of these Southerners visited the White House. They found Mr. Johnson alone; for they had asked for an audience, which had been readily granted. Humbly they came, the lords of the lash, the men who, five years before, would not have shaken hands with him with a pair of tongs ten feet long. Many of them the President had seen on former occasions: all of them he knew by reputation. As they stood before him, he viewed them from head to feet, and felt an inward triumph. He could scarcely realize the fact, and asked himself, “Is it possible? have I my old enemies before me, seeking favors?” Yes: it was so; and they had no wish to conceal the fact. The chairman of the committee, a man of years, one whose very look showed that he was not without influence among those who knew him, addressing the Chief Magistrate, said, “Mr. President, we come as a committee to represent to you the condition of the South, and its wants. We fear that your Excellency has had things misrepresented to you by the Radicals; and knowing you to be a man of justice, a statesman of unsullied reputation, one who to-day occupies the proudest position of any man in the world, we come to lay our wants before you. We have, in the past, been your political opponents. In the future, we shall be your friends; because we now see that you were right, and we were wrong. We ask, nay, we beg you to permit us to reconstruct the Southern States. Our people, South, are loyal to a man, and wish to return at once to their relations in the General Government. We look upon you, Mr. President, as the embodiment of the truly chivalrous Southerner, – one who, born and bred in the South, understands her people: to you we appeal for justice; for we are sure that your impulses are pure. Your future, Mr. President, is to be a brilliant one. At the next presidential election, the South will be a unit for the man who saves her from the hands of these Yankees, who now, under the protection of the Freedman’s Bureau, are making themselves rich. We shall stand by the man that saves us; and you are that man. Your genius, your sagacity, and your unequalled statesmanship, mark you out as the father of his country. Without casting a single ungenerous reflection upon the great name of George Washington, allow me to say what I am sure the rest of the delegation will join me in, and that is, that, a hundred years to come, the name of Andrew Johnson will be the brightest in American history.” Several times during the delivery of the above speech, the President was seen to wipe his eyes, for he was indeed moved to tears. At its conclusion, he said, “Gentlemen, your chairman has perfectly overwhelmed me. I was not, I confess, prepared for these kind words, this cordial support, of the people of the South. Your professions of loyalty, which I feel to be genuine, and your promises of future aid, unman me. I thought you were my enemies, and it is to enemies that I love to give battle. As to my friends, they can always govern me. I will lay your case before the cabinet.” – “We do not appeal to your cabinet,” continued the chairman, “it is to you, Mr. President, that we come. Were you a common man, we should expect you to ask advice of your cabinet; but we regard you as master, aud your secretaries as your servants. You are capable of acting without consulting them: we think you the Andrew Jackson of to-day. Presidents, sir, are regarded as mere tools. We hope you, like Jackson, will prove an exception. We, the people of the South, are willing to let you do precisely as you please; and still we will support you. We are proud to acknowledge you as our leader. All we ask is, that we shall be permitted to organize our State Governments, elect our senators and representatives, and return at once into the Union; and this, Mr. President, lies entirely with you, unless you acknowledge yourself to be in leading-strings, which we know is not so; for Andrew Johnson can never play second fiddle to men or parties.” These last remarks affected Mr. Johnson very much, which he in vain attempted to conceal. “Gentlemen,” replied the President, “I confess that your chairman, has, in his remarks, made an impression on my mind that I little dreamed of when you entered. I admit that I am not pleased with the manner in which the Radicals are acting.” – “Allow me,” said the chairman, interrupting the President, “to say a word or two that I had forgotten.” “Proceed,” said the Chief Magistrate. “You are not appreciated,” continued the chairman, “by the Radicals. They speak of you sneeringly as the ‘accidental President,’ just as if you were not the choice of the people. The people of the North would never elect you again. No man, except Mr. Lincoln, has ever been elected a second time to the presidency, from the free States. They have so many peddling politicians, like so many hungry wolves, seeking office, that they are always crying, ‘Rotation, rotation.’ But, with us of the South, it is different. When we find a man with genius, talent, a statesman, we hold on to him, and keep him in office. You, Mr. President, can carry all the Southern, and enough of the Northern States to elect you to another term.” – “Yes,” responded one of the committee, “to two terms more.” Mr. Johnson, with suppressed emotion, said, “I will at once lay down a policy, which, I think, will satisfy the entire people of the South; but, but – I said that treason should be made odious, and traitors should be punished: what can I do so as not to stultify myself?”

“I see it as clear as day, Mr. President,” said the chairman. “You have already made treason odious by those eloquent speeches which you have delivered at various times on the Rebellion; and now you can punish traitors by giving them office. St. Paul said, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.’ Now, many of the Southerners are your old enemies; and they are hungry for office, and thirst for the good liquor they used to get in the congressional saloons.”

“I am satisfied,” said the President, “that I can restore the Southern States to their relations to the Union, and let all who held office before the war, resume their positions again. – “Yes,” remarked a member of the committee; “and you can build up a new party of your own, that shall take the place of the Democratic party, which is already dead.” – “Very true,” replied the President, “there is both room and need of another political party. You may rest assured, gentlemen, that you will be re-instated in your former positions.” The committee withdrew. “My policy” was commenced. The Republicans did not like it; and a committee was sent to the White House, composed of some of the leading men of the North, the chairman of which was a man some six feet in height, stout, and well made; features coarse; full head of hair, touched with the frost of over fifty winters; dressed in a gray suit, light felt hat. The committee, on entering, found the President seated, with his feet under the table. He did not rise to welcome the delegation, but seemed to push his feet still farther under the table, for fear that they might think he was going to rise. The chairman, whom I have already described, said in a rather strong voice, “Mr. President, we have called to ask you to use your official power to protect the Union men of the South, white and black, from the murderous feeling of the rebels.

“As faithful friends, and supporters of your Administration, we most respectfully petition you to suspend for the present your policy towards the rebel States. We should not present this prayer if we were not painfully convinced that, thus far, it has failed to obtain any reasonable guarantees for that security in the future which is essential to peace and reconciliation. To our minds, it abandons the freedmen to the control of their ancient masters, and leaves the national debt exposed to repudiation by returning rebels. The Declaration of Independence asserts the equality of all men, and that rightful government can be founded only on the consent of the governed. We see small chance of peace unless these great principles are practically established. Without this, the house will continue divided against itself.”