Course Project
Secession, Civil War, and Reconstruction Era
Thought
Chapter 6 Introduction and the Following Chapter Selections: Stevens, Davis, Lincoln (Second Inaugural, Gettysburg Address), Spooner, Sumner, Reconstruction
Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Anthony
Secession, Civil War, and Reconstruction - Time period: 1861-1876 - Issue of slavery led to party realignment, as well as splintering and dissolution of
some parties (e.g. Whigs) - Rise of newly formed Republican party in 1856 election
- As the book notes, “the Democrats splintered in turn in 1860, with three separate candidates splitting the Democratic vote and allowing Abraham Lincoln to claim the White House with less than 40 percent of the vote and no significant support in the southern states. Unlike the Whigs, the Democrats managed to patch things up and survive as a competitive, organized party in both the North and the South.” (310)
- Southern states claimed right to secede from the United States, using the justification of documents like the Declaration of Independence
- “A free government resting on the consent of the people depended on the continued voluntary willingness of the people to support it and live under its laws. Lincoln responded that democracies were premised on the willingness of electoral losers to accede to the electoral winners” (312)
- Civil War (1861-1865) - South surrendered in spring of 1865 - President Lincoln assassinated
Secession, Civil War, and Reconstruction - A central question was what to do with the Southern states after the war - Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln was killed - Johnson was concerned with a quick and peaceful return to the union
- “As a practical matter, Johnson’s plan of rapid restoration of the southern states to the Union meant the return of Democratic national majorities and limited racial or economic reform in the South. Congressional Reconstruction, launched in 1866 over the president’s objections, kept the southern states under military occupation while working to create a viable Republican Party in the South composed of Union loyalists and former slaves. Political vulnerability, northern exhaustion, and growing interest in the western frontier eventually brought the era of southern Reconstruction to a close in 1877 with the withdrawal of northern troops and the return of ‘home’ rule (white, Democratic rule) in the southern states” (310)
- Others wanted the South to be treated like conquered foreign nations and not given an immediate role in the federal government
- Ultimately chose not to hold treason trials for military leaders
Jefferson Davis
(1808-1889)
JEFFERSON DAVIS
- Served in military and Congress (House and Senate) prior to the Civil War - Secretary of War - Senator from Mississippi when the state seceded from the Union in 1861 - Elected as President of the Confederate States of America - Speech to Congress at the time of secession
DAVIS: FAREWELL TO THE SENATE (1860) - Announces Mississippi’s secession and notes that he no longer has a function in the U.S.
Senate (cf. Johnson in Tennessee) - Claims he is an instrument of the will of the people of his state even if he disagreed with the decision (which he
does not) - Notes that Calhoun’s nullification theory was an attempt to preserve the Union - Secession is a different type of remedy, he states, and he claims it is a legal one
- “It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent anyone from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever” (323)
- He says the two terms should not be conflated - “The phrase, ‘to execute the laws,’ was an expression which General Jackson applied to the case of a State
refusing to obey the laws while yet a member of the Union. That is not the case which is now presented. The laws are to be executed over the United States, and upon the people of the United States. They have no relation to any foreign country. It is a perversion of terms, at least it is a great misapprehension of the case, which cites that expression for application to a State which has withdrawn from the Union. You may make war on a foreign State. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, they may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the limits of a seceded State” (323)
Charles Sumner
(1811-1874)
CHARLES SUMNER
- U.S. Senator from Massachusetts - Anti-slavery Republican leader - Helped form the Free Soil Party, which was opposed to slavery - Brutally beaten on the Senate floor in 1856 by Preston Brooks of South
Carolina - Too badly injured to return to his seat until three years later - Led the Radical Republicans in Senate - Supported unification and reconciliation
SUMNER: THE BARBARISM OF SLAVERY (1860)
- “This is no time for soft words or excuses” (331) - Senators must speak of the morality of an action, not just the politics of it
- “Senators sometimes announce that they resist Slavery on political grounds only, and remind us that they say nothing of the moral question. This is wrong. Slavery must be resisted not only on political grounds, but on all other grounds, whether social, economical, or moral. Ours is no holiday contest; nor is it any strife of rival factions . . . but it is a solemn battle between Right and Wrong; between Good and Evil. . . .” (331)
- Denies the Constitutionality of slavery and affirms the immorality of it - Claims that slavery is an affront to civilization and Christianity - Prosperity and productivity comes from liberty - Those who practice barbarism become worse themselves
- “It is according to irresistible law that men are fashioned by what is about them, whether climate, scenery, life or institutions. Like produces like, and this ancient proverb is verified always. . . . If institutions generous and just ripen souls also generous and just, then other institutions must exhibit their influence also. Violence, brutality, injustice, barbarism, must be reproduced in the lives of all who live within their fatal sphere. . .”(332)
- Cannot claim property rights or ownership over another human being
Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
- Sixteenth President of the United States - His re-election prospects were uncertain due to the severe toll the Civil War
was taking on the nation - He teamed up with Democrat Andrew Johnson as his vice presidential
candidate in order to run on a ticket promoting national unity (a coalition that was pro-war)
- Fall of Atlanta in September of election year helped propel Lincoln to re-election, as it looked like the end of the war could be near
LINCOLN: GETTYSBURG ADDRESS (1863)
- Important speech/piece of American political thought - Starts speech by noting the importance of liberty and equality in the
American founding - The Civil War is a test of those principles
- “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure” (337)
- How to commemorate those who gave their lives for these principles - “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (337)
LINCOLN: SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS (1865)
- Compares the two sides in the conflict and does not identify the other side as mortal enemies
- “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came” (325)
- Claims nobody expected the war to go on for this long - “Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict
itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully” (325-326)
LINCOLN: SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS (1865)
- Sometimes conflict is inevitable, but try to be on the side that is not the offending one - “‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that
man by whom the offense cometh’” (326) - Slavery is the offense that needs to be remedied; if war is necessary to do that, then
so be it - “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet,
if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” (326)
- How does he approach the other side? - “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations” (326)
Reconstruction Amendments to the
Constitution
RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS
- Passed in quick succession at the end of the Civil War - The Constitution is not amended often (hadn’t been since the founding era
and wouldn’t be again until the twentieth century) - Former Confederate states were forced to ratify the amendments in order to
be accepted back into the Union
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT
- Abolished slavery throughout the Union
- “Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
- Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation” (338)
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT - Extremely important amendment
- Foundation for many of the civil rights cases that have been seen by the Supreme Court since
- Citizenship - “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside” (338)
- Equal protection of the laws and due process - “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws“ (338)
FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
- Prohibited disenfranchisement based on race
- Guaranteed African Americans the right to vote and hold office
- “Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (339)
Lysander Spooner
(1808-1887)
LYSANDER SPOONER
- Lawyer from Massachusetts - Challenged licensing requirements as something prohibitive to those who come
from more meager backgrounds - Started his own postal service after becoming dismayed by the government’s
monopoly on the postal service (this was shut down) - Radical abolitionist and anarchist - Wrote on the unconstitutionality of slavery and was more radical than other
abolitionists (e.g. William Lloyd Garrison) - He disagreed with the Civil War as a tyrannical overreach of power and restriction
of natural rights - Claimed a right of secession based on such rights (even though he was opposed
to slavery); not allowing it is a restriction of liberty
SPOONER: NO TREASON (1867) - Tries to separate the question of treason from the issue of slavery to analyze the
extent of obligation to the government and ask how much government is a product of voluntary consent
- Notes that the North was not necessarily concerned with freeing those who were enslaved
- “On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate the slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union“ (327)
- The true principle the North was applying when it went to war… - “The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be
compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals” (327)
- This undermining of consent is detrimental to freedom - “No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more
self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established.” (327)
SPOONER: NO TREASON (1867) - Claims the government is no longer free because it is no longer based on
consent - “Previous to the war, there were some grounds for saying that—in theory, at least, if not in
practice— our government was a free one; that it rested on consent. But nothing of that kind can be said now, if the principle on which the war was carried on by the North, is irrevocably established. If that principle be not the principle of the Constitution, the fact should be known. If it be the principle of the Constitution, the Constitution itself should be at once overthrown.” (327)
- The government is based upon force, not consent - “The North has thus virtually said to the world: It was all very well to prate of consent, so
long as the objects to be accomplished were to liberate ourselves from our connection with England, and also to coax a scattered and jealous people into a great national union; but now that those purposes have been accomplished, and the power of the North has become consolidated, it is sufficient for us—as for all governments—simply to say: Our power is our right” (328)
SPOONER: NO TREASON (1867) - What is consent?
- “If it be said that the consent of the strongest party, in a nation, is all that is necessary to justify the establishment of a government that shall have authority over the weaker party, it may be answered that the most despotic governments in the world rest upon that very principle, viz: the consent of the strongest party. These governments are formed simply by the consent or agreement of the strongest party, that they will act in concert in subjecting the weaker party to their dominion. And the despotism, and tyranny, and injustice of these governments consist in that very fact” (328)
- Denies that it is this type of force - “That two men have no more natural right to exercise any kind of authority over one, than one has to exercise the same
authority over two. A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government” (328)
- “Our Constitution does not profess to have been established simply by the majority; but by ‘the people;’ the minority, as much as the majority” (328)
- “Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities; and are liable and likely to be equally—perhaps more than equally, because more boldly—rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if entrusted with power. There is no more reason, then, why a man should either sustain, or submit to, the rule of a majority, than of a minority. . . “ (328)
SPOONER: NO TREASON (1867)
- Treason? If one didn’t consent, then that opposition is not as a traitor but as an enemy
- “Clearly this individual consent is indispensable to the idea of treason; for if a man has never consented or agreed to support a government, he breaks no faith in refusing to support it. And if he makes war upon it, he does so as an open enemy, and not as a traitor—that is, as a betrayer, or treacherous friend” (328)
- Consent of the governed must rest upon voluntary agreement - “One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one
certain proof that a government is not free, is that it coerces more or less persons to support it, against their will” (329)
Thaddeus Stevens
(1792-1868)
THADDEUS STEVENS
- U.S. Representative - Leader of the Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives - Important leader in the Civil War and in Reconstruction plan - Led the impeachment proceedings against Andrew Johnson - Introduced Reconstruction bill to impose martial law in South, exclude
former Confederates from participation in establishment of new governments, and give African Americans the vote
- This bill was passed despite the President’s veto
STEVENS: SPEECH ON THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS (1867)
- Questions what to do with the rebel states’ governments
- Notes that those who were loyal stand in a dangerous position in the states that rebelled and that the federal government must protect them
- The bill will form governments led by loyal hands
- Notes that freeing those in slavery was not enough. Self-government is necessary
- “We have broken the material shackles of four million slaves. . . . But in what have we enlarged their liberty of thought? In what have we taught them the science and granted them the privilege of self-government? . . . By what civil weapon have we enabled them to defend themselves against oppression and injustice? Call you this liberty? Call you this a free Republic where four millions are subjects but not citizens? Then Persia, with her kings and satraps, was free; then Turkey is free! Their subjects had liberty of motion and of labor, but the laws were made without and against their will. . . .” (319)
- “No Government can be free that does not allow all its citizens to participate in the formation and execution of her laws” (319)
STEVENS: SPEECH ON THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS (1867)
- Questions whether rebel states can participate again - “President Lincoln, Vice President Johnson, and both branches of Congress repeatedly declared that
the belligerent States could never again intermeddle with the affairs of the Union, or claim any right as members of the United States Government until the legislative power of the Government should declare them entitled thereto. Of course the rebels claimed no such rights; for whether their States were out of the Union as they declared, or were disorganized and ‘out of their proper relations’ to the Government, as some subtle metaphysicians contend, their rights under the Constitution had all been renounced and abjured under oath, and could not be resumed on their own mere motion” (319)
- Treated as a defeated country would be- subject to the conqueror - “The Federal arms triumphed. The confederate armies and government surrendered unconditionally.
The law of nations then fixed their condition. They were subject to the controlling power of the conquerors. No former laws, no former compacts or treaties existed to bind the belligerents. They had all been melted and consumed in the fierce fires of the terrible war. . . . No sane man believed that they had any organic or municipal laws which the United States were bound to respect. . . .” (319)
- Claims the President doesn’t have the constitutional power to reinstate them, as these powers belong to the legislature (319)
Susan B. Anthony
(1820-1906)
SUSAN B. ANTHONY - Prominent member of the women’s rights movement for the latter half of the
nineteenth century
- Progressive Quaker from Massachusetts
- Active in the abolitionist movement
- Advocate for women’s suffrage
- At the end of the Civil War, many abolitionists stated that women’s rights movements should take a backseat to Reconstruction efforts and that it wasn’t the time for women, but Anthony disagreed
- She was arrested for voting illegally, hoping to force the issue to be addressed in court
ANTHONY: IS IT A CRIME FOR A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES TO VOTE? (1873)
- Attempts to argue that it is the right of any citizen to vote and that states do not have the power to deny this right
- “I stand before you tonight, under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny” (343)
- The United States is founded on the idea on self-government and that it is a natural right for a person to help make the laws that they are subject to living under
- “Our democratic-republican government is based on the idea of the natural right of every individual member thereof to a voice and a vote in making and executing the laws” (343)
- “One-half of the people of this nation today are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one.” (344)
ANTHONY: IS IT A CRIME FOR A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES TO VOTE? (1873)
- Women have very few legal rights and no ability to have a voice to change that - “The women, dissatisfied as they are with this form of government, that enforces taxation without
representation,—that compels them to obey laws to which they have never given their consent,—that imprisons and hangs them without a trial by a jury of their peers, that robs them, in marriage, of the custody of their own persons, wages and children,—are this half of the people left wholly at the mercy of the other half, in direct violation of the spirit and letter of the declarations of the framers of this government, every one of which was based on the immutable principle of equal rights to all.” (344)
- We used the justification of inalienable rights to deny that kings are better than common men. So too does this argument apply to women.
- “By those declarations, kings, priests, popes, aristocrats, were all alike dethroned, and placed on a common level politically, with the lowliest born subject or serf. By them, too, men, as such, were deprived of their divine right to rule, and placed on a political level with women. By the practice of those declarations all class and caste distinction will be abolished; and slave, serf, plebeian, wife, woman, all alike, bound from their subject position to the proud platform of equality” (344)
ANTHONY: IS IT A CRIME FOR A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES TO VOTE? (1873)
- Women do not have freedom and it is disingenuous to say so - “And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use
of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government— the ballot” (344) - There is no constitutional basis for this denial, only prejudice
- “[W]hatever there was for a doubt, under the old regime, the adoption of the fourteenth amendment settled that question forever, in its first sentence: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.’” (345)
- If you deny the right to vote, this will not always be used only against women - “It will not always be men combining to disenfranchise all women; native born men combining to abridge the rights of all
naturalized citizens, as in Rhode Island. It will not always be the rich and educated who may combine to cut off the poor and ignorant; but we may live to see the poor, hardworking, uncultivated day laborers, foreign and native born, learning the power of the ballot and their vast majority of numbers, combine and amend state constitutions so as to disenfranchise the Vanderbilts and A. T. Stewarts, the Conklings and Fentons. It is poor rule that won’t work more ways than one. Establish this precedent, admit the right to deny suffrage to the states, and there is no power to foresee the confusion, discord and disruption that may await us. There is, and can be, but one safe principle of government— equal rights to all.” (345)
- Remember “that ‘the true rule of interpretation under our national constitution, especially since its amendments, is that anything for human rights is constitutional, everything against human right unconstitutional” (346)