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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Gerrit Smith to Senator Sumner.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

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Call number: Smith 534

GERRIT SMITH TO SENATOR SUMNER.

The negro is our friend and savior. Nay, he is emphatically our forgiving friend and savior. For who else had so much, to forgive, or was under so strong temptation to destroy those, whom he saved ? How great, then, the folly, the sin and the absurdity of leaving it to turn or, the will of his enemies and ours, whether he shall be allowed to vote! And how surpassingly cruel, after all he has done and suffered for the nation, is the insult to hint of letting those enemies decide, whether he is worthy to be represented in her councils and to be counted as a part of the nation !

PETERBORO February 5 1866.

Hon. CHARLES SUMNER, U. S. Senate,

MY DEAR SIR,

I see that the House of Representatives approves, and by a very strong vote, the proposed Apportionment Amendment of the Constitution. I see, too, that nearly all the Members, who are the most radical friends of Freedom, are included in this vote; and that there is, therefore, no room in the case for questioning motives. Freedom may, however, be wounded unwittingly. Nay, she may be wounded even in the house of her friends. Such is her fate in the present instance. And no less deep and dangerous is the wound - but, on the contrary, all the deeper and more dangerous - because inflicted by hands, which aimed not to harm but to help her. Moreover, though it is always consoling to be able to trace an error to the understanding, the error may, nevertheless, be quite as pernicious as if the heart were involved in it.

Will the Senate concur with the House? - and will the States adopt the Amendment? Then, in my

judgment, the heaviest of all her calamities will have befallen our country. In saying so, I, of course, assume that the Amendment will be accepted by Congress as a substitute for its requiring negro suffrage in the Rebel States, and as the step, which is to be surely and speedily followed by the recognizing of those States as again under the Constitution, and to be, therefore, again in as unqualified enjoyment of all Constitutional rights as are the loyal States.

I never liked the Anti-Slavery Amendment. It implies or, at least, seems to imply, that the Constitution did not forbid the greatest of crimes - whereas by the canon of legal interpretation (,and no other was admissible,) it did forbid it. I should have preferred an Amendment, that simply disallows a Pro-Slavery interpretation of an already Anti-Slavery Constitution. But my objection to that Amendment was as nothing compared with my objection to this. A disgraceful, if not indeed fatal, blot upon the Constitution and country will be this one. Disgraceful is it to a Government to license the gambling-house, even though it be on the condition of being paid for the license. Disgraceful to it to license the brothel or the dramshop, even though on such condition. But how emphatically disgraceful for a Government to license Slavery - that crime of crimes - even though the consideration in return for the license be very great and the pay very tempting! This, however, is the deep disgrace with which the Apportionment Amendment threatens the Constitution and the country. Much has been said against the selling of "Indulgences." But never was there a greater nor a guiltier "Indulgence" than that which this Amendment will sell. [see original for text inserted in margin] It is true, too, that proscription from the ballot-box does not always mean Slavery. But it is also true that, here such proscription is of one race by another, there is an instance where the proscribed are enslaved. The power, therefore, which this Amendment will give the Southern whites to withhold the ballot from the Southern blacks, will be their power to enslave them. If they shall withhold from them the ballot, they will also withhold from them freedom. But, before saying somewhat in proof of this - in proof of the position that for the negro to fail of getting the ballot will be to fail of maintaining his freedom it is proper to reply to those, who hold that the Rebel States will give him the ballot rather than pay the penalty for not giving it, which this Amendment prescribes.

I said that the Amendment would not only be disgraceful, but that it might prove fatal. And will it not prove so, if the Rebel States shall elect to deny the ballot to the negro ? But that this will be, and, from first to last too their election, I cannot doubt. Many, who vote for the Amendment, agree with me that negro suffrage in the Rebel States is the condition of the nation's salvation. But they do not agree with me that those States will withhold it. They think that the price of withholding it is far greater than those States will consent to pay. Infinitely rather, however, would they pay it than forego this opportunity of dooming the negro to the loss of his ballot, and therein to the loss of his liberty. We must remember that this reduced representation in Congress, is the price, which the Amendment requires the Rebel States to pay not mainly for robbing the negro of his vote but, in effect, for the precious privilege of re-enslaving him. Pay it, therefore, would they, and with all their heart, even though the loss of their entire representation in Congress were the price.

Before the Rebellion, the South coveted a large representation in Congress - for, before that, her object was to rule the nation. And she did rule it, and this, too, in the interest of Slavery. Not content with diffusing the spirit of Slavery over the whole land, she even hoped that its actual and material presence - its masters and its slaves - might, ere long, be, not only in every Territory, but in every State also. But the advancing march of an Anti-Slavery civilization became too strong for her successful resistance. She had to retreat. For the present, at least, whatever might have still been her ultimate aims, she was obliged to exchange her aggressive for a protective policy; to give up her propagandism; and to make the strengthening of herself at home her sole concern. Hence, she formally seceded from the nation: and, for four long and weary years, she was continually sending up the cry: "Let me alone! Let me alone!"; "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!" During all these years, she, had no desire to be represented in our national councils: nor will she have the desire now, any longer [unreadable] until she shall have obtained from the President and Congress all that she needs from them to render her of [unreadable] ol of her negroes certain and absolute. To be left to herself is the one thing she longs and labors for. To [unreadable] ndisturbed from abroad, and left to do what she will at home - in other words, what she will with her ne- [unreadable] es - is as emphatically all she now cares for, as it was during the Rebellion. Her heart is unchanged. The

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North could have changed it by an example of devotion to freedom and principle. But the poor party-bound and expediency-serving North is incapable of setting such an example. Never was the spirit of Secession stronger in the South than it is this day : - and scarcely any thing could the nation do, that would more fully and effectually fall in with this spirit, than will the adoption of this Apportionment Amendment - of this Amendment under which the South will have nothing to lose and every thing to gain. Then, too, the less representation the South shall be allowed in our national councils, the less will she be concerned with the affairs of the nation, and the more, therefore; will her interest be concentrated upon herself and upon what is peculiar to her, and especially upon her idol of Slavery. Here, then, is one objection to the Amendment. It goes to hinder the identification of the South with the nation. Another, and by far the gravest of all objections, is that they, whom it leaves unrepresented, are deeply wronged and cruelly insulted by such an ignoring of their manhood. What a mean as well as great crime against the scores of thousands of black men, who took up arms to save the nation, and without whom it would not have been saved, is this shutting of them out from the representation! Is the reply - that they would gain nothing by being represented, so long as they have not the ballot ? Most unsatisfactory reply! For who but the nation is responsible for their not having, it? Who but the conqueror shall decide what is due to the brave men who so essentially helped to make him conqueror ? Surely, it is not for their and his enemies to decide it.

No small evidence that it is the duty of the Government to require of the Southern States the enfranchisement of the negro, as one of the conditions precedent to their being again recognized as Constitutional States, and as again having all the Constitutional rights of loyal States, is that even Thaddeus Stevens is driven to the doctrines of the Democratic Party to find an argument against that duty. This Party holds that those States have now, and that, notwithstanding their Rebellion, have ever had such Constitutional rights : and that, hence, the Federal Government is not at liberty to interfere with their disposal of the elective franchise. Mr. Stevens, strange to say, falls in with the Democratic Party at this point, when making his speech for the Apportionment Amendment. It is quite trying enough to hear this sophistry from that unprincipled Party. But that Thaddeus Stevens should presume to abuse our patience with it is quite unbearable. Hitherto, he has been altogether sound and manly at this point-claiming for the Government the rights of the conqueror, and that they who, in their folly and wickedness, had flung away the Constitution, were to be restored to rights under it no farther and no faster than the conqueror willed. It is true that Mr. Stevens does, in some degree, atone for his wide departure from his sound habit at this point by reasserting, as he does before he gets through his Speech, the doctrine of the Republican Party that the Rebel States had so far broken their relations to the Union as to have forfeited their Constitutional rights.

But this is not the only instance in which Mr. Stevens takes ground with the Democratic Party. He had, as I believe, always held that voting is a natural right, and also that the loyal negroes are infinitely better qualified for it than are the rebels. But, alas, in this unhappy Speech, he yields to the temptation of saying with the Democrats that the negroes are not fit to vote. Whilst he would let the rebels vote forthwith - for that would, of course, be the case under this Amendment - be is for putting the negroes upon a probation of not only "four or five years," but, in effect, upon a probation of as many more years as their rebel enemies may choose.

When a Republican advocate of the very remarkable intellect and ingenuity of Thaddeus Stevens finds himself in such "Help-me-Cassius-or-I-sink" straits, as compel him to look for succor to the Democratic Party and its absurd theories, the whole world may be entirely sure that the cause he has been so unfortunate as to espouse is a very bad one.

I need say no more than I had said to justify my certainty that the South will, notwithstanding the Amendment's penalty for her doing so, withhold the ballot from the negro. I proceed to show that such withholding will be followed by his enslavement. Our paper abolition of Slavery, if, indeed, we have even so much, will not suffice to wean the South from slaveholding, so long as we are guilty of leaving ballotless and helpless her millions of laborers, and of thus making them a very easy, as well as a very tempting, prey to those whose life - long habit is slaveholding. What will there be to hinder their enslavement ? Will the Government maintain a standing army in the South to protect these millions from falling again under the yoke of Slavery ? Neither the Government, nor the people back of the Government and controlling the Government, would consent to the vast expense; nor would they, so far as the spirit and, policy of the Democratic Party obtained, consent to such an alleged invasion of State Sovereignty. Moreover, neither the people nor the Government, who can be guilty of stripping a race of all political power, would be found to care enough for that race to protect it from Slavery. The enslavement of the black laborers of the South will surely come if this Amendment shall be adopted. It may not come immediately. For the sake of decency, and to stand less unfavorably in the world's judgment, the South may tolerate some delay, as well as much circuitousness, in reaching this end. But she will surely reach it - and not long hence.

I have shown how futile would be the reliance on a standing army to prevent the enslavement of the Southern negro. I proceed to ask, whether he would find means in his property to prevent it. The exclusive possessors of political power will see to it (,indeed, they are already seeing to it,) that the negro shall have no landed property. They will also take good care that he shall have very little of any other kind of property. Again, will the Courts be open to his complaints ? If at all, only nominally so; and, very soon, not even that. Judges and jurors, being chosen by those who wield the ballot and whose first aim will be so to wield it as to keep down the proscribed race, will quite certainly be men having little respect for human rights under an African skin.

The chief reason why I could never join in the great general joy over the Anti-Slavery Amendment of the Constitution, is my disbelief that any change in any Paper can suffice to protect a race from Slavery. They must be in circumstances to defend themselves from falling a prey to the monster before they can be secure from that fate. But in such circumstances they can never be, so long as they have no political rights, nor (,as a necessary consequence,) any civil rights. The ballot in the hand of the Southern negro would be his infinitely more efficient protector than a Constitution however Anti-Slavery.

I said that the Southern negro will be allowed to have very little property. Nevertheless, it will be fully taxed. For taxing the little possessions of the every-way-crippled and outraged blacks - and, this too, even to sustain schools from which black children are excluded, is a meanness of which American whites, North, as well as South, have ever shown themselves capable. Unrepresented though the Southern negro will be, he will not, be left untaxed: and this they understand full well, who favor the Amendment, which permits this oppression. Our Revolutionary Fathers felt that taxation without representation was just cause for war. But in this Amendment their degenerate sons open wide the door for the perpetration of this flagrant injustice. Flagrant as it [unreadable] however, the injustice in this case is but against the negro : - and not even the Republican Party, as its representatives in Congress prove, has, as yet, grown into the belief, that the negro is a man.

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I see that the colored schools at the South are much relied on to bring up the negro to a level where he cannot be denied the right to vote. This is another of the many delusions by which the friends of Freedom will be reconciled to this ruin-working Amendment. Another amazing thing in the Speech I have referred to is Mr. Stevens' assumption, that these schools will, notwithstanding this Amendment, exist and flourish. Let the Rebel States be reconstructed on any however fair-seeming basis, into which negro-voting does not enter, and the colored schools at the South will be immediately broken up, and the benevolent men and women, who went down from the North to teach in them, will, if not prevented by the prison or the gallows, hurry back for their lives. Where, in all the South, before the, Rebellion, could the out-spoken friend of equal rights escape outrage ? Is he less hated Dow, that he should escape it now ? Is the negro, for whom he pleads, less hated now? Nay, they are both more hated. The part of both against the Rebels has made both more hated by the Rebels.

At the North, as well as at the South, political power is adequate to enslave those who have it not. Happily, at the North, the will is not combined with the power. But at the South the power, which this Amendment gives to enslave, will not lack a will to enforce it.

Many console themselves with the belief that there will be no more Chattel Slavery. The South may prefer another kind of Slavery - perhaps a kind similar to, if not identical with, that to which she is now beginning to subject her negroes. She will consummate what she has already begun as soon as she shall have obtained from the President and Congress all she wants from them: and especially as soon as she is freed from the restraining presence of national troops. The consummation cannot, however, be far off if this Amendment is adopted. I said that the South may prefer another kind than Chattel Slavery. If, however, she shall prefer the latter, what will there be to hinder her from having it ? The Democratic Party will unite with her for it: - and against this close and effective union there will be nothing but the Republican Party, disgraced and weakened by the mistaken and cowardly measures, which sacrifice the legitimate fruits of the country's hard-earned victory. This Party, if only courageous and wise enough to listen to the calls and claims of that victory, would have remained a strong and an honorable Party. Had it not been sunk in cowardice and folly, it would have hastened to enfranchise the black South, and to neutralize, in this wise, the vote of the white South.

I do, indeed, abhor Chattel Slavery : - nevertheless not more than certain other kinds of Slavery. Nay, it has such alleviations in the interest and, oftentimes, in the affection of the master and his family, as go far to make it less abhorrent than those other kinds.

How idle the hope, so often expressed, that the tendency of things at the South will be such as, after a very few years, to give her blacks access to the ballot-box! Just the reverse will be this tendency. The indisposition to do them justice will be constantly increased by the exercise of absolute power over them. This amendment adopted, and they will never get suffrage, until a bloody Revolution shall bring it to them. For all the horrors of that Revolution God and History will hold this duty-shirking Republican Party responsible. What, however, if these blacks should, after a few years and without bloodshed, be allowed to vote - would the Hell, in which this Party would be responsible for keeping them those few years, be a proper reward at the hands of the nation for their generous and costly sacrifices to save it ?

I hardly need write any more. Indeed, what I have written had, perhaps, quite as well been left unwritten. It is but too probable that all you and other senators may speak and all that writers may write for the, salvation of the nation will be in vain. The nation with her flinty heart still unbroken by a penitent sense of her oppressions of the poor - the nation still uncured, even by the very horrid war from which she has just emerged, of her pride of race on the one hand and her contempt and hatred of race on the other, must, I strongly fear, continue to drift on toward another and even still more horrid war - a war of races. From the day of President Johnson's GREAT MISTAKE - the GREAT MISTAKE of basing Peace and Reconstruction on a caste-policy and on a skindeep distinction of rights - from that early day in his Administration it has, perhaps, been impossible to save the nation. Down to that day the defeated South bad indulged no higher expectation than the trembling one of saving her lives and homes. But, now, she took hope that even the old order of things was to be substantially restored. At once she entered upon the re-enslavement of her negroes, and, at once, began to manifest her impatience with every thing, be it the Freedman's Bureau, the presence of national troops, or aught else, which interfered with the progress of this her one work. At once too, the Democratic Party fell in with this impatience, and proved that its sympathy with its old ally had not been diminished by the Rebellion. That the Republican Party was demoralized by this GREAT MISTAKE of the President is but too clearly, indicated by this disastrous vote of the House of Representatives on the Apportionment Amendment. Had the President entered upon his high office with the conviction burning in his soul, that "a man's a man," however conditioned or colored, no such Amendment, nor any thing in its place short of the instant demand for negro suffrage, would have been so much as thought of. But, now alas, both Congress and the people will but too probably indorse, and virtually repeat, the President's GREAT MISTAKE. I do not forget that the Amendment in question is claimed to be a protest against the caste-spirit. Sufficient, however, for its utter condemnation is the fact that instead of prohibiting, it permits, the indulgence of this accursed spirit.

What a folly, as well as crime, to put the political power of the South into the hands of the disloyal instead of the loyal; into the hands of our enemies and destroyers, however intelligent they may be, instead of the hands of our friends and saviors, however ignorant they may be! And what an absurdity it will be for Congress, after having perpetrated this folly, to take steps to fortify the national debt and insure its payment ! As if that debt, when left to the disposal of Rebel and Democratic votes; would ever be paid ! As if any thing short of negro voting could save that debt from the virtual repudiation with which it is already threatened! And let me here add that, although the doing of partial justice to the negro sufficed to save the nation in War, it will nevertheless be only by doing him full justice that it can be saved in Peace. Nay, it is only, in this wise, that there can be Peace. The Peace, which does not include this full justice, will be as subject to the eruptions of war, as is a volcano to the belchings of its restless contents.

I have spoken of the crushing effect of this Amendment on the negro. Well nigh as crushing will it be on the white Unionist at the South. His protection, as well as the negro's, until the great battle-day comes, could be only in the negro's ballot. Hence he will retreat to the North, unless he shall elect to stay and fight by the negro's side.

Many fall in with this caste-policy and these Pro-Slavery measures, because they feel interested to appear [unreadable] ve the South. Some because they really love her. I too love her; - and it is because I do that I am [unreadable] sed to this policy and these measures. It is as much in the spirit of kindness to her that I oppose them; as [unreadable] n that spirit that I oppose her being punished for going to war against us. A more afflicted and wretched [unreadable] ple cannot be found than will be the people of the South, if this caste-policy and these Pro-Slavery measures [unreadable] be allowed to go into full effect.

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I referred to my opposition to the punishment of the South. I have no patience with this persistent clamor for that punishment. The North, by its Pro-slavery, and its doctrine of State Sovereignty, made itself nearly if not quite as guilty as the South of the Rebellion. It was out of the general demoralization and general wickedness of the people, North as well as South, that the Rebellion grew : and I would, therefore, no more have the South than the North punished for it. Moreover, I still fall in with the irresistible arguments of those most enlightened and most authoritative publicists who hold that in those instances, where the Rebellion rises into the dimensions and character of a civil war, the guilt of treason, and consequently all punishment for it, should be held to have ceased. Let me add in this connexion, that the proposition to single out Jefferson Davis, and to punish the whole Confederacy in him, is another proof that the education of the old world, where great account is made of the leader and little of the masses, still lingers in the new. It may be fitting that, in aristocratic and monarchical Europe, the leader should be held responsible for the people. But in Democratic America, where the people choose the leader, it is the people rather than the leader that is the responsible party.

I hardly need repeat for the thousandth time that I would have those Rebels punished, who violated the law of war. Their punishment should, of course, be finder that law. It cannot be rightfully under any other. If Jefferson Davis has violated it, let him be tried by a Military Commission. But to try him for treason there is no right: and, if tried for it there would be, as there should be, a prompt acquittal.

But whilst, with the above exception, there should be no punishment for the past of the South, there, nevertheless, should be ample guarantees for the future security of the nation. Such security, however, there cannot be - neither for the North nor the South - if the blacks of the South are denied the ballot.

I notice that a common excuse amongst the friends of Freedom for favoring this Apportionment Amendment, is that we can get nothing better. I know not how that may be. But I do know that we can get nothing much worse; and that it would be far better to get nothing than to get this. Alas, how low is the public sense and standard of Justice and Freedom, that the strong vote for this Amendment should be so widely claimed as the triumph of Justice and Freedom!

I notice, too, that the opposition of the Abolitionists to this Amendment is, as was all that they formerly said and did, set down to their fanaticism. That they were, or that they are, fanatics, I leave others to judge. But that thousands of their opponents have, at last, confessed themselves to be fools for refusing to listen to, those words of wisdom and warning, which the Abolitionists were for thirty years pouring into dead ears, is, known to all.

To go for absolute moral truth is to incur the reproach of fanaticism. But better this reproach than to avoid it by mingling falsehood with the truth. For, after all, this diluting of truth in order to give it currency, and this basing of legislation upon a half right and a half wrong, is a very poor employment for the noble being. whom God has made in His own image, and made therefore, to respond to pure truth and entire justice.

With great regard

your friend

GERRIT SMITH.