and obey equal laws. Unless the rebel States, before admission, should be made republican in spirit, and placed under the guardianship of loyal men, all. The film claims that it was "Based in Part on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln . Having now no governments, they must have enabling acts. My only objection to it is that it is too lenient. And yet certain of our distinguished friends propose to admit State after State before this becomes a part of the Constitution. To allow it would be yielding the whole question and admitting the unimpaired rights of the seceded States. The President is for exonerating the conquered rebels from all the expense and damages of the war, and for compelling the loyal citizens to pay the whole debt caused by the rebellion. He argued that, since the Confederate states had divorced themselves from the Union, there was no arrangement so proper for them as territorial governments. Neither the president nor the judiciary had the power to create states out of unincorporated territories before the Civil War, nor should they have the power to do so now, according to Stevens. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. . The same law which gives a verdict in a White mans favor should give a verdict in a black mans favor on the same state of facts. If it be just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be adopted; if it be a punishment to traitors, they deserve it. The President assumes, what no one doubts, that the late rebel States have lost their constitutional relations to the Union, and are incapable of representation in Congress, except by permission of the Government. requisite qualifications of age, residence, and citizenship; I am now confining my arguments to negro suffrage in the rebel States. Later that year, on August 11, Stevens died in Washington and was buried near his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. No sane man believed that they had any organic or municipal laws which the United States were bound to respect. Congress is the only power that can act in the matter. PDF haddeus tevens: An Address on econstruction (1867) Having these States, as we all agree, entirely within the power of Congress, it is our duty to take care that no injustice shall remain in their organic laws. He desires that the traitors (having sternly executed that most important leader, Rickety Weirze,7 as a high example) should be exempt from further fine, imprisonment, forfeiture, exile, or capital punishment, and be declared entitled to all the rights of loyal citizens. <> Congressional Globe, December 18, 1865, p. 72. The 14th Amendmentprohibiting local and state governments from depriving citizens of "life, liberty or property," among other important protections for citizenslater served as a basis for civil rights legislation. I know of no Republican who does not ridicule what Mr. Seward thought a cunning movement, in counting Virginia and other outlawed States among those which had adopted the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. He focused much of his political attention on civil rights, eventually. acting in the Union, or of being counted as valid States, until 3 which possibly now, on looking at it, I might deem intemperate, but which I then deemed necessary to rouse the public attention and cast odium upon the worst institution upon earth:. Thaddeus Stevens on the Great Topic of the Hour. As the nation edged toward Civil War, Stevens, now living in Pennsylvania, was elected to Congress in 1849 as an antislavery Republican. ?)(qUC 251-252. Thaddeus Stevens, Speech in favor of black suffrage, 1867 Military rule is necessarily despotic, and ought not to exist longer than is absolutely necessary. This is a bill designed to enable loyal men, so far as I could discriminate them in these States, to form governments which shall be in loyal hands, that they may protect themselves from such outrages as I have mentioned. About this Collection | Thaddeus Stevens Papers | Digital Collections It is to be regretted that inconsiderate and incautious Republicans should ever have supposed that the slight amendments already proposed to the Constitution, even when incorporated into that instrument, would satisfy the reforms necessary for the security of the Government. Thaddeus Stevens, (born April 4, 1792, Danville, Vermont, U.S.died August 11, 1868, Washington, D.C.), U.S. If there be any who are afraid of the rivalry of the black man in office or in business, I have only to advise them to try and beat their competitor in knowledge and business capacity, and there is no danger that his white neighbors will prefer his African rival to himself. The material spans the years 1811-1927, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1850 to 1868. Congress denies that any State lately in rebellion has any government or constitution known to the Constitution of the United States , or which can be recognized as part of the Union. . Possibly the people would not have inaugurated this revolution to correct the palpable incongruities and despotic provisions of the Constitution; but having it forced upon them, will they be so unwise as to suffer it to subside without erecting this nation into a perfect Republic? All Rights Reserved. . %PDF-1.5 He composed his own epitaph, which reads, "I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not for any natural preference for solitude. [Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens was a Congressman from Pennsylvania and one of the primary champions of Congressional measures like the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Simply allowing the Southern states to rejoin the Union upon the acceptance of federal sovereignty by ten percent of voters and ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment was not even close to sufficient for Stevens, who, like many in the North, held the Southerners completely responsible for four years of unprecedented bloodshed.
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