In rebuilding, it is necessary to clear away the rotten and defective portions of the old foundations, and to sink deep and found the repaired edifice upon the firm foundation of eternal justice. No Government official, from the President and Chief Justice down, can do anyone act which is not prescribed and directed by the legislative power. As a politician in Pennsylvania, he supported free public education and suffrage for African Americans. SUMMARY On May 8, 1866, Thaddeus Stevens delivered this speech introducing the 14thAmendment in the U.S. House of Representatives. Another good reason is, it would insure the ascendancy of the Union party. That they will hardly get. 2 0 obj Lincoln may have been the only one who could have made this arrangement work, but he was assassinated in April 1865, leaving his vice president, Johnson, as the executive in charge of Reconstruction. [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. Since, then, the President cannot enact, alter, or modify a single law; cannot even create a petty office within his own sphere of duties; if, in short, he is the mere servant of the people, who issue their commands to him through Congress, whence does he derive the constitutional power to create new States; to remodel old ones; to dictate organic laws; to fix the qualification of voters; to declare that States are republican and entitled to command Congress to admit their Representatives? PDF Thaddeus Stevens, Speech Introducing the Fourteenth Amendment (1866) Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. We have turned, or are about to turn, loose four million slaves without a hut to shelter them or a cent in their pockets. He publicly condemned the Confederacy and even initiated the exclusion of traditional Southern senators and representatives from a congressional meeting in 1865. In failing health, Stevens requested that he be buried among Negroes resting in a cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. . Importantly, the speech placed Congress itself in charge of Reconstruction policya fact that galled President Andrew Johnson, who promoted a relatively simple reinstatement process for Southern states. >IQ Such is the law of God and such ought to be the law of man. In . There are several good reasons for the passage of this bill [Military Reconstruction Act]. While slavery sat upon her defiant throne, and insulted and intimidated the trembling North, the South frequently divided on questions of policy between Whigs and Democrats, and gave victory alternately to the sections. What madness! I desire that as early as possible, without curtailing debate, this House shall come to some conclusion as to what shall be done with the rebel States. 2 April 1865-August 1868 (Pittsburgh: stream It cannot be denied that this terrible struggle sprang from the vicious principles incorporated into the institutions of our country. He alone was willing to go where duty called though devils were as thick as the tiles on the houses. And Luther is the great luminary of the Reformation, around whom the others revolve as satellites and shine by his light. He composed his own epitaph, which reads, "I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not for any natural preference for solitude. (The Free Soil Party had dissipated by the mid-1850s, and was largely absorbed by the new Republican Party, of which Stevens was a member.) describe a time when you were treated unfairly. ; Hon. There is more reason why colored voters should be admitted in the rebel States than in the Territories. power, we shall deserve and receive the execration of Death State: Washington, D.C. Death Country: United States, Article Title: Thaddeus Stevens Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/political-figures/thaddeus-stevens, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: May 25, 2021, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014. We have broken the material shackles of four million slaves. Congress seemed fully in control. An anti-Masonic member of the state legislature (183341), he proved himself a friend of banks, internal improvements, and public schools and a foe of Freemasons, Jacksonian Democrats, and slaveholders. They are all asserted, in some form or other, in our DECLARATION or organic law. with those to whom Congress shall extend the right of Ask, what is the Presidents policy? and it is difficult to define it. It were better to shelter the household and trust to the advancing progress of a higher morality and a purer and more intelligent principle to underpin the defective corner. . Their subjects had liberty of motion and of labor, but the laws were made without and against their will; but I must declare that, in my judgment, they were as really free governments as ours is to-day. Thaddeus Stevens, "Reconstruction" Speech, September 6, 1865. The Black Codes passed in those states to keep the freed slaves from exercising their new freedoms further angered the Radical Republicansand even most moderate Republicans. In the speech below which Stevens gave in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 3, 1867 supporting the Reconstruction bill then being debated, he issued a response to those who said his call was radical and incendiary with a now famous quotation: " I am for negro suffrage in every rebel State. . There they can Now, sir, if that decision be the law, then it becomes the more necessary that we should proceed to take care that such a construction as that shall not open the door to greater injuries than have already been sustained. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1814, removed to York, Pennsylvania, was admitted to the bar (in Maryland), and for fifteen years practiced at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Congress refuses to treat the States created by him as of any validity, and denies that the old rebel States have any existence which gives them any rights under the Constitution. if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The committee influenced the drafting and passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which upheld the citizenship rights . Whoever had then asserted that those States had remained unfractured, and entitled to all the rights and privileges which they enjoyed before the rebellion, and were on a level with their loyal conquerors, would have been deemed a fool, and would have been found insane by any inquisition de lunatico inquirendo.. Then, twenty million white men enchained four million black men. Reconstruction "There was a dramatic need for another amendment" after the slavery-abolishing 13th Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865, Hetrick says. He must ask leave of Congress. Following the Civil War, Stevens served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction and played an important role in drafting both the 14th Amendment and the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Congress insists on changing the basis of representation so as to put white voters on an equality in both sections, and that such change shall precede the admission of any State. Holding them like clay in the hands of the potter, we must see that no vessel is made for destruction. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. In 1867 Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner led the campaign for full voting rights for African Americans across the nation. I do not suspect it, but others will. actual voters. Whatever law allows the white man to testify in court shall allow the man of color to do the same. Speech on Reconstruction | Teaching American History He spent a term studying at the University of Vermont but ultimately graduated from Dartmouth. Thaddeus Stevens was a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who became the face of the opposition to Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson's lenient approach to the South after the Civil War. "Reconstruction," Hon. As an important member of the new Republicans, Stevens became actively involved in the Underground Railroad, helping runaway slaves escape to Canada. to the territorial Legislatures, they will necessarily mingle This I take to be the great question between the President and Congress. Thaddeus studied at Caledonian Secondary School in Vermont, entered the University of Vermont, but was suspended in the second year and entered Dartmouth College to study law-related studies and delivered the commencement speech as a commencement speaker at the 1814 . outside or defunct States, and providing proper civil Mr. Speaker, I am very anxious that this bill should be proceeded with until finally acted upon. Throughout this period Stevens urged that Southern plantations be taken from their owners and that part of the land be divided among freedmen, with proceeds of the balance to be used toward paying off the national war debt; this confiscation plan failed, however, to gain congressional support. In the second place, it is a necessity in order to protect the loyal white men in the seceded States. Let us at least escape that condition. States and declare when they are entitled to be represented. The veto power is no exception; it is merely a power to compel a reconsideration. I. Radical Republican congressional leader during Reconstruction (186577) who battled for freedmens rights and insisted on stern requirements for readmission of Southern states into the Union after the Civil War (186165). 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 entire speech appears below. Handwritten Final Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, ca By what civil weapon have we enabled them to defend themselves against oppression and injustice? depict the ruin that would follow. Any exception to this rule has been a work of grace in Congress by passing healing acts.
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