The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-27 00:00:00

The Rev. H. Ward Beecher.

The Rev. 11. Ward Beecher has addressed the
following letter to Captain Duncan, a member of his
congregation :

Pookshill, Aug. 8, 1806.

My dear Friend,—l am obliged to you for your letter.
I am sorry that my friends and my congregation are
grieved by my Cleveland letter. This feeling, however,
has no just grour;ds, whatever may be the seeming. I
have not loft, and do not propose to leave, or to be put out
of the Republican party. lam in sympathy with its aims,
its great principles, and its army of noble men. But I took
the liberty of criticising its policy, in a single respect, and
to do what I could to secure what I believed and still be-

Hove to be a better one. I am, and from the first have been,
fully of opinion that the amendment of the Constitution,
proposed by Congress, equalising representation in the
Northern and Southern States, was intrinsically just and
reasonable, and that it should be sought by a wholesome
and persistent moral agitation. But, from the present con-
dition of the public mind and from the President's attitude,
I deemed such a change to be practically impossible in any
near period by political action ; and a plan of reconstruc-
tion based upouthat seems to me far more like a plan of
adjourning reconstruction for years, at least, with all the
liabilities of mischief which are always to bo expected in
the fluctuation of politics in a free nation. It is not the
North that chiefly needs the restoration of Government to
its normal sphere and regular action. Either the advan-
tages of Union aro fallacious, or the continuous exclusion
of the South frem it will breed disorder, make the future
reuntlitoenvmeoryre difficult,worst
t of society which cat well
and especially subject the freedmen
to
exist. No army, no Government, and no earthly power can
condition
compel the South to treat four millions of men justly
if the inhabitants (whether rightly or wrongly) regard
those men as the cause,
or even the occasion, of their
unhappiness and disfranchisement. But no army, or
government, or power will be required when Southern so-
ciety is restored, occupied, and prospering in the renewed
Union. Then the negro will be felt to bo necessary to
Southern industry, and interest will join with conscience
and kindness in securing for him favourable treatment
from his fellow-citizens. We that live at a distance may
think that the social reconstruction involved in the eman-
cipation of four million slaves is as simple and easy as it
is to discourse about it. But such a change is itself one of
the most tremendous tests to which industry and society
can be subjected; and to its favourable issue is required
every advantage possible. The longer, therefore, the South
is left in turmoil, the worse it will be for the negro. If
there wore no other reason; if the white population wore
not our fellow-citizens ; if we had lost all kindness and
regard for them, and all pride for the Union, as in part
ropresented by Southern States, and confined our attention
exclusively to the negro, the case would be strong beyond
my power of exprepsion, for an early resumption of Federal
relations with all the States. If this is to disregard the ne-
gro, then all social and natural laws have been studied in
vain. Neither am I a "Johnson man" in any received moan-
ing of that term. I accept that part of the policy which
he favours ; but with modification. I have never thought
that it would be wise to bring back all the States in a body
and at once, any more than it would be to keep them all
out together. One by one, in due succession, under a
practical judgment, rather than by a wholesale theoretic
rule, I would have them readmitted. I still think a middle
course between the President's and that of Congress would
be wiser than either. But with this my agreement with
the President ends. I have long regretted his ignorance
of Northern ideas and sentiments, and 1 have been
astonished and pained at his increasing indiscretions. Un-
consciously, the President is the chief obstacle to the re-
admission of Southern States. It is enough that he is
known to favour a measure to set the public mind
against it. This is to be deplored. But it is largely
owing to his increasing imprudent conduct. I believe
him to be honest, sincere in desiring what he regards as
the public good, but slow and unapt in receiving help
from other minds. Proud and sensitive, firm to ob-
stinacy, resolute to fierceness, intelligent in his own sphere
(which is narrow), he holds his opinions inflexibly. Ho
often mistakes the intensity of his own convictions for
strength of evidence. Such a man has a true sphere in
periods of peril, when audacious firmness and rude vigour
are needed. But in the delicate tasks of adjustment which
follow civil war such a nature lacks that tact and delicacy
and moral intuition which constitute tho true statesman.
Mr. Johnson's haste to take the wrong sido at the atrocious
massacre of New Orleans was shocking. The perversion
and mutilation of Sheridan's despatches need no character-
isation. I do not attribute this act to him Yet it was of
such a criminal and disgraceful nature that not to clear
hfinself of it by the exposure and rebuke of the offending
party amounted to collusion with crime after the fact.
NVhat shall I say of the speeches made in the wide recent
circuit of the executive ? Are those the ways of reconci-,
liation ? Yet Mr. Johnson is to be President for nearly
three years to come, clothed with a power which belongs
to few thrones. Beside the honour which a people owe
to him as the chief magistrate, we must, as Christian citi-
zens, credit him with his real excellencies —his original
horror of secession, his bold resistance to treachery, his
persistent and self-denying heroism in the long, dark days
of Tennessee. We must not forget that he has jealously
resisted a centralisation of power in the Federal Govern -
ment ; that he has sought to dignify and secure a true
State rights ; that ho has maintained simplicity of manners
and a true love of the common people. It is our duty,
likewise, to forestall 'and. prevent as much as possible by
kind but faithful criticism of his errors on the one hand,
and by sympathy and kindness on the other, those dangers
to which he is liable under attack which he 113 peculiarly

Johnson's faults, and now speak so plainly only lest I seem
to approve or cloak them. And now allow me to express
some surprise at the turn which the public mind has taken
on my letter. If I have never before spoken my sentiments
Jean see how friends lnight now misapprehend my position.
But for a year past I have been advocating the very prin-
ciples of the Cleveland letter in all the chief eastern cities—
in Boston, Portland, Springfield, Albany, Utica, Rochester,
Buffalo, liarrisburgh, Pittsburgh, and Brooklyn (at the
Academy of Mtthic, last winter). These views were re-
ported, discussed, agreed to, or differed from, praised and
blamed abundantly. But no one thought, or at least said,
that I remember, that I had forsaken the Republican party,
or had turned my back upon the freedman. My recent
letter but condenses those views which for twelve months
I have been earnestly engaged in urging upon the atten-
tion of the community. lam not surprised that men dis-
sent. But this sudden consternation, and this late dis-
covery of the nature of my opinions, seem sufficiently sur-
prising. I could not ask a better service than the reprint-
ing of that sermon of last October, which first brought
upon me the criticism of the Tribune and the Independent.
I foresaw that, in the probable condition of parties and the
country, we could not carry suffrage for the freedman by
immediate political action. When the ablest and most
Radical Congress of our history came together theyrefused
to give suffrage to negroes even in the district of Columbia;
only indirectly, not as a political right, but as the hoped-for
result of political selfishness, did they provide for it by an
amendment of the constitution. What was prophecy with
me Congress has made history. Relinquishing political
instruments for gaining the full enfranchisement of men, I
instantly turned to moral means ; and enunciating tho
broadest doctrine of manhood suffrage, I gave the widest
latitude to that, advocating .the rights of black and white,
of men and women, to the vote. If any man has laboured
more openly, on a broader principle, and with more assi-
duity, Ido not know him. Moro ability may have been
shown, but not more directness of purpose nor undeviating
consistency. I attribute ree,ent misunderstandings partly to
the greater excitement whi;ll now exists; to the narro wing of
issues, to the extreme exacerbation which Mr. Johnson's
extraordinary and injudicious speeches have produced. To
this may be added my knpwn indisposition to join in criti-
cism upon the President, and the fact that I urged a mo-
dified form of that policy which ho, unfortunately for its
success, holds.
Upon Mr. Johnson's accession I was supremely impressed
with the conviction that thq whole problem of reconstruc-
tion would practically pivot on the harmony of Mr. Johnson

and Congress. With that we could have secured every
guarantee and every amendment of the constitution. Had
a united Government said to the South, proniptly backed
up, as it would have been, by the united North, " With
slavery we must take out of the constitution whatever
slavery put in, and put in whatever slavery, for its own
support, put out ;" there can scarcely be a doubt that long
beforo this the question would have been settled, the basis
of representation in the South conformed to that in the
North, and tho principle, the most fundamental and im-
portant of all, might have been established in the constitu-
tion, viz., that manhood and full citizenship are identical.
Such great changes required two things, viz., promptness
and unity of counsels. To secure these I bent my whole
strength. I urged the purgation of the constitution. I
reasoned against mutual distrust, and pleaded for unity of
governmental action. I did all that I knew how to do to
confirm the President in his war-begotten zeal against
slavery ; to prevent such suspicions and eliminations as
would tend to revive in his mind old prejudices, and bring
on a relapse into his former hatred of Northern fanatics.
I thought I understood his nature, and the extreme
dangers at such a critical timo, of irritating a proud
sensitive, and pugnacious man of Southern sympathies,
little in sympathy with Northern feelings or ideas, and
brought into the very leadership of those men and that
train of principles which he had all his 'life hated and
denounced. That ho was sincere and tenacious would
make the case all the more difficult. I thought I foresaw
that a division between him and Congress would be the
worst disaster that could befall us ; that the practical test
of true statesmanship just then was not to be found in
theories or philosophies, however sound, but in securing
and confirming Mr. Johnson in his then dispositions. Upon
the assembling of Congress I wont to Washington. I found
Southern men lying prostrate before Mr. Johnson, and ap-
pealing to his tender-heartedness (for he is a man of kind
and tender heart), disarming his war rage by utter submis-
sion. I f _mud Northern men already uttering suspicious of
his fidelity, and, conscious of power, threatening impeach-

mont. The men who seemed alive to this danger were
unfortunately not those who had the management of affairs.
Bad counsels prevailed. The North denounced and the
South sued ; we see the consequences. Long after I de-
spaired of seeing the President and Congress harmonious, I
felt it to be the duty of all good men to leave no influence
untried to lessen the danger, and to diminish the evils which
are sure to come, should the President, rebounding from
the Republicans, bo caught by those men who were in sym
pathy and counsel with the South throughout the war. I
shall not attempt to apportion blame where both sides erred.
It is enough to say that unity secured at the seat of go-
vernment would have been a noble achievement of leader-
ship. Deeming the speedy admission of the SouthernStatcs
as necessary to their own health, as indirectly the best
policy for the freedmen, as peculiarly needful to the safety
of our Government, which, for the sake of accomplishing a
good end, incautious men are in danger of perverting, I
favoured, and do still favour, the election to Congress of
Republicans who will seek the early admission of the recu-
sant States. Having urged it for a year past, I was more

than ready to urge it again upon the various conventions
which preceded the nomination of representatives to
Congress this fall. In this spirit, and for this end, I drew
up my Cleveland letter. I deem its views sound : lam
not sorry that I wrote it. I regret the misapprehension
which it has caused, and yet more, any sorrow which it
may have needlessly imposed upon dear friends. As I
look back upon my course, I see no deviation from that
straight line which I 'have made, without wavering, for
now thirty years of public life, in favour of justice,
and the elevation of the poor and ignorant. The attempt
to class me with men whose course I have opposed all my
life long will utteily fail. I shall chose my own place, and
shall not be moved from it. I have bomb from my youth,
a firm, unwavering, avowed, and active friend of all that
wete oppressed. I have done nothing to forfeit that good
name which I have earned. lam not going weakly to
turn away from my settled convictions of the public weal,
for fear that bad men may praise me, or good men blame.
There is a serious difference of judgment between men as
to the best policy. We must all remit to the future the de-
cision of the question. Facts will soon judge us.
I feel now profoundly how imperfect my services have
been to my country compared with its deserts of aoble ser-
vices. But lam conscious that I have given all that I had
to give, without fear or favour. Above all earthly things is
My country dear to me. The lips that taught me to say
"Our Father" taught mo to say "Fatherland." I have
aimed to conceive of that land in the light of Christianity.
God is my witness that with singleness of heart I have
given all my time, strength, and service to that which shall
make our whole nation truly prosperous and glorious. Not
by the lustre of arms, even in a just cause, would I seek
her glory, but by civilisation that would carry its blessings
down to the lowest classes, and nourish the very roots of
society by her moral power and purity, by her public con-
science, her political justice, and by her intelligent homes,
filling up a continent, and rearing up a virtuous and nobler
citizenship.
By night and by day this is the vision and dream of my
life, and inspires me as no personal gmbition ever could.
I am not discouraged at the failure to do good I meant, at
the misapprehension of my church, nor the severity of
former friends. Just now those angry voices come to me
as rude winds roar through the trees. The winds will
die, the trees will live. As soon as my health is again
restored, I shall go right on in the very course I have
hitherto pursued. Who will follow or accompany it is
for others to decide. I. shall labour for the education of
the whole people; for the enfranchisement of men with-
out regard to class, caste, or colour; for full development
among all nations of the liberty wherewith Christ makes
all men free. In doing this I will cheerfully work with
others, with parties, any and all men that seek the same
glorious ends. But I will not become a partisan. I will
reserve my right to differ and dissent, and respect the same
right in others. Seeking others' full manhood and true
liberty, I do not moan to forfeit my own.
Better days are coming. These throes of our day are
labour pains. God will bring forth ero long groat bless-
ings. In some moments which it pleases God to give me,
I think I discern arising beyond the present troubles, and
over the other side of this abyss in which the nation
wallows, that fair form of liberty—God's dear child —whose
whole beauty was never yet disclosed. I know her solemn
face. That she is divine I know by her girdle of purity,
by her sceptre of justice, and by that atmosphere of love,
that issuing from her, as light from a star, moves with her
more royal than a king's apparel. In this, too, I know
her divinity, that she shall bless both friends and enemies,
and yield the fullest fruition of liberty to those who would
have slain her, as once her Master gave His life for the'
salvation of those who slow Him.—l am your true friend
and pastor, HENRY WARD BEECHER

BURIED ALIVE.—A man named Vaughan was
engaged in getting stones from a quarry at Laneside, Fo-
rest of Dean, a few day ago, when a landslip took place,
and he was buried in the rubbish. When recovered the
unfortunate man was dead and his head frightfully bruised.
The poor wife, on hearing of it, became insensible. The
dog, which had not forsaken its master, wailed in a most
piteous manner. • Deceased has left a large family.

The publication of Mr. Ward Beecher's letters has
led Mr. Horace Greeley to publish a statement re-
specting the early Mouths of Mr. Johnson's presi-
dency. Mr. Greeley says :•
"I was one of many who early apprehended and
anxiously deprecated a breach between Congress and
the President. Soon after our last State election,
and before the assembling of the present Congress,
I went, not uninvited, to Washington expressly to
guard against such a difference. Being admitted to
an interview with the President, I urged him to call to
Washington three of the most eminent and trusted
expositors of Northern anti-slavery sentiments and
three equally eminent and representative Southern
ex-rebels, and ask them to take up their residence
at the White House for a week, or fortnight, or so
long as they might find necessary, while they, by
free and friendly conference and discussion, should
earnestly endeavour to find a common ground
whereon the North and the South should be not
merely reconciled, but made evermore fraternal and
harmonious. I suggested that the President should
occasionally, as he could find time, drop in on these
conferences, and offer such suggestions as he should
deem fit—rather as a moderator or common friend
than as a party to the discussion.
" A suggestion of names being invited, I proposed
those of Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts,
Gerrit Smith, of New York, and Judge R. P.
Spaulding, of Ohio, as three who seemed to me fair
representatives of the anti-slavery sentiment of
the North, while neither specially obnoxious to nor
disposed to deal harshly with the South; and I added
that I hoped they would be met by men like Gen.
Robert E. Lee, Alexander 11. Stephens, &c., who
would be recognised and heeded by the South, as
men in whose hands her honour and true interests
would be safe. But I added that I had no special
desire that these or any particular men should be
selected, wishing only that those chosen from either
section should be such as to command their people's
confidence and support. And I pledged myself to
support, to the extent of my power, any adjustment
that should be matured and agreed upon.
" Some two months later, after the meeting of
Congress, and when the political sky had become
darker, I went again to Washington, on the assu-
' ranee of a mutual friend that the President desired
to see me. The joint committee on reconstruction
had then been appointed. At an interview promptly
accorded I urged the President to invite the committee
to the White House, and discuss with them, from
evening to evening, as friend with friends, all the
phases of the grave problem of reconstruction, with
a fixed resolve to find a basis of agreement if pos-
sible. I urged such considerations as occurred to
me in favour of the feasibility of such agreement if
it were earnestly sought, as I felt sure it would be on
the side of Congress. The vast patronage in the
President's hands—the reluctance of the majority iu
Congress to see their friends, supporters, and nominees
expelled by wholesale from office, and their places
supplied by bitter adversaries— the natural anxiety of
every party in power to maintain cordial relations
with the head of the Government chosen by its votes
—these, and a thousand kindred considerations, ren-
dered morally certain an agreement between Congress
and the President without a sacrifice of principle on
either hand, if the latter should sincerely seek it.
I speak only of what I said and proposed, because
I have no permission and no right to speak further.
That my suggestions were not followed, nor any-
thing akin to them, the public sadly knows. And
the conclusion to which I have been most reluct-
antly forced is, that the President did not want
harmony with Congress—that he had already made
up his mind to break with the party which has
elected him, and seek a further lease of power
through the favour and support of its implacable
enemies."