The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-07-17
RECONSTRUCTION.
Speech of Thaddeus Stevens,
Delivered i'm the U. s. House of Rep
resentatives, July 9th, closing the
Debate on the New Reconstruction
Law.

Ii 0PCahCts IN
Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) has now
remaining twenty-eight minut OF
his hour.
Mr.. Stevens, of Pennsylvania. l
trust that in that time l shall be able
to state the position which L hold to
be the correct one with regard to this
various remarks which have been
made by gentlemen on the other side.
I confess. sir, that a small portion
of the blame with reference to the
acts of the President since We ad-
journed, may be attributed to Con-
gress, in that it used improper Ian
guage In the acts heretofore passed.
And this, it appears to me, was owing
to an indistinct conception OF the
condition of the Territory for which
we were legislating. If we had then all
agreed, as we have since, that the
States that were lately in rebellion
were conquered territory, and as such
subject to the power of this nation,
and had treated them accordingly, we
should have had very little trouble in
reconstructing government in the
South upon the principle of the ad-
mission of new States. But, sir, we
were not all perfectly agreed in our
understanding of the laws of nations
as applicable to this question; nor is
it wonderful that we should thus
have differed, when even some of the
judges of the Supreme Court have
differed in their opinions upon this
subject. I will state what | suppose
to have been our real position.
The nation was afflicted with a civil
war which for a time was an insurrec-
ton. Some twelve million of the in
habitants of the country claimed
that they no longer belonged to this
nation. They set up an Independent
government. They established all the
machinery of government, both Of a
National government and of States
under that National government.
They raised large armies to defend
their pretensions. We, at the period
when we declared against them a
blockade, admitted them to be, not an
independent nation, but an independ-
ent belligerent, rising above the rank
of insurrectionists, and entitled to all
the privileges and subject to all the
liabilities of an independent belliger-
ent. The n~ations..of Europe so treated
them. We so treated them in our
dealings with prisoners Of war. In
short, there could be no doubt of the
fact.
We were, then, at war as two indie
pendent nations; and it depended
upon the will of the conquerer
whether the defeated party should be
treated merely as a vanqulshed ma
ton, or whether we should, in addi-
ton, punish them as individuals for
the violation of the sovereign rights
of the nation. We conquered. what
did we conquer? We conquered the
confederate government. We con-
quered all the States forming the
confederate government. We con-
quered a government that had been
erected and maintained by those who
declared that they owed no allegiance
to the Government of the United
States. For these conquered rebels
to pretend that they had any rights
under a Constitution which they had
thus repudiated and attempted to de-
stroy, and that the States which had
been arrayed in hostility to the ma
tion were still States within this
Union, as asserted to-day by the zen
tleman from Wisconsin, Mr.. Ed
ridge, seems to me a bold absurdity.
Yet that was the doctrine of the
President. That is the doctrine
which some gentlemen maintain here.
Under military law we treated them.
as conquered provinces. What is
the law with regard to provinces con
quered from a foreign independent
~beliigerent? When you conquer ter
ritory from a foreign nation or an in
dependent beIligeren:, the territory
thus conquered is governed by mill
tary power, blythe Commander-in-
Chief of the Army, being In this case
the President, until the legislative
power of the nation shall have spoken
and directed what laws shall govern.
But the moment the legislative pow
er of the nation interposes, the mill
tary power ceases to have sway, and
the Commander-in-C Chief has NO more
to say IN regard to thismatter than a
corporal of militia. He is to do just
what the legislative power orders him
to do, and he can do nothing else.
A great deal is said about the Presi-
dent acting as Chief
of the Army. Until be was superced-
ed in his authority by Congress I
have no fault to find with his main
tanning military rule in the South.
But he assumed to exercise legislative
powers; he assumed to establish. gov
ernments; he assumed to appoint
civil officers; he assumed that these
conquered provinces should come
back at once to the enjoyment of all
the rights of loyal States under the
Constitution, and be entitled to all
the privileges which they had pos
sessed prior to the rebellion. Now,
cir aS sold hafora no.L:n~ IL -