The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-12
MORTON In THE SENATE.

attention to Mr.. Foulke'S second volume
Governor Morton was elected to the Senate
in 1867, and remained there until his death
in 1s77-ten of the most turbulent years in
American politics. For the first two years
Johnson was President, and ended his term
with successful struggle against impeach-
ment. During the entire ten years of Nor
tons senatership reconstruction and its con-
sequent and collateral scandals. ending with
the Tflden-Hayes imbroglio, were his and
the Senate's principal occupation outside OF
the currency controversies. OF this Volume
2, with it's $50 pages, at least 800 are given
up to Mortons controversies upon the vari-
Gus phases of the Southern question.
Morton was a Stormy Petrol; he was built
for fight, and was never happy or at his
best except in the thickest of the battle.
His efforts when not encountering bitter OPP
position were at his second or third best
1t is likely that Morton had more to do
with the reconstruction acts and their con-
sequences. among which were the fifteenth
amendment, President Johnsons impeach-
ment and the great electoral commission,
than any other statesman of his time. His
shibboleth, during all these unhappy con-
troversies, was, "Only loyal men should
have charge Of the rebel States" and as
that classification practically excluded all
the white population nothing remained for
him but a persistent effort to make the
emancipated slaves voters and to put them,
aided by the loyal whites, in successful
charge Of the political and property affairs
of eleven great States. Morton seems to
have overlooked the fact that during the
war the negro remained passive, and, had
the Confederacy won, would have been quite
content to have remained a slave. Henry
w. Grady used to boast in his speeches that
no colored man during the entire war was
ever untrue to his master.
Curiously enough, Morton before he went
to the Senate, had the correct idea of the
incapacity of the Southern negro, then less
than three years out of bondage, for self
government. In his Richmond speech, in
1860, he insisted that these negroes without
property, education or experience, were not
fit to be vested with the rights of voters
without long preparation for the intelli-
gent exercise of their duties and RESPONSE
bilities as citizens. He named the period as
twenty years. He Yves right then, except as
to the limitation, as subsequent events have
abundantly shown; quite as right as he was
wrong afterwards in his long insistence
upon committing the local state govern
ments of the South 10 their hands, even
when aided by the white political adven-
turers of the North From the start, Nor
toms scheme of reconstruction was a we'll
meant but fruitless effort his part to
make water run up hill and reverse one Of
natures great irreversible laws.
Naturally we who are so glib and wise
after the event and so ready to say II told
you so,' seek for some excuse for this eX-
traordinary course of our great senator, I'M
49, IL tail
shortsighted and mistaken. It is not far
to seek. He was man of fierce passions
and implacable hatreds and prejudices as
well as of arbitrary will. He hated the
Democratic party, although for thirty years
a Democrat himself, with an unreasoninS
and unreasonable hatred. Perhaps that was
natural enough, considering his tempera-
ment. For years he was deluged in stream
of mud by that great party, and in this re-
spect was prosecuted almost as badly as
Lincoln. Then, again, he knew the South
ern people as rebels only. He did not give
them credit, as wo now do, for being
brave, high-spirited people who fought for
what in their blindness they thought were
their rights. Neither did he make any al
lowance for the indignity heaped upon
them, of having what they regarded as an
inferior race who for centuries had been
their servants, set over them as rulers.
Morton never rose to the moral ability of
putting yourself in his place. and looked
upon the South as so much conquered terri
tory whose people deserved the severest pos
sible punishment. No doubt they did de-
serve punishment. But. as statesman he
was bound to know that any punishment
which would react upon the government in
f1icting it was short-sighted and vain. He
should have known that ignorance and pow
erty are always unsafe material out or
which to construct a government, and that
loyalty alone will never supply the wisdom
which comes from education, property and
experience. 1t apparently never occurred to
him that time Is often the greatest Of RENE
dies, and that a wise and mastery mac
ffxyitx iG 0ff highest ~
ship. He never for moment considered
that even the most violent Abolitionist of
the South would never have, submitted to
have the negro put over him as ruler.
Slavery was indeed indefensibe, but that
does not prove that slaves without long
Interpretation as a condition of citizen
ship, Should ever be thought of as rulers, or
as having the power to make rulers.
AS the Democratic leaders predicted Nor
tons reconstruction measures were failures,
one and all. from the start. For ten years
they filled the South with a worthless set
of political adventurers and Kept Congress
in perpetual ferment with the quarrels and
pretensions of their Pinchbacks, Kellogs
and Moseses, until, at last, the Republican
party was only too glad to go back upon
Justice to Morton requires an allusion to
the fact, not generally known, and which
respects the father of the fifteenth amend
ment, yet he never was satisfied with 1t.
He insisted that it should read: The right
of citizens of the United States to vote or
hold office shall not be denied or abridged
by any State on account of race, color, ma
tivity, property, creed or previous condition
Of servitude." Had this amendment been
adopted by Congress, as Morton insisted,
the Mississippi plan to disfranchiSe the ne
gro (recently sustained by the United States
Supreme Court would have hardly been
feasible While the fifteenth amendment
was failure for the purpose for which Nor
ton intended it and for which it was enact
ed, to w.t. a necessary supplement to the
reconstruction measures, in a larger sense
it was not mistake, That larger sense IS
that it is never a mistake to enfranchise
an oppressed people. 1t was then or never.
as is now perfectly clear to every body The
insertion of few additional words would
have made it q success As it is the negro
is free and voter, and Will perhaps ulti-
mately grow up to the high position of in
telligent participation in local, state and ma
tional government. But, as a race, 1t will
require a long probation to lift the eX-
slaves up to intelligent citizenship. Just at
present there is considerable talk about CIV
ing them a territory to themselves and to
let them work out their political enfran-
chsement. Why should not the United
States set apart Porto Rico for that pur-
pose, or acquire San Domingo?
1t is a matter of regret that the limits of
a newspaper article forbid a discussion of
Morton'S financial record and of his position
and speeches upon the other great questions
coming before the Senate during his term.
and in the discussion of which he manifested
transcendent ability.
Was Morton a great man? No doubt in
the world about it. He was great az an ex-
ecutive, as a legislator, and as q man. He
was from the very start leader in the Sem
ate and among such leaders as Conkling,
Carpenter. Schurz, Edmunds and Sumner.
Was he a great statesman? He certainly
struction of slavery policies. He had su-
purb intellect and, although an autocrat of