Year: 1866




Rev. Henry Ward Beecher delivered a
lecture on Reconstruction, before the
Young Mems Christian Association, Of
Philadelphia, Thursday evening, 29th ult.
In the course of his remarks be said


1t was intended that the emancipation
proclamation should be enforced, and
those to whom it applied should be as
free as the proclamation ard the COnsti-
tuition declared them to be. The chris
tianity Of a nation was measured by the
manner Ia which care was taken of the
Door and ignorant. No foreign liberty
would do for this country For instance,
that known as liberty in France would
not suit US. We want our own bill of
items, carrying the right of person, the
right of labor, the right of property, the
civil right and suffrage.


As to seFvlle instructions the prophets
were at fault, for no iadiserations had
been committed; yet we had been told the
slaves were bloOdthirsty men, only wait
ing the opportunity to cut their masters
thTOats. In one district In the South,
four thousand able bodied men lived. and
not a single evidence could be brought
forward where they had committed one
act of indiscretion. As to their being
towards, no Southern regiment whO has
ever received charge Of their bayonets



Give him hope, and he will work give
him ambition and show him he will be
higher than his father has been, and he
will work; but do not take every induce
ment away from him. 1t was hard to
change an old custom, but In six months
the slaves had become freedmen and hired
themselves out, and the cry was for more
hands on the plantations. These silent
changes were more significant and enti-
tied to greater attention than we give
them These men were to be given rights
to acquire property and to transfer it as
they may please. There must not be one
code for white men and another for black
men.


He wanted suffrage, not because a man
was black, but because he was a man, and
it was manhood right. The Legislature
did not give him the right to vote, for
when he was born he had the right. The
right, however eliminates with develop
ment, as the bell-pear is not expected to
be sweet until it is ripe. Some men are
ripe at fifteen and others are not when
they are thirty, so the law has determined
the age of twenty-one to be the time of
manhood. Unless forfeited by crime, it
was the right Of every man TO vote, and
to Withhold 1t was a manifest injustice.
He was asked if he would permit a ship
load Of emigrants to vote within a year
after they landed, and would say yes, be-
cause he did not know how we could
get along without more or less evil.


In democratic republican government
there was nothing worse than a large class
run down at the heels for want of stifen-
ing up by citizenship.


As to the black man voting. he thought
the citizens of Alabama would more
cheerfully accord the privilege than
would those of Philadelphia. The peo-
pie of the North asked that fifteen South
ern States be excluded for refusing to let
the cOlored man do what they will not
permit They were willing to have a
Gospel preached In missionary lands that
they would not listen to at home. Was
it fair to stand on a line of reconstruction
and ask that these States should be for
ced to do that which we refuse to do.


Constitutional amendments were need
ed, and the President seemed afraid too
much tampering would be done. If the
venerable instrument is opened, take out
of it all that slavery put in, and put IN all
that slavery kept out, and then shut it up
forever. The present basis of representa-
tion must come out.


The kind and patient Mr.. Lincoln was
cudgeled and whacked by Congress, and
he bore it with patient spirit, reminding
him of some horses, who merely act when
CuuS6lGu3 ds tuUu8Lt Az was W VI usu uACo
off When they commenced Whacking
Mr.. johnson, they found pair of heels
through the dashboard, and they left the
wagon and took to trees and bushes, cry
ing, Beast, brute, but since then he had
been cudgeled more carefully.


He took both sides, and was for Mr..
J Johnson and Congress also, deemiDg the
question to be how to do, aud not what to
do. Reconstruction was going on in the
South, where it must after all be made
yet it was wise to have proper laws to fall
back upon.


Let Georgia and Alabama pass laws
giving rights and privileges to eolored
men, and let South Carolina enact the
slave code, and the consequence would be
that all would leave the latter State and
20 to the former. The plantations must
be worked by the colored men. and the
people of South Carolina would quickly
demand the repeal of the laws that drove
them from their midst