Year: 1871

/ w. l11t 10 nv III ietii


guage, but to make reports of 'sresults.'
This jury, before half the evidence is
heard, before the tenth of it perhaps


is heard, this jury, with partisan


majority on one side, is to make a re-
port, not to the Senate, not to the
House of Representatives, but to the
people of the United States, and not
| of the facts, but of the results, as a
majority may see fit. Does not any
body see, then, that we may have a


dozen reports, or at least we may have


two reports? A majority may con-


slider the results of the investigation


to be this, the minority may consider


them to be the other, and Congress
i presents the spectacle of sending a sci
4 of rowing commissioners throughout


the South to manufacture political
documents to influence the election


That is the whole Oft when you teal


this thin veil of gauze that covers the


transaction away and expose the real


and true featutes. To this l am op.
posed. | am willing 20 have this in


vestigation, as l have always been


willing but want it to be an inyes-
| tigation suitable to the dignity OF the


Senate and the dignity of the House


of Representatives 1 want it an in


vestigation to lay evidences before us


that we may, TO the full extent of our


constitutional power, apply the rem


edy, if remedy eau be devised.


For myself, have little faith, con-


fess, in any remedy your laws may


provide. There is already in every


one of these States law sufficient, il


executed, to put down these outrages


if law could put them down-every


one of them. In one of those States
i forget now which one it is, but ]


believe it is Tennessee-it is made
justifiable homicide if any man shoot
another who is found in disguise up
on the public highway? Can you
have anything str6 ger than that
can you make any law stronger than
that? Even i'll North Carolina this
very Democratic legislature now in
session has passed one of the most ef-


fective laws, / am told, that could be
| put on the statute-book to suppress
these very disorders. But it is mere
| ly empirical; /; he is a mere quaek in
| politics who think that by statutes,
acts of Congress, you can restore peace
and oider in any community what
| ever.


| No, sir, you must go deeper than
that. The causes that lie at the foun-
dation of these difficulties are patent
| to any man who has even a superfic-
ial knowledge of history. They are
| patent to any man who will reflect
| tor q moment. There never was a
great civil war yet that did not, as S
consequence of it, entail upon athe
country upon which it occurred the
presence of banditti.


My colleague said the other day
| that nothing he had ever read in his
tory was comparable to the .outrages
that were now being perpetrated in
| the South. That was the substance
| of his remark. l know my colleague
| is learned man but he must have a
frail memory indeed, or it has been a
long time since he read history, If that
is his conclusion. Does he rememb Der
the State OF Italy after the end of the
great civil war there? Does he re-
member that from one end of that pen
| insula to the other the whole country
was full of bandi1i Does he remem-
Der the state of France when Napole-
on L. was elected first consul, when it
was reported to him, and reported
upon reliable authority, that there
were not less than forty thousand
banditti in France at that time living
by violence, living by plunder, and
committing murder with impunity !?
Why, sir, it cannot be otherwise, and
the most astonishing thing that / know
i'll all my knowledge of history, and
the most creditable thing to the Amer
lean people, is this: that there has
been so little outrage, and there have
been SO few banditti, after such a
great civil war as we have gone
through.


never shall cease to admire the
American people when | think that
millions of men who had been in arms
when the war closed, quietly laid
down their arms and resumed the
occupations of peace. In the town in
which / live saw fifty thousand of,
them honorably discharged from the
public service and L say it, and say it
with proud boast for my State, that
though they were discharged and as
free as waste go where they pleased
they molested no man, they commit
ted no acts of violence, but peaceably
departed to their homes. And he
who has reflected upon it for 81 mo-
ment must see that, never perhaps
since the world existed, was SO great
an example set of the virtue, the mod
Grafton, and the intelligence of a peo-
pie as was displayed by the American
people when the great armies on both
sides were disbanded and sent to their
homes. Why, sir. these routrages
were not committed then. But there
has been more crime at the North
since the war than there was before,
and more crime at the South. That
could not be avoided. It was inevit-
able. - zE5fsE .1i.ifsf f@tzts5 = I


Then there are other circumstances
that must produce disorder. The
people at the South had fought for
cause they religiously believed in, as
much as we believed in the cause for
which onr side fought. They were
conquered, subdued, humiliated.
But then they believed that the war
had been carried on, as we declared it
should be, to preserve the Constitu-
ton and restore the Union, and they
expected that that pledge would be
faithfully fulfilled. Instead of fulfill
ing it you put them down under mar
tial law, you abolished their State
constitutions, you compelled them at
the point Of the bayonet to adopt 9TH
er constitutions, you set their lately
freed slaves above them, and gave the
control of State after State to the most
ignorant, the least informed and the
least interested portion of the COM
munity. In this very State of North
Carolina l think it appears that the
colored voters are eighty thousand.
The vote for the Republican ticket at
the last election was eighty three
thousand some hundreds, and the vote
for the other ticket was nearly eighty
eight thousand. 1t clearly appears
that there is scarcely colored man in
the whole State who did not vote the
Republican ticket. Now, whata spec
tacle is that! There is State in
which but three thousand white men
can be found to join the Republican
party; and who are they? Where do
they come from? Where were they
born? What spirit of adventure