The PRESIDENT. I repeat, I merely wanted to indicate my views in reply to your address, and not to enter into any general controversy, as I could not well do so under the circumstances. when they become reconciled socially and politi- | a means of preventing the very thing which cally to this state of things. Then will this new your excellency seems to apprehend-that is a order of things work harmoniously; but forced conflict of races. upon the people before they are prepared for it, it will be resisted, and work inharmoniously. I feel a conviction that driving this matter upon the people, upon the community, will result in the injury of both races, and the ruin of one or the other. God knows I have no desire but the good of the whole human race. I would it were so that all you advocate could be done in the twinkling of an eye; but it is not in the nature of things, and I do not assume or pretend to be wiser than Providence, or stronger than the laws of nature. Let us now seek to discover the laws governing this thing. There is a great law controlling it; let us endeavor to find out what that law is, and conform our actions to it. All the details will then properly adjust themselves and work out well in the end, God knows that anything I can do I will do. In the mighty process by which the great end is to be reached, anything I can do to elevate the races, to soften and ameliorate their condition I will do, and to be able to do so is the sincere desire of my heart. I am glad to have met you, and thank you for the compliment you have paid me. Mr. DOUGLASS. I have to return to you our thanks, Mr. President, for so kindly granting us this interview. We did not come here expecting to argue this question with your excellency, but simply to state what were our views and wishes in the premises. If we were disposed to argue the question, and you would grant us permission, of course we would endeavor to controvert some of the positions you have assumed. Mr. DOWNING. Mr. Douglass, I take it that the President, by his kind expressions and his very full treatment of the subject, must have contemplated some reply to the views which he has advanced, and in which we certainly do not concur, and I say this with due respect. The PRESIDENT. I thought you expected me to indicate to some extent what my views were on the subjects touched upon in your statement. Mr. DOWNING. We are very happy, indeed, to have heard them. Mr. DOUGLASS. If the President will allow me, I would like to say one or two words in reply. You enfranchise your enemies and disfranchise your friends. The PRESIDENT. All I have done is simply to indicate what my views are, as I supposed you expected me to, from your address. Mr. DOUGLASS. My own impression is that the very thing that your excellency would avoid in the southern States can only be avoided by the very measure that we propose, and I would state to my brother delegates that because I perceive the President has taken strong grounds in favor of a given policy, and distrusting my own ability to remove any of those impressions which he has expressed, I thought we had better end the interview with the expression of thanks. (Addressing the President.) But if your excellency will be pleased to hear, I would like to say a word or two in regard to that one matter of the enfranchisement of the blacks as Your statement was a very frank one, and I thought it was due to you to meet it in the same spirit. Mr. DOUGLASS. Thank you, sir. The PRESIDENT. I think you will find, so far as the South is concerned, that if you will all inculcate there the idea in connection with the one you urge, that the colored people can live and advance in civilization to better advantage elsewhere than crowded right down there in the South, it would be better for them. Mr. DOUGLASS. But the masters have the making of the laws, and we cannot get away from the plantation. The PRESIDENT. What prevents you? Mr. DOUGLASS. We have not the single right of locomotion through the Southern States now. The PRESIDENT. Why not; the government furnishes you with every facility. Mr. DOUGLASS. There are six days in the year that the negro is free in the South now, and his master then decides for him where he shall go, where he shall work, how much he shall workin fact, he is divested of all political power. He is absolutely in the hands of those men. The PRESIDENT. If the master now controls him or his action, would he not control him in his vote? Mr. DOUGLASS. Let the negro once understand that he has an organic right to vote, and he will raise up a party in the Southern States among the poor, who will rally with him. There is this conflict that you speak of between the wealthy slaveholder and the poor man. The PRESIDENT. You touch right upon the point there. There is this conflict, and hence I suggest emigration. If he cannot get employment in the South, he has it in his power to go where he can get it. In parting, the PRESIDENT said that they were both desirous of accomplishing the same ends, but proposed to do so by following different roads. Mr. DOUGLASS, on turning to leave, remarked to his fellow delegates: "The President sends us to the people, and we go to the people." The PRESIDENT. Yes, sir; I have great faith in the people. I believe they will do what is right. you were pleased to express to us in your elabo- | 1. The first point to which we feel especially bound to take exception is your attempt to found a policy opposed to our enfranchisement, upon the alleged ground of an existing hostility on the part of the form er slaves toward the poor white people of the South. We admit the existence of this hostility, and hold that it is entirely reciprocal. But you obviously commit an error by drawing an argument from an incident of a state of slavery, and making it a basis for a policy adapted to a state of freedom: The hostility between the whites and blacks of the South is easily explained. It has its root and sap in the relation of slavery, and was incited on both sides by the cunning of the slave masters. Those masters secured their ascendency over both the poor whites and the blacks by putting enmity between them. They divided both to conquer each. There was no earthly reason why the blacks should not hate and dread the poor whites when in a state of slavery, for it was from this class that their masters received their slave-catchers, slavedrivers, and overseers. They were the men called in upon all occasions by the masters when any fiendish outrage was to be committed upon the slave. Now, sir, you cannot but perceive that, the cause of this hatred removed, the effect must be removed also. Slavery is abolished. The cause of antagonism is removed, and you must see that it is altogether illogical (and "putting new wine into old bottles," "mending new garments with old cloth ") to legislate from slaveholding and slave-driving premises for a people whom you have repeatedly declared your purpose to maintain in freedom. state of equal justice between all classes. First pure, then peaceable. 3. On the colonization theory you were pleased to broach, very much could be said. It is impossible to suppose, in view of the usefulness of the black man in time of peace as a laborer in the South, and in time of war as a soldier at the North, and the growing respect for his rights among the people, and his increasing adaptation to a high state of civilization in this his native land, there can ever come a time when he can be removed from this country without a terrible shock to its prosperity and peace. Besides, the worst enemy of the nation could not cast upon its fair name a greater infamy than to suppose that negroes could be tolerated among them in a state of the most degrading slavery and oppression, and must be cast away, driven into exile, for no other cause than having been freed from their chains. GEORGE T. DOWNING, WASHINGTON, February 7, 1866. Remarks at an Interview with the Committee of the Legislature of Virginia. February 10, 1866-A committee of the Senate and House of Delegates of Virginia called upon the President, for the purpose of presenting him with resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of Virginia. After some remarks by Mr. John B. Baldwin, chairman of the delegation, the President responded: In reply, gentlemen, to the resolutions you have just presented to me, and the clear and forcible and concise remarks which you have made in explanation of the position of Virginia, I shall not attempt to make a formal speech, but simply to enter into a plain conversation in regard to the condition of things in which we stand. As a premise to what I may say, permit me first to tender you my thanks for this visit, and next to express the gratification I feel in meeting so many intelligent, responsible, and respectable men of Virginia, bearing to me the sentiments which have been expressed in the resolutions of your Legislature and the remarks accompanying them. 2. Besides, even if it were true, as you allege, that the hostility of the blacks toward the poor whites must necessarily project itself into a state of freedom, and that this enmity between the two races is even more intense in a state of freedom than in a state of slavery, in the name They are, so far as they refer to the Constituof Heaven, we reverently ask, how can you, in tion of the country, the sentiments and the view of your professed desire to promote the principles embraced in the charter of the Govwelfare of the black man, deprive him of all ernment. The preservation of the Union has means of defence, and clothe him whom you been, from my entrance into public life, one of regard as his enemy in the panoply of political my cardinal tenets. At the very incipiency of power? Can it be that you would recommend this rebellion I set my face against the dissolua policy which would arm the strong and cast tion of the Union of the States. I do not make down the defenceless? Can you, by any possi- this allusion for the purpose of bringing up any; bility of reasoning, regard this as just, fair, or thing which has transpired which may be rewise? Experience proves that those are often-garded as of an unkind or unpleasant character, est abused who can be abused with the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest. Peace betwen races is not to be secured by degrading one race and exalting another, by giving power to one race and withholding it from another; but by maintaining a but I believed then, as I believe now, and as you have most unmistakably indicated, that the security and the protection of the rights of all the people were to be found in the Union; that we were certainly safer in the Union than we were out of it. Upon this conviction I based my opposition | loyalty. He who comes as a representative, to the efforts which were made to destroy the having the qualifications prescribed by the ConUnion. I have continued those efforts, notwith-stitution to fit him to take a seat in either of standing the perils through which I have passed, the deliberative bodies which constitute the naand you are not unaware that the trial has been tional legislature, must necessarily, according a severe one. When opposition to the Govern- to the intendment of the Constitution, be a loyal ment came from one section of the country, and man, willing to abide by and devoted to the that the section in which my life had been passed, Union and the Constitution of the States. He and with which my interests were identified, I cannot be for the Constitution, he cannot be for stood, as I stand now, contending for the Union, the Union, he cannot acknowledge obedience to and asseverating that the best and surest way all the laws, unless he is loyal. When the peoto obtain our rights and to protect our interests ple send such men in good faith, they are entiwas to remain in the Union, under the protected to representation through them. tion of the Constitution. The ordeal through which we have passed during the last four or five years demonstrates most conclusively that that opposition was right; and to-day, after the experiment has been made and has failed; after the demonstration has been most conclusively afforded that this Union cannot be dissolved, that it was not designed to be dissolved, it is extremely gratifying to me to meet gentlemen as intelligent and as responsible as yourselves, who are willing and anxious to accept and do accept the terms laid down in the Constitution and in obedience to the laws made in pursuance thereof. In going into the recent rebellion or insurrection against the Government of the United States we erred; and in returning and resuming our relations with the Federal Government, I am free to say that all the responsible positions and places ought to be confined distinctly and clearly to men who are loyal. If there were only five thousand loyal men in a State, or a less number, but sufficient to take charge of the political machinery of the State, those five thousand men, or the lesser number, are entitled to it, if all the rest should be otherwise inclined. I look upon it as being fundamental that the exercise of political power should be confined to loyal men; and I regard that as implied in the doctrines laid down in these resolutions and in the eloquent address by which they have been accompanied. I may say, furthermore, that after having passed through the great struggle in which we have been engaged, we should be placed upon much more acceptable ground in resuming all our relations to the General Government if we presented men unmistakably and unquestionably loyal to fill the places of power. This being done, I feel that the day is not far distant-I speak confidingly in reference to the great mass of the American people-when they will determine that this Union shall be made whole, and the great right of representation in the councils of the nation be acknowledged. We were at one period separated; the separation was to me painful in the extreme; but now, after having gone through a struggle in which the powers of the Government have been tried, when we have swung around to a point at which we meet to agree and are willing to unite our efforts for the preservation of the Government, which I believe is the best in the world, it is exceedingly gratifying to me to meet you to-day, standing upon common ground, rallying around the Constitution and the Union of these States, the preservation of which, as I conscientiously and honestly believe, will result in the promotion and the advancement of this people. I repeat, I am gratified to meet you to-day, expressing the principles and announcing the sentiments to which you have given utterance, Gentlemen, that is a fundamental principle. and I trust that the occasion will long be re- "No taxation without representation" was one meinbered. I have no doubt that your inten- of the principles which carried us through the tion is to carry out and comply with every Revolution. This great principle will hold good single principle laid down in the resolutions you yet; and if we but perform our duty, if we but have submitted. I know that some are distrust-comply with the spirit of the resolutions preful; but I am of those who have confidence in the judgment, in the integrity, in the intelligence, in the virtue of the great mass of the American people; and having such confidence, I am willing to trust them, and I thank God that we have not yet reached that point where we have lost all confidence in each other. sented to me to-day, the American people will maintain and sustain the great doctrines upon which the Government was inaugurated. It can be done, and it will be done; and I think that if the effort be fairly and fully made, with forbearance and with prudence, and with discretion and wisdom, the end is not very far distant. It seems to me apparent that from every consideration the best policy which could be adopted at present would be a restoration of these States and of the Government upon correct principles. The spirit of the Government can only be preserved, we can only become prosperous and great as a people, by mutual forbearance and confidence. Upon that faith and confidence alone can the Government be successfully car-We have some foreign difficulties, but the moment ried on. On the cardinal principle of representation to which you refer I will make a single remark. That principle is inherent; it constitutes one of the fundamental elements of this Government. The representatives of the States and of the people should have the qualifications prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, and those qualifications most unquestionably imply it can be announced that the Union of the States is again complete, that we have resumed our career of prosperity and greatness, at that very instant, almost, all our foreign difficulties will be settled; for there is no power upon the earth which will care to have a controversy or a rupture with the Government of the United States under such circumstances. If these States be fully restored, the area for the circulation of the national currency, which | constitution, has taken hold of one extreme, and is thought by some to be inflated to a very great extent, will be enlarged, the number of persons through whose hands it is to pass will be increased, the quantity of commerce in which it is to be employed as a medium of exchange will be enlarged; and then it will begin to approximate what we all desire, a specie standard. If all the States were restored-if peace and order reigned throughout the land, and all the industrial pursuits-all the avocations of peace-were again resumed, the day would not be very far distant when we could put into the commerce of the world $250,000,000 or $300,000,000 worth of cotton and tobacco, and the various products of the Southern States, which would constitute, in part, a basis of this currency. Then, instead of the cone being inverted, we should reverse the position, and put the base at the bottom, as it ought to be; and the currency of the country will rest on a sound and enduring basis; and surely that is a result which is calculated to promote the interests not only of one section, but of the whole country, from one extremity to the other. Indeed, I look upon the restoration of these States as being indispensable to all our greatness. Gentlemen, I know nothing further that I could say in the expression of my feelings on this occasion--and they are not affected-more than to add, that shall continue in the same line of policy which I have pursued from the commencement of the rebellion to the present period. My efforts have been to preserve the Union of the States. I never, for a single moment, entertained the opinion that a State could withdraw from the Union of its own will. That attempt was made. It has failed. I continue to pursue the same line of policy which has been my constant guide. I was against dissolution. Dissolution was attempted; it has failed; and now I cannot take the position that a State which attempted to secede is out of the Union, when I contended all the time that it could not go out, and that it never has been out. I cannot be forced into that position. Hence, when the States and their people shall have complied with the requirements of the Government, I shall be in favor of their resuming their former relations to this Government in all respects. I do not intend to say anything personal, but you know as well as I do that at the beginning, and indeed before the beginning, of the recent gigantic struggle between the different sections of the country, there were extreme men South and there were extreme men North. I might make use of a homely figure-which is sometimes as good as any other, even in the illustrations of great and important questions-and say that it has been hammer at one end of the line and anvil at the other; and this great Government, the best the world ever saw, was kept upon the anvil and hammered before the rebellion, and it has been hammered since the rebellion; and there seems to be a disposition to continue the hammering until the Government shall be destroyed. I have opposed that system always, and I oppose it now. The Government, in the assertion of its powers and in the maintenance of the principles of the with the strong arm of physical power has put down the rebellion. Now, as we swing around the circle of the Union, with a fixed and unalterable determination to stand by it, if we find the counterpart or the duplicate of the same spirit that played to this feeling and these persons in the South, this other extreme, which stands in the way must get out of it, and the Government must stand unshaken and unmoved on its basis. The Government must be preserved. I will only say, in conclusion, that I hope all the people of this country, in good faith and in the fullness of their hearts, will, upon the principles which you have enunciated here to-day, of the maintenance of the Constitution and the preservation of the Union, lay aside every other feeling for the good of our common country, and with uplifted faces to heaven swear that our gods and our altars and all shall sink in the dust together rather than that this glorious Union shall not be preserved. I am gratified to find the loyal sentiment of the country developing and manifesting itself in these expressions; and now that the attempt to destroy the government has failed at one end of the line, I trust we shall go on determined to preserve the Union in its original purity against all opposers. I thank you, gentlemen, for the compliment you have paid me, and I respond most cordially to what has been said in your resolutions and address, and I trust in God that the time will soon come when we can meet under more favorable auspices than we do now. Speech of the 22d February, 1866. [Report of National Intelligencer.] After returning his thanks to the committee which had waited upon him and presented him with the resolutions which had been adopted, the President said: The resolutions, as I understand them, are complimentary of the policy which has been adopted and pursued by the Administration since it came into power. I am free to say to you on this occasion that it is extremely gratifying to me to know that so large a portion of our fellow-citizens indorse the policy which has been adopted and which is intended to be carried out. This policy has been one which was intended to restore the glorious Union-to bring those great States, now the subject of controversy, to their original relations to the Government of the United States. And this seems to be a day peculiarly appropriate for such a manifestation as this-the day that gave birth to him who founded the Government-that gave birth to the Father of our Country-that gave birth to him who stood at the portal when all these States entered into this glorious Confederacy. I say that the day is peculiarly appropriate to the indorsement of measures for the restoration of the Union that was founded by the Father of his Country. Washington, whose name this city bears, is embalmed in the hearts of all who love their Government. [A voice, "So is Andy Johnson."] Washington, in the language of his eulogists, was first in peace, first in war, and first in the his name. hearts of his countrymen. No people can claim him-no nation can appropriate him. His eminence is acknowledged throughout the civilized world by all those who love free government. I have had the pleasure of a visit from the association which has been directing its efforts towards the completion of a monument erected to I was prepared to meet them and give them my humble influence and countenance in aid of the work. Let the monument be erected to him who founded the Government, and that almost within the throw of a stone from the spot from which I now address you. Let it be completed. Let the pledges which all these States and corporations and associations have put in that monument be preserved as an earnest of our faith in and love of this Union, and let the monument be completed. And in connection with Washington, in speaking of the pledges that have been placed in that monument, let me refer to one from my own StateGod bless her!-which has struggled for the preservation of this Union in the field and in the councils of the nation. Let me repeat, that she is now struggling in consequence of an innovation that has taken place in regard to her relation with the Federal Government growing out of the rebellion-she is now struggling to renew her relations with this Government and take the stand which she has occupied since 1796. Let me repeat the sentiment which that State inscribed upon her stone that is deposited within the monument of freedom and in commemoration of Washington; she is struggling to stand by the sentiment inscribed on that stone, and she is now willing to maintain that sentiment. And what is the sentiment? It is the sentiment which was enunciated by the immortal and the illustrious Jackson-"The Federal Union, it must be preserved." Were it possible for that old man, who in statue is before me and in portrait behind me, to be called forth-were it possible to communicate with the illustrious dead, and he could be informed of the progress in the work of faction, and rebellion, and treason—that old man would turn over in his coffin, he would rise, shake off the habiliments of the tomb, and again extend that long arm and finger and reiterate the sentiment before enunciated, "the Federal Union, it must be preserved." But we witness what has transpired since his day. We remember what he said in 1833. When treason and treachery and infidelity to the Government and the Constitution of the United States stalked forth, it was his power and influence that went forth and crushed it in its incipiency. It was then stopped. But it was only stopped for a time, and the spirit continued. There were men disaffected towards the Government in both the North and South. There were peculiar institutions in the country to which some were adverse and others attached. We find that one portion of our countrymen advocated an institution in the South which others opposed in the North. This resulted in two extremes. That in the South reached a point at which the people there were disposed to dissolve the Government of the United States, and they sought to preserve their peculiar institutions. (What I say on this oc casion I want to be understood.) There was a portion of our countrymen opposed to this, and they went to that extreme that they were willing to break up the Government to destroy this peculiar institution of the South. I assume nothing here to-day but the citizenone of you-who has been pleading for his country and the preservation of the Constitution. These two parties have been arrayed against each other, and I stand before you as I did in the Senate of the United States in 1860. I denounced there those who wanted to disrupt the Government, and I portrayed their true character. I told them that those who were engaged in the effort to break up the Government were traitors. I have not ceased to repeat that, and, as far as endeavor could accomplish it, to carry out the sentiment. I remarked, though, that there were two parties. One would destroy the Government to preserve slavery; the other would break up the Government to destroy slavery. The objects to be accomplished were different, it is true, so far as slavery was concerned; but they agreed in one thing-the destruction of the Government, precisely what I was always opposed to; and whether the disunionists came from the South or from the North, I stand now where I did then, vindicating the Union of these States and the Constitution of our country. The rebellion manifested itself in the South. I stood by the Government. I said I was for the Union with slavery. I said I was for the Union without slavery. In either alternative I was for the Government and the Constitution. The Government has stretched forth its strong arm, and with its physical power it has put down treason in the field. That is, the section of country that arrayed itself against the Government has been conquered by the force of the Government itself. Now, what had we said to those people? We said: No compromise; we can settle this question with the South in eight and forty hours.' I have said it again and again, and I repeat it now, "disband your armies, acknowledge the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States, give obedience to the law, and the whole question is settled." What has been done since? Their armies have been disbanded. They come now to meet us in a spirit of magnanimity and say, "We were mistaken; we made the effort to carry out the doctrine of secession and dissolve this Union, and having traced this thing to its logical and physical results, we now acknowledge the flag of our country, and promise obedience to the Constitution and the supremacy of the law." I say, then, when you comply with the Constitution, when you yield to the law, when you acknowledge allegiance to the Government-I say let the door of the Union be opened, and the relation be restored to those that had erred and had strayed from the fold of our fathers. Who has suffered more than I have? I ask the question. I shall not recount the wrongs and the sufferings inflicted upon me. It is not the course to deal with a whole people in a spirit of revenge. I know there has been a great deal said about the exercise of the pardon power, as regards the Executive; and there is |