undertaken to confer upon them the privilege of the ballot. Just released from slavery, it may be doubted whether as a class they know more than their ancestors how to organize and regulate civil society. Indeed, it is admitted that the blacks of the south are not only regardless of the rights of property, but so utterly ignorant of public affairs that their voting can consist in nothing more than carrying a ballot to the place where they are directed to deposit it. I need not remind you that the exercise of the elective franchise is the highest attribute of an American citizen, and that when guided by virtue, intelligence, patriotism, and a proper appreciation of our free institutions, it constitutes the true basis of a democratic form of government, in which the sovereign power is lodged in the body of the people. A trust artificially created, not for its own sake, but solely as a means of promoting the general welfare, its influence for good must necessarily depend upon the elevated character and true allegiance of the elector. It ought therefore to be reposed in none except those who are fitted morally and mentally to administer it well; for if conferred upon persons who do not justly estimate its value and who are indifferent as to its results, it will only serve as a means of placing power in the hands of the unprincipled and ambitious, and must eventuate in the complete destruction of that liberty of which it should be the most powerful conservator. I have, therefore, heretofore urged upon your attention the great danger to be apprehended from an untimely extension of the elective franchise to any new class in our country, especially when the large majority of that class, in wielding the power thus placed in their hands, cannot be expected correctly to comprehend the duties and responsibilities which pertain to suffrage. Yesterday, as it were, four millions of persons were held in a condition of slavery that had existed for generations; to-day they are freemen, and are assumed by law to be citizens. It cannot be presumed, from their previous condition of servitude, that as a class they are as well informed as to the nature of our government as the intelligent foreigner who makes our land the home of his choice. In the case of the latter, neither a residence of five years, and the knowledge of our institutions which it gives, nor attachment to the principles of the Constitution, are the only conditions upon which he can be admitted to citizenship. He must prove, in addition, a good moral character, and thus give reasonable ground for the belief that he will be faithful to the obligations which he assumes as a citizen of the republic. Where a people-the source of all political power-speak by their suffrages, through the instrumentality of the ballot-box, it must be carefully guarded against the control of those who are corrupt in principle and enemies of free institutions, for it can only become to our political and social system a safe conductor of healthy popular sentiment when kept free from demoralizing influences. Controlled through fraud and usurpation by the designing, anarchy and despotism must inevitably follow. In the hands of the patriotic and worthy, our government will be preserved upon the principles of the Constitution inherited from our fathers. It follows, therefore, that in admitting to the ballot-box a new class of voters not qualified for the exercise of the elective franchise, we weaken our system of government instead of adding to its strength and durability." "I yield to no one in attachment to that rule of general suffrage which distinguishes our policy as a nation.

But there is a limit, wisely observed hitherto, which makes the ballot a privilege and a trust, and which requires of some classes a time suitable for probation. and preparation. To give it indiscriminately to a new class wholly unprepared by previous habits and opportunities to perform the trust which it demands, is to degrade it, and finally to destroy its power; for it may be safely assumed that no political truth is better established than that such indiscriminate and all-embracing extension of popular suffrage must end at last in its overthrow and destruction."

I repeat the expression of my willingness to join in any plan within the scope of our constitutional authority which promises to better the condition of the negroes in the south, by encouraging them in industry, enlightening their minds, improving their morals, and giving protection to all their just rights as freedmen. But the transfer of our political inheritance to them would, in my opinion, be an abandonment of a duty which we owe alike to the memory of our fathers and the rights of our children.

The plan of putting the southern States wholly, and the general government partially, into the hands of negroes, is proposed at a time peculiarly unpropitious. The foundations of society have been broken up by civil war. Industry must be reorganized, justice re-established, public credit maintained, and order brought out of confusion. To accomplish these ends would require all the wisdom and virtue of the great men who formed our institutions originally. I confidently believe that their descendants will be equal to the arduous task before them, but it is worse than madness to expect that negroes will perform it for us. Certainly we ought not to ask their assistance till we despair of our own competency.

The great difference between the two races in physical, mental, and moral characteristics will prevent an amalgamation or fusion of them together in one homogeneous mass. If the inferior obtains the ascendency over the other, it will govern with reference only to its own interests-for it will recognize no common interest-and create such a tyranny as this continent has never witnessed. Already the negroes are influenced by promises of confiscation and plunder They are taught to regard as an enemy every white man who has any respect for the rights of his own race. If this continues, it must become worse and worse, until all order will be subverted, all industry cease, and the fertile fields of the south grow up into a wilderness. Of all the dangers which our nation has yet encountered, none are equal to those which must result from the success of the effort now making to Africanize the half of our country.

I would not put considerations of money in competition with justice and right. But the expenses incident to "reconstruction" under the system adopted by Congress aggravate what I regard as the intrinsic wrong of the measure itself. It has cost uncounted millions already, and if persisted in will add largely to the weight of taxation, already too oppressive to be borne without just complaint, and may finally reduce the treasury of the nation to a condition of bankruptcy. We must not delude ourselves. It will require a strong standing army, and probably more than two hundred millions of dollars per annum, to maintain the supremacy of negro governments after they are established. The sum thus thrown away would, if properly used, form a sinking fund large enough to pay

the whole national debt in less than fifteen years. It is vain to hope that negroes will maintain their ascendency themselves. Without military power they are wholly incapable of holding in subjection the white people of the South.

I submit to the judgment of Congress whether the public credit may not be injuriously affected by a system of measures like this. With our debt, and the vast private interests which are complicated with it, we cannot be too cautious of a policy which might, by possibility, impair the confidence of the world in our government. That confidence can only be retained by carefully inculcating the principles of justice and honor on the popular mind, and by the most scrupulous fidelity to all our engagements of every sort. Any serious breach of the organic law, persisted in for a considerable time, cannot but create fears for the stability of our institutions. Habitual violation of prescribed rules, which we bind ourselves to observe, must demoralize the people. Our only standard of civil duty being set at naught, the sheet-anchor of our political morality is lost, the public conscience swings from its moorings, and yields to every impulse of passion and interest. If we repudiate the Constitution, we will not be expected to care much for mere pecuniary obligations. The violation of such a pledge as we made on the 22d day of July, 1861, will assuredly diminish the market value of our other promises. Besides, if we acknowledge that the national debt was created, not to hold the States in the Union, as the tax-payers were led to suppose, but to expel them from it and hand them over to be governed by negroes, the moral duty to pay it may seem much less clear. I say it may seem so; for I do not admit that this or any other argument in favor of repudiation can be entertained as sound; but its influence on some classes of minds may well be apprehended. The financial honor of a great commercial nation, largely indebted, and with a republican form of government administered by agents of the popular choice, is a thing of such delicate texture, and the destruction of it would be followed by such unspeakable calamity, that every true patriot must desire to avoid whatever might expose it to the slightest danger.

The great interests of the country require immediate relief from these enact ments. Business in the South is paralyzed by a sense of general insecurity, by the terror of confiscation, and the dread of negro supremacy. The southern trade, from which the North would have derived so great a profit under a gov-. ernment of law, still languishes, and can never be revived until it ceases to be fettered by the arbitrary power which makes all its operations unsafe. That rich country-the richest in natural resources the world ever saw-is worse than lost if it be not soon placed under the protection of a free Constitution. Instead of being, as it ought to be, a source of wealth and power, it will become an intolerable burden upon the rest of the nation.

Another reason for retracing our steps will doubtless be seen by Congress in the late manifestations of public opinion upon this subject. We live in a country where the popular will always enforces obedience to itself, sooner or later. It is vain to think of opposing it with anything short of legal authority, backed by overwhelming force. It cannot have escaped your attention that from the day on which Congress fairly and formally presented the proposition to govern the southern States by military force, with a view to the ultimate establishment of

or

negro supremacy, every expression of the general sentiment has been more less adverse to it. The affections of this generation cannot be detached from the institutions of their ancestors. Their determination to preserve the inheritance of free government in their own hands, and transmit it undivided and unimpaired to their own posterity, is too strong to be successfully opposed. Every weaker passion will disappear before that love of liberty and law for which the American people are distinguished above all others in the world.

How far the duty of the President, "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution," requires him to go in opposing an unconstitutional act of Congress, is a very serious and important question, on which I have deliberated much, and felt extremely anxious to reach a proper conclusion. Where an act has been passed according to the forms, of the Constitution by the supreme legislative authority, and is regularly enrolled among the public statutes of the country, Executive resistance to it, especially in times of high party excitement, would be likely to produce violent collision between the respective adherents of the two branches of the government. This would be simply civil war; and civil war must be resorted to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to provoke it should be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious magistrate will concede very much to honest error, and something even to perverse malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not adopt forcible measures, or such as might lead to force, as long as those which are peaceable remain open to him or to his constituents. It is true that cases may occur in which the Executive would be compelled to stand on its rights, and maintain them, regardless of all consequences. If Congress should pass an act which is not only in palpable conflict with the Constitution, but will certainly, if carried out, produce immediate and irreparable injury to the organic structure of the government, and if there be neither judicial remedy for the wrongs it inflicts, nor power in the people to protect themselves without the official aid of their elected defender; if, for instance, the legislative department should pass an act even through all the forms of law to abolish a co-ordinate department of the government-in such a case the President must take the high responsibilities of his office, and save the life of the nation at all hazards. The so-called reconstruction acts, though as plainly unconstitutional as any that can be imagined, were not believed to be within the class last mentioned. The people were not wholly disarmed of the power of self-defence. In all the northern States they still held in their hands the sacred right of the ballot, and it was safe to believe that in due time they would come to the rescue of their own institutions. It gives me pleasure to add that the appeal to our common constituents was not taken in vain, and that my confidence in their wisdom and virtue seems not to have been misplaced.

It is well and publicly known that enormous frauds have been perpetrated on the treasury, and that colossal fortunes have been made at the public expense. This species of corruption has increased, is increasing, and if not diminished will soon bring us into total ruin and disgrace. The public creditors and the tax-payers are alike interested in an honest administration of the finances, and neither class will long endure the large-handed robberies of the recent past. For

this discreditable state of things there are several causes. Some of the taxes are so laid as to present an irresistible temptation to evade payment. The great sums which officers may win by connivance at fraud create a pressure which is more than the virtue of many can withstand; and there can be no doubt that the open disregard of constitutional obligations avowed by some of the highest and most influential men in the country has greatly weakened the moral sense of those who serve in subordinate places. The expenses of the United States, including interest on the public debt, are more than six times as much as they were seven years ago. To collect and disburse this vast amount requires careful supervision as well as systematic vigilance. The system, never perfected, was much disorganized by the "Tenure-of-office bill," which has almost destroyed official accountability. The President may be thoroughly convinced that an officer is incapable, dishonest, or unfaithful to the Constitution, but, under the law which I have named, the utmost he can do is to complain to the Senate, and ask the privilege of supplying his place with a better man. If the Senate be regarded as personally or politically hostile to the President, it is natural, and not altogether unreasonable, for the officer to expect that it will take his part as far as possible, restore him to his place, and give him a triumph over his executive superior. The officer has other chances of impunity arising from accidental defects of evidence, the mode of investigating it, and the secrecy of the hearing. It is not wonderful that official malfeasance should become bold in proportion as the delinquents learn to think themselves safe. I am entirely persuaded that under such a rule the President cannot perform the great duty assigned to him of seeing the laws faithfully executed, and that it disables him most especially from enforcing that rigid accountability which is necessary to the due execution of the revenue laws.

The Constitution invests the President with authority to decide whether a removal should be made in any given case; the act of Congress declares, in substance, that he shall only accuse such as he supposes to be unworthy of their trust. The Constitution makes him sole judge in the premises; but the statute takes away his jurisdiction, transfers it to the Senate, and leaves him nothing but the odious and sometimes impracticable duty of becoming a prosecutor. The prosecution is to be conducted before a tribunal whose members are not, like him, responsible to the whole people, but to separate constituent bodies, and who may hear his accusation with great disfavor. The Senate is absolutely without any known standard of decision applicable to such a case. Its judgment cannot be anticipated, for it is not governed by any rule. The law does not define what shall be deemed good cause for removal. It is impossible even to conjecture what may or may not be so considered by the Senate. The nature of the subject forbids clear proof. If the charge be incapacity, what evidence will support it? Fidelity to the Constitution may be understood or misunderstood in a thousand different ways, and by violent party men, in violent party times, unfaithfulness to the Constitution may even come to be considered meritorious. If the officer be accused of dishonesty, how shall it be made out? Will it be inferred from acts unconnected with public duty, from private history, or from general reputation? Or must the President await the commission of an