A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction

by John David Smith

  Mr. President, I have nothing more to say. What I have said I have said in kindness; and I hope it will be received in that spirit.

  ROBERT BROWN ELLIOTT, “THE AMNESTY BILL”

  (March 14, 1871)

  Born and educated in Liverpool, England, Robert Brown Elliott (1842–1884) migrated to Boston in 1867 and then moved to South Carolina as Congressional Reconstruction began. He edited the South Carolina Leader, an African-American newspaper that espoused Republican principles. He later read law and was admitted to the South Carolina bar. Though probably not an American citizen, Elliott nonetheless was elected a delegate to South Carolina’s 1868 constitutional convention, where he championed compulsory education for children ages six to sixteen and universal manhood suffrage, and opposed a poll tax. Elected to the state House of Representatives, Elliott next was appointed the state’s assistant adjutant general. In that capacity, he established South Carolina’s Black Militia, which tried unsuccessfully to suppress Klan violence in the state’s uplands. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1870, in March 1871, Elliott forcefully opposed an amnesty bill designed to remove political disabilities against former Confederates.

  The House now has under consideration a bill of vast importance to the people of the section that I have the honor in part to represent. It is a proposition to remove the political disabilities of persons lately engaged in rebellion against the sovereignty of the Government of the United States. I believe that I have been noted in the State from which I come as one entertaining liberal views upon this very question; but, at a time like this, when I turn my eyes to the South and see the loyal men of that section of the country suffering at the hands of the very men whom it is proposed today by this Forty-Second Congress of the United States to relieve them of their political disabilities, I must here and now enter my solemn protest against any such proposition.

  It is nothing but an attempt to pay a premium for disloyalty and treason at the expense of loyalty. I am not surprised that the gentleman from Kentucky should introduce such a proposition here. It was due to the class of men that it is proposed to relieve that such a proposition should come from the gentleman from Kentucky [George Madison Adams] and gentlemen upon that side of the House. I can appreciate the feeling of sympathy that the gentleman from Kentucky entertains for these men in the South who are today prohibited from holding Federal offices. They are his allies. They are his compatriots. They are today disfranchised simply because they rushed madly into rebellion against this, the best Government that exists under heaven, at their own instances, with the advice, and with the consent of such gentlemen as the gentleman from Kentucky. But when I hear gentlemen like the gentleman from Illinois [John Franklin Farnsworth], who spoke upon this question on Friday last, advance views and opinions such as that gentleman then advanced I must be allowed to express my surprise, ay, sir, my regret, that at this time such words should fall from the lips of a man whom I have been taught long to regard as one of those who are unflinching in their devotion to the cause of liberty and the preservation and maintenance of this great Government.

  The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Farnsworth] took occasion, in his argument on Friday last, to compare the condition of the man who is today disfranchised and the man who is allowed to hold office in the South. He drew a parallel between the disfranchised old man and his servant, or slave, who today holds office or may do so. He tells you that you should take into consideration the condition of this poor old man who, because he simply happened to join the rebellion after having taken an oath to support the Constitution of the Government of the United States, is prohibited from holding office, while his slave is allowed to hold office under the State and the United States governments. Ay, sir, the reason of this difference between the political status of the two is simply this: that while this old man, with whom the gentleman from Illinois sympathizes in his heart, was rebellious against the Government which had fostered and sustained and protected him, his slave was loyal to that Government, loyal to its Army, and loved its flag, which the man who had been reared under it, had learned only to despise. The difference is this: that while that “poor old man,” of whom the gentleman speaks so sympathetically, would only curse the Government, would only ill-treat and murder its loyal adherents, the slave was the friend of that Government, and the protector and defender of those who were endeavoring to uphold it.

  In discussing this question, and as a reason why this bill should pass, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Farnsworth] stated that the removal of disabilities would do good, and that to maintain those disabilities could effect no good purpose. Sir, I say that this removal would be injurious, not only to the loyal men of the South, but also to the Government itself. To relieve those men of their disabilities at this time would be regarded by the loyal men of the South as an evidence of the weakness of this great Government, and of an intention on the part of this Congress to foster the men who today are outraging the good and loyal people of the South. It would be further taken as evidence of the fact that this Congress desires to hand over the loyal men of the South to the tender mercies of the rebels who today are murdering and scourging the southern States.

  The gentleman from Illinois, in his argument, was pleased to ask this question, which he proposed to answer himself: are these men who are disfranchised and prohibited from holding offices the men who commit the murders and outrages of which complaint is made? And his answer to that question was that they are not. But permit me to say to that gentleman that those men are responsible for every murder, responsible for every species of outrage that is committed in the South. They are men who, by their evil example, by their denunciations of Congress, by their abuse of the President of the United States, and of all connected with this Government, have encouraged, aided, and abetted the men who commit these deeds. They contribute to this state of things by their social influence, by their money and the money sent from the northern States—money furnished by Tammany Hall for the purpose of keeping up these outrages in order to insure a Democratic triumph in the South in 1872.

  And I am here today to tell you, in the name of the loyal men of the South, that it is the fact that money is sent to the South by the Democratic party of the North to aid these men in keeping up this state of lawlessness for the purpose of overawing the loyal people there and preventing them from expressing their preferences at the ballot box; that the number of arms shipped to the southern States, and which are brought there upon every New York steamer that arrives, is an evidence of the fact that these men who have the means, who have the influence, are responsible for these outrages, and not the poor, miserable tools who are their instruments in carrying them out. I ask this House, I ask gentlemen on this side especially, whether they are willing to join hands with those who propose today to relieve these men of their disabilities? Are they willing to tell the loyal men of the South, whose only offense is that they have been true to the Government, that they have sustained Congress in its just and lawful acts, that they have maintained the authority of Congress; are gentlemen willing to tell these loyal men that Congress is not disposed to protect them, but, on the contrary, is willing at their expense to pay a premium for disloyalty?

  I speak not today in behalf of the colored loyalists of the South alone. I wish it to be distinctly understood that I represent here a constituency composed of men whose complexions are like those of gentlemen around me as well as men whose complexions are similar to my own. I represent a constituency as loyal as the constituency of any other gentleman upon this floor. Those men appeal to you today to do justice to them. They ask you to protect them by legislation, instead of placing them under the heel of those men who have ruled in the South with an iron hand since the Reconstruction Acts were passed. I come here backed up by a majority as large probably as that of any gentleman on this floor; I come here representing a Republican district; but unless this Congress will aid those loyal men of the South, unless, instead of passi
ng propositions of this kind, it will turn its attention, and that speedily, to the protection of property and life in the South, the Republican party in this House cannot expect the support of those whom I represent.

  “AN ACT TO ENFORCE THE PROVISIONS OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES”

  (April 20, 1871)

  The third Enforcement Act, often termed the Ku Klux Act, declared terrorist groups like the Klan illegal and empowered the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in areas under Klan influence. The most sweeping of the Enforcement Acts, this legislation enumerated crimes, including conspiracies to deprive citizens of suffrage, holding office, serving on juries, and enjoying equal protection of the law as punishable under federal law if state law failed to do so. Significantly, this act made private criminal acts the province of the federal courts. According to one historian, the act “pushed Republicans to the outer limits of constitutional change.”

  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any person within the jurisdiction of the United States to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall, any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of the State to the contrary notwithstanding, be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress; such proceeding to be prosecuted in the several district or circuit courts of the United States, with and subject to the same rights of appeal, review upon error, and other remedies provided in like cases in such courts, under the provisions of the act of the ninth of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, entitled “An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and to furnish the means of their vindication”; and the other remedial laws of the United States which are in their nature applicable in such cases.

  SEC. 2. That if two or more persons within any State or Territory of the United States shall conspire together to overthrow, or to put down, or to destroy by force the government of the United States, or to levy war against the United States, or to oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States, or by force, intimidation, or threat to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, or by force, intimidation, or threat to prevent any person from accepting or holding any office or trust or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging the duties thereof, or by force, intimidation, or threat to induce any officer of the United States to leave any State, district, or place where his duties as such officer might lawfully be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or to injure his person while engaged in the lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duty, or by force, intimidation, or threat to deter any party or witness in any court of the United States from attending such court, or from testifying in any matter pending in such court fully, freely, and truthfully, or to injure any such party or witness in his person or property on account of his having so attended or testified, or by force, intimidation, or threat to influence the verdict, presentment, or indictment, of any juror or grand juror in any court of the United States, or to injure such juror in his person or property on account of any verdict, presentment, or indictment lawfully assented to by him, or on account of his being or having been such juror, or shall conspire together, or go in disguise upon the public highway or upon the premises of another for the purpose, either directly or indirectly, of depriving any person or any class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges or immunities under the laws, or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State from giving or securing to all persons within such State the equal protection of the laws, or shall conspire together for the purpose of in any manner impeding, hindering, obstructing, or defeating the due course of justice in any State or Territory, with intent to deny to any citizen of the United States the due and equal protection of the laws, or to injure any person in his person or his property for lawfully enforcing the right of any person or class of persons to the equal protection of the laws, or by force, intimidation, or threat to prevent any citizen of the United States lawfully entitled to vote from giving his support or advocacy in a lawful manner towards or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector of President or Vice-President of the United States, or as a member of the Congress of the United States, or to injure any such citizen in his person or property on account of such support or advocacy, each and every person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a high crime, and, upon conviction thereof in any district or circuit court of the United States or district or supreme court of any Territory of the United States having jurisdiction of similar offences, shall be punished by a fine not less than five hundred nor more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment, with or without hard labor, as the court may determine, for a period of not less than six months nor more than six years, as the court may determine, or by both such fine and imprisonment as the court shall determine. And if any one or more persons engaged in any such conspiracy shall do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby any person shall be injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the person so injured or deprived of such rights and privileges may have and maintain an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation of rights and privileges against any one or more of the persons engaged in such conspiracy, such action to be prosecuted in the proper district or circuit court of the United States, with and subject to the same rights of appeal, review upon error, and other remedies provided in like cases in such courts under the provisions of the act of April ninth, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, entitled “An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and to furnish the means of their vindication.”

  SEC. 3. That in all cases where insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combinations, or conspiracies in any State shall so obstruct or hinder the execution of the laws thereof, and of the United States, as to deprive any portion or class of the people of such State of any of the rights, privileges, or immunities, or protection, named in the Constitution and secured by this act, and the constituted authorities of such State shall either be unable to protect, or shall, from any cause, fail in or refuse protection of the people in such rights, such facts shall be deemed a denial by such State of the equal protection of the laws to which they are entitled under the Constitution of the United States; and in all such cases, or whenever any such insurrection, violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy shall oppose or obstruct the laws of the United States or the due execution thereof, or impede or obstruct the due course of justice under the same, it shall be lawful for the President, and it shall be his duty to take such measures, by the employment of the militia or the land and naval forces of the United States, or of either, or by other means, as he may deem necessary for the suppression of such insurrection, domestic violence, or combinations; and any person who shall be arrested under the provisions of this and the preceding section shall be delivered to the marshal of the proper district, to be dealt with according to law.

  SEC. 4. That whenever in any State or part of a State the unlawful combinations named in the preceding section of this act shall be organized and armed, and so numerous and powerful as to be able, by violence, to either overthrow or set at defiance the constituted authorities of such State, and of the United States within such State, or when the
constituted authorities are in complicity with, or shall connive at the unlawful purposes of, such powerful and armed combinations; and whenever, by reason of either or all of the causes aforesaid, the conviction of such offenders and the preservation of the public safety shall become in such district impracticable, in every such case such combinations shall be deemed a rebellion against the government of the United States, and during the continuance of such rebellion, and within the limits of the district which shall be so under the sway thereof, such limits to be prescribed by proclamation, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, when in his judgment the public safety shall require it, to suspend the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, to the end that such rebellion may be overthrown: Provided, That all the provisions of the second section of an act entitled “An act relating to habeas corpus, and regulating judicial proceedings in certain cases,” approved March third, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, which relate to the discharge of prisoners other than prisoners of war, and to the penalty for refusing to obey the order of the court, shall be in full force so far as the same are applicable to the provisions of this section: Provided further, That the President shall first have made proclamation, as now provided by law, commanding such insurgents to disperse: And provided also, That the provisions of this section shall not be in force after the end of the next regular session of Congress.