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have battled with the barbarism of slavery.
I battle still, as the bloody monster retreats to its last citadel; and, God willing, I mean to hold on if it takes what remains to me of life.
The reception which the address met with showed clearly that whatever might be the current of opinion elsewhere, the people of
Massachusetts were with
Sumner.
Fortunate the senator who had such a constituency!
The convention approved the admission of negroes to suffrage as a part and condition of reconstruction.
1 A similar ground was taken by the Republicans of
Vermont,
Iowa, and
Minnesota; but generally Republican State conventions shrank from an explicit declaration.
Notwithstanding the prudent reserve of politicians, there was however, during the recess of Congress, a growing conviction among the
Northern people that governments at once loyal, stable, and securing the rights of all,
white and
black, could not be established in the rebel States without admitting the freedmen to a share in them.
It was
Sumner who took the lead in spreading and organizing that conviction.
He wrote to
Lieber, September 18:—
As to reconstruction, I know, of course, the difficulties of detail, tasking patience; but the general principles are found in national security and national faith.
If the President had from the beginning seen these duties clearly, and headed that way in all that he said and did, the whole North would have been with him, and the South would not have been recalcitrant.
As it is, all for the present is uncertain.
Controversy is certain; division probable.
But I still trust to that good Providence which has conducted us thus far safely.
Meanwhile we must work.
My, speech [September 14] was received with perfect harmony and assent.
Perhaps I never before stated better the precise opinions of Massachusetts.
Stanton is here; he thanked me very cordially for my address to him in the speech, and said that I asked him to do only what he wanted to do. I am glad that they have got over the nonsense of trying Jefferson Davis by a jury.
The whole idea has been weak and impossible from the beginning.
Again, October 12:—
Send me the reference to your article on “Republican government;” also any other references to history or discussion explaining its meaning.
Words receive expansion and elevation with time.
Our fathers builded wiser than they knew.
Did they simply mean a guarantee against a king?
Something more, I believe—all of which was not fully revealed to themselves, but which we must now declare in the light of our institutions.
We know more than
