Last Public Address
Two days after Lee surrendered to Grant, a jubilant
crowd gathered at the White House, calling for President Lincoln.
Reporter Noah Brooks said, "Outside was a vast sea of faces,
illuminated by the lights that burned in the festal array of
the White House, and stretching far out into the misty
darkness. It was a silent, intent, and perhaps surprised,
multitude."
"Within stood the tall, gaunt figure of the President, deeply
thoughtful, intent upon the elucidation of the generous policy
which should be pursued toward the South. That this was not
the sort of speech which the multitude had expected is tolerably
certain."
Brooks held a light so Lincoln could read his speech, while
young Tad Lincoln grasped the pages as they fluttered to his
feet. The speech tackled the thorny topic of reconstruction,
especially as it related to the state of Louisiana. And for the
first time, Lincoln publicly expressed his support for
black suffrage. This statement incensed John Wilkes Booth, a
member of the audience, who vowed, "That is the last speech he
will make." A white supremacist and Confederate activist, Booth made
good on his threat three days later.
We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.
The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender
of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous
and speedy peace whose joyous expression can not be restrained.
In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow,
must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being
prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose
harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing, be overlooked. Their
honors must not be parcelled out with others. I myself was near
the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of
the good news to you; but no part of the honor, for plan or execution,
is mine. To Gen. Grant, his skilful officers, and brave men,
all belongs. The gallant Navy stood ready, but was not in reach
to take active part.
By these recent successes the re-inauguration of the national authority--
reconstruction--which has had a large share of thought from the first, is
pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great
difficulty. Unlike a case of a war between independent nations, there is
no authorized organ for us to treat with. No one man has authority to give
up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with, and mould
from, disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional
embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the
mode, manner, and means of reconstruction.
As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself,
wishing not to be provoked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer.
In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am
much censured for some supposed agency in setting up, and seeking to sustain,
the new State government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much as,
and no more than, the public knows. In the Annual Message of Dec. 1863 and
accompanying Proclamation, I presented a plan of re-construction (as the
phrase goes) which, I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable
to, and sustained by, the Executive government of the nation. I distinctly
stated that this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable;
and I also distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right to say
when, or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such
States. This plan was, in advance, submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly
approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that I should then,
and in that connection, apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the theretofore
excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion
about apprenticeship for freed-people, and that I should omit the protest
against my own power, in regard to the admission of members to Congress;
but even he approved every part and parcel of the plan which has since been
employed or touched by the action of Louisiana. The new constitution of
Louisiana, declaring emancipation for the whole State, practically applies
the Proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt
apprenticeship for freed-people; and it is silent, as it could not well be
otherwise, about the admission of members to Congress. So that, as it applies
to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message
went to Congress, and I received many commendations of the plan, written
and verbal; and not a single objection to it, from any professed emancipationist,
came to my knowledge, until after the news reached Washington that the people
of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about July 1862,
I had corresponded with different persons, supposed to be interested, seeking
a reconstruction of a State government for Louisiana. When the message of
1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New-Orleans, Gen. Banks wrote
me that he was confident the people, with his military co-operation, would
reconstruct, substantially on that plan. I wrote him, and some of them to
try it; they tried it, and the result is known. Such only has been my agency
in getting up the Louisiana government. As to sustaining it, my promise is
out, as before stated. But, as bad promises are better broken than kept,
I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it, whenever I shall be convinced
that keeping it is adverse to the public interest. But I have not yet been
so convinced.
I have been shown a letter on this subject, supposed to be an able one, in
which the writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely
fixed on the question whether the seceding States, so called, are in the
Union or out of it. It would perhaps, add astonishment to his regret, were
he to learn that since I have found professed Union men endeavoring to make
that question, I have purposely forborne any public expression upon
it. As appears to me that question has not been, nor yet is, a practically
material one, and that any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically
immaterial, could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing
our friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that question is bad,
as the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at all--a merely pernicious
abstraction.
We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper
relation with the Union; and that the sole object of the government, civil
and military, in regard to those States is to again get them into that proper
practical relation. I believe it is not only possible, but in fact, easier
to do this, without deciding, or even considering, whether these States have
ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home,
it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us
all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations
between these States and the Union; and each forever after, innocently indulge
his own opinion whether, in doing the acts, he brought the States from without,
into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been
out of it.
The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana government
rests, would be more satisfactory to all, if it contained fifty, thirty,
or even twenty thousand, instead of only about twelve thousand, as it does.
It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given
to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the
very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. Still the
question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite
all that is desirable. The question is, "Will it be wiser to take it as it
is, and help to improve it; or to reject, and disperse it?" "Can Louisiana
be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by
sustaining, or by discarding her new State government?"
Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave-state of Louisiana have
sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power
of the State, held elections, organized a State government, adopted a free-state
constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white,
and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the
colored man. Their Legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional
amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the
nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully committed to the Union,
and to perpetual freedom in the state--committed to the very things, and
nearly all the things the nation wants--and they ask the nations recognition
and it's assistance to make good their committal. Now, if we reject, and
spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We in effect
say to the white men "You are worthless, or worse--we will neither help you,
nor be helped by you." To the blacks we say "This cup of liberty which these,
your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you
to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague
and undefined when, where, and how." If this course, discouraging and paralyzing
both white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical
relations with the Union, I have, so far, been unable to perceive it. If,
on the contrary, we recognize, and sustain the new government of Louisiana
the converse of all this is made true. We encourage the hearts, and nerve
the arms of the twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it,
and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen
it to a complete success. The colored man too, in seeing all united for him,
is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant
that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving
the already advanced steps toward it, than by running backward over them?
Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be
as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the
egg than by smashing it? Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one
vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Constitution. To
meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths
of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly
ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this, further than to
say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently
questioned; while a ratification by three-fourths of all the States would
be unquestioned and unquestionable.
I repeat the question, "Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding
her new State Government?
What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States. And
yet so great peculiarities pertain to each state, and such important and
sudden changes occur in the same state; and withal, so new and unprecedented
is the whole case, that no exclusive, and inflexible plan can be safely
prescribed as to details and colatterals [sic]. Such exclusive, and inflexible
plan, would surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may, and
must, be inflexible.
In the present "situation" as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to
make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering,
and shall not fail to act, when satisfied that action will be proper.
