Orated by the famous, abolitionist preacher, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher on October 29th, 1865 in Brooklyn, NY.
Sermon given during the early stages of the debates over the restoration or reconstruction of the Southern States that were in rebellion at the time. Six months after Andrew Johnson had been appointed to the presidential chair as the successor of the murdered Lincoln.
 |
| Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President |
Healing with a Mission
[No Plan] It is a remarkable fact that at no period until now has any statesman or leader appeared among us who, in view of coming dangers, has been able to lay down a plan, or a course of action. Our whole horizon stands darkened by thick troubles. Question upon question, like ranks of trees in the forest, rising beyond each other.
[Goodwill Towards the Wrong] For despondency is ingratitude, and hope in God is worship. I am impressed not only with the duty of hope and trust in God for the future, but with the duty of good-will toward men. Now that war has ceased from out of our midst, nothing can better crown its victories than a generous and trustful spirit on the part of the citizens of this nation toward those that have been in error.
[Stay Focused on the Mission] There was no room permitted for us for charity. Every single overture of charity was employed as an instrument for our destruction, and a witness for slavery. Now it is different; circumstances have changed; and if we are wise, we shall rush to adapt ourselves to the new state of things, and perform now, though in a reverse manner, the duties which we sought until now to perform—then by opposition to the South; now by kindness toward them, and concord with them.
Two Key Objectives
[Two Critical Questions] The two great questions which now are unfolding into practical policies, and which attract the thoughtful regard of all men that think upon public affairs, are: first, the admission of Southern States again to the participation in our national government; and, secondly, the complete and permanent restoration to the black men of our country of their rights.
[Rapidly Restoring Southern Institutions] It is desirable, on every account, that the South should be restored at the earliest practicable moment to a participation in our common government. It is best for us; it is best for them. It is foreign to our American ideas that men should be dispossessed of civil rights, if we expect to treat them in any other way than as criminals. If we expect to make citizens of them, and useful citizens, it is part and parcel of our American habits and doctrine that they shall be made so by an active participation in public affairs, which we hold to be not a luxury, but an education and a duty.
Restoring the South
 |
| Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in his 30's |
 |
| Beecher Speaks at Fort Sumter Ceremonial Raising of the Union Flag (1865) |
[The Crazy South] In the first place, I could not have expected those that have been swept by this insanity. I can scarcely regard the state of mind that has existed for years in the South as other than a political insanity. I cannot expect, nor ask you to expect, that in one hour they will get over their animosity, their life-long prejudices and their humiliation. It would be easy for us to forgive men who are lovely gentlemen; but when we call them citizens and brothers, how often is our devotion for reconciliation checked by reading in the papers some hateful speech, or an account of some unflattering conduct? And how often do we find ourselves drawing back from the kindness that we had proposed to ourselves?
[Healing & Acceptance] Remember, the recovery from a disease is often slower and longer than the disease itself; and where men have been turmoiled, and torn, and revolutionized, it is demanding miracles to ask that in an hour, or a few days, they will sit clothed in their right mind at the feet of Jesus. And if there is to be anything like humanity, generosity, and true overtures of friendship, we must take men as they are. If we wait to have them become what we want them to be, we shall wait in vain. Circumstances will now compel Southern citizens to a course which will be safe for the Republic of the United States of America. They may act angrily; they may express ill-will; but they are now brought into a condition in which natural laws, stronger than human prejudices, will bend or overrule their wills.
[Attacking Ideologies] Nor are we to demand a surrender of theories and philosophies as a condition of confidence and trust. Because prominent leaders of the Rebellion are forgiven before they have shown any evidence of having relinquished the heresy of secession. I should have had less faith in them if it would have been said of the South, “They were insincere in professing faith in their State doctrines;” or else it would have been said, “It was in the power of the sword to change their convictions" neither of which would have been compatible with true manhood. All we have to ask is that they shall accept the fact and the future policy of the Union. Let men say that secession ought to have been allowed, if they accept the fact that it is forever disallowed by the people of this continent. These theories, if let alone, will die out. The age and country is against them. The course of events refutes them.
[South Rising Again] Old men may cherish them, but the young and ambitious will accept better doctrines and wiser policies. What kind of probation will you put on States which will make certain that, when they come back to the participation of national power, they will not do as they please? You make a condition which in the nature of things cannot be fulfilled. Somewhere men are to be believed and trusted, or all possibility of co-operative government is at an end.
[One Promise - Destroy Slavery] What guaranties? How are we to secure them? I think the best guaranty that can be given is the utter destruction of slavery. Men may make as many promises as they please, but they are under the influence of organic laws.
Our Institutions
 |
| Henry Ward Beecher as Gulliver, Puck Magazine |
[Winning Institutions] Why was the North valid, healthful ? Because her laws and institutions promoted freedom and the doctrines of liberty. It was not because we were by nature more virtuous than the people of the South. But we were under the influence of great organic laws that were inciting us to conduct ourselves in a wiser and better way than we individually knew or intended. We were dependent upon the wisdom of our great political institutions for making us what we were. And they of the South, on the other hand, were unconsciously under the influence of great organic laws which sprang from radically vicious institutions.
[Institutions at Odds] They were made what they were by certain theories of political economy, carried out practically. So that they answered logically to the influences of those institutions under which they were raised, as we answered logically to the influences of those institutions under which we were raised. It was the antagonism which existed between their institutions and ours that brought us in perpetual collision with them. The giving to all men equal rights, and the holding men in slavery, could not harmonize. Free labor meeting slave-labor; free speech meeting muzzled speech; a free press meeting a hampered press, could not but lead to conflict. It was the necessities of Southern institutions which collided with the necessities of Northern institutions.
[Wicked Southern Institutions] The people of the South were what they were, not by reason of voluntary wickedness, but by reason of the institutions that were behind them, and that pushed them forward, as tides push ships; and our excellence was attributable not so much to ourselves as to the pressure of the great laws and institutions under which we were acting.
[The Heart of the Conflict is Slavery] Now, slavery being destroyed, the cause of collision is removed; and, though a longer or shorter time may be required to readjust the state of things, once labor can stand free in the South, once there is no muzzling free speech, once there is no need for hampering the press, once commerce can be unrestricted, once the heathen laws on the Southern statute-books can be destroyed, and what guaranty do you want that free men, pursuing free labor, will not fight other free men pursuing free labor? The only cause of antagonism was slavery; and, now that slavery is destroyed, there is no ground for conflict.
Of all guaranties for the future harmony of the North and the South, the best is the effectual extermination of slavery. A guarantee of words may be very good and well, but a guarantee of facts is much better.
Preserving Southern Dignity
[Preserving the South’s Self-Respect] When you are God you need not receive your brethren back till they are humbled. But I take it that you are not in the place of God. There are many who desire to see the South humbled. For my own part, I think it is a great need of this nation to save the self-respect of the South. The wisest and most sound statesman will help carry the South through this terrible and painful transition with the least sacrifice of their pride, and with the greatest preservation of their self-respect; and if it can be done by the generosity of the North, a confidence will spring up at the South in the future that will repay us for the little self-sacrifice that we make. As for me, I would go backward and throw the mantle over their nakedness, and extend to them trust and help, till they could recover themselves and again stand erect in the full manhood of a common American citizenship.
[Mourning the Slain Southerners] I do not wish to see the South humbled any more than War has humbled them. Stripped, peeled, they have been. But that is not all. Oh, what woe is theirs ! Not a father or mother among them can mourn for a slain son, not a wife can mourn for a husband slain, not a sister can mourn for a brother, not a man or woman can mourn for a friend, with any other feeling than this: “He threw away his life for nothing!”
[Accepting the South] I am anxious that those who have been most active for liberty and humanity should produce the first and deepest impression on our brethren in the South by real kindness. Let the true men find the Southern heart, and let traitors be disallowed by both parties.
[Readopting Robert E. Lee] And when the war ceased, and he laid down his arms, who could have been more modest, more manly, more true to his own word and honor than Robert E. Lee? And when he was offered a job awhile after by the presidency of a college, is he not able to accept it? Must he not do something for a living? Might he not attempt to teach the minds of the South in the radical elements of education? And was it wise and befitting that we at the North should raise objections to him taking advantage of this opportunity that was offered him of gaining an honorable livelihood ?
[Taking the Higher Road] The real question is not of his fitness, but whether it is wise for us to deny to Virginians the right to select their own teachers. As far as I am concerned, I was glad that he accepted the position; and I have reason to believe that the young men who graduate under him, even if they are deficient on some points of political education, will be true and faithful to the government that they are to live under. Robert Lee is the last man in the South ever again to rebel or incite rebellion. And I tell you we are not making friends, nor helping the cause of a common country, by raising the names of eminent Southern men, one after another, into the place of bitter criticism. It is not generous. We are the stronger party; we have been successful and if there is to be generosity anywhere, we are the men to show it.
Eliminating Slavery
 |
| Beecher Addressing the Plymouth Church Congregation |
[Abolish Slavery] It is right that State conventions should be required to abolish slavery, and to assist in the amendment of the Constitution of the United States in that regard, so that any State that might try to rejuvenate slavery should under the Constitution be unable to do it. I think it should be a sound and wise condition of their rehabilitation.
[Forfeit Secession & Disunion] For, stripped of all words, secession means the right of a part of the people living under a government to destroy that government. The South are now, by the fates of war, brought to our feet; and they ask to be our equals again, and to be allowed again to participate with us in the administration of the government; and certainly we have a right to say to them, “ If you are to administer the government with us, you must swear not to attempt to destroy it.” Thus we must set to rest all possibilities of future secession and disunion.
[The Rights of Freed Slaves] They should have established, first, his right to labor, and to hold property, with all the liberties that come along with these two. They should have established his right to labor as he pleases, where he pleases, and for whom he pleases, and to have sole and undivided the proceeds of his own earnings, with the liberty to do with them as he pleases, just as any other citizen does. They should also make them equal to all other men before the courts and in the eye of the law. They should be just as much qualified to be a witness as the people that assault them. They should be under the protection of the laws, with all the opportunities to make usage of the same benefits which any other citizen has.
[African American’s Right to Vote] I hold that it would have been wise, also, for these conventions to have given him the right to vote—for it is always ill-advised and foolish to deny a man his natural rights. Voting in our community is not a privilege, or a prerogative, but a natural right. That is to say, if there is any such thing as a natural right, a man has a natural right to determine the laws that involve his life, liberty, and property. He has a right to have a voice in the election of those magistrates who have to do with his whole civil prosperity. If the right to determine the laws under which one exists is not a natural right, I know not what a natural right is.
[Liberty, Citizenship & Equality] In our land, liberty means citizenship. It is the right to self, to property, to law, and government, in each man and in all equally and alike. It is said that a declaration of the rights of citizenship is a declaration of social equality. You might as well say that the granting citizenship to a foreigner implies his right to share the property of those whose fellow-citizens he becomes.
Declaring the colored man's right to citizenship in this country does not make him your equal socially. Do you suppose that you are all equal to each other in a social sense? Do you suppose that the Irishman who has just landed on our shores, who becomes a citizen, but to whom our ideas are foreign, instantly becomes our equal in a social point of view? That is to say, the moment a man has the right to plead and be impeded in our courts, the right to the fruits of his own labor, and the right to vote, do I rush into his arms and beg him to become my son-in-law, whether I like him or not?
What phantasies fill the brains of men! How absurd is the idea, because I support the black man’s right to be a man, the right to hold his earnings, the right to be a witness in our courts, and the right to vote? Therefore does that mean I am bound to like him? And, to like him so much better than I like others as to make him my inseparable companion?
Andrew Johnson
 |
| Andrew Johnson, 17th US President |
[Andrew Johnson as President] The fact that Andrew Johnson thinks many of the questions that arise had better be settled by Congress than by himself does not lessen my confidence in this wise judge. When it comes to the readmission of the South into the Union of the States, remember that while the President may advise and caution the Southern people, it is Congress that takes the decisive steps. And it is better that the responsibility is divided, than that the President should seize power himself like some kind of czar, and determine questions absolutely and arbitrarily.
[Northern Hypocrisy] I must admit that we of the North are not precisely in a position to rebuke the South in respect to the rights of the colored man. I do not think that our actions and humanity permit us to give unqualified advice to our Southern brethren regarding civil rights. When black men can ride without being insulted and ejected from our street-cars; when they can sit undisturbed in our sanctuaries; when they can work in shops with foreigners without being rejected; when they can vote as white men do, without any property or other qualification —then the Northern States may assume to rebuke the South on this subject.
[Beecher Endorses President Johnson] And, although I cannot undertake to say it would be presumptuous of me to say it, that I endorse Mr. Johnson. Although it is not safe for anyone to run before, and to promise much for the future; although I reserve my right to differ from him, and to criticize anything that may be developed in his policy, as any citizen may. I do not remember a single act of his administration which does not seem to me to have been wise, just, and beneficial. The time when he was called to stand at the head of the nation was a most trying one. Perplexing questions were to be settled. Difficult knots were to be untied. But he has taken up and untangled thread after thread of our national affairs; and, with a firm purpose, a skillful hand, and a clear head, he has gone on weaving that garment which is yet to cover the body of these States in a common brotherhood. I thank God for the eminent services and timely wisdom of Mr. Johnson.
[Party & Policy Unison] Men that voted for Mr. Johnson should be proud. But that which calls forth my admiration, and which excites in me the profoundest gratitude, is that the men who hated him, and cursed him, and voted against him, are all converted, and have all adopted Mr. Johnson as their President, and his policy as their policy! So we are all one again! There are no party lines now dividing the country! There is one great party and only one! It is a miracle, and a miracle wrought in such a direction as to fill us with unqualified marvel, and with thanksgiving. I hope that these converts will not fall from grace!
Educating Black Communities
[Helping Black Communities] How can the North help the condition of the black man in the South? We can send him material relief; we can give him the means of education; but in respect to his immediate condition, we cannot, removed at arm's-length as we are, do much for him. And I do not think it is consistent with the nature of our institutions for the Federal Government to attempt permanently to take care of four million freedmen by military government. These men are scattered in fifteen States; they are living as neighbors to their old masters; the kindness of the white men in the South is more important to them than all the policies of the nation put together.
[Liberty Means the Right to Work] Those coming out of slavery cannot do without work; they cannot lie down in dissipation; they must work; they ought to understand that liberty means simply the right to work and enjoy the products of labor, and that the laws protect them. That being done, and when we come to the period where men feel they must work or starve, the country will be prepared to receive a system applicable to both white and black.
[Southern Affections] So far from that, his sympathy will get hold of the hearts of the white men of the South, in a manner that will go far toward winning them back to a better way. It is the period of winning and conciliation. War has done its work: and now we are to deal with men by the affections, by reason, and by conscience; and I think God has ordained this man to do that much needed work.
[Supporting Black Prosperity] We are, as far as in us lies, to prepare the black man for his present condition, and for his future, in the same way that we prepare the white man for his. And I think it should be a joint work.
[Supporting Back & White South] We ought to carry the Gospel and education to the whites and blacks alike. Our heart should be set toward our country and all its people, without distinction of caste, class, or color. It is our business to use our wealth to meet the present emergencies and crisis of the South, to supply it with food and clothing; but we are to treat them with respect as we respect ourselves.
Civil Rights
 |
| Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (1865) |
[Institutions & Negro Education] We need to prioritize the preservation of our institutions. We believe that a great nation can be rapidly squandered unless they have a strong common-school, academy, college, church, and family; and we are to carry the common-school, the academy, the college, and the church to every State in the South. We are to educate the negroes. We are to raise them in intelligence more and more, until they shall be able to prove themselves worthy of citizenship.
[Supporting Negro Development] You may pass laws declaring that black men are men, and that they are our equals in social position; but, unless you can make them thoughtful, industrious, self-respecting, and intelligent; unless, in short, you can make them what you say they have a right to be, those laws will be in vain.
[Colored Man’s Civil Rights] We have, then, a heavy work before us. We have a work that will tax our faith, patience, and resources. We rise and say, “The Lord hath helped us." And as he has helped us in the past by war, in respect to these great people that were in bondage, and laden with its vices and sins, so he will help us still in our work of preparing them for that liberty which has been so strangely brought to their very door. And I am satisfied that, while we should claim for the colored man the right to vote, you never will be able to secure it and maintain it for him, except by making him so intelligent that men cannot deny it to him. You cannot long, in this country, deny to a man any civil right for which he is manifestly qualified.
[Universal Suffrage] We ought to demand universal suffrage, which is the foundational element of our American doctrine; yet I demand many things in theory which I do not at once expect to see realized in practice. I do not at once expect to see universal suffrage in the South; but if the Southern people will not agree to universal suffrage, let it be understood that there shall be a property and educational qualification. Let it be understood that men who have acquired a certain amount of property, and can read and write, shall be allowed to vote. I do not think that the possession of property is a true condition on which to require the right to vote; but as a transition step I will accept it, when I would not accept it as a final measure. It is a good initial, though not a good final.
[Colored Soldiers Voting] Further than that, I hold that no government that has self-respect, and no people that have humanity, can ever call three hundred thousand men to shoulder the musket and bare their bosom to death, and can be saved by the sprinkling of these men's blood, and then say to them, when the danger is past, “We have no further need of your services; go back again to your degradation." I believe, with Sherman, that the man who carries a musket in the defense of this government has a right afterward to carry a ballot. And it will be a shame, a burning shame, if these people permit those colored soldiers who fought for the maintenance of the integrity of this nation to go without the privilege of the ballot.
Now, I would like to see the man that professes to be a Democrat who is opposed to a soldier's voting. Where is the man who can look in the face of that black hero who has risked his life in the thunder of battle to preserve this country, and say, “You do not deserve to vote?” The man who could do that is not himself fit to vote. He lacks the very first element of good citizenship.
Equity & Hard Work
[The Haunting Negro] I know that there are many to whom this subject is unwelcome, and who say, “ It seems as though there never would be an end of this negro agitation.” There are many that say, “Ever since I was born I have breakfasted, lunched and dined upon this Negro. He is in the pulpit, in conventions, in caucuses, everywhere!” Well, why do you not suppress him? I tell you, you will have to breakfast, lunch and dine on this negro until you do him justice. Just as quick as you are willing to trust your own American principles, just as quick as you put in practice your own American doctrine that all men are born free and equal, and have inalienable rights, he will sink out of notice as a vexation. He will no longer become an obstruction in the pulpit, in conventions, or in caucuses. Just as quick as you will do right, you will be delivered from the haunting of the negro; but as long as you will not, he will haunt you.
[The World of Work] I believe that one's life is valuable who produces results, and that one's life is worthless who produces no results. His fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and preserve the wheat and burn the chaff; and the man that does not choose to be exercised, that is unwilling to work—let him die and go out of life; because this is a world of work, and the Christian's life is a line of duty. Enter upon your task, take up your cross, follow your Christ; and if you would rest, work; and if then you would rest, work again; and if then you would rest, die and rise to nobler work, in that land where there is no sleeping, where there is activity that knows no rest, when we have quit this mortal coil, and are pure spirits that have risen to the industries of God himself.