SPEECH of HON. MALCOLM R. PATTERSON, OF TENNESSEE,

The House being in Committee of the Whole House--

Mr. PATTERSON of Tennessee said:

Mr. Chairman: Taking advantage of the latitude permitted for discussion. I want to say something on the political conditions as they formerly existed and now exist in the Southern States.

The position of the South in the political history of the Republic has been a peculiar and an anomalous one.

Previous to the civil war there was no part of the country where political questions were more thoroughly studied, where parties were more evenly divided, and statesmanship unfettered by sectionalism seemed to have reached its fullest fruition and to produce its richest results.

Of the thirteen original States forming the Union, the four Southern States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia held a commanding place in the great work of government building. At the beginning of the year 1861 there were thirty-two States which constituted the American Union, of which there were eleven seceding Southern States, and two--Maryland and Kentucky--which did not leave the Union, but sympathized with the southern cause.

From 1789 to 1861, seventy-two years of the life of the Republic, fifteen Presidents had been chosen, nine of whom--Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, William H. Harrison, Tyler, Polk, and Taylor--came from the Southern States of Virginia and Tennessee, the length of whose combined service was forty-nine years, while the elder and younger Adams came from Massachusetts, Van Buren from New York, Fillmore from New York, Pierce from New Hampshire, and Buchanan from Pennsylvania, with a combined service of twenty-three years.

During this period there were fourteen Vice-Presidents of the United States, six of whom were from the Southern States.

We also find that of the thirty-six justices of the Supreme Court appointed during this time twenty-one were southern men, and of the four Chief Justices, three were from the South.

There were twenty Secretaries of State from 1789 to 1861, twelve of whom were from the South.

There were twenty-three Secretaries of the Treasury, eight of whom were from the South.

Of the thirty-two Secretaries of War, sixteen were southern men.

The first Secretary of the Interior was appointed by Taylor in 1849. From that time to 1861 there had been six Secretaries appointed, three of whom were from the South.

There were twenty-five Secretaries of the Navy, thirteen of whom were from the South.

The Office of Secretary of Agriculture was not created until 1889, and the first appointment was made by President Cleveland in that year. 00033

Of the nineteen Postmasters-General, six were from the South.

There were twenty-seven Attorneys-General, and fifteen were from the Southern States.

There were twenty-seven Speakers of the House, twelve of whom were southern men.

Of the twenty-four diplomatic representatives and chargé d'affaires to Great Britain, six were from the South.

Of the thirty-three representatives to France, eighteen were from the South.

Of the nine representatives to Austria, three were from the South.

Of the twenty representatives to Russia, eight were southern men.

There were no ministers to Germany previous to 1871, at which time the first was appointed by President Grant.

There were no ministers to Italy previous to 1861, when the first was appointed by President Lincoln.

There were twenty representatives to the Spanish court, of which twelve were from the Southern States.

The first half of the period from 1789 to 1861 was one of momentous events, in which the experiment of self-government was tried; great States were admitted into the Union, and the principles of republican liberty fixed on the American Continent.

In these fruitful and eventful years the influence of the southern man on the history of his country can not be overestimated. Washington, a Virginian, is described by the English historian Green as the "grandest figure who ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life."

Then there was Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the first statues of religious liberty passes in this country and the reach of whose broad statesmanship has been the wonder and admiration of all mankind.

James Madison was called the "Father of the Constitution," and John Marshall, the greatest judge who ever adorned the bench of any land, was for thirty-four years the expounder of its principles and fixed forever its vigor and soul on the jurisprudence of his country.

All down the line in statesmanship, diplomacy, and military achievement the names of southern men were thick on the roll of honor. [Applause.]

It was during the Administration of southern men as Presidents that vast territorial domain was acquired, out of which States and Territories have been erected and constitutional government ordained for the people.

In a speech made in the Senate of the United States in 1850 by Salmon P. Chase, then a Senator from Ohio and afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the following colloquy occurred:

Mr. Chase. Mr. President, I do not know any monument has been erected over the grave of Jefferson in Virginia.

Mr. Mason. There is--a granite obelisk.

Mr. Chase. I am glad to here it. No monumental marble bears a nobler name.

Mr. Seward. The inscription is: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."

Mr. Chase. It is an appropriate inscription and worthy commemorates distinguished services. But Mr. President, if a stranger from some foreign land should ask me for the monument of Jefferson, I would not take him to Virginia and bid him look on a granite obelisk, however admirable in its 00044proportions or its inscriptions. I would ask him to accompany me beyond the Alleghenies, into the midst of the broad Northwest, and would say to him:

"Si monumentum queris circumspice."

Behold on every side his monument. These thronged cities: these flourishing villages: these cultivated fields: these million happy homes of prosperous freemen: these churches: these schools: these asylums for the unfortunate and the helpless: these institutions of education, religion, and humanity: these great States, great in their present resources, but greater far in the mighty energies by which the resources of the future are to be developed; these, these are the monuments of Jefferson.

[Applause.]

Mr. Chairman, I have called attention to some of the achievements of southern men before the civil war, when both North and South were divided upon national, not sectional, questions; when the forum was one of free discussion, and before the black pall of universal negro suffrage had settled upon the South, paralyzing her energies and baffling the aspirations of her people. Since the war all this glorious records has been reversed, and the South for forty years has been a political pariah.

A blight has fallen upon the fair tree which before had flowered and fruited in such magnificent luxuriance.

Since the civil war there has been neither a President nor Vice-President elected or nominated by either political party from the Southern States.

Of the fourteen Secretaries of State appointed since 1865, none have been from the South.

Of the seventeen Secretaries of the Treasury, two were from the South.

Of the nineteen Secretaries of War, none were from the South.

Of the sixteen Secretaries of the Interior, two were from the South.

Of the twelve Secretaries of the Navy, two were from the South.

Of the four Secretaries of Agriculture, none were from the South.

Of the twenty Postmasters-General, five were from the South.

Of the eighteen Attorneys-General, three were from the South.

Of the eleven Speakers of the House, two were from the South.

Of the twenty members of the Supreme Court, five were from the South.

Of the thirteen ambassadors, ministers, and charge d'affaires to Great Britain, not one was from a Southern State. Of the ten to France, only two were from the South. Of the nineteen to Austria-Hungary, three only were from the South. Of the twenty to Russia, three only were from the South. Of the sixteen to Germany, none were from the South. Of the eighteen to Italy, none were from the South. And of the sixteen to Spain, two were from the South.

To-day there is not one Cabinet officer or head of Department and not one ambassador or minister to any European court from any Southern State.

And this enumeration, meager as it is, of southern representatives, must be still further reduced when it is considered that the majority of those accredited from the South were either northern men who came South after the war or were selected because of their hostility to the southern cause.

The only oases in the desert of nonrepresentation which has been the unhappy lot of the Southern States since the termination of the civil war will be found in the two Administrations of Grover 00055Cleveland. During the eight years of his service he never hesitated to go to the South for his advisers and to represent the nation abroad or the majesty of the law at home.

He named John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury; L.Q.C. Lamar, of Mississippi, and afterwards Hoke Smith, of Georgia, Secretaries of the Interior: Hillary A. Hebert, of Alabama, as Secretary of the Navy; and Augustus H. Garland, of Arkansas, as Attorney-General. He appointed Edward D. White, of Louisiana, and L.Q.C. Lamar, of Mississippi, who dignified and adorned every position which he ever held, as justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He appointed Robert McLane, of Maryland, as minister, and James B. Eusis, of Louisiana, ambassador to France. He named A.M. Kiely, of Virginia and Alexandra R. Lawton, of Georgia, ministers to Austria: Clifton R. Breckinridge, of Arkansas, to Russia; and J.L.M. Curry, of Virginia, and Hannis Taylor, of Alabama, to the court of Spain.

Well may it be recalled, during Mr. Cleveland's first term, how the nothern press teemed with fierce denunciations of southern men, and the awful spectacle was exhibited to the North of the South again being in the saddle; but Cleveland withstood thsi strom of protest, as he has withstood every other storm that has gathered about his head, and, in my opinion, in his unreserved recognition of southern men he did more to destroy sectionalism than any other single man has ever accomplished, for his appointees bore the responsibilities of high public station at home and abroad with honor and dignity and with the single purpose of the common good for the common country.

I do not pretend to be the advocate of Mr. Cleveland, nor do I think the time has come when his political eulogy should be pronounced, but if he made mistakes those mistakes were not against the interest of southern people, and whatever they were they are like specks on the sun of his great character, intense patriotism, and unblemished honor. [Loud applause.]

It has always been a fact that the South was perfectly loyal to the Union since the surrender. The difficulty was either that the North did not know this fact or would not admit it for political reasons.

Next to Cleveland, I think the man did more to bring about this realization was the lamented McKinley, and as a southern man and an American I pause to lay a tribute on his tomb. [Applause.] His varied and extensive knowledge of men and conditions, gathered from eighteen years experience as a legislator in the House of Representatives, and in other fields to which his people called him, together with his kindliness of nature and integrity of purpose, made him the fitting evanged of peace and good will between the sections which he carried across the continent, and which he practiced in thought, word, and deed. Well do I recall the occasion of Mr. McKinley's visit to Memphis in the spring before his assassination. His reception was generous and sincere, and I can see now the remnant of Company A, grizzled Confederate veterans, with their muskets and uniforms of grya, as they flanked his carriage on both sides and for more than a mile marched as his escort of honor. [Applause.]

There seems to be no suffering of tragedy in life that does not bear its balm, or carry its blessing: so when this great American fell on the plenitude of his power and usefulness, and "gave his 00066honors to the world again, his blessed part to Heaven, and slept in peace, "I think all the people at last realized, as they had never done before, that patriotism was not cribbled or confined be geographical lines of boundary, but spread out and reached to the extremest limits of the Republic, and is the inspiration of us all in the persistent purpose to make this country the best on earth and the home of liberty forever. [Applause.]

Mr. Chairman, the reason for the decrease of the South in political power is not difficult to discover.

It was not the war that kept sectional antagonism alive so long, for the war was fought by brave men on both sides, and a decade under ordinary conditions would have withnessed the end of partisan feeling, but it was universal negro suffrage which provoked a misguided nothern feeling and ate its way like a corriding canker to the very heart of the southern people.

It has been a plague on both the houses, North and South. It explains why the Republican party has so completely ignored those of its own political faith in the South, and why the Democratic party, with the acquiescene of the southern people, has not offerded a candidate from any Southern State for the highest elective offices in the gift of the people, though always having a majority of the electoral vote.

The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution was conceived in an hour of passion and designed as an act of vengeance.

It was a cruel penalty inflicted by an inflamed for upon a fallen and beaten adversary. It chained the South to a corpse.

It created and held prominent false and meretuicious issues before the country.

It was a gift which the negro did not know how to intelligently use, and its only effect has been to breed false notions of social equality and to provke swift retribution and bloody violence.

Who does not now believe that his life, liberty, and property, which every good man wishes him to enjoy, would have been more secure without than with political equality?

With all the black men, in the majority in some States and in many particular localities, led by unscrupulous adventures, intent on public plunder and using the negro as a tool, what was more reasonable or necessary for self-preservation than for all southern men to ally themselves with another party?

Before the war the South was the storm center of political activity, where issues were disussed upon a high plane, so necessary in a republican government and for the development of a high order of statesmanship.

It has been suggested why not attempt to divide the negroes politically; but this would have been a hopeless and runious task. Had they been open to reason, which they were not, still the South could not yield the vital principle for which it always stood, nor did it dare by encouraging political to invite ultimate social equality, for it is apparent that if the white people of the South were divided politically and the negroes were likewise divided the negro vote would decide nearly all the political contests; and thus brought in close communion the inevitable end would have been the utter ruin and confusion of both races.

No matter what the political opinions of southern white men might have been on national questions, or however much they may have divided under different conditions, their votes went 00077massed for the white man and civilization against the black man and ruin.

The unspeakable dread and horror of the time when political equality would obliterate the lines which mark the boundaries of the races has nerved and sustained the southern man through every vicissitude of fortune and carried him safely through every ordeal which vexed the temper and tried the souls of men.

At Appomattox the Confederate soldier surrendered his arms and renewed his vows to the Union. He returned to a desolated land and found his old slaves his political masters.

Without aid or bounty, in proud and incorruptible poverty, true to himself and false to none, he has lived and will die. He is now hurrying to the silence of the shadows which lay thick and heavy across the river, and soon will join the comrades who have gone before at the ghostly camp fires of the bivouac of the dead.

And when the last soldier in gray shall sleep, the impartial historian will tell of his matchless valor on the battlefield, but will write of the struggle he made for his home and fireside as the crowning act and the noblest of a drama so full of pathos, so set with high courage rich in imperishable honor. [Applause.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not propose to indulge in any cheap abuse of the negro. He has many kindly qualities, and I am acquainted with self-respecting colored men who are honorable and useful citizens and have the confidence of the people with whom they live.

Nor shall I recall atrocities in the North as a justification for atrocities in the South. They are to be deplored whenever they occur, but the facts remains that like conditions will produce like results in Ohio as in Texas, and I believe that an equal number of negroes are safer in the South than they can be in the North, for there the white people are more lenient with their frailties and charitable to their faults.

That the South was justified in adopting the only alternative presented for self-preservation is being understood and admitted by the intelligence of the entire country.

Time has accomplished much, and the passing years have brought an unmistakable message.

The presence in increasing numbers of negroes in the North, the influx of northern men to the South, closer intercommunication between the sections, concrete decisions by the Supreme Court sustaining the reserved powers of the State, and the Spanish-American war have all been contributing factors to a clear understanding and a more rational sentiment on the vexed question of negro suffrage.

And the Republican party itself finally approved the doctrine that inferior people had no right to political equality with the civilized white race when it declared that American States should never be made of the Philippine Islands, and the people thereof, though Christian Malays, with more intelligence and a much higher conception of the arts of civilization than the negro ever had, who had never been the slaves of any master, were unfitted for American citizenship and are left unclothed with the elective franchise to be tutored, controlled, and governed by arbitary power.

From force bills no longer discussed, from monstrous and unnatural political and social relations proposed in passion and abandoned in the day of cool judgment, is a far but inspiring cry.

00088

The amalgamation theory of Wendell Phillips and the recent notable declaration by Elihu Root that universal negro suffrage was a mistake and had been a failure are monuments marking stupendous changes, and set so high that the student of history is blind who does not see and comprehend.

This change, Mr. Chairman, while of immense value to the whole country, is of peculiar interest to the South, which has so long labored under the load of misrepresentation and borne the cruel burden which negro suffrage imposed.

It opens the door of opportunity for a reentrance on the stage of national politics, from which she has been too long excluded. The day has come for the South to assert her political independence and resume her historical place in the Union.

The hour is now for the South to lift the mortgage on her electoral votes, which she has paid to the uttermost farthing.

The spectacle of a proud people who were willing to forfeit all claims to the highest offices in the country has been all along discouraging and dispriting, and in my opinion, not always necessary.

I do not think that to nominate a Southern men for the Presidency would change one electoral vote against the Democratic party. For one, I am weary of hearing the constant and subservient iteration that the South is for any man whom the North may name for President.

It is an injustice to the South and a reflection upon the intelligence and patriotism of the northren Democratic.

Why should John G.Carlisle, the distinguished ex-Speaker of this House and Secretary of the Treasury, be proscribed because he comes from Kentucky?

Why should the leader of the Democratic minority upon this floor, who has exhibited such conspicious ability and grasp of public questions, be barred from the Presidency because he lives in the State of Mississippi? [Loud applause on the Democratic side.]

Why should the eminent Texan, formerly the leader of the Democratic minority, whose intellect is of the first order, and whose knowledge and exposition of Democratic principles and devotion to high political ideals has given him a deserved reputation, not aspire to the chief office in the gift of the people? [Loud applause on the Democratic side.]

The question should no longer be from what State or section a possible nominee of the Democratic convention should hail, but should solely be what are his qualification, what his worth, as measured by the high office to which he aspires.

The Democracy and the country need a man of broad Americanism, of high personal standards, whose ambition will be subordinated to the public weal: who is for honest taxation and the legitimate expenditure of the money; who believes in constitutional government and is an implacable foe to executive encroachments at home and abroad.

Such a man can be the next president of the United States, no matter what his name or from whence he comes. [Loud applause on the Democratic side.]