The President's Vision for Reconstruction
In an era of deep national division, President Rutherford B. Hayes addresses Congress on the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, the restoration of civil order, and his hope for the rights of the newly emancipated.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The President's message, delivered December 3rd, 1877, to Congress, is a very carefully written and exceptionally able state paper. The first subject treated is the pacification of the country. The ardent desire of good men of all parties for the return of the era of mutual goodwill between the people of all the states, and the good results that have followed the withdrawal of the army from the South and the restoration of local self-government in the Southern states, are treated at length. In regard to the freedmen, it says: 'It may not be improper here to say that it should be our fixed and unshakeable determination to protect by all available and proper means under the constitution and laws, the lately emancipated races in the exercise of their rights and privileges. I urge upon those to whom heretofore the colored people have sustained the relation of bondsmen the wisdom and justice of humane and liberal local legislation with respect to their education and general welfare, and a firm adherence to the laws, both national and state, as to the civil and political rights of the colored people now advanced to full and equal citizenship.' This last matter, the President says, is 'very near his heart,' and he urges very strongly that all instances of lawlessness or oppression of one race or class by another be punished and repressed by all means in the power of the government.
“It should be our fixed and unshakeable determination to protect by all available and proper means... the lately emancipated races in the exercise of their rights and privileges.”
In 1877, Snohomish was a frontier timber town grappling with the aftermath of the Civil War. President Hayes's focus on national reconciliation and the protection of the civil rights of newly emancipated citizens mirrors our own modern struggles to address deep political polarization and the enduring challenges of systemic inequality in America.
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