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Dixon. Address of Charles B. Chapman and Mr JDizozx's
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1867.
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deception ot $enaloti JSixon by his JfelJow-citizens.

AD DEE SS

HOli. CHARLES R. CHAPMAN,

MAIOE OF THE CITY OF HAETFOBD,

MR. p IX O N'S
R E I> L Y.

A-I»RIIj aVth., 186 7.

HAKTFOBD :
PRESS QF WILEY, WATERMAN & EATON,
, . 1867.

(From the Hartford Daily Times of April 29, 1867.)

RECEPTION OF SENATOR DIXON.

Senator James Dixon arrived at his home in Hartford, on the
New York train, at 5 P. M., last Saturday.
He was received by his fellow-citizens with due honors.
A salute of thirty-seven guns was fired on the arrival of the
Senator. A full band was present, and greeted him with
patriotic and national music.
The rain poured in torrents during the afternoon, and at no
time harder than when the train arrived. It had been arranged
in the morning to receive him on the Park ; but the storm pre
vented this, and the crowd to the number of a thousand,
gathered in the spacious depot and loudly cheered Mr. Dixon
as he stepped from the cars.
Here, his Honor Mayor Chapman welcomed him on behalf
of his friends and fellow-citizens.
Senator Dixon replied, "off hand," as we sometimes say, as
he had only been-informed that anything like a public reception
was to be given to him a very short time previous, as he was on
his way to Hartford. Indeed, the reception was impromptu,
and tendered to Senator Dixon in honor of his personal worth
and his devotion to the principles of the Constitution, in opposi
tion to virulent factions who have disregarded the charter of our
liberties, and are making war upon the defenceless people who-
long since surrendered and submitted to the lawful authority.
The foUowing are the remarks of Mayor Chapman, and the
reply of Senator Dixon : —
MAYOR chapman's REMARKS.
Senator Dixon — I have been requested by very many of my
fellow-citizens to tender to you on their behalf a welcome upon
your return to your home. I comply with their request with
pleasure, and I may add with much personal satisfaction.
You have returned, sir, to this city after a long and arduous
session of Congress. Youj course in that Congress has been

carefully observed by your constituents, and that it meets with
their'approbation this concourse of citizens which you see Jiere
before you testifies. That the majority of your constituents in
this State approve of that course is abundantly shown by the
result of the late election. You have, sir, followed the example
set you by those patriotic and wise statesmen who lived in the
elder and better days of the republic. Those days
" When none were for a party.
When all -srere for the State."
In the olden time the highest compliment which could be paid
a citizen was to say " he deserves well of the Republic." That
compliment, sir, can most truthfully be paid to you. You, sir,
have deserved well of the State, well of the Republic. _ In your
action upon the great measures of public interest which have
come before the Senate, you have undertaken to represent no
faction, no sectional idea ; but you have been, sir, in the truest
sense, a Senator of the United States. You have shown that as
a Senator you considered it your duty in all measures of public
importance to act not for a section only, but for the interests _ of
the whole country. In the storm of political excitement which
has been raging, you have been calm and unmoved, discharging
your duty fearlessly and impartially. You have been true to
the oath which you took as an elector, true to your oath as a
Senator. You have done all in your power to preserve the Con
stitution from violation, the rights of the people from destruction.
For the course which you have taken, for your noble fidelity to
your trust, the people honor you — for this they welcome you
home to-day and are glad to show in this public manner their
estimation of your distingiiished services. I extend to you, sir,
in their behalf a hearty welcome.
SENATOR DIXON'S SPEECH.
Mr. Mayor and Fellow- Citizens — I thank you for this kind and
generous, and until a late hour last evening, wholly unexpected
reception. Your distinguished Mayor has alluded to his
personal gratification in offering me the cordial welcome which
he has so eloquently expressed. How far this reception is the
offspring of personal kindness and regard, I cannot say ; though
I gladly believe as I look around me, and see the faces of so
many personal friends, that this is one of the motives that
actuate you. I am willing, however, to acknowledge that the
principal reason which has induced you to meet me here to-day,
is the fact that circumstances have made me in a degree the rep
resentative of a cause dear to every patriotic heart — ^the cause of
the Union and the Constitution- — the cause of our whole country.
It is the part I have been permitted to take in the defence of

is noble cause which leads you to offer me the honors of this
lur. We were involved for four long years in a bloody war for the
iintenance of the Union and the defence of the Constitution
a war in which many of you were engaged. After the war
is over the mutual attraction of the separate parts of the
untry would have long before this time have caused a perfect
id fraternal reunion ; with slavery abolished, and the rights of
I. protected. But the natural tendency to reunion has been
warted bv every device, and now at the end of two years after
e close of the war, mutual alienation and distrust exist, where
nfidence and friendship ought to have been fully restored. I
ought I plainly saw the disposition of the radical leaders to
utinue, as long as their party purposes might require, a state
disunion. I know that these men differed widely from the
tended policy of President Lincoln, which has been fully
lown to have been at the time of his death, precisely that
hich President Johnson has followed. I made up my mind
jliberately to defend and support this policy, and it was not
ss acceptable to me that I had in the month of June, 1862,
Ivocated in the Senate precisely the same policy — thus antici-
iting by nearly three years the great question which for two
^ars past has agitated the country. I knew that my course
ould subject me to blame from many honest but mistaken men,
id I foresaw the bitterness with which I should be assailed.
made up my mind however, to follow my convictions, and take
le consequences. Every day's reflection confirms me in the
;lief that I am right (Cheers.)
You wiE hardly expect me at this time and place to enter at
ngth into a discussion of the great questions of the day.
How me, however, so far to trespass on your kindness, as
"iefly to call your attention to the present condition of the
)untry. More than fifty years ago, a great poet, in lamenting
le downfall of freedom in Europe, said : —
" The name of Commonwealth is past and gone,
Over three-quarters of the groaning Earth."
In this quarter of the earth, America alone, it still remained.
ut if that poet were here to-day he might truthfully say, " The
ime of Commonwealth is past and gone over one-half the ter-
tbry of the great American Republic." In ten States of our
nion. all that is implied in the word Commonwealth is blotted
it and utterly abolished and destroyed. A despotism has
sen established by an act of Congress, more complete and per-
ct than any that ever existed on earth. The men who declared
ndrew Johnson a tyrant, a traitor, and a despot, and who
amored for his impeachment as an enemy to his country, have

passed a law which empowers him to arrest, to imprison, and to
punish at his sole discretion, without judge or jury, any persons
in ten States of the Union, and no tribunal of justice, not even
the Supreme Court of the United States, can interfere even by
inquiring for the protection of the violated rights and liberty of
the subject, unless some military oiEcer shall certify his consent
in the manner prescribed in the statute. Under this law every
human being, living in those States, white or black, is in every
sense in which the word has ever been politically used, a slave ;
for what is he but a slave, who holds every right of property, of
liberty, of life, at the unquestionable will of a military ruler ?
Yet this monstrous piece of legislation, called, as if by way of
mockery, a reconstruction act, is the work of men who assume
to be exclusively the apostles of liberty ! It is in the name of
liberty that every vestige of human liberty, and every muni
ment of human rights, have been utterly overthrown and anni
hilated. Under the pretence of establishing a republican form
of government, ten millions of people have been deprived of
every right which distinguishes a freeman from a slave, — and
every constitutional guaranty against oppression, every barrier
against tyranny, has been destroyed. It is as if some of these
modern reformers should happen, for a time, to be gifted with
omnipotence, and under the pretence of improving the condition
of the world, should resolve it into its elemental chaos, and then
attempt to give existence to a new creation. So these radical
legislators, pretending to establish a republican form of govern
ment, and lay the foundation of free institutions, begin by the
destruction of all liberty, and the subversion ' of every human
right. Well may we exclaim, in view of their legislation, " O,
Liberty! what crimes are committed in thy name! "
And now what is the excuse for this unnecessary establish
ment of Military Despotism? It is pretended that crime is
unpunished, — that murders of Union men are frequent, and
that Northern men are not safe. The falsehood of this pretence
has not only been fully shown by undoubted testimony, but is
entirely established by the perfect safety with which Northern
missionaries are now traversing the South, and making every
where, with entire impunity, harangues, the object and effect of
which is to array the white and black population in solid masses
against each other. The result of such an organization of par
ties, divided -by color, must be in the highest degree injurious
to both races, — perhaps destructive of one.
Gentlemen, the saddest excuse, the most lamentable reason
for' consenting to this legislation, was that given by a distin
guished Senator from Maryland, (Mr. Johnson.) I am by no
means sure he was not right, when he said he was compelled to
vote for the act, though utterly opposed to it, because he feared.

tp^M f ""T ""o^ P^f ^''''^' ^''"'^ '""^e terrible outrage would be
inflicted on the South, in the shape of confiscation laws and
other measures which should deprive them of the little they had
t ^^' ^^^.I'^ason indeed, if true! It is as if your neighbor
should permit your house to be robbed and burned, lest, if he
should mterfei-e to prevent it, your family might be murdered.
i have spoken thus far, gentlemen, of what has already been
done. Whether the South will submit to the legislation impo
sed upon them, we need not ask. They must submit. Utterly
crushed and powerless,— they have been, and are necessarily,
obliged to submit to anything and everything. They cannot
resist if they would. Instead of being in a state of rebellion,
%ey are really in a state of starvation, — and now they are. held
in complete subjection under the military law, by five Generals,
without troops worth enumeration. Do such people need for
their government a measure which sweeps out of existence all
human rights ? Is it well for them, or for us, to be educated and
accustomed to such despotic control ?
But, not to dwell upon what has been done, permit me fel
low-citizens, to glance for a moment at what it is now proposed
by the men in power to do, in the future. Two measures are
already proposed by them. The first is to create a black party
at the South ; to embody in one organized mass, the whole black
race, and induce them to cast their votes against the whites.
The line to be drawn between parties is a line of color. Appa
rently to accomplish this dangerous purpose, emissaries of dis
tinction- are now traversing the South. They may possibly
deny the purpose, but the certain effect of their teachings is
this. What a horrible state of things, should they succeed. If
not a war of races, a conflict of races would be certain to ensue,
and the black race, as well as the white, would be cruelly inju
red, — and all for the purpose of extending for a few years the
lease of power, now in the hands of the disunion radicals.
This is one of their measures which should be rebuked by the
whole North, as it has virtually been at your recent election.
The other avowed measure which is certain to be pressed at
the next session, is the threatened legislation of Congress to
control and shape the right of sufirage in the Northern States.
Two bills have already been introduced into the Senate of the
United States to establish what is called universal suffrage in
the whole North, including Connecticut. One of these bills was
introduced by Mr. Sumner,— the other by Mr. Wilson of Mas
sachusetts. Do you say Mr. Sumner is a theorist, — not prac
tical ? But what will you sa,y of Mr. Wilson ? A more thor
oughly practical man does not live. He attempts nothing which
he does not believe he can carry out. Both these Senators will
push this measure with all their power. Both believe in the

Constitutional power of Congress to enact suffrage laws for Con
necticut and other States. So both have declared in debate ir
the Senate. In my opinion, they have a fair chance of sue
cess, and it would not surprise me as much as I was surprisec
by the passage of the unconstitutional Mihtary Bill, to see oui
State elections controlled by act of Congress, and this old Com
monwealth, which had her own suffrage laws more than a cen
tury before the Federal Government existed, made to bow in
humble submission to the mandates of the radical majority in
Congress. If you think such an apprehension unfounded, look at wha1
has been already done, and judge from that what may be ex
pected in the future. If I had told you a year ago that the
existing Military Reconstruction Bill would be passed in less
than a year, you would have thought me attempting to impose
on your credulity. Not twenty Members of Congress then
thought their vote in its favor a possibility. Yet it had the
entire party vote. So I predict it will very probably be with
the Suffrage Bill of the Massachusetts Senators. The party ol
progress will reach that position in the course of a year, and
those who do not keep pace with them, wi/l be denounced as
traitors and copperheads.
But, my friends, I must not detain you longer. I congratulate
you on your constitutional victory in Connecticut Our noble
Commonwealth possessed the earlie'st known written constitution
and form of government She is the first to strike a victorioui
blow in defence of the Constitution of the United States'. The
great political battle which is now to be waged is in defence and
support of constitutional liberty — the rights of man as guaran
teed by our State and National Constitutions. This is the greal
cause for which we are now to enter the lists. In this greal
legal and constitutional conflict, I purpose to contend, to the
extent of my ability, for the maintenance of the Constitutior
and for liberty defined and protected by law, against all oppO'
nents, and especially against the radical leaders, who in the
name of liberty, are undermining the very foundations of con
stitutional government, and in that struggle, so long as you are
faithful to it, I am with you to the end.
Once more, friends and fellow-citizens, I offer you my gratefu
thanks for this manifestation of your friendship, your confidence
and your support

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 04187 7060

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