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Title: Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction
Author: McCarthy, Charles H.
Language: English
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Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction
_By_
CHARLES H. McCARTHY
=Ph.D.= (_Pa._)
[Illustration]
New York
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMI
_Copyright_, 1901 _by_
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1901
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
Page
=Introduction= xv
I
TENNESSEE
Election and Policy of Lincoln 1
East Tennessee 3
Secession 8
Federal Victories 10
A Military Governor 11
Origin of Military Governors in the United States 12
Measures of Governor Johnson 17
Negro Troops 20
Nashville Convention of 1863 21
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction 23
Steps to Restoration 27
Nashville Convention of 1865 30
Election of William G. Brownlow 32
Nomination of Lincoln and Johnson 32
Presidential Election in Tennessee 34
II
LOUISIANA
Popularity of Secession 36
Financial Embarrassment 37
Capture of New Orleans 38
Lincoln’s Advice 38
General Shepley appointed Military Governor 39
Election of Representatives to Congress 45
Division among Unionists 47
Military Operations 49
Lincoln Urges Reconstruction 51
Political Activity among Loyalists 53
Title of Louisiana Claimants 58
Opposition to General Banks 61
Plan of Reconstruction proposed 66
Election of 1864 70
Inauguration of Civil Government 72
Lincoln’s Letter on Negro Suffrage 73
Constitutional Convention 75
Congressional Election 76
III
ARKANSAS
Indifference to Secession 77
The Fall of Sumter 78
Seizure of Little Rock 79
Military Matters 79
Threat of Seceding from Secession 82
General Phelps appointed Military Governor 82
Enthusiasm of Unionists 83
Lincoln’s Interest in Arkansas 83
Inaugurating a Loyal Government 84
The Election of 1864 90
IV
VIRGINIA
Secession 93
Physical Features and Early Settlements 94
Society and Its Basis 95
The Counter-Revolution 97
Convention at Wheeling 99
Organizing a Union Government 100
Legislature of Restored Virginia 103
The State of Kanawha 105
Attorney-General Bates on Dismemberment 105
Making a New State 107
Compensated Emancipation 108
Formation of New State discussed in Congress 110
Cabinet on Dismemberment 120
Lincoln on Dismemberment 124
Webster’s Prediction 126
Inauguration of New State 128
Reorganizing the Restored State 129
Right of Commonwealth to Representation in Congress 131
Rupture between Civil and Military Authorities 133
The President Interposes 135
Congress Refuses to Admit a Senator-Elect 138
V
ANTI-SLAVERY LEGISLATION
Compensated Emancipation in Congress 142
Contrabands 143
The Military Power and Fugitive Slaves 144
Lincoln on Military Emancipation 148
Andrew Jackson and Nullification 151
Lincoln on Compensated Emancipation 152
Compensated Emancipation in Delaware 155
Abandoned Slaves 160
Border Policy Propounded 163
General Hunter and Military Emancipation 168
Slavery Prohibited in the Territories 170
Attitude of Border States on Slavery 172
Lincoln Resolves to Emancipate Slaves by Proclamation 177
VI
THEORIES AND PLANS OF RECONSTRUCTION
The Presidential Plan 190
Sumner’s Theory of State Suicide 196
“Conquered Province” Theory of Stevens 211
Theory of Northern Democrats 217
Crittenden Resolution 220
VII
RISE OF THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN
Bill to Guarantee a Republican Form of Government 224
Henry Winter Davis on Reconstruction 226
House Debates on Bill of Wade and Davis 236
Pendleton’s Speech on Reconstruction 257
Provisions of Wade-Davis Bill 262
Senate Debate on Bill of Wade and Davis 264
President’s Pocket Veto 273
Proclamation concerning Reconstruction 278
Manifesto of Wade and Davis 279
VIII
AN ATTEMPT TO COMPROMISE
President ignores Controversy with Congress 286
Summary of Military and Naval Situation 288
Attempt to Revive the Pocketed Bill 289
House Debates on Ashley’s Reconstruction Bill 291
Defeat of Ashley’s Bill 311
IX
THE ELECTORAL VOTE OF LOUISIANA
Resolution excluding Electoral Votes of Rebellious States 314
Amendment of Senator Ten Eyck 315
Senate Debate on Ten Eyck’s Amendment 316
Defeat of the Amendment in favor of Louisiana 334
Senate Passes Joint Resolution 338
Counting the Electoral Vote 339
The President’s Message 339
X
SENATE DEBATE ON LOUISIANA
Congressmen from Louisiana at the National Capital 341
Proposal to Recognize Louisiana 343
Powell’s Speech opposing Recognition 344
Henderson’s Argument for Recognition 348
Howard’s Argument in Opposition 358
Reverdy Johnson’s Speech for Recognition 370
General Discussion on Louisiana 374
XI
INCIDENTS OF RECONSTRUCTION
The Thirteenth Amendment 384
The Freedmen’s Bureau 385
Volunteer Diplomats 389
The Hampton Roads Conference 395
Lincoln’s Letter to General Hurlbut 401
Lincoln’s Letter to General Canby 402
Lincoln’s Last Words on Reconstruction 403
XII
CULMINATION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PLAN
Lincoln and the South 407
Inauguration of Andrew Johnson 408
Arkansas after the War 409
Condition of Tennessee 412
Louisiana 417
Reorganization of Virginia 425
The Wreck of the Confederacy 431
Andrew Johnson on Reconstruction in 1864 438
Johnson’s Speeches after Accession to the Presidency 440
Raising the Blockade 444
The Executive Department Recognizes Virginia 445
Restoration of North Carolina 448
The President Hesitates 458
Executive Policy in Mississippi 460
Restoration of Georgia 465
Texas 466
The Reconstruction Conventions 468
Temper of the South 472
Mississippi Legislation relative to Freedmen 475
Southern Reaction 482
The President’s Change of Opinion 487
Examination of Lincoln’s Plan 491
APPENDIX A
=Thirty-Seventh Congress= 499
APPENDIX B
=Thirty-Eighth Congress= 502
Preface
_Much of the material included in this volume was collected several
years ago while the author was a graduate student at the University of
Pennsylvania. The researches then commenced probably first suggested to
him the lack in our political literature of an ample and interesting
account of the return of the States. Students, librarians, and even
professors of history knew no adequate treatise on the era of
reconstruction, and their testimony was confirmed by the authority of
Mr. Bryce, who happily describes the succession of events in those
crowded times as forming one of the most intricate chapters of American
history. No apology is offered, therefore, for considering in this essay
so important and so long-neglected a theme as the rise of the political
revolution that occurred before reunion was finally accomplished._
_On the general subject several excellent monographs have recently
appeared; these, however, are nearly all employed in discussing the
second stage in the process of restoration, and, except incidentally,
anticipate scarcely anything of value in the present work, which, so far
at least as concerns any logical exposition, conducts the reader over
untraveled ground. As the introduction indicates with sufficient
accuracy both the scope and method of this study, nothing is required
here beyond a concise statement of the author’s obligations._
_Like many other students of American institutions, the writer
cheerfully acknowledges his indebtedness to the works of Brownson, Hurd
and Jameson, and, by transferring some of their opinions to his book,
has shown a practical appreciation of their researches. In addition to
these obligations, in which the author is not singular, he profited for
four years by the lectures of Dr. Francis N. Thorpe, his professor in
constitutional history. Except in a very few instances, where the name
of an author was forgotten, credit for both suggestions and material is
uniformly given in the references and footnotes._
_For the selection, arrangement, and treatment of topics the author
alone is responsible; he desires, however, to take this opportunity of
acknowledging generous assistance received from three intimate friends:
his colleague, Dr. Charles P. Henry, found time in the midst of arduous
literary engagements to read the whole of the manuscript and to make
many valuable suggestions, especially in matters of style and diction;
the book is not less fortunate in having been critically read by Thomas
J. Meagher, Esq., whose extensive and accurate knowledge of public as
well as private law contributed to a more clear and scientific statement
of many of the constitutional questions discussed; the technical skill
and the superior intelligence of Mr. George M. Schell were of
considerable assistance to the author in correcting the proofs of the
entire book. Nor must he omit to record his appreciation of the courtesy
of Mr. L. E. Hewitt, the efficient librarian of the Philadelphia Law
Association. Finally the writer gratefully acknowledges his chief
obligation to the scholarship of his former teacher, Dr. John Bach
McMaster, who kindly interrupted the progress of his great historical
work long enough to read a considerable portion of this essay. Indeed,
it was the encouragement of that eminent author which first suggested
the publication of these pages._
_Before concluding his remarks the writer wishes to disclaim any
sympathy with the progressive school of historical criticism, which
derides the Constitution as a thing of the past and learnedly
characterizes all veneration for its authority as the worship of a
fetich. This book will have attained one of its principal purposes if,
in the language of a distinguished surviving statesman of the war
period, it will teach “the constant and ever-important lesson that the
Constitution is always a more reliable guide for the legislator than
those fierce passions which war never fails to excite.”_
=Philadelphia=, September 14, 1901.
INTRODUCTION
So closely blended with the essential principles of our federal system
of government were the causes of the Civil War that a clear
understanding of its results appears to require some account of the
origin, the independence and the permanent union of these States. Upon
the eventful years between the Treaty of Paris and the Declaration of
Independence, crowded as they are with work of note, one could linger
with pleasure; this epoch, however, has already engaged the pens of so
many writers, eminent as well as obscure, that a re-study of the
blunders of England’s ministers and the revolt of her distant colonies
might justly be regarded as a piece of presumption.
Nor does it seem necessary to recite the familiar achievements of the
succeeding period; for, perhaps, the portion of American history most
attractive to the general reader is included between the 4th of July,
1776, and the 4th of March, 1789. To these years belong the most
conspicuous services of that giant race of leaders whose swords relieved
a gallant people from oppression and whose wisdom established a form of
government not, indeed, in universal harmony with popular prejudice, but
admirably designed for the popular welfare.
It was at the outset of what may properly be styled the national era
that there appeared the remarkable group of statesmen who guided the
infant Republic on its dim and perilous way. On their broad experience
gleamed a vision of the future touching all their work with elements of
immortality. By them was skillfully established a system of revenue and
of finance adequate to all the exigencies of the time, and a foreign
policy inaugurated which for generations together preserved unbroken
harmony with the world outside. They doubled by wise and peaceful
acquisition the area of that Union whose independence had been wrested
from George the Third, and with no less wisdom prescribed the procedure
and defined the jurisdiction of Federal courts.
The forty years following March 4, 1789, form an epoch with
characteristics of its own. This was the period of Virginian ascendency,
the Adamses alone breaking the line of illustrious Presidents furnished
by the Old Dominion. Introduced by an experiment in government which
aroused the slumbering energies of the nation, its conclusion was marked
by the disappearance from political life of the splendid ideals and rich
traditions of the Fathers.
The election of General Jackson coincides with the beginning of a new
phase in American political and industrial development. It was not that
the fame of a splendid military record had raised its possessor to an
office for which long experience in governmental affairs had hitherto
been thought indispensable, or that the selection of Presidents had
passed from an intellectual few to the control of a much more numerous
class who were willing to bestow on politics the attention and energy
requisite for success in trade; but it was about this time that the
imperious power of slavery entered upon its career of aggression.
Philosophic statesmen of a previous epoch had ardently hoped that the
institution would be permitted quietly to disappear; indeed, the
greatest among them, though divided upon a multitude of political and
economic questions, agreed in encouraging every movement designed for
its extinction. These humane efforts, however, were not destined to win
immediate success, and even with the coöperation of the General
Government served only to demonstrate the difficulty of such an
undertaking.
After 1820 all the dangers which menaced the integrity of the Union
were, with one notable exception, traceable to this cause. When Mr.
Lincoln in his discussions with Senator Douglas declared that it was the
sole cause of all the troubles which had disturbed the nation, he meant,
probably, to assert no more than that in his own time it had been the
most conspicuous one.
Long before slavery became a subject of embittered controversy the
doctrine of State Rights had agitated the country. As early as the
summer of 1793 it had found in Justice Iredell an able advocate on the
bench of the United States Supreme Court. For party purposes it was
adopted five years later by Madison and Jefferson in the celebrated
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and during the second war with Great
Britain these statesmen were startled to find New England Federalism
vindicating its unpatriotic, if not treacherous, conduct in the exact
language which they had invented to embarrass a former administration.
With this instrument, too, Calhoun in 1832 shook the foundations of the
Union. Both Northern and Southern statesmen of that generation, however,
pushed the principle of State sovereignty as far only as their immediate
object seemed to require.
It is a popular mistake to suppose that beyond the limits of the South
this erroneous doctrine found little favor in the minds of men; for on
the eve of the War of 1812 a Governor of conservative Pennsylvania had
armed her citizen-soldiers against Federal power.
The illustrious Marshall could relate how, before the highest tribunal
in the land, its champions with unwearied zeal renewed the battle for a
hopeless cause. The eloquent voice of Webster hushed for a time the
fretful agitation of South Carolina statesmen, and his genius fixed in
imperishable literary form that interpretation of the Constitution which
called forth the abundant resources of both the Nation and the States.
In his conquering words lived those elevated thoughts that in future
years sustained the defenders of the Republic.
President Jackson, for the energy and promptness by which he defeated
the projects of the Nullifiers, has been justly eulogized; but, when the
excitement of the hour had passed away, the calmer judgment of even his
admirers perceived that victory inclined rather to the side of Calhoun.
Discussion of the abstract question of State sovereignty might,
probably, have long continued without endangering the Union had the
principle not been invoked to defend the institution of human servitude;
yoked to that powerful interest it was inevitable that both should go
down together in undistinguishable ruin.
From the Protean fount of slavery flowed an hundred various streams
coloring almost every important question in the tide of events. In the
generation between the election of General Jackson and the inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln its defeats were few, its triumphs numerous and
important. Prosperity revealed its weaknesses and encouraged its
experiments. The fruits of its greatest victory, the dismemberment of
Mexico, revived those stormy scenes which thirty years before had for
the first time been witnessed in an American legislative hall.
Dissolution of the Union was once more threatened, and again averted by
the genius and patriotism of the venerable triumvirate, who scarce
outlived their noble work; but the compromise from which Clay, Calhoun
and Webster expected a restoration of former tranquillity contained
within itself the very seed-plot of even graver troubles.
After 1850 the attachment of Southern men to their industrial system was
played upon by ambitious politicians more and more, until the final
overthrow of themselves and the government which they sought to
establish for its preservation. It could be shown how before that time
one war was prolonged for the protection, and another undertaken chiefly
for the extension, of that aggressive institution; how its existence was
supposed to require Federal interference with the mails and an
abridgment of even the ancient right of petition. Every power of the
national Government and all the resources of the cotton States had been
employed for its advantage.
The United States Supreme Court was the last agent within the Union by
which its advocates sought to dignify and perpetuate human servitude,
and so successful were their efforts that an enlightened and humane
Chief Justice was but little misrepresented in language or in sentiment
when political opponents ascribed to him the doctrine that “the negro
has no rights which the white man is bound to respect.”
The moral progress of the United States during the last forty years
finds, probably, in no single event a better illustration than the
change in public opinion upon the interesting question of human rights.
When the majority opinion was delivered in the Dred Scott case it
excited among members of the dominant political party but little
surprise. The shock which a judicial utterance of such sentiments would
give in our time to the ethical notions of the American people affords
at once both a measure of the advance that has been made in the interval
and an undoubted proof that progress has not been, as is commonly
supposed, exclusively or even mainly along material lines. It is
singular, too, that the first serious attempt of the Federal Supreme
Court to set at rest a dangerous political question should have been
followed by effects of so alarming a tendency.
It is not intended to relate in these pages the origin or the fate of
those compromises designed to avoid the inevitable conflict already in
the closing months of President Buchanan’s administration casting
ominous shadows in the pathway of the nation, nor to describe the
uncertain policy of the General Government or attempt to determine the
measure of its responsibility for the fearful rebellion which that
hesitation encouraged.
The skill and industry of a multitude of laborers have gathered from the
field of conflict a harvest as bountiful as the result was satisfactory.
We have general histories and bird’s-eye views, military accounts and
naval accounts of the Civil War; memoirs and diaries, by actors more or
less prominent in the events which they describe, and narratives of
battles and of sieges. In this varied and ample field even a belated
worker might hope to glean something of value; but this study, whatever
it may discuss incidentally, will be chiefly concerned with the subject
of Reconstruction, a phase of our political and constitutional
development which, though beginning during the progress, lies mainly
beyond the close of the Rebellion.
The organization into a separate government of the late Confederate
States, with their resolute struggle for independence, is the chief
event in the extraordinary career of this favored nation. The story of
their submission to Federal power and the return to their former places
in the Union is not inferior either in interest or instruction to any
political event recorded in history. This return is what is commonly
known as Reconstruction. Though the term on its introduction into
political discussion was frequently objected to as inaccurate, it has
been generally adopted in the writings of publicists as well as in
popular speech. The word “restoration,” which was at first preferred,
was soon found to be inexact; for while former relations were resumed by
the erring States, they came back, one with diminished territorial
extent and all with domestic rights greatly abridged. They had, in fact,
been _reconstructed_. It is true that even the loyal States did not
emerge unscathed from this political revolution. In the South, however,
the established industrial system had been swept completely away.
The theme falls naturally under two heads, Presidential Reconstruction
and Congressional Reconstruction. An account of the former, which
extended from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1865, occupies the
whole of this volume. Any adequate treatment of the latter, including as
it does the eventful period from the meeting of Congress in December,
1865, to the withdrawal of Federal forces from the South in 1877, will
require a narrative somewhat more ample.
The conspicuous landmarks of Reconstruction require no extraordinary
talent to recognize and locate. It is the unfamiliar region between that
is difficult accurately to map out. The failure hitherto to present in a
single view the striking features of these neglected parts is chiefly
responsible for the fact that Reconstruction remains one of the most
obscure parts of our history. A candid and comprehensive account of the
political events of the time appears to divest the subject of much of
the difficulty commonly supposed to attend its investigation. From a
sufficient body of essential facts the step to an understanding and
exposition of every principle of moment is comparatively easy.
Though the general design of this volume will be suggested to the
student of American history by an inspection of its principal
subdivisions, it may not be unnecessary for the benefit of the general
reader to add a brief outline of the plan that has been adopted.
Chapter I. relates the most important political events in the history of
Tennessee from its attempted secession to the restoration, in March,
1865, of a civil government loyal to the United States. Military
movements in that Commonwealth have been noticed only so far as to
render intelligible the successive steps by which that reorganization
was accomplished.
Chapters II. and III. bring the affairs of Louisiana and Arkansas,
respectively, down to about the same time. Events in those States have
been treated, so far as conditions permitted, in the same manner as in
the case of Tennessee.
Chapter IV. is concerned with the secession, restoration and
dismemberment of Virginia. The formation out of a portion of that
Commonwealth of the new State of West Virginia, both because of the
grave constitutional question which arose on a division of the parent
State and the intrinsic interest of the subject, has been considered
with some degree of minuteness.
In Chapter V., which discusses anti-slavery legislation, it will appear
how Mr. Lincoln, though never an Abolitionist or even a radical
Republican, became by pressure of military necessity an instrument in
the hands of God to destroy an institution opposed by a long line of
American statesmen and condemned by the light of the nineteenth century.
The succeeding chapter considers the various theories and plans of
restoration presented during the progress of the war. The rise of the
Congressional plan, which ultimately prevailed, is treated separately in
Chapter VII. Only the first stage of its development, however, falls
within the limits of this inquiry, which ends with the meeting of the
Thirty-ninth Congress in December, 1865.
Chapters VIII., IX. and X. trace the progress of the controversy between
the Legislative and the Executive branches of Government. The
culmination of this difference, however, in the impeachment and trial of
President Johnson is a phase of Congressional Reconstruction.
The topics treated in the eleventh chapter, having frequently employed
the pens of able and popular writers on the Rebellion, are considered in
this study merely for the purpose of making it complete in itself; hence
that section is little more than an epitome of what has already been
said on those subjects.
The twelfth and last chapter brings every part of the narrative up to
December 4, 1865. To clearly comprehend the arduous task that confronted
President Johnson this section includes a rapid survey of the wreck of
the Confederate States. The principal part, however, is reserved for an
account of the conventions assembled under his authority, the method of
instituting loyal governments and the spirit and tendency of Southern
legislation relative to freedmen. An examination of the Presidential
plan of Reconstruction completes the volume.
Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction
I
TENNESSEE
While the celebrated joint debates with Senator Douglas in 1858, the
Cooper Union and other addresses, marked Mr. Lincoln, in the new
political party just rising to power, as the intellectual peer of able
and trusted leaders like Sumner, Chase and Seward, his conservative
opinions on the subject of slavery made his nomination by the Chicago
Convention more acceptable to delegates from the border States. Though
his competitors received, in the memorable contest which followed,
almost a million votes in excess of the number cast for Mr. Lincoln and
his associate, the fierce conflict among fragments of the Democratic
party resulted, as is well known, in the choice of a decided majority of
Republican electors.[1] This rather unexpected defeat of a political
organization that had lost but two Presidential contests since its first
success under Jefferson afforded Southern leaders a pretext for urging a
dismemberment of the Union. Indeed, there is evidence that the more
impetuous among them had, four years earlier, seriously determined, in
case of Fremont’s election, upon a similar course.[2] Thus the present
event, so far from being an universal disappointment to members of the
defeated party, had been ardently hoped for by many.
The choice of a minority party, and not at first possessing the entire
confidence of even that minority, Mr. Lincoln, unable to divine the
future, was compelled in dealing with the insurrection to proceed with
the utmost caution. Washington himself, in organizing the Federal
Government, had a task of less magnitude, and the renown of his military
achievements silenced for a time even the boldest in opposition.
President Lincoln’s victories, gained on a different field, gave no such
unquestioned authority to his name. This peculiar situation forced him
to adopt for the guidance of his administration a policy not altogether
free from embarrassment to both himself and his successor. His purpose
at that time appears to have been to meet the demands of the moment by
the contrivances of the moment. Whether a different course would have
been rewarded by earlier or by more complete success is a hazardous
subject for speculation. If his theory of our national existence be
liable to the multitude of objections which have grown up in these
fruitful times of peace, no other has been suggested that is free from
criticism. His political doctrine, too, had the advantage of always
recommending measures scarcely less distinguished for enlarged views
than those enlightened convictions which characterize his first
inaugural address. Whatever may be concluded of its merits, the theory
embraced at the outset exerted on many administrative acts of President
Lincoln an influence that continued to be felt during his entire
executive career; and without remembering this fact we shall not easily
comprehend either the extent of his “Border Policy,” as the plan of
compensated emancipation is often called, or his undoubted concern for
persecuted Union men in the seceded States.
The sufferings of loyal citizens in East Tennessee had early enlisted
the President’s sympathies, and almost from the commencement of
hostilities measures for their relief formed in his mind part of the
plan of operations by the army under General Buell. Writing, January 6,
1862, to that commander he gives reasons for suggesting the occupation
of some point there rather than Nashville, and adds: “But my distress is
that our friends in East Tennessee are being hanged and driven to
despair, and even now, I fear, are thinking of taking rebel arms for the
sake of personal protection. In this we lose the most valuable stake we
have in the South.”[3] The cause of these outrages may be briefly
explained in a digression.
In no part of the late Confederate States was the slave interest more
feeble than in the thirty counties comprising East Tennessee.[4] That
portion of the State contained in 1860 slightly over 300,000
inhabitants,[5] of whom only about one tenth were slaves, while in many
counties they formed no more than one in seventeen of the population.
Here and there, indeed, were persons of wealth some of whom owned a few
negroes. But though a majority of the people looked upon domestic
slavery as something foreign to their social life, they had no strong
philanthropic impulse to oppose it. While quite willing to allow their
countrymen elsewhere to keep bondmen at pleasure, they did not regard it
any concern of theirs to assist either in extending or perpetuating
human servitude. If the existence of the Union or of slavery was the
issue, they would have hesitated little in deciding which should perish.
Though, as we shall presently see, they were as intolerant of the
Republican party as any community in the South, they were devotedly
attached to the Union. The fact is partly explained by the industrial
basis of society in this favored region.
Cut off from Middle Tennessee by lofty ranges of the Cumberland, and
from North Carolina by the Great Smoky, the Black and the Stone
mountains, this extensive district is traversed in its entire length by
the Tennessee and its chief tributaries, the Clinch and the Holston; as
the great river flows down to Alabama it receives, before turning west
and north to join the Ohio, the waters of many important and beautiful
streams, some of which, as the French Broad and Nolachucky, are
associated with deeds of note in the War for Independence; indeed, one
of its crowning victories was chiefly won by settlers from the banks of
the Watauga. Other names, like Hiwassee, are familiar to readers of
later events in Tennessee history, and Chickamauga Creek was destined
shortly to become more famous than any.
Knoxville, in early times a capital of the State, was, in 1860, the
metropolis of East Tennessee; Chattanooga, at the southern extremity of
the valley, is separated from Bristol, on the Virginia line, by a
distance of more than two hundred and forty miles; Cleveland and
Greenville were towns of less importance. The absence of large cities
makes it evident that manufacturing had not yet begun to attract serious
attention. Like early settlers everywhere in America, the pioneers of
Tennessee sought the most immediate returns from the products of the
forests and fields around them. The rich mineral deposits, then either
unknown or almost untouched, had not given rise to those great
extractive operations which in our time have so stimulated the
commercial life of East Tennessee. Vast cotton plantations, worked by
multitudes of slaves, like those in the western portion of the State,
had no existence in these mountain valleys, though occasionally small
“patches” were cultivated for domestic use.
Citizens of West Tennessee would naturally place upon the Federal
Constitution an interested construction; their industries, they
believed, required such an interpretation of that instrument as would
place the institution of slavery beyond the reach of Congressional
interference. While the people of East Tennessee, too, believed in the
several sovereignty of the States, the question of slavery did not touch
them so nearly. Indifferent to the subject themselves, they had little
sympathy with those who had determined to break up the Union from a mere
suspicion that their interests were menaced by the success of a new
political party. But to ascribe to the want of interested motives their
indifference to the great disturbing question of the time would be to
assign but one and that, perhaps, not the chief cause.
Except on its northern and southern boundaries this delightful region is
practically isolated from several adjacent States as well as from the
remainder of Tennessee. It was in this by-place of nature and amidst
such a population that _The Manumission Intelligencer_, a weekly
newspaper, made its appearance in 1819.[6] It was followed the next year
by _The Emancipator_ of Elijah Embree, a Pennsylvania Quaker; this in
turn was soon succeeded by a more celebrated publication, _The Genius of
Universal Emancipation_, conducted by Benjamin Lundy. While these
publications served to perpetuate and to extend, they did not create the
sentiment of which they became exponents, for, several years before
their appearance, an anti-slavery society flourished in Jefferson
County. Its existence is noticed as early as 1814.[7] This anti-slavery
feeling was part of the philosophic movement encouraged by nearly all
Southern as well as Northern statesmen before the inauguration of
General Jackson. A new industrial era, beginning about that time, put an
end to the abolition societies in the South; and though Lundy’s paper
was discontinued in Tennessee after 1824, events of frequent occurrence
sustained the anti-slavery sentiments of the people.
The Tennessee valley was a natural thoroughfare from Virginia to the
south-west, and when slaves were purchased on the Potomac they were
chained together, to prevent escape, and in that condition driven to the
homes of their new masters.[8] The plaintive songs of captives as they
were marched in lines along the valley highways often caused the free
mountaineer to pause in his labors and reflect on what was passing
before his eyes. He “saw slavery in its bitterness and without
disguise.” The remembrance of such spectacles was apt to strengthen in
him anti-slavery feelings that had come down from Revolutionary times.
But whether Southern leaders ascribed the sentiment to an inherited
tendency or regarded it as a consequence of this odious phase of the
domestic slave-trade, they did not think it beneath the dignity of
attention; for it was, doubtless, to create a sympathy for their
institution that a “Southern Commercial Convention” was held at
Knoxville in 1857. It was too late, however, to root out the convictions
of two generations; the counsels of the wise were soon to be confounded
and the fretful agitation of leaders soon to be hushed in the tempest of
war.
No Republican electoral ticket was presented in the great political
battle of 1860 for the suffrage of Tennessee voters, and had any citizen
openly advocated the election of Mr. Lincoln he would have had to endure
insult or injury, or to abandon his home. This explains why the
successful candidates received no vote in all the State. As “Parson”
Brownlow, selecting extreme abolition and secession types,
characteristically expressed it, his people were equally opposed to the
William L. Garrisons and the William L. Yanceys of politics.[9] In this
situation the supporters of Bell, Breckenridge and Douglas were left to
contend for victory among themselves. Addresses of the time reveal not
only the emotions of individual speakers, but the excited state of
public opinion. The attitude of Constitutional Union men was vigorously
stated in a debate at Knoxville by Nathaniel G. Taylor, an elector on
the Bell and Everett ticket. “The people of East Tennessee,” said the
orator, “are determined to maintain the Union by force of arms against
any movement from the South throughout their region of country to assail
the government at Washington with violence, and that the secessionists
of the cotton States in attempting to carry out their nefarious design
to destroy the Republic would have to march over his dead body and the
dead bodies of thousands of East Tennessee mountaineers slain in
battle.”[10]
When Yancey came up from Alabama to “precipitate” this section into
rebellion the intrepid Brownlow made a similar reply.[11] The energy or
the elegance of such utterances may be questioned, but the deeds of
loyal Tennesseeans during eventful years to follow are evidence alike of
the sincerity of the speakers and their insight into the temper of the
times.
Except Tennessee, all the States that attempted secession did so by
means of revolutionary bodies styled conventions; this description of
them is justified both by the general powers of administration and
government which they assumed and by the fact that the legislatures in
convoking them transcended their authority, the members of every State
legislature being “bound by oath or affirmation to support” the Federal
Constitution, which forms a part of the fundamental law of each
commonwealth. Though the Legislature of Tennessee, following the example
of law-making bodies in other disloyal States, passed a “Convention
Bill,” it was promptly defeated by a majority of 13,204 in a total vote
of more than 120,000. Notwithstanding the constitutional prohibition
that “no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or
confederation,”[12] the Legislature on May 1 authorized Governor Harris
to appoint commissioners to form a military league with the Confederate
States. Six days later the relations entered into by these agents were
ratified in a secret session, the State government thereby turning over
temporarily to the President of the Confederacy its entire military
force. These matters disposed of, the plans of disunionists were
completed by the passage on the same day of a declaration of
independence and an ordinance dissolving all Federal relations between
Tennessee and the United States. Though this measure was to be voted
upon a month later, the Legislature, as if anticipating the result,
adopted and ratified the Confederate constitution. What was so ardently
desired by secessionists was finally accomplished, and on June 24 the
Governor declared his State out of the Union, the vote being 104,019
for, and 47,238 against, separation.[13] The Tennessee Legislature did
not assume the functions of a secession convention till after the
commencement of hostilities; but from that date the forms of law ceased
to be seriously regarded. While the disunion party scored a present
triumph, loyalist leaders like Horace Maynard, Thomas A. R. Nelson and
Andrew Johnson, at the imminent risk of injury or even of death, were
speaking and working actively against the spirit of secession. The
strong Union feeling thus excited resulted ultimately in local
insurrections and in the meeting, June 17, of a convention at
Greeneville in which a remonstrance was adopted and a committee
appointed to petition the Legislature for the separation of East
Tennessee and such counties of Middle Tennessee as were willing to
coöperate in the formation of a new commonwealth. But the presence there
during the following years of veteran Confederate armies prevented Union
men from organizing a separate government, and saved the State from the
fate of Virginia. All who were known to have had a connection, or who
were suspected of sympathy, with this movement were especially obnoxious
to the secession party, and at the hands of soldiers were subjected to
many indignities. In various ways the feeling of opposition to the
Confederacy was intensified, and it was not long before measures of
retaliation were considered. Union people were quick to perceive the
advantage which the South derived from the use of railways within the
State, and, in expectation of assistance from Federal forces in
Kentucky, five railroad bridges were burned. East Tennesseeans, however,
were destined to be sorely disappointed in the matter of aid from the
Union army; and, without effective organization or arms, were easily
captured or dispersed. Of the former, many were sent as prisoners of war
to Alabama, hundreds were crowded into loathsome jails in the State and
others hanged, with circumstances of deliberate cruelty, near the scenes
of their alleged crimes.
These were among the outrages to which Mr. Lincoln referred in his
letter to the Federal commander. By Horace Maynard a Representative, and
Andrew Johnson a Senator, in Congress the President was kept very
accurately informed of events in the State and often importuned to
relieve their constituents. This he constantly endeavored to do, but his
intentions were effectually defeated by the inactivity of General Buell,
who cherished other plans for destroying his antagonist. More than two
years were to elapse, from the time President Lincoln urged his policy,
before Tennesseeans received any aid from Federal armies; long before
that time they had been ruthlessly punished for their patriotism, and
then their oppressors were chastised by the hand of an abler warrior
than General Buell.
Within a month from the date of President Lincoln’s letter of January 6
General Grant had possession of Fort Henry and, ten days later, February
16, received the surrender of Fort Donelson. Nashville, becoming unsafe,
was evacuated on February 23, 1862; the State appeared for the first
time to be slipping from the grasp of the Confederacy, and a question,
hitherto more or less academic, presented itself for practical
settlement. In the territory from which hostile armies were reluctantly
retiring there would be involved a great derangement in the
administration of local civil law from the necessary displacement there
of all officials heretofore acting in obedience to the Confederate
States.
By other Union victories in the Spring of 1862 the same situation
confronted the Federal Government in Arkansas, in North Carolina and in
Louisiana. Indeed, this identical question arose as early as 1861 in
Virginia and Missouri, but in the former the rebel government was
abrogated by a delegate convention that restored a loyal government from
which in due time sprang the separate State of West Virginia. In
Missouri a lawfully chosen convention appointed a provisional government
in sympathy with the Union. This subject, however, will be more
conveniently discussed elsewhere.
When General Johnston received tidings of the disaster at Donelson he
retired with his army to Murfreesboro, leaving Nashville, which he was
unable to protect, a scene of panic and dismay, first advising Governor
Harris to secure the public archives and convoke the Legislature
elsewhere. It was in these circumstances that President Lincoln, on the
same day, February 23, nominated, and the Senate, March 5, 1862,
confirmed, Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee with the
rank of brigadier-general. As the commission antedates the action of the
Senate by two days the President, no doubt, consulted the leaders of
that body relative to the contemplated nomination, and received
assurance of its favorable consideration.
Nothing in any way connected with the appointment of Senator Johnson,
who was destined to act so conspicuous a part in the important and
difficult work of reconstruction, can fail to be of interest, and any
account of the execution of his office would be incomplete without some
observations on the nature of his commission of which the following is a
copy:
=War Department=, _March 3, 1862_.
_To the_ =Hon. Andrew Johnson=:
=Sir=: You are hereby appointed military governor of the State of
Tennessee, with authority to exercise and perform, within the limits
of that State, all and singular the powers, duties, and functions
pertaining to the office of military governor, including the power
to establish all necessary offices, tribunals, etc.
=Edwin M. Stanton=,
_Secretary of War_.[14]
Quoting the essential part of this document a recent coöperative work
has this comment: “The office [that of military governor] was new to the
laws and history of the State and country. Its powers and duties were
limited only by the will of one man, the occupant.”[15] From the
commission itself we derive our prime conception of both the nature of
the office and the functions which it comprehended. The authority of the
incumbent extended to the exercise, within the limits of Tennessee, of
all “the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of
military governor.” Nothing in this language implies that the office was
of recent creation. Nor is its nature to be discovered by a perusal of
the supplemental authority contained in the President’s letter of
September 19, 1863, to Governor Johnson, for the official conduct of the
latter on his arrival in Nashville can not be seriously thought to have
been influenced by instructions received nineteen months later. It is
perfectly true, as Mr. Ira P. Jones, author of the chapter on
Reconstruction in Tennessee, asserts, that the office of military
governor had never been exercised within that State; but it is not a
fact that it was new to the laws and history of the “country,” if by
this indefinite expression he means the United States. During the war
with Mexico the American people had been made familiar with military
commissions and with military governors. Secretary Marcy prepared, June
3, 1846, for General Stephen W. Kearny the following instructions:
“Should you conquer and take possession of New Mexico and Upper
California, or considerable places in either, you will establish
temporary civil governments therein.”[16] To this direction general
rules of conduct were added, and the letter authorized the assurance
that “It is the wish and design of the United States to provide for them
[the people of New Mexico] a free government with the least possible
delay, similar to that which exists in our Territories.” By virtue of
this authority General Kearny appointed Charles Bent governor of New
Mexico. Mr. Polk in his Message of July 6, 1848, to Congress maintained
that with the termination of war his power to establish temporary civil
governments over New Mexico and California had ceased; the legality of
their previous existence he justified by the law of nations. By cession
to the United States, the government of Mexico no longer pretended to
any control over them.[17] President Polk, differing from other leaders
of his party, held that “until Congress shall act, the inhabitants will
be without any organized government.”[18] But Congress, notwithstanding
urgent appeals of the Executive, moved very deliberately in the matter
of abolishing the office of military governor. In May, 1847, Colonel
Richard B. Mason assumed the office of Governor and commander-in-chief
of the United States forces in California. Two months after ratification
of the treaty with Mexico he received notice of the fact, but no
intimation that the civil government instituted by the President was
discontinued. Without other instructions than an order to extend over
California “the revenue laws and tariff of the United States” he, as
well as his successor, General Riley, continued the existing government.
After affirming the legality of its institution the United States
Supreme Court (Cross _vs._ Harrison, p. 193, 16 Howard) says that the
existing government did not cease as a consequence of the restoration of
peace; the President might have dissolved it, but he did not do so.
Congress could have put an end to it, but that was not done. “The right
inference from the inaction of both is, that it was meant to be
continued until it had been legislatively changed.” In fact it was so
continued until the people in convention formed a government,
subsequently recognized by Congress, when California was admitted during
the autumn of 1850 as a State.
The authority, then, of both political departments, as well as the more
deliberate opinion of the judicial branch, of the General Government had
established a precedent with which Mr. Lincoln was thoroughly familiar;
for, by a singular coincidence, both he and Mr. Johnson were serving
together in the Thirtieth Congress, which began its first session in
December, 1847. They participated in, or were interested spectators of,
all those stirring scenes that marked the beginning of one of the last
legislative victories of slavery; so that this portion at least of
American history was not strange to either the President or the Senator
from Tennessee.
The question whether Tennessee was within or without the Union will be
reserved for more ample discussion farther on; it is sufficient to
observe here that its territory was held by an adverse party and its
government hostile to the national authority. If the administration of
Colonel Mason and his successor in California was not regarded by
President Lincoln as a sufficient basis for his action there was still
left an undoubted foundation. The appointment was deemed an element of
strength to the Union forces operating in Tennessee, and, in this view,
the act was entirely within the power of the President as
Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States. Though its
wisdom may be questioned and its results dismissed with a sneer, it was
not a novelty nor can his admirers claim for Mr. Lincoln the merit of
its invention; and if in its origin the office had a bearing on the
extension, its present application was not wholly unconnected with the
abolition of slavery. The remaining pages of this chapter and the two
succeeding ones will be employed in tracing rapidly the operation of the
system of military governors in those States in which it was seriously
attempted to be enforced.
The movements of contending armies had already obliterated in many
districts of Tennessee almost every trace of civil government, and when
State officials hurried away to Memphis, where Governor Harris had
reassembled the Legislature, they left behind them an uncontrolled mob
which General Forrest found it necessary to charge with his cavalry to
remove a portion of Confederate military stores that had not been
distributed among the poor or perished in the prevailing anarchy.[19]
General Grant had already, on February 22, from Fort Donelson, issued an
order that “no courts will be allowed to act under State authority, but
all cases coming within reach of the military arm will be adjudicated by
the authorities the Government has established within the State. Martial
law is therefore declared to extend over West Tennessee.” The order
added, “whenever a sufficient number of citizens return to their
allegiance to maintain law and order over the territory, the military
restriction here indicated will be removed.”[20] Union troops under
General Nelson having occupied the city on the 25th, Governor Johnson on
his arrival, March 12, 1862, from his seat in the United States Senate
was not under the necessity of employing the harsh discipline of General
Forrest to restore order in the deserted capital. For this part of his
career he was, however, severely censured by political adversaries in
Tennessee. Detached from their historical settings, indeed, his acts
could justly be described as tyrannical. But it is precisely these
figures in the back-ground that are necessary to harmonize the whole and
set before us in its proper light a truthful picture of the times. As
his professions preceded his administrative acts it is proper to
introduce this portion of the subject by quoting from a speech which he
delivered in Nashville the evening after his arrival. Five days later,
March 18, it was printed under the style of “An Appeal to the People” of
Tennessee. After some general observations on the tranquil and
prosperous existence of the State in the Union, and on the honors by
which many of her sons had been distinguished, he noticed the fact that
the very leaders of secession themselves had been the recipients of
Federal bounty and patronage; had taken oaths to support the
Constitution and yet labored to overturn Federal authority. Entering
fairly upon his theme, he continued:
Meanwhile the State Government has disappeared. The Executive has
abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is in
abeyance. The great ship of State ... has been suddenly abandoned by
its officers and mutinous crew, and left to float at the mercy of
the winds, and to be plundered by every rover upon the deep.
Pausing to enumerate many acts of spoliation, he resumes:
In such a lamentable crisis the Government of the United States
could not be unmindful of its high constitutional obligation to
guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of
government, an obligation which every State has a direct and
immediate interest in having observed towards every other State....
This obligation the national Government is now attempting to
discharge. I have been appointed, in the absence of the regular and
established State authorities, as Military Governor for the time
being, to preserve the public property of the State, to give the
protection of law actively enforced to her citizens, and, as
speedily as may be, to restore her government to the same condition
as before the existing rebellion.
The “regular and established State authorities,” to whom Governor
Johnson refers, were, of course, none other than those officials who
administered affairs in Tennessee before the 6th of May. Of these some
had actually abandoned their offices, while others had subordinated
their functions to a power hostile to the constitution of the State. He
proceeded:
These offices must be filled temporarily, until the State shall be
restored so far to its accustomed quiet, that the people can
peaceably assemble at the ballot-box and select agents of their own
choice....
I shall, therefore, as early as practicable, designate for various
positions under the State and county governments, from among my
fellow-citizens, persons of probity and intelligence, and bearing
true allegiance to the Constitution and Government of the United
States, who will execute the functions of their respective offices
until their places can be filled by the action of the people. Their
authority, when their appointment shall have been made, will be
accordingly respected and observed.... Those who through the dark
and weary night of rebellion have maintained their allegiance to the
Federal Government will be honored. The erring and misguided will be
welcomed on their return. And while it may become necessary, in
vindicating the violated majesty of the law, and in reasserting its
imperial sway, to punish intelligent and conscious treason in high
places, no merely retaliatory or vindictive policy will be
adopted.[21]
To all who in private and unofficial capacity had assumed an attitude of
hostility to the Government amnesty was offered for all past acts and
declarations upon condition of yielding obedience to the supremacy of
the laws. This the Governor advised them to do. Though the “Appeal,”
brief, clear and characterized by the best temper, is a state paper of
decided merit, there were many classes still residing at the capital
upon whom it made little impression. The mayor and the city council were
ordered to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and on
their refusal were imprisoned. Of the harshness of this measure it need
only be observed that the essence of government is to govern, and had
the new executive failed on this occasion to assert authority his
administration would have been wrecked at the outset. For printing
seditious matter the press was placed under restraint, and within a few
months it was found necessary to punish with unusual severity, even
ministers of the gospel. Clergymen, with a few exceptions, were not only
hostile to the Union but actually encouraged treason from their pulpits.
These offenders Governor Johnson summoned to take the oath of allegiance
or to depart from the State. They appeared before him, as commanded to,
refused compliance, but asked time for deliberation; this being granted,
to the full extent desired, and still persisting in their refusal they
were placed in confinement. That they were not proceeded against with
undue haste appears from an entry in a diary kept by one of Governor
Johnson’s biographers which fixes the date as June 28.[22] Three months
had fully elapsed since the arrival of Mr. Johnson before the ministers
were punished for their seditious utterances. To prevent interference
with his executive functions he sometimes imprisoned judges. Other
measures no less arbitrary have been the subject of much criticism. He
declared that whenever a loyal citizen was maltreated five or more
sympathizers with the Rebellion should be arrested and dealt with as the
nature of the case appeared to require. When the property of Union men
was destroyed remuneration should be made them from the property of the
disloyal. The President seems to have approved of these reprisals.
Nothing more clearly shows the demoralized condition of society in
Tennessee than the necessity of adopting measures similar to those
employed eight centuries before by the Danish and Norman conquerors of
England to protect their followers from private assassination by the
natives. With the natural leaders of the people, including bankers,
physicians and clergymen, encouraging treason, men of inferior
intelligence and station could not be expected to remain peaceful and
contented citizens, and as preachers of sedition seldom lack numerous
and sympathetic audiences the spirit of lawlessness increased. The
Governor himself was threatened with assassination in the public streets
and in public meetings, but he set such menaces at defiance and on at
least one occasion addressed an assembly with his pistol on a desk
before him.
But the repression of the disloyal and the restoration of order by no
means included the whole of his duties. Functions not less important
remain to be noticed. To the duties of governor and general he added
those of quartermaster and judge. Though thousands of loyal people
flocked to him for arms and supplies, he proved equal to every demand,
and from their number raised an army that did gallant service in the
field. He fed, clothed and sheltered the poor without regard to the army
in which their natural protectors were serving. Thus redressing
grievances, relieving want and reinstating courts he worked with an
intelligent and tireless energy, and when the timid prudence of General
Buell would have allowed Nashville to fall into the hands of the enemy
“the courage of Governor Johnson,” said a panegyrist, “stood a bulwark
for its defence.”[23] He had been scarcely three months in office when
President Lincoln described him as “a true and valuable man,
indispensable to us in Tennessee.” His zeal, his intense fidelity to the
Union, his tremendous energy and undoubted courage peculiarly fitted him
to rule in turbulent times. At the outset the only agencies left for the
protection of life, liberty and property were force and arbitrary will;
these he did not hesitate to employ.
The foregoing account does not notice his activity in another field. His
ultimate object, the establishment of civil authority throughout
Tennessee, was kept constantly in view. To prepare for this event he
addressed in May, 1862, large assemblies at Nashville and Murfreesboro,
and in June at Columbia and Shelbyville.[24] This work, however, was
brought suddenly to an end later in the summer by General Bragg’s raid
into Kentucky.
From what has been related it appears, and the opinion will grow
stronger with the progress of this narrative, that in appointing a
military governor of Tennessee President Lincoln intended no more than
to revive an office already known to the people of the United States;
and though Mr. Johnson was expected ultimately to reinaugurate a loyal
government throughout the State, his office was regarded primarily as an
inexpensive means of holding territory wrested from, and assisting in
military operations against, an enemy. Indeed, it is only in this view
that his administration of the office can be regarded as a success, and
that it was so considered in the North his nomination on the ticket with
Mr. Lincoln is undoubted proof.
Besides several colored regiments, the records for 1863 show that 25,000
Tennesseeans were then serving in the Union army, and every succeeding
month increased their number.[25] That the political advantage to be
gained by restoring a loyal government was not the only or even the
principal purpose of the President may be fairly inferred from the
following letter:
I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro military
force. In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much
as some man of your ability and position to go to this work. When I
speak of your position, I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave
state and himself a slaveholder. The colored population is the great
available and yet un-availed of force for restoring the Union. The
bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks
of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once; and who doubts
that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? If
you have been thinking of it, please do not dismiss the thought.[26]
Besides supporting the view of the military governors taken above, this
letter also makes it evident that the pressure of events had already
convinced Mr. Lincoln that to save the Union it was necessary to possess
the untrammeled use of every national resource.
As early as June 8, 1862, the State was included in the department of
General Halleck, who ten days later was requested by Mr. Lincoln to
report any information of value relative thereto. The thought of a
movement into East Tennessee was in the mind of the President again on
June 30, when he informed the commander that he regarded the possession
of the railroad near Cleveland fully as important as the taking of
Richmond. Halleck, concurring in this opinion, telegraphed Buell that
“the capture of East Tennessee should be the main object of the
campaign,” the department commander believing its occupation would put
an end to guerrilla warfare both in that region and Kentucky.
The inactivity of General Rosecrans for six months after the battle of
Murfreesboro left in the interior of the State a strong Confederate
force whose presence discouraged all but the most pronounced loyalists;
these, by means of meetings and speeches, kept a latent Union feeling
alive. A convention, called by Brownlow, Maynard and others, was held at
Nashville, July 1, 1863. Delegates were in attendance from forty
counties; they took an oath of allegiance to the United States, and in a
set of resolutions pronounced the various secession laws and ordinances
void. Deeming it vitally important to choose a legislature, they invited
Governor Johnson to issue writs of election as soon as expedient; with
this request, however, he did not then think it prudent to comply.
Other eyes were observing with interest the progress of events within
the State. General Hurlbut, writing from Memphis, August 11, 1863,
relative to the political situation in Arkansas, said he was satisfied
that Tennessee was “ready, by overwhelming majorities, to repeal the act
of secession, establish a fair system of gradual emancipation, and
tender herself back to the Union. I have discouraged [he said] any
action on this subject here until East Tennessee is delivered. When that
is done, so that her powerful voice may be heard, let Governor Johnson
call an election for members of the Legislature, and that Legislature
call a Convention, and in sixty days the work will be done.”[27]
This desirable event was not long delayed, for by brilliant though
bloodless victories both Knoxville and Chattanooga early in the
following month were in possession of Federal armies. Then President
Lincoln wrote his letter of September 11, which, because of its great
importance, deserves to be reproduced in full:
All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need not
to be reminded that it is the nick of time for reinaugurating a
loyal State government. Not a moment should be lost. You and the
coöperating friends there can better judge of the ways and means
than can be judged by any here. I only offer a few suggestions.
The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the
State and its representation in Congress to the enemies of the
Union, driving its friends there into political exile. The whole
struggle for Tennessee will have been profitless to both State and
nation if it so ends that Governor Johnson is put down and
Governor Harris is put up. It must not be so. You must have it
otherwise. Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as
can be trusted for the Union. Exclude all others, and trust that
your government so organized will be recognized here as being the
one of republican form to be guaranteed to the State, and to be
protected against invasion and domestic violence. It is something
on the question of time to remember that it cannot be known who is
next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do. I see
that you have declared in favor of emancipation in Tennessee, for
which may God bless you. Get emancipation into your new State
Government—Constitution—and there will be no such word as fail for
your case. The raising of colored troops, I think, will greatly
help every way.[28]
The reference in this communication to emancipation is explained by the
fact that, in deference to the wishes of Andrew Johnson and other
Tennessee loyalists, the President in his proclamation of January 1,
1863, had not mentioned that State.[29]
Believing that his commission as military governor did not confer upon
him powers adequate to every emergency that might arise in the important
work of restoring a loyal government Mr. Johnson, to supply this
deficiency, prepared a letter which he submitted for the approval of
President Lincoln, who amended or modified it to read as follows:
In addition to the matters contained in the orders and instructions
given you by the Secretary of War, you are hereby authorized to
exercise such powers as may be necessary and proper to enable the
loyal people of Tennessee to present such a republican form of State
government as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United
States therefor, and to be protected under such State government by
the United States against invasion and domestic violence, all
according to the fourth section of the fourth article of the
Constitution of the United States.[30]
This supplemental authority is dated September 19, and the private
letter enclosing it informs Governor Johnson why his draft was altered.
It was about this time, while the President was thus urging Governor
Johnson, that General Rosecrans, surrounded by a victorious enemy,
inquired of Mr. Lincoln whether it would not be well “to offer a general
amnesty to all officers and soldiers in the Rebellion?” In his reply
next day the President, referring first, as was his wont, to the
military situation, added, “I intend doing something like what you
suggest whenever the case shall appear ripe enough to have it accepted
in the true understanding rather than as a confession of weakness and
fear.”[31] The removal soon after of General Rosecrans from his command
and the fortunate appearance at Chattanooga of those great soldiers of
the first rank, Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, made at Lookout
Mountain and Mission Ridge the occasion which the President so much
desired, and on December 8, 1863, he issued his famous Proclamation of
Amnesty and Reconstruction, a copy of which was transmitted with his
third annual message to Congress. The impression which its candid tone
produces on the mind of a student to-day was the impression made at the
time of its appearance upon thoughtful and enlightened men everywhere.
Nicolay and Hay in an interesting chapter of their valuable history
describe the satisfaction, and even enthusiasm, with which it was
received by the adherents of all parties in Congress. This proclamation,
around which the later controversy raged, was authorized by act of
Congress approved July 17, 1862, which, among other provisions,
empowered the President “at any time” thereafter “to extend to persons
who may have participated in the existing Rebellion in any State or part
thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such time and
on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare.” The
time for the exercise of this discretion Mr. Lincoln believed had now
arrived. Like every measure conceived in his fruitful mind it had been
maturely considered and was especially fortunate in being introduced by
the concluding paragraphs of the message. The very note of sincerity
itself rings in these weighty lines. Perhaps it was the suggestion of
unuttered arguments that gave a temporary adherence to the Executive
plan, which, we are told, was put forth because “It is now desired by
some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their
allegiance to the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal State
governments within and for their respective States.” The proclamation
informed “all persons who have, directly or by implication, participated
in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full
pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restoration of
all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in property cases where
rights of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the condition
that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and
thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath
shall be registered for permanent preservation.” This oath bound the
subscriber thenceforth to “faithfully support, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States, and the union of the States
thereunder”; to “abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress
passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves” unless
repealed, modified or held void by Congress, or by decision of the
Supreme Court; to support “all proclamations of the President made
during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so
far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court.”
The classes excepted from the benefits of the amnesty were all persons
“who are, or shall have been, civil or diplomatic officers or agents of
the so-called Confederate Government; all who have left judicial
stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; all who are, or
shall have been, military or naval officers of said so-called
Confederate Government above the rank of colonel in the army or
lieutenant in the navy; all who left seats in the United States Congress
to aid the rebellion; all who resigned commissions in the Army or Navy
of the United States and afterward aided the rebellion; and all who have
engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in
charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which
persons may have been found in the United States service, as soldiers,
seamen, or in any other capacity.”[32]
The proclamation provided further that whenever, in any of the States in
rebellion, “a number of persons, not less than one tenth in number of
the votes cast in such State at the presidential election” of 1860,
“each having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since violated it,
and being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing
immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all
others, shall reëstablish a State government which shall be republican,
and in nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the
true government of the State and the State shall receive thereunder the
benefits of the Constitutional provision which declares that ‘The United
States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of
Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on
application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the
legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.’”
Any provision adopted by such State relative to its freed people “which
shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their
education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement
with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless
class, will not be objected to by the national executive.” In
constructing a loyal government in any State, it was thought not
improper to suggest that “the name of the State, the boundary, the
subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before
the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made
necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if
any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient
by those framing the new State government.”
To avoid every occasion of misunderstanding it was expressly stated that
the proclamation “has no reference to States wherein loyal State
governments have all the while been maintained.” The President
disclaimed any authority to admit members to seats in Congress, each
House being “the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of
its own members.”[33]
In conclusion it was observed that “while the mode presented is the best
the executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be
understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable.”[34]
To get an enrollment of those willing to take the oath prescribed in the
amnesty proclamation the President, about the middle of January, 1864,
sent an agent to Tennessee, as he had already sent one to Louisiana and
to Arkansas. About the same time Governor Johnson himself was
considering the subject of reconstruction; and on the 21st, to begin
proceedings, called a public meeting at Nashville. It was on this
occasion that he said: “Treason must be made odious, traitors must be
punished and impoverished;” slavery he pronounced dead and declared that
reconstruction must leave it out of view. The meeting, which was largely
attended, adopted resolutions recommending a constitutional convention
and pledged support of only those candidates who favored immediate and
universal emancipation. The Governor, however, was cautious, and,
January 26, 1864, issued a call for an election, on the first Saturday
of March following, for the choice of only county officers.
The ex-Confederate and the loyalist having been placed by the amnesty
proclamation on an equal footing, some dissatisfaction was aroused among
unconditional Union men. To retain the confidence of this class and to
set at rest the hostile feeling thus excited in the State, Governor
Johnson framed the oath of allegiance more stringently than Mr. Lincoln
had done. This variance occasioned discussion and delay and brought
inquiries and protests to the President, who, to prevent confusion,
telegraphed, February 20, 1864, Warren Jordan, of Nashville, as follows:
In county elections you had better stand by Governor Johnson’s plan;
otherwise you will have conflict and confusion. I have seen his
plan.[35]
A week later he assured the Hon. E. H. East, Secretary of State for
Tennessee, that
There is no conflict between the oath of amnesty in my proclamation
of eighth December, 1863, and that prescribed by Governor Johnson in
his proclamation of the twenty-sixth ultimo.[36]
While it is perfectly true that no discrepancy existed between the
proclamation of the President and that of the military governor, the
latter required an additional test. This the communication to Mr. East
does not discuss.
To avoid, however, any possible mischief from this source Mr. Lincoln,
March 26, issued a supplemental proclamation which explained that the
amnesty applied only to “persons who being yet at large and free from
any arrest, confinement, or duress, shall voluntarily come forward and
take the said oath, with the purpose of restoring peace and establishing
the national authority.”[37] Prisoners excluded from the amnesty offered
in the proclamation of December 8, like all other offenders, might apply
to the executive for clemency and have their applications receive due
consideration. This oath, it was made known, could be taken before any
commissioned officer of the United States, civil, military or naval, or
before any officer authorized to administer oaths, in a State or
Territory not in insurrection. Such officers were empowered to give
certificates thereon to persons by whom the oath was taken and
subscribed. The original records, after transmission to the Department
of State, were to be there deposited and to remain in the Government
archives. The Secretary of State was required to keep a register of such
oaths and upon application to issue certificates in proper cases in the
customary form.
Meanwhile an election, the returns of which are extremely meagre, had
been held on March 5 for the choice of county officers. Though the event
was not without influence in confirming the faith of Unionists, it was
chiefly of value in attracting the attention of the disloyal to the
chances afforded by the proclamation of rehabilitating themselves in
their former political rights. The result, however, was not so favorable
as was expected by Governor Johnson or the President, and reconstruction
in Tennessee once more sank to rest. From this condition it was again
revived by the irrepressible Union men of the State. The East Tennessee
convention of 1861, by appointing a permanent committee, had kept its
organization alive. In April or May, 1864, this body called a convention
at Knoxville to discuss reconstruction. Of this gathering one element
favored the Crittenden Resolutions; the other, immediate emancipation.
Probably it was this antagonism that prevented further action. The next
we hear is that Brownlow and others signed a call for a second
convention, which was held at Nashville on September 5. In this body
forty or fifty counties were represented, some of them irregularly; that
is, by volunteer delegates. This assembly recommended the election of a
constitutional convention, the abolition of slavery in the State, and
provided for taking part in the approaching Presidential election. The
programme, however, was only partially carried out. On September 30,
Governor Johnson issued a proclamation for holding the election, at
which Union voters, so far as the unsettled condition of military
operations permitted, cast their ballots for electors of President and
Vice-President. It does not appear that in this election any attempt was
made to choose a governor, a legislature or a constitutional convention;
but that which met in July, 1863, constituted an executive committee,
composed of five members from each division of the State, which after
the Presidential election issued calls for a State convention at
Nashville, December 19, 1864. “The people meet,” said the call, “to take
such steps as wisdom may direct to restore the State of Tennessee to its
once honored status in the great national Union.
* * * * *
“If you cannot meet in your counties, come upon your own personal
responsibility. It is the assembling of Union men for the restoration of
their own commonwealth to life and a career of success.”[38]
Hood’s advance upon Nashville preventing a response to this address, the
convention did not meet till January 9, 1865. The enemy had then been
dispersed. The State being free from further alarms of war, the
convention met and proposed important alterations in the State
constitution.
The first article provided: “That slavery and involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, are hereby forever abolished and prohibited throughout the
State”; also that “The legislature shall make no law recognizing the
right of property in man.” The old constitution of Tennessee prohibited
the assembly from passing laws to emancipate slaves without the consent
of the owner; that prohibition was now removed. “The declaration of
independence and ordinance dissolving the federal relations between the
State of Tennessee and the United States of America,” passed by the
Legislature, May 6, 1861, was abrogated and declared “an act of treason
and usurpation, unconstitutional, null and void.” All laws, ordinances,
and resolutions of the usurped State government passed on and after the
6th day of May, 1861, providing for the issuance of State bonds; also
all notes of the Bank of Tennessee or any of its branches issued on or
after May 6, 1861, and all debts created in the name of the State by
said authority were declared unconstitutional, null and void. Future
legislatures were restrained from the redemption of said bonds. It was
further provided that “The qualification of voters and the limitation of
the elective franchise may be determined by the general assembly, which
shall first assemble under the amended constitution.”
The convention completed its labors on January 26, 1865. The amendatory
articles were submitted, February 22, to the people, and ratified by a
vote of 21,104 to 40. The schedule provided in the event of ratification
that the loyal people of the State should, on the 4th of March next
thereafter, proceed by _general ticket_ to elect a governor and members
to the general assembly to meet in the capitol at Nashville on the first
Monday of April, 1865.
A proclamation of Governor Johnson, issued on January 26, referred to
the respectable character of the convention and commended its wisdom in
submitting for the approval of the electors the result of its
deliberations. His executive powers had been employed to enable the
people freely to express their judgment on the grave question before
them. Provision, he declared, would be made to collect the sentiments of
loyal Tennesseeans in the army. The paper concludes with this vigorous
exhortation: “Strike down at one blow the institution of slavery, remove
the disturbing element from your midst, and by united action restore the
State to its ancient moorings again, and you may confidently expect the
speedy return of peace, happiness, and prosperity.”[39]
About a month later, February 25, he had the happiness to congratulate
the people of Tennessee on the favorable result of the election. By
their solemn act at the ballot-box the shackles had been stricken from
the limbs of more than 275,000 bondmen.
The convention which proposed the constitutional amendments had, in
anticipation of its ratification, nominated William G. [“Parson”]
Brownlow for Governor, and recommended a full legislative ticket. The
nominee of the convention was chosen March 4, almost without opposition,
receiving 23,352 votes against 35 scattering. Having been elected on a
general ticket the members of both the Senate and House of
Representatives received the same support as the Governor. The
Legislature met at Nashville, and in a few days thereafter Mr. Brownlow
was inaugurated. Civil administration was thus formally begun.
That the successive steps to restoration in Tennessee may be easily
traced, the narrative has not been interrupted to relate even matters of
undoubted importance. Almost a year before the occurrences described,
the Republican national convention had assembled in the city of
Baltimore, and on June 6, 1864, unanimously nominated Andrew Johnson for
Vice-President on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln. Tidings of the fact
aroused great enthusiasm when it became known in Nashville. In
addressing an immense meeting called for that occasion Governor Johnson,
among other things, said: “While society is in this disordered state,
and we are seeking security, let us fix the foundations of our
government on principles of eternal justice, which will endure for all
time. There are those in our midst who are for perpetuating the
institution of slavery. Let me say to you, Tennesseeans, and men from
the Northern States, that slavery is dead. It was not murdered by me. I
told you long ago what the result would be if you endeavored to go out
of the Union to save slavery; and that the result would be bloodshed,
rapine, devastated fields, plundered villages and cities; and therefore
I urged you to remain in the Union. In trying to save slavery you killed
it, and lost your own freedom.”[40]
In his letter to Hon. William Dennison, accepting the nomination, he
wrote:
The authority of the Government is supreme, and will admit of no
rivalry. No institution can rise above it whether it be slavery or
any organized power. In our happy form of government all must be
subordinate to the will of the people, when reflected through the
Constitution and the laws made pursuant thereto—State or Federal.
This great principle lies at the foundation of every government, and
cannot be disregarded without the destruction of the government
itself.
In accepting the nomination I might here close, but I cannot forego
the opportunity of saying to my old friends of the Democratic party
_proper_, with whom I have so long and pleasantly been associated,
that the hour has now come when that great party can justly
vindicate its devotion to true democratic policy and measures of
expediency. The war is a war of great principles. It involves the
supremacy and life of the Government itself. If the rebellion
triumphs, free government—North and South—fails. If, on the other
hand, the Government is successful, as I do not doubt, its destiny
is fixed, its basis permanent and enduring, and its career of honor
and glory just begun. In a great contest like this, for the
existence of free government, the path of duty is patriotism and
principle. Minor considerations and questions of administrative
policy should give way to the higher duty _of first preserving the
Government_, and then there will be time enough to wrangle over the
men and measures pertaining to its administration.[41]
For reasons at which Mr. Lincoln hinted in his letter of March 26, 1863,
few men in Congress exerted in the beginning of the war so decided an
influence upon public opinion in the North as did Mr. Johnson. His
conduct as military governor in no way diminished this popularity. His
courage in that trying position no less than his devotion to the
interests of the Union won him ardent admirers in every loyal State.
Vice-President Hamlin appears to have been the victim of an intrigue
which represented him as being no material source of strength to the
government and as scarcely loyal to the administration. This injurious
suspicion, which seems to have had no substantial basis in truth,
happened to coincide with a growing conviction that the Republican party
should strengthen itself by placing on the ticket with Lincoln some
prominent leader of the opposition. In this connection the names of
General Butler, John A. Dix, Daniel S. Dickinson and Andrew Johnson were
mentioned. The last named was charged in his administration of the
office of military governor with harshness and even with oppression.
Investigation proved these rumors to be without foundation, and Mr.
Lincoln was not displeased to find them groundless. It does not appear
that he was especially favorable to Johnson, but he regarded him as
indispensable to the Union cause in Tennessee; Johnson was a
slave-holder, was somewhat more outspoken than Butler or Dix, and a more
conspicuous representative of the large class known as War Democrats;
above all he was an able exponent of Southern Union sentiment and he
came from the very heart of the Confederacy. Perhaps no single element
of strength made him more acceptable to the majority of the convention
than this last consideration. Even these qualifications might not have
singled him out for the distinction conferred were it not for the
enthusiasm created by a remarkable speech of Horace Maynard, which
mentioned Mr. Johnson as a man who “stood in the furnace of treason.”
His administration as military governor had been distinguished for vigor
and ability, and it does not appear that the radical Republicans then
regarded his State without the Union. Some of his measures were
undoubtedly severe, but the peculiar situation in Tennessee required the
employment of methods not adapted to times of peace. Mr. Lincoln could
not, of course, show his hand in the Baltimore convention. In fact he
repeatedly declined to interfere.[42]
On October 15, 1864, the ten electors on the McClellan ticket
presented through Mr. John Lellyett, one of their number, a protest
to the President against the proclamation published by Governor
Johnson relative to the pending election. His paper, they asserted,
contained provisions for holding elections which differed materially
from the mode prescribed by the laws of Tennessee. The proclamation,
it was alleged, would admit persons to vote who were not entitled by
the State constitution to participate in the election; by another
provision which authorized the opening of but one polling-place in
each county, many legal voters would be unable to exercise the
franchise. The unusual and impracticable test oath proposed, was
stated as a further grievance, and they complained generally of
military interference with the freedom of elections. To their
representations Mr. Lincoln replied orally that General McClellan
and his friends could manage their side of the contest in their own
way. He could manage his side of it in his way.[43] In a written
reply of the 22d, however, the President said that he perceived no
military reason for interfering in the matter, and on the same
occasion reminded the protestants that the conducting of a
Presidential election in Tennessee under the old code had become an
impossibility.[44]
In their reply to the written communication of the President, they
asserted that an orderly meeting of General McClellan’s friends had been
broken up by Union soldiers, and a reign of terror inaugurated in
Nashville. These acts having been countenanced by Governor Johnson, they
announced the withdrawal of the McClellan electoral ticket in
Tennessee.[45]
In these circumstances the Union electors were, of course, chosen; but
their votes, though offered, were not counted by Congress in the joint
convention of February 8, 1865, for the reason that Tennessee was on
November 8 preceding in such a state that no free election was held.[46]
-----
Footnote 1:
McPherson’s Political History of the United States, p. 1.
Footnote 2:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 389–399; “Parson” Brownlow’s Book, pp. 54,
159, 160; Lalor’s Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy
and United States History, Vol. III. p. 698.
Footnote 3:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 112. The
edition of Nicolay and Hay is used throughout.
Footnote 4:
The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee, p. 24.
Footnote 5:
More correctly, 301,056. Ibid.
Footnote 6:
The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee, p. 32.
Footnote 7:
Ibid.
Footnote 8:
Thirty years before President Lincoln published his Emancipation
Proclamation Great Britain abolished slavery throughout her colonies.
Naturally this action was viewed in no friendly spirit by the slave
interest in America, for it brought the free negro to the very door of
the Southern States, and though it was regarded as a menace to the
“peculiar institution,” it was not until a positive loss was sustained
that any controversy arose with England. In October, 1841, the brig
_Creole_, of Richmond, with a cargo of 135 slaves left Hampton Roads
for New Orleans. The negroes, under Madison Washington, killed one of
the owners, took possession of the vessel and steered her into the
port of Nassau. There those slaves not expressly charged with murder
were set at liberty, and though the administration demanded their
surrender they were not given up. The experience of the _Creole_ was
not singular, several cases of a similar nature being recorded. These
facts showed the danger of navigating the Bahama channel after 1833,
and at least one reason for preferring the overland route down the
Tennessee valley was an expectation of avoiding such accidents.—(See
Wilson’s Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. I. pp. 443–444;
Lalor’s Cyclopedia of Political Science, etc., Vol. I. pp. 709–710.)
Footnote 9:
Brownlow’s Book, p. 52.
Footnote 10:
The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee, pp. 80–81.
Footnote 11:
Brownlow’s Book, p. 67.
Footnote 12:
Art. I. sec. 10, Constitution of the United States.
Footnote 13:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 5.
Footnote 14:
Misc. Doc. No. 55, H. of R., 1 Sess. 39th Cong., p. 5.
Footnote 15:
Why The Solid South? p. 170.
Footnote 16:
Cutt’s Conquest of California and New Mexico, p. 246.
Footnote 17:
Statesman’s Manual, Vol. IV. p. 1742.
Footnote 18:
Ibid.
Footnote 19:
The Lost Cause, p. 209.
Footnote 20:
Ann. Cycl., 1862, p. 763.
Footnote 21:
Life and Speeches of Andrew Johnson, pp. 451–456. Boston: Little,
Brown & Co. 1866.
Footnote 22:
Life, Speeches, and Services of Andrew Johnson, pp. 101–104.
Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.
Footnote 23:
Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Andrew Johnson, pp.
76–80; Memoir by Frank Moore, pp. xxvi-xxvii in Life and Speeches of
Andrew Johnson. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
Footnote 24:
Life of Andrew Johnson, pp. 98–101; Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson &
Brothers.
Footnote 25:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 828.
Footnote 26:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 318.
Footnote 27:
Abraham Lincoln, A History by Nicolay & Hay, Vol. VIII. p. 440.
Footnote 28:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 405.
Footnote 29:
History of Abraham Lincoln, by Isaac N. Arnold, p. 303.
Footnote 30:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 408.
Footnote 31:
Ibid., p. 419.
Footnote 32:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 443.
Footnote 33:
Art. I. sec. 5, Constitution of the U. S.
Footnote 34:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 443–444.
Footnote 35:
Ibid., p. 486.
Footnote 36:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 487.
Footnote 37:
Ibid., pp. 504–505.
Footnote 38:
Misc. Doc. No. 55, p. 5, H. of R., 1 Sess. 39th Cong.
Footnote 39:
Misc. Doc. No. 55, p. 9, H. of R., 1 Sess. 39th Cong.
Footnote 40:
Life of Andrew Johnson, pp. 159–160.
Footnote 41:
Life of Andrew Johnson, pp. 160–161. New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1866.
Footnote 42:
McClure’s Lincoln and Men of War Times, pp. 106–108; Blaine’s Twenty
Years of Congress, Vol. II. p. 7; Hamlin’s Life and Times of Hannibal
Hamlin, pp. 449–489 and 591–615.
Footnote 43:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 438–439.
Footnote 44:
Ibid., p. 425.
Footnote 45:
Ibid., p. 441.
Footnote 46:
For a discussion of this subject see Chapter IX.
II
LOUISIANA
The first movement toward reconstruction in Louisiana, as in the case of
Tennessee, was bound up with the war powers of the President, and, no
doubt, was made with some expectation of aiding his military plans. The
thought of restoring a loyal government there proceeded quite naturally
from the peculiar situation in the State. Though not so nearly unanimous
for secession as South Carolina, her people acted with energy and
promptness when they received tidings of “this last insult and outrage,”
as the election of Mr. Lincoln was sensationally styled.[47] Three days
were deemed sufficient for deliberation, and the convention, January 25,
1861, passed an ordinance of secession. Two weeks before this assembly
met at Baton Rouge, the arsenal and the forts, a public building and a
revenue cutter had been seized by State troops from New Orleans. In the
mint and the custom house of that city more than half a million dollars
was secured for the Confederate States, and in accepting these funds the
Montgomery Congress expressed its “high sense of the patriotic
liberality” of Louisiana.[48] This act of generosity, however, loses
much of its merit when it is remembered that both the coin and bullion
in the mint, as well as the customs, belonged to the Federal government.
Besides, there was then no scarcity of money in the State, for Northern
enterprise had found for her cotton and her sugar profitable markets
both at home and abroad. It was benefits of this sort, enjoyed in the
Union, that enabled Governor Moore in January, 1861, to report to his
Legislature an overflowing treasury.[49] This undoubted prosperity
served only to aggravate the war fever. Enthusiasm in New Orleans was
only less ardent and general than in Charleston. Business was almost
suspended, and by the first of June no less than 16,000 residents of
Louisiana were serving in the Confederate army.[50]
President Lincoln’s proclamation of April 19 preceding had inaugurated a
blockade of every port within the State. The early days of July
witnessed the disappearance of Governor Moore’s boasted surplus, and
during the summer New Orleans became bankrupt;[51] her foreign commerce
was destroyed by the blockade, her credit had vanished. Though
enlistments continued without interruption, signs of financial distress
multiplied with the approach of winter. Rebellion, it was soon
discovered, was not attended with unmixed blessings; bad government had
produced its usual consequences, and when Governor Taylor, late in the
summer of 1862, undertook to raise an army for the defence of his State
he was surprised at the universal apathy; neglect and disaster had
brought disunionists to a condition little short of hostility to the
Richmond government.[52]
Union men in southern Louisiana had not been unobservant of these signs;
permanent residents of this portion of the State had, for the most part,
maintained their loyalty to the General Government. Indeed, a decided
majority of them in the election of 1860 had voted for Bell and Douglas,
and though here, as elsewhere in the South, ardent secessionists were
found, the proceedings in the convention took the Union men by
surprise.[53] In the interval they had refrained from violence, but had
not become reconciled to oppression.
The importance of New Orleans to their cause had not been overlooked by
Confederate authorities, and that city was held firmly in their grasp
until the fleet of Captain Farragut, toward the close of April, 1862,
steamed up in hostile array before its defences. The occupation by
General Butler’s army of this strategic position ended in southern
Louisiana the activity of the more extreme secessionists, and though
some restlessness at the presence of Federal forces was pretended by
even Union men, they had not until the surrender made any serious effort
to help themselves. Under protection of the army, however, they
commenced immediately to form Union associations for the purpose of
developing the loyal sentiment in this part of the State. Resolutions
recommending an election were passed by these organizations; newspapers
discussed the question, and in various ways it was forced upon the
attention of the President.[54] The more prudent and intelligent among
them began under encouragement of Federal troops to consider measures
for relief; the less practical commenced writing complaints to friends
in the North.
In a private letter of July 26, 1862, to Hon. Reverdy Johnson, then in
New Orleans investigating General Butler’s relations with foreign
consuls, Mr. Lincoln, noticing a reference to the restlessness of the
people under the rule of General Phelps, asks the Maryland Senator to
pardon him for believing the complaint “a false pretense.” A way to
avert the inconveniences arising from military occupation was for the
people of Louisiana “simply to take their place in the Union upon the
old terms.”[55] Writing two days later to Cuthbert Bullett, a Southern
gentleman who appears to have enjoyed his personal esteem and
confidence, the President, after mentioning difficulties in the way of
establishing civil authority in the State, suggested a method of
avoiding them: “The people of Louisiana who wish protection to person
and property,” he wrote, “have but to reach forth their hands and take
it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate the national authority, and set
up a State government conforming thereto under the Constitution. They
know how to do it, and can have the protection of the army while doing
it. The army will be withdrawn so soon as such State government can
dispense with its presence; and the people of the State can then, upon
the old constitutional terms, govern themselves to their own
liking.”[56] If, however, Union men exerted themselves no further than
criticism of the Federal Government, it was more than intimated that
there were to be expected greater injuries than military necessity had
yet inflicted.
The pressure of events appears even then to have been forcing the
President in the direction of emancipation. To August Belmont, of New
York, who enclosed the complaints of a New Orleans correspondent, Mr.
Lincoln, July 31, 1862, repeated in substance what had already been
written to Mr. Bullett, and added: “Those enemies must understand that
they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy the government,
and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt. If they expect
in any contingency to ever have the Union as it was, I join with the
writer [Mr. Belmont’s correspondent] in saying, ‘Now is the time.’”[57]
The appointment in August, 1862, of General George F. Shepley as
military governor may be regarded as the first act in the restoration of
a loyal government for Louisiana. His selection, though probably
intended as a private commendation of the judgment of General Butler,
who had already designated him as Mayor of New Orleans, was never
considered by that officer adequate atonement for the public censure
implied in his removal, December, 1862, from command of the Department
of the Gulf.
Upon the Federal occupation of New Orleans and adjacent territory all
functions of the disloyal government therein immediately ceased. As
controversies were constantly arising the establishment of courts had
become a necessity. At first these questions were for the most part
adjudicated by General Butler himself, but the pressure of military and
other affairs compelled him soon to refer their settlement to civilians
or to army officers especially chosen for the purpose. This uncertain
system of justice, though immeasurably better than none, led to the
institution of courts each of which was known by the name of the officer
holding it. Accused persons were brought to trial, and judgments
executed by soldiers detailed for such duty. No formal record of
proceedings in these tribunals appears to have been kept, though
memoranda of judgments rendered were, no doubt, made by an officer who
came eventually to be designated as clerk.
For the decision of questions relating exclusively to the force under
his command General Butler some time in June, 1862, organized a tribunal
known as the Provost Court of the Army of the United States, over which
Major Joseph M. Bell presided. Questions in no way connected with the
military, especially matters of police and the punishment of crimes,
were often submitted for its determination. Aggrieved persons, without
reflecting upon the consequence of their acts, naturally appealed for
redress to the holder of power. Thus the authority of this institution
silently extended, and by the autumn of 1862 it exercised unquestioned
jurisdiction over all criminal cases arising in the city of New
Orleans.[58] In the absence of courts for adjudicating civil questions
they, too, were referred to its consideration. All functions of
government having been suspended by the capture of the city, it became
the duty of the Federal commander, and his right by the laws of war, to
provide, among other things, for the administration of justice.
One of the early acts of General Shepley after his appointment as
Military Governor was to establish a system of courts for the State.
Most of the former officials having fled after the surrender, he was
compelled practically to create new tribunals, and this task he greatly
simplified by reviving those institutions of justice with which the
people of Louisiana were already familiar. John S. Whittaker was
accordingly appointed Judge of the Second District Court of the parish
of Orleans. Besides possessing in civil matters the ordinary powers of a
local court the old tribunal of that name had been a court of probates
and successions. The new exercised all the powers of the old court. It
should be remembered, however, that the latter derived its authority
from the laws of Louisiana, while the former owed its existence to the
war powers of the Federal Executive. Its jurisdiction extended to civil
cases generally where the defendant resided in the parish of Orleans or
was a non-resident of the State.[59]
Judge Hiestand was appointed to the bench of the Fourth District Court
of the parish of Orleans. Besides possessing the general authority of
other district courts in that parish it entertained appeals from
justices’ courts; indeed, these constituted a large part of its
business.[60]
The Sixth District Court of the parish of Orleans, revived soon after
the capture of the city, is, because of the incumbent of that bench,
Judge Rufus K. Howell, of greater interest than either of the preceding.
Under a commission received from the State of Louisiana before its
attempted secession he continued to preside over that tribunal while the
disunion party ruled New Orleans, and performed his functions up to the
very hour of its surrender to the Federal authorities. Having early
taken the oath of allegiance to the national Government he was permitted
to resume his functions.[61] Like the tribunals mentioned, this court
retained and exercised all the powers that it possessed as originally
constituted.
These courts, instituted during September and October, 1862, entered
upon the discharge of their duties about the 1st of November following.
They were the only tribunals of civil jurisdiction in Louisiana, and
that jurisdiction was limited, as against defendants resident of the
State, to citizens of the parish of Orleans. As to inhabitants beyond
the limits of that parish there was no court in which they could be
sued. Though the Federal forces held several counties in this condition,
their tenure fluctuated with the fortunes of war. A court was therefore
needed whose jurisdiction would expand with the advance, and contract
with the retreat, of the Union armies. The Provost Court was not deemed
adequate, and indeed was never designed to meet such contingencies. To
supply this deficiency a tribunal of very extensive powers, designated
as “a court of record for the State of Louisiana,” was constituted by
Executive order on October 20. Of this flexible institution Charles A.
Peabody, of New York, a friend of Secretary Seward, was made provisional
judge. Besides being empowered to select a prosecuting attorney, a
marshal and a clerk, and to make rules for the exercise of his
jurisdiction, he was authorized “to hear, try and determine all causes,
civil and criminal, including causes in law, equity, revenue and
admiralty, and particularly all such powers and jurisdiction as belong
to the District and Circuit Courts of the United States, conforming his
proceedings, so far as possible, to the course of proceedings and
practice which has been customary in the Courts of the United States and
Louisiana—his judgment to be final and conclusive.” These officers were
to be paid out of the contingent fund of the War Department, and a copy
of the Executive order, certified by the Secretary of War, was “held to
be a sufficient commission” for the Judge.
This institution, made up as to its _personnel_ in the North, was sent
from New York with the great expedition of General Banks constituted and
organized for immediate business to Louisiana. Though Judge Peabody,
accompanied by Augustus de B. Hughes, Isaac Edward Clarke and George D.
Lamont, who had been chosen, respectively, clerk, marshal and
prosecuting attorney, arrived in New Orleans December 15, 1862, the
opening of court was delayed till the 29th of that month by a change of
administration in that Department.[62]
In addition to the tribunals described many other courts were
established about this time; of these the Supreme Court of Louisiana is
the only one which appears to require especial mention. In former times
under the State judicial system appeals had lain to this institution,
and it was accordingly held that decisions of the courts now created
were subject to its revision. In this manner many of their judgments
were stayed and in suspense, so that the new district courts were of
little practical benefit. The necessity of a tribunal to remedy this
deficiency and adjudicate the accumulated cases of former years soon
became apparent, and in April, 1863, Mr. Peabody was appointed Chief
Justice of the State Supreme Court; associated with him on this bench
were judges chosen from among the people of Louisiana.
Nearly a week before his appointment of Judge Peabody, Mr. Lincoln, by
the hand of Hon. John E. Bouligny, who had not left his seat in the
House of Representatives when Southern delegations withdrew from
Congress, sent to General Butler, Governor Shepley and other Federal
officers having authority under the United States in Louisiana a
communication requesting each of them to assist Mr. Bouligny in his
effort to secure “peace again upon the old terms under the Constitution
of the United States.”[63] This desirable end was to be attained by the
election of “members to the Congress of the United States particularly,
and perhaps a legislature, State officers, and United States senators
friendly to their object.” Federal officers were instructed to give the
people a chance to express their wishes at these elections. “Follow
forms of law,” wrote the President, “as far as convenient, but at all
events get the expression of the largest number of the people possible.
All see how such action will connect with and affect the proclamation of
September 22. Of course the men elected should be gentlemen of
character, willing to swear support to the Constitution, as of old, and
known to be above reasonable suspicion of duplicity.”[64]
Loyal leaders, believing that Northern men holding office under the
General Government in Louisiana would be set up as candidates,
communicated their fears to the President, who sent to Governor Shepley
a fortnight before the election a letter of which the essential portion
is as follows:
We do not particularly need members of Congress from there to enable
us to get along with legislation here. What we do want is the
conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are
willing to be members of Congress and to swear support to the
Constitution and that other respectable citizens there are willing
to vote for them and send them. To send a parcel of Northern men
here as representatives, elected, as would be understood (and
perhaps really so), at the point of the bayonet, would be disgusting
and outrageous; and were I a member of Congress here, I would vote
against admitting any such man to a seat.[65]
The note of sincerity is unmistakable throughout, and in those
Representatives and Senators opposed to Executive policy the concluding
sentences especially must have excited strange emotions when they
re-read in after years their impassioned attacks in Congress upon that
dark spirit who, it was gravely alleged, labored with might unquestioned
to subordinate the Legislative branch of Government.
The Union associations referred to appointed committees who waited upon
General Shepley and demanded an election. This he hesitated to call
until considerable pressure had first been exerted. The sentiments of
the President concurring with the local feeling in New Orleans, Shepley
finally yielded, and on November 14, 1862, issued a proclamation for an
election to be held December 3d following. This election, in the
language of his proclamation, was ordered “for the purpose of securing
to the loyal electors” of both the First and Second Congressional
Districts “their appropriate and lawful representation in the House of
Representatives of the United States of America, and of enabling them to
avail themselves of the benefits secured by the proclamation of the
President of the United States to the people of any State, or part of a
State, who shall on the first day of January next be in good faith
represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen
thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such
State have participated.”[66]
In addition to the qualifications prescribed by the laws of Louisiana,
General Shepley required each elector to take an oath of allegiance to
the United States, and from among the old and respected citizens of the
State appointed sheriffs and commissioners of election, who performed
their duties to the entire satisfaction of both candidates and voters.
The army, for reasons given above, refrained from all manner of
interference, and no Federal office-holder was a nominee.
For the first time in many years, it was admitted, every qualified
elector might freely cast his ballot without fear of intimidation or
violence. In a total of 2,643 votes Benjamin F. Flanders was chosen,
with little opposition, for the First, and Michael Hahn, by a safe
majority, for the Second Congressional District. A larger vote was
actually cast for Flanders than had been received by his predecessor,
and in both districts 7,760 citizens, or about half the usual number,
appeared at the polls. When it is remembered that four thousand soldiers
who enlisted in Butler’s army from this part of the State did not
participate in the contest, that many citizens from this section were
serving in the Confederate army and that not a few Union men were exiles
in the North or in Europe the vote in this election was by no means
light.
With credentials signed by Governor Shepley, Messrs. Hahn and Flanders
appeared in Washington as claimants for seats in Congress. After a
thorough investigation of the election and several ingenious arguments
in opposition both were admitted, February 17, 1863, though not without
considerable misgiving, as Representatives for the remainder of the
term, which expired March 3 following. For their exclusion the
opposition relied mainly upon these grounds:
_First._ The election, it was asserted, was brought about by a threat of
interference with slave property if the State was not represented in
Congress by January 1, 1863; this was a measure of coercion, and the
compliance of citizens in appearing at the polls was ascribed to selfish
motives rather than to loyal and patriotic sentiments.
_Second._ The existence of any vacancy in a constitutional sense was at
least doubtful; and even if vacancies existed in these districts the
authority of a military governor to call an election was denied.
_Third._ It was objected that Governor Shepley had dispensed with the
registry required by law and had empowered commissioners of election to
decide upon the qualifications of voters; finally, by requiring an oath
of allegiance to the United States, he had imposed upon electors a test
unknown to the laws of Louisiana.[67]
While the cases of Messrs. Hahn and Flanders were pending the edict of
freedom had gone forth, for the President, as announced in his
preliminary proclamation of September 22, had declared, January 1, 1863,
“as a fit and necessary war measure,” that “all persons held as slaves
within said designated States and parts of States, are and henceforward
shall be free.”[68] Louisiana was named as one of the States in
rebellion. From the operation of this measure, however, the city of New
Orleans and thirteen parishes of the State were excepted.
The admission, February 17, of Hahn and Flanders gave new life to the
political reorganization of the State.[69] But with this revival of
interest there was discovered among the supporters of the Federal
Government a difference of opinion as to the best course to be pursued
in the circumstances. This division of sentiment arose concerning the
wisdom of retaining slavery in those parishes not included in the
President’s proclamation. The Union associations, each appointing five
delegates, organized what they termed a Free State General Committee
with Thomas J. Durant as president. This body, holding anti-slavery
views and assuming that rebellion had destroyed the fundamental law,
took measures to elect delegates to a general convention for the purpose
of framing a new constitution prohibiting slavery. Their plan was
approved by General Shepley, who, June 12, 1863, appointed Mr. Durant
Attorney-General for the State, with power to act as commissioner of
registration.[70] He was ordered on the same day to make an enrollment
of all free white male citizens of the United States having resided six
months in the State and one month in the parish, who should each take
the oath of allegiance and register “as a voter freely and voluntarily
for the purpose of organizing a State government in Louisiana, loyal to
the Government of the United States.”[71]
The conservative element, though less active, was by no means
indifferent to these measures, and sent to Washington a committee of
planters to consult the President. They represented in a communication
to him that they had “been delegated to seek of the General Government a
full recognition of all the rights of the State as they existed previous
to the passage of an act of secession, upon the principle of the
existence of the State constitution unimpaired, and no legal act having
transpired that could in any way deprive them of the advantages
conferred by that constitution.” They further requested him to direct
the Military Governor to order an election on the first Monday of
November following for all State and Federal officers.[72] To this
committee, composed of E. E. Malhiot, Bradish Johnson and Thomas
Cottman, Mr. Lincoln, under date of June 19, 1863, replied “that a
respectable portion of the Louisiana people desired to amend their State
constitution, and contemplated holding a State convention for that
object. This fact alone, as it seems to me, is a sufficient reason why
the General Government should not give the committal you seek to the
existing State constitution. I may add that while I do not perceive how
such committal could facilitate our military operations in Louisiana, I
really apprehend it might be so used as to embarrass them.”[73]
It is evident, when we recall the letter of July 26, 1862, to Reverdy
Johnson, that the President, then only contemplating emancipation, had,
since his proclamation had gone forth, taken much more advanced
ground.[74] The army was still his main reliance, and the wisdom of
restoring a loyal government as well as the method of that restoration
was regarded favorably or otherwise as it appeared to facilitate or
embarrass military operations.
Relative to an election in November he said, “There is abundant time
without any order or proclamation from me just now.” Though their
request was courteously denied, he assured the committee that the people
of Louisiana should not lack an opportunity for a fair election for both
Federal and State officers by want of anything within his power to give
them.[75]
The political reorganization of the State was at this point interrupted
by the absence at Port Hudson of General N. P. Banks, then in command of
the Department of the Gulf. So energetic and successful was the
Confederate General Taylor that by July 10, when he received
intelligence of the fall of Port Hudson and the surrender of Vicksburg,
his mounted scouts had been pushed to within sixteen miles of New
Orleans.[76] The surrender in these strongholds of more than 40,000 men
was a crushing blow to the Richmond Government; enough troops were
disengaged by these victories to overwhelm the enemy that menaced New
Orleans, and General Taylor hurriedly concentrated his army in the
valley of the Red River to observe the movements of the Federal
commander. The Union picket line marked at this time the bounds of
Governor Shepley’s civil jurisdiction; indeed, it was not greatly
extended until the surrender of General E. Kirby Smith late in May,
1865, after the engagement at Brazos. Eastern Louisiana, with Alabama
and Mississippi, had passed a few weeks earlier under Federal control.
The great numbers withdrawn from production in the South combined with a
rigorous enforcement of the blockade had occasioned a cotton famine in
the markets of the world. To relieve this condition an outlet was sought
for the abundant crops of the Red River country; and this fact was
probably, not without considerable influence, in determining the course
of the expedition into Texas, which was intended to accomplish a very
different though scarcely less important purpose.
Though the vigilance of Mr. Adams, United States Minister to England,
was rewarded by the abandonment in that country of any further attempt
to build cruisers of the Alabama type, the Confederate naval agent by no
means despaired of dealing still severer blows to the commerce of the
North, and, attracted by promises which appear to have been authorized
by the ruler of France, changed his field of activity from Liverpool to
Bordeaux, where a ship-builder was engaged to construct two formidable
rams. With the attempts to get these under the Confederate flag this
essay is not concerned.[77] French interests in Mexico appeared at that
time to require the cultivation of friendly relations with what some
European States believed was destined to become a new power among the
nations of the world; hence Napoleon’s encouragement to the Confederate
representatives abroad. This situation was so seriously regarded by the
Government at Washington that even at considerable sacrifice it was
determined to plant the Union flag somewhere in Texas. To effect this
object General Banks had considered and submitted to the War Department
plans of his own; these, however, appear to have been reluctantly
abandoned because of repeated instructions from General Halleck, and the
movement toward Shreveport in the spring and early summer of 1864 was
begun. From the protracted and envenomed controversy to which it gave
rise among the officers on both sides its disastrous ending is familiar
to all.[78]
While this joint land and naval expedition was yet in contemplation Mr.
Lincoln found time to inform the Federal commander of his opinions
respecting the establishment of a civil government in Louisiana. In his
letter of August 5, 1863, to General Banks he wrote:
While I very well know what I would be glad for Louisiana to do, it
is quite a different thing for me to assume direction of the matter.
I would be glad for her to make a new constitution recognizing the
emancipation proclamation, and adopting emancipation in those parts
of the State to which the proclamation does not apply. And while she
is at it, I think it would not be objectionable for her to adopt
some practical system by which the two races could gradually live
themselves out of the old relation to each other, and both come out
better prepared for the new. Education for young blacks should be
included in the plan. After all, the power or element of “contract”
may be sufficient for this probationary period; and, by its
simplicity and flexibility, may be the better.
As an anti-slavery man, I have a motive to desire emancipation which
pro-slavery men do not have; but even they have strong enough reason
to thus place themselves again under the shield of the Union; and to
thus perpetually hedge against the recurrence of the scenes through
which we are now passing.
He expressed his approval of the registry which he supposed Mr. Durant
was making with a view to an election for a constitutional convention,
the work of which, he hoped, would reach Washington by the meeting of
Congress in December. Before concluding this letter he added: “For my
own part, I think I shall not, in any event, retract the emancipation
proclamation; nor, as executive, ever return to slavery any person who
is freed by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of
Congress.”[79]
He again invites attention to the fact that if Louisiana should send
members to Congress their admission would depend upon the respective
Houses and not to any extent upon the wishes of the Executive.
Copies of this communication he intended to send to Hahn, Flanders and
Durant. Three months later, when the gentleman last named informed him
that nothing had yet been done toward the enrollment, Mr. Lincoln wrote
immediately to General Banks a letter which at once reveals both the
extent of his interest in this subject and his extreme disappointment on
learning that his wishes had been but little regarded. Flanders, then in
Washington, confirmed the account of Durant. “This disappoints me
bitterly,” said the letter of November 5, 1863, and though the President
did not blame either General Banks or the Louisiana leaders for this
apparent neglect he urged them “to lose no more time.” “I wish him
[General Shepley], ...” continued the letter, “without waiting for more
territory, to go to work and give me a tangible nucleus which the
remainder of the State may rally around as fast as it can, and which I
can at once recognize and sustain as the true State government. And in
that work I wish you and all under your command to give them a hearty
sympathy and support.
“The instruction to Governor Shepley bases the movement (and rightfully,
too) upon the loyal element. Time is important. There is danger, even
now, that the adverse element seeks insidiously to preoccupy the ground.
If a few professedly loyal men shall draw the disloyal about them, and
colorably set up a State government, repudiating the Emancipation
Proclamation and reëstablishing slavery, I cannot recognize or sustain
their work. I should fall powerless in the attempt. This Government in
such an attitude would be a house divided against itself.
“I have said, and say again, that if a new State government, acting in
harmony with this government, and consistently with general freedom,
shall think best to adopt a reasonable temporary arrangement in relation
to the landless and homeless freed people, I do not object; but my word
is out to be for and not against them on any question of their permanent
freedom. I do not insist upon such temporary arrangement, but only say
such would not be objectionable to me.”[80]
It should be remembered that Thomas J. Durant, who was authorized to
make the enrollment as well as to appoint “registers” to assist him, was
spokesman of the wealthy and influential class of planters, or the
conservative element whose interests opposed any disturbance of existing
conditions. He appears to have drawn for the President a somewhat gloomy
picture of the political situation in Louisiana, and finally to have
protested against the government organized by the adverse party. The
outlook there, however, was not so discouraging as represented; for as
early as October 9 Governor Shepley had renewed his order for the
registration, modifying the former one so far as to include “all loyal
citizens.”
Interest was somewhat quickened by the announcement of certain
conservative leaders of an intention to hold a voluntary election in
conformity with the old constitution and laws of the State. On October
27, 1863, an address signed by the president and vice-president of the
Central Executive Committee was published in the papers of New Orleans.
This appeal, directed to the loyal citizens of Louisiana, begins:
The want of civil government in our State can, by a proper effort on
your part, soon be supplied, under laws and a constitution formed
and adopted by yourselves in a time of profound peace. It is made
your duty, as well as your right, to meet at the usual places, and
cast your votes for State and parish officers, members of Congress,
and of the State Legislature.
* * * * *
The day, as fixed by our laws, is Monday, the 2d day of November
next, 1863. There is nothing [proceeds the address] to prevent your
meeting on the day fixed by law, and selecting your agents to carry
on the affairs of government in our own State. The military will not
interfere with you in the exercise of your civil rights and duties,
and we think we can assure you that your action in this respect will
meet the approval of the National Government.
The failure of those citizens addressed to exercise their rights, it was
asserted, would subject “the country” to the danger of being thrown as
“vacated” territory into the hands of Congress.[81]
The Free State Committee having been invited to coöperate, a
correspondence ensued between the rival organizations; but, on the
ground that this movement was both illegal and unjust, the Free State
men declined to participate in the election. In their reply the latter
assert that “There is no law in existence, as stated by you [The
Executive Central Committee], directing elections to be held on the
first Monday of November.
“The constitution of 1852, as amended by the convention of 1861, was
overthrown and destroyed by the rebellion of the people of Louisiana,
and the subsequent conquest by the arms of the United States does not
restore your political institutions.”[82]
The reply then proceeds to discuss the injustice of the movement, and
upon this subject its reasoning is entitled to more respect. As to the
status of the constitution of 1852, it is not easy to comprehend how the
secession convention, a body universally regarded as revolutionary,
could amend, in the manner attempted, the fundamental law, seeing that
this revolution was not yet crowned with success.
Though no general election was held in response to this address, voting
took place in two parishes, and certain persons were chosen as
Representatives in Congress. Before giving an account of this election
of November 2, 1863, it may be proper to notice a petition submitted by
the free colored people of New Orleans to Governor Shepley praying to be
registered as voters so that they could “assist in establishing in the
new Convention a Civil Government” for their “beloved State of
Louisiana.” This address, prepared at a meeting on November 5, and not
without ability, recites in appropriate language the services rendered
by free colored men to both the Nation and the State. It is sufficient
to observe here that their prayer was not granted. The paper itself will
be considered in discussing the successive steps which led to the
complete enfranchisement of the race.[83]
The preceding chapter has noticed President Lincoln’s Amnesty
Proclamation of December 8 as well as that part of the accompanying
message to Congress discussing his plan for restoring Union governments
in the insurgent States. The House had not completed its organization
for the Thirty-eighth Congress when Thaddeus Stevens, a Representative
from Pennsylvania, either from curiosity or an anxiety to oppose, as he
conceived, the policy of the President, inquired what names had been
omitted in the call of members. At a later stage of its first meeting,
December 7, 1863, he again referred to this subject by asking to have
read the credentials of persons claiming to be Representatives “from the
so-called State of Louisiana.” The acting clerk facetiously promised
compliance, and read a certificate signed by Mr. John Leonard Riddell
naming A. P. Field, Thomas Cottman and Joshua Baker as persons elected
to represent respectively the First, Second and Fifth Congressional
Districts of the State.[84]
On a resolution “That A. P. Field is not entitled to a seat in this
House from the State of Louisiana,” reported January 29, 1864, from the
Committee of Elections, his right to admission was fully discussed.
Under the apportionment of 1850 that State sent four, and by the census
of 1860 became entitled to five, Representatives. By an act of Congress
approved July 14, 1862, each State entitled to more than one member in
the lower House was to be divided into as many districts as it had been
allotted Representatives.
But, said Chairman Dawes, as Louisiana had never been so divided no
person in that State had been chosen according to Federal law. The
election under which Mr. Field claimed a seat occurred in the old First
Congressional District, which, with a great portion of the city of New
Orleans, included two adjacent parishes, Placquemines and St. Bernard.
On November 1, General Shepley issued a military order forbidding the
election, and none was held in New Orleans. In the two outlying
parishes, however, under the auspices of a citizens’ committee, to which
returns were made, a few voters appeared at the polls. In the parish of
St. Bernard, the only locality in which the House had any proof that
electors participated, Mr. Field received one hundred and fifty-six
votes, and though no evidence in support of his statement had been
offered, about the same number, he alleged, had been cast for him in
Placquemines.
The question was, proceeded Mr. Dawes, whether a gentleman with this
constituency could be in any sense considered as having been elected.
There were in his district over 10,000 qualified voters, and of these
the claimant received the support of only one hundred and fifty-six;
hence nearly ten thousand electors expressed no opinion, armed
interference having prevented 9,844 of them from indicating a
preference. There was no evidence that this majority acquiesced in what
was done by one hundred and fifty-six men in a corner of St. Bernard
parish where an election was permitted. If no other objection existed,
the State had not been districted as required by the Act of July, 1862;
this consideration of itself appeared to the Committee a reason
sufficient for his exclusion. Further, his certificate was signed by one
John Leonard Riddell, himself chosen Governor at the same time and in
the same parishes. His term, according to the laws of Louisiana, did not
commence till January 1, 1864, and it was not easy to comprehend how he
came to regard himself as Executive of the State on November 20, 1863,
when he signed the certificate presented by the claimant. Mr. Riddell,
indeed, had not then been inaugurated.
Had not Congress failed to divide the State, the suppression of this
election would have been without justification and have deserved the
condemnation of the House. It, however, did not conform to the laws of
Louisiana, for the votes were not cast nor were they counted or
canvassed as prescribed thereby. This, in substance, was the argument of
Mr. Dawes.
By other members attention was invited to the fact that under the same
laws and conditions an election had been held in Louisiana a year
before, and in consequence two Representatives admitted. To this
observation Mr. Stevens replied that Hahn and Flanders, the members
referred to, had been seated by the power of the House without, as he
then supposed, any law or right. Henry Winter Davis alone among all who
spoke on the question approved the action of the Military Governor on
the ground that there was no legal right to hold an election, and the
attempt of any number of persons to do so was an usurpation of sovereign
authority which was properly prevented. Other Representatives, however,
strongly condemned this act of Governor Shepley and at least one desired
the House to express as an amendment to the resolution its disapproval
of his conduct. Though not the question in debate, there could be no
mistaking upon this point the sentiments of a majority of the members.
Mr. Field, permitted to address the House, observed that it was the
fault of the General Government that Union men in Louisiana had not been
aided by the previous administration. If they had been, the blood of
Illinois and Massachusetts patriots would not have sprinkled the soil of
his State.
To show that some sort of government existed there he caused the clerk
to read a list of one hundred and twenty-five officers acting in those
parishes included within Federal military lines, and added that though
New Orleans since its capture paid annually in taxes, collected through
Governor Shepley, two and a half million dollars, besides a considerable
sum in internal revenue, her people were represented neither in the
local nor the national Government.
The constitution of Louisiana, he said, required that qualified electors
should be white males who had attained the age of twenty-one years, and
been residents of the State for twelve months immediately preceding the
election. The provision was so modified by Governor Shepley that persons
of this description were allowed to vote after a residence of six
months. Mr. Field did not know whence was derived the authority to amend
constitutions.
To secure his coöperation in establishing a loyal government Union men
met as early as September 19 in convention at New Orleans, and appointed
a committee of nine to present an address to the Military Governor
inviting his assistance. He declined, however, after a lengthy interview
to order an election for Representatives until the State had first been
divided. In fact, until instructions which he had requested, were
received from Washington he refused to order any election whatever,
though he volunteered to forward to Mr. Lincoln any communication which
they desired to address him on that subject. Besides its correspondence
with Governor Shepley, the New Orleans convention on September 21 had
sent a letter to General Banks, the Department commander, to secure if
possible his approval of their movement.
Notice, dated October 20, was given that an election would be held,
November 2, at the usual places in the parish of St. Bernard, and the
State and Federal offices to be filled, as well as the precise places at
which voters could cast their ballots, were mentioned. Since the
military authorities had refused to assist them, and had then issued no
order against an election, loyal men thought it not improper to express
their opinions at the polls. As the Free State people considered
Louisiana out of the Union they declined to participate, and though
General Banks in obedience to instructions from the President had
subsequently ordered an election they maintained the same attitude. The
claimant’s party did not oppose this order; for if unable to restore
their State in the manner most acceptable they were willing to coöperate
in any method likely to accomplish that object.
Precisely what number of voters would be called a constituency Mr. Field
had not been informed. In the portion of his Congressional District
included in St. Bernard and Placquemines parishes there were only 2,400
electors, and the President’s plan required only one tenth of the number
of votes cast in 1860. Though the election of November 2 preceded the
Executive proclamation, that fact should not make it void. The electors
in New Orleans were not free to express a choice, and even if it had
been otherwise the vote in the First District must have been greatly
diminished since 1860, for he was assured by two paymasters that 7,000
men had been recruited there for the Union army.
Some members admitted that the national Government had not given
sufficient protection to Union men in Louisiana, and therefore should
not now take advantage of that neglect to also deprive them of
representation in Congress. These believed that if Mr. Field had
received a majority of the votes in his district any informality in the
election should be overlooked, for the right to representation in
Congress grows out of the Constitution, and regulations governing such
elections are matters of mere convenience. The fact that no State
organization existed there did not create a legal impediment, and it was
no objection that Louisiana had not been redistricted, for the
additional member was not imposed as a burden but as a right which she
was free to exercise or not; besides, the greater representation
includes the less.
Notwithstanding these considerations, and strong, though not universal,
testimony to the claimant’s loyalty, he was denied admission, February
9, 1864, by a vote of 85 to 48.[85] His case, however, was not exactly
similar to that of Messrs. Hahn and Flanders, as stated by one
Representative, for they had received, in the circumstances, a
comparatively large vote.
To this end came the movement of the planters designed primarily to
counteract that inaugurated by the Free State Committee, which also, as
we shall see, was soon at variance with the military authorities.
Important changes had occurred in the shifting politics of his State
before the House had taken final action in the case of Mr. Field; these
will be briefly related.
Military necessity had led the President to issue, December 8, 1863, his
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction proposing, though not rigidly
insisting upon, a plan for reinaugurating State governments wherever
there existed such a loyal nucleus as could effectively assist in
overthrowing the rebellion. In discussing the affairs of Tennessee that
plan has been quoted at such length as to require no further mention in
this place.[86]
General Banks on January 8, 1864, announced his intention of ordering an
election of State officers. He was urged at this point by the Free State
Committee to allow their election to go on, but he refused to yield even
under pressure of an immense public meeting favorable to their
object.[87] Without his coöperation their plan was doomed to failure,
and when entreaties did not avail to move him they promptly inveighed
against his methods and his motives in the columns of _The National
Intelligencer_ at Washington. In a letter dated New Orleans, January 9,
1864, a correspondent writes:
President Lincoln has started a Missouri case in Louisiana, and has
made Banks our master; and Banks is another Schofield, only worse
than he. Our mass meeting last evening was a complete success; but
its object will be defeated by Banks, who, under orders direct from
the President, declares his purpose to order an election for a
convention; thus playing into the hands of Cottman, Riddle, and
Fields, and their crew. The Union men—the true Union men—are
thunderstruck by the course of the President in this matter.
We were not informed of the President’s orders to General Banks
until the hour of the meeting last night, and the meeting was not
informed at all. General Shepley, who is generally liked, and who
has done all he could to promote the free State cause, and to
organize a free State government, will resign, and the election
ordered by Banks will be purely at military dictation, and will be
so regarded.
The correspondent does not know the secret springs of all these acts of
the President, but thinks he has probably been deceived by base and
interested men. “Banks,” he believes, “has the unchanged confidence of
Mr. Lincoln.” The writer concludes by asking whether it is not possible
to get the President to countermand his orders to Banks immediately,
“and let the people manage matters as they have begun to do?”[88] To
prove that no line of policy would be acceptable to the Free State
Committee Mr. Field, in his remarks before the House, read in full the
communication from which these excerpts are taken.
To comprehend clearly the nature of the controversy which so suddenly
arose between the Free State General Committee and the Federal commander
in Louisiana it may be necessary to explain with some detail the precise
attitude of that organization relative to the question at issue between
the adverse parties. In discussing the respective merits of the State
constitutions of 1852 and 1861 the organ of the Free State men says:
The question is altogether immaterial; for, in the conflict of arms
incident to this rebellion, the predominant ideas of the good people
of Louisiana have far preceded either constitution; and to
reorganize now the State on the slave basis, which both
constitutions and the laws passed under them recognized, has become
an utter impossibility. Free soil and free speech have grown up into
absolute necessities, directly resulting from the war, which has
converted into dust and ashes all the constitutions which Louisiana
has ever made, embodying the ideas of property in our fellow-man,
and all the baneful results of this system of African slavery. The
present war is nothing but the conflict of the ideas of slavery and
liberty.... We cannot have peace until public opinion is brought
quite up to this point. We cannot reorganize the civil government of
our city, and still less that of our State, and get rid of the
fearful incubus of martial law now pressing down our energies by its
arbitrary influence, unless we believe, give utterance to and
establish the fundamental principle of our national government: “all
men are created free and equal.” We know of no better way to effect
this than by calling a convention as soon as possible, to declare
the simple fact that Louisiana now is and will forever be a free
State.[89]
The party favoring this method insisted that in August, 1863, when
General Shepley was in Washington, their plan in all its parts was
adopted in a Cabinet meeting, and that a special order issued from the
War Department directing the Military Governor to carry it into
execution. The movement for reorganizing the State would thus be placed
under control of the steadfast opponents of slavery. They further
claimed that Mr. Lincoln then preferred the calling of a convention to
an election of State officers under the old constitution. His letter of
August 5, 1863, to General Banks certainly leaves no doubt as to his
sentiments at that time, for he expressed his approval of the enrollment
being taken by Durant with a view to an election for a constitutional
convention, the mature work of which, he thought, should reach
Washington by the meeting of Congress. The impossibility of so
expediting registration outside of New Orleans as to be ready for an
election at that early date was explained to the President by the Free
State Committee.
Mr. B. F. Flanders returning from Washington in October, 1863, reported
the President as saying, in reply to an objection that enough territory
and population were not under protection of the Union army to justify an
election, that so great was the necessity for immediate action that he
would recognize and sustain a State government organized by any part of
the population of which the National forces then had control, and that
he wished Flanders on his return to Louisiana to say so.[90]
The registration under Governor Shepley, though frequently interrupted,
had proceeded, and the Free State Committee, to insure the success of
their object, conferred with him for the purpose of holding, about
January 25, 1864, an election for delegates to a State convention which,
as already observed, intended to frame a new constitution abolishing
slavery everywhere throughout the State. The announcement, then, on
January 8, 1864, by General Banks of his intention to order an election
of State officers under the old constitution was regarded by them as a
decision for their adversaries. Their objections to the proclamation
itself will be noticed in the proper place. It provided not only for an
election of State officers on February 22 following, but also for the
choice of delegates to a convention to be held in April for a revision
of the constitution. The paramount objection of the Free State men was
that the election of State officers would, under the course of General
Banks, precede that for delegates to the convention, the point at which
they desired to begin the work of reëstablishing a civil government for
the State.
To Thomas Cottman, who accompanied Mr. Field to Washington claiming a
seat in Congress as Representative from the Second Louisiana District,
Mr. Lincoln, on December 15, wrote:
You were so kind as to say this morning that you desire to return to
Louisiana, and to be guided by my wishes, to some extent, in the
part you may take in bringing that State to resume her rightful
relation to the General Government.
My wishes are in a general way expressed, as well as I can express
them, in the proclamation issued on the eighth of the present month,
and in that part of the annual message which relates to that
proclamation. It there appears that I deem the sustaining of the
Emancipation Proclamation, where it applies, as indispensable; and I
add here that I would esteem it fortunate if the people of Louisiana
should themselves place the remainder of the State upon the same
footing.[91]
Though this letter expressed as one of Mr. Lincoln’s strongest wishes a
hope that all Union men in Louisiana would “eschew cliquism,” he was
destined to be disappointed, for at this very time letters from General
Banks, dated December 6 and 16, informed him that Governor Shepley, Mr.
Durant and others had given him to understand that they were charged
exclusively with the work of reconstruction in Louisiana and hence he
had not felt authorized to interfere. Other officers had set up claims
to jurisdiction conflicting and interfering with his own powers of
military administration. Annoyed that a misunderstanding was delaying
work which he had been urging for a year, the President, on the 24th of
December, wrote General Banks as follows:
I have all the while intended you to be master, as well in regard to
reorganizing a State government for Louisiana, as in regard to the
military matters of the department; and hence my letters on
reconstruction have nearly, if not quite, all been addressed to you.
My error has been that it did not occur to me that Governor Shepley
or any one else would set up a claim to act independently of you;
and hence I said nothing expressly upon the point.
Language has not been guarded at a point where no danger was thought
of. I now tell you that in every dispute with whomsoever, you are
master.
Governor Shepley was appointed to assist the commander of the
department, and not to thwart him or act independently of him.
Instructions have been given directly to him, merely to spare you
detail labor, and not to supersede your authority. This, in its
liability to be misconstrued, it now seems was an error in us. But
it is past. I now distinctly tell you that you are master of all,
and that I wish you to take the case as you find it, and give us a
free State reorganization of Louisiana in the shortest possible
time. What I say here is to have a reasonable construction. I do not
mean that you are to withdraw from Texas, or abandon any other
military measure which you may deem important. Nor do I mean that
you are to throw away available work already done for
reconstruction; nor that war is to be made upon Governor Shepley, or
upon any one else, unless it be found that they will not coöperate
with you, in which case, and in all cases, you are master while you
remain in command of the department.[92]
This letter making General Banks “master” of the situation in Louisiana
the President concluded by thanking him for his successful and valuable
operations in Texas. But before receiving this extensive authority and
the undoubted assurance of Mr. Lincoln’s confidence the commander, on
December 30, submitted to the President a plan of reconstruction based
upon the Proclamation and the Message of the 8th of that month. For
evident reasons this communication deserves to be reproduced almost
entire:
I would suggest [says General Banks], as the only speedy and certain
method of accomplishing your object, that an election be ordered, of
a State government, under the constitution and laws of Louisiana,
except so much thereof as recognizes and relates to slavery, which
should be declared by the authority calling the election, and in the
order authorizing it, inoperative and void. The registration of
voters to be made in conformity with your Proclamation, and all
measures hitherto taken with reference to State organization, not
inconsistent with the Proclamation, may be made available. A
convention of the people for the revision of the constitution may be
ordered as soon as the government is organized, and the election of
members might take place on the same or a subsequent day with the
general election. The people of Louisiana will accept such a
proposition with favor. They will prefer it to any arrangement which
leaves the subject to them for an affirmative or negative vote.
Strange as this may appear, it is the fact. Of course a government
organized upon the basis of immediate and universal freedom, with
the general consent of the people, followed by the adaptation of
commercial and industrial interests to this order of things, and
supported by the army and navy, the influence of the civil officers
of the Government, and the Administration at Washington, could not
fail by any possible chance to obtain an absolute and permanent
recognition of the principle of freedom upon which it would be
based. Any other result would be impossible. The same influence
would secure with the same certainty the selection of proper men in
the election of officers.
Let me assure you that this course will be far more acceptable to
the citizens of Louisiana than the submission of the question of
slavery to the chances of an election. Their self-respect, their
_amour propre_ will be appeased if they are not required to vote for
or against it. Offer them a government without slavery and they will
gladly accept it as a necessity resulting from the war. On all other
points, sufficient guarantees of right results can be secured; but
the great question, that of immediate emancipation, will be covered
_ab initio_, by a conceded and absolute prohibition of slavery.
Upon this plan a government can be established whenever you wish—in
thirty or sixty days; a government that will be satisfactory to the
South and the North; to the South, because it relieves them from any
action in regard to an institution which cannot be restored, and
which they cannot condemn; and to the North, because it places the
interests of liberty beyond all possible accident or chance of
failure. The result is certain.[93]
Upon receiving this communication the President, who cherished no plan
of restoration to which exact conformity was indispensable, expressed,
January 13, 1864, in a letter to General Banks his gratitude for the
zeal and confidence manifested by him on the question of reinaugurating
a free State government in Louisiana. He hoped, because of the authority
contained in the letter of December 24, that the Department Commander
had already commenced work. “Whether you shall have done so or not,”
continues the letter, “please, on receiving this, proceed with all
possible despatch, using your own absolute discretion in all matters
which may not carry you away from the conditions stated in your letters
to me, nor from those of the message and proclamation of December 8.
Frame orders, and fix times and places for this and that, according to
your own judgment.”[94]
This letter repeats the idea of subordination to General Banks of all
officials in his department holding authority from the President, and
stated that the bearer of the communication, Collector Dennison, of New
Orleans, understood the views of the commander and was willing to assist
in carrying them out. Before Mr. Dennison arrived in New Orleans,
however, General Banks had already, in his proclamation of January 11,
1864, fixed a date for the election. This action was determined, said
the Department Commander, upon ample assurance “that more than a tenth
of the population desire the earliest possible restoration of Louisiana
to the Union”; hence he invited “the loyal citizens of the State
qualified to vote in public affairs ... to assemble in the election
precincts designated by law, ... on the 22d of February, 1864, to cast
their votes for the election of State officers herein named, _viz._
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer,
Attorney-General, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Auditor of
Public Accounts—who shall, when elected, for the time being, and until
others are appointed by competent authority, constitute the civil
government of the State, under the constitution and laws of Louisiana,
except so much of said constitution and laws as recognize, regulate or
relate to slavery, which being inconsistent with the present condition
of public affairs, and plainly inapplicable to any class of persons now
existing within its limits, must be suspended, and they are therefore
and hereby declared to be inoperative and void. This proceeding is not
intended to ignore the right of property existing prior to the
rebellion, nor to preclude the claim for compensation of loyal citizens
for losses sustained by enlistment or other authorized acts of
Government.”[95]
The qualifications of voters in this election were to be determined by
the oath of allegiance prescribed by the President’s proclamation
together with the condition annexed to the elective franchise by the
constitution of Louisiana. Officers elected were to be duly installed on
the 4th of March.
So much of the registration effected under direction of Governor Shepley
and the several Union Associations as was not inconsistent with the
proclamation and other orders of the President was approved. The
proclamation further announced that arrangements would be made for the
early election of members of Congress for the State, and, that the
organic law might be made to conform to the will of the people and
harmonize with the spirit of the age, an election of delegates to a
convention for the revision of the constitution would be held on the
first Monday of April following.
This proclamation declared, among other things, that
The fundamental law of the State is martial law.... The Government
is subject to the law of necessity, and must consult the condition
of things, rather than the preferences of men, and if so be that its
purposes are just and its measures wise, it has the right to demand
that questions of personal interest and opinion shall be subordinate
to the public good. When the national existence is at stake, and the
liberties of the people in peril, faction is treason.
The methods herein proposed submit the whole question of government
directly to the people—first, by the election of executive officers,
faithful to the Union, to be followed by a loyal representation in
both Houses of Congress; and then by a convention which will confirm
the action of the people, and recognize the principles of freedom in
the organic law. This is the wish of the President.[96]
On February 13, nine days before the election, General Banks issued an
order relative to the qualifications of electors. It provided, in
addition to the declarations on that subject in his proclamation, that
Union voters expelled from their homes by the public enemy might cast
their ballots for State officers in the precincts where they temporarily
resided and that qualified electors enlisted in the army or navy could
vote in those precincts in which they might be found on election day. If
without the State, then commissioners would be appointed to receive
their ballots wherever stationed, returns to be made to General
Shepley.[97]
For governor three candidates were nominated—B. F. Flanders, a
representative of the Free State Committee; Michael Hahn, the choice of
those who approved the measures of General Banks, and J. Q. A. Fellows,
a pro-slavery conservative who favored “the Constitution and the Union
with the preservation of the rights of all inviolate.” The friends of
Hahn would deny to persons of African descent the privileges of
citizenship, whereas the supporters of Flanders generally would extend
to them such rights and immunities.[98]
On Washington’s birthday, as announced in the proclamation of General
Banks, an election was held in seventeen parishes, Hahn receiving 6,183,
Fellows 2,996 and Flanders 2,232 votes, a total of 11,411, of which 107
were cast by Louisiana soldiers stationed at Pensacola, Florida.[99]
Writing February 25 to the President General Banks says:
The election of the 22d of February was conducted with great spirit
and propriety. No complaint is heard from any quarter, so far as I
know, of unfairness or undue influence on the part of the officers
of the Government. At some of the strictly military posts the entire
vote of the Louisiana men was for Mr. Flanders, at others for Mr.
Hahn, according to the inclination of the voters. Every voter
accepted the oath prescribed by your proclamation of the 8th of
December.... The ordinary vote of the State has been less than forty
thousand. The proportion given on the 22d of February is nearly
equal to the territory covered by our arms.[100]
The friends of the Free State General Committee in a protest pronounced
the result of the election “the registration of a military edict,” and
“worthy of no respect from the representatives and Executive of the
nation.” To the question whether this election had in the meaning of the
President reëstablished a State government they promptly answered in the
negative, for the commanding general recognized the Louisiana
constitution of 1852 and ordered an election under it in which the votes
of the people had nothing to do with reëstablishing government; his
proclamation, by recognizing the existence of the old constitution, made
the reëstablishment beforehand for them. The Governor and
Lieutenant-Governor, together with the other executive officers chosen,
did not, they argued, constitute a State government; for all the
constitutions of Louisiana, including that of 1852, described the
government as consisting of three departments: executive, legislative
and judicial.
Though not avowed, the reason of Banks’ failure to order an election for
members of the Legislature was plain, for there was not, they claimed,
within the Union lines a sufficient number of parishes to elect a
majority of that body, and less than a majority was, by the
constitution, not a quorum to do business; so that no officer elected
could be legally paid, for that could be done by only a legal
appropriation. The same constitution, they said further, provided that
Justices of the Supreme and District Courts, as well as justices of the
peace, should be elected by the people. The present incumbents had been
simply appointed by General Shepley. Should Mr. Hahn under pretence of
being civil governor undertake to appoint judicial officers, the act
would be a mere usurpation.
Not only, they declared, had no State government been established by
this election, but still further, the proclamation of the President had
not in the matter of electors been complied with; for Article XII. of
the constitution of 1852 says: “No soldier, seaman, or marine in the
army or navy of the United States ... shall be entitled to vote at any
election in this State.” Yet, continued the protestants, it was a
notorious fact that the general commanding permitted soldiers recruited
in Louisiana, and otherwise qualified, to vote, and that many availed
themselves of the privilege. Again, they went on to say, the Legislature
by act of March 20, 1856, provided for the appointment in New Orleans of
a register of voters whose office should be closed three days before an
election, and no one registered during that period. Now prior to the
late election, the register having closed his office according to law,
orders were at once given to two other officers, recorders of the city,
who had no such powers or functions by law, to register voters, which
they did night and day, and persons so registered were allowed to vote.
Referring to the declared intention of General Banks to order an
election of delegates to a constitutional convention, and by a
subsequent order fix the basis of representation, the number of
delegates and the details of the election, they said: “This will put the
whole matter under military control, and the experience of the last
election shows that only such a convention can be had as the
overshadowing influence of the military authority will permit. Under an
election thus ordered, and a constitution thus established, a republican
form of government cannot be formed. It is simply a fraud to call it the
reëstablishment of a State government. In these circumstances, the only
course left to the truly loyal citizens of Louisiana is, to protest
against the recognition of this pretended Government, and to appeal to
the calm judgment of the nation to procure such action from Congress as
will forbid military commanders to usurp the powers which belong to
Congress alone, or to the loyal people of Louisiana.”[101]
But neither the protest nor the criticism of Free State men availed to
arrest the march of events, and in the presence of a vast multitude
Michael Hahn, who had received a majority of all the votes cast, was
inaugurated Governor amidst great enthusiasm on March 4. To the oath
prescribed in the amnesty and reconstruction proclamation of December 8,
1863, given above, was added the following:
And I do further solemnly swear, that I am qualified according to
the constitution of the State to hold the office to which I have
been elected, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge
and perform all the duties incumbent on me as Governor of the State
of Louisiana, according to the best of my abilities and
understanding, agreeably to the Constitution and Laws of the United
States, and in support of and according to the constitution and laws
of this State, so far as they are consistent with the necessary
military occupation of the State by the troops of the United States
for the suppression of the rebellion, and the full restoration of
the authority of the United States.[102]
This language clearly indicates the legal theory upon which General
Banks was proceeding, and citizens understood that Mr. Hahn represented
a popular power entirely subordinate to the armed occupation of the
State.
On March 13, 1864, the President wrote the following private letter to
Governor Hahn:
I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first
free-state governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a
convention, which, among other things, will probably define the
elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration
whether some of the colored people may not be let in—as, for
instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought
gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying
time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of
freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to
you alone.[103]
Speaking of this personal note Mr. Blaine says: “It was perhaps the
earliest proposition from any authentic source to endow the negro with
the right of suffrage, and was an indirect but most effective answer to
those who subsequently attempted to use Mr. Lincoln’s name in support of
policies which his intimate friends instinctively knew would be
abhorrent to his unerring sense of justice.”[104]
At the suggestion of General Banks, the President two days later
invested Mr. Hahn until further order “with the powers exercised
hitherto by the military governor of Louisiana.”[105]
From the sentiments of the Free State party it requires little insight
into human affairs to foretell that in some manner they would soon be
found in opposition. Their candidate, Mr. B. F. Flanders, who received
fewer votes than either of his competitors, was a prominent official in
the Treasury Department, and from this vantage ground, without, so far
as appears, rebuke from Secretary Chase, began to stir up in Congress a
feeling of hostility to the new government in Louisiana. Precisely why
Mr. Lincoln decided to take into his own hands the entire subject of
reconstruction may be collected without difficulty from what has already
been said; but that this determination was confirmed by his knowledge of
an alliance between the Free State leaders and the “Radicals” in
Congress there can be little doubt.
The Department Commander in a general order gave notice on March 11 that
an election would be held on the 28th of that month for the choice of
delegates to a State convention to meet in New Orleans “for the revision
and amendment of the constitution of Louisiana.”[106] Five days later,
March 16, Governor Hahn, in a proclamation to the sheriffs and other
officers concerned, authorized the election and commanded them to give
due notice thereof to the qualified voters of the State and to make
prompt returns to the Secretary of State in New Orleans.[107]
Pursuant to these notices the election was held on the 28th, and
resulted in the choice of ninety-seven members, two of whom were
rejected because of irregular returns. The entire State was entitled to
150 delegates. The parish of Orleans was represented by sixty-three
members, leaving to the country parishes but thirty-two. Of the vote,
which was exceedingly light, no return appears to have been published.
Because of their recent defeat no nominations were made by the Radicals,
and this fact, together with heavy rains on election day, was assigned
by Governor Hahn in a letter to the President as an explanation of the
meagre vote. The Parish of Ascension, which in 1860 had a population of
3,940 whites, elected her delegates by 61 votes; Placquemines, which by
the same census had 2,529 white inhabitants, cast 246, while the single
delegate from Madison was chosen by only twenty-eight electors.[108]
General Banks informed a committee of Congress that all that section of
the State as far up as Point Coupée voted; some men from the Red River
cast their ballots at Vidalia. In his statement he declared that “The
city of New Orleans is really the State of Louisiana”; yet at that time
it contained less than half the population of the State.[109]
The constitutional convention, which assembled April 6, 1864, was
organized on the 7th with E. H. Durell as president, and after a session
of more than two and a half months adjourned July 25. A proclamation of
the Governor appointed the 5th of September as the time for taking a
vote on the work of the convention. The result was 6,836 for the
adoption, and 1,556 for the rejection of the constitution. Besides these
there were a number of electors who did not vote on either side of the
question.[110]
Of the work of the convention General Banks spoke as follows:
In a State which held 331,726 slaves, one half of its entire
population in 1860, more than three fourths of whom had been
specially excepted from the Proclamation of Emancipation, and were
still held _de jure_ in bondage, the convention declared by a
majority of all the votes to which the State would have been
entitled if every delegate had been present from every district in
the State:—
Instantaneous, universal, uncompensated, unconditional emancipation
of slaves!
It prohibited forever the recognition of property in man!
It decreed the education of all the children, without distinction of
race or color!
It directs all men, white or black, to be enrolled as soldiers for
the public defence!
It makes all men equal before the law!
It compels, by its regenerating spirit, the ultimate recognition of
all the rights which national authority can confer upon an oppressed
race!
It wisely recognizes for the first time in constitutional history,
the interest of daily labor as an element of power entitled to the
protection of the State.[111]
At the same election, that of September 5, the following persons were
chosen Representatives in Congress: M. F. Bonzano, A. P. Field, W. D.
Mann, T. M. Wells and R. W. Taliaferro. A Legislature was elected at the
same time, the members of which were almost entirely in favor of a free
State, and by this body seven electors of President and Vice-President
were appointed. On October 10th two United States Senators were
elected—R. King Cutler for the unexpired term ending March 4, 1867, and
Charles Smith for the vacancy created by the resignation of Judah P.
Benjamin, and ending March 4, 1865.[112]
It is matter of familiar history that the State government thus
organized was never recognized by Congress. The question was presented
to that body December 5, 1864, at the opening of the second session of
the Thirty-eighth Congress, when the claimants above named appeared in
Washington applying for admission to seats, and again in January and
February, 1865, upon consideration of a joint resolution declaring
certain States not entitled to representation in the Electoral College.
As in the case of Tennessee, however, the vote offered by Louisiana was
not counted.
The agency of the President in setting up this civil government, and the
successive steps in its accomplishment have been related with some
degree of minuteness, so that the nature of the controversy between the
Executive and the Legislative branches of the Government may be better
understood. Whether Mr. Lincoln exceeded his constitutional authority
will be considered when an account has been presented of the result of
his efforts to restore civil government in the States where Federal
authority had been overthrown.
-----
Footnote 47:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 427.
Footnote 48:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 4n.
Footnote 49:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 25; Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 428.
Footnote 50:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 432.
Footnote 51:
Ibid.
Footnote 52:
Taylor’s Destruction and Reconstruction, pp. 102–103.
Footnote 53:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 1.
Footnote 54:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 589.
Footnote 55:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II., pp. 214–215; Ann.
Cycl., 1862, p. 650.
Footnote 56:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II., p. 216.
Footnote 57:
Ibid., pp. 217–218.
Footnote 58:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 586.
Footnote 59:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 586.
Footnote 60:
Ibid.
Footnote 61:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 586.
Footnote 62:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 587; Ibid., pp. 770–776. Scott’s Reconstruction
During the Civil War, pp. 325–326, 328–331, 376.
Footnote 63:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 247.
Footnote 64:
Ibid.
Footnote 65:
Ibid., p. 255.
Footnote 66:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 835.
Footnote 67:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 831–837, 1030–1036.
Footnote 68:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 228–229.
Footnote 69:
Blaine’s Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. p. 39; Nicolay and Hay’s
Lincoln, Vol. VIII. p. 419.
Footnote 70:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 589.
Footnote 71:
N. & H., Vol. VIII. p. 420.
Footnote 72:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 590; Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol.
II. p. 536.
Footnote 73:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 356.
Footnote 74:
Ibid., pp. 214–215.
Footnote 75:
Ibid., p. 356.
Footnote 76:
Taylor’s Destruction and Reconstruction, ch. x; also the general
history of military operations in the Red River country.
Footnote 77:
Bulloch’s Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, Vol. II.
chs. i and ii.
Footnote 78:
N. & H., Vol. VIII. pp. 285–286; Conduct of the War, Vol. II. pp.
1–401 (_passim_).
Footnote 79:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 380.
Footnote 80:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 436.
Footnote 81:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 591.
Footnote 82:
Ibid.
Footnote 83:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, pp. 591–592.
Footnote 84:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 5–6.
Footnote 85:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 411–415, 543–547.
Footnote 86:
See pp. 24–28 _ante_.
Footnote 87:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, pp. 592–593.
Footnote 88:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 543.
Footnote 89:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 590.
Footnote 90:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 591.
Footnote 91:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 458–459.
Footnote 92:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 465–466.
Footnote 93:
N. & H., Vol. VIII. pp. 428–430.
Footnote 94:
Ibid., p. 469.
Footnote 95:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 592.
Footnote 96:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, pp. 592–593.
Footnote 97:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 476.
Footnote 98:
Ibid.
Footnote 99:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 476.
Footnote 100:
N. & H., Vol. VIII. pp. 432–433.
Footnote 101:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, pp. 593–594.
Footnote 102:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 477.
Footnote 103:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 496.
Footnote 104:
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. p. 40.
Footnote 105:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 498.
Footnote 106:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 478.
Footnote 107:
Ibid.
Footnote 108:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, pp. 478–479.
Footnote 109:
Ibid.
Footnote 110:
Ibid., p. 479.
Footnote 111:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 479.
Footnote 112:
Ibid.
III
ARKANSAS
The people of northern Arkansas were strongly attached to the Union, and
until December 20, 1860, when a commissioner from Alabama addressed its
Legislature, no secession movement took place within the State. Her
geographical position classed her with the Western, her productions
bound up her interests with the Southern, States.[113] As late as
January 5, 1861, resolutions opposing separate action were adopted
almost unanimously by the largest meeting ever held at Van Buren. Mr.
Lincoln’s election was not then deemed a sufficient cause to dissolve
the Union. Citizens of every party favored all honorable efforts for its
preservation, and demonstrations to the contrary were regarded as the
work of only an extreme and inconsiderable faction.[114] So rapid,
however, was the succession of events that scarcely two weeks had
elapsed when she exhibited signs of resting uneasily in the Union; for
on January 16 a bill submitting to popular vote the question of holding
a convention passed the Legislature.[115] At the election of delegates
to this assembly 23,626 votes were cast for the Union, against 17,927
for the secession, candidates. Though this convention, which assembled
March 4, was organized by the choice of Union officers, the proposal to
hold it had been carried by a majority of 11,586 in the election of
February 18. While secession was strongly urged, a conditional ordinance
was defeated by a vote of 39 to 35.[116] At Van Buren and Fort Smith
salutes of thirty-nine guns were fired in honor of the loyal members.
The inaugural of President Lincoln, received two days after organizing,
produced a somewhat unfavorable impression. On the 17th an ordinance,
reported by a self-constituted committee of seven secessionists and
seven coöperationists, was unanimously adopted.[117] This provided for
an election on the first Monday of August, when the qualified voters in
the State could cast their ballots either for “secession” or
“coöperation.” The result, though not wholly satisfactory to either
party, afforded time for deliberation.
Tidings of the fall of Sumter, together with the President’s
proclamation and a requisition for troops from the Secretary of War,
interrupted the brief interval of repose following the adjournment of
the convention. In these circumstances the State was compelled to make a
choice of sides. Governor Rector’s reply, April 22, to this requisition
shows him to have been ardently in favor of disunion; the president of
the convention, concurring in this sentiment, issued a call for that
body to reassemble May 6, when an ordinance of secession was promptly
passed with but one dissenting vote.[118] By a resolution the convention
authorized the Governor to call out, if necessary, 60,000 men, and
ordered the issue of $2,000,000 in bonds. Another ordinance confiscated
debts due to persons in non-slaveholding States.[119]
The first military movement, after the ordinance of secession had been
carried, aimed to secure Federal property within the State, and their
value to the South singled out for seizure the arsenals at Fort Smith
and Little Rock. The latter city on February 5 was thrown into a great
turmoil of confusion and excitement by the unexpected arrival of a body
of troops from Helena with the avowed purpose of taking the arsenal;
more soldiers arrived during that and the succeeding day until about 400
had assembled. Though the Governor, in response to their inquiry,
informed the city council that this force was not there by his order,
the troops believed they were acting under his command; at any rate they
came to take the arsenal and were not to be diverted from their object.
To prevent a collision, which must have followed a refusal of the
commanding officer to surrender to a body of men disavowed by their
Governor, the latter was easily persuaded to assume the responsibility
of the movement and he consented to demand its surrender in the name of
the State. This demand Captain Totten asked until three o’clock the next
day to consider; then he made known his readiness to evacuate the
arsenal, which about noon of the following day was delivered to the
State authorities.[120]
The delegates of Arkansas on May 18 took their seats in the Confederate
Congress.[121] The convention, it will be observed, assumed at the
outset the functions of a law-making body, and, because of further
extending its authority by the appointment of a Military Board, soon
came into conflict with both the Governor and the Legislature. When the
convention empowered the former to call out, if necessary, 60,000 men it
divided the State into two districts, an eastern and a western. General
Bradley was elected to the command of the former and General Pearce,
late of the United States Army, to that of the latter division. Before
General McCulloch, stationed in the Indian Territory, could assume any
offensive operations the Federal General, Lyon, in pursuit of Jackson,
approached the southern boundary of Missouri; upon this the Military
Board called out ten regiments for defence. On June 21 it despatched to
Richmond a messenger who proposed to transfer to the Confederate
Government all the State troops with their arms making, however, a
condition precedent: they were to be employed for the protection of
Arkansas; but as the Secretary of State could make no promise as to
their future disposition the transfer was not then effected.[122] On
July 4 a second effort was made by a member of the Military Board who
visited General Hardee, with whom an arrangement was completed by which
a vote should be taken among the troops. If a majority of each company
consented, those so consenting were to be turned over as a company. If a
majority declined, the company was to be disbanded altogether. One
entire company was thus mustered out, and from various motives two or
three hundred soldiers returned home. This was from the eastern
division. The western was not so easily disposed of. The Military Board
after the battle of Springfield directed General Pearce to turn over his
force to Hardee, who became angry when the agent proposed to submit the
question of transfer, and refused to allow it to be done; this
insubordinate conduct he followed up by writing an abusive letter to the
Board. Pearce then separated his troops from McCulloch’s command and
marched them back to Arkansas, where they were informally disbanded and
sent home. Fearing such a result, the Board had ordered General Pearce
to do nothing further in the matter, but their despatches arrived too
late.[123]
Governor Rector’s account shows Arkansas troops, claimed to be 22,000 in
number, to have been at that time in a state of complete
demoralization.[124] The Germans and the Irish, as well as their
descendants, showing little inclination to enlist, the Governor ascribed
their indifference to a want of opportunity for promotion in the
service. If this was not the cause, then, he thought, authority should
be given to draft a regiment of each race.[125]
More than a third of the voting population was in the field, and as late
as October they had received no pay except Arkansas war bonds, the
worthlessness of which occasioned much murmuring. This discontent was
heightened somewhat by the poor equipment of the regiments, many
soldiers being without blankets or shoes.[126] There were other symptoms
of unrest within the State. On the charge of attempted insurrection two
negro men and a girl were hanged in Monroe County.
All this occasioned much uneasiness, but the chief cause of alarm was
the Union sentiment known to exist in the State. In October twenty-seven
persons were brought to Little Rock as members of a secret Union
organization in Van Buren County and placed in jail to await a civil
trial. Many others also were taken about this time, and it was estimated
that the “Peace and Constitutional Society” numbered 1,700 members in
Arkansas.[127]
The activity of Federal armies in the West excited so much apprehension
that Governor Rector on the 18th of February, by proclamation, called
into immediate service every man in the State subject to military
duty.[128] A Confederate force under Price was driven into Arkansas by
General Curtis on the same day, and within a week the commandant at
Pocahontas issued an appeal to every man “to turn out promptly, shoulder
his musket, and drive the vandals from the State.” The Richmond
Government being unable to assist Arkansas, she was forced to rely upon
her own resources and such aid as might be obtained from Missouri, the
Indian Territory and Texas.[129]
Disaster and a conviction of neglect led the Governor in May, in an
address to the people, to express his indignation and threaten to secede
from secession. He said:
If the arteries of the Confederate heart do not permeate beyond the
east bank of the Mississippi, let southern Missourians, Arkansians,
Texans and the great West know it and prepare for the future.
Arkansas lost, abandoned, subjugated is not Arkansas as she entered
the Confederate Government. Nor will she remain Arkansas, a
Confederate State, desolated as a wilderness. Her children, fleeing
from the wrath to come, will build them a new ark, and launch it on
new waters, seeking a haven somewhere of equality, safety and
rest.[130]
After the battle of Pea Ridge General Curtis moved to White River, and
on May 1 occupied Batesville, where he witnessed many demonstrations of
attachment to the Union. Judges of courts, clergymen and other leading
citizens came forward and voluntarily took the oath of allegiance to the
United States. A threatened advance of the Union forces upon Little Rock
created the greatest excitement there, and the Governor by proclamation
ordered the militia to repair immediately to its defence; but not
finding himself sufficiently supported he fled.[131] The concentration
at Corinth of all available Confederate strength was the cause of the
weakness of Arkansas at this time. Ten regiments had also been withdrawn
from the army of General Curtis to reënforce the Federal troops in
Mississippi. This left him in no condition to march upon the State
capital, and for the time it was saved. Twelve thousand poorly equipped
men had assembled there in response to the appeal of Governor Rector.
After the occupation of Helena by Federal troops Mr. Lincoln appointed
John S. Phelps, of Missouri, military governor.[132] On August 19, 1862,
he left St. Louis for Helena; but as the contemplated movement was not
then made his office was of little importance. From the Union refugees
at that point two regiments of Arkansas men were organized. The fall of
Vicksburg in July, 1863, however, enabled the Union army to assume
offensive operations, and the summer had not greatly advanced before a
strong column was moving on Little Rock, the capture of which, September
10, 1863, was a fatal blow to Confederate authority throughout the
State.
Amidst all its distresses the northern section of Arkansas had
maintained its loyalty. Recent reverses to Confederate arms encouraged
desertion from their ranks, Union sympathizers became active, and
movements begun by them were joined by numbers who now regarded the
Confederate cause as lost. Many, however, fearing a restoration of that
authority, hesitated to identify themselves with the more pronounced
loyalists. A newspaper favorable to the General Government was
established at the capital. Meetings were held, and resolutions pledging
unconditional support of the Union cause adopted. Citizens, both white
and black, were organized, and by December, 1863, eight regiments of
Arkansas troops had enlisted in the Federal service.[133]
A still more encouraging symptom was the return of eminent persons who
now came forward to advocate the Union cause. Prominent among these was
Brigadier-General E. W. Gantt, of the Confederate army, recently a
prisoner of war and pardoned under the Amnesty Proclamation of the
President. Toward the close of 1863 he thus describes the feeling of the
people:
The Union sentiment is manifesting itself on all sides and by every
indication—in Union meetings—in desertions from the Confederate
army—in taking the oath of allegiance unsolicited—in organizing for
home defence, and enlisting in the Federal army. Old flags that have
been hid in the crevices of rocks, and been worshipped by our
mountain people as holy relics, are flung to the breeze, and
followed to the Union army with an enthusiasm that beggars all
description. The little county of Perry, that votes only about 600,
and which has been turned wrong side out in search of conscripts by
Hindman and his fellow-murderers and oppressors, with their retinue
of salaried gentlemen and negro boys, sent down a company of
ninety-four men. Where they came from, and how they kept their old
flag during these three years of terror, persecution and plunder, I
can’t tell. But they were the proudest-looking set of men I ever
saw, and full of fight.[134]
The retreat of General Banks from the Red River country changed greatly
the aspect of Federal affairs in Arkansas, for it allowed all the
Confederate forces in the vicinity to concentrate against the small army
of General Steele, compelling him to act on the defensive at Little
Rock. The State coming once more to a considerable extent under
Confederate control, loyalists became scarce and gradually lost energy
and hope.
Local reverses, however, were not allowed to interrupt the comprehensive
policy of the President, and early in 1864 preparations were made to
reorganize the State government. This movement, like those in Tennessee
and Louisiana, was based upon the Amnesty and Reconstruction
Proclamation of December 8, 1863. Even before this step had been taken
the President was already moulding the diverse elements into a power
that would ultimately undermine Confederate influence in the State. In
the preceding summer, July 31, 1863, he had written General S. A.
Hurlbut:
I understand that Senator Sebastian, of Arkansas, thinks of offering
to resume his place in the Senate. Of course the Senate, and not I,
would decide whether to admit or reject him. Still I should feel
great interest in the question. It may be so presented as to be one
of the very greatest national importance; and it may be otherwise so
presented as to be of no more than temporary personal consequence to
him.
The emancipation proclamation applies to Arkansas.... I think I
shall not retract or repudiate it. Those who shall have tasted
actual freedom I believe can never be slaves or quasi-slaves again.
For the rest, I believe some plan substantially being gradual
emancipation would be better for both white and black. The Missouri
plan, recently adopted, I do not object to on account of the time
for ending the institution; but I am sorry the beginning should have
been postponed for seven years, leaving all that time to agitate for
the repeal of the whole thing. It should begin at once, giving at
least the new-born a vested interest in freedom which could not be
taken away. If Senator Sebastian could come with something of this
sort from Arkansas, I, at least, should take great interest in his
case; and I believe a single individual will have scarcely done the
world so great a service. See him, if you can, and read this to him;
but charge him to not make it public for the present.[135]
Union officers in the West were urged by Mr. Lincoln in October, 1862,
to assist and encourage repentant rebel communities to elect both State
officers and members of Congress.[136] As this involved a recognition of
existing governments it need scarcely be observed that the march of
events forced the President later to occupy somewhat different ground;
nor is it more necessary to add, that to his main purpose, to undermine
secession and restore the Union, he adhered inflexibly. With this
fundamental object all his acts harmonize.
At the time of her secession, W. K. Sebastian represented Arkansas in
the United States Senate and abandoned his seat; he was now ready to
assist in restoring his State to her old status. Of these evidences of
disintegration in Confederate interests within the State the President
was very exactly informed, and it was because of his conviction that
many persons hitherto supporting that cause were either wavering in
their allegiance or had become hostile to secession that he wrote,
January 5, 1864, to General Steele:
I wish to afford the people of Arkansas an opportunity of taking the
oath prescribed in the proclamation of December 8, 1863, preparatory
to reorganizing a State Government there. Accordingly I send you by
General Kimball some blank books and other blanks, the manner of
using which will, in the main, be suggested by an inspection of
them; and General Kimball will add some verbal explanations.
Please make a trial of the matter immediately at such points as you
may think likely to give success. I suppose Helena and Little Rock
are two of them. Detail any officer you may see fit to take charge
of the subject at each point; and which officer, it may be assumed,
will have authority to administer the oath. These books, of course,
are intended to be permanent records. Report to me on the
subject.[137]
A week had scarcely elapsed when Mr. Lincoln approved the suggestions of
General Banks relative to reinaugurating a civil government for
Louisiana, and, doubtless, he knew no reason why similar work might not
be going on simultaneously in Arkansas; therefore he repeated to General
Steele what in substance he had already communicated to the Federal
commander of the Department of the Gulf. His instructions, dated January
20, 1864, and quoted below, are self-explanatory, and in no important
particular differ from the Louisiana Plan:
Sundry citizens of the State of Arkansas petition me that an
election may be held in that State, at which to elect a governor
thereof; ... that it be assumed at said election and thenceforward
that the constitution and laws of the State, as before the
rebellion, are in full force, except that the constitution is so
modified as to declare that “there shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except in the punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted; but the General Assembly
may make such provision for the free people as shall recognize and
declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and
which may yet be consistent, as a temporary arrangement, with their
present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class;” and
also except that all now existing laws in relation to slaves are
inoperative and void; that said election to be held on the
twenty-eighth day of March next at all the usual voting places of
the State, or all such as voters may attend for that purpose; that
the voters attending at each place at 8 o’clock in the morning of
said day, may choose judges and clerks of election for that place;
that all persons qualified by said constitution and laws, and taking
the oath prescribed in the President’s proclamation of December the
8th, 1863, either before or at the election, and none others, may be
voters, provided that persons having the qualifications aforesaid,
and being in the volunteer military service of the United States,
may vote once wherever they may be at voting places; that each set
of judges and clerks may make return directly to you on or before
the eleventh day of April next; that in all other respects said
election may be conducted according to said modified constitution
and laws; that on receipt of said returns, you count said votes, and
that if the number shall reach or exceed five thousand four hundred
and six, you canvass said votes and ascertain who shall thereby
appear to have been elected governor; and that on the eighteenth day
of April next, the person so appearing to have been elected, and
appearing before you at Little Rock to have, by you, administered to
him an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and
said modified constitution of the State of Arkansas, and actually
taking said oath, be, by you, declared qualified, and be enjoined to
immediately enter upon the duties of the office of governor of said
State; and that you thereupon declare the constitution of the State
of Arkansas to have been modified and amended as aforesaid by the
action of the people as aforesaid.
You will please order an election immediately, and perform the other
parts assigned you, with necessary incidentals, all according to the
foregoing.[138]
By discussion and organization the elements opposed to the Richmond
Government aroused so much enthusiasm that Unionists anticipated the
wishes of the President by meeting, January 8, 1864, in convention at
Little Rock. This assembly, composed of forty-four delegates
representing, as they claimed, twenty-two of the fifty-four counties in
the State, was made up of members elected at various mass meetings by
very meagre votes. This at least was an objection then urged by those
who were adverse to the purposes of the convention. They further stated
that many of the counties represented were without the Federal military
lines. It was admitted that if these counties lay beyond Union lines
neither were they occupied by Confederate forces, and that generally the
delegates were gentlemen of character and patriotism.[139]
In a published address the convention stated frankly:
We found after remaining at Little Rock about a week, under a
temporary organization, that delegates were present from twenty-two
counties, elected by the people, and that six other counties had
held elections, and that their representatives were looked for
daily. We then organized the Convention permanently, and determined
that while we could not properly claim to be the people of Arkansas
in Convention assembled, with full and final authority to adopt a
constitution, yet, being the representatives, by election, of a
considerable portion of the State, and understanding, as we
believed, the sentiment of nearly all our citizens who desire the
immediate benefits of a government under the authority of the United
States, we also determined to present a constitution and plan of
organization, which, if adopted by them, becomes at once their act
as effectually as if every county in the State had been represented
in the Convention.[140]
An amended constitution was adopted by this convention on January 22. By
it the act of secession was declared null and void; slavery was
abolished immediately and unconditionally, and the Confederate debt
wholly repudiated.[141] These important changes in the fundamental law
of the State indicate the sentiments of the delegates. Isaac Murphy was
appointed Provisional Governor; C. C. Bliss, Lieutenant-Governor and R.
T. J. White, Secretary of State. These officers were inaugurated on the
same day that the convention adopted the constitution; this by its
schedule was to be submitted to a popular vote at an election to be held
March 14, when State officers and Representatives in Congress would also
be chosen.[142]
Ignorant that the movement to restore a civil government had proceeded
so far, Mr. Lincoln had sent his instructions to General Steele. As
these had been carefully considered it was feared the work of the
convention would differ in some essential particular from the plan
outlined for the Federal commander. To prevent such a consequence the
President wrote General Steele again on January 27 as follows:
I have addressed a letter to you and put it in the hands of Mr.
Gantt and other Arkansas gentlemen, containing a program for an
election in that State. This letter will be handed you by some of
these gentlemen. Since writing it, I see that a Convention in
Arkansas having the same general object, has taken some action,
which I am afraid may clash somewhat with my program. I therefore
can do no better than to ask you to see Mr. Gantt immediately on his
return, and with him do what you and he may deem necessary to
harmonize the two plans into one, and then put it through with all
possible vigor. Be sure to retain the free-State Constitutional
provision in some unquestionable form and you and he can fix the
rest. The points I have made in the program have been well
considered. Take hold with an honest heart and a strong hand. Do not
let any questionable man control or influence you.[143]
The President’s interest in the proceedings of the convention and his
anxiety about the outcome of its deliberations appear in a letter to
General Steele written three days after the above.[144] So favorable
were his impressions of the progress reported that he believed the best
his subordinate could do “would be to help them on their own plan”; of
this, however, General Steele, who was on the ground, was to be the
judge. To Governor Murphy he telegraphed, February 6, that his order
concerning an election was made in ignorance of any action which the
convention might take; also that his subsequent communication to General
Steele directed that officer to assist, not to hinder, the
delegates.[145] General Thayer also was informed that the apparent
conflict between the President and the convention was altogether
accidental.[146] On February 17, Mr. Lincoln explained the situation
more fully to William M. Fishback:
When I fixed a plan for an election in Arkansas I did it in
ignorance that your convention was doing the same work. Since I
learned the latter fact I have been constantly trying to yield my
plan to them. I have sent two letters to General Steele, and three
or four despatches to you and others, saying that he, General
Steele, must be master, but that it will probably be best for him to
merely help the convention on its own plan. Some single mind must be
master, else there will be no agreement in anything, and General
Steele, commanding the military and being on the ground, is the best
man to be that master. Even now citizens are telegraphing me to
postpone the election to a later day than either that fixed by the
convention or by me. This discord must be silenced.[147]
The President evidently had learned something from his recent experience
with his friends and subordinates in Louisiana. General Steele from his
headquarters at Little Rock issued on February 29 the following address
to the people of Arkansas:
The convention of your citizens, held at Little Rock during the last
month [says this proclamation], has adopted a constitution and
submitted it to you for your approval or rejection. That
constitution is based upon the principles of freedom, and it is for
you now to say, by your voluntary and unbiased action, whether it
shall be your fundamental law. While it may have defects, in the
main it is in accordance with the views of that portion of the
people who have been resisting the fratricidal attempts which have
been made during the last three years. The convention has fixed the
14th day of March next on which to decide this great question, and
the General commanding is only following the instructions of the
Government when he says to you that every facility will be offered
for the expression of your sentiments, uninfluenced by any
considerations save those which affect your own interests and those
of your posterity.... The election will be held and the return be
made in accordance with the schedule adopted by the convention, and
no interference from any quarter will be allowed to prevent the free
expression of the loyal men of the State on that day.[148]
The election pursuant to this notice began March 14, 1864, the polls
remaining open for three days. For the constitution 12,177, and against
it 226, votes were cast.[149] Isaac Murphy, against whom there was no
opposing candidate, was chosen Governor by 12,430 votes cast by the
citizens of more than forty counties. As early as March 18 the President
appears to have received from the Governor-elect some favorable
tidings,[150] and on April 27, when more complete returns had reached
him from the same source, he expressed in a telegram his gratification
at the large vote, more than double that required by the Louisiana Plan,
and also at the intelligence that the State government, including the
Legislature, was organized and in working order.[151]
Besides a Governor five other officers of the executive and several
members of the judicial branch of government together with many county
officials were chosen.[152] At the same time three Representatives in
Congress, T. M. Jacks, A. A. C. Rogers and J. M. Johnson, were elected
from the First, Second and Third Districts respectively. The
Legislature, composed of twenty-three Senators and fifty-nine members of
Assembly, met on the 11th of April, and during the session, which ended
June 1 succeeding, appointed William Fishback and Elisha Baxter United
States Senators to fill vacancies caused by the secession of the late
incumbents, R. W. Johnson and William K. Sebastian. After investigation
by a committee of Congress, however, they were declared not entitled to
seats; but as each possessed such a title to membership as to justify
inquiry they were paid mileage. This consideration they were denied
when, without new action, they subsequently presented themselves at a
special session of the Senate; on that occasion they were accompanied by
William D. Snow, who had been chosen to succeed Fishback. It was agreed,
March 9, 1865, to postpone till the next session of Congress
consideration of the credentials of Mr. Snow. The House, without
admitting as Representatives the three claimants for seats, had
consented to allow them mileage. Arkansas, unlike Louisiana and
Tennessee, did not participate in the Presidential election of 1864,
because of a feeling that its electoral vote would not be received even
if offered. This course appears to have been adopted on the suggestion
of their representatives, who returned with such a conviction from a
sojourn in Washington.[153]
A succeeding chapter, in tracing the origin and progress of the
controversy between the Executive and Legislative branches of
Government, will describe more fully the attitude of Congress toward Mr.
Lincoln’s efforts at reconstruction and afford an opportunity for
discussing both the nature of the conventions by which civil government
had been restored in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas, and the
constitutionality of the various Executive acts by which this
reëstablishment was assisted.
-----
Footnote 113:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 22.
Footnote 114:
Ibid.
Footnote 115:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 4.
Footnote 116:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 22.
Footnote 117:
Ibid.
Footnote 118:
Ibid., p. 23.
Footnote 119:
Ibid., pp. 23–24.
Footnote 120:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 24.
Footnote 121:
Ibid.
Footnote 122:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 24.
Footnote 123:
Ibid.
Footnote 124:
Ibid.
Footnote 125:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 25.
Footnote 126:
Ibid.
Footnote 127:
Ibid.
Footnote 128:
Ibid., 1862, p. 11.
Footnote 129:
Ann. Cycl., 1862, p. 11.
Footnote 130:
Ibid.
Footnote 131:
Ibid.
Footnote 132:
N. & H., Vol. VI. p. 346.
Footnote 133:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 15.
Footnote 134:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, p. 15.
Footnote 135:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 379.
Footnote 136:
Ibid., p. 247.
Footnote 137:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 467.
Footnote 138:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 472–473.
Footnote 139:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 29; Hough’s American Constitutions, Vol. II. p.
81.
Footnote 140:
Quoted in N. & H., Vol. VIII. p. 414.
Footnote 141:
Hough’s Amer. Cons., Vol. II. p. 81.
Footnote 142:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 29.
Footnote 143:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 475.
Footnote 144:
Ibid., p. 476.
Footnote 145:
Ibid., p. 479.
Footnote 146:
Ibid., p. 482.
Footnote 147:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 483–484.
Footnote 148:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, pp. 29–30.
Footnote 149:
Ibid., p. 30.
Footnote 150:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 501.
Footnote 151:
Ibid., p. 515.
Footnote 152:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 30.
Footnote 153:
See remarks of Senator Pomeroy, February 2, 1865, Congressional Globe,
Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 555.
IV
VIRGINIA
The Federal Government, as already observed, was constrained at an early
stage of the Civil War to define its attitude toward loyal citizens of
the seceding States. The earliest indications of the policy adopted may
be discerned in the case of Virginia, which presents the only instance
of a people in any of the insurrectionary States organizing open
resistance to revolution. All departments of government in that
Commonwealth having gone over to rebellion, the loyal minority were left
without any organization for the conduct of domestic affairs. In these
circumstances they called a convention which by an original act of
sovereignty reconstituted the government. The progress of the conflict
was attended in that State by consequences not elsewhere observed, and
it is chiefly because of this fact that a slight departure from exact
chronological order is believed to be justified. The principles which
guided the Administration will be easily comprehended by considering
their application to the novel and somewhat embarrassing questions that
arose before rebellion was finally crushed within the borders of that
once glorious Commonwealth.
“The Convention of Virginia” which, by authority of the Legislature,
assembled at Richmond, February 13, 1861, passed on April 17 following
an ordinance of secession from the United States.[154] Though the
injunction of secrecy was never removed from this proceeding, the tally,
discovered soon after among the private papers of a member, shows that
88 delegates favored and 55 opposed the measure; one was excused from
voting, eight were either absent or silent.[155] This strong opposition
is explained in part by the physical characteristics of the State.
The principal chain of the Alleghanies formed in the western portion of
the Old Dominion a lofty range which parts the streams finding their way
into the Ohio and the Potomac from those that reach the lower waters of
Chesapeake Bay or the sounds of North Carolina. The country southeast of
this ridge, including the Shenandoah Valley, the Piedmont district, the
middle division and the tide-water region, contained about three fourths
of the white inhabitants, and something less than three fourths of the
area, of Virginia. In this section were found many large tobacco
plantations cultivated almost exclusively by negroes. Indeed, it was in
the light soil of the tide-water counties of Virginia that English
settlers in America first attempted, nearly two and one half centuries
before, the memorable experiment of African slave labor. Soon after
1808, when their importation was prohibited by act of Congress, slaves
were bred in Virginia to supply the demand of Southern markets, and by
1860 the bondmen in that Commonwealth had become almost two thirds as
numerous as the master race.[156] It is sufficiently accurate to say
that the triangular district bounded on the north by the winding course
of the Potomac, by the parallel of 36° 31′ on the south and stretching
from the Atlantic to the crest of the Alleghany mountains, comprised all
that part of “the good old commonwealth” which was then either
historically important or interesting. This prolific soil was the
birthplace of many of America’s most illustrious sons; its inhabitants
for the most part were proud to trace their descent from the earliest
settlers along the James; many were wealthy, and all had long been
distinguished for their hospitality.
Beyond this favored region the country, which slopes gradually down to
the upper Potomac and the Ohio, is marked by a succession of parallel
ranges separated by fertile valleys; but like the large tract which
encircled the Adirondacks and a similar one in northern Pennsylvania,
the Virginian wilderness remained untouched by the ceaseless tide of
immigration which at the close of the Revolution swept westward from the
Atlantic seaboard. For this uninviting region the second Federal census
indicates less than two inhabitants to the square mile; by 1810 pioneers
from the line of the Ohio river encroached on its silent forests. At the
next census, however, a portion was still unoccupied, but in the
succeeding decennial period it received from various points, chiefly
from Pennsylvania, Ohio and New England, many enterprising and thrifty
settlers. The sixth census, that of 1840, represents the entire tract as
sparsely inhabited.[157] Its abundant resources, then but little
developed, subsequently gave rise to a great variety of profitable
industries, and it advanced rapidly in population. Extensive
plantations, however, were few; the number of slaves, owing somewhat to
the facility for escape, had always been small, and in the ten years
preceding the outbreak of hostilities had actually diminished by upwards
of two thousand.[158] Though it then contained nearly one fourth of the
whites, it included no more than one thirtieth of the negroes in the
State. Their labor, too, except in other than agricultural occupations,
afforded little remuneration. In consequence of its productions as well
as its location both the interests and sympathies of the people were
with the adjoining States of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But, apart from geographical considerations, northwestern Virginia had a
grievance of long standing: for years its inhabitants had complained
that they were not fairly represented in the Legislature, and the
immunity from taxation enjoyed by their fellow-citizens east of the
mountains was a discrimination too gross to escape attention. The slave
oligarchy, they declared, possessed and wielded for its own advantage
the political power of the State. The question of its dismemberment had
been discussed as early as 1829–30, when the mountain sons of Virginia
were on the verge of revolution. The East then yielded a pittance of
power, which, though far short of the demands of justice, reconciled
western Virginians for the time. In 1850 they were again on the point of
insurrection. On this occasion adequate representation was conceded in
the lower though withheld in the upper chamber of the General Assembly,
the dominant party thus retaining control of that body as well as the
benefits of a constitutional provision by which slaves under the age of
twelve years were exempt from taxation, and of those liable to
assessment none could be valued at more than three hundred dollars even
if worth in the market a thousand dollars or upwards.[159] Moreover,
much of the public revenue was expended upon internal improvements for
the eastern section of the State. The Shenandoah Valley, at one time
showing signs of discontent, was bound by the construction of railways,
in social as well as in commercial life, more firmly to Richmond. In
short, the Alleghanies formed a barrier almost completely cutting off
intercourse between the two divisions. Their relations were well
expressed by Governor Pierpont, who told Senator Wade that there was no
communication whatever between the people except the furnishing a few
members to the Legislature and a few inmates of the penitentiary.[160]
Their different interests tended to alienate the sections; the hand of
nature had traced the line of separation.
Now, however, that a crisis was impending, the Richmond authorities, to
harmonize every element within their Commonwealth, were willing to
forego this privilege; to share the burdens of State administration, to
meet State liabilities, and generally to place themselves on a footing
of equality with their fellow-citizens along the Ohio. This concession,
by a majority of 50,000, was actually extorted in an election from the
prudence or the fears of disunionists whose magnanimity was duly
emphasized by Governor Letcher in an appeal to the people of the
northwest.[161] The latter refused, notwithstanding, to acquiesce in the
action of the secession convention which, so far as it was able to do
so, carried their State, as a political organization, out of the Union.
It may be affirmed generally that the professional politicians and large
property owners of this region were disloyal;[162] State officials with
surprising unanimity were ardent advocates of secession and active in
committing their Commonwealth to its support. An overwhelming proportion
of the plain people, however, were devotedly attached to the Union and
determined on its preservation. Therefore when the Richmond State
government attempted to execute its laws in these parts it encountered
the most spirited resistance. Especially was this true in the Pan Handle
counties, where opposition was promptly organized.
Probably the first consultation upon the grave questions that had arisen
was held at the Court House in Wellsburgh, Brooke County, where a large
number of citizens from that and the adjacent county of Hancock
assembled to hear the report of Mr. Campbell Tarr, their delegate to
Richmond. From Harrison came Hon. John S. Carlile, who, like Mr. Tarr,
narrowly escaped with his life from that city, where he had represented
his county in the convention. They reported the proceedings of that body
and urged immediate preparation to resist. As a result of this
discussion a committee of four was appointed to procure arms and
ammunition in Washington. _En route_ thither they had an interview at
Harrisburg with Governor Curtin, who not only expressed sympathy with
their object, but promised assistance if necessary. On arriving at the
national capital they called upon Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, who was a
native of Steubenville, Ohio, and a warm personal friend of each member
of the committee. They were immediately presented to Mr. Cameron,
Secretary of War, who, on learning the purpose of their visit,
manifested some hesitation as to his legal right to comply with their
request. Upon this Mr. Stanton declared with emphasis that “the law of
_necessity_ gives the right,” and added, “let them have arms and
ammunition; we will look for the book law afterwards.”[163] Two thousand
rifles with suitable ammunition were then furnished, and as security for
their proper use Mr. Stanton tendered his own name. From Wellsburgh,
where they were temporarily kept in expectation of a rebel attack, these
arms were sent for distribution to Wheeling.
United States troops from Ohio and Indiana together with local
volunteers soon drove the Confederate forces from this region, and
subsequently, though often menaced, it was almost exempt from the
ravages of war.[164] Thus encouraged, Union men resolved to form a
political organization coextensive with Virginia or to establish a
separate and distinct State. Preliminary movements toward that end were
promptly inaugurated, and, April 22, 1861, five days after the passage
of the ordinance, nearly 1,200 citizens of Clarksburgh denounced in a
public meeting the action of the secession convention and recommended
the people of northwestern Virginia to assemble on May 13 at Wheeling.
On the 4th a Union mass meeting had been held at Kingwood, near the
northern border. The separation of western from eastern Virginia was
declared by this body to be essential to the maintenance of their
liberties. They also resolved to elect a Representative to Congress. On
the following day there convened at Wheeling another assemblage, which
considered the question of separating from that portion of the State in
rebellion. About the same time other gatherings were held in different
localities.
There were thousands of eager and earnest patriots in the city of
Wheeling on May 13, when nearly four hundred delegates, mostly appointed
by primary meetings, and representing twenty-six counties, assembled to
deliberate on the situation. The best method of organizing opposition to
treason was the question: how to inaugurate a government which the
Federal authorities would recognize and protect?[165] On this important
subject there is said to have been considerable diversity of opinion;
the decision finally reached was based upon a suggestion by one of the
members that since Governor Letcher and other State officers, by
adhering to the pretended ordinance of secession, had forfeited their
powers, and the existing constitution made no provision for such an
emergency, the only way was to ask the people, the source of all
political power, to send delegates to a convention authorized to supply
their places with loyal men. This proposal was presented to the meeting
and adopted with great unanimity.[166] A General State Committee,
empowered to appoint sub-committees in all counties where practicable,
was then named, and a stirring address put forth. It announced their
purpose and urged all loyal citizens to elect representatives to a
second convention. Copies of this appeal were sent to influential
citizens throughout the State, and it was agreed after a session of
three days to choose on May 26 delegates to the proposed convention.
This election having been held at the time appointed, representatives
from nearly forty counties assembled at Wheeling on June 11. The
convention, numbering 98 members, organized by selecting for its
president Hon Arthur I. Boreman. Before proceeding to business the
following oath was administered to the delegation from each county: “We
solemnly declare that we will support the Constitution of the United
States and the laws made in pursuance thereof, as the supreme law of the
land, anything in the Ordinance of the Convention that assembled in
Richmond on the 13th day of February last to the contrary
notwithstanding, so help us God.”[167] The State government was
reconstituted on the 13th by an ordinance declaring vacant all places,
whether legislative, executive or judicial, whose incumbents had
espoused the cause of secession. This class, as already observed,
included nearly every official in Virginia. These vacancies the
convention supplied by the appointment of loyal men. In the constitution
they made an important alteration which prescribed the number of
delegates necessary to constitute a quorum in the General Assembly. All
State, county and town officials were required to take an oath of
allegiance which pledged support of both the Federal Constitution and
the restored government of Virginia. On June 17 a declaration of
independence was adopted without one dissenting voice; it denounced the
usurpation of the Richmond convention, which had assumed to place the
resources of Virginia at the disposal of the Confederate Government, to
which power it repudiated allegiance. Resolutions expressing a
determination never to submit to the ordinance of secession, but to
maintain the rights of Virginia in the Union, were then passed. All
persons in arms against the national Government were commanded to
disband and to return to their allegiance. Though the members seriously
endeavored to reorganize their government, it was with an express
declaration that a division of the Commonwealth was a paramount object
of their labors, and they decided, June 20, by a unanimous vote in favor
of ultimate separation.
Under an ordinance previously adopted Hon. Francis H. Pierpont was
chosen Governor on the same day; a lieutenant-governor, an
attorney-general and an executive council of five were also appointed.
Other administrative offices were subsequently filled. The new
incumbents were to exercise their functions for six months or until
successors should be elected and qualified. The convention on June 25,
subject in an emergency to be reassembled by the Governor and Council,
then adjourned to August 6, 1861.
Before concluding this session the convention directed all members
willing to swear fealty to the Union, who were elected to the assembly
on May 23 preceding, to meet on the 1st of July at Wheeling. At the time
of their election these representatives were destined for Richmond. In
addition to those regularly chosen under the old law of the
Commonwealth, others pursuant to an ordinance of the convention were
elected to fill vacancies. All were to qualify themselves by taking an
oath or affirmation of allegiance to the United States and to the
reorganized government of Virginia. These members, chiefly from the
western counties, were to compose the law-making body, which was
invested with all the powers and duties pertaining to the General
Assembly.
The new Governor was inaugurated on June 20, and, after taking the oath
of office, said: “We have been driven into the position we occupy to-day
by the usurpers at the South, who have inaugurated this war upon the
soil of Virginia, and have made it the great Crimea of this contest. We,
representing the loyal citizens of Virginia, have been bound to assume
the position we have assumed to-day for the protection of ourselves, our
wives, our children, and our property. We, I repeat, have been driven to
assume this position; and now we are but recurring to the great
fundamental principle of our fathers, that to the loyal people of a
State belongs the law-making power of that State. The loyal people are
entitled to the government and governmental authority of the State. And,
fellow-citizens, it is the assumption of that authority upon which we
are now about to enter.”[168]
“It was not the object of the Wheeling convention,” he declared on a
later occasion, “to set up any new government in the State, or separate,
or other government than the one under which they had always
lived.”[169]
From these utterances his hearers must have concluded that the
reorganized government was not for a part but for the whole of Virginia.
Indeed, it was to the discernment of Mr. Pierpont that Virginia
loyalists were chiefly indebted for a legal solution of the intricate
problem that confronted them. While Carlile and others were urging a
counter-revolution, Mr. Pierpont was carefully studying the provisions
of the Federal Constitution. The clause of that instrument which
guarantees a republican form of government was designed, he believed, to
meet just such an emergency as had arisen. Though this conservative
suggestion was not at first received with much favor, it continued
gradually to win adherents until its propriety was universally
recognized.[170] By thus proceeding along constitutional lines a State
government in all its branches was soon established in every county not
occupied by an armed foe.
The Legislature of the restored State assembled, July 2, at Wheeling and
assumed the full exercise of its powers. Two United States Senators,
Waitman T. Willey, whose fidelity many considered doubtful, and John S.
Carlile, an able, eloquent and then a trusted leader, were elected, July
9; the former to fill the vacancy occasioned by the withdrawal of James
M. Mason, the latter to succeed Robert M. T. Hunter, who also had
abdicated his seat in Congress. Both were admitted, though not without a
vigorous protest from the minority, to seats at the first session of the
Thirty-seventh Congress, which met on July 4, 1861.
Their certificates were presented, July 13, by Andrew Johnson. Senator
Bayard entered a protest. Their admission, he said, would be a
recognition of an organization that was not the regular government of
the Commonwealth. Mr. Letcher was still Governor of Virginia, his term
not having expired. The Senate had no authority to create a new State
out of a part of an existing one. He then moved to refer their
credentials to the Committee on the Judiciary. His colleague, Mr.
Saulsbury, objected, that Mason and Hunter were not expelled until July
11, whereas the claimants were appointed two days previously, at a time
when no vacancies had occurred. To this Senator Johnson replied that the
vacancies did in fact exist at the time of their election, July 9, and
that the expulsion of Mason and Hunter was not merely a declaration that
vacancies existed, but their seats were regarded as filled, and the
occupants expelled from the floor of the Senate.
Mr. Bayard denied that, even if Mason and Hunter were guilty of the
alleged crimes, there was any power in either the Governor or
Legislature to terminate their appointments; they might die, they could
be removed by expulsion, but vacancies could not be anticipated by the
Legislature of Virginia. The name of Mr. Pierpont could convey no
authority to their credentials. On the question of reference five
Senators voted in the affirmative, thirty-five in the negative. The oath
was therefore administered and they took their seats, July 13, at the
special session which began on the 4th.[171]
A resolution was passed by the House of Delegates of the reorganized
government instructing the Senators and requesting their Representatives
in Congress to vote the necessary appropriation of men and money for a
vigorous prosecution of the war, and to oppose all compromise. A stay
law was also enacted by the Legislature, and a bill passed which
authorized the Governor to organize a patrol in such counties as might
require it; two hundred thousand dollars were appropriated for military
purposes.
On August 6, 1861, the Wheeling convention reassembled. Hitherto in all
its proceedings relative to a reorganization there had been great
unanimity, but when the delegates returned they were conscious of a
strong popular sentiment in favor of erecting a new State, a subject
that had been introduced, though not much discussed, before adjournment.
This determination among their constituents seriously troubled many of
the members. Political aspirations had been awakened; many of them had
enjoyed the benefits of the humbler offices under the mother State; the
Union forces, it was confidently expected, would soon crush the
insurrection in Virginia, and the reorganized government, with
themselves at its head, would be acquiesced in by their recent
oppressors. To their ambition this hope was far more flattering than the
prospect of administering the affairs of a comparatively small State on
the western frontier of the Old Dominion. Then, too, the idea of
dismemberment was certain to wound Virginia State pride. Moreover, the
movement to form an independent commonwealth, when the reorganized
government itself had been scarcely recognized, would look premature.
Sentiments of this nature had begun to possess the minds of many
delegates about the time of their return.
In compliance with what appeared to be a popular demand, however, these
considerations were disregarded, and the convention by a vote of 50 to
28 passed an ordinance authorizing the formation out of the Commonwealth
of Virginia of a new State to be called Kanawha, which was to embrace
thirty-nine counties between the Alleghanies and the Ohio, provided the
people thereof, at an election to be held on October 24, should express
themselves in favor of such a measure; on certain prescribed conditions
other contiguous counties could be annexed. At the election which was to
decide this important question delegates to a constitutional convention
were also to be chosen, and, if separation was approved by the people,
these representatives were to assemble at Wheeling on November 26 and
organize themselves into a convention. Any constitution which they might
adopt was to be submitted to the qualified electors of the counties
concerned. The new commonwealth was to assume a just proportion of
Virginia’s public debt as it existed prior to January 1, 1861; private
rights derived from her laws were to be valid under the proposed State,
and were to be determined by the laws then existing in Virginia.[172]
The convention, as previously noted, reassembled on August 6. Three days
later one A. F. Ritchie, a member from Marion County, forwarded to
Attorney-General Bates at Washington a letter which requested and
received an immediate reply. Mr. Ritchie published the response, of
which this is the important part:
The formation of a new State out of Western Virginia is an original,
independent act of _revolution_. I do not deny the power of
revolution (I do not call it right, for it is never prescribed; it
exists in force only, and has and can have no law but the will of
the revolutionists). Any attempt to carry it out involves a plain
breach of _both the constitutions_—of Virginia and of the Nation.
And hence it is plain that you cannot take such a course without
weakening, if not destroying, your claims upon the sympathy and
support of the General Government, and without disconcerting the
plan already adopted by both Virginia and the General Government for
the reorganization of the revolted States and the restoration of the
integrity of the Union.
That plan I understand to be this: When a State, by its perverted
functionaries, has declared itself out of the Union, we avail
ourselves of all the sound and loyal elements of the State—all who
own allegiance to and claim protection of the Constitution—to form a
State government as nearly as may be upon the former model, and
claiming to be the very State which has been in part overthrown by
the successful rebellion. In this way we establish a constitutional
nucleus around which all the shattered elements of the commonwealth
may meet and combine, and thus restore the old State in its original
integrity.
This, I verily thought, was the plan adopted at Wheeling, and
recognized and acted upon by the General Government here. Your
convention annulled the revolutionary proceedings at Richmond, both
in the Convention and the General Assembly, and your new Governor
formally demanded of the President the fulfillment of the
constitutional guaranty in favor of Virginia—Virginia as known to
our fathers and to us. The President admitted the obligation, and
promised his best efforts to fulfill it. And the Senate admitted
your Senators, not as representing a new and nameless State, now for
the first time heard of in our history, but as representing “the
good old commonwealth.”
Must all this be undone, and a new and hazardous experiment be
ventured upon, at the moment when dangers and difficulties are
thickening around us? I hope not.... I had rejoiced in the movement
in Western Virginia, as a legal, constitutional, and safe refuge
from revolution and anarchy; as at once an example and fit
instrument for the restoration of all the revolted States.
I have not time now to discuss the subject in its various bearings.
What I have written is written with a running pen and will need your
charitable criticism.
If I had time to think, I could give persuasive reasons for
declining the attempt to create a new State at this perilous time.
At another time I might be willing to go fully into the question,
but now I can say no more.[173]
Mr. Ritchie, who had opposed a dismemberment of the old Commonwealth,
was anxious, no doubt, to justify his vote by the endorsement of an
eminent public character, and it is not improbable that before finally
determining his action in so important a matter he was desirous of the
opinion of some member of the Administration. Mr. Bates’s communication
is dated the 12th; the convention did not adjourn till the 25th of
August. At any time prior to January 1, 1862, it was subject to be
reassembled by its president or by the Governor.
The election of October 24, by a vote of 18,408 to 781, decided in favor
of a division of the Commonwealth.[174] At the same time fifty-three
delegates, representing forty-one counties, were chosen to frame a
constitution for the proposed State. Of this convention John Hall was
elected president and Ellery R. Hall secretary. The task before it, by
no means an easy one, was to draft a fundamental law that would secure
the approval of the people of western Virginia, of the Legislature of
the restored State and of Congress. After a session of nearly three
months it adjourned, February 18, 1862. Commissioners to convoke this
body, should its work be recognized by Congress, had first been
appointed. On December 3 preceding the name of the new State was changed
to West Virginia.
In the convention were many members who desired silence on the subject
of slavery; others saw clearly that to ignore the cause of their present
troubles would ensure a rejection of their work by Congress. This
element felt assured that the temper of the national Legislature would
not indulge the slave power by giving it two additional Senators besides
an increase of strength in the Electoral College. There was also a
sentiment which desired a postponement of the disturbing question until
all others had first been determined. The friends of gradual
emancipation were warned by leading Republicans in Congress that the
constitution would not be recognized without a satisfactory provision on
this subject. The “peculiar institution,” however, still possessed
influence enough to defeat such a purpose, and the convention adjourned
without inserting any expression concerning slavery. Still, the friends
of emancipation did not despair. Mr. Parker, one of these, caused to be
printed in Ohio instructions to their assemblymen to make the following
provision a part of their constitution if the speedy admission of the
new State into the Union should appear to require it: “All children born
of slave mothers in this State, after the constitution goes into
operation, shall be free, males at the age of twenty-eight years, and
females at the age of eighteen years, and the children of such females
to be free at birth.”[175]
This unauthorized action of Mr. Parker, in connection with appeals
through the newspapers, was not without effect. At their county-seat the
citizens of Upshur passed, among other resolutions, the following: “That
we, the citizens of Upshur County, do endorse and accept the policy
recommended by the present Chief Magistrate of the United States,
(Abraham Lincoln) in his message of the 6th of March, 1862, to Congress,
in regard to the emancipation of the slaves of the border States, as the
policy that should be adopted by the people of West Virginia; and we do
now pledge ourselves to advocate, defend and carry out the said policy,
as the most promotive of our liberty, safety and prosperity in the
Union.”[176] Another resolution, adopted on this occasion, declared that
the meeting expected the convention would have given the people an
opportunity of expressing their sentiments on slavery in the proposed
State. The convention, they complained, did not reflect the popular
will.
The Union men and the loyal press of other counties followed the example
of Upshur by approving the measure or copying the “Instructions.” Thus
at the time of voting on the constitution an informal poll on slavery
was obtained in twenty counties.
A faction in the convention proposed to annex the Shenandoah Valley with
its large negro population; the success of such a plan, it was well
understood, would ensure a rejection of the new State by Congress. To
anticipate somewhat the events presently to be narrated it may be
remarked at this point that the adversaries of the measure in Washington
employed precisely the same tactics to defeat the movement for erecting
an independent State.
The new establishment under Pierpont was regarded as representing the
old Commonwealth. On December 2, 1861, the reorganized Legislature again
assembled. The Governor recommended a repeal of the stay laws and
confiscation of the property of secessionists. He congratulated the
people that they had contributed their full quota, about 6,000 men, to
the Union army.
The adversaries of slavery endeavored to obtain the consent of the
restored Legislature to the condition that the gradual emancipation
clause should become a part of the constitution as soon as ratified by
the people. If Congress at its present session would give its consent
and admit the new State on the same condition, the people, they
declared, could be trusted to ratify afterward.
An election held April 3, 1862, gave, including the soldiers’ vote,
28,321 for and 572 against the constitution, no returns being received
from ten counties.[177] The vote for gradual emancipation, where an
expression was had, was almost equal to that given for the constitution,
both being nearly unanimous. The former received 6,052 for and 610
against it. How far this informal expression of opinion influenced
Congress will presently be noticed.
At an extra session of the Legislature, convoked by Governor Pierpont,
an act, in almost the identical language of that assenting to the
formation of Kentucky, was passed, May 13, 1862, giving consent to the
erection within the jurisdiction of Virginia of a new State to include
forty-eight named counties; the second section of this act provided that
Berkeley, Jefferson and Frederic counties could be annexed whenever a
majority of their votes, at an election to be held for that purpose,
should ratify the constitution. The act, together with a certified
original of the constitution, was to be transmitted to their Senators
and Representatives in Washington, who were requested to use their
endeavors to obtain the consent of Congress to the admission of West
Virginia into the Union.
On June 23, 1862, Mr. Wade, from the Committee on Territories, reported
to the United States Senate a bill for the admission of West Virginia
into the Union, and three days later requested its consideration. It
stipulated, among other things, that “the convention thereinafter
provided for shall, in the constitution to be framed by it, make
provision that from and after the fourth day of July, 1863, the children
of all slaves born within the limits of the State shall be free”; it
also allotted to the new Commonwealth as many Representatives in
Congress as her population would justify under the apportionment then
existing.
Charles Sumner observed that the former was the imposition of a
condition which proposed to recognize the existence of slavery during
that generation. “Short as life may be,” he declared, “it is too long
for slavery.” By the admission of West Virginia a new slave State would
be added; he moved, therefore, to substitute for this requirement the
Jeffersonian interdict that “within the limits of said State there shall
be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in
punishment of crime whereof the party shall be duly convicted.”
Mr. Hale justly remarked that after consenting to the admission of so
many States with pro-slavery constitutions it would be a singular fact
if the first that ever applied with a provision for prospective
emancipation should be rejected.
Senator Collamer believed that if West Virginia was to enter on a
footing of perfect equality with other members of the Union she should,
like them, have the right to regulate domestic questions, including
slavery, in her own way. The condition imposed by the bill denied her
that right.
Mr. Wade disliked the proposition as it stood, because it was very
objectionable to him “to say that a man born on the 4th day of July,
1863, shall be free, and one born the day before shall be forever a
slave.” “I should much prefer,” he added, “to have it graduated so that
all born after the adoption of this constitution shall be free, and that
all between certain ages shall be free at a certain period.” At this
point Sumner’s amendment was lost by a vote of 24 to 11.
Mr. Carlile, of Virginia, who was foremost in organizing resistance to
secession, had from the beginning assumed the appearance of a friend,
but, after giving direction to the movement for separation, acted as an
adversary to the new State; he opposed all conditions on its admission
and expressed a preference that it be permitted to enter on the
constitution submitted by its people. He would never “consent to have
the organic law of a State framed for its people by the Congress of the
United States.” There were 47,000 voters in the counties to be embraced
within the proposed State; of that number only about 19,000 had voted on
the constitution. At the last moment he delivered with his usual
eloquence a strong argument against admission. An amendment which he
submitted would have the effect certainly to postpone, perhaps
altogether to defeat, the measure in the Senate. Failing to secure its
adoption, he urged a postponement till December following; this motion,
however, was voted down.
So surprised were his associates at this unexpected opposition that they
inquired pointedly why these belated arguments had not been presented to
the Committee on Territories when the measure was before them. Mr. Wade,
its chairman, was especially severe in his condemnation of Carlile’s
extraordinary course, for it was the reasoning of the Virginia Senator
that had won their support; he had searched the precedents and submitted
cheerfully to all the labors imposed by the Committee. Now by his
opposition he brought everything to a stand-still.
His colleague, Mr. Willey, who had been converted in a rather advanced
stage of the movement, declared that it was not the desire to be free
from that part of the Commonwealth in rebellion that was responsible for
the present attitude of western Virginia; the insurrection only
precipitated the attempt to settle a controversy which was older than
he. To enforce his remarks he added that great numbers of her citizens
had determined to fix their abodes elsewhere unless West Virginia became
an independent State. During this discussion the Senate had before it
the constitution framed by the convention which met November 26, 1861,
in the city of Wheeling.
After a vigorous address by Benjamin F. Wade, who had recently
investigated the subject, and whose ardor had been aroused by a
deputation of West Virginians then in Washington, the bill by a vote of
23 to 17 passed the Senate, July 14, 1862.[178]
By Mr. Brown, of Virginia, a similar measure had already been introduced
into the House on June 25. It was read twice and referred to the
Committee on Territories.[179] When called up on July 16 succeeding it
was agreed to postpone consideration of the bill until the regular
session in December,[180] and on the 9th of that month, when
Representative Bingham asked that it be put on its passage, discussion
of the subject was resumed.
Representative Conway said that if the application of West Virginia came
in the proper manner he would be happy to vote for its admission; he
regretted, however, that at the beginning of the rebellion a territorial
government had not been organized there; Congress could then have passed
an enabling act, and the State could be received in a manner to admit of
no dispute. The question turned, he declared, on whether the State of
Virginia, of which a Mr. Pierpont was Governor, was the lawful State.
This he denied. A number of persons without authority met at Wheeling
and organized a government. This establishment the President had
recognized; one branch of Congress by admitting its Senators had also
conceded its legality. These precedents, however, should not be binding
on the House. Neither mobs nor mass-meetings, he asserted, make laws
under our system, and such bodies had no authority to appoint Mr.
Pierpont.
The President intended, Mr. Conway believed, to form similar
organizations in all the seceded States. “A policy seems about to be
inaugurated,” he added, “looking to an assumption of State powers by a
few individuals, wherever a military or other encampment can be effected
in any of the rebellious districts. The utter and flagrant
unconstitutionality of this scheme—I may say, its radically
revolutionary character—ought to expose it to the reprobation of every
loyal citizen and every member of this House. It aims at an utter
subversion of our constitutional system. Its effect would be to
consolidate all the powers of the Government in the hands of the
Executive. With the admission of this new State, the President will have
substantially _created_ four Senators—two for Virginia and two for West
Virginia.” In referring to an extension of this system he declared that
the President and a few friends could exercise Federal authority in all
those States. “The true policy of this Government, therefore, with
regard to the seceded States, is to hold them as common territory
wherever and whenever our arms are extended over them. This obviates the
terrible dangers which I have alluded to, and is in harmony with the
highest considerations of public utility, as well as with sound legal
principles.”[181]
Mr. Conway directed his criticisms against the President because he
believed the Executive was first to recognize the new government. The
action of the Senate was based upon this precedent, it being assumed
that recognition was an Executive function.
Mr. Brown, who introduced the bill at the preceding session, related
concisely the essential facts already placed before the reader. He
reminded Representative Conway that, though a State could not commit
treason, or any other crime, the officials of government could do so;
that the legislative powers, being incapable of annihilation, returned
to the people; that the spontaneous assembly at Wheeling merely
organized and proposed a plan by which regular elections were to be held
to fill vacancies caused by the withdrawal of disloyal representatives.
A day was fixed, and wherever throughout the State loyal citizens chose
to hold an election they could do so. The body thus elected assumed the
legislative functions of the people.
In answer to an inquiry he replied that about five counties outside of
West Virginia were represented in the Legislature which consented to the
erection of the new State, and all the counties in the State were
expressly invited to send representatives to the General Assembly. If
they were loyal they should have coöperated; if not, they should have no
voice in either the State Legislature or Congress. He referred in his
remarks to a telegram which he had that morning received from Wheeling.
It contained a resolution passed by the Assembly asking the House of
Representatives to approve the bill for the admission of West Virginia,
which had been favorably acted upon by the Senate at the preceding
session.
“It has been asserted,” he said in conclusion, “and understood in some
quarters, that the organization of the government at Wheeling was for
the purpose of forming a new State. I am prepared to say that when the
convention originally met in Wheeling, although there were a few
radicals there who wanted to form a new State without reinstating the
old State of Virginia, we voted them down, and commenced the exercise of
our original rights as freemen to build up the loyal government of
Virginia; and although we designed eventually to ask for this
separation, and it was what we anxiously desired, yet we determined to
be a law-abiding people, and ask for what we desired through the forms
of law.”[182]
Representative Colfax in giving the reasons which should govern his vote
stated that the restored government had been recognized by the Senate,
by the President as well as other executive officers, and that the
House, by admitting Mr. Segar, elected pursuant to a proclamation of
Governor Pierpont, had also recognized the reorganized State. Even the
political party in opposition voted for that member’s admission. He also
remarked that the new State came knocking at the door for admission with
the tiara of freedom on her brow.[183]
Mr. Olin, who opposed the bill at the preceding session, said: “I shall
vote for it now with reluctance. I shall vote for it mainly upon the
ground that the General Government, whether wisely or unwisely I will
not undertake to say, has encouraged this movement to create a division
of the State of Virginia.”[184] The people of West Virginia, with their
experience of the evils which slavery brought on them, should not have
permitted that institution to exist for an hour in their new government.
For this deficiency, however, the bill provided a partial remedy.
Crittenden observed that it was the party applying for admission that
gave its consent to a division of the State.[185] To this objection
Representative Blair replied that there were counties outside of West
Virginia which had assented to dismemberment. Other members, who had
hitherto been hostile, now consented to support the measure from a
conviction that it would weaken rebellion.
Representative Dawes said that the primary elections which sent
delegates to the Wheeling convention discussed not a reorganization of
the Virginia government, but the formation of an independent State in
western Virginia. To accomplish that, he said, the only way was to
restore the government of the entire Commonwealth. That government then
had two things to do: to set up a new State within itself and secondly
to give its consent thereto. This suggestion, he understood, emanated
from Washington.[186]
In reference to the admission, Thaddeus Stevens said:
I do not desire to be understood as being deluded by the idea that
we are admitting this State in pursuance of any provisions of the
Constitution. I find no such provision that justifies it, and the
argument in favor of the constitutionality of it is one got up by
those who either honestly entertain, I think, an erroneous opinion,
or who desire to justify, by a forced construction, an act which
they have predetermined to do.
* * * * *
Now, to say that the Legislature which called this seceding
convention was not the Legislature of Virginia, is asserting that
the Legislature chosen by a vast majority of the people of a State
is not the Legislature of that State. That is a doctrine which I can
never assent to. I admit that the Legislature were disloyal, but
they were still the disloyal and traitorous Legislature of the State
of Virginia; and the State, as a mere State, was bound by their
acts. Not so individuals. They are responsible to the General
Government, and are responsible whether the State decrees treason or
not. That being the Legislature of Virginia, Governor Letcher,
elected by a majority of the votes of the people, is the Governor of
Virginia—a traitor in rebellion, but a traitorous governor of a
traitorous State. Now, then, how has that State ever given its
consent to this division? A highly respectable but very small number
of the citizens of Virginia—the people of West Virginia—assembled
together, disapproved of the acts of the State of Virginia, and with
the utmost self-complacency called themselves Virginia.
* * * * *
I hold that none of the States now in rebellion are entitled to the
protection of the Constitution, and I am grieved when I hear those
high in authority sometimes talking of the constitutional
difficulties about enforcing measures against this belligerent
power, and the next moment disregarding every vestige and semblance
of the Constitution by acts which alone are arbitrary. I hope I do
not differ with the Executive in the views which I advocate. But I
see the Executive one day saying “you shall not take the property of
rebels to pay the debts which the rebels have brought upon the
Northern States.” Why? Because the Constitution is in the way. And
the next day I see him appointing a military governor of Virginia, a
military governor of Tennessee, and some other places. Where does he
find anything in the Constitution to warrant that?
If he must look there alone for authority, then all these acts are
flagrant usurpations, deserving the condemnation of the community.
He must agree with me or else his acts are as absurd as they are
unlawful; for I see him here and there ordering elections for
members of Congress wherever he finds a little collection of three
or four consecutive plantations in the rebel States, in order that
men may be sent in here to control the proceedings of this Congress,
just as we sanctioned the election held by a few people at a little
watering place at Fortress Monroe, by which we have here the very
respectable and estimable member from that locality with us. It was
upon the same principle.
... I say, then, that we may admit West Virginia as a new State, not
by virtue of any provision of the Constitution, but under our
absolute power which the laws of war give us in the circumstances in
which we are placed. I shall vote for this bill upon that theory,
and upon that alone; for I will not stultify myself by supposing
that we have any warrant in the Constitution for this proceeding.
The Union, he declared, could never be restored as it was. His consent
would never be given to restore it with a constitutional provision
protecting slavery. An additional reason for giving his vote in favor of
the bill was that there was a provision which would make West Virginia a
free State.[187]
“No right of persons, no right of property,” said Mr. Noell, “no social
or domestic affairs, could be regulated or controlled by the people of
western Virginia, under the circumstances in which they were placed,
without recognizing the ordinance of secession, and acting as a State
within the Southern Confederacy.”[188] This showed both the necessity of
reorganizing the government of Virginia and the recognition by Federal
authorities of the establishment so constituted.
Mr. Segar declared that eleven of the forty-eight counties to comprise
the new State had not participated in its establishment, being
represented neither in the reorganized Legislature nor the Wheeling
convention; three others were unrepresented both in the House of
Delegates and the conventions; ten cast no vote on the constitution and
three had interests, social and commercial, which bound them up with the
East. Then, too, the people of West Virginia made a fundamental law
recognizing slavery; an anti-slavery constitution was to be imposed on
them as a condition of admission.[189]
An able argument by Representative Bingham, of Ohio, who had charge of
the bill, concluded the debate on December 10, 1862, when it passed by
96 yeas to 55 nays.[190]
With the President rested the fate of this important measure; if he
vetoed it there would, probably, not be found a two thirds majority in
its support. Many members, as will be seen from the preceding abridgment
of the debates, yielded only a reluctant support.
On December 23, 1862, Mr. Lincoln sent to his constitutional advisers
the following note:
=Gentlemen of the Cabinet=:
A bill for an act entitled “An act for the admission of the State of
West Virginia into the Union and for other purposes” has passed the
House of Representatives and the Senate, and has been duly presented
to me for my action.
I respectfully ask of each of you an opinion in writing on the
following questions, to wit:
1st. Is the said act constitutional?
2d. Is the said act expedient?[191]
To this request six members of the Cabinet responded by submitting their
written opinions. Three—Seward, Stanton and Chase—answered both
questions in the affirmative. Bates, Blair and Welles replied in the
negative; the remaining place in the Cabinet was vacant owing to the
resignation of Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior, who had been
raised to the Bench in Indiana. His successor had not yet been
appointed.
Upon the constitutional point Mr. Seward said: “It seems to me that the
political body which has given consent in this case is really and
incontestably the State of Virginia. So long as the United States do not
recognize the secession, departure, or separation of one of the States,
that State must be deemed as existing and having a constitutional place
within the Union, whatever may be at any moment exactly its
revolutionary condition. A State thus situated cannot be deemed to be
divided into two or more States merely by any revolutionary proceeding
which may have occurred, because there cannot be, constitutionally, two
or more States of Virginia.... The newly organized State of Virginia is
therefore, at this moment, by the express consent of the United States,
invested with all the rights of the State of Virginia, and charged with
all the powers, privileges, and dignity of that State. If the United
States allow to that organization any of these rights, powers, and
privileges, it must be allowed to possess and enjoy them all. If it be a
State competent to be represented in Congress and bound to pay taxes, it
is a State competent to give the required consent of the State to the
formation and erection of the new State of West Virginia within the
jurisdiction of Virginia.”
“Upon the question of expediency,” he wrote, “I am determined by two
considerations. First. The people of Western Virginia will be safer from
molestation for their loyalty, because better able to protect and defend
themselves as a new and separate State than they would be if left to
demoralizing uncertainty upon the question whether, in the progress of
the war, they may not be again reabsorbed in the State of Virginia, and
subjected to severities as a punishment for their present devotion to
the Union. The first duty of the United States is protection to loyalty
wherever it is found. Second. I am of opinion that the harmony and peace
of the Union will be promoted by allowing the new State to be formed and
erected, which will assume jurisdiction over that part of the valley of
the Ohio which lies on the south side of the Ohio River, displacing, in
a constitutional and lawful manner, the jurisdiction heretofore
exercised there by a political power concentrated at the head of the
James River.”[192]
Mr. Chase, in discussing the constitutional question, said in part: “The
Madison Papers clearly show that the consent of the Legislature of the
original State was the only consent required to the erection and
formation of a new State within its jurisdiction. That consent having
been given, the consent of the new State, if required, is proved by her
application for admission.... The Legislature of Virginia, it may be
admitted, did not contain many members from the eastern counties; it
contained, however, representatives from all counties whose inhabitants
were not either rebels themselves, or dominated by greater numbers of
rebels. It was the only Legislature of the State known to the Union. If
its consent was not valid, no consent could be. If its consent was not
valid, the Constitution, as to the people of West Virginia, has been so
suspended by the rebellion that a most important right under it is
utterly lost.”
Relative to the question of expediency, he writes: “The act is almost
universally regarded as of vital importance to their welfare by the
loyal people most immediately interested, and it has received the
sanction of large majorities in both Houses of Congress. These facts
afford strong presumptions of expediency.... It may be said, indeed,
that the admission of West Virginia will draw after it the necessity of
admitting other States under the consent of extemporized legislatures
assuming to act for whole States, though really representing no
important part of their territory. I think this necessity imaginary.
There is no such legislature, nor is there likely to be. No such
legislature, if extemporized, is likely to receive the recognition of
Congress or the Executive.”[193]
Mr. Stanton responded more briefly than either Secretary Seward or
Secretary Chase, observing, among other things: “I have been unable to
perceive any point on which the act of Congress conflicts with the
Constitution. By the erection of the new State, the geographical
boundary heretofore existing between the free and slave States will be
broken, and the advantage of this upon every point of consideration
surpasses all objections which have occurred to me on the question of
expediency. Many prophetic dangers and evils might be specified, but it
is safe to suppose that those who come after us will be as wise as
ourselves, and if what we deem evils be really such, they will be
avoided. The present good is real and substantial, the future may safely
be left in the care of those whose duty and interest may be involved in
any possible future measures of legislation.”[194]
One or two excerpts from the opinion of Mr. Welles will indicate the
course of his argument in the negative: “Under existing necessities, an
organization of the loyal citizens, or of a portion of them, has been
recognized, and its Senators and Representatives admitted to seats in
Congress. Yet we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the fragment of
the State which, in the revolutionary tumult, has instituted the new
organization, is not possessed of the records, archives, symbols,
traditions, or capital of the Commonwealth. Though calling itself the
State of Virginia, it does not assume the debts and obligations
contracted prior to the existing difficulties. Is this organization,
then, really and in point of fact anything else than a provisional
government for the State? It is composed almost entirely of those loyal
citizens who reside beyond the mountains, and within the prescribed
limits of the proposed new State. In this revolutionary period, there
being no contestants, we are compelled to recognize the organization as
Virginia. Whether that would be the case, and how the question would be
met and disposed of, were the insurrection this day abandoned, need not
now be discussed. Were Virginia, or those parts of it not included in
the proposed new State, invaded and held in temporary subjection by a
foreign enemy instead of the insurgents, the fragment of territory and
population which should successfully repel the enemy and adhere to the
Union would doubtless, during such temporary subjection, be recognized,
and properly recognized, as Virginia. When, however, this loyal fragment
goes farther, and not only declares itself to be Virginia, but proceeds
by its own act to detach itself permanently and forever from the
Commonwealth, and to erect itself into a new State within the
jurisdiction of the State of Virginia, the question arises whether this
proceeding is regular, legal, right, and, in honest good faith,
conformable to, and within the letter and spirit of the Constitution....
Congress may admit new States into the Union; but any attempt to
dismember or divide a State by any forced or unauthorized assumption
would be an inexpedient exercise of doubtful power to the injury of such
State. Were there no question of doubtful constitutionality in the
movement, the time selected for the division of the State is most
inopportune. It is a period of civil commotion, when unity and concerted
action on the part of all loyal citizens and authorities should be
directed to a restoration of the Union, and all tendency towards
disintegration and demoralization avoided.”[195]
Mr. Blair, likewise in the negative, added little of importance to what
Secretary Welles had adduced on that side.
The first and rather hastily formed opinion of Attorney-General Bates
has already been given together with an account of the circumstances
attending its publication; upon longer reflection he did not greatly
change the ground of his original convictions and in an elaborate
discussion still reasoned in the negative.[196]
Between these evenly balanced and conflicting opinions of his advisers
Mr. Lincoln argued as follows:
The consent of the legislature of Virginia is constitutionally
necessary to the bill for the admission of West Virginia becoming a
law. A body claiming to be such legislature has given its consent.
We cannot well deny that it is such, unless we do so upon the
outside knowledge that the body was chosen at elections in which a
majority of the qualified voters of Virginia did not participate.
But it is a universal practice in the popular elections in all these
States to give no legal consideration whatever to those who do not
choose to vote, as against the effect of the votes of those who do
choose to vote. Hence it is not the qualified voters, but the
qualified voters who choose to vote that constitute the political
power of the State. Much less than to non-voters should any
consideration be given to those who did not vote in this case,
because it is also matter of outside knowledge that they were not
merely neglectful of their rights under and duty to this government,
but were also engaged in open rebellion against it. Doubtless among
these non-voters were some Union men whose voices were smothered by
the more numerous secessionists; but we know too little of their
number to assign them any appreciable value. Can this government
stand, if it indulges constitutional constructions by which men in
open rebellion against it are to be accounted, man for man, the
equals of those who maintain their loyalty to it? Are they to be
accounted even better citizens, and more worthy of consideration,
than those who merely neglect to vote? If so, their treason against
the Constitution enhances their constitutional value. Without
braving these absurd conclusions, we cannot deny that the body which
consents to the admission of West Virginia is the legislature of
Virginia. I do not think the plural form of the words “legislatures”
and “States” in the phrase of the Constitution “without the consent
of the legislatures of the States concerned,” etc., has any
reference to the new State concerned. That plural form sprang from
the contemplation of two or more old States contributing to form a
new one. The idea that the new State was in danger of being admitted
without its own consent was not provided against, because it was not
thought of, as I conceive. It is said, the devil takes care of his
own. Much more should a good spirit—the spirit of the Constitution
and the Union—take care of its own. I think it cannot do less and
live.
But is the admission into the Union of West Virginia expedient?
This, in my general view, is more a question for Congress than for
the Executive. Still I do not evade it. More than on anything else,
it depends on whether the admission or rejection of the new State
would, under all the circumstances, tend the more strongly to the
restoration of the national authority throughout the Union. That
which helps most in this direction is the most expedient at this
time. Doubtless those in remaining Virginia would return to the
Union, so to speak, less reluctantly without the division of the old
State than with it; but I think we could not save as much in this
quarter by rejecting the new State, as we should lose by it in West
Virginia. We can scarcely dispense with the aid of West Virginia in
this struggle; much less can we afford to have her against us, in
Congress and in the field. Her brave and good men regard her
admission into the Union as a matter of life and death. They have
been true to the Union under very severe trials. We have so acted as
to justify their hopes, and we cannot fully retain their confidence
and coöperation if we seem to break faith with them. In fact, they
could not do so much for us, if they would. Again, the admission of
the new State turns that much slave soil, to free, and thus is a
certain and irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of the
rebellion. The division of a State is dreaded as a precedent. But a
measure made expedient by a war is no precedent for times of peace.
It is said that the admission of West Virginia is secession, and
tolerated only because it is our secession. Well, if we call it by
that name, there is still difference enough between secession
against the Constitution and secession in favor of the Constitution.
I believe the admission of West Virginia into the Union is
expedient.[197]
The bill passed by the House on the 10th was approved by the President
on the 31st of December, 1862; after naming the forty-eight counties to
constitute the new State the act declares, among other things, that
since the convention framed the constitution for West Virginia its
people had expressed a wish to change section seven of the eleventh
article by inserting the following in its place, _viz._: “The children
of slaves born within the limits of this State after the fourth day of
July, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be free; and that all
slaves within the said State who shall, at the time aforesaid, be under
the age of ten years, shall be free when they arrive at the age of
twenty-one years; and all slaves over ten and under twenty-one years,
shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-five years; and no
slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence
therein.”[198]
The constitution thus amended was unanimously ratified by the
convention, which on a summons of the commissioners reassembled February
18, 1863, and also by the people, to whom it was submitted at an
election held on May 26 following.[199] President Lincoln on April 20
issued a proclamation declaring that the prescribed conditions having
been complied with, the constitution would go into force in sixty days
from that date; the formation of the new State was complete and it
became a member of the Union on the 20th of June, 1863.[200]
Daniel Webster, in an address delivered thirteen years before, at the
laying of the corner-stone of an addition to the Federal Capitol, had
asked: “And ye men of Western Virginia, ... what benefit do you propose
to yourself by disunion? If you ‘secede,’ what do you ‘secede’ from, and
what do you ‘accede’ to? Do you look for the current of the Ohio to
change, and to bring you and your commerce to the tide-waters of the
eastern rivers? What man in his senses can suppose that you would remain
part and parcel of Virginia a month after Virginia should have ceased to
be part and parcel of the Union?”[201] The remarkable prediction of the
great orator was fulfilled; his inspired vision had pierced the future.
The Old Dominion had separated forever along the line of the
Alleghanies.
Before relating the subsequent history of the restored government, it is
proper to notice a few important events in the early career of the new
Commonwealth. On January 31, 1863, an act passed the General Assembly of
Virginia giving consent to the transfer of Berkeley County to the State
of West Virginia. The preamble of this act affirms that its people
desired to be annexed to the proposed State. The question of transfer,
however, was to be decided by a majority of voters at an election to be
held on the fourth Thursday of May. If, however, the polls could not be
safely opened on that day, the Governor was empowered to postpone the
election by proclamation. The commissioners who superintended the
polling were to certify the results to the Executive. On February 4
succeeding another act made it lawful for voters in certain districts
including twenty-three counties to declare, at a general election to be
held on the fourth Thursday of May, whether these specified counties
should be annexed to West Virginia. The consent of the Legislature of
that State was, of course, made a condition of the transfer, after which
the jurisdiction of Virginia over such counties was to cease.
West Virginia statutes of August 5 and November 2, 1863, in words, admit
Berkeley and Jefferson counties, and they have ever since been under her
jurisdiction. When admitted into the Union it was with a provision in
her constitution that she might acquire additional territory; therefore
Congress gave its consent in advance and it was not afterwards
withdrawn. In brief, West Virginia accepted the transfer and it was
authorized by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia.[202]
State officers were elected on May 28, when the following unconditional
Union candidates, receiving a vote of about 30,000, were chosen without
opposition: Arthur I. Boreman, Governor; J. E. Boyers, Secretary of
State; Campbell Tarr, Treasurer; Samuel Crane, Auditor; A. B. Caldwell,
Attorney-General; also three judges of a court of appeals.
The inauguration of the new State, which was marked by imposing
ceremonies, took place at Wheeling, the capital, on June 20, 1863. Mr.
Pierpont, the retiring executive of reorganized Virginia, briefly
addressed the assembled citizens and urged them not to forsake the flag;
he then introduced his successor, whom he pronounced “true as steel.”
Governor Boreman in his short speech said that the only terms of peace
were that the rebels should lay down their arms and submit to the
regularly constituted authority of the United States.
The Legislature of West Virginia convened on the same day. Waitman T.
Willey and P. G. Van Winkle were elected United States Senators.[203] In
his first message Governor Boreman recommended to the General Assembly
the immediate passage of laws effectually to extirpate slavery, and also
the enactment of a law that no man should be permitted to vote or to
hold office until he had taken the oath of allegiance.
In the Presidential election of 1864, the first held since the adoption
of the Constitution in which any State deliberately neglected to appoint
electors, 33,680 votes were polled in West Virginia; of this number the
Union ticket received 23,223 and the McClellan electors 10,457.[204]
Elections had also been held in Louisiana and Tennessee by authority of
the governments established there under Mr. Lincoln’s plan of
reconstruction; the Republican majority in Congress, however, denied the
validity of the organizations in the two States last named and refused
to count the votes which they presented. This question will be fully
considered when we come to trace the development of the Congressional
plan. At the regular State election Governor Boreman was chosen without
opposition, receiving 19,098 votes. With the subsequent history of the
new Commonwealth the subject of reconstruction is not much concerned.
By the formation of an independent Commonwealth the counties beyond the
Alleghanies were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the restored
government, which after the inaugural ceremonies at Wheeling selected
for its capital the city of Alexandria, where it continued till May 25,
1865, to exercise its functions in those parts of the Old Dominion
within the lines of the Union army. A State government was promptly
organized by the election of a legislature and of executive officers. In
this establishment the loyal eastern counties participated. Mr. Pierpont
was elected Governor for the term of three years beginning January 1,
1864. A Lieutenant-Governor, a Secretary of State, a Treasurer, an
Auditor, an Adjutant-General and an Attorney-General were also chosen.
The Governor in his message to the Assembly mentioned slavery as doomed,
and recommended the calling of a convention so to amend the State
constitution as to abolish the institution forever. In compliance with
this suggestion the Legislature, on December 21, 1863, passed an act
directing a convention to be held at Alexandria on the 13th of February
succeeding to amend the constitution and prohibit slavery in the
counties of Accomac, Northampton, Princess Ann, Elizabeth City and York
(including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth). These with Berkeley
County had been excepted from the operation of the Emancipation
Proclamation.
None but loyal citizens who had not assisted the insurgents since
January 1, 1863, were allowed to take part, and those whose right to
vote might be challenged were required to swear support of the
Constitution and to declare that they had not in any way given aid or
comfort to the enemy.
The convention, consisting of sixteen members, assembled in the new
capital at the appointed time and remained in session till April 11
following, when a constitution was adopted.[205] Various amendments,
relating chiefly to the regulation of the elective franchise and to the
abolition of slavery, were discussed and agreed upon. The work of this
miniature convention was ordered to be proclaimed without a submission
to the people. It was not, however, recognized by Congress, though the
civil government which authorized its formation was permitted to
continue under it, provisionally only, and in all respects subject to
the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish,
modify, or supersede.
Though the bill for the admission of West Virginia passed both Houses,
yet Congress was by no means unanimous in giving its consent to that
measure. In the debates, of which a synopsis has been given, the
hostility of Thaddeus Stevens and other influential members is scarcely
concealed. This opposition to executive policy slowly gathered strength,
and by 1863 had become formidable enough to defeat the admission of
Representatives from the Alexandria government. The Senators, however,
remained, Lemuel J. Bowden till his death, January 2, 1864, when his
successor was refused admission, and John S. Carlile till the expiration
of his term in 1865.
On the assembling of the 38th Congress, which commenced its first
session December 7, 1863, Joseph E. Segar, Lucius H. Chandler and
Benjamin M. Kitchen appeared as Representatives from Virginia. On May 17
succeeding Mr. Dawes from the Committee of Elections reported a
resolution to the effect that Joseph E. Segar, from the First District
of Virginia, was not entitled to a seat in that Congress. The case of
Mr. Chandler, regarded as precisely similar, was considered at the same
time.
The district which Mr. Segar claimed to represent was composed of twenty
counties; of these, Chairman Dawes asserted, only four participated in
the election. Polling places were not opened in any other part of the
district, the Confederate authorities being in possession of the
remaining counties. As there could be no free exercise of the franchise
in this situation Mr. Segar, it was contended, was not properly chosen,
and, therefore, was not entitled to a seat. The vote cast, though not
accurately ascertained, was estimated at 1,677, of which the claimant
received 1,300. Because of his loyalty and the sacrifices he had made,
the Committee regretted the necessity of deciding against him.
Mr. Segar, speaking in his own behalf, reminded the House that in a
preceding election, when he received 559 out of 1,018 votes polled in
three counties, he was admitted after a delay of seven or eight weeks;
but when he was sent by a larger constituency and came as the choice of
four counties he was informed that he had no right to a seat, and some
of his colleagues who favored his admission in 1862 voted to exclude
him. The Committee’s report, he asserted, admitted the existence of such
a State as Virginia. He asked Chairman Dawes a rather embarrassing
question when he inquired how a State could have two Senators and no
Representative in Congress. In conclusion he pronounced restored State
organization and gradual accretion to be the best method of
reconstruction.
Concerning the title of Mr. Chandler, from the Second Congressional
District, Chairman Dawes stated that of the 779 votes polled in the
election 778 were cast for the claimant. For the same reason as in the
case of Mr. Segar only a small part of that District was free to
participate in the election, and nearly all the votes were polled in the
city of Norfolk. The committee reported against his admission on the
same ground taken in Mr. Segar’s case.
Chandler, who was permitted to state his case to the House, cited a
resolution introduced by his former school-mate, Owen Lovejoy, the
well-known abolitionist, authorizing the names of the three Virginia
claimants to be enrolled as Representatives. That resolution, however,
was tabled and their credentials referred to the Committee of Elections.
In 1860 the Union vote in his District was only 6,712; of that number
2,900, he said, were in Norfolk and Portsmouth; the latter city had cast
more votes against secession than the remainder of his District. Great
numbers of loyal men, however, left there at the beginning of the war.
Electors being under no obligation to vote may allow an election to go
by default when one citizen could return a member to Congress.
Territorially restored Virginia was larger than Delaware and possessed
twice the area of Rhode Island.
The case of Benjamin M. Kitchen, on which the Committee had previously
made an adverse report, differed from those of the other two claimants
in that he had received nearly all of his vote in Berkeley County, which
possessed a sort of wandering character, for it was somewhat uncertain
whether it was under the jurisdiction of the new or the old State. What
action was taken on the Committee’s report does not appear, but it may
be inferred from a facetious remark of one member who observed that,
like Segar and Chandler, Kitchen had been privileged to retire to
private life. The two former were refused admission by the decided vote
of 94 to 23.
Besides endeavoring to win back the wavering, Governor Pierpont was
occupied in taking measures for the relief of the distressed. In the
vicinity of Norfolk and Portsmouth there was a large number of destitute
persons whose natural supporters were still following the declining
fortunes of the Confederacy or had been killed in its service. While it
was universally agreed that their necessities should be relieved, the
military and civil authorities were in conflict as to the mode of
providing for them. The President in his efforts to establish amicable
relations between the officers of the army and those of the State
invoked the assistance of the Governor. As the restored Commonwealth
could not be consistently recognized while its capital was in a state of
blockade the President by proclamation, September 24, 1863, declared
that the interdiction of trade with the port of Alexandria had ceased.
General Butler with headquarters at Fortress Monroe took command of the
Department of Virginia and North Carolina November 2, 1863. His
predecessors, he asserted, had endeavored to recruit a regiment of
Virginians; but after several months of energetic trial their efforts
were abandoned. As eastern Virginia claimed to be a loyal and fully
organized State, Butler renewed the attempt, whereupon Governor Pierpont
protested vigorously. One and a half companies were all the recruits
that the Commonwealth would furnish, and these, Butler asserts, were
employed to defend lighthouses and protect Union inhabitants from
outrages at the hands of their disloyal neighbors.[206] This experience,
it may be supposed, did not tend to raise the Alexandria government in
the esteem of the Department Commander. We find accordingly that
differences soon sprang up between the civil and military authorities.
An attempt to regulate the liquor traffic in Norfolk and vicinity was
the occasion of an open rupture. Civil officers continued to collect the
payments imposed by law on those engaged in the business; the military
power, to keep the traffic under better control, undertook to give to a
few firms a monopoly of the importation. In this situation many small
retailers refused to pay their licenses and were indicted in the local
courts. To foil this purpose, General Shepley issued, June 22, 1864, an
order providing that “on the day of the ensuing municipal election in
the city of Norfolk a poll will be opened at the several places of
voting, and separate ballot-boxes will be kept open during the hours of
voting, in which voters may deposit their ballots, ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ upon
the following question: Those in favor of continuing the present form of
municipal government during the existence of military occupation will
vote ‘yes.’ Those opposed to it will vote ‘no.’”
Governor Pierpont resented this action and promptly issued a
proclamation protesting against it as a revolutionary proceeding in
violation of the Federal Constitution, adding, “No loyal citizen,
therefore, is expected to vote on the proposed question.” In a vigorous
pamphlet discussing the “abuses of military power” he repeated his
criticism.
Butler at this point took up the cudgels for his subordinate and in a
general order, dated June 30, 1864, discussed the incident at some
length. Pierpont was alluded to as “a person who calls himself
Governor,” and as one “pretending to be the head of the restored
government of Virginia, which government is unrecognized by the
Congress, laws, and Constitution of the United States.” The order
further recited that as the loyal citizens of Norfolk had voted against
the further trial of the experiment of municipal government “therefore
it is ordered that all attempts to exercise civil office and power,
under any supposed city election, within the city of Norfolk and its
environs, must cease, and the persons pretending to be elected to civil
offices at the late election, and those heretofore elected to municipal
offices since the rebellion, must no longer attempt to exercise such
functions; and upon any pretense or attempt so to do, the military
commandant at Norfolk will see to it that persons so acting are stayed
and quieted.”
A memorial to Mr. Lincoln enlisted his sympathy and secured for Pierpont
the assistance of Attorney-General Bates, who on July 11 wrote the
President a long official letter setting forth his sense of the serious
military encroachment by General Butler upon civil law and the authority
of Mr. Pierpont as Governor of Virginia. The Department Commander
replied in a communication of forty pages in sharp criticism of the
Alexandria government, which he characterized as a “useless, expensive,
and inefficient thing, unrecognized by Congress, unknown to the
Constitution of the United States, and of such character that there is
no command in the Decalogue against worshiping it, being the likeness of
nothing in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the
earth.”
The Attorney-General, who was accused of a design to create a conflict
between the civil and the military power, also came in for a share of
rather violent criticism. In this altercation each party accused the
other of being assisted by only secessionists and traitors.[207]
It was relative to this controversy that Mr. Lincoln, December 21, 1864,
addressed to General Butler the following communication:
On the 9th of August last, I began to write you a letter, the
enclosed being a copy of so much as I then wrote. So far as it goes
it embraces the views I then entertained and still entertain.
A little relaxation of the complaints made to me on the subject,
occurring about that time, the letter was not finished and sent. I
now learn, correctly I suppose, that you have ordered an election,
similar to the one mentioned, to take place on the eastern shore of
Virginia. Let this be suspended at least until conference with me
and obtaining my approval.
[Inclosure.]
=Executive Mansion, Washington=, _August 9, 1864_.
_Major-General Butler_:
Your paper of the —— about Norfolk matters, is received, as also was
your other, on the same general subject, dated, I believe, some time
in February last. This subject has caused considerable trouble,
forcing me to give a good deal of time and reflection to it. I
regret that crimination and recrimination are mingled in it. I
surely need not to assure you that I have no doubt of your loyalty
and devoted patriotism; and I must tell you that I have no less
confidence in those of Governor Pierpont and the Attorney-General.
The former—at first as the loyal governor of all Virginia, including
that which is now West Virginia, in organizing and furnishing
troops, and in all other proper matters—was as earnest, honest, and
efficient to the extent of his means as any other loyal governor.
The inauguration of West Virginia as a new State left to him, as he
assumed, the remainder of the old State; and the insignificance of
the parts which are outside of the rebel lines, and consequently
within his reach, certainly gives a somewhat farcical air to his
dominion, and I suppose he, as well as I, has considered that it can
be useful for little else than as a nucleus to add to. The
Attorney-General needs only to be known to be relieved from all
question as to loyalty and thorough devotion to the national cause,
constantly restraining as he does my tendency to clemency for rebels
and rebel sympathizers. But he is the law-officer of the Government,
and a believer in the virtue of adhering to law.
Coming to the question itself, the military occupancy of Norfolk is
a necessity with us. If you, as department commander, find the
cleansing of the city necessary to prevent pestilence in your army;
street-lights and a fire department necessary to prevent
assassinations and incendiarism among your men and stores; wharfage
necessary to land and ship men and supplies; a large pauperism,
badly conducted at a needlessly large expense to the government; and
find that all these things, or any of them, are not reasonably well
attended to by the civil government, you rightfully may and must
take them into your own hands. But you should do so on your own
avowed judgment of a military necessity, and not seem to admit that
there is no such necessity by taking a vote of the people on the
question.
Nothing justifies the suspending of the civil by the military
authority but military necessity; and of the existence of that
necessity, the military commander, and not a popular vote, is to
decide. And whatever is not within such necessity should be left
undisturbed.
In your paper of February you fairly notified me that you
contemplated taking a popular vote, and, if fault there be, it was
my fault that I did not object then, which I probably should have
done had I studied the subject as closely as I have since done. I
now think you would better place whatever you feel is necessary to
be done on this distinct ground of military necessity, openly
discarding all reliance for what you do on any election. I also
think you should so keep accounts as to show every item of money
received and how expended.
The course here indicated does not touch the case when the military
commander, finding no friendly civil government existing, may, under
sanction or direction of the President, give assistance to the
people to inaugurate one.[208]
On the same general subject the President one week later wrote General
Butler this brief note:
I think you will find that the provost-marshal on the eastern shore
has, as by your authority, issued an order, not for a meeting, but
for an election. The order, printed in due form, was shown to me,
but as I did not retain it, I cannot give you a copy. If the people,
on their own motion, wish to hold a peaceful meeting, I suppose you
need not hinder them.[209]
It has elsewhere been observed that a Legislature representing what
remained of the restored government was chosen at the time of Mr.
Pierpont’s election. This body, however, was but the merest shadow of
the Assembly of that once proud Commonwealth. Seven Delegates responded
to the roll call when the House convened in December, 1863. They
adjourned from day to day and on the 9th of that month organized with
eight members in the popular branch. Precisely how many Senators
composed the upper House does not appear in any notice of their
proceedings accessible to the writer; the aggregate number in both
chambers, however, is said not to have exceeded 16.[210] This estimate
is probably correct; for in the election, February 4, 1864, of a
Secretary of State and a Treasurer the total vote on joint ballot was
only 14.[211]
It is probable that neither Mr. Lincoln nor Governor Pierpont regarded
this organization as anything more than a nucleus around which the loyal
elements might rally. Both Congress and the military authorities,
however, treated it with scant courtesy. It is not matter of surprise,
therefore, that memorials were presented to the United States Senate
petitioning for the substitution of a military for this feeble civil
government. To offset this movement remonstrances from citizens of
Alexandria and from citizens of Loudoun County were offered, January 17,
1865, by Senator Willey, of West Virginia. All the memorials of both
classes were referred to the Committee on Territories.
By Mr. Willey credentials of Hon. Joseph Segar, Senator-elect from
Virginia, were presented, February 17, 1865, to supply the vacancy
caused by the death of Lemuel J. Bowden. Mr. Willey moved that the
credentials be read and placed on the files, and that the oath of office
be administered to Mr. Segar. The credentials were read and immediately
after Mr. Sumner moved that the papers be referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary. Senator Willey opposed the reference. The credentials, he
believed, were proper on their face; they came to the Senate in due form
under the seal of the State of Virginia. Mr. Segar was the accredited
successor of Mr. Bowden, who died while a member of Congress. If Mr.
Bowden was entitled to a seat his successor was likewise entitled if his
credentials were regular and correct.
Mr. Cowan also opposed the reference because he did not think it wise to
abandon the policy hitherto pursued in dealing with loyal minorities in
the rebellious States. He would be sorry, he said, if these States were
repulsed when they were desirous to do all they could to achieve the
very end for which the present tremendous struggle was taking place.
When Mr. Bowden came to take his seat no such objection was made. A
question by Senator Hale developed the fact, however, that Mr. Bowden
presented himself before the vote was taken on the admission of West
Virginia.
Trumbull believed that a reference of the credentials, just as in the
Arkansas case, would bring up the question. Senator Howard, who favored
a reference, thought that the entire question of the right of Virginia
to be represented in Congress should be gone into. He would thank the
committee for a concise account of all the proceedings connected with
the election of Mr. Segar and his colleague. He asked whether a State
like Virginia, in armed rebellion, could have Senators on that floor.
Mr. Saulsbury pointed out the change that had come over the judgment of
the Senate. When Messrs. Willey and Carlile appeared there was, he said,
but a corporal’s guard who opposed their right to seats, because
Virginia was in rebellion, and it was then held by the minority that
Senators should represent the sovereignty of their States. Those who
were then most zealous for the admission of the gentlemen claiming to
represent Virginia had become most vehement in their opposition to the
admission of Mr. Segar.
Senator McDougall believed that to refer the proposition to the
committee would be to bury it, and no resurrection, he said, had been
proclaimed for any such thing. He had his impressions and was as well
prepared to discuss the question then as at any time. Virginia,
according to his understanding of the philosophy of the Constitution,
was a State of the Union. He believed the Senator-elect, by reason of
his credentials, could take the oath, though that was not conclusive of
his right to a seat in the Senate.
Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, believed that Congress because of its
action for three years was bound to recognize the existence of both the
Governor and Legislature of Virginia. He was disposed, however, to
support the motion of his colleague, Charles Sumner, as well as the
amendment thereto which authorized the committee to inquire into the
election, returns and qualifications in the case of the claimant.
Certain parts of Virginia, exempted by the President’s proclamation,
were not in rebellion. Every square mile additional over which Federal
authority was restored came by the terms of that proclamation into the
same condition.
Mr. Willey asserted that the Legislature sneeringly referred to as “the
Common Council of Alexandria” represented 216,000 loyal people. He
believed that county after county, as fast as they were relieved from
the power of the rebellion, would come to the support of the loyal
nucleus at Alexandria. It would place the Senate, he said, in a singular
position to repulse the claimant while his State was represented by
another Senator [Carlile].
Senator Sherman stated that Mr. Segar’s credentials purported to show
that he had been elected a member of the Senate on the 8th of December
and that they bore date of December 12, 1864. Therefore he had slept for
sixty or seventy days on his right to a seat which would, at any rate,
expire on the 4th of March. The succeeding Congress, he said, would have
ample time to decide the question, for, no doubt, at that time a
gentleman claiming to be a Senator from Virginia would present himself.
Then it could be deliberately determined. His motion to lay the
credentials on the table prevailed by a vote of 29 to 13.[212] When this
action was taken Carlile was among the eight absentees.
Pursuant to a proclamation of the President the Senate assembled at noon
of March 4 in executive session. Five days later the question of
admitting Senators from Virginia came again before the Senate on
presentation by Mr. Doolittle of the credentials of Hon. John C.
Underwood as Senator-elect from that State for six years from the 4th of
March. His credentials were read and after some discussion it was agreed
to postpone their consideration as well as those of Mr. Segar until the
following session. Henderson and Doolittle spoke in favor of the early
recognition by Congress of the local governments in those States which
had been brought partly under Federal power. The account of Virginian
affairs will be resumed in the final chapter.
-----
Footnote 154:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 7.
Footnote 155:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 7n.
Footnote 156:
Eighth Census, pp. 516–522.
Footnote 157:
Density maps in Tenth Census (Population), pp. xii-xiii, xiv-xv,
xvi-xvii.
Footnote 158:
Blair in Appendix to Globe, pp. 327–331, 2 Sess. 37th Cong.; Eighth
Census, pp. 516–522; Seventh Census, pp. 242–261.
Footnote 159:
Parker, The Formation of West Virginia, p. 125.
Footnote 160:
Globe, 2 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 3038.
Footnote 161:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, pp. 743–744.
Footnote 162:
The Formation of West Virginia, p. 36.
Footnote 163:
The Formation of West Virginia, p. 42.
Footnote 164:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, pp. 742–743.
Footnote 165:
The Formation of West Virginia, p. 43.
Footnote 166:
Ibid.
Footnote 167:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 743; The Formation of West Virginia, p. 45, gives
the oath in a form slightly different.
Footnote 168:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 743.
Footnote 169:
Ann. Cycl., 1862, p. 801.
Footnote 170:
Mr. A. W. Campbell in The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, April 14,
1897.
Footnote 171:
Globe, 1 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 103–109.
Footnote 172:
The Formation of West Virginia, pp. 47–48.
Footnote 173:
The Formation of West Virginia, pp. 48–50; also Ann. Cycl., 1861, p.
745.
Footnote 174:
The Formation of West Virginia, p. 57.
Footnote 175:
The Formation of West Virginia, p. 79.
Footnote 176:
Ibid., p. 93.
Footnote 177:
The Formation of West Virginia, p. 96, says 16,981 for and 441 against
the constitution. The Annual Cyclopædia for 1862, p. 801, gives the
vote as 18,862 in favor of, and 514 against, the constitution. Poore’s
Charters and Constitutions, Vol. II. p. 1977, is the authority for the
statement in the text.
Footnote 178:
Globe, Part III., 2 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 864; Part IV., pp. 2941–2942,
3034–3039, 3134–3135, 3307–3320.
Footnote 179:
Globe, 2 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 2933.
Footnote 180:
Ibid., p. 3397.
Footnote 181:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 37–38.
Footnote 182:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 38–39, 41–42.
Footnote 183:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 43–45.
Footnote 184:
Ibid., p. 46.
Footnote 185:
Ibid., pp. 46–47.
Footnote 186:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 48.
Footnote 187:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 50–51.
Footnote 188:
Ibid., p. 35.
Footnote 189:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 54–55.
Footnote 190:
Ibid., p. 59.
Footnote 191:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 283.
Footnote 192:
Quoted in N. & H., Vol. VI. pp. 300–301.
Footnote 193:
Quoted in N. & H., Vol. VI. pp. 302–303.
Footnote 194:
Ibid., p. 304.
Footnote 195:
Quoted in N. & H., Vol. VI. pp. 304–306.
Footnote 196:
See pp. 105–106 _ante_.
Footnote 197:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 285–287.
Footnote 198:
The Formation of West Virginia, p. 152.
Footnote 199:
Ibid., pp. 192–193.
Footnote 200:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 326.
Footnote 201:
Webster’s Works, Vol. II. pp. 607–608.
Footnote 202:
By a joint resolution, approved March 10, 1866, Congress agreed that
both counties formed a part of West Virginia. The parent State,
however, by an act of December 5, 1865, had already repealed both the
statutes of January 31 and February 4, 1863, as well as section two of
the act of May 13, 1862; and on December 11, 1866, a bill in equity
was filed in the Supreme Court of the United States in which it was
contended that it was not the intention of that State to consent to
the annexation of Berkeley and Jefferson counties except upon the
performance of certain conditions; the state of the county on election
day was such as not to permit the opening of all the polls in Berkeley
and Jefferson, nor indeed at any considerable part of the usual
election places. The voters did not have adequate notice. In short, a
great majority of them were then and now, December, 1866, opposed to
annexation. Other irregularities are alleged in the complaint of
Virginia. A decision, however, has been rendered by the Supreme Court
of the United States in favor of the new Commonwealth. [See Virginia
vs. West Virginia, 11 Wall., p. 39; also Transcripts of Records,
Supreme Court U. S., Vol. 152, December Term, 1870.]
Footnote 203:
Notwithstanding the new State had been organized by a law which passed
both Houses of Congress, and was approved by the President, Mr. Davis,
of Kentucky, when the members-elect presented themselves before the
Senate, opposed their admission on the ground that there was legally
and constitutionally no such State in existence as West Virginia. On
his motion to administer the customary oath thirty-six Senators voted
in the affirmative, five in the negative. [Globe, 1 Sess. 38th Cong.,
pp. 1–3.]
Footnote 204:
A History of Presidential Elections, Stanwood, pp. 246–247. Edition of
1884.
Footnote 205:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 809.
Footnote 206:
Butler’s Book, p. 618.
Footnote 207:
N. & H., Abraham Lincoln, A History, Vol. IX. pp. 439–442.
Footnote 208:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 619–621.
Footnote 209:
Ibid., p. 623.
Footnote 210:
Why The Solid South? p. 222.
Footnote 211:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 810.
Footnote 212:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 845–849.
V
ANTI-SLAVERY LEGISLATION
The efforts of Union minorities in Tennessee, in Louisiana and in
Arkansas to establish governments in harmony with the Constitution and
laws of the United States, and the agency of President Lincoln in
effecting that result, have been somewhat particularly described in the
preceding pages. The principal events which marked the progress of
secession in those States, the military successes which brought Federal
authorities to consider the restoration of loyal governments within
their borders, and the operation of those causes which ultimately
overthrew rebellion have been more rapidly sketched. To trace the
successive steps which led to the emancipation of slaves in the seceding
States a somewhat more ample narrative will be required. This subject is
not only of intrinsic interest but its culmination in the proclamation
of September 22, 1862, marks the introduction into the President’s plan
of restoration of an element hitherto left out of account.
In December, 1859, when John Brown, for his rash though courageous
attempt to liberate slaves, was hanged by the authorities of Virginia a
great majority of even Northern people looked on with indifference or
with approval. The inhabitants of the free States, however, were rather
law-abiding than pitiless and came in time to revere the memory of that
stern old Puritan. Ideas in those times matured with amazing rapidity,
and fourteen months had scarcely elapsed when James B. McKean, a
Representative from New York, introduced into Congress, three days
before the Confederate government was organized, the following
resolution:
Whereas the “Gulf States” have assumed to secede from the Union, and
it is deemed important to prevent the “border slave States” from
following their example; and whereas it is believed that those who
are inflexibly opposed to any measure of compromise or concession
that involves, or may involve, a sacrifice of principle or the
extension of slavery, would nevertheless cheerfully concur in any
lawful measure for the emancipation of slaves: Therefore,
_Resolved_, That the select committee of five be instructed to
inquire whether, by the consent of the people, or of the State
governments, or by compensating the slaveholders, it be practicable
for the General Government to procure the emancipation of the slaves
in some, or all, of the “border States”; and if so, to report a bill
for that purpose.[213]
Mr. Burnett, of Kentucky, desiring to discuss the proposition, it was
laid on the table and received no further consideration. Whether Mr.
Lincoln had much reflected upon the principle of this resolution or the
reasoning in its preamble, he had not become on March 4 a convert to its
essential idea, for in his inaugural address he was content, in
expressing his sentiments on the institution of slavery, to re-affirm a
declaration which he had formerly made. “I have no purpose,” said he,
“directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in
the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so,
and I have no inclination to do so.”[214] Even if the occasion had not
demanded the language of conciliation we might easily credit this solemn
assurance. Indeed, for an entire year after this announcement he
refrained in his public utterances from taking any attitude hostile to
the continuance of slavery. The influences which forced him to adopt
other opinions may be briefly related.
On May 22, 1861, General Butler arrived at Fortress Monroe and at once
took command of the Department of Virginia; next day he sent a
reconnoitering party to Hampton, and in the terror and confusion
occasioned by the presence of Yankee soldiers three slaves of Colonel
Mallory, a Confederate officer, effected their escape; during the
afternoon they remained in concealment and at night reached the Union
pickets. The following morning they were brought before the Federal
commander, whom they informed of their master’s purpose to employ them
in military operations in North Carolina. On the next day Major John B.
Cary, also of the Confederate army, and a former delegate with Butler in
the Baltimore Convention, came to the fort with a flag of truce, and as
a representative of Colonel Mallory demanded the surrender of these
runaways pursuant to the provisions of the Federal Constitution under
which the Union commander claimed to act. With characteristic readiness
came the reply that the Fugitive Slave Law could not be invoked in this
case; Virginia assumed to be a foreign State and she must count it among
the disadvantages of her position if, so far at least, she was taken at
her word. These negroes further informed General Butler or his officers
that if they were not returned others would come next day. On the 26th
eight slaves were before him awaiting an audience; one squad of
forty-seven came early on the 27th and another lot of a dozen arrived
during the same day. Then they came by twenties, thirties and forties
both to Fortress Monroe and Newport News.[215]
Thus arose an important question on which the Government had yet
developed no policy. As the acts for the rendition of fugitive slaves
were not repealed till June, 1864, the views of individual commanders
temporarily prevailed. Without precedent or instructions General
McDowell by an order entirely excluded them from his lines. Caprice,
too, entered into a settlement of the problem, and even a whimsical
solution was sometimes attempted. A felicitous invention for determining
these controversies between master and bondman is ascribed to the
colonel of a Massachusetts regiment. Both the claimant and the claimed
were put outside his tent for a trial of speed; the negro, proving the
fleeter, was never heard of again.[216] An institution which had
practically determined both the foreign and domestic policy of the
United States for an entire generation was suddenly become the sport of
a subordinate officer of volunteers! The wise should have heeded these
signs.
While the Federal commander in Virginia was exchanging arguments with
Confederate officers, General McClellan at his headquarters in
Cincinnati was considering a proclamation which on May 26 he issued to
the Union men of western Virginia. This document, among other things,
says: “All your rights shall be religiously respected, notwithstanding
all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to believe our
advent among you will be signalized by an interference with your slaves.
Understand one thing clearly: not only will we abstain from all such
interference, but we will, on the contrary, _with an iron hand crush any
attempt at insurrection on their part_.”[217]
Scarcely less explicit in its announcement concerning slavery was
General Patterson’s proclamation of June 3, 1861, to troops of the
Department of Pennsylvania. “You must bear in mind,” says its concluding
paragraph, that “you are going for the good of the whole country, and
that, while it is your duty to punish sedition, you must protect the
loyal, _and, should the occasion offer, at once suppress servile
insurrection_.”[218]
Butler’s interview with Major Cary had been promptly communicated to the
War Department, whose chief, Mr. Cameron, expressed in his reply of May
30 approval of the General’s action. The Secretary, however, endeavored
to distinguish between interference with slave property and the
surrender of negroes that came voluntarily within Federal lines. The
commander was further directed to “employ such persons in the services
to which they may be best adapted, keeping an account of the labor by
them performed, of the value of it, and the expenses of their
maintenance,”[219] the question of their final disposition to be
reserved for future determination.
In defence of his attitude toward masters of fugitives who had been
employed in the batteries or on the fortifications of the enemy,
international law supplied General Butler with an analogy that he
skillfully applied to the novel conditions which had arisen. Articles of
assistance in military operations cannot in time of war be imported by
neutrals into an enemy’s country, and the attempt to introduce such
goods renders them liable to seizure as lawful prize. It did not greatly
embarrass this versatile lawyer that the term _contraband_ applies
exclusively to relations between a belligerent and a neutral, or that
the decision of a prize court might be necessary to determine whether a
particular article had been so designated. No doubt he believed firmly
in the doctrine that the wants of war are contraband of war. In his
correspondence with General Scott he had observed that “as a military
question, it would seem to be a measure of necessity” to deprive
disloyal masters of the services of their slaves, and this, on the
pretext that they were contraband of war, he proceeded to do by refusing
to surrender any negroes coming inside his lines.[220] This method of
settling the difficulty was what Secretary Cameron had approved. But
this phase presented the question in its extreme simplicity. A refusal
to return the slaves of Confederate officers or of Confederate
sympathizers was one thing; similar treatment of loyal slaveholders
would not be so readily overlooked by authority. Though such cases were
more likely to occur in Maryland, Kentucky or Missouri, that fact did
not prevent the subject from assuming very great importance even in
Virginia. Whole families escaped from their masters, and General Butler
soon had on his hands negroes from three months to almost fourscore
years of age.
Attorney-General Bates, writing July 23, 1861, to United States Marshal
J. L. McDowell, of Kansas, who had asked whether he should give his
official service in executing the fugitive slave law, said in response
to the inquiry:
It is the President’s constitutional duty to “take care that the
laws be faithfully executed.” That means all the laws. He has no
right to discriminate, no right to execute the laws he likes, and
leave unexecuted those he dislikes. And of course you and I, his
subordinates, can have no wider latitude of discretion than he has.
Missouri is a State in the Union. The insurrectionary disorders in
Missouri are but individual crimes, and do not change the legal
status of the State, nor change its rights and obligations as a
member of the Union.
A refusal by a ministerial officer to execute any law which properly
belongs to his office, is an official misdemeanor, of which I have
no doubt the President would take notice.[221]
The Attorney-General in this instance merely amplified a suggestion
contained in the inaugural.
Toward the close of July, 1861, the number of “contrabands” had
increased to nine hundred, and the Union commander again requested
instructions.[222] Secretary Cameron’s reply on the 8th of August
following merely authorized, what General Butler had all along been
doing, employing them at such labor as they were adapted to and keeping
a complete record, so that when peace was restored the essential facts
of each case could easily be ascertained.[223] His tact in dealing with
this question appears from an act of Congress approved August 6 in which
his extension of meaning to the word _contraband_ is adopted. This
declared that if persons held to labor or service were employed in
hostility to the United States, the right to their services should be
forfeited and such persons be discharged therefrom.[224]
Exclusion of fugitive slaves from the quarters and camps of troops
serving in the Department of Washington was provided by a general order
of July 17, 1861, and a few weeks later, August 10, the departure by
railway of negroes from the District of Columbia was prevented unless
evidence of freedom could be adduced.[225]
Far more important, however, than these prudent regulations of the
Adjutant-General was the celebrated proclamation of Fremont, dated St.
Louis, August 31, 1861, which declared martial law throughout the entire
State of Missouri and expressed a purpose both to confiscate the
property and free the negroes of all persons in the State who should
take up arms against the United States or who were shown to have taken
an active part with their enemy in the field.[226] The President, in a
communication of September 2 following, wrote General Fremont expressing
anxiety concerning the effects of this proclamation: “I think there is
great danger,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that the closing paragraph, in
relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating slaves of
traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them
against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky.[227]
“Allow me therefore to ask that you will, as of your own motion, modify
that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the
act of Congress entitled, ‘An act to confiscate property used for
insurrectionary purposes,’ approved August 6, 1861, and a copy of which
act I herewith send you.
“This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of
censure.”[228]
Though General Fremont had acted wholly on his own responsibility he
refused so to modify that portion of his proclamation relative to
emancipating slaves as to conform to the act of Congress referred to,
and in a letter requested the President “openly to direct” him “to make
the correction.” Referring to this part of his communication Mr. Lincoln
replied on the 11th: “Your answer, just received, expresses the
preference on your part that I should make an open order for the
modification, which I very cheerfully do. It is therefore ordered that
the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and
construed, as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the
same subject contained in the act of Congress” approved August 6,
1861.[229]
As late as October 14 the War Department was guided by the principles
developed in its correspondence with Butler, the instructions of that
date to General T. W. Sherman being based upon this policy.[230] A month
later inhabitants of the eastern shore of Virginia were informed by
General Dix that “special directions have been given not to interfere
with the condition of any person held to domestic service;” to prevent
any such occurrence slaves were not permitted to come within his
lines.[231]
Besides those who favored military emancipation, a large class seriously
expected that the war would not only preserve the integrity of the
Union, but in some way result in a general liberation of slaves. This
feeling, manifested in various ways, was rapidly gathering strength, and
as early as November 8 found enthusiastic expression at a public meeting
of two thousand citizens held in Cooper Institute, New York city. This
assembly, which convened at the suggestion of Mr. Lincoln, was presided
over by Hon. George Bancroft and attended by many distinguished persons
of both the nation and the State. Besides the remarks of its illustrious
chairman addresses were made by William Cullen Bryant, General Ambrose
Burnside, Professor Francis Lieber and others. Shortly before the
speakers arrived a gentleman arose in the audience, and in a ringing
voice proposed “Three cheers for John C. Fremont!” These were given,
says a newspaper account, “with electrical effect and without a murmur
of dissent.” The meeting was evidently not in entire sympathy with the
President’s order modifying that General’s proclamation of the preceding
August.
North Carolina, as is well known, was not so ardent for secession as
most of her sister States in the South; forced to take sides, however,
she imitated the example of her neighbors. Even then all her people did
not share the opinions of their leaders, and when Federal troops landed
in the vicinity of Hatteras nearly four thousand loyal inhabitants of
the coast flocked to their lines and readily took the oath of allegiance
to the United States; for this conduct they incurred the extreme hatred
of secessionists, who soon reduced them to a condition of distress. To
relieve their destitution, by supplies of food and clothing, the meeting
was called in Cooper Institute. Resolutions of sympathy were unanimously
adopted; a committee of relief was appointed to collect from the city
and elsewhere such funds as were necessary for the purchase of supplies,
which were to be forwarded and distributed in the most judicious manner.
“If the President,” said Mr. Bancroft, “has any doubt under the terrible
conflict into which he has been brought, let him hear the words of one
of his predecessors. Alien nullification raised itself in South
Carolina. Andrew Jackson, in the watches of the night, as he sat alone
finishing that proclamation, sent the last words of it to Livingston,
his bosom friend and best adviser. He sent it with these words; I have
had the letter in my own hands, handed to me by the only surviving child
of Mr. Livingston. I know the letter which I now read is a copy: ‘I
submit the above as the conclusion of the proclamation for your
amendment and revision. Let it receive your best flight of eloquence to
strike to the heart and speak to the feelings of my deluded countrymen
of South Carolina. The Union must be preserved without blood if this be
possible; but it must be preserved at all hazards and at any price.’”
Mr. Bancroft added: “We send the army into the South to maintain the
Union, to restore the validity of the Constitution. If any one presents
claims under the Constitution, let him begin by placing the Constitution
in power, by respecting it and upholding it.”
Francis Lieber referred to slavery as “that great anachronism, out of
time, out of place in the nineteenth century,” and Rev. Doctor Tyng
said, “if slavery is in the way of the Union, then tread slavery down
into the dust.”[232] These sentiments were received with applause.
Mr. Bancroft a week later wrote to the President:
Following out your suggestion, a very numerous meeting of
New-Yorkers assembled last week to take measures for relieving the
loyal sufferers of Hatteras. I take the liberty to enclose you some
remarks which I made on the occasion. You will find in them a copy
of an unpublished letter of one of your most honored predecessors,
with which you cannot fail to be pleased.
Your administration has fallen upon times which will be remembered
as long as human events find a record. I sincerely wish to you the
glory of perfect success. Civil War is the instrument of Divine
Providence to root out social slavery. Posterity will not be
satisfied with the result unless the consequences of the war shall
effect an increase of free States. This is the universal expectation
and hope of men of all parties.[233]
On the 18th Mr. Lincoln sent this reply:
I esteem it a high honor to have received a note from Mr. Bancroft
inclosing the report of proceedings of a New York meeting taking
measures for the relief of Union people of North Carolina. I thank
you and all others participating for this benevolent and patriotic
movement.
The main thought in the closing paragraph of your letter is one
which does not escape my attention, and with which I must deal in
all due caution, and with the best judgment I can bring to it.[234]
We have here the key to President Lincoln’s treatment of the slavery
question down to the hour of his lamented death. As the hostile
employment of negroes constituted by act of August 6 a full answer to
any claim for service General McClellan was informed by Secretary
Seward, December 4, 1861, that the arrest of such persons as fugitives
from labor “should be immediately followed by the military arrest of the
parties making the seizure.” These instructions were called forth by
intelligence that Virginia slaves engaged in hostility to the United
States frequently escaped from the enemy and took refuge within the
lines of the Army of the Potomac. Coming afterward into the District of
Columbia, such persons upon the presumption arising from color, were
liable to be arrested by the Washington police.[235]
On December 3, 1861, in his first annual message to Congress, Mr.
Lincoln discussed without especial emphasis the question of aiding those
slaves who had been freed under the act of August 6; he observed that
this class was dependent upon the United States; it was believed that,
for their own benefit, many of the States would enact similar laws; he
therefore recommended Congress to provide for accepting such persons
from the States,
according to some mode of valuation, in lieu, _pro tanto_, of direct
taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on with such States
respectively; that such persons, on such acceptance by the General
Government, be at once deemed free; and that, in any event, steps be
taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first mentioned, if
the other shall not be brought into existence) at some place or
places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider,
too, whether the free colored people already in the United States
could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such
colonization.
To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of
territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be
expended in the territorial acquisition. Having practiced the
acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years, the question of
constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one with us. The
power was questioned at first by Mr. Jefferson, who, however, in the
purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples on the plea of great
expediency. If it be said that the only legitimate object of
acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men, this measure
effects that object; for the emigration of colored men leaves
additional room for white men remaining or coming here. Mr.
Jefferson, however, placed the importance of procuring Louisiana
more on political and commercial grounds than on providing room for
population.
On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with
the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to
absolute necessity—that without which the Government itself cannot
be perpetuated?
The war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for
suppressing the insurrection, I have been anxious and careful that
the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a
violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have, therefore,
in every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union
prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving
all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more
deliberate action of the Legislature.
In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade
of the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force, by
proclamation, the law of Congress enacted at the last session for
closing those ports.
So, also, obeying the dictates of prudence as well as the
obligations of law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the
act of Congress to confiscate property used for insurrectionary
purposes. If a new law upon the same subject shall be proposed, its
propriety will be duly considered. The Union must be preserved; and
hence all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in
haste to determine that radical and extreme measures, which may
reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.[236]
The President’s mastery of national affairs is seen in the ability and
thoroughness with which he treated a great variety of important public
questions; though his message touches with the utmost delicacy the
paramount issue of slavery it really marked an advance in his position.
However, he was not yet abreast of the aggressive anti-slavery party in
the 37th Congress, which had just commenced its first regular session.
The “increase of free States,” which Mr. Bancroft hoped would result
from the war, and which President Lincoln’s reply shows had not escaped
his attention, was not to be effected by military emancipation in the
field but by the voluntary action of the States themselves. The caution
and judgment which he brought to bear on this subject are apparent from
even a casual examination of the message, which refers to the number of
slaves that had been freed by the incidents of war, and to the extreme
probability that still others would be liberated in its progress. It
contained also a recommendation of colonization, a topic which had long
been familiar to Americans both North and South. To any new law
emancipating slaves for the participation of their masters in rebellion,
he promised to give due consideration. This part of the message had the
additional merit of being easily expanded into a more definite policy.
It was this characteristic prudence that led the President to suppress
the following remarks in a report which the Secretary of War had
prepared for the opening of Congress in December, 1861:
If it shall be found that the men who have been held by the rebels
as slaves are capable of bearing arms and performing efficient
military service, it is the right, and may become the duty, of this
government to arm and equip them, and employ their services against
the rebels, under proper military regulation, discipline, and
command.[237]
Any legislation, or even any extended debate, on these recommendations
was prevented by questions deemed more urgent by Congress. Indeed, the
President does not appear to have seriously expected favorable action at
this time upon his suggestions, for he resumed certain efforts which he
had been carefully considering. He believed that by the pressure of war
necessities the border States might be induced to take up the idea of
voluntary emancipation if the General Government would pay their
citizens the full property value of the slaves they were asked to
liberate; and this experiment seemed most feasible in the small State of
Delaware, which retained only the merest fragment of a property interest
in the institution.
Even before the appearance of his message a plan of compensated
abolishment had taken definite form in the mind of the President, for
about November 26 he had prepared a draft of a bill for gradual
emancipation in Delaware.[238] Through Congressman George P. Fisher the
proposition was laid before the General Assembly of that State and
received favorable consideration in the lower House. By the Senate,
which convened November 25, 1861, it was taken up for discussion on
February 7 succeeding. Upon the question, 4 voted in favor and 4 against
concurring in the action of the more popular branch of the Legislature.
The remaining Senator, McFerran, was absent or silent and is not
accounted for in the journal of this special session. Therefore the
measure was returned non-concurred in to the other chamber. The
following preamble and joint resolution relative to the proposed
emancipation bill are self-explanatory. The Federal suggestion was
repelled as an unwarranted interference in the domestic concerns of that
State:
_Whereas_, There has been circulating among the members of this
General Assembly a printed draft for a law to be entitled “An act
for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the State of Delaware with
just compensation to their owners”; _and whereas_ many of the
members of this General Assembly have been requested to support it,
the said draft being in the following words: [Then follows the
title, together with the twenty-one sections composing the bill. To
which is added:] _And whereas_ it is uncertain that said proposition
will be submitted to this General Assembly for its action,
nevertheless, viewing it to be unworthy of their support, they
desire to place upon record the grounds of their condemnation;
therefore
_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of
Delaware in General Assembly met_, That the members of this
Legislature were not elected with a view to the passage of any act
for the emancipation of slaves, but with the understanding, either
expressed or implied, that legislation upon the distracting subject
of slavery was hostile to the public peace, and therefore to be
avoided; that the passage of the act drafted as aforesaid, inasmuch
as it renders Congressional action necessary, would, upon the
apparent application of the State of Delaware, introduce the slavery
question into Congress, would encourage the abolition element
therein, and fortify it in its purpose to destroy entirely all
property in slaves, and furthermore, would be injurious to the quiet
and harmony that prevail in this State.
_Be it further resolved by the authority aforesaid_, That it is the
opinion of this General Assembly, that Congress has no right to
appropriate a dollar for the purchase of slaves, and that such a
proposal, coming from the source to which it is traceable, evinces a
design on the part of those having control of our national affairs
to abolish slavery in the States.
_Resolved further_, That this General Assembly having in mind the
interests of the people of Delaware, are not willing, especially at
a time of financial embarrassment, to make the State of Delaware a
guarantor of any debt the payment of which depends upon the mere
pledge of public faith; that the confidence of the people of this
State that nothing would ever be done to promote a disunion of our
National system, but that it would remain, as expressed by Webster
“one and inseparable, now and forever,” having been impaired by the
events of the last two years, we are and should be very cautious in
resting our obligations on the mere faith of others; that by
accepting the terms to be offered by the United States, we should,
upon grounds of the plainest equity, be held to have pledged the
faith of Delaware for the payment of nine hundred thousand dollars
as mentioned in the draft aforesaid; that, keeping in mind the fact
that the power of the nation is now put forth to suppress a
rebellion prevailing throughout a very large portion of its
territory, and that in consequence of such rebellion and the
uncertainty of its being speedily quelled, the stocks of the United
States, which heretofore brought in the market a sum far beyond the
par value thereof, are now selling at a continually increasing rate
of discount, we are unwilling to pledge the faith of Delaware (a
faith which has never been violated) that the proposed mode of
payment is safe and proper.
_Resolved further_, That when the people of Delaware desire to
abolish slavery within her borders, they will do so in their own
way, having due regard to strict equity; that any interference from
without, and all suggestions of saving expense to the people, or
others of like character, are improper to be made to an honorable
people, such as we represent, and are hereby repelled—that though
the State of Delaware is small, and her people not of the richest,
they are beyond the reach of any who would promote an end by
improper interference and solicitations.
_Resolved further_, That a copy of the foregoing resolutions, duly
attested, be transmitted to each of our Senators, and to our
Representative in Congress, to be laid before their respective
houses.[239]
Thus ended, so far as Delaware was concerned, the question of
compensated emancipation. Precisely why the offer of Federal assistance
was rejected nowhere clearly appears except in the records of the
General Assembly. The high ground assumed in the resolutions was, of
course, the only one in harmony with public opinion in the State. There
are, however, some facts in the history of that Commonwealth which
afford a partial explanation of the action of its Legislature. When the
Federalist party as a political force had disappeared everywhere outside
of New England its principles and traditions still lingered on in
Delaware. The same conservative tendency, the same distrust of
innovation is seen again in the prudent manner in which the authorities
of the State invested and improved her portion of the surplus revenue
distributed among the States in 1837. With a half dozen exceptions the
shares allotted to other members of the Union have disappeared, in some
instances expended patriotically, in others squandered on projects more
or less visionary. It has frequently been observed, too, that a
community whose population is chiefly agricultural is apt to view with
suspicion any financial proposition of great magnitude. Whatever the
true explanation of her opposition to the policy of the President, the
question at once sank to rest in Delaware; it was soon to be revived
elsewhere, however, as will presently be seen.
Meanwhile army officers continued to determine, on their own authority,
very important questions relative to the surrender of fugitive slaves.
Major-General Halleck declared in a proclamation of February 23, 1862,
that “it does not belong to the military to decide upon the relation of
master and slave. Such questions must be settled by the civil courts. No
fugitive slave will therefore be admitted within our lines or camps,
except when specially ordered by the General commanding.”[240] General
Halleck’s order No. 3 of November 20 preceding, as it cut off an
opportunity for the escape of thousands, occasioned much bitter
discussion both in and out of Congress. By Halleck it was explained in
these words: “Unauthorized persons, black or white, free or slaves, must
be kept out of our camps, unless we are willing to publish to the enemy
everything we do or intend to do.” This statement, however, does not
altogether harmonize with the spirit of his order.[241]
General Buell up to March 6 appears to have uniformly returned this
class of persons, and on the 26th of that month General Hooker permitted
nine citizens of Maryland to search for negroes supposed to have taken
refuge with some of the regiments in his division. Notwithstanding the
commander desired that no obstacles be thrown in their way, trouble
occurred when the claimants showed their authority and demanded the
surrender of their slaves. They were driven from camp because fears for
their safety were entertained by some of the officers. The anger of the
soldiers appears to have been especially aroused by the fact that when
within a few yards of camp the slaveholders fired two pistol shots at a
negro who was running past them.[242]
General Doubleday’s opinion, as stated April 6, 1862, by the Assistant
Adjutant-General, was, “that all negroes coming into the lines of any of
the camps or forts under his command, are to be treated as persons and
not as chattels.
“Under no circumstances,” continues this regulation, “has the commander
of a fort or camp the power of surrendering persons claimed as fugitive
slaves, as it cannot be done without determining their character.
“The additional article of war recently passed by Congress positively
prohibits this.”[243]
Notwithstanding the unmistakable tone of the above, General Williams
announced two months later from his headquarters at Baton Rouge that
commanders of the camps and garrisons in that part of Louisiana were
required to turn all fugitives beyond the limits of their guards and
sentinels because of “the demoralizing and disorganizing tendencies to
the troops of harboring runaway negroes.”[244]
Enough has been said to show the divergence of sentiment among Federal
commanders on the rendition of fugitive slaves. The party preferences of
officers served as a rather reliable index to the treatment of the
fugitive in any particular case. This confusion, it is scarcely
necessary to add, arose from the failure of Congress to pass a law on
the subject, and to a considerable degree from the absence of any
clearly expressed policy by the Administration. Of the changing opinions
of the President, however, we catch an occasional glimpse. Though the
contrabands at Fortress Monroe had, no doubt, brought before him the
entire question of slavery, the sagacity of General Butler had postponed
the necessity of any announcement in May, 1861; but the subject could
not always be avoided, and the imprudence of Fremont forced a
declaration in September following. The events of another year were
destined to produce changes which even the wisest could not then
foresee.
A new phase of this troublesome question resulted from the capture,
November 7, of Hilton Head, South Carolina, and the Federal occupation
of the Sea Islands, where the labor of slaves abandoned by their masters
was organized under authority of the Treasury Department by Mr. E. L.
Pierce. This was, probably, intended as nothing more than an experiment,
to be extended if successful. To interest Government officials at
Washington in the work among these freedmen, Mr. Pierce, at the
suggestion of Secretary Chase, called, February 15, 1862, upon the
President, who seemed rather annoyed at the visit, and, after listening
a few moments, said somewhat impatiently that he did not think he ought
to be troubled with such details; that “there seemed to be an itching to
get negroes into our lines.” To this Mr. Pierce replied that the negroes
were domiciled there when the Union forces took possession. The
President then handed his visitor a card by which Mr. Chase was
authorized to give what instructions he thought judicious relative to
Port Royal contrabands.[245] This impatience Mr. Pierce explains by
saying that the President was in expectation of a personal bereavement.
This certainly accounts for the anxiety and apparent annoyance of Mr.
Lincoln, but his remark that there seemed to be an “itching” to get
negroes inside Federal lines shows that he had not yet deliberately
considered the novel case of abandoned slaves; abandoned masters had
hitherto claimed his attention. Though slowly, as it may have appeared
to radical members of his own party, the President was surely
approaching the great question, and on March 6, 1862, sent to Congress a
message which recommended the adoption, and even proposed the form, of a
joint resolution declaring:
That the United States ought to coöperate with any State which may
adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary
aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for
the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of
system.[246]
As one of the most efficient means of self-preservation it was
recommended by the Executive to the coördinate branch of Government; for
to deprive the cotton States of the hope of being joined by the border
States would, he said, “substantially end the rebellion; and the
initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the
States initiating it. The point is not that all the States tolerating
slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that
while the offer is equally made to all, the more Northern shall, by such
initiation, make it certain to the more Southern that in no event will
the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy.” Gradual
emancipation he believed better for all concerned. The current
expenditures of the war would soon purchase, at a fair valuation, all
the slaves in any named State. However, it was proposed as a matter of
perfectly free choice. “In the annual message, last December,” continued
the President, “I thought fit to say, ‘the Union must be preserved, and
hence all indispensable means must be employed.’ I said this not
hastily, but deliberately. War has been made and continues to be an
indispensable means to this end. A practical re-acknowledgment of the
national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it would at
once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war must also
continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which may
attend and all the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem
indispensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency, toward ending
the struggle, must and will come.”
The message inquired “whether the pecuniary consideration tendered would
not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned than
are the institution and property in it, in the present aspect of
affairs?”[247]
This was really a great step in advance; by many it was regarded as a
direct and positive interference with the domestic institutions of the
States; it was certainly a preliminary movement to get rid of slavery.
The deliberate opinion of the Delaware Legislature has already been
noticed.
Easily distinguished in principle from the opposition in Delaware were
the sentiments expressed in Virginia when the equitable and generous
proposal of the President came up for consideration in the Richmond
Legislature. Mr. Collier submitted to that body a preamble and
resolution relative to the proposition. In the former it was said that
negro slaves having been the property of their masters for two hundred
and forty years, by use and custom at first, and subsequently by
recognition of the public law, ought not to be, and could not justly be,
interfered with in such property relation by the State, by “the people
in convention assembled to alter an existing constitution, or to form
one for admission into the confederacy, nor by the representatives of
the people of the State in the Confederate Legislature, nor by any means
or mode which the popular majority might adopt; and that the State,
whilst remaining republican in the structure of its government, can
lawfully get rid of that species of property, if ever, only by the free
consent of the individual owners.” For the State to deprive an
individual of this species of property would contravene the
indispensable principles of free government. This view, as further
explained by its author, denied the power of even a majority, in making
a new State constitution, to disturb a preëxisting and resident
property.[248]
Three days after sending his recommendation to Congress, the President
wrote privately to Henry J. Raymond, editor of the _New York Times_:
I am grateful to the New York journals and not less so to the
“Times” than to others, for their kind notices of the late special
message to Congress.
Your paper, however, intimates that the proposition, though well
intentioned, must fail on the score of expense. I do hope you will
reconsider this. Have you noticed the facts that less than one-half
day’s cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at
$400 per head—that eighty-seven days’ cost of this war would pay for
all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and
Missouri at the same price? Were those States to take the step, do
you doubt that it would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days,
and thus be an actual saving of expense?
Please look at these things and consider whether there should not be
another article in the “Times.”[249]
By his request those Congressmen from the border States then in
Washington called, March 10, on Mr. Lincoln, who explained that his
recent message was not inimical to the interests they represented. In
the progress of the war, slaves would come into camps and continual
irritation be thus maintained. In the border States that condition kept
alive a feeling of hostility to the Government. He told them further
“that emancipation was a subject exclusively under the control of the
States, and must be adopted or rejected by each for itself.”[250]
Relative to this interview a memorandum of the Hon. John W. Crisfield,
one of the Maryland Representatives present, contains the following
entry: “He [the President] was constantly annoyed by conflicting and
antagonistic complaints; on the one side a certain class complained if
the slave was not protected by the army; persons were frequently found
who, participating in these views, acted in a way unfriendly to the
slave-holder; on the other hand, slaveholders complained that their
rights were interfered with, their slaves induced to abscond and
protected within the lines; these complaints were numerous, loud and
deep; were a serious annoyance to him and embarrassing to the progress
of the war ... [they] strengthened the hopes of the Confederates that at
some day the border States would unite with them, and thus tend to
prolong the war; and he was of opinion, if this resolution should be
adopted by Congress and accepted by our [the border slaveholding]
States, these causes of irritation and these hopes would be removed, and
more would be accomplished toward shortening the war than could be hoped
from the greatest victory achieved by Union armies; ... that he did not
claim nor had this Government any right to coerce them” to accept the
proposition.
To Mr. Noell’s remark that the _New York Tribune_ favored the measure
and understood it to mean that gradual emancipation must be accepted or
the border States would get something worse, the President replied that
he must not be expected to quarrel with that journal before the right
time; he hoped never to have to do it. The message having said that “all
indispensable means must be employed” to preserve the Union, Mr.
Crisfield inquired pointedly, what would be the effect of the refusal of
a State to accept this proposal. Did the President, he asked, look “to
any policy beyond the acceptance or rejection of this scheme.” Mr.
Lincoln candidly replied that he had “no designs beyond the action of
the States on this particular subject,” though he should lament their
refusal to accept it. Mr. Crisfield said “he did not think the people of
Maryland looked upon slavery as a permanent institution; and he did not
know that they would be very reluctant to give it up if provision was
made to meet the loss and they could be rid of the race; but they did
not like to be coerced into emancipation, either by the direct action of
the Government or by indirection, as through the emancipation of slaves
in this District, or the confiscation of Southern property as now
threatened; and he thought before they would consent to consider this
proposition they would require to be informed on these points.” The
President answered that “unless he was expelled by the act of God or the
Confederate armies, he should occupy that house for three years; and as
long as he remained there Maryland had nothing to fear either for her
institutions or her interests on the points referred to.” Representative
Crisfield immediately added: “Mr. President, if what you now say could
be heard by the people of Maryland, they would consider your proposition
with a much better feeling than I fear without it they will be inclined
to do.” To this Mr. Lincoln said that a publication of his sentiments
would not do; it would force him before the proper time into a quarrel
which was impending with the Greeley faction. This he desired to
postpone, or, if possible, altogether to avoid.
To an objection of Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, he said that the
resolution proposed would be considered rather as the expression of a
sentiment than as involving any constitutional question. He did not know
how the project was received by the members from the free States; some
of them had spoken to him and received it kindly; but for the most part
they were as reserved and chary as the border State delegations; he
could not tell how they would vote.[251]
To James A. McDougall, of California, who was making some opposition in
the Senate, he sent, March 14, this private communication while the
resolution was still pending:
As to the expensiveness of gradual emancipation with the plan of
compensation, proposed in the late message, please allow me one or
two brief suggestions.
Less than one half day’s cost of this war would pay for all the
slaves in Delaware at four hundred dollars per head.
Thus, all the slaves in Delaware by the census of 1860, 1,798
are....
400
—————————
Cost of slaves $719,200
One day’s cost of the war 2,000,000
=========
Again, less than eighty-seven days’ cost of this war would, at the
same price, pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia,
Kentucky, and Missouri.
Thus, slaves in Delaware 1,798
Maryland 87,188
District of Columbia 3,181
Kentucky 225,490
Missouri 114,965
————————————
432,622
400
————————————
Cost of slaves $173,048,800
Eighty-seven days’ cost of war 174,000,000
============
Do you doubt that taking the initiatory steps on the part of those
States and this District would shorten the war more than
eighty-seven days, and thus be an actual saving of expense?
A word as to the time and manner of incurring the expense. Suppose,
for instance, a State devises and adopts a system by which the
institution absolutely ceases therein by a named day—say January 1,
1882. Then let the sum to be paid to such a State by the United
States be ascertained by taking from the census of 1860 the number
of slaves within the State, and multiplying the number by four
hundred—the United States to pay such sums to the State in twenty
equal annual installments, in six per cent. bonds of the United
States.
The sum thus given, as to time and manner, I think, would not be
half as onerous as would be an equal sum raised now for the
indefinite prosecution of the war; but of this you can judge as well
as I. I enclose a census table for your convenience.[252]
On the same day of the conference with the border State delegations,
March 10, the resolution, in precisely the language suggested by the
President, was introduced by Roscoe Conkling, and on the following day
by a vote of 89 to 31 passed the House.[253] The Senate by 32 yeas to 10
nays took favorable action upon it on the 2d of April succeeding.[254]
It is important to notice that at this time, March, 1862, the Government
set up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with
slavery within the limits of a State; also that public opinion in the
North had advanced to the position occupied by Representative McKean
more than a year before, when he introduced into Congress his resolution
for compensated emancipation.[255]
At a session, May 28, 1862, of the Union Convention of Baltimore its
Business Committee reported a series of resolutions which were adopted
unanimously, among them one approving the wise and conservative policy
proposed by the President in his message of March 6; that it was not
only the duty but the interest of the loyal people of Maryland to accept
the offer of pecuniary aid tendered by the Government to inaugurate an
equitable plan of emancipation and colonization.[256] This was the dawn
of emancipation in Maryland.
The President approved, April 16, six days after the passage of his
cherished measure, an act prohibiting slavery and liberating slaves in
the District of Columbia. It included both compensation to owners and
the principle of colonization.[257]
Shortly before its passage, April 17, a resolution was favorably
considered by the House to appoint a committee of nine empowered to
report whether any plan could be proposed and recommended for the
gradual emancipation of all African slaves and the extinction of slavery
in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri by the
people or local authorities thereof, and how far and in what way the
United States could and ought equitably to aid in facilitating either of
the above objects. This measure was adopted by a vote of 67 to 52, and
one week later a committee was appointed by the Speaker.
General Hunter by an order of April 25 had extended martial law over
South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Two weeks later he proclaimed
persons in those States heretofore held as slaves forever free. “Slavery
and martial law in a free country” he declared “altogether
incompatible.” The President in his proclamation of May 19, 1862,
rescinding this order once more reveals his sentiments on the slavery
question. The act of the Department commander, he said, was wholly
unauthorized. The document continues: “I further make known that,
whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and
navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether, at
any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to
the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are
questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which
I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the
field.”[258]
Mr. Lincoln took this opportunity to point out to those most nearly
concerned the unmistakable signs of the times, and earnestly appealed to
them to embrace the offer of compensated abolishment, quoting upon that
subject the joint resolution of Congress. The order of General Hunter,
so far as it concerned the President, could have been dismissed by its
disavowal; but he went farther: he not only took advantage of this
occasion earnestly to urge upon the border States very serious
consideration of the principle of compensated emancipation, but he
raised, without pausing to discuss it, the question of his right as
Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy to declare the freedom of slaves
within the limits of a State should such a measure become indispensable
to the maintenance of the Union.
For refusing to employ his regiment in returning fugitive slaves of
disloyal masters, Colonel Paine, of the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteers, was
placed under arrest in the summer of 1862; about the same time
Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony was similarly disciplined both for refusing
permission to search his camp and for ordering the arrest of those
hunting for slaves.[259]
Instructions from the War Department, dated July 22, and applying to all
the States in rebellion except South Carolina and Tennessee, authorized
the employment as laborers of so many persons of African descent as the
military and naval commanders could use to advantage, and the payment of
reasonable wages for their labor.[260]
On May 12, 1862, Representative Lovejoy proposed a bill, a substitute
for one previously reported by him and introduced by Mr. Isaac N.
Arnold:
To the end that freedom may be and remain forever the fundamental
law of the land in all places whatsoever, so far as it lies within
the powers or depends upon the action of the Government of the
United States to make it so: Therefore,
_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled_, That slavery or
involuntary servitude, in all cases whatsoever (other than in the
punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted) shall henceforth cease, and be prohibited forever in all
the Territories of the United States, now existing, or hereafter to
be formed or acquired in any way.[261]
This measure passed by 85 yeas to 50 nays. In the Senate, June 9, it was
reported amended by inserting this substitute: “That from and after the
passage of this act there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in any of the Territories of the United States now existing,
or which may at any time hereafter be formed or acquired by the United
States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted.” In this form it passed by a vote of 28 to 10
and the House concurred by 72 yeas to 38 nays.[262]
Charles Sumner, writing June 5, 1862, to a correspondent who was
impatient at what seemed the short-comings of the President, says:
Your criticism of the President is hasty. I am confident that, if
you knew him as I do, you would not make it.
Of course, the President cannot be held responsible for all the
misfeasances of subordinates, unless adopted or at least tolerated
by him. And I am sure that nothing unjust or ungenerous will be
tolerated, much less adopted, by him.
I am happy to let you know that he has no sympathy with Stanly in
his absurd wickedness, closing the schools, nor again in his other
act of turning our camp into a hunting ground for slaves. He
repudiates both—positively. The latter point has occupied much of
his thought; and the newspapers have not gone too far in recording
his repeated declarations, which I have often heard from his own
lips, that slaves finding their way into the national lines are
never to be re-enslaved. This is his conviction, expressed without
reserve.
Could you have seen the President—as it was my privilege often—while
he was considering the great questions on which he has already
acted—the invitation to emancipation in the States, emancipation in
the District of Columbia, and the acknowledgment of the independence
of Hayti and Liberia—even your zeal would have been satisfied, for
you would have felt the sincerity of his purpose to do what he could
to carry forward the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
His whole soul was occupied, especially by the first proposition,
which was peculiarly his own. In familiar intercourse with him, I
remember nothing more touching than the earnestness and completeness
with which he embraced this idea. To his mind, it was just and
beneficent while it promised the sure end of slavery. Of course, to
me who had already proposed a bridge of gold for the retreating
fiend, it was most welcome. Proceeding from the President, it must
take its place among the great events of history.
* * * * *
I wish that you really knew the President, and had heard the artless
expression of his convictions on these questions which concern you
so deeply. You might, perhaps, wish that he were less cautious, but
you would be grateful that he is so true to all that you have at
heart. Believe me, therefore, you are wrong, and I regret it the
more because of my desire to see all our friends stand firmly
together.[263]
The President requested and obtained, July 12, 1862, an interview with
the border State delegations. The near adjournment of Congress would
deprive him of an opportunity of seeing them for several months. He
believed they held more power for good than any other equal number of
members, and felt that the duty of making an appeal to them could not be
waived. This he did by reading a carefully prepared paper.
The Confederate States, he said, would cling to the hope of an ultimate
union with the border States as long as they perpetuated the institution
of slavery. If the members had supported his plan of gradual
emancipation in the preceding March the rebellion would now, 1862, be
substantially ended.
Looking to the stern facts in the case he inquired whether they could do
better for their States than to follow the course which he urged. If the
war continued long, the institution “will be extinguished by mere
friction and abrasion,”—by the incidents of war much of its value was
already gone. He did not speak of immediate emancipation, “but of a
decision at once to emancipate gradually.” Room for colonization could
be procured in South America ample and cheap enough. When their numbers
increased sufficiently to be company for one another the freed people
would not be so reluctant to go. His repudiation of General Hunter’s
proclamation had given offence to some whose support the Government
could not afford to lose. The pressure from such persons was still upon
him and the Congressmen from the border slave States could relieve him
and the country. He begged them to reexamine his message of March 6, and
commend it to the consideration of their constituents. The peril of
their common country demanded the loftiest views and the boldest action
if they desired to perpetuate popular government.[264]
It was represented to him, in a conversation which followed this appeal,
that the resolution of Congress, being no more than an expression of
sentiment, could not be regarded by them as a basis for substantial
action. Mr. Lincoln admitted that, as a condition of taking into
consideration a proposition so nearly affecting their social system, the
border slave States were entitled to expect a substantial pledge of
pecuniary aid.
It was further represented at this conference that the people of the
border States were interested in knowing the great importance which Mr.
Lincoln attached to the policy in question, while it was equally due to
the country, to the President and to themselves that they should
publicly announce the motives under which they were called to act, and
the considerations of public policy urged upon them and their
constituents. With a view to such a statement of their position the
members met in council to deliberate on the reply they should make, and
two days later the majority sent the following paper to the President:
“The undersigned ... have listened to your address with the profound
sensibility naturally inspired by the high source from which it
emanates, the earnestness which marked its delivery, and the
overwhelming importance of the subject of which it treats. We have given
it our most respectful consideration, and now lay before you our
response....
“... Repudiating the dangerous heresies of the secessionists, we
believed, with you, that the war on their part is aggressive and wicked,
and the objects for which it was to be prosecuted on ours, defined by
your message at the opening of the present Congress, to be such as all
good men should approve. We have not hesitated to vote all supplies
necessary to carry it on vigorously....”
This support, continues the response, was yielded “in the face of
measures most distasteful to us and injurious to the interests we
represent, and in the hearing of doctrines, avowed by those who claim to
be your friends, [which] must be abhorrent to us and our constituents.”
The greater number of them did not, however, vote for the measure
recommended in his message of March 6, and they proceeded to state the
principal reasons which influenced their action. First, it proposed a
radical change in their social system; it was hurried through both
Houses with undue haste; and was passed without any opportunity whatever
for consultation with their constituents, whose interests it deeply
involved. “It seemed,” said the majority, “like an interference by this
Government with a question which peculiarly and exclusively belonged to
our respective States, on which they had not sought advice or solicited
aid. Many of us doubted the constitutional power of this Government to
make appropriations of money for the object designated, and all of us
thought our finances were in no condition to bear the immense outlay
which its adoption and faithful execution would impose upon the national
Treasury. If we pause but a moment to think of the debt its acceptance
would have entailed, we are appalled by its magnitude. The proposition
was addressed to all the States and embraced the whole number of
slaves.”
The census of 1860 showed a slave population of nearly 4,000,000; from
natural increase the number in 1862 exceeded that. “At even the low
average of $300, the price fixed by the emancipation act for the slaves
of this District, and greatly below their real worth, their value runs
up to the enormous sum of $1,200,000,000; and if to that we add the cost
of deportation and colonization, at $100 each, which is but a fraction
more than is actually paid by the Maryland Colonization Society, we have
$400,000,000 more. They were not willing nor could the country bear a
tax sufficient to pay the interest on that sum in addition to the vast
and daily increasing debt already fixed upon them by the exigencies of
the war. The proposition is nothing less than the deportation from the
country of $1,600,000,000 worth of producing labor and the substitution
of an interest-bearing debt of the same amount. Even if it were expected
that only the border States would accept the proposition, that involved
a sum too great for the financial ability of the Government at this
time. The total number of slaves in those States according to the late
census was 1,196,112. The same rate of valuation with expenses of
deportation and colonization gives the enormous sum of $478,038,133.
“We did not feel that we should be justified in voting for a measure
which, if carried out, would add this vast amount to our public debt at
a moment when the Treasury was reeling under the enormous expenditure of
the war.”
To them the resolution seemed no more than the enunciation of a
sentiment. “No movement was then made to provide and appropriate the
funds required to carry it into effect; and we were not encouraged to
believe that funds would be provided. And our belief has been fully
justified by subsequent events. Not to mention other circumstances, it
is quite sufficient for our purpose to bring to your notice the fact
that, while this resolution was under consideration in the Senate our
colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, moved an amendment appropriating
$500,000 to the object therein designated, and it was voted down with
great unanimity. What confidence, then, could we reasonably feel that if
we committed ourselves to the policy it proposed, our constituents would
reap the fruits of the promise held out; and on what ground could we, as
fair men, approach them and challenge their support?”
They denied that if, as the President alleged, they had supported the
resolution of March 6, the war would be substantially ended, and they
added, “The resolution has passed and if there be virtue in it, it will
be quite as efficacious as if we had voted for it.”
The war, they asserted, was prolonged not by reason of their conduct,
but because of the union of all classes in the South. Those who wished
to break down national independence and set up State domination, the
State-rights party, could not be reconciled; but the large class who
believed their domestic interests had been assailed by the Government
might be if only they were convinced “that no harm is intended to them
and their institutions,” but that the Government was simply defending
its legitimate authority.
“Twelve months ago,” adds this response, “both Houses of Congress,
adopting the spirit of your message, then but recently sent in, declared
with singular unanimity the objects of the war, and the country
instantly bounded to your side to assist you in carrying it on. If the
spirit of that resolution had been adhered to, we are confident that we
should before now have seen the end of this deplorable conflict. But
what have we seen?
“In both Houses of Congress we have heard doctrines subversive of the
principles of the Constitution, and seen measure after measure founded
in substance on those doctrines proposed and carried through which can
have no other effect than to distract and divide loyal men, and
exasperate and drive still further from us and their duty the people of
the rebellious States. Military officers, following these bad examples,
have stepped beyond the just limits of their authority in the same
direction, until in several instances you have felt the necessity of
interfering to arrest them.... The effect of these measures was
foretold, and may now be seen in the indurated state of Southern
feeling.”
To these causes, and not to the failure of the border delegations to
support the measure, they attributed the terrible earnestness of those
in arms against the Government. Nor was the institution of slavery the
source of insurgent strength, but rather the apprehension that the
powers of a common Government would be wielded against the institutions
of the Southern States.
The reply concludes: “If Congress, by proper and necessary legislation,
shall provide sufficient funds and place them at your disposal, to be
applied by you to the payment of any of our States or the citizens
thereof who shall adopt the abolishment of slavery, either gradual or
immediate, as they may determine, and the expense of deportation and
colonization of the liberated slaves, then will our State[s] and people
take this proposition into careful consideration, for such decision as
in their judgment is demanded by their interest, their honor, and their
duty to the whole country.”[265]
The minority, seven in number, in their reply of the 15th declared
themselves ready to make any sacrifice to save the Government and the
institutions of their fathers, and promised to ask the people of their
States calmly, deliberately and fairly to consider the recommendations
of the President; they were encouraged to assume this position because
the leaders of the rebellion had offered to abolish slavery among them
as a condition of foreign intervention in favor of their independence as
a nation.[266]
Horace Maynard, though not representing a border State proper, expressed
his approval of the President’s policy and stated the physical
impossibility of submitting to the consideration of his people that or
any other proposition until Tennessee had first been freed from hostile
arms.[267]
A fourth paper submitted to the President was that of Senator J. B.
Henderson, of Missouri, who had cheerfully supported the measure at the
time of its introduction; he believed the proposition would have
received the approbation of a large majority of the border State
delegations if they could have foreseen that the war would have been
protracted a twelvemonth and had felt assured that the dominant party in
Congress would, like the President, be as prompt in practical action as
they had been in the expression of a sentiment. “In this period of the
nation’s distress,” says Senator Henderson, “I know of no human
institution too sacred for discussion; no material interest belonging to
the citizen that he should not willingly place upon the altar of his
country, if demanded by the public good.”[268]
Mr. Henderson did not agree with the opinion of the President that “the
war would now be substantially ended” had the members from the border
States supported the measure in the preceding March. Personally he was
favorable to the proposition, but remembered that he was the servant not
the master of the people of Missouri.
To the sudden and unexpected collapse of McClellan’s Richmond campaign
has been ascribed the determination of President Lincoln to adopt
general military emancipation so much sooner than he otherwise would
have done. The great and decisive element of military strength in the
slave population which he saw so clearly a little later could not even
then, June and July, 1862, have been altogether concealed from his keen
insight into affairs. His personal appeal to the border Congressmen was
made July 12; the result of that conference he easily anticipated. Nor
was the receipt of their written replies necessary to inform him that
his offer would be rejected. So much he could readily collect from their
oral objections and verbal criticisms. The decision to give notice of
his intention to issue a proclamation concerning slavery was probably
made within a few hours after he had assured Mr. Crisfield that the
emancipation policy extended no farther than to a refusal of the border
States to accept his tender of pecuniary aid to any commonwealth
voluntarily adopting the plan of gradual abolishment. However this may
be, he confided on the following day, July 13, 1862, to Secretaries
Seward and Welles his intention to emancipate slaves by proclamation if
their masters did not cease to make war on the Government. From the
diary of the latter, we learn under what circumstances this important
communication was made.
President Lincoln [writes Mr. Welles] invited me to accompany him in
his carriage to the funeral of an infant child of Mr. Stanton.
Secretary Seward and Mrs. Frederick Seward were also in the
carriage. Mr. Stanton occupied at that time, for a summer residence,
the house of a naval officer, some two or three miles west or
northwesterly of Georgetown. It was on this occasion and on this
ride that he first mentioned to Mr. Seward and myself the subject of
emancipating the slaves by proclamation in case the rebels did not
cease to persist in their war on the Government and the Union, of
which he saw no evidence. He dwelt earnestly on the gravity,
importance, and delicacy of the movement; said he had given it much
thought, and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military
necessity, absolutely essential for the salvation of the nation,
that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued, etc., etc.
This was, he said, the first occasion where he had mentioned the
subject to any one, and wished us to frankly state how the
proposition struck us. Mr. Seward said the subject involved
consequences so vast and momentous that he should wish to bestow on
it mature reflection before giving a decisive answer; but his
present opinion inclined to the measure as justifiable, and perhaps
he might say expedient and necessary. These were also my views. Two
or three times on that ride the subject, which was of course an
absorbing one for each and all, was adverted to, and before
separating, the President desired us to give the subject special and
deliberate attention, for he was earnest in the conviction that
something must be done. It was a new departure for the President,
for until this time, in all our previous interviews, whenever the
question of emancipation or the mitigation of slavery had been in
any way alluded to, he had been prompt and emphatic in denouncing
any interference by the General Government with the subject. This
was, I think, the sentiment of every member of the Cabinet, all of
whom, including the President, considered it a local domestic
question appertaining to the States respectively, who had never
parted with their authority over it. But the reverses before
Richmond, and the formidable power and dimensions of the
insurrection, which extended through all the slave States and had
combined most of them in a confederacy to destroy the Union,
impelled the Administration to adopt extraordinary measures to
preserve the national existence. The slaves, if not armed and
disciplined, were in the service of those who were, not only as
field laborers and producers, but thousands of them were in
attendance upon the armies in the field, employed as waiters and
teamsters, and the fortifications and intrenchments were constructed
by them.[269]
The session of Congress was drawing to a close, but before adjournment
the Confiscation Act, passed July 17, 1862, was approved by the
President. This with kindred laws increased the number of forfeitures of
title to slaves for the crimes of treason and rebellion. These penalties
were by him considered just and their imposition constitutional.
Within five days after the adjournment of Congress the President, July
21, 1862, reached his final conclusions on the subject of emancipation.
The diary of Secretary Chase contains the following record:
[Having received notice of a Cabinet meeting, Mr. Chase says:] I
went to the President’s at the appointed hour and found that he was
profoundly concerned at the present aspect of affairs, and had
determined to take some definite steps in respect to military action
and slavery. He had prepared several orders, the first of which
contemplated authority to commanders to subsist their troops in the
hostile territory; the second, authority to employ negroes as
laborers; the third, requiring that both in case of property taken
and negroes employed, accounts should be kept with such degree of
certainty as would enable compensation to be made in proper cases.
Another provided for the colonization of negroes in some tropical
country.
A good deal of discussion took place upon these points. The first
order was unanimously approved. The second was also unanimously
approved; and the third by all except myself. I doubted the
expediency of attempting to keep accounts for the benefit of
inhabitants of rebel States. The colonization project was not much
discussed.
The Secretary of War presented some letters from General Hunter, in
which General Hunter advised the Department that the withdrawal of a
large proportion of his troops to reënforce General McClellan
rendered it highly important that he should be immediately
authorized to enlist all loyal persons without reference to
complexion. Mr. Stanton, Mr. Seward, and myself expressed ourselves
in favor of this plan, and no one expressed himself against it. Mr.
Blair was not present. The President was not prepared to decide the
question, but expressed himself as averse to arming negroes.[270]
This Cabinet meeting came to no final conclusion, and, as we learn from
the same source, the discussion was resumed on the following day, July
22, when the question of arming the slaves was brought up.
I advocated it warmly [writes Secretary Chase].[271] The President
was unwilling to adopt this measure, but proposed to issue a
proclamation on the basis of the Confiscation Bill, calling upon the
States to return to their allegiance—warning rebels that the
provisions of the act would have full force at the expiration of
sixty days—adding, on his own part, a declaration of his intention
to renew, at the next session of Congress, his recommendation of
compensation to States adopting gradual abolishment of slavery—and
proclaiming the emancipation of all slaves within States remaining
in insurrection on the first day of January, 1863.[272]
Mr. Chase promised the measure his cordial support, but preferred that
no new expression on the subject of compensation be made at that time.
Secretary Chase, in the diary mentioned, says: “The impression left upon
my mind by the whole discussion was, that, while the President thought
that the organization, equipment, and arming of negroes, like other
soldiers, would be productive of more evil than good, he was not
unwilling that commanders should, at their discretion, arm for purely
defensive purposes, slaves coming within their lines.”[273] On the
kindred policy of emancipation, however, the President had reached a
definite conclusion which was in advance of the opinions entertained by
even the most radical members of his Cabinet. When, therefore, he read
to them, on July 22, his draft of an emancipation proclamation they were
for the most part taken completely by surprise. This momentous document
deserves to be reproduced entire.
In pursuance of the sixth section of the act of Congress entitled
“An act to suppress insurrection and to punish treason and
rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other
purposes,” approved July 17, 1862, and which act and the joint
resolution explanatory thereof are herewith published, I, Abraham
Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and
warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to
cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the
existing rebellion, or any rebellion, against the Government of the
United States, and to return to their proper allegiance to the
United States, on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and
by said sixth section provided.
And I hereby make known that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting
of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure
for tendering pecuniary aid to the free choice or rejection of any
and all States which may then be recognizing and practically
sustaining the authority of the United States, and which may then
have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt,
gradual abolishment of slavery within such State or States; that the
object is to practically restore, thenceforward to be maintained,
the constitutional relation between the General Government and each
and all the States wherein that relation is now suspended or
disturbed; and that for this object the war, as it has been, will be
prosecuted. And as a fit and necessary military measure for
effecting this object, I as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy
of the United States, do order and declare that on the first day of
January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or States
wherein the constitutional authority of the United States shall not
then be practically recognized, submitted to, and maintained, shall
then, thenceforward, and forever be free.[274]
The diary of Secretary Chase, as well as the President’s endorsement on
his draft, shows the emancipation proclamation to have been read to the
Cabinet July 22, 1862. Various suggestions were offered; but except an
objection of Secretary Seward they had all been fully anticipated by Mr.
Lincoln and settled in his own mind. Secretary Seward said: “Mr.
President, I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency
of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind,
consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear the
effect of so important a step. It may be viewed as the last measure of
an exhausted Government, a cry for help; the Government stretching forth
its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to
the Government.”
Speaking afterwards of this incident, Mr. Lincoln said: “Seward’s idea
was ‘that it would be considered our last _shriek_ on the retreat. Now,’
added Mr. Seward, ‘while I approve the measure, I suggest, sir, that you
postpone its issue, until you can give it to the country supported by
military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon
the greatest disasters of the war!’ The wisdom of this view,” said Mr.
Lincoln in recalling the occasion, “struck me with very great force. It
was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I
had entirely overlooked. The result was that I put the draft of the
proclamation aside, as you do your sketch for a picture, waiting for a
victory.”[275]
Instead of the proclamation so carefully discussed, a short one was
published three days later, of which the most important part is as
follows:
In pursuance of the sixth section of the act of Congress entitled
“An act to suppress insurrection and to punish treason and
rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for
other purposes,” approved July 17, 1862, and which act, and the
joint resolution explanatory thereof, are herewith published, I,
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim
to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth
section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or
abetting the existing rebellion, or any rebellion, against the
Government of the United States, and to return to their proper
allegiance to the United States, on pain of the forfeitures and
seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.[276]
This warning was required by the sixth section of the act mentioned.
During the following month President Lincoln waited patiently for
tidings of some unquestioned success that would justify the publication
of his proclamation, but when instead he received in the closing days of
August intelligence of the second disaster at Manassas his anxiety must
have become intense. This victory, together with the succession of
others recently attending Confederate arms, encouraged General Lee’s
invasion of Maryland. An army, notwithstanding its late reverses, still
formidable in numbers and once more thoroughly reorganized marched
leisurely from the vicinity of Washington to locate and destroy him.
When, where or how the battle-cloud would break was uncertain. All eyes
were turned on McClellan, again in command of the Union forces and
strengthened by every soldier that could be spared from the defences of
the Federal capital. It was in this state of suspense, and on the very
day, September 13, that Lee’s victorious legions entered Frederick City
that the President gave audience to a deputation from the religious
denominations of Chicago, presenting a memorial for the immediate issue
of an emancipation proclamation, which was enforced by some remarks from
the chairman. The President replied that he had for weeks past, even for
months, thought much upon the subject of their memorial.
“I am approached,” said he, “with the most opposite opinions and advice,
and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent
the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is
mistaken in that belief, and perhaps, in some respect, both. I hope it
will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God
would reveal His will to others, on a point so connected with my duty,
it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am
more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know
the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I
will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose
it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must
study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible,
and learn what appears to be wise and right.”
The difficulties of the subject and the impossibility of even
anti-slavery men, in or out of Congress, agreeing upon any measure of
emancipation were then referred to. However, he would discuss the merits
of the case and asked pointedly:
“What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially
as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a document that the whole
world will see must necessarily be inoperative.... Would my word free
the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel
States? Is there a single court, or magistrate, or individual that would
be influenced by it there?”
He admitted to his visitors, however, that he raised no objections to
such a proclamation as they desired on legal or on constitutional
grounds; for, continued he, “as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy,
in time of war I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may
best subdue the enemy, nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, in
view of possible consequences of insurrection and massacre at the South.
I view this matter as a practical war measure, to be decided on
according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the
suppression of the rebellion.”
The committee replied, and the President added, “I admit that slavery is
at the root of the rebellion.... I will also concede that emancipation
would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by
something more than ambition. I grant, further, that it would help
somewhat at the North, though not so much, I fear, as you and those you
represent imagine.... Unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by
drawing off their laborers, which is of great importance; but I am not
so sure we could do much with the blacks.”[277] The President, too,
called attention to the fact that the border slave States had 50,000
bayonets in the Union army. It would be a serious matter if in
consequence of such a proclamation they should go over to the South. In
conclusion he said that he had not decided against a proclamation of
liberty to the slaves, but held the matter under advisement and assured
them that the subject was on his mind by day and by night more than any
other.
It was currently reported among anti-slavery men in Illinois that the
emancipation proclamation was extorted from the President by the
pressure of such delegations as this from the Christian Convention.[278]
To determine how little foundation there is for this opinion it is only
necessary to recall what had occurred in the Cabinet on July 22
preceding.
The repulse of Lee’s veterans at Antietam, September 17, 1862, raised
somewhat the hopes of the President. On the 19th General McClellan
telegraphed an account of his victory, and Mr. Lincoln three days later
announced his intention to issue the postponed proclamation.
All the Cabinet members, having been summoned by messenger from the
State Department, were in attendance at the White House on September 22,
1862. After some talk of a general nature, and the reading by Mr.
Lincoln of a humorous chapter from a book by Artemus Ward, the
conversation assumed a more serious tone. What subsequently transpired
on that eventful occasion we learn from the following record in the
diary of Secretary Chase:
“Gentlemen, [said the President] I have, as you are aware, thought a
great deal about the relation of this war to slavery, and you all
remember that, several weeks ago, I read to you an order I had
prepared upon the subject, which, on account of objections made by
some of you, was not issued. Ever since then my mind has been much
occupied with this subject, and I have thought all along that the
time for acting on it might probably come. I think the time has come
now. I wish it was a better time. I wish that we were in a better
condition. The action of the army against the rebels has not been
quite what I should have best liked. But they have been driven out
of Maryland, and Pennsylvania is no longer in danger of invasion.
When the rebel army was at Frederick I determined, as soon as it
should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of
emancipation, such as I thought most likely to be useful. I said
nothing to any one, but I made a promise to myself and [hesitating a
little] to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am
going to fulfill that promise. I have got you together to hear what
I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main
matter, for that I have determined for myself. This I say without
intending anything but respect for any one of you. But I already
know the views of each on this question. They have been heretofore
expressed, and I have considered them as thoroughly and as carefully
as I can. What I have written is that which my reflections have
determined me to say. If there is anything in the expressions I use
or in any minor matter which any one of you thinks had best be
changed, I shall be glad to receive your suggestions. One other
observation I will make. I know very well that many others might, in
this matter as in others, do better than I can; and if I was
satisfied that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any
one of them than by me, and knew of any constitutional way in which
he could be put in my place, he should have it. I would gladly yield
it to him. But though I believe that I have not so much of the
confidence of the people as I had some time since, I do not know
that, all things considered, any other person has more; and, however
this may be, there is no way in which I can have any other man put
where I am. I am here. I must do the best I can, and bear the
responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take.”
The President then proceeded to read his Emancipation Proclamation,
making remarks on the several parts as he went on, and showing that
he had fully considered the subject in all the lights under which it
had been presented to him.
After he had closed, Governor Seward said: “The general question
having been decided, nothing can be said further about that. Would
it not, however, make the proclamation more clear and decided to
leave out all reference to the act being sustained during the
incumbency of the present President; and not merely say that the
Government _recognises_, but that it will maintain the freedom it
proclaims?”
I followed, saying: “What you have said, Mr. President, fully
satisfies me that you have given to every proposition which has been
made a kind and candid consideration. And you have now expressed the
conclusion to which you have arrived clearly and distinctly. This it
was your right, and, under your oath of office, your duty to do. The
proclamation does not, indeed, mark out the course I would myself
prefer; but I am ready to take it just as it is written and to stand
by it with all my heart. I think, however, the suggestions of
Governor Seward very judicious, and shall be glad to have them
adopted.”
The President then asked us severally our opinions as to the
modifications proposed, saying that he did not care much about the
phrases he had used. Every one favored the modification, and it was
adopted. Governor Seward then proposed that in the passage relating
to colonization some language should be introduced to show that the
colonization proposed was to be only with the consent of the
colonists, and the consent of the states in which the colonies might
be attempted. This, too, was agreed to, and no other modification
was proposed. Mr. Blair then said that the question having been
decided, he would make no objection to issuing the proclamation; but
he would ask to have his paper, presented some days since, against
the policy, filed with the proclamation. The President consented to
this readily. And then Mr. Blair went on to say that he was afraid
of the influence of the proclamation on the border States and on the
army, and stated, at some length, the grounds of his apprehensions.
He disclaimed most expressly, however, all objections to
emancipation _per se_, saying he had always been personally in favor
of it—always ready for immediate emancipation in the midst of slave
States, rather than submit to the perpetuation of the system.[279]
The foregoing account from the diary of Secretary Chase is fully
corroborated by a narrative of Mr. Welles describing the same
event.[280] Mr. Blair, as already observed, believed the time
inopportune for issuing the proclamation and feared as a result that the
border States would go over to secession. The President, however,
thought the difficulty not to act as great as to act. There were two
sides, he said, to that question. For months he had labored to get those
States to move in this matter, convinced in his own mind that it was
their true interest to do so, but his labors were vain. “We must take
the forward movement,” he declared. “They would acquiesce, if not
immediately, soon; for they must be satisfied that slavery had received
its death-blow from slave-owners—it could not survive the
rebellion.”[281]
When the Cabinet had concluded its deliberations the document was duly
attested, the seal affixed and the President’s signature added. On the
following morning, September 23, 1862, the proclamation was published in
full by all the leading newspapers of the loyal States, where it excited
the most profound surprise. Indicating, as it does, the progress of
opinion, it was the first great landmark of the war; behind it lay the
old, before it the new order of things. The successive steps by which
Mr. Lincoln reached this position have been sketched in the present
chapter with fullness and, it is believed, with accuracy. It has been
shown how fugitive slaves escaping to the Federal lines were at first
surrendered to their masters; how soon afterward, as in the case of
General Butler’s command, they were protected by the army and employed
as laborers; how in a later stage, certain Union commanders who proposed
to confiscate slave property or to arm negroes as soldiers were gently
rebuked and their acts disavowed by the President. This forbearance,
however, was without effect on the Southern people, whose hatred was
quite as likely to ascribe it to Yankee cowardice as to Yankee
magnanimity.
With this account of the introduction into the problem of reconstruction
of a novel and very perplexing element we are prepared to examine the
various theories of State status held by those whose position and
ability made them leaders of public opinion. That subject will be more
properly discussed in a separate chapter.
-----
Footnote 213:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 209.
Footnote 214:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 1.
Footnote 215:
Addresses and Papers of Edward L. Pierce, pp. 20–25.
Footnote 216:
Addresses and Papers of E. L. Pierce, p. 26.
Footnote 217:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist. p. 244.
Footnote 218:
Ibid.
Footnote 219:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 244.
Footnote 220:
Ibid., p. 245.
Footnote 221:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 235n.
Footnote 222:
Addresses and Papers of E. L. Pierce, p. 29.
Footnote 223:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 245.
Footnote 224:
Appendix, Globe, 1 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 42.
Footnote 225:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 245.
Footnote 226:
Ibid., pp. 245–246.
Footnote 227:
General Anderson had telegraphed President Lincoln that an entire
company of Kentucky soldiers had laid down their arms upon hearing of
Fremont’s action.
Footnote 228:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 77.
Footnote 229:
Ibid., pp. 78–79.
Footnote 230:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 247–248.
Footnote 231:
Ibid., p. 248.
Footnote 232:
N. Y. Tribune, November 8, 1861.
Footnote 233:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 90.
Footnote 234:
Ibid.
Footnote 235:
Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 646.
Footnote 236:
First Annual Message, December 3, 1861. McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p.
134; Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 102–103.
Footnote 237:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 249.
Footnote 238:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 91.
Footnote 239:
See “Journal of the Senate of the State of Delaware, At a Special
Session of the General Assembly, Commenced and held at Dover, on
Monday, the 25th day of November, 1861.”
Footnote 240:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 250.
Footnote 241:
Ibid., p. 248.
Footnote 242:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 250.
Footnote 243:
Ibid.
Footnote 244:
Ibid., p. 251.
Footnote 245:
Addresses and Papers of E. L. Pierce, p. 87; also Letters and State
Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 126.
Footnote 246:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 129.
Footnote 247:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 129–130.
Footnote 248:
Ann. Cycl., 1862, pp. 799–800.
Footnote 249:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 132.
Footnote 250:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 210.
Footnote 251:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 133–135; also
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 210–211.
Footnote 252:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 137–138.
Footnote 253:
Ann. Cycl., 1862, pp. 346–347.
Footnote 254:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 1496.
Footnote 255:
See p. 143, _ante_.
Footnote 256:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 226–227.
Footnote 257:
The question of colonizing free blacks out of the United States
engaged the attention of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, who had
some correspondence on the subject at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Late in the year 1816 there was organized in the city of
Washington the “National Colonization Society,” of which the expressed
purpose was to encourage emancipation by procuring a place outside the
United States, preferably in Africa, to which free negroes could be
aided in emigrating. This, it was believed, would rid the South of its
free colored population which had already become a nuisance. Until
1830 it was warmly supported everywhere, and branches of the society
were established in nearly every State. In the South its purposes were
furthered by James Madison, by Charles Carroll and by Henry Clay.
Bushrod Washington became president of the association. Rufus King and
President Harrison were among its friends in the North.
Though Texas and Mexico were looked upon as favorable places for
locating a colony of free blacks, they were sent to the British
possession of Sierra Leone. In 1821 a permanent location was purchased
in Liberia. This settlement, with Monrovia as its capital, became
independent in 1847. The American Colonization Society attracted
little notice after the rise, about 1829–30, of those known as
immediate abolitionists.
Footnote 258:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 155.
Footnote 259:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 251.
Footnote 260:
Ibid., p. 252.
Footnote 261:
Globe, Part III., 2 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 2068.
Footnote 262:
Ibid., p. 2618. Ibid., p. 2769.
Footnote 263:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 233.
Footnote 264:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 204–205.
Footnote 265:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 214–217.
Footnote 266:
Ibid., pp. 217–218.
Footnote 267:
Ibid., p. 218.
Footnote 268:
Ibid., pp. 218–220.
Footnote 269:
Quoted in Nicolay and Hay’s Abraham Lincoln, A History. Vol. VI. p.
121 _et seq._
Footnote 270:
Schuckers’ Life of Salmon Portland Chase, pp. 439–440.
Footnote 271:
Ibid., p. 440.
Footnote 272:
Shuckers’ Life of Chase, pp. 440–441.
Footnote 273:
Ibid., p. 441.
Footnote 274:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 213.
Footnote 275:
Carpenter’s Six Months at the White House, pp. 21–22.
Footnote 276:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 214.
Footnote 277:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 231–232.
Footnote 278:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 233.
Footnote 279:
Quoted in Schuckers’ Life of Chase, pp. 453–455.
Footnote 280:
The Galaxy, December, 1872, pp. 846–847.
Footnote 281:
Ibid., p. 847.
VI
THEORIES AND PLANS OF RECONSTRUCTION
In considering the different plans of reconstruction it is not deemed
necessary to discuss further than has been done in the preceding pages
the President’s theory of State status. There, in his effort to
establish loyal governments in three of the rebellious States, as well
as in the protection and encouragement extended to reorganized Virginia,
we have seen practical applications of that theory. In his first
inaugural Mr. Lincoln said: “It is safe to assert that no government
proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination,”
and on the same occasion he added, “No State, upon its own mere motion,
can lawfully get out of the Union; that _resolves_ and _ordinances_ to
that effect are legally void.”[282] From the principles of March 4,
1861, was logically deduced the central idea of the plan announced in
December, 1863, and maintained by the President till the last hour of
his life. In his first message to Congress, submitted at the special
session beginning July 4, 1861, he again attempted to remove the fears
of those whose prejudice ascribed to the dominant political party a
purpose to interfere in the domestic concerns of the slaveholding
States. As will be seen by the following quotation he little more than
reiterated on that occasion what he had solemnly declared four months
earlier:
Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what
is to be the course of the Government towards the Southern States
_after_ the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the Executive
deems it proper to say, it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be
guided by the Constitution and the laws; and that he probably will
have no different understanding of the powers and duties of the
Federal Government relatively to the rights of the States and the
people, under the Constitution, than that expressed in the inaugural
address.
He desires to preserve the Government, that it may be administered
for all, as it was administered by the men who made it. Loyal
citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their
Government, and the Government has no right to withhold or neglect
it. It is not perceived that, in giving it, there is any coercion,
any conquest, or any subjugation, in any just sense of those
terms.[283]
The first paragraph quoted expresses his perfect confidence in a
successful conclusion of the war, and in this respect suggests the faith
of Charles Sumner, in whose private correspondence the same thought
constantly occurs. In his message the President observed also that
Virginia had allowed “this giant insurrection to make its nest within
her borders; and this Government has no choice left but to deal with it
_where_ it finds it. And it has the less regret, as the loyal citizens
have, in due form, claimed its protection. Those loyal citizens this
Government is bound to recognize, and protect, as being Virginia.”[284]
As early as June, 1861, Mr. Lincoln, on application of Governor
Pierpont, recognized the restored State of Virginia by promising
assistance to repel invasion and to suppress domestic violence; his
example was followed by both Houses of Congress: first, in the prompt
admission of Senators and Representatives from that Commonwealth, and
long afterward, when there was ample time for reflection, by consenting
to admit the new State of West Virginia, to whose separate and
independent existence the reorganized Legislature had formally assented.
The recognition of Pierpont’s government, however, involved on the
constitutional question little difference of opinion between the
President and Congress. Thus far the political departments, if not in
complete harmony, were at any rate not in conflict. This act, though it
marked no distinct Executive policy, was the occasion of some discordant
notes which will be referred to in their proper relation.
It may not be unnecessary to observe that underlying the early policy of
the President was a conviction that the rebellion was effected by a
small but treasonable faction; indeed, in the message of July 4 he
expressed his belief that, with the probable exception of South
Carolina, the disloyal were in a minority in all the seceding States.
The great mass of Southern people, it was assumed, opposed disunion, and
with Federal assistance would soon right themselves. Peaceful citizens
of that section, being regarded as still under protection of the
Constitution, were, therefore, not to be molested. The conflict waged by
the General Government was a personal war against insurgents. Leaders
who encouraged sedition and committed acts of hostility against the
United States could be tried precisely as in a consolidated state like
Great Britain, and upon conviction punished for their treason. This
attitude was not only wise, but had the additional merit of greatly
simplifying the method of restoration. It asserted further that the
rebellious States were still in the Union, and under the existing
compact could not lawfully withdraw from it; being in the Union, they
were entitled to all the rights accorded to other members of the
confederation. In brief, its essential idea was the indestructibility of
a State, and it denied that the integrity of the national domain had
been impaired or the number of States diminished by the ordinances of
secession. The General Government could properly aid the people of a
State to express their will, but, beyond what was demanded by the
exigencies of the war, could not legally exercise those powers
constitutionally reserved to the States. By the treasonable act of
levying war against the Republic the rights and franchises incident to
United States citizenship were forfeited. The power of Congress extended
no further than to a guaranty of preëxisting republican forms of
government.
To the correctness of these principles Democrats and Republicans alike
gave almost universal assent. But the war was increasing in magnitude,
and the measures adequate to the suppression of a gigantic rebellion
proved to be very different from those adapted to a local insurrection.
The President’s original intention was to overcome armed resistance to
Federal power and as speedily as possible restore the States to their
former relations. This task, however, was more easily conceived than
accomplished, and in the terrible conflict that ensued political parties
as well as individual statesmen were swept onward from point to point to
very different resting-places. From this condition resulted the great
number of theories of reconstruction presented before the end of the
rebellion.
The President early in the war adopted principles that found little
favor with conservative Democrats. His readiness to recognize the
restored State of Virginia was equivalent to a declaration that if a
majority of the people in one of the seceded States voluntarily
transferred their obedience and support to a hostile power the loyal
minority constituted the State and should govern it. In this connection
will be remembered the objections of Bayard and Saulsbury to receiving
Senators Willey and Carlile from the reorganized government of Virginia.
A further advance is indicated by Mr. Lincoln’s appointment, early in
1862, of military governors for those States that had been brought
partly within Federal military lines. After the proclamation of
September 22, 1862, and that of January 1 succeeding, the question of
restoration was left permanently out of view. If the erring States were
ever to resume their places they must first recognize the anti-slavery
legislation summarized in the preceding chapter. Hitherto the paramount
consideration with the President was a speedy restoration of former
relations; thenceforth “the Union as it was” became impossible, because
slaves liberated in the progress of the war could never be returned to a
condition of servitude. The introduction of this element greatly
increased the difficulties of a problem already sufficiently intricate.
But neither this nor any other consequence of his proclamation appears
to have been overlooked by the Executive.
The message of December 8, 1863, together with the accompanying
proclamation sketched in outline the only plan which Mr. Lincoln ever
published on the subject of reconstruction, and even to this mode of
reinstatement he did not require exact conformity, recognizing that its
modification might be demanded by inherent differences in situation
among the returning States. By its terms all persons participated in the
rebellion, except certain described classes, were promised amnesty with
restoration of property (excluding slaves and those cases of property in
which rights of third parties intervened) upon taking an oath which
pledged support of the Constitution and the Union; of the slavery
legislation enacted during the war (unless such acts were repealed by
Congress, or were modified or annulled by the Supreme Court), and
adherence to all Executive proclamations on that subject so long and so
far as not modified or declared void by the Judiciary. Whenever in any
of the rebellious States a number of persons equal to one tenth of the
voters participating in the Presidential election of 1860, who were
qualified electors under the laws existing immediately before the
ordinance of secession, should reëstablish a State government republican
in form, and not contravening this oath, it would be recognized as the
true government of that State and should receive the benefits of the
constitutional guaranty. To the emancipated race renewed assurance of
permanent freedom was given. It was also suggested that in
reorganization the political framework of the States be maintained. The
admission of members elected to Congress was a matter for the
determination of its respective Houses.
It is proper to notice in this method of reorganization, known afterward
as “the Louisiana Plan,” the absence of any provision for conferring on
the freedmen the elective franchise. In a private letter to Governor
Hahn the President had, it is true, expressed his personal preference
for including among the electors such of the colored race as had fought
gallantly in the Union ranks and also the very intelligent among
them[285]. This, however, was only an unofficial suggestion. Nor were
securities of any sort required for the future as a condition of
reinstatement.
Under this plan, which was presented as only a rallying point, Union
governments had been inaugurated in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas;
the first two participated in the Presidential election of 1864, and
before the close of the war they had all elected members to Congress.
The legality of these governments Mr. Lincoln always maintained. How
Congress regarded them will be related in succeeding chapters.
Long before the announcement of any mode of reorganization by the
Executive, members of the Legislative branch of Government had made some
efforts in this field; these, however, were for the most part tentative
and hesitant. The question had not yet been brought fairly before
Congress; indeed, it was in discussing the results and tendencies of
Presidential reconstruction that the Congressional plan, destined
ultimately to prevail, slowly assumed definitive form.
As early as December, 1861, Mr. Harlan, of Iowa, introduced into the
Senate a bill for the establishment of provisional governments for the
territory embraced by the States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee. It was referred to the
Committee on Territories, but was never reported.
More important, however, than this proposed enactment, both because of
the acknowledged position of their author and the influence which they
exerted upon the mode of reconstruction finally adopted, were the nine
resolutions offered, February 11, 1862, by Charles Sumner. These were
“declaratory of the relations between the United States and the
territory once occupied by certain States, and now usurped by pretended
governments, without constitutional or legal right.” A preamble in the
characteristic style of this celebrated statesman introduced his famous
propositions, which were as follows:
Whereas certain States, rightfully belonging to the Union of the
United States, have through their respective governments wickedly
undertaken to abjure all those duties by which their connection with
the Union was maintained; to renounce all allegiance to the
Constitution; to levy war upon the national Government; and, for the
consummation of this treason, have unconstitutionally and unlawfully
confederated together, with the declared purpose of putting an end
by force to the supremacy of the Constitution within their
respective limits; and whereas this condition of insurrection,
organized by pretended governments, openly exists in South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas,
Tennessee, and Virginia, except in Eastern Tennessee and Western
Virginia, and has been declared by the President of the United
States, in a proclamation duly made in conformity with an act of
Congress, to exist throughout this territory, with the exceptions
already named; and whereas the extensive territory thus usurped by
these pretended governments and organized into a hostile
confederation, belongs to the United States, as an inseparable part
thereof, under the sanctions of the Constitution, to be held in
trust for the inhabitants in the present and future generations, and
is so completely interlinked with the Union that it is forever
dependent thereupon; and whereas the Constitution, which is the
supreme law of the land, cannot be displaced in its rightful
operation within this territory, but must ever continue the supreme
law thereof, notwithstanding the doings of any pretended governments
acting singly or in confederation, in order to put an end to its
supremacy: Therefore:
1. _Resolved_, That any vote of secession or other act by which any
State may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the
Constitution within its territory is inoperative and void against
the Constitution, and when sustained by force it becomes a practical
_abdication_ by the State of all rights under the Constitution,
while the treason which it involves still further works an instant
_forfeiture_ of all those functions and powers essential to the
continued existence of the State as a body politic, so that from
that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive
jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State being,
according to the language of the law, _felo-de-se_, ceases to exist.
2. That any combination of men assuming to act in the place of such
State, attempting to insnare or coerce the inhabitants thereof into
a confederation hostile to the Union, is rebellious, treasonable,
and destitute of all moral authority; and that such combination is a
usurpation incapable of any constitutional existence and utterly
lawless, so that everything dependent upon it is without
constitutional or legal support.
3. That the termination of a State under the Constitution
necessarily causes the termination of those peculiar local
institutions which, having no origin in the Constitution or in those
natural rights which exist independent of the Constitution, are
upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State.
4. That slavery, being a peculiar local institution, derived from
local laws, without any origin in the Constitution or in natural
rights, is upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State,
and must therefore cease to exist legally or constitutionally when
the State on which it depends no longer exists; for the incident
cannot survive the principal.
5. That in the exercise of its exclusive jurisdiction over the
territory once occupied by the States, it is the duty of Congress to
see that the supremacy of the Constitution is maintained in its
essential principles, so that everywhere in this extensive territory
slavery shall cease to exist practically, as it has already ceased
to exist constitutionally or legally.
6. That any recognition of slavery in such territory, or any
surrender of slaves under the pretended laws of the extinct States
by any officer of the United States, civil or military, is a
recognition of the pretended governments, to the exclusion of the
jurisdiction of Congress under the Constitution, and is in the
nature of aid and comfort to the rebellion that has been organized.
7. That any such recognition of slavery or surrender of pretended
slaves, besides being a recognition of the pretended governments,
giving them aid and comfort, is a denial of the rights of persons
who, by the extinction of the States, have become free, so that,
under the Constitution, they cannot again be enslaved.
8. That allegiance from the inhabitant and protection from the
Government are corresponding obligations, dependent upon each other,
so that while the allegiance of every inhabitant of this territory,
without distinction of color or class, is due to the United States,
and cannot in any way be defeated by the action of any pretended
Government, or by any pretence of property or claim to service, the
corresponding obligation of protection is at the same time due by
the United States to every such inhabitant, without distinction of
color or class; and it follows that inhabitants held as slaves,
whose paramount allegiance is due to the United States, may justly
look to the national Government for protection.
9. That the duty directly cast upon Congress by the extinction of
the States is reinforced by the positive prohibition of the
Constitution that “no State shall enter into any Confederation,” or
“without the consent of Congress keep troops or ships-of-war in time
of peace, or enter into any agreement or compact with another
State,” or “grant letters of marque and reprisal,” or “coin money,”
or “emit bills of credit,” or “without the consent of Congress lay
any duties on imports or exports,” all of which have been done by
these pretended Governments, and also by the positive injunction of
the Constitution, addressed to the nation, that “the United States
shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of
government,” and that in pursuance of this duty cast upon Congress,
and further enjoined by the Constitution, Congress will assume
complete jurisdiction of such vacated territory where such
unconstitutional and illegal things have been attempted, and will
proceed to establish therein republican forms of government under
the Constitution; and in the execution of this trust will provide
carefully for the protection of all the inhabitants thereof; for the
security of families, the organization of labor, the encouragement
of industry, and the welfare of society, and will in every way
discharge the duties of a just, merciful and paternal
Government.[286]
Sumner, as already noticed, having confidence in the ultimate triumph of
the national cause, began early in the war to reflect on the subject of
reorganization. As might have been expected from his previous career,
his opinion of the changes that would result from rebellion inclined him
at the outset to adopt the views of the less extreme anti-slavery men.
Notwithstanding this fact, however, his scheme of reconstruction,
because of its radical and comprehensive character, caused something of
a sensation when introduced in the Senate, and disturbed the repose of
many conservative patriots outside. By leading Republicans it was
promptly disavowed as the policy of their party. These resolutions,
though never adopted or even formally discussed by Congress, colored
somewhat the final work of reconstruction. An account of the extent and
the manner in which they influenced the legislative plan belongs
properly to a consideration of the acts of March, 1867. What appeared to
be a public necessity had by that time brought many members of his party
fully abreast of Mr. Sumner.
The interval had been employed in various ways to keep his peculiar
theory before the public. A private letter to Francis Lieber, dated
March 29, 1862, shows that Sumner’s view of the measures essential to
restoration had not been modified by the discussions of a month.
“Assuming,” he says, “that our military success is complete, and that
the rebel armies are scattered, what next? Unless I am mistaken, the
most difficult thing of all,—namely, the reorganization. How shall it be
done,—by what process? What power shall set a-going the old governments?
Will the people coöperate enough to constitute self-government? I have
positive opinions here. If successful in war, we shall have then before
us the alternative: (1) Separation; or (2) subjugation of these States
with emancipation. I do not see any escape. Diplomatists here and abroad
think it will be separation. I think the latter, under my resolutions or
something like.”[287]
By a distinguished Confederate officer Sumner has been described as a
statesman who seemed over-educated, and who had retained without having
digested his learning;[288] by an admirer of his own party as wanting in
tact and practical wisdom as a legislator.[289] Though it must be
admitted that a grain of truth forms the basis of these criticisms, yet
the letter to his friend Dr. Lieber shows no lack of insight into the
events and tendencies of the times. Without anticipating a subsequent
portion of this narrative it may be observed here that if his vision did
not pierce the remote future, his knowledge and experience enabled him
to see as much of coming events as the most gifted of his
contemporaries. Writing a year later, July 21, 1863, to Hon. John
Bright, one of our few friends in England, he remarked that “so great a
revolution cannot come to a close at once.”[290] The defeat of General
Lee at Gettysburg a few weeks earlier suggested the thought that the
destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia would have precipitated on
Congress the entire question of reconstruction, and time was an
essential element in the development of Sumner’s most cherished plans.
Not only in his private correspondence and in the discussion of every
conceivable measure before Congress did he endeavor to enforce his
theory of State status, but he also published in a leading periodical an
elaboration and defence of his opinions. For many reasons the
undelivered speech forming the basis of his article in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ for October, 1863, is of remarkable interest. It reveals the
mental habits of one of the most useful and influential characters then
in public life; the statesman is really thinking aloud. He appears, for
instance, to have been much impressed by the fact that, under the
Commonwealth, Cromwell partitioned his country into military districts
of which Sumner remarked that there were precisely _eleven_, just the
number of States in rebellion. One view is enforced by an appropriate
passage from Cicero, while of Edmund Burke it is asserted that had he
lived during the Civil War his eloquence would have blasted Southern
leaders for their folly and madness in entering upon a career of
rebellion. All who are familiar with the debates of that period must
have observed that Sumner was considerably influenced by the authority
of great names, and in consequence sometimes exposed himself to rebuke
from men who, though in many respects inferior, had studied the
questions of the day in the light of their own times.
It is not intended, however, to trace the origin of the doctrine of
State suicide or even to suggest all the arguments upon which he relied
for its support, the purpose of these remarks being rather to show on
what principles its essential propositions were based. This, it is
believed, cannot be better done than by explaining the resolutions in
his own language.
In the _Atlantic Monthly_ he wrote: “It is sometimes said that the
States themselves committed _suicide_, so that as States they ceased to
exist, leaving their whole jurisdiction open to the occupation of the
United States under the Constitution. This assumption is founded on the
fact that, whatever may be the existing governments in these States,
they are in no respect constitutional, and since the State itself is
known by the government, with which its life is intertwined, it must
cease to exist constitutionally when its government no longer exists
constitutionally.”
He acknowledges the difficulty of defining the entity which we call a
State. “Among us,” says Mr. Sumner, “the term is most known as the
technical name for one of the political societies which compose our
Union.... Nobody has suggested, I presume, that any ‘State’ of our Union
has, through rebellion, ceased to exist as a _civil society_, or even as
a _political community_. It is only as a _State of the Union_, armed
with State rights, or at least as a _local government_, which annually
renews itself, as the snake its skin, that it can be called in question.
But it is vain to challenge for the technical ‘State,’ or for the annual
government, that immortality which belongs to civil society. The one is
an artificial body, the other is a natural body; and while the first,
overwhelmed by insurrection or war, may change or die, the latter can
change or die only with the extinction of the community itself, whatever
may be its name or its form.”
Phillimore is quoted in support of the proposition that a “State,” even
in a broader signification, may lose its life. That author says: “A
state, like an individual, may die,” and, among the various ways in
which this may occur, adds, “by its submission and the donation of
itself to another country.” “But in the case of our Rebel States,”
resumes Mr. Sumner, “there has been a plain submission and donation of
themselves,—_effective, at least, to break the continuity of
government_, if not to destroy that immortality which has been claimed.
Nor can it make any difference, in breaking this continuity, that the
submission and donation, constituting a species of attornment, were to
enemies at home rather than to enemies abroad,—to Jefferson Davis rather
than to Louis Napoleon. The thread is snapped in one case as much as in
the other.
“But a _change of form_ in the actual government may be equally
effective. Cicero speaks of a change so complete as ‘to leave no image
of a state behind.’ But this is precisely what has been done throughout
the whole Rebel region: there is no image of a _constitutional_ State
left behind.”
The first resolution of the series quoted declares “That any vote of
secession or other act by which any State may undertake to put an end to
the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory is inoperative
and void against the Constitution, and when sustained by force it
becomes a practical _abdication_ by the State of all its rights under
the Constitution.” Perhaps Mr. Sumner in the essay failed to strengthen
his original statement of this proposition, which he believed was
“upheld by the historic example of England, at the Revolution of 1688,
when, on the flight of James II. and the abandonment of his kingly
duties, the two Houses of Parliament voted that the monarch, ‘having
violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the
kingdom, _had abdicated the government_, and that the throne had thereby
become vacant.’” This precedent, which Senator Sumner thought
applicable, was by no means so formidable an argument against the
rebellious States as he chose to regard it. If the term _abdicate_ is
equivalent to a species of informal resignation it did not apply
strictly to the case of James II., for that unfortunate ruler presented
to Englishmen the unusual spectacle of withdrawing from his kingdom
under an escort of Dutch troops. Doubtless he remembered the saying of
his father, who proved the truth of the adage in his own person, that
the distance is short between the prison and the grave of a king. The
expectation of recovering his throne was a motive with James scarcely
less powerful than that of taking precaution for his personal safety.
This intention appears from the unsuccessful campaign in Ireland, which
he had selected as a rallying point. That monarch’s real offence was his
violation of the laws of England. Many of his predecessors, as well as
some of his successors, were as unreasonable and as obstinate as he. The
charge of abdication was scarcely a decent pretext for declaring the
throne vacant, and Mr. Sumner appears to have forgotten for the moment
that the Federal Government is one of limited while Parliament is
clothed with absolute powers. In reality James was coerced by the Prince
of Orange into “withdrawing” from the Kingdom. It is not intended here
to call in question the accepted vindication of the Revolution of 1688,
but merely to show that the Massachusetts statesman was at times not
above supporting an argument by a legal or an historical fiction.
The same resolution continues: “The treason which it [the attempt by
force to terminate the supremacy of the Constitution] involves still
further works an instant _forfeiture_ of all those functions and powers
essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic.”
On the idea of State forfeiture his reasoning is entitled to more
respect. He argues: “But again it is sometimes said that the States, by
their flagrant treason, have _forfeited_ their rights as States, so as
to be civilly dead. It is a patent and indisputable fact, that this
gigantic treason was inaugurated with all the forms of law known to the
State; that it was carried forward not only by individuals, but also by
States, so far as States can perpetrate treason; that the States
pretended to withdraw bodily in their corporate capacities;—that the
Rebellion, as it showed itself, was _by_ States as well as _in_ States;
that it was by the governments of States as well as by the people of
States; and that, to the common observer, the crime was consummated by
the several corporations as well as by the individuals of whom they were
composed. From this fact, obvious to all, it is argued that, since,
according to Blackstone, ‘a traitor hath abandoned his connection with
society, and hath no longer any right to the advantages which before
belonged to him purely as a member of the community,’ by the same
principle the traitor State is no longer to be regarded as a member of
the Union. But it is not necessary, on the present occasion, to insist
on the application of any such principle to States.”
Discarding as not essential to his defence the theories of State
forfeiture, State abdication, or even State suicide, the article adds:
“It is enough, that, for the time being, and _in the absence of a loyal
government_, they can take no part and perform no function in the Union,
_so that they cannot be recognized by the National Government_. The
reason is plain. There are in these States no local functionaries bound
by constitutional oaths, so that, in fact, there are no constitutional
functionaries; and since the State government is necessarily composed of
such functionaries, there can be no State government. Thus, for
instance, in South Carolina, Pickens and his associates may call
themselves the governor and legislature; and in Virginia, Letcher and
his associates may call themselves governor and legislature; but we
cannot recognize them as such. Therefore to all pretensions in behalf of
State governments in the Rebel States I oppose the simple FACT, that for
the time being no such governments exist. The broad spaces once occupied
by those governments are now abandoned and vacated.”
Discussing the question of transition to rightful government he says:
“And here the question occurs, How shall this rightful jurisdiction be
established in the vacated States? Some there are, so impassioned for
State rights, and so anxious for forms even at the expense of substance,
that they insist upon the instant restoration of the old State
governments in all their parts, through the agency of loyal citizens,
who meanwhile must be protected in this work of restoration. But
assuming that all this is practicable, as it clearly is not, it
attributes to the loyal citizens of a Rebel State, however few in
numbers,—it may be an insignificant minority,—a power clearly
inconsistent with the received principle of popular government, that the
majority must rule, ... but the argument for State Rights assumes that
all these rights may be lodged in voters as few in number as ever
controlled a rotten borough of England.
“Pray admitting that a minority may organize the new government, how
shall it be done? and by whom shall it be set in motion?... It is not
easy to see how the new government can be set in motion without a resort
to some revolutionary proceeding, instituted either by the citizens or
by the military power,—unless Congress, in the exercise of its plenary
powers, should undertake to organize the new jurisdiction.
“But every revolutionary proceeding is to be avoided. It will be within
the recollection of all familiar with our history, that our fathers,
while regulating the separation of the Colonies from the parent country,
were careful that all should be done according to the forms of law, so
that the thread of _legality_ should continue unbroken. To this end the
Continental Congress interfered by a supervising direction. But the Tory
argument in that day denied the power of Congress as earnestly as it
denies this power now.”...
“But, happily,” he says, “we are not constrained to any such
revolutionary proceeding. The new governments can all be organized by
Congress, which is the natural guardian of people without any immediate
government, and within the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the
United States. Indeed, with the State governments already _vacated_ by
rebellion, the Constitution becomes, for the time, the supreme and only
law, binding alike on President and Congress, so that neither can
establish any law or institution incompatible with it. And the whole
Rebel region, deprived of all local government, lapses under the
exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, precisely as any other territory;
or, in other words, the lifting of the local governments leaves the
whole vast region without any other government than Congress, unless the
President should undertake to govern it by military power.”...
This part of the essay concludes with a declaration that its author had
no pride of opinion, but would cheerfully abandon his views when
convinced of their error. He next proceeds to an examination of the
sources of Congressional power. These, he asserts, are derived from the
necessity of the case, for Congress must have jurisdiction over every
portion of the United States _where there is no other government_; and
from the _Rights of War_, which he deemed not less abundant for Congress
than for the President. “It is Congress,” he contended, “that conquers;
and the same authority that conquers must govern.” A third source of
authority, common alike to Congress and the President, was the
constitutional provision imposing on the United States the duty of
guarantying republican forms of government. These ample powers were
confirmed by an additional grant in the clause concerning the admission
of new States “into this Union.” The latter left it with Congress to
prescribe the time and manner of the return of the rebel States,
assuming that they were no longer _de facto_ States of the Union.
Among the “unanswerable reasons for Congressional governments” the
article says: “Slavery is so odious that it can exist only by virtue of
positive law, plain and unequivocal; but no such words can be found in
the Constitution. Therefore Slavery is impossible within the exclusive
jurisdiction of the National Government.... I am glad to believe that it
is implied, if not expressed, in the Chicago Platform; ... but if the
rebel territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the National
Government, then Slavery will be impossible there.... The moment that
the States fell, Slavery fell also; so that, even without any
Proclamation of the President, Slavery had ceased to have a legal and
constitutional existence in every rebel State.”[291]
“Let it be established in advance,” declared Mr. Sumner, “as an
inseparable incident to every Act of Secession, that it is not only
impotent against the Constitution of the United States, but that, on its
occurrence, both soil and inhabitants will lapse beneath the
jurisdiction of Congress, and no State will ever again pretend to
secede.”
The argument of which an epitome has been given was regarded by the
Postmaster-General, Montgomery Blair, as formidable enough to merit
attention, and he accordingly replied in a speech at Rockville,
Maryland, in which Sumner, for arraying himself directly against the
President on a question of fundamental policy in the conduct of the war,
was mentioned with sharp censure. This brought upon the Cabinet member,
and upon Mr. Lincoln over his shoulders, much vehement criticism. It was
in relation to this address that the President said:
The controversy between the two sets of men represented by Blair and
by Sumner is one of mere form and little else. I do not think Mr.
Blair would agree that the States in rebellion are to be permitted
to come at once into the political family and renew their
performances, which have already so bedeviled us, and I do not think
Mr. Sumner would insist that when the loyal people of a State obtain
supremacy in their councils and are ready to assume the direction of
their own affairs they should be excluded. I do not understand Mr.
Blair to admit that Jefferson Davis may take his seat in Congress
again as a representative of his people. I do not understand Mr.
Sumner to assert that John Minor Botts may not. So far as I
understand Mr. Sumner, he seems in favor of Congress taking from the
Executive the power it at present exercises over insurrectionary
districts and assuming it to itself; but when the vital question
arises as to the right and privilege of the people of these States
to govern themselves, I apprehend there will be little difference
among loyal men. The question at once is presented, In whom is this
power vested? and the practical matter for discussion is how to keep
the rebellious population from overwhelming and outvoting the loyal
minority.[292]
Concisely expressed, the theory of State suicide based reconstruction
upon the right of Congress to legislate for Federal territories and to
admit new States into this Union. In one view it rested on a provision
in the Constitution which makes it obligatory on the States to have
republican governments. This side of the doctrine shaded into the
conservative view, according to which it is the duty of the States to be
represented in Congress; but Sumner, as will subsequently appear,
maintained that the Confederate States should not be counted when
numbers were to be estimated in the adoption of constitutional
amendments; also that Congress had power to prescribe the qualifications
of voters for conventions in those States. This view regarded the war as
a conflict of ideas; it assumed to find authority in the individual
conscience discerning the will of God, was inclined to disallow
objective standards, and to consider all law as matter of subjective
determination. From a careful perusal of his speeches Mr. Sumner appears
to have insisted that a republican form of government could be such a
one only as conformed to his subjective ideas. Except his own State,
whose constitution of 1780 was held to have abolished slavery in that
Commonwealth, no one of the States in 1789 possessed, according to his
notions, a republican form of government. His touchstone of
republicanism was the Declaration of Independence. In short, the
requirements of the Constitution appear to have been found, not in the
written instrument, but in his individual conceptions of political
justice, equality and liberty whereby he constituted himself a new
source of law. In the matter of a subjective standard of natural justice
and the like, the “radicals” generally agreed with Sumner.[293]
The position that the object of the war from the beginning, on the part
of the Federal authorities, was to fulfill the guaranty of a republican
form of government is untenable. It may well be doubted whether the
community so guaranteed can be restricted to any particular government;
indeed, it is difficult to see how a government not voluntarily
instituted by the people of a State can be called republican. By having
a government imposed by Congress they would resemble the people of a
Territory, and the result would be an inequality among the States
composing the Union.
Though it has been commended as well written, there is some crude
thinking and even cruder phraseology in the preamble as well as in the
resolutions themselves. Mr. Sumner appears to have been much influenced
by feudal and other historical analogies. It will be seen later how he
recoiled somewhat from accepting fully the consequences of his own
principles.[294] The famous theory of State suicide, as tersely stated
by an able advocate of the doctrine, was in effect that “a Territory by
coming into the Union becomes a State; a State by going out of the Union
becomes a Territory.”[295]
To offset the resolutions of Sumner, Hon. Garrett Davis, of Kentucky,
introduced two days later a series of eight propositions. Of these the
first asserts that the rights, privileges and liberties which the
Constitution assures to the people of the United States “are fixed,
permanent, and immutable through all the phases of peace and war, until
changed by the power and in the mode prescribed by the Constitution
itself.”
In the light of subsequent events, however, the last is the most
interesting of the series. This declares “That the United States
Government should march their armies into all the insurgent States, and
promptly put down the military power which they have arrayed against it,
and give protection and security to the loyal men thereof, to enable
them to reconstruct their legitimate State governments, and bring them
and the people back to the Union and to obedience and duty under the
Constitution and the laws of the United States, bearing the sword in one
hand and the olive branch in the other, and whilst inflicting on the
guilty leaders condign and exemplary punishment, granting amnesty and
oblivion to the comparatively innocent masses; and if the people of any
State cannot, or will not reconstruct their State government and return
to loyalty and duty, Congress should provide a government for such State
as a Territory of the United States, securing to the people thereof
their appropriate constitutional rights.”[296]
These propositions, like the resolutions of Sumner, were never taken up
for discussion, and they are referred to as containing a clear
expression, by a Southern Democrat,[297] of extra-constitutional powers
in treating incorrigible States as Territories.
Sumner was not alone in maintaining novel opinions concerning the
relation of the seceded States to the Federal Government. A theory
destined to exert even greater influence in shaping the plan of
reconstruction finally adopted was announced at the very commencement of
hostilities by Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, then one of the
foremost members of the Republican party and a few years later its
acknowledged leader in the House. Unlike the Massachusetts Senator, Mr.
Stevens never formulated his views of State status; but as he urged them
on almost every conceivable occasion the essential principles of his
system may be easily collected from his numerous speeches in Congress.
Subjects of legislation only remotely related to his favorite topic
appear to have been regarded by him as important chiefly because of the
opportunity afforded to express his sentiments on the measures necessary
to reorganization. These opinions, he declared, had been deliberately
formed; we know that to the end they were persistently urged and ably
defended. Because of their radical nature and the frequency with which
they were reiterated Stevens was by many regarded as a sort of fanatic;
this estimate was confirmed, no doubt, by his bodily deformity as well
as by an apparent want of amiability and a certain bluntness of
expression. Even by keen observers he was at first considered a man of
mediocre ability. But, though not to be compared with the giant race of
an earlier generation, he was a statesman far above the common-place.
Among the multitude of plans and theories offered in Congress his system
was distinguished for the harmony of its parts; and enemies who hated,
no less than followers who feared, him were forced to admit the
consistency of his principles.
The limitations of Stevens in the field of constructive statesmanship
cannot now be discussed; for their consideration belongs properly to an
examination of the first reconstruction act, which was no more than a
modification of his theory. Long before Sumner’s plan had agitated timid
conservatives the Pennsylvanian leader by his extreme opinions had
astonished Congress. When the question of discharging from labor or
service those slaves employed in hostility to the United States came
before the House at the special session beginning July 4, 1861, Stevens
said:
Mr. Speaker, I thought the time had come when the laws of war were
to govern our action; when constitutions, if they stood in the way
of the laws of war in dealing with the enemy, had no right to
intervene. Who pleads the Constitution against our proposed action?
Who says the Constitution must come in, in bar of our action? It is
the advocates of rebels, of rebels who have sought to overthrow the
Constitution and trample it in the dust—who repudiate the
Constitution. Sir, these rebels, who have disregarded and set at
defiance that instrument, are, by every rule of municipal and
international law, estopped from pleading it against our action.
Who, then, is it that comes to us and says, “You cannot do this
thing, because your Constitution does not permit it?” The
Constitution! Our Constitution, which you repudiate and trample
under foot, forbids it! Sir, it is an absurdity. There must be a
party in court to plead it, and that party, to be entitled to plead
it in court, must first acknowledge its supremacy, or he has no
business to be in court at all. I repeat, then, that those who bring
in this plea here, in bar of our action, are the advocates of
rebels. They are nothing else, whatever they intend. I mean it, of
course, in a legal sense. I mean they are acting in the capacity of
counsellors-at-law for the rebels; they are speaking for them, and
not for us—who are the plaintiffs in this transaction. I deny that
they have any right to plead at all. I deny that they have any
standing in court. I deny that they have any right to invoke this
Constitution, which they deny has authority over them, which they
set at defiance and trample under foot. I deny that they can be
permitted to come here and tell us we must be loyal to the
Constitution.[298]
The expectation almost universally cherished at this time was that when
the insurrection should have been suppressed, as it was confidently
believed it speedily would be, the erring States, without the
interposition of Federal authority, would resume their normal relations
to the General Government. With this state of public opinion in mind it
will readily be perceived how great an interval separated Mr. Stevens
from both parties in Congress. The opening sentence of the remarks
quoted contains the essential idea of his theory of the change resulting
from rebellion. Armed secession had unlocked the war powers, and the
Constitution, where it conflicted with these powers, had ceased to be a
restraint upon government. The military had risen superior to the civil
authority. The principle was boldly and emphatically announced that
those who repudiated and defied the supreme law could not at the same
time plead its provisions.
On January 8, 1863, the appropriation bill being under consideration, an
amendment was offered to add to the clause “for compensation of
thirty-three commissioners, at $3,000 each, and eleven clerks, at $1,200
each, $112,200,” the following:
_Provided_, A sufficient sum shall be collected in the
insurrectionary States to pay said salaries: _And provided further_,
That no greater sum shall at any time be paid to said commissioners,
or to any of them, than shall have been collected from the taxes in
the insurrectionary States, and paid into the Treasury of the United
States.[299]
The discussion which ensued brought out an expression of views relative
to the position of the seceded States under the Federal Government.
Stevens in the course of his remarks said: “I did say, sir, that I find
no warrant in the Constitution for the admission, under the
Constitution, of West Virginia. I do not know whether the gentleman from
Kentucky voted for that bill or not.” Mr. Dunlap, the member referred
to, stated that he had voted against the bill, because he deemed it
unconstitutional. After this explanation the Pennsylvania leader
proceeded as follows:
Then the gentleman voted against it upon the same opinion I
expressed, that it was unconstitutional. But I went further and
voted for it because I did not believe that the Constitution
embraced a State now in arms against the Government of this Union
and I hold that doctrine now. It was not said upon the spur of the
occasion. It is a deliberate opinion, formed upon a careful
examination of the law of the United States and the laws of nations.
Though it may be out of place just now, I will give one or two
reasons for my opinion. The establishment of our blockade admitted
the Southern States, the Confederates, to be a belligerent power.
Foreign nations have all admitted them as a belligerent power.
Whenever that came to be admitted by us and by foreign nations, it
placed the rebellious States precisely in the condition of an alien
enemy with regard to duties and obligations. Now, I think there is
nothing more plainly written in the law of nations than that
whenever a war, which is admitted to be a national war, springs up
between nation and nation, ally and ally, confederate and
confederate, every obligation which previously existed between them,
whether treaty, compact, contract, or anything else, is wholly
abrogated, and from that moment the belligerents act toward each
other, not according to any municipal obligations, not according to
any compacts or treaties, but simply according to the laws of war.
And I hold and maintain that with regard to all the Southern States
in rebellion. I do not speak of Kentucky, but of those States which
have gone out under an act of legislation or convention—the
Constitution has no binding influence and no application.
In answer to a question by Representative Dunlap he stated further that
the seceded States, in his opinion, were not members of the Union. “The
ordinances of secession,” he added, “backed by the armed power which
made them a belligerent nation, did take them, so far as present
operations are concerned, from under the laws of the nation.” When asked
how, as Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, he proposed to pass
an appropriation to pay officers to collect revenue in States which did
not belong to the Union, he said:
I propose to levy that tax, and collect it as a war measure. I would
levy a tax wherever I can upon these conquered provinces, just as
all nations levy them upon provinces and nations they conquer. If my
views and principles are right, I would not only collect that tax,
but I would, as a necessary war measure, take every particle of
property, real and personal, life estate and reversion, of every
disloyal man, and sell it for the benefit of the nation in carrying
on this war. We have such power and we are to treat them simply as
provinces to be conquered, and as a nation fighting in hostility to
us until we do conquer them. To me it is a great absurdity to say
that men, by millions, in arms, shall claim the protection of the
provisions of the Constitution and laws made for loyal men, while
they do not obey one of those laws, but repudiate their binding
effect. There never was a principle more clear than that every
obligation, whether in a national or civil point of view, in order
to be binding, must be reciprocal; and that the moment the duty
ceases upon the one part, the obligation ceases upon the other; and
that, in my judgment, is precisely the condition of the rebel States
now.
The secession ordinance of South Carolina he characterized in response
to an inquiry as an act of treason and rebellion, and when asked whether
the backing up of these ordinances by armed force imparted to them any
validity, he replied: “I hold that so long as they remain in force
against us as a belligerent power, and until they are conquered, it is
in fact an existing operation. I will not say anything about its
legality. [Laughter.] I hold that it is an existing _fact_, and that so
far from enforcing any laws, you have not the power.”
To Mr. Yeaman, who asked whether those people were then citizens of the
United States, or whether they formed an independent nation, and if the
latter whence was derived the right or the authority to wage war against
them, and to tax them for the support of that war, Stevens answered: “I
hold that the Constitution, in the first place, so far operated that
when they went into secession and armed rebellion they committed
treason; and that when they so combined themselves as to make themselves
admitted as belligerents—not merely as men in insurrection, but as
belligerents—they did acquire the right to be treated as prisoners of
war, and all the other rights which pertain to belligerents under the
laws of nations.”
Some members held in utter abhorrence the principles of the Pennsylvania
leader; others were astonished at their boldness. It was in the course
of this discussion, participated in by many Representatives, that
Stevens defined his existing as well as his past relations to his party,
and referred, not without a touch of pride, to the fact that hitherto he
had pointed out the way for the Republican majority—in short, that he
had been the political prophet of his party. He declared:
I know perfectly well, as I said before, I do not speak the
sentiments of this side of the House as a party. I know more than
that: that for the last fifteen years I have always been a step
ahead of the party I have acted with in these matters; but I have
never been so far ahead with the exception of the principles I now
enunciate, but that the members of the party have overtaken me and
gone ahead; and they, together with the gentleman from New York,
[Mr. Olin] will again overtake me and go with me, before this
infamous and bloody rebellion is ended. They will find that they
cannot execute the Constitution in the seceding States; that it is a
total nullity there; and that this war must be carried on upon
principles wholly independent of it. They will come to the
conclusion that the adoption of the measures I advocated at the
outset of the war, the arming of the negroes, the slaves of the
rebels, is the only way left on earth in which these rebels can be
exterminated. They will find that they must treat those States now
outside of the Union as conquered provinces and settle them with new
men, and drive the present rebels as exiles from this country; for I
tell you they have the pluck and endurance for which I gave them
credit a year and a half ago in a speech which I made, but which was
not relished on this side of the House, nor by the people in the
free States. They have such determination, energy, and endurance,
that nothing but actual extermination or exile or starvation will
ever induce them to surrender to this Government. I do not ask
gentlemen to indorse my views, nor do I speak for anybody but
myself; but in order that I may have some credit for sagacity, I ask
that gentlemen will write this down in their memories. It will not
be two years before they will call it up, or before they will adopt
my views, or adopt the other alternative of a disgraceful submission
by this side of the country.[300]
For himself, for the Administration and for the Republican party even so
radical an anti-slavery man as Owen Lovejoy made haste to repudiate
these extreme opinions.
In debate, January 22, 1864, Stevens enunciated still more clearly the
fundamental principles of his system. “I mean to say,” he declared on
that occasion, “that if a State, as a State, makes war upon the
Government and becomes a belligerent power, we treat it as a foreign
nation, and when we conquer it we treat it just as we do any other
foreign nation.” “There can be no neutrals,” he added, “in a hostile
State.” If loyal people domiciled in the South desired to avoid
punishment or the hardships of public enemies, they should change their
place of residence.
Relative to discerning the State in the Union minority he observed: “If
ten men fit to save Sodom can elect a Governor and other State officers
for and against the eleven hundred thousand Sodomites in Virginia, then
the democratic doctrine that the majority shall rule is discarded and
dangerously ignored. When the doctrine that the _quality_ and not the
_number_ of voters is to decide the right to govern, then we are no
longer a republic, but the worst form of despotism.” It was a mere
mockery, he affirmed, to say that a tithe of the residents, because they
were holier or more loyal than others, could change the form and
administer the government of an organized State. The people who took a
State out of the Union were subject to the laws of the commonwealth,
and, so far as the General Government is concerned, subject to the laws
of war and of nations, both while the war continued and when it
ended.[301]
Northern Democrats, from the beginning to the end of reconstruction,
were consistent advocates of a doctrine which involved no contradictions
like the system of Sumner and no element of vindictiveness like the
“conquered province” theory of Stevens. Ordinances of secession they
held to be null and void; these measures in no way impaired the vitality
or contracted the scope of the Constitution because the power by which
they were temporarily maintained, however near to attaining its object,
had not been crowned with success. The result of the conflict could
alone determine whether the bond of union between the seceding and the
loyal States had been severed. Armed resistance to the supreme law was
treason in those so engaged, even though such resistance was decreed by
States. _Ante bellum_ relations would continue unimpaired if the General
Government succeeded in suppressing the rebellion. This doctrine, once a
State in the Union always a State, was, so far, in harmony with the
policy adopted by the Administration at the commencement of hostilities.
With all the following propositions, however, the policy of the
Government was not in entire accord, nor, indeed, was it in exact
conformity with the principles above ascribed to the President. The
people of a State, the Democratic leaders asserted, are the State, in
the widest sense of that term, and they make its fundamental law; to be
their constitution it must be their unrestrained and voluntary act, not
a result of coercion or intimidation. When they have freely acted, then
the only essential conditions of a State constitution, in its Federal
relations, are that it should be republican in form and not conflict
with the Constitution of the United States. South Carolina, for example,
was made a member of the Union by the Constitution and the consent of
her people; except successful revolution no other power could unmake
her. That revolution being unsuccessful she was still in the Union. The
idea that a State was partly out of and partly in the Union, Democratic
doctrine regarded as an absurdity. State officers, indeed, could commit
suicide; a majority of its people could commit suicide; but the State
did not, therefore, cease to exist, for the idea of a State involved the
fourfold notion of a defined territory, people occupying it, functions
constituting a system of government and officers to administer it.
Representative Joseph K. Edgerton, of Indiana, in an able speech
delivered February 20, 1865, said that he accepted the principle of
President Lincoln’s inaugural and only regretted that after so clear and
sound a statement of constitutional law and good intentions the
President had subsequently come to the same conclusion as Mr. Stevens.
The theory then announced was the only one consistent with the true
constitutional idea that the Federal Union is a perpetual union of
States, and that each State, as an individual member of the Union, has
in itself the same element of perpetuity that belongs to the aggregate
Republic formed by the Federal union of States. The Union can be held to
be perpetual only on the principle that the States composing it are
perpetual corporations or bodies politic, and indestructible by any act
of the aggregate body or by their own act. The States united cannot
destroy a single commonwealth; power to do that is power to consolidate
the States into one. A single member cannot destroy the Union; power to
do that is power to secede, and neither consolidation nor secession is a
principle of the Union. Here we have in amplified form the celebrated
declaration of Chief Justice Chase, that the Constitution in all its
provisions contemplates “an indestructible union of indestructible
States.”[302] For a different though a very able presentation of
Democratic theory the reader is referred to the address of Mr. Pendleton
on the bill to guarantee republican forms of government to the
rebellious States.[303]
Though this theory of a perpetual Union was the one almost universally
held at the beginning of the war, it came during the progress of the
conflict to be little regarded by the dominant party in Congress; by
Republican leaders it was soon cast aside with indignation or contempt;
it remained unaltered when their views of State status were adapted to
changed conditions, and the Democratic organization, so far at least as
reconstruction was concerned, settled down into little more than a party
of protest.
The silence in which Sumner’s propositions were received may be regarded
as a negative testimony to the conservative sentiments of Senators even
after war had existed for nearly a year; the House, however, just twelve
months before the Massachusetts Senator offered his plan, February 11,
1861, made a positive declaration of its opinion relative to the
limitations of Federal authority by passing unanimously the following
resolution: “That neither Congress, nor the people or the governments of
the non-slaveholding States, have the right to legislate upon or
interfere with slavery in any of the slaveholding States in the
Union.”[304] This deliberate expression establishes beyond question the
fact that the Constitution, as then understood, gave no authority to the
Federal Government to interfere with, control or regulate relations
between master and slave in any State which recognized the right of
property in man. On this subject the people were practically unanimous,
their Representatives entirely so. Even three months of war, with all
the antagonisms and all the bitterness excited, failed to shake this
conviction.
On July 22, 1861, the day after the disaster at Bull Run, Representative
Crittenden, of Kentucky, introduced the following resolution:
That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the
country by the disunionists of the Southern States, now in arms
against the constitutional Government, and in arms around the
capital; that in this national emergency, Congress, banishing all
feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty
to the whole country; that this war is not waged on their part in
any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or
subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the
rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend
and maintain the _supremacy_ of the Constitution, and to preserve
the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several
States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are
accomplished the war ought to cease.
Only two votes were recorded against it.[305] Four days later Andrew
Johnson offered in the upper House a resolution in nearly the same
language, and it was opposed by only five Senators. There is little
doubt that this practical unanimity in Congress reflected the sentiment
of almost the entire North. This conspicuous landmark, so frequently
referred to before the reunion was completed, will be useful to show how
far the warring factions drifted during the progress of the conflict.
Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, who disliked certain expressions in the
form in which it was proposed, said, relative to the object of the war
as declared by the resolution:
I trust this war is prosecuted for the purpose of subjugating all
rebels and traitors who are in arms against the Government. What do
you mean by “subjugation”? I know that persons in the Southern
States have sought to make this a controversy between States and the
Federal Government, and have talked about coercing States and
subjugating States; but, sir, it has never been proposed, so far as
I know, on the part of the Union people of the United States, to
subjugate States or coerce States. It is proposed, however, to
subjugate citizens who are standing out in defiance of the laws of
the Union, and to coerce them into obedience to the laws of the
Union. I dislike that word in this connection. In its broadest sense
I am opposed to it. If it means the war is not for the purpose of
the subjugation of traitors and rebels into obedience to the laws,
then I am opposed to it. I trust the war is prosecuted for that very
purpose. I move to strike out the words “and in arms around the
capital,” and also the words “or subjugation.”[306]
Mr. Harris, of New York, said: “If slavery shall be abolished, shall be
overthrown as a consequence of this war, I shall not shed a tear over
that result; but, sir, it is not the purpose of the Government to
prosecute this war for the purpose of overthrowing slavery. If it comes
as a consequence, let it come; but it is not an end of the war.”[307]
In the succeeding chapter will be traced with some degree of fullness
the sentiments on reconstruction, in July, 1864, not only of the
majority but of every important element composing Congress. The position
then attained by the average Republican member, it must be repeated, was
not reached at a single bound. Its progress has been described in the
preceding pages. The vote on the Crittenden resolution marks the
starting point. There was then, though war had existed for three months,
no diversity of opinion worthy of notice. The successive advances from
the declaration, February 11, 1861, that neither Congress nor the
governments of the free States had a constitutional right to interfere
with slavery in any slaveholding State of the Union to the passage by
both Houses, July 2, 1864, of the Wade-Davis bill, which proposed by
Federal law to regulate the franchise in the rebellious States, to
appoint provisional governors (empowered to dissolve State conventions),
and to prescribe provisions for their local constitutions, form one of
the most instructive commentaries on the importance of necessity as a
principle of constitutional interpretation.
A resolution introduced December 4, 1861, by Mr. Holman, of Indiana, for
the purpose of getting the House to re-affirm the Crittenden
propositions of July 22 preceding, was tabled by a vote of 71 to
65.[308]
A discussion of the various theories of reconstruction might seem to
require in this place, by way of anticipation, at least a summary of the
Congressional plan; but as this was the mode of reorganization which was
finally imposed on the South it is preferred to present its development
chronologically and to consider it apart. Several of the remaining
chapters will be devoted to an account of its successive modifications
until the subject was taken, in December, 1865, altogether out of
Executive hands.
-----
Footnote 282:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 106.
Footnote 283:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 129.
Footnote 284:
Ibid., p. 125.
Footnote 285:
See p. 73, _ante_.
Footnote 286:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 322–323.
Footnote 287:
Memoir of Charles Sumner by E. L. Pierce, Vol. IV. pp. 74–75.
Footnote 288:
General Richard Taylor in Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 245.
Footnote 289:
Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. p. 114.
Footnote 290:
Memoir of Sumner by E. L. Pierce, Vol. IV. p. 143.
Footnote 291:
Mr. Sumner, notwithstanding this view, proposed to enact the
Emancipation Proclamation into a law. See pp. 272–273 _infra_.
Footnote 292:
N. and H., Vol. IX. pp. 335–336.
Footnote 293:
In his Theory of our National Existence (_passim_) and in the American
Law Review for January, 1865, Mr. John C. Hurd has much keen criticism
of the reconstruction theories of Sumner and others.
Footnote 294:
Colloquy with Senator Doolittle, December 19, 1866, Cong. Globe, p.
192.
Footnote 295:
Brownson’s American Republic, p. 308.
Footnote 296:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 323.
Footnote 297:
Mr. Davis is sometimes classed as a Unionist.
Footnote 298:
Globe, 1 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 414.
Footnote 299:
Globe, Part I., 3 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 238.
Footnote 300:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 239–243.
Footnote 301:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 317.
Footnote 302:
Texas vs. White, 7 Wall., p. 725.
Footnote 303:
See Chapter VII., pp. 257–261, _infra_.
Footnote 304:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 36th Cong., p. 857.
Footnote 305:
Globe, 1 Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 222–223.
Footnote 306:
Ibid., p. 258.
Footnote 307:
Globe, 1 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 259.
Footnote 308:
Ann. Cycl., 1862, p. 277.
VII
RISE OF THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN
A previous chapter, in relating the military events which succeeded the
disaster at Chickamauga, noticed a suggestion of the defeated Federal
commander as well as Mr. Lincoln’s reply relative to the publication at
that time of a declaration of amnesty to those in arms against the
Government.[309] The double victory of Mission Ridge and Lookout
Mountain, following the removal of Rosecrans, confirmed the President in
his purpose of offering a general pardon to those who would lay down
their arms and return to their obedience to the laws. The Proclamation
of December 8, 1863, followed promptly and brought the subject of
reconstruction before the Thirty-eighth Congress at its first session.
The preceding pages have alluded to the universal favor with which that
announcement was received. Though opposition to Executive measures was
hushed for the time, it appears only to have gathered strength in this
brief interval of silence. One short week introduced into the House of
Representatives a resolution the subsequent progress of which brought
the dominant party in Congress to the support of a measure hostile to
that submitted by the President. Its interesting history may be
collected from the pages of the _Congressional Globe_.
On December 15, from the Committee of Ways and Means, Thaddeus Stevens
reported among other resolutions one to refer so much of the President’s
message as was contained in the Proclamation, and as related to the
condition and treatment of rebellious States, to a special committee of
nine to be appointed by the Speaker. Henry Winter Davis inquired whether
Mr. Stevens would accept for that resolution an amendment pointing more
directly to the purpose in view. This substitute read as follows:
That so much of the President’s message as relates to the duty of
the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to
the States in which the governments recognized by the United States
have been abrogated or overthrown, be referred to a select committee
of nine, to be named by the Speaker, which shall report the bills
necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing
guaranty.[310]
Stevens offering no objection, Representative Davis remarked that the
language of the resolution was general, and, he believed, would cover
the whole war; the committee, he supposed, intended to point to what, in
the very inaccurate phraseology of the day, was known as the question of
reconstruction; but believing there had been no destruction, he
carefully avoided the use of that term.
The Government of the United States, continued Mr. Davis, was engaged in
two operations: the suppression of armed resistance to the supreme
authority of the nation and a very delicate, and perhaps as high a
duty—to see, when armed resistance should be overcome, that governments
republican in form should be restored in all those States. His
substitute directed the investigations of the committee to that one
point. It was not intended as a peremptory instruction to the committee
to report any particular measure, but to take such action as their
wisdom should recommend.
Democratic feeling on this subject appears in an inquiry by
Representative Brooks, of New York, as to whether republican governments
had not been abrogated and overturned north as well as south of the
Potomac since the revolution began.[311]
The amendment of Mr. Davis prevailed, and of the special committee
appointed he was made chairman. On January 18, 1864, he asked unanimous
consent to report a bill to guarantee certain States a republican form
of government. Objection having been made, he moved a suspension of the
rules; but failing to receive the necessary two thirds vote his motion
was lost. On February 15 succeeding, when he brought the measure before
the House again and requested a postponement of its consideration for
two weeks, it encountered Democratic opposition. The bill was then read
a first and second time, ordered to be printed, and returned to the
committee.
On March 22 the bill came before the House on the question of ordering
it to be engrossed and read a third time. In its support Mr. Davis made
an able address in which he analyzed the plan proposed by the Executive
and emphasized its deficiencies. He said:
The bill which I am directed by the Committee on the Rebellious
States to report is one which provides for the restoration of civil
government in States whose governments have been overthrown. It
prescribes such conditions as will secure not merely civil
government to the people of the rebellious States, but will also
secure to the people of the United States permanent peace after the
suppression of the rebellion.
The bill challenges the support of all who consider slavery the
cause of the rebellion, and that in it the embers of rebellion will
always smoulder; of those who think that freedom and permanent peace
are inseparable, and who are determined, so far as their
constitutional authority will allow them, to secure these fruits by
adequate legislation.
... It is entitled to the support of all gentlemen upon this side of
the House, whatever their views may be of the nature of the
rebellion; and the relation in which it has placed the people and
States in rebellion toward the United States, not less of those who
think that the rebellion has placed the citizens of the rebel States
beyond the protection of the Constitution, and that Congress,
therefore, has supreme power over them as conquered enemies, than of
that other class who think that they have not ceased to be citizens
and States of the United States, though incapable of exercising
political privileges under the Constitution, but that Congress is
charged with a high political power by the Constitution to guarantee
republican governments in the States, and that this is the proper
time and the proper mode of exercising it. It is also entitled to
the favorable consideration of gentlemen upon the other side of the
House, who honestly and deliberately express their judgment that
slavery is dead. To them it puts the question whether it is not
advisable to bury it out of our sight, that its ghost may no longer
stalk abroad to frighten us from our propriety.
It does not address itself to that class of gentlemen upon the other
side of the House, if there be any, nor to that class of the people
of the country who look for political alliance to the men who head
the rebellion in the South....
It purports, sir, not to exercise a revolutionary authority, but to
be an execution of the Constitution of the United States, of the
fourth section of the fourth article of that Constitution, which not
merely confers the power upon Congress, but imposes upon Congress
the duty of guaranteeing to every State in this Union a republican
form of government. That clause vests in the Congress of the United
States a plenary, supreme, unlimited political jurisdiction,
paramount over courts, subject only to the judgment of the people of
the United States, embracing within its scope every legislative
measure necessary and proper to make it effectual; and what is
necessary and proper the Constitution refers, in the first place, to
our judgment, subject to no revision but that of the people. It
recognizes no other tribunal. It recognizes the judgment of no
court. It refers to no authority except the judgment and will of the
majority of Congress, and of the people on that judgment, if any
appeal from it.
[Secession he described as] the act of the people of the States,
carrying with it all the consequences of such an act. And therefore
it must be either a legal revolution which makes them independent,
and makes of the United States a foreign country, or it is a
usurpation against the authority of the United States, the erection
of governments which do not recognize the Constitution of the United
States, which the Constitution does not recognize, and, therefore,
not republican governments of the States in rebellion. The latter is
the view which all parties take of it. I do not understand that any
gentleman on the other side of the House says that any rebel
government which does not recognize the Constitution of the United
States, and which is not recognized by Congress, is a State
government within the meaning of the Constitution. Still less can it
be said that there is a State government, republican or
un-republican, in the State of Tennessee, where there is no
government of any kind, no civil authority, no organized form of
administration except that represented by the flag of the United
States, obeying the will, and under the orders of the military
officer in command. It is the language of the President of the
United States in every proclamation, of Congress in every law on the
statute-book, of both Houses in their forms of proceeding, and of
the Courts of the United States in their administration of the law.
It is the result of every principle of law, of every suggestion of
political philosophy, that there can be no republican government
within the limits of the United States that does not recognize, but
does repudiate, the Constitution, and which the President and the
Congress of the United States do not, on their part, recognize.
Those that are here represented are the only governments existing
within the limits of the United States. Those that are not here
represented are not governments of the States, republican under the
Constitution. And if they be not, then they are military
usurpations, inaugurated as the permanent governments of the States,
contrary to the supreme law of the land, arrayed in arms against the
Government of the United States; and it is the duty, the first and
highest duty, of the Government to suppress and expel them. Congress
must either expel, or recognize and support them. If it do not
guarantee them, it is bound to expel them; and they who are not
ready to suppress them are bound to recognize them.
“In the famous Rhode Island cases,” he continued, the Supreme Court of
the United States by the mouth of Chief Justice Taney, declared “that a
military government, established as the permanent government of a State,
is not a republican government in the meaning of the Constitution, and
that it is the duty of Congress to suppress it. That duty Congress is
now executing by its armies. He [Justice Taney] further said in that
case that it is the exclusive prerogative of Congress—of Congress, and
not of the President—to determine what is and what is not the
established government of the State; and, to come to that conclusion, it
must judge of what is and what is not a republican government, and its
judgment is conclusive on the Supreme Court, which cannot judge of the
fact for itself, but accepts the fact declared by the political
department of the Government.”
Mr. Davis resumed:
We are now engaged in suppressing a military usurpation of the
authority of the State government. When that shall have been
accomplished, there will be no form of State authority in existence
which Congress can recognize. Our success will be the overthrow of
all semblance of government in the rebel States. The Government of
the United States is then, in fact, the _only_ Government existing
in those States, and it is there charged to guarantee them
republican governments.
... The duty of guaranteeing carries with it the right to pass all
laws necessary and proper to guaranty.... It places in the hands of
Congress the right to say what is and what is not, with all the
light of experience and all the lessons of the past, inconsistent,
in its judgment, with the permanent continuance of republican
government; and if, in its judgment, any form of policy is radically
and inherently inconsistent with the permanent and enduring peace of
the country, with the permanent supremacy of republican government,
and it have the manliness to say so, there is no power, judicial or
executive, in the United States, that can even question this
judgment but the =People=; and they can do it only by sending other
representatives here to undo our work. The very language of the
Constitution and the necessary logic of the case involve that
consequence. The denial of the right of secession means that all the
territory of the United States shall remain under the jurisdiction
of the Constitution. If there can be no State government which does
not recognize the Constitution, and which the authorities of the
United States do not recognize, then there are these alternatives,
and these only: the rebel States must be governed by Congress till
they submit and form a State government under the Constitution; or
Congress must recognize State governments which do not recognize
either Congress or the Constitution of the United States; or there
must be an entire absence of _all_ government in the rebel States;
and that is anarchy. To recognize a government which does not
recognize the Constitution is absurd, for a government is not a
constitution; and the recognition of a State government means the
acknowledgment of men as governors, and legislators, and judges,
actually invested with power to make laws, to judge of crimes, to
convict the citizens of other States, to demand the surrender of
fugitives from justice, to arm and command the militia, to require
the United States to repress all opposition to its authority, and to
protect it from invasion—against our own armies; whose Senators and
Representatives are _entitled_ to seats in Congress, and whose
electoral votes must be counted in the election of the President of
a Government which they disown and defy!! To accept the alternative
of anarchy as the constitutional condition of a State is to assert
the failure of the Constitution and the end of republican
government. Until, therefore, Congress recognize a State government,
organized under its auspices, there is no government in the rebel
States except the authority of Congress. In the absence of all State
government, the duty is imposed on Congress ... to administer civil
government until the people shall, under its guidance, submit to the
Constitution of the United States, and, under the laws which it
shall impose, and on the conditions Congress may require, reorganize
a republican government for themselves, and Congress shall recognize
that government.
... Is it yet time to reorganize the State governments? or is there
not an intermediate period in which sound legislative wisdom
requires that the authority of Congress shall take possession of and
temporarily control the States now in rebellion until peace shall be
restored and republican government can be established deliberately,
undisturbed by the sound or fear of arms, and under the guidance of
law?
After referring to the condition of the rebellion, Mr. Davis declared:
“We have occupied a vast area wrested from its power, but to this day we
have not expelled the rebels from _any State_ they ever held.” In no
portion of those States could military power “be withdrawn for a moment
without instant insurrection”; and he added, “There is no rebel State
held now by the United States enough of whose population adheres to the
Union to be intrusted with the government of the State. One tenth cannot
control nine tenths. Five tenths are nowhere willing to undertake the
control of the other five tenths.” In West Virginia, he said, such a
condition existed and had been recognized. “In no other State—the only
one in respect to which a doubt can exist is Tennessee—in no other State
is there such a portion of territory held, or any such portion of
population under our control, or any such portion of it which is in our
control inspired by such sentiments toward the Government of the United
States, so free from fear of the returning wave of rebel invasion, so
assured of the continued supremacy of the United States, that we ought
to be willing to trust them with this power. You can get a handful of
men in the several States who would be glad to take the offices if
protected by the troops of the United States, but you have nowhere a
body of independent, loyal partisans of the United States, ready to meet
the rebels in arms, ready to die for the Republic, who claim the
Constitution as their birthright, count all other privileges light in
comparison, and resolve at every hazard to maintain it.”
Concerning the loyal masses of the South, of whom so much was heard at
the beginning of the war, he remarked:
It is the most astounding spectacle in history that in the Southern
States, with more than half of the population opposed to it, a great
revolution was effected against their wishes and against their
votes, without a battle, a riot, or a protest in behalf of the
beneficent Government of their fathers—a revolution whose opponents
hastened to lead it, without a martyr to the cause they deserted
except the nameless heroes of the mountains of Tennessee, or a
confessor of the faith they had avowed save the illustrious Petigru
of South Carolina!
... There is no fact that any one has stated on authority at all
reliable that any respectable proportion of the people of the
Southern States now in rebellion are willing to accept any terms
that even our opponents on the other side of the House are willing
to offer them.
* * * * *
What, then, are we to do with the population in these States? To
make “confusion worse confounded” by erecting by the side of the
hostile State government a new State government on the shifting
sands of that whirlpool, to be supported by us while we are there
and to turn its power against us when we are driven out? That would
be to erect a new throne where
“Chaos umpire sits,
And by decision more embroils the fray
By which he reigns.”
In my judgment, it is not safe to confide the vast authority of
State governments to the doubtful loyalty of the rebel States until
armed rebellion shall have been trampled into the dust, until every
armed rebel shall have vanished from the State, until there shall be
in the South no hope of independence and no fear of subjection,
until the United States is bearded by no military power and the laws
can be executed by courts and sheriffs without the ever-present
menace of military authority. Until we have reached that point, this
bill proposes that the President shall appoint a civil governor to
administer the government under the laws of the United States in
force in the States respectively at the outbreak of the rebellion,
subject, of course, to the necessities of military occupation.
When military opposition shall have been suppressed, continued Mr.
Davis, then call upon the people to reorganize their governments in
their own way, “subject to the conditions that we think essential to our
permanent peace, and to prevent the revival hereafter of the
rebellion....”
To establish republican forms of government that the people of the
United States would agree to, three modes were indicated: “One is to
remove the cause of the war by an alteration of the Constitution of the
United States prohibiting slavery everywhere within its limits. That,
sir, goes to the root of the matter, and should consecrate the nation’s
triumph. But there are thirty-four States—three fourths of them would be
twenty-six. I believe there are twenty-five States represented in this
Congress, so that we, on that basis, cannot change the Constitution. It
is, therefore, a condition precedent in that view of the case, that more
States shall have governments organized within them.”
He next noticed the calculation based on three fourths of the States
then represented in Congress, a construction held by Thaddeus Stevens,
but even that view was not without its difficulties. The States of New
Jersey, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware were named as doubtful. If such
an amendment were adopted it still left “the whole field of the civil
administration of the States prior to the recognition of State
governments, all laws necessary to the ascertainment of the will of the
people, and all restrictions on the return to power of the leaders of
the rebellion, wholly unprovided for.” The constitutional amendment met
his hearty approval, but it was not a complete remedy.
Relative to the Administration policy, he observed:
The next plan is that inaugurated by the President of the United
States in the proclamation of the 8th of December, called the
amnesty proclamation. That proposes no guardianship of the United
States over the reorganization of the governments, no law to
prescribe who shall vote, no civil functionaries to see that the law
is faithfully executed, no supervising authority to control and
judge of the election. But if, in any manner, by the toleration of
martial law, lately proclaimed the fundamental law, under the
dictation of any military authority, or under the prescriptions of a
provost marshal, something in the form of a government shall be
presented, represented to rest on the votes of one tenth of the
population, the President will recognize that, provided it does not
_contravene_ the proclamation of freedom and the laws of Congress;
and, to secure that, an oath is exacted.
Now you will observe that there is no guarantee of law to watch over
the organization of that government. It may combine all the
population of a State; it may combine one tenth only; or ten
governments may come competing for recognition at the door of the
Executive mansion. The executive authority is pledged; Congress is
not pledged. It may be recognized by the military power and may not
be recognized by the civil power, so that it would have a doubtful
existence, half civil and half military, neither a temporary
government by law of Congress nor a State government, something as
unknown to the Constitution as the rebel government that refuses to
recognize it.
In examining the operation of the Executive proclamation on the
existence of slavery, Mr. Davis asked, how does it accomplish the
reorganization of the government on the basis of universal freedom? and
added:
The only prescription is that the government shall not _contravene_
the provisions of that proclamation. Sir, if that proclamation be
valid, then we are relieved from all trouble on that score; but if
that proclamation be not valid, then the oath to support it is
without legal sanction, for the President can ask no man to bind
himself by an oath to support an unfounded proclamation or an
unconstitutional law even for a moment, still less till it shall
have been declared void by the Supreme Court of the United
States.... If, therefore, he shall have taken the oath, he can, in
good conscience as well as in good law, disregard it the next
moment; so that, in point of fact, the law leaves us where the
proclamation does; it adds nothing to its legality, nothing to its
force.
But what is the proclamation which the new governments must not
contravene? That certain negroes shall be free, and that certain
other negroes shall remain slaves. The proclamation therefore
recognizes the existence of slavery. It does just exactly what all
the constitutions of the rebel States prior to the rebellion did;
... and, therefore, the old constitutions might be restored
to-morrow without _contravening_ the proclamation of freedom. Those
constitutions do not say that the President shall not have the
right, in the exercise of his military authority, to emancipate
slaves within the States.... They do not even establish slavery....
They merely recognize it just as the proclamation recognizes its
existence in parts of Virginia and in parts of Louisiana. So that
the one tenth of the population at whose hands the President
proposes to accept and guarantee a State government, can elect
officers under the old constitution of their State in exactly the
same terms and with exactly the same powers existing at the time of
the rebellion, and may, under his proclamation, demand a
recognition.... So soon as the State government is recognized, the
operation of the proclamation becomes merely a judicial question.
The right of a negro to his freedom is a legal right divesting a
right of property, and is to be enforced in the courts; and then the
question is what the courts will say about the proclamation. Is it
valid or invalid? Does it of itself confer a legal right to freedom
on negroes who were slaves? Is it within the authority of the
Executive?... How local State courts, created by the Southern
people, will decide such a question _no one_ can doubt.... It is,
therefore, under the scheme of the President, merely a judicial
question, to be adjudged by judicial rules, and to be determined by
the courts.... I do not desire to argue the legality of the
proclamation of freedom. I think it safer to _make it law_.... Under
the act of 1862 the President is authorized to use the negro
population for the suppression of the rebellion; while the rebellion
lasts, his proclamation in law exempts the slave from the duty of
obeying his master, but after the rebellion is extinguished, the
master’s rights are in his own hands, subject only to the opinion of
the courts on the legal effect of the proclamation, without a single
precedent to sanction it, and opposed by the solemn assertions of
our Government against the principle worked to authorize it.
Gentlemen are less prudent or less in earnest than I am if they will
risk the great issues involved in this question on such authorities
before the courts of justice.
By the bill we propose to preclude the judicial question by the
solution of a political question. How so? By the paramount power of
Congress to reorganize governments in those States, to impose such
conditions as it thinks necessary to secure the permanence of
republican government, to refuse to recognize any governments there
which do not prohibit slavery forever. Ay, gentlemen take the
responsibility to say, in the face of those who clamor for speedy
recognition of governments tolerating slavery, that the safety of
the people of the United States is the supreme law; that their will
is the supreme rule of law, and that we are authorized to pronounce
their will on this subject—take the responsibility to say that we
will revise the judgments of our ancestors; that we have experience
written in blood which they had not; that we find now, what they
darkly doubted, that slavery is really, radically inconsistent with
the permanence of republican governments; and that, being charged by
the supreme law of the land, on our conscience and judgment, to
guarantee, that is, to continue, maintain, and enforce, if it exist,
to institute and restore when overthrown, republican governments
throughout the broad limits of the republic, we will weed out every
element of their policy which we think incompatible with its
permanence and endurance.... It [the bill] adds to the authority of
the proclamation the sanction of Congress....
Gentlemen must deny the jurisdiction of Congress over the States
where there are no recognized governments, or place a bound or limit
to the discretion of Congress....
And if the sentiments of State pride and State rights be touched by
the assertion of this wide discretion, which men may deny but cannot
expunge, I would admonish those who dislike it that it is a
jurisdiction which nothing but the dereliction of the States can
wake into activity, and they who wish to exclude it from their
limits have only not to give occasion for its exercise by renouncing
obedience to the Constitution and pulling down their own State
governments. But now the jurisdiction has attached in all the rebel
States. Until Congress has assented, there is no State government in
any rebel State, and none will be recognized except such as
recognize the power of the United States; so that we come down to
this: whether we—and when I say we, I mean we upon this side of the
House, who are firmly, thoroughly, and honestly convinced that the
time has come not merely to strike the arms from the hands of the
rebels, but to strike the fetters from the arms of the slaves, and
remove that domineering and cohesive power without which we could
have had no rebellion, and which now is its animating spirit, and
which will die when it dies—....
And if it be time [for Congress to assert its authority] then all I
ask in conclusion is, that gentlemen will go and read that great
argument of Daniel Webster in the Rhode Island case ... where he met
this semi-revolutionary attempt to count heads and call that the
people, and maintained—and so the Supreme Court judged when it
refused to take jurisdiction of the question—that the great
political law of America is that every change of government shall be
conducted under the supervising authority of some existing
legislative body throwing the protection of law around the polls,
defining the rights of voters, protecting them in the exercise of
the elective franchise, guarding against fraud, repelling violence,
and appointing arbiters to pronounce the result and declare the
persons chosen by the people.... He [Webster] maintained it to be
the great fundamental principle of the American government that
legislation shall guide every political change, and that it assumes
that somewhere within the United States there is always a permanent,
organized legal authority which shall guide the tottering footsteps
of those who seek to restore governments which are disorganized and
broken down.
The bill, he asserted in conclusion, was an effort to apply this great
principle of American law.[312]
Representative Scofield, of Pennsylvania, said, April 29, 1864, when the
subject was again before the House, that the continuity of
constitutional government in the seceded States had been broken, the
regular transmission of political power interrupted. How, he inquired,
should the severed thread be joined? By the unconstrained action of the
people themselves, say the gentlemen in opposition. He indorsed that
sentiment, and added that when the people of those States should ground
the arms of their rebellion, and uncoerced take upon themselves the easy
yoke and light burden of the ever gentle Federal Government it would
mark a glad day in those uncheerful years of our history.
For those States from which hostile armies had been excluded Congress
should legislate or leave the people in the rough hand of military law.
The bill designed to discharge that duty was generally acceptable to any
one who conceded the propriety of Congressional action, its three
prohibitions being probably the only debatable points,—that is the
assumption of Confederate debts, the prevention of Confederate officers
from voting and the prohibition of involuntary servitude.
To assume the rebel debt, he asserted, would be to offer a high bounty
for future rebellions; if rebel officers were permitted to vote, upon
what principle of comparative justice could the privilege be denied to
ordinary criminals? These officers were guilty of the highest crime
against government. As to the third prohibition he had more to say.
“If God shall give us victory,” continued Mr. Scofield, “and enable us
to subdue or scatter the army of the enemy, is a voluntary reunion of
the States possible? I say _voluntary_ because I suppose nobody desires
a Union always to be maintained by force; and I use the word _reunion_
because nobody proposes a form of government different from our present
system of State brotherhood. I am not now speaking of the several plans
of reconstruction, for they are designed only as temporary devices,
looking to a reunion.... My question looks beyond the battle and beyond
reconstruction. When the victory is won, if won it shall be, and the
transition over, will the insurgent States _willingly stay_ where they
have been _forcibly put_ in their old places in the old Union?... Our
own liberties could not survive their permanent subjugation. When the
Federal Government becomes strong enough to hold eleven States as
colonies, it will be too strong, I fear, for the people’s liberties.”
All motives for those States ever to depart should be removed.
Similarity of ideas he characterized as the bond of nationality, and
named Ireland, Hungary and Poland to show the opposite. In the United
States slavery was the one subject of estrangement. Could North and
South be brought to think alike on that subject? The theory that each
side could hold its own opinions on slavery and no evil consequences
follow was somewhat to blame. That theory failed in practice and for
that failure each side blamed the other.
The fathers, he said, lived under that theory, that slavery and freedom
could coexist, but they expected that the institution would soon become
extinct. Hence they only tolerated it. Slavery was to recede slowly and
freedom to follow steadily. Upon _that_ basis they got along very well
and so could their descendants. Instead of consenting to go, slavery
demanded expansion and perpetuity. This was reversing the compromise of
the fathers; this change had to be discussed, the slave power took
umbrage and secession followed. If one sentiment must prevail, then
slavery, which could not stand discussion, must yield if there was to be
a reunion. To live in peace together the North must embrace slavery or
the South must abandon it.
To adopt slavery would mean the adoption by 20,000,000 people of
sentiments favorable thereto, whereas the institution never had any
friends in the North. Those in that section so considered were only its
apologists. If, three years ago, slavery had no real friends in the
North, who would advocate it when it had attempted to destroy the most
beneficent of governments? To reconcile the free States would
necessitate a change of opinion—to adopt freedom as the dominant idea
would require simply a change of _investment_ in the sections. For the
present extinguish the conflagration, for the future remove the
inflammable material from which it was kindled. For the present seize
the mad revolutionists of the South, for the future destroy the virus
that poisoned their blood.
All who favored emancipation he favored as co-workers for a voluntary
and peaceful reunion of the States; slavery was presented merely as an
element of discord and disunion and as such he asked for its
removal.[313]
Mr. Williams said that the war was inaugurated on the theory that the
States were _in_, whereas the great fact of war was a proclamation that
they were _out_. Northern Democrats were willing to accept the fact that
they were _out, without war_—to adopt the principle of the _laissez nous
faire_ of the rebel authorities and to treat with them upon the idea of
a _reconstruction_; peaceful secession with _reconstruction by treaty_.
The severance of the States was complete, though the hope of recovery
remained. By releasing the crews of their privateers, by blockading
their ports the Federal authorities had recognized them as a _de facto_
government; Federal legislation had put them under the ban as alien
enemies. In the minds of the framers of the Constitution the theory of
an indissoluble Union referred to _the right_, to its organic law. They
did not mean that it could not be ruptured by violence. If the
governments of the States were dissolved “they must, of course, be
reconstructed under the auspices of the conquering power, and that not
by the Executive, but by the Legislature of the Union, whose sword he
bears, and which only, consistently with the genius of our institutions,
the past practice of the Government, and the letter as well as spirit of
the Constitution, can venture to determine what use shall be made of the
territories conquered by it, and when and upon what terms they shall be
readmitted into full communion as members of this Government.... To
permit any executive officer to declare its law, and set it in motion,
and place it under the control of a minority—a mere tithe of its
citizens—with power to send delegates to Congress with representation
unimpaired and unaffected—even though he should reenact a part of its
abrogated Constitution—would be, as I think, a monstrous anomaly, a
violation of fundamental principles, and a precedent fraught with great
danger to republican liberty.... To come back into the Union, it must
either be born anew or come back with all its rights unimpaired, except
those material ones which have been destroyed in the progress of the
war. There is, I think, no middle ground, as there is no power either
here or elsewhere to prescribe terms which shall abridge the rights or
privileges of a State that has _not_ been out of the Union, or returns
to it in virtue of its original title.” The rebellious States, he
declared, “are in the Union for correction, not for _heirship_.” In
point of fact they were out.
Replying to an observation of Fernando Wood, Mr. Williams said: “We are
in favor, at all events, of preserving all that is left of it [the
Union], and intend, with the blessing of God, to win back the residue,
and pass it through the fire until it shall come out purged of the
malignant element that has unfitted it for freedom.
“... Say that they [the rebellious States] are in the Union as before,
and all your sacrifices have been idle, and all the blood spilled by you
has sunk into the earth in vain.”
The confiscation and distribution of the great baronial possessions of
rebel leaders were in his judgment an essential element in any feasible
plan of reconstruction. He deduced from passages in Bynkershoek and
Barbeyrac that “everything belonging to the offending party is
confiscated.... _Indemnity_, _security_, and _punishment_ are all,
therefore, means of self-defense which may be legitimately used.”
Is the forfeiture, he asked, of the estates and property of traitors,
whether they consist of lands or slaves, required for these purposes?
“_Vae Victis_” is not the maxim of a humane conqueror. Though he would
not exclude the idea of mercy, he was not clear as to “the wisdom of a
proclamation of amnesty in advance as a measure of pacification, without
limits as to time, and where submission after conquest, and when it is
no longer a virtue but a necessity, is to be rewarded with the same
impunity as a voluntary return to duty before that time.”
Speaking of the nature, cause and fury of the war, he continued: “Its
suppression has become impossible without removing the cause of the
strife, and disabling our enemy by liberating his slaves, and arming
them against him.”
No reparation was adequate for the injury inflicted; for, said he,
“there can be no punishment, except in the divestiture of the rights and
the seizure of the estates of the guilty leaders. There is no security
except in the distribution of the latter.” From these he would carve out
inheritances for the widow and the helpless offspring of the Northern
soldier.
For eighteen months, he observed in conclusion, the war was conducted
upon the principle of inflicting as little injury as possible upon the
enemy.[314]
The speech of Mr. Williams was marked by considerable fluency as well as
great elegance of diction; it was the effort of a scholar, though not
confined strictly to the question before the House. He introduced with
directness and vigor the ideas of indemnity, security and punishment;
these, it may be remarked, became important elements in determining the
mode of reinstatement that finally emerged from the chaos of resolutions
and plans submitted to Congress.
Representative Baldwin, of Michigan, believed the bill “to be an utter
subversion of the Constitution”; even a latitudinarian construction of
that instrument would not justify it. It embraced a plan that could be
enforced by only the military arm. It was the precursor of the
establishment of a despotism. That measure, as well as the President’s
plan, was fraught with danger.
He lamented interference with the elective franchise and the denial of
the privileges of the writ of _habeas corpus_. For eighteen months the
war had been waged for the destruction of the South, not for the
restoration of the Union. Did not wisdom, he asked, suggest that all
plans of reconstruction which tended only to intensify hate and postpone
the day of peace be abandoned? Speaking of the effect of Mr. Lincoln’s
policy he observed: “That it was intended that the amnesty proclamation
of last December would hasten the end of this strife, I do not believe.
We are told that nearly every Southern paper published it, and it only
nerved them to the performance of more earnest deeds.” The President’s
plan as well as that of Congress, he believed, were designed to
perpetuate the present dominant party by the vote of reconstructed
States. A considerable portion of his remarks was devoted to criticism
of the Administration.[315]
Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania, believed that the powers delegated by the
people of the United States to the national Government were sufficient
for the great work of reconstruction, and added: “That the time has come
in which Congress, in the exercise of the great powers conferred upon
it, should settle and authoritatively declare the terms and conditions
upon which the people of the rebellious districts should be restored to
their State privileges and resume their just relations to the national
Government, does not admit of doubt.” People occupying territory wrested
from the rebellion should be restored with the least possible delay to
the privileges of representative government. “Congress alone can enact
the laws which are to reconstruct the political societies in which the
fundamental principle of loyalty to the national Government and
obedience to its laws and respect for its authority have been
obliterated by the violence of rebellion. The President of the United
States cannot enact these laws, and it is in my opinion a reproach to
Congress that by its inaction up to the present time it has rendered it
necessary that the national Executive should be obliged by a sense of
obligation to the public welfare to resort to temporary expedients for
the preservation of public order and the assertion of national supremacy
in those districts and States which the valor of our soldiers has
redeemed from the insulting domination of the rebel army.”
Executive action, he asserted, was suggested by necessity. “What has
been done in that respect by the President I believe to have been well
done, wisely done, and patriotically done, and to have been demanded
alike by the necessity of the case and for the welfare of the Republic.”
The exclusive right over the subject, however, belonged to Congress,
which should relieve the President of all responsibility therein.
Safeguards against the recurrence of similar outbreaks in the future
should be required. He would support the measure before the House
because of these safeguards or pledges. Unconditional and perpetual
loyalty in the new governments in the rebellious States to that of the
United States, extirpation and perpetual prohibition of slavery and
compulsory repudiation of the rebel debt were the chief among these.
“The safety of the country,” said he, “its future repose, the
continuance of the Union, and the firm establishment of our political
system imperatively demand that in the reorganization of local
governments in the rebel States the foundations of such governments must
rest upon the principle of submission to the Constitution and laws of
the United States.
“... It is also necessary to guard the elective franchise and the
privilege of holding office in those States against the intrusion and
treachery of all who have in any sense been leaders in the present
rebellion. For this purpose prudence requires that all who have held
office under the pretended rebel government should be excluded from
these privileges.”
The seventh section of the bill he would like to see so modified as to
declare that no debt of the pretended Confederate States, and no debt
contracted by the State for the purpose of prosecuting the war against
the United States or of giving aid to its enemies, should be recognized
or paid by the State.
It was a singular doctrine, he remarked in conclusion, that those who
had thrown off all restraints of the Constitution and who for years had
waged war for the purpose of overthrowing it should be entitled to
demand its protection while engaged in armed hostility to it.[316]
Mr. Yeaman did not believe Congress had a right to legislate away the
laws and institutions of these States. The American people, he said,
would come out of the contest with a better political education, an
education having for its basis the idea that _they are a nation_, and he
added, “a war to enforce the theory of secession will end in an
increased consolidated nationality.” The theory expressed in the
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions was the fatal blow in our political
history. His address was in the nature of an essay in political science
and not altogether germane to the measure under consideration.[317]
“Pass a judicious enabling act,” urged Mr. Longyear, “with proper
safeguards, of which the people may avail themselves to organize civil
governments at the very earliest opportunity, and it will afford a
rallying point for the Union sentiment remaining there, and tend to
foster it and nourish it into a healthful and vigorous existence. It
will prevent perplexing and complicated irregularities and diversities
of action, and tend largely to harmony and strength in our future
deliberations. No stronger illustration of the necessity and propriety
of immediate action need be given than the case of Tennessee, Louisiana,
and Arkansas.
“The President’s proclamation does not solve the difficulty. As a
proclamation of amnesty, as a general outline or plan for organizing new
State governments, as a prescription of safeguards and conditions
precedent to such organization, it will ever stand as a bright and
glorious page in the history of the present Administration. But it is
incomplete for lack of constitutional power. That can be conferred by
Congress alone, under the power to admit new States.
* * * * *
“If we succeed [in the war] we make no conquest of territory, because
that is already ours. We simply succeed, in that respect, in bringing
that which is our own again under our control.” Because of rebellion the
constitutions and laws of those States had ceased to exist, and as
slavery was established solely in State laws that also ceased to exist.
The only object of a constitutional amendment was to prohibit its
establishment forever. Freedom, he added, was being substituted for
slavery. In respect to slavery and the slave power we were in the midst
of a revolution. They proved themselves inimical to civil liberty, to
the Constitution and to republican institutions.[318]
To the remark of Fernando Wood, of New York, that the South could not be
subdued, Ignatius Donnelly replied, “We are doing it!” and he added, if
the system of the President is deficient in the machinery that will
ensure safety “it is our duty to supply that defect. The plan of the
President, unsupported by any action on our part, hangs upon too many
contingencies. It may be repealed by his successor; it may be resisted
by Congress; it may be annulled by the Supreme Court. It rests the
welfare of the nation upon the mind of one man; it rests the whole
structure of social order upon the unstable foundation of individual
oaths.” Upon this subject Mr. Donnelly observed that General Jefferson
Thompson, C. S. A., noted in passing through those regions that men
consulted their memorandum books to see what oath they had taken last.
Thousands of rebel dead had been found on the battle field with oaths of
allegiance, sworn to and subscribed, in their pockets. Mr. Donnelly
favored the bill, and if any measure of greater security could be found
he would support that. He desired, as soon as it could be attained, an
amendment of the Constitution that would prohibit slavery.
“I am aware, Mr. Speaker,” he continued, “of the great claims which Mr.
Lincoln has upon the people of the United States. I recognize that
popularity which accompanies him, and which, considering the ordeal
through which he has passed, is little less than miraculous. I recognize
that unquestioning faith in his honesty and ability which pervades all
classes, and the sincere affection with which almost the entire
population regard him. We must not underrate him even in our praises. He
is a great man. Great not after the old models of the world, but with a
homely and original greatness. He will stand out to future ages in the
history of these crowded and confused times with wonderful distinctness.
He has carried a vast and discordant population safely and peacefully
through the greatest of political revolutions with such consummate
sagacity and skill that while he led he appeared to follow; while he
innovated beyond all precedent he has been denounced as tardy; while he
struck the shackles from the limbs of three million slaves he has been
hailed as a conservative! If to adapt, persistently and continuously,
just and righteous principles to all the perplexed windings and changes
of human events, and to secure in the end the complete triumph of those
principles, be statesmanship, then Abraham Lincoln is the first of
statesmen.
“If the end of the war is to be a restoration _of the appearance_ of the
old Government; a patching together of the broken shreds and fragments;
a propping up of the fabric in such style that the next Administration
may possibly get out from under it before it falls, then that
proclamation may be found all-sufficient. But for all other purposes it
will be utterly unavailing. It does not reach the heart of the
distemper....
“We owe more than this to ourselves; we owe more than this to the South.
We must regenerate the South.”[319]
This discriminating tribute to the character and genius of Mr. Lincoln
was paid by no servile flatterer; it was not the eulogy of even a
supporter of the Presidential plan of reconstruction; nor was it
designed as a discharge of, or uttered in expectation of compelling,
Executive favors, but appears rather to have been the spontaneous
testimony of a keen interpreter of men and measures not less creditable
to the insight of the speaker than to the subject of his remarks.
Others, it is true, refrained from misrepresenting the President’s
attitude and cheerfully ascribed to him patriotic and enlightened
motives in his public conduct. Mr. Donnelly alone condensed into a
paragraph a panegyric with which the judgment of posterity is in
complete accord. This portion of his speech is quoted both to show that
there were men in Congress who fully appreciated the greatness of the
President, and that criticism of his measures was not in many instances
suggested by feelings of personal hostility.
Very different were the remarks of Mr. Dennison, who declared that “The
passage of this law will be the final gathering up of the reserved
rights of States, and the last vestige of protection of the citizen
under State constitutions will be taken away, and all power centralized
in the General Government.” He opposed the bill for the additional
reason that it was intended to legalize and perpetuate the
unconstitutional acts of the President. “There does not exist on the
earth a more despotic government than that of Abraham Lincoln. He is a
despot in fact if not in name.”[320] These excerpts sufficiently
indicate the character of his invective.
“I have offered a substitute to the bill of the committee,” said
Thaddeus Stevens, “because that does not, in my judgment, meet the evil.
It partially acknowledges the rebel States to have rights under the
Constitution, which I deny, as war has abrogated them all. I do not
inquire what rights we have under it, but they have none. The bill takes
for granted that the President may partially interfere in their civil
administration, not as conqueror but as President of the United States.
It adopts in some measure the idea that less than a majority may
regulate to some extent the affairs of a republic.”[321] The chief
objection of Mr. Stevens, however, was that it removed the opportunity
of confiscating the property of the disloyal.
Representative Wadsworth, of Kentucky, he said, agreed with him that the
people of the South could plead none of the constitutional provisions in
their defence. Whatever rights they possessed were those of belligerents
engaged in war. “When we come to enforce the rights of conquest,”
continued the Pennsylvania member, “we should be justified in insisting
upon the _extreme rights_ of war, without yielding to the mitigations
dictated by modern usage with regard to belligerents originally composed
of foreign nations engaged in war which they deemed just.” Explaining
former recommendations which in many quarters had called forth severe
criticism, he said: “I thought that the women and children, the
non-combatants, and those who were forced by the laws of their State
into the armies, should be spared; and the property of the guilty,
morally as well as politically guilty, only should be taken. And yet we
hear a howl of horror from conservative gentlemen at the inhumanity of
the proposition.” He still further explained his sentiments on this
occasion. After stating that the people of the Confederate States were
sovereign and acted through their representatives, he asserted that they
had commenced and were continuing to wage an unjust war and therefore
their private property was liable to confiscation. The right to take
their property existed, but no one, he said, “advises the execution of
the extreme right. But the right exists and ought to be enforced against
the most guilty. To allow them to return with their estates untouched,
on the theory that they have never gone out of the Union, seems to me
rank injustice to loyal men.” Of those who denied that the Confederate
States had gone out of the Union he inquired, “What are we making war
upon them for? For seceding; for going out of the Union against law. The
law forbids a man to rob or murder, and yet robbery and murder exist _de
facto_ but not _de jure_.” Hence the Constitution does not allow the
States to go out of the Union. He referred also in his speech to a
resolution introduced by Mr. Schenck, of Ohio, which passed the House
without a division and declared the Confederate States a public enemy,
engaged in a public war.[322]
On the same day, May 2, Representative Strouse remarked that immediately
after the disaster of Bull Run the House almost unanimously passed the
Crittenden Resolutions, which declared that “This war is not waged in
any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation,
or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established
institutions of these States.” This announcement, he asserted, brought
volunteers, whereas now, 1864, county, State and Federal bounties
combined could not induce men to enlist, and the cause of the apathy was
that the war had been perverted from the purpose announced in the
resolutions referred to. The entire speech had little reference to the
bill of Mr. Davis, but seemed rather designed, by an attack on the
Administration, to please his Democratic constituents.[323]
Mr. Cravens said that the dominant party did not distinguish between
loyalty to the Administration and loyalty to the Government. The time
for compromise had passed when the Republican party refused to accept
the Crittenden Resolutions. That organization was in all essentials an
abolition party. If there ever was a distinction it no longer existed.
He cited a rather complete list of all the measures acted upon by
Congress showing their concern for the negro; he charged neglect of the
white soldier, his widow and orphans; quoted from the speech of Thaddeus
Stevens on the admission of West Virginia, and named Representative
Julian as uttering sentiments little behind the Pennsylvania member in
boldness and exhibiting no more reverence for the Constitution. The
incapacity and dire wickedness of the President and his “courtiers” came
in for a share of criticism.
Mr. Gooch on the following day, May 3, remarked that the rebellion was
but the military phase of the conflict of ideas which began with the
adoption of the Constitution. “When we shall have crushed the rebellion
and restored peace to all parts of the country we shall hold this
territory, not by a new title, but by the old, not as territory acquired
by conquest, but territory defended and maintained against revolt.... I
can see no reason why the President, as Commander-in-Chief, should not,
in the meantime, so use the military power as to aid and assist the
loyal people of any one of these States in the organization of a loyal
State government.... All these acts by the President, or the military
power under him, in thus aiding and assisting the loyal people in these
States, impose no obligation upon Congress to recognize them until such
time as it shall deem proper to do so, and any recognition the military
power may see fit to give to these governments can never fix their
status in the Union. Congress alone has the power to determine what
government is the legitimate one in a State, and its decision is binding
on the other departments of the Government.”[324]
Mr. Perry, of New Jersey, spoke of the duration of the war, predicted
the general bankruptcy which its great expense would bring about, and
calculated that in eleven years the cost of the war would equal the
assessed value of property.
Speaking of the Executive plan he said: “And here the President’s design
is perfectly evident, to secure a majority of the delegates to the
nominating convention of his party, and to provide for his own election
by the House of Representatives in the event of there not being an
election by the people. By this plan the narrow foothold maintained by
our armies in North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Florida,
Arkansas, and elsewhere may send the pretended full delegations of those
States to this House. Mr. Speaker, I denominate the whole plan a
political trick worthy of the most adroit and unscrupulous wire-puller
of our ward primary meetings.” The State governments had not been
destroyed, he added, “nor can they be destroyed unless the rebels are
finally victorious, and establish their independence.”[325]
Fernando Wood said that Mexico had a republican form of government, and
that Texas came into the Union without changing the character of her
government except to substitute a governor for President and to change
the titles of some officials. Every Southern State possessed the same
form of government which it did before secession. If, he asserted, they
were then republican in form, “they are so now.” The Confederate
constitution had all the elements of republicanism. The bill provided
that hereafter none of the States in rebellion should hold slaves. It
did not leave to the people the right to regulate their domestic
institutions. Is it republicanism to take from the people this
privilege? “To impose upon them a form of government of your own making,
under the pretext of this bill, would be the worst kind of tyranny,
whatever the provisions of your constitution might be.”[326]
He defended himself against serious charges of General Schenck, whom he
criticised severely. These accusations, however, were reiterated by Hon.
William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, who at this point rose to speak on
the merits of the bill.
The proposed measure did not meet his unqualified approval. It lacked
some of the amendments suggested by Mr. Stevens. “I should like to see
his distinct declaration,” said Congressman Kelley, “that ‘The
Confederate States are a public enemy, waging an unjust war, whose
injustice is so glaring that they have no right to claim the mitigation
of the extreme rights of war which are accorded by modern usage to an
enemy who has the right to consider the war a just one.’” He would like
to see the bill of Mr. Davis provide also for the exclusion from
Congress of all those States that seceded, and every part of them.
As more immediately important, however, he would prefer to see included
in the measure the proposition of Mr. Stevens respecting amendments of
the Constitution; he denied the immortality of a State. It has its
beginning, its transitions and may have its end. “A State may be killed,
a State may commit suicide. An act of God, by destroying its
inhabitants, might extinguish a State. A State could be conquered and
held by some strong and hostile power. The political people of each of
those States have overthrown the State. Through its corporate power each
State destroyed its corporate life, and no one of them exists.” He also
denied that a State could transfer to any foreign power territory within
the jurisdiction of the United States. The Supreme Court had decided
that the Southern States were alien enemies and entitled to only the
rights of such.[327]
The message of the President, Representative S. S. Cox believed, “should
be welcomed, not so much for what it is as for what it pretends to be.
It is his first adventure beyond the line of force into the field of
conciliation....
“To test the genuineness of this amnesty: five months have gone, but we
see no signs of thousands of Southern citizens rushing to embrace this
amnesty. Indeed, it is conceded that the rebellion is now more
formidable than ever.” There was no genuine movement toward the
restoration of the seceded States. He would not take the oath of
allegiance and swear support of the negro policies. How could Southern
men be expected to take the oath? Its terms provoked or irritated them
still more. The structure, he declared, was built on the Emancipation
Proclamation.
The bill of Mr. Davis had the same defects. That, too, was based upon
the one tenth system and the policy of forced emancipation. “In some of
its features,” he said, “it is an improvement upon the rickety
establishment proposed by the President.
“... The emancipation act of the gentleman [Lincoln] can never be
reconciled with the normal control of the States over their domestic
institutions, so all oaths to sustain the same are oaths to subvert the
old governments, Federal and State.... The President’s plan, therefore,
whether intended or not, is an oath to encourage treason, and the plan
of the gentleman from Maryland is a plan to consummate revolution.
“... If his [the President’s] plan of making one tenth rule in the
States should succeed, then he will have ready at hand the electoral
votes of Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, and
other States. He began this business in Florida the other day, and the
blood which flowed at Olustee is the result of this scheme of personal
ambition!
* * * * *
“There is a sort of _odium historicum_,” proceeded Mr. Cox, “attached to
all political test oaths.... They have been the bane and foil of good
government ever since bigotry began and revenge ruled. You cannot make
eight million people, nearly all in revolt at what they regard as the
detestable usurpations of abolition, forswear their hatred to abolition.
You force by this oath the freed negro into the very nostrils of the
Southern man, whose submission to law you seek.
“The conditions of pardon only inflame but do not quench rebellion....
“We may yet change the war from the diabolical purposes of those in
power, by changing that power to other hands, and we are not ready to
sever our Union while that hope remains.”
Precedents and analogies from both ancient and contemporary history were
cited to demonstrate the folly of attempting to hold the South in her
place by force. These together with censure of the Administration and
criticism of the dominant party in Congress made up a great part of Mr.
Cox’s very long speech.[328]
Representative Boutwell, of Massachusetts, referring, May 4, to the
remarks of his colleague, Mr. Ashley, of the committee which reported
the bill, observed that “since this rebellion opened the Thirty-seventh
Congress commenced its existence and ceased to exist; that this Congress
is now closing the fifth month of its First Session, and that up to this
time no efficient, indeed no legislative steps whatever have been taken
by which the Executive is to be guided in the affairs of the people
occupying the territory that has been reclaimed from rebel domination.
Under these circumstances I think it due to the country that this House,
at least, should do nothing which conveys any reflection upon his policy
unless that policy be clearly and manifestly in contravention of the
Constitution or of the well-ascertained and admitted principles of the
Government.”
When the populous parts of Louisiana were torn from rebel domination,
and the State of Arkansas indicated in various ways the growth of a
sentiment of loyalty and returning allegiance to the General Government,
the Executive had but one of three courses before him: either to be
silent, to govern by military authority alone, or else to establish a
civil government or at least to take initiatory steps toward such
establishment. “It was unquestionably his right and duty, in the absence
of all legislative action, to govern these territories as fast and as
far as they were reclaimed by military power.”
He defended both the President and General Banks, who had for years been
consistent advocates of liberty. He then announced himself in favor of
the bill of Mr. Davis.
“The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens],” continued Mr. Boutwell,
“maintains, as I understand, that these States are out of the Union;
that their territory is alien territory, and that we are making war
against alien enemies. I do not admit either of these positions to be
true. I feel quite sure that these eleven once-existing States are no
longer States of the Union. The evidence on which I rely in support of
this position is found first in the declaration made by the authorities
of those States that they no longer exist as States of the American
Union. Next, we find that for three years and more they have been
resisting the authority of the Government and have been carrying on a
war against it. It is absurd to say that States or people are a part of
the Government under the Constitution, and entitled to constitutional
rights and privileges, when they have been carrying on war against the
Government.
* * * * *
“Nor do I admit that the people in the rebellious States are aliens.
They are not of any other country, they are not of any other legal
jurisdiction, they are within the jurisdiction of the Union. Three years
ago they were a portion of this Union, and although they have been
carrying on a war, that war has not thus far been successful, their
independence has not been acknowledged by us, nor has it been recognized
by any other nation. They, therefore, are not aliens. They are, to be
sure, public enemies, but they are not alien enemies.
“... These States as political organizations have by their own will
ceased to exist.... The existence of a State is a fact within the
control of the people themselves, and cannot be influenced by any
extraneous power whatever, and therefore these States have by the will
of the people thereof as political organizations ceased to exist.”
Admitting that the Government of the United States had legal
jurisdiction over this territory and over the people who occupied it, it
was an absurdity, he declared, “to say that these States still exist and
that the people there may without our consent elect officers and send
Representatives to this body and Senators to the other branch of
Congress.”
To the taunt of the Democrats that the war had been changed from a war
to restore the Union to one for the purpose of emancipating the slave,
Mr. Boutwell replied by a denial of the fact, but added that even if it
were so, it was not the first instance of the sort in human history. Up
to 1774 every American expected to preserve the old relations with
England, yet within two years Independence was declared. The pending
measure, he asserted, had not elicited marked attention in Congress nor
any great interest throughout the country, yet in it lay the germ of a
new civilization for half a continent.
The limitation of the elective franchise to white males did not meet his
approval; for though the suffrage is not a natural, it is the highest
political, right. Where the suffrage is denied to any large number of
men, that community is never free from the danger of intestine
commotion.
As South Carolina and Georgia were responsible for breathing into
slavery the breath of life after it had everywhere been condemned, he
would not have them again reappear in the Union. Florida did not deserve
a place in the Union and, by giving the colored men local suffrage in
that district, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, he would invite the
blacks thither as fast as they could be spared from the industries in
which they were elsewhere engaged. He would not ask to extend this
principle to loyal Northern or to border States with a negro
population.[329]
Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, made by far the ablest Democratic argument
against the proposed enactment. Its details as well as its general
policy, he said, required examination. After stating quite fully the
provisions of the bill, he continued:
The gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Davis] facetiously entitles it “a
bill to guaranty to certain States whose governments have been
usurped or overthrown a republican form of government.”
At last the mask has been thrown off. At last the pretenses have all
been laid aside. Three years of war have done their work, and the
purposes and objects of the Republican party have been at last
acknowledged. This bill is the consummation of its statesmanship the
fruit of its experience, the demonstration of its purposes. The
gentleman from Maryland introduced it; it is understood to be
distasteful to some of his party friends; but it is a party measure;
it will be voted for by every member of the Republican organization;
it marks their policy of restoration; it defines their ideas of
Union; it interprets their construction of the Constitution. As such
I accept it. We have had double-dealing, hypocrisy and fraud for the
last three years. We have had false professions, false names, and
double-faced measures. We have had armies raised, taxes collected,
battles fought, under the pretense that the war was for the Union,
the old Union, the Union of the Constitution. These were the
catchwords for the patriotic people. In the secret council-chambers
of the party they were sneered at as devices with which to ensnare
the innocent, to deceive the ignorant, to coax the obstinate. They
were to be discarded as soon as, in the heat of war, in the
exasperation of passion, in the exultation of victory, or in the
bitterness of defeat and disaster and oppression, it would be safe
to divulge the great conspiracy against the Union, the
constitutional confederation, the principles of free government.
That time has come. The veil is drawn aside. We see clearly. The
party in possession of the powers of the Government is
revolutionary. It seeks to use those powers to destroy the
Government, to change its form, to change its spirit. It seeks under
the forms of law to make a new Government, a new Union, to ingraft
upon it new principles, new theories, and to use the powers of the
law against all who will not be persuaded. It is in rebellion
against the Constitution; it is in treasonable conspiracy against
the Government. It differs in nothing from the armed enemies except
in the weapons of its warfare. They fight to overthrow its authority
over them, while it seeks to destroy that authority at home. They
would curtail the limits of the jurisdiction of the Federal
Government; it would extend those limits, but change the basis and
principles upon which it rests. If revolt against constituted
authority be a crime, if patriotism consist in upholding in form and
spirit the Government our fathers made, those in power here to-day
are as guilty as those who in the seceded States marshal armed men
for the contest.
“Revolutions move onward.” That is true. But call things by their
true names. Admit you are in revolution; admit you are
revolutionists; admit that you do not desire to restore the old
order; admit that you do not fight to restore the Union. Take the
responsibility of that position. Avow that you exercise the powers
of the Government because you control them; that you are not bound
by the Constitution, but by your own sense of right. Avow that
resistance to your schemes is not treason, but war. Dissolve the
spell which you have woven around the hearts of our people by the
cunning use of the words conservatism, patriotism, Union. And we
will cease all criminations, we will hush all reproaches for oaths
violated, pledges falsified, faith betrayed. We will meet you on
your own ground, we will fight you with your weapons, and by the
issue of that contest, whether of argument or of arms, we will
abide.
Am I to be told that I misrepresent the Republican party? The
gentleman who has just taken his seat [Mr. Boutwell], an able and
honored member of that party, has said in your hearing, “If I could
direct the force of public sentiment and the policy of this
Government, South Carolina as a State and with a name should never
reappear in this Union. Georgia deserves a like fate. Florida does
not deserve a name in this Union.”
The gentleman from Maryland felt that this charge could be
truthfully made. He sought to answer it in advance. He denied that
the provisions of the bill contravened any clause of the
Constitution. Where is the authority for it? Where is the authority
to declare State governments overthrown? Where is the authority to
reconstruct them? Where is the authority to appoint a governor; to
call a convention to remodel their constitutions; to fix the
qualifications of its members; to prescribe the conditions of their
organic law; and until a _new_ constitution shall be made, to
administer by Federal officers such parts of the old constitution
and laws as the governor, or the President, or Congress may
select?...
At this point he quoted Madison on the guaranty clause, a subject
elaborated in the Senate by Carlile, of Virginia. Mr. Pendleton observed
that if slavery, which, with one possible exception, existed in all the
States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, was not
inconsistent with a republican form of government then it was not
inconsistent with it in 1864.
And yet the advocates of this bill [continued Mr. Pendleton] propose
to deprive the States of power over the question of slavery, power
over their own indebtedness, power to regulate the elective
franchise, and the right to hold office, under the pretense that
they thereby execute the provision that the United States must
guaranty a republican form of government to the States.
The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Boutwell] has shown how he
would execute it. South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida should never
again appear as State[s] or in name in this Confederation. Is their
exclusion a guarantee to them of a republican government?
... If Congress may insist upon the three fundamental conditions
prescribed in this bill, ... by a parity of reasoning it ought to
insist upon their incorporation into the constitution of the States
remaining steadfast by the Union. If they are essential to
republicanism in the one class of States they are equally so in all.
* * * * *
... Gentlemen must not palter in a double sense. These acts of
secession are either valid or they are invalid. If they are valid,
they separated the State from the Union. If they are invalid, they
are void; they have no effect; the State officers who act upon them
are rebels to the Federal Government; the States are not destroyed;
their constitutions are not abrogated; their officers are committing
illegal acts, for which they are liable to punishment; the States
have never left the Union, but so soon as their officers shall
perform their duties or other officers shall assume their places,
will again perform the duties imposed and enjoy the privileges
conferred by the Federal compact, and this not by virtue of a new
ratification of the Constitution, nor a new admission by the Federal
Government, but by virtue of the original ratification, and the
constant, uninterrupted maintenance of position in the Federal Union
since that date.
Acts of secession are not invalid to destroy the Union, and valid to
destroy the State governments and the political privileges of their
citizens. We have heard much of the two-fold relation which citizens
of the seceded States may hold to the Federal Government—that they
may be at once belligerents and rebellious citizens. I believe there
are some judicial decisions to that effect. Sir, it is impossible.
The Federal Government may possibly have the right to elect in which
relation it will deal with them; it cannot deal with them at one and
the same time in inconsistent relations. Belligerents being captured
are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war; rebellious citizens
are liable to be hanged. The private property of belligerents,
according to the rules of modern war, shall not be taken without
compensation; the property of rebellious citizens is liable to
confiscation. Belligerents are not amenable to the local criminal
law, nor to the jurisdiction of courts which administer it;
rebellious citizens are, and the officers are bound to enforce the
law, and to exact the penalty of its infraction. The seceded States
are either in the Union or out of it. If in the Union, their
constitutions are untouched, their State governments are maintained;
their citizens are entitled to all political rights, except so far
as they may be deprived of them by the criminal law which they may
have infracted. This seems incomprehensible to the gentleman from
Maryland. In his view the whole State government centers in the men
who administer it; so that when they administer it unwisely, or put
it in antagonism to the Federal Government, the State government is
dissolved, the State constitution is abrogated, and the State is
left, in fact and in form, _de jure_ and _de facto_, in anarchy,
except so far as the Federal Government may rightfully intervene.
This seems to be substantially the view of the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Boutwell]. He enforces the same position, but he
does not use the same language.
... If by a plague or other visitation of God every officer of a
State government should at the same moment die, so that not a single
person clothed with official power should remain, would the State
government be destroyed? Not at all. For the moment it would not be
administered, but as soon as officers were elected and assumed their
respective duties it would be instantly in full force and vigor.
If these States are out of the Union their State governments are
still in force unless otherwise changed. And their citizens are to
the Federal Government as foreigners, and it has in relation to them
the same rights, and none other, as it had in relation to British
subjects in the war of 1812, or to the Mexicans in 1846. Whatever
may be the true relation of the seceded States, the Federal
Government derives no power in relation to them or their citizens
from the provision of the Constitution now under consideration, but
in the one case derives all its power from the duty of enforcing the
“Supreme law of the land;” and in the other from the power “to
declare war.”
* * * * *
The gentleman [Mr. Davis] states his case too strongly. The duty
imposed on Congress is doubtless important, but Congress has no
right to use a means of performing it forbidden by the Constitution,
no matter how necessary or proper it might be thought to be. But,
sir, this doctrine is monstrous. It has no foundation in the
Constitution. It subjects all the States to the will of Congress; it
places their institutions at the feet of Congress. It creates in
Congress an absolute unqualified despotism. It asserts the power of
Congress in changing the State governments to be “plenary, supreme
and unlimited”—“subject only to revision by the people of the whole
United States.” The rights of the people of the State are nothing,
their will is nothing. Congress first decides, the people of the
whole Union revise. My own State of Ohio is liable at any moment to
be called in question for her constitution. She does not permit
negroes to vote.... From that decision of the Congress there is no
appeal to the people of Ohio, but only to the people of
Massachusetts, and New York, and Wisconsin, at the election of
Representatives; and if a majority cannot be elected to reverse the
decision, the people of Ohio must submit. Woe be to the day when
that doctrine shall be established, for from its centralized
despotism we will appeal to the sword!
The rights of the States, he said in conclusion, had reconciled liberty
with empire, the freedom of the individual with increase of the public
domain; by the proposed measure these were all swept instantly away. It
substituted “despotism for self-government; despotism the more severe
because vested in a numerous Congress elected by a people who may not
feel the exercise of its power.... It maintains integrity of territory
but destroys the rights of the citizen.” Finally he declared that he
preferred separation to the unity which the bill would create.[330]
Debate was concluded by Henry Winter Davis, who rose for the purpose of
perfecting the pending measure by moving as a substitute a bill
essentially the same as that under consideration in the House; from that
plan, however, it differed in two not unimportant particulars. First, it
excluded what his friend Mr. Cox had objected to, the rule of one tenth,
and required a majority to concur in forming a government. The other
softened the operation of the clause excluding officers of the State and
Confederate government, by saving merely ministerial officers and the
inferior military officers; so that the exclusion merely affected
persons of dangerous political influence. By an arrangement with
Thaddeus Stevens, instead of having a direct vote on his substitute, a
portion of it was proposed as a preamble to this bill, which, of course,
would be voted on separately and take whatever fate the House might
assign to it. With these observations Mr. Davis said, “I offer this as a
substitute, and move the previous question upon it.” The substitute was
agreed to, and the amendment to the preamble adopted, the preamble
itself being rejected. By 73 yeas to 59 nays, the bill passed the House,
May 4, 1864.[331]
This important measure authorized the President, by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, to appoint for each of the States declared in
rebellion a provisional governor, with pay and emoluments not to exceed
that of a brigadier-general of volunteers, and who was to be charged
with the civil administration of such State until a government was
recognized as existing therein. As soon as military resistance to
Federal authority had been suppressed, and the people had sufficiently
returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws, it was
made the duty of the governor to direct the United States marshal to
enroll all white male citizens of the United States, resident in the
State, in their respective counties; and wherever a majority of them
took the oath of allegiance, the loyal people of the States were, by
proclamation, to be invited by the governor to elect delegates to a
convention to act upon the reëstablishment of a State government, the
proclamation to prescribe the details of the election. Qualified
electors in the army could vote at the headquarters of their respective
commands. No person who had held or exercised any civil, military, State
or Confederate office under the rebel occupation, and who had
voluntarily borne arms against the United States, could either vote or
be eligible as a delegate. The convention was required to insert in the
constitution the following provisions:
First. No person who has held or exercised any office, civil or
military, except offices merely ministerial and military offices
below colonel, State or Confederate, under the usurping power, shall
vote for or be a member of the Legislature, or Governor.
Second. Involuntary servitude is forever prohibited, and the freedom
of all persons is guaranteed in said State.
Third. No debt, State or Confederate, created by or under the
sanction of the usurping power, shall be recognized or paid by the
State.
Upon the adoption of such a constitution by the convention and its
ratification by the voters of the State the provisional governor should
so certify to the President, who, after obtaining the assent of
Congress, was empowered by proclamation to recognize the government so
established, and none other, as the constitutional government of the
State; from the date of such recognition, and not before, Senators and
Representatives as well as electors for President and Vice-President
could be legally chosen in such State. Until reorganization the
provisional governor was to enforce the laws of the Union, and of the
State before rebellion.
The remaining provisions were as follows:
Section 12 declared that “all persons held to involuntary servitude or
labor in the States referred to, are emancipated and discharged
therefrom, and they and their posterity are declared to be forever free.
And if any such persons or their posterity shall be restrained of
liberty, under pretense of any claim to such service or labor, the
courts of the United States shall, on _habeas corpus_, discharge them.”
Section 13 provided that “if any person declared free by this or any law
of the United States, or any proclamation of the President, be
restrained of liberty; with intent to be held in or reduced to
involuntary servitude or labor, the person convicted before a court of
competent jurisdiction of such act shall be punished by a fine of not
less than $1,500, and be imprisoned not less than five nor more than
twenty years.”
By section 14 it was declared that “every person who shall hereafter
hold or exercise any office, civil or military, except offices merely
ministerial, and military offices below the grade of colonel, in the
rebel service, State or Confederate, is declared not to be a citizen of
the United States.”[332]
On the following day the proposed measure came up in the Senate, was
read twice by its title and referred to the Committee on Territories. On
May 27 Mr. Wade reported the bill with amendments, and on June 30
succeeding moved to postpone all prior orders and proceed to its
consideration. His motion, however, was not agreed to, and it was not
till July 1, when the session was drawing rapidly to a close, that its
discussion began. To save time the amendments proposed by the committee
were voted down. Senator Brown, of Missouri, believed that the subject
of reconstruction could and should be postponed to a later day, and
offered for the bill, by way of amendment, a substitute which declared
incapable of voting “for electors of President or Vice-President of the
United States, or of electing Senators or Representatives in Congress,”
until the rebellion was abandoned, the inhabitants of all those States
hitherto proclaimed in a state of insurrection. That question he
regarded as the necessity of the hour.[333]
Mr. Wade hoped this amendment would not prevail; there was nothing, he
asserted, in the argument that sufficient time did not remain for its
careful consideration, because it was early and thoroughly debated in
the House and had been fully discussed by the Senate Committee. It was
five months on their desks and the attention of Senators had often been
called to it. On Republicans at least its consideration had frequently
been urged by himself. More than ordinary care had been taken in this
matter, and if the bill was not then understood it never would be.
The question would arise in the ensuing campaign. Senators, he said, had
been refused admission to Congress, and the principles on which they
would be received should be declared. They were announced in the bill
which had passed the House. It protected the Government against
Confederate sympathizers and guarded the interests of loyal Southerners
during the period of transition.
The status of the seceded States was a question upon which men differed
widely. It was a question to be ascertained and declared by Congress,
“for the Executive ought not to be permitted to handle this great
question to his own liking. It does not belong, under the Constitution,
to the President to prescribe the rule, and it is a base abandonment of
our own powers and our own duties to cast this great principle upon the
decision of the executive branch of the Government.... I know very well
that the President from the best motives undertook to fix a rule upon
which he would admit these States back into the Union. It was not upon
any principle of republicanism; it would not have guarantied to the
States a republican form of government, because he prescribed the rule
to be that when one tenth of the population would take a certain oath
and agree to come back into the Union they might come in as States. When
we consider that in the light of American principle, to say the least of
it, it was absurd. The idea that a State shall take upon itself the
great privilege of self-government when there are only one tenth of the
people that can stand by the principle is most anti-republican,
anomalous, and entirely subversive of the great principles that underlie
all our State governments and the General Government. Majorities must
rule, and until majorities be found loyal and trustworthy for State
government, they must be governed by a stronger hand....
“... I hold that once a State of this Union, always a State; that you
cannot by wrong and violence displace the rights of anybody or
disorganize the State.” It was marvellous to him how gentlemen could
fancy that States forfeited their rights because more or less of the
people had gone off into rebellion, and he added, “This bill proceeds
upon that idea and discards absolutely the notion that States may lose
their rights and that they may be abrogated and may be reduced to the
condition of Territories. It denies any such thing as that. No sound
principle can be adopted that warrants any such thing.”
Noticing the imposition of conditions on the admission or on the
readmission of a State, he remarked that this feature of the bill would
probably receive more criticism than any other, and declared, “that the
great Union party of the country are altogether convinced that slavery
mixed up in a Government is so unsafe, so liable to overthrow that it
cannot be admitted as an element in a State government.... Therefore
this bill has taken special pains to say that the new government shall,
in its constitution, proclaim emancipation as a condition upon which it
shall be permitted to come into the Union.” There was a time, he
admitted, when it would have been deemed unconstitutional in Congress to
prescribe any particular principle for a constitution when a State was
seeking to come into the Union. “We have done so, however,” he asserted,
“in every State that we have ever admitted,” and yet perhaps the
question was never entirely settled. “Would it be wise for us,” he
asked, “in admitting States back into this Union to permit them to come
with the very element that carried them out, with the very seeds of
destruction which had destroyed them already? The framers of this bill,”
he continued, “have sedulously shut it out, and made it a condition on
which the seceded States shall come back that it shall be a fundamental
principle of their constitution that slavery is excluded.”
The amendment of Senator Brown he characterized as a bare negative; it
did not inform the people of the seceded States upon what principle they
were to be again admitted into the Union.[334]
Mr. Carlile, of Virginia, observed on entering into the discussion that
everything the bill proposed to do in the way of remedying existing
evils would be accomplished by adopting the amendment offered by the
Senator from Missouri. The provisions of the bill were not to be
enforced and were not to have any life until after the suppression of
the rebellion, and, therefore, there could be no pressing necessity for
action at that time, when a large majority of Senators expected in three
or four days to leave Washington for their homes. Senator Wade
interrupted him to point out that there was provided a military governor
whose duties could be performed in any stage of the rebellion, from the
time Federal forces obtained a foothold in any State until it was in the
Union again. The Virginia Senator agreed with Mr. Wade as to the extent
of the President’s power in the matter, and in the belief that once a
State in the Union always a State; but the bill, he said, not only
maintained that State governments were overthrown, but so far as it
could do so, recognized and assumed the right to overthrow the State
governments if that work was not already accomplished. If the President
had not the right to prescribe rules for the return of rebellious
States, where was the constitutional provision which authorized Congress
to do so? The title of the bill was an insult, he declared, to the
understanding of every enlightened man in the nation and the bill itself
one of the most revolutionary that ever was proposed in a deliberative
body claiming to be the representatives of a free people.
The question mooted in Congress forty years before, he continued, was
insignificant compared to the present. That was a proposition to impose
upon the inhabitants of a Territory seeking admission into the Union a
restriction upon their right of self-government when they became a
State. After one of the most exhaustive and learned debates that ever
graced the Capitol of the nation that assumption for Congress was
abandoned. It was permitted to rest as the settled law of the land that
Congress had no power to impose limitations affecting the right of the
people of a State to regulate their own domestic affairs, even when
sought to be applied to the inhabitants of a Territory seeking admission
to the Union. This continued the settled action of Congress until
reversed at the preceding session by assuming to create an independent
State out of a portion of the Commonwealth which he represented.
“No State can have a Republican form of government,” he declared, “no
State has a republican government, when that government, no matter what
are its provisions, is prescribed to them by another outside of their
limits. A republican form of government must emanate and emanate alone
from the people that are to be governed. It belongs not to the Congress
of the United States; it belongs not to the thirty-three States of this
Union to prescribe for the smallest State within its folds a
constitution or form of government. If you have a right to impose a
limitation upon this power as to one subject of domestic legislation you
have a right to impose it upon every subject. If you have a right to
make one provision of a constitution for a people you have the right to
make the entire instrument itself.”
An interruption of his argument by Mr. Wade drew from the Virginia
Senator a query rather embarrassing to the Ohio statesman. “Where,”
asked Carlile, “does the Senator derive the power to appoint a governor
for a State, a State which he acknowledges to be in existence, a State
government that he acknowledges to be in existence, a State government
that he acknowledges it to be his duty to protect and maintain? By what
provision of the Constitution does the Senator derive the authority to
appoint for such a State an executive head?” Mr. Wade replied that when
the Constitution imposed the duty of guaranteeing a republican form of
government it conferred the power to do so, and he in turn inquired, “Is
not that good law?” “No, sir,” answered Carlile, who proceeded: “Now,
Mr. President, I will satisfy the Senator himself, I think; and really
it is not necessary for me to attempt to satisfy him, for he is too good
a lawyer not to know the meaning of the word ‘guaranty.’ What is it?
Does the authority to ‘guaranty to each State in this Union a republican
form of government’ authorize this Union to set up a government, to
create a government, or to make a government? Is the maker of a note the
man who guaranties its payment? There is no man in the Senate who knows
better the definition and legal significance of the word ‘guaranty’ than
the Senator from Ohio, and none, I am sure, is more familiar, too, with
the power that was intended to be conferred by this provision of the
Constitution.” After admitting that he would bring the power of the
Government to bear on a faction who undertook to establish a monarchical
form of government, Mr. Wade put this hypothetical case: “Suppose now
that we have conquered them and the people are still bent on their
monarchy, shall we not guaranty a republican government to them by
putting one over them?” “If the Senator be right,” answered Carlile,
“Mr. Madison, the author of the Constitution, was wrong.” He then quoted
from the forty-third number of the Federalist:
“To guaranty to every State in the Union a republican form of
government; to protect each of them against invasion; and on
application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the
Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.”
In a confederacy founded on republican principles and composed of
republican members, the superintending government ought clearly to
possess authority to defend the system against aristocratic or
monarchical innovations.
“The very case put by Senator Wade,” observed Carlile; “and how it is to
be done is stated:”
The more intimate the nature of such a Union may be, the greater
interest have the members in the political institutions of each
other; and the greater right to insist that the forms of government
under which the compact was entered into should be _substantially_
maintained.... It may possibly be asked, what need there could be of
such a precaution, and whether it may not become a pretext for
alterations in the State governments, without the concurrence of the
States themselves. These questions admit of ready answers. If the
interposition of the General Government should not be needed, the
provision for such an event will be a harmless superfluity only in
the Constitution. But who can say what experiments can be produced
by the caprice of particular States, by the ambition of enterprising
leaders, or by the intrigues and influence of foreign powers? To the
second question it may be answered that if the General Government
should interpose by virtue of this constitutional authority, it will
be, of course, bound to pursue the authority. But the authority
extends no further than to a _guaranty_ of a republican form of
government, which supposes a _preëxisting government_ of the form
which is to be guarantied.
Sustained in his position by Madison’s commentary Carlile resumed: “Now,
sir, is the Senator answered?... It is not claimed or pretended, I
suppose, by the Senator from Ohio, or by any advocate of this bill, that
under any other provision of the Constitution can a pretext be afforded
for the assertion of such a power as this bill proposes to assert.” To
Senator Wilkinson’s inquiry, what would the Government of the United
States do if the people of South Carolina determined that they would not
have a republican form of government in that State, the Virginia Senator
answered:
“I would have the Government of the United States do nothing that it has
not the power under the Constitution to do, because I believe that the
Government of the United States is a Government of limited powers. I
believe it to be its duty under the grant of power in the Constitution
to guaranty the existence of a preëxisting republican government. That
government existed in South Carolina; the people have not determined, at
least before this war they had not determined, to have any other than a
republican form of government. We had recognized that government as a
republican form of government by the recognition of the State in all its
departments and the admission of all its national representatives. It is
made the duty of the Government of the United States, not of Congress;
and I desire to call the attention of the Senator to that, because it
bears upon his assumption for Congress of power which does not belong to
the Executive. It is not alone the duty of Congress to guaranty a
republican form of government to the people of the several States; the
extent of that guarantee is not limited alone to the means which
Congress may employ; but the words of the Constitution are ‘the United
States shall guaranty.’ Hence every department of the Government is
equally bound; and Congress being the legislative branch of course
participates to a greater extent in the discharge of that duty.”
After a discussion with Mr. Clark, Carlile proceeded in his argument:
“But, sir, the Senator from Ohio says the Union is to be preserved. So
say I. Upon what principle are these States to come back into the Union?
The people, says the Senator from Ohio, will meet you with that inquiry.
Sir, when was ever such an inquiry suggested to the brain of any loyal
man in this Union? When was such an inquiry ever put? Never until after
a policy different from that which characterized the commencement of
this struggle was entered upon by the party in power. All said the Union
was to be restored; all accepted the struggle as the use of the military
power of the Government in the restoration of the Union. What Union? The
Union of the Constitution. The Union into which new States are to be
admitted. It is not into ‘a Union’ but into ‘this Union’ that the States
are admitted. What Union? The Union of the Constitution, none other; and
he who seeks to preserve the Union can only do it by an observance of
the Constitution and of the constitutional means to restore it, not
reconstruct it.
“... In this Union, created by this Constitution, of limited and
delegated powers, all prescribed and written in the instrument, you
propose to exercise your legislative power by usurping the rights and
liberties of the people, a power which all the people you represent
could not use or could not exert without the destruction of the Union
which the Constitution formed. There is no power in this Government,
there is no power in the parties to this Government, there is no power
in all the States of this Union to prescribe a constitution for the
little State of Rhode Island. If every other State in the Union, the
adhering as well as the rebellious States, if every man, woman, and
child in them were to meet and prescribe a constitution for the people
of Rhode Island, they would have no power or authority to do so under
the Union; and tell me where the people’s representatives derive the
power to do that which all the people in their collective capacity, save
the small minority which constitutes that State, cannot do?”[335]
Mr. Carlile emphasized the fact that the bill under consideration was
not a war measure. In a running argument with several Senators he showed
both a ready and comprehensive knowledge of the Constitution and made
some telling points against the bill as well as against the radical
tendencies in Congress. His speech was, perhaps, the very ablest
delivered by any Senator in opposition to the proposed measure. At its
conclusion Mr. Brown’s amendment was agreed to.
An amendment offered by Charles Sumner to enact the Emancipation
Proclamation into a law was rejected by a vote of 21 to 11. The
Massachusetts statesman did not wish, he said, to see the edict of
freedom “left to float on a Presidential proclamation.”[336]
The bill concerning States in insurrection against the United States
then passed the Senate by 26 yeas to 3 nays.[337] When the vote was
taken 20 Senators were absent. On the succeeding day, July 2, 1864, a
message announced the disagreement of the House to the Senate amendment
and requested a committee of conference. A subsequent motion of Mr. Wade
that the Senate recede from its amendment and agree to the bill of the
House was carried after some discussion by a vote of 18 to 14, thus
passing the bill on the same day.[338] The names of Doolittle,
Henderson, Ten Eyck and Trumbull voting with the Democrats in opposition
foreshadowed that division in the Republican ranks which afterwards
occurred.
The history of this famous bill from the moment of its passage by
Congress until the publication a week later of the President’s
proclamation concerning it is best related in the Life of Mr. Lincoln by
his private secretaries, Messrs. Nicolay and Hay. These writers
possessed an unusual opportunity for ascertaining the sentiments of the
President upon nearly every question of public interest.
“Congress,” says the diary of Mr. Hay, “was to adjourn at noon on the
Fourth of July; the President was in his room at the Capitol signing
bills, which were laid before him as they were brought from the two
Houses. When this important bill was placed before him he laid it aside
and went on with the other work of the moment. Several prominent members
entered in a state of intense anxiety over the fate of the bill. Mr.
Sumner and Mr. Boutwell, while their nervousness was evident, refrained
from any comment. Zachariah Chandler, who was unabashed in any mortal
presence, roundly asked the President if he intended to sign the bill.
The President replied: ‘This bill has been placed before me a few
moments before Congress adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance
to be swallowed in that way.’ ‘If it is vetoed,’ cried Mr. Chandler, ‘it
will damage us fearfully in the Northwest. The important point is that
one prohibiting slavery in the reconstructed States.’ Mr. Lincoln said:
‘That is the point on which I doubt the authority of Congress to act.’
‘It is no more than you have done yourself,’ said the Senator. The
President answered: ‘I conceive that I may in an emergency do things on
military grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress.’ Mr.
Chandler, expressing his deep chagrin, went out, and the President,
addressing the members of the Cabinet who were seated with him, said: ‘I
do not see how any of us now can deny and contradict what we have always
said, that Congress has no constitutional power over slavery in the
States.’ Mr. Fessenden expressed his entire agreement with this view. ‘I
have even had my doubts,’ he said, ‘as to the constitutional efficacy of
your own decree of emancipation, in those cases where it has not been
carried into effect by the actual advance of the army.’
“The President said: ‘This bill and the position of these gentlemen seem
to me, in asserting that the insurrectionary States are no longer in the
Union, to make the fatal admission that States, whenever they please,
may of their own motion dissolve their connection with the Union. Now we
cannot survive that admission, I am convinced. If that be true, I am not
President; these gentlemen are not Congress. I have laboriously
endeavored to avoid that question ever since it first began to be
mooted, and thus to avoid confusion and disturbance in our own councils.
It was to obviate this question that I earnestly favored the movement
for an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, which passed
the Senate and failed in the House. I thought it much better, if it were
possible, to restore the Union without the necessity of a violent
quarrel among its friends as to whether certain States have been in or
out of the Union during the war—a merely metaphysical question, and one
unnecessary to be forced into discussion.’
“Although every member of the Cabinet agreed with the President, when, a
few minutes later, he entered his carriage to go home, he foresaw the
importance of the step he had resolved to take and its possibly
disastrous consequences to himself. When some one said to him that the
threats made by the extreme radicals had no foundation, and that people
would not bolt their ticket on a question of metaphysics, he answered:
‘If they choose to make a point upon this, I do not doubt that they can
do harm. They have never been friendly to me. At all events, I must keep
some consciousness of being somewhere near right. I must keep some
standard or principle fixed within myself.’”[339]
A perusal of the preceding abridgment of debates shows clearly that the
bill was designed by Congress as a measure of reconstruction and
intended by many of its leading advocates as a rebuke of the President.
He was not, however, a statesman whom even the deliberate censure of a
coördinate branch of Government could hurry into an act of rashness; he
had never been precipitate; indeed, the burden of radical criticism was
that Mr. Lincoln was provokingly slow. This was the opinion which
Charles Sumner expressed in confidential correspondence with his English
friends[340] and which Secretary Chase entered in the pages of his
diary.[341] The President was, it is true, the most cautious of men, and
the fact goes far to explain the absence during his eventful
administration of even a single serious blunder; the discovery of a
gross error of judgment seldom or never rewarded the researches of his
ablest critics. Though his modesty was scarcely less than his prudence,
he entertained a just conception of the dignity of his office; long
reflection upon constitutional questions, which made him familiar with
the extent of executive power, taught him likewise to recognize those
limitations which the fundamental law had imposed upon legislative
action. Another characteristic which made him a formidable adversary in
every controversy was a constant purpose to be always, as he expressed
it himself, “somewhere near right.”
The measure had been so long under consideration that none of its
provisions could have taken him by surprise, and we are justified in
concluding that when the bill was presented for his approval he had
already determined on his course of action. Indeed there is evidence
that some of his supporters in Congress had written to their friends in
Louisiana predicting the very fate that afterward befell the bill. Their
outline of the President’s course admits of no other explanation than
that he had communicated to them his intentions respecting it. The
progress of the measure in the Senate was to be so retarded that the
adjournment of Congress would relieve him of the necessity of exercising
the veto, and that is precisely what happened. In the very last hour of
the session it was submitted for his approval; his disposal of the bill
on that occasion has already been noticed; his approval was withheld and
Congress rose before the expiration of the ten days which would enact
the bill into a law without his signature. Though an interested view had
not been overlooked, he disregarded in discharge of his duty every
personal consequence of the important step which he purposed to take.
His hostility to the measure had long been suspected, but when knowledge
of his failure to approve it had become a certainty the anger of the
more radical members of his party became extreme. They had clearly been
outwitted by the President and many of them, eager for retaliation,
returned to their homes meditating schemes of revenge.
For the present, at least, anything like adequate discipline of Mr.
Lincoln was not within their power, for the Baltimore convention, which
renominated him for the Presidency, had adjourned nearly a month before.
This at least was secure. His election, though not entirely a foregone
conclusion, was reasonably assured; few of the discomfited members even
imagined the thought of injuring their party to embarrass the President.
It is easy to believe, however, that they intended such criticism of his
policy as would be consistent with party success. But even here he
resolved to dispute with them a field of operations which they believed
entirely their own. The President, it is true, could not, even if so
inclined, justify his conduct in person before the voters of every State
in the Union; he could, however, and did forestall expected criticism
from Congressmen by publishing a proclamation vindicating his “pocket”
veto, thus destroying whatever hope remained to radical Republicans of
diminishing his popularity by ascribing to him base or selfish motives
for opposing the sense of the Legislative department of Government. As
on other critical occasions so on this he found no precedent to guide
him, but with characteristic firmness proceeded deliberately to
establish one. When some of the Congressmen reached their States they
found their constituents already pondering the proclamation of July 8,
1864. Its importance requires that it be quoted in full:
Whereas, at the late session, Congress passed a bill to “guarantee
to certain States, whose governments have been usurped or
overthrown, a republican form of government,” a copy of which is
hereunto annexed;
And whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the
United States for his approval less than one hour before the _sine
die_ adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him;
And whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for
restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation
in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that
subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the
people for their consideration:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
do proclaim, declare, and make known, that, while I am (as I was in
December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for
restoration) unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, to be
inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and, while I
am also unprepared to declare that the free-State constitutions and
governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana
shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and
discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to
further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in
Congress to abolish slavery in States, but am at the same time
sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment
abolishing slavery throughout the nation may be adopted,
nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration
contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people
of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times
shall be, prepared to give the Executive aid and assistance to such
people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States
shall have been suppressed in any such State, and the people thereof
shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the
Constitution and laws of the United States, in which cases Military
Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to
the bill.[342]
This unexpected publication was very differently received by the various
elements composing the Republican party; a large majority of those
acting with that organization still confided in Mr. Lincoln; by the
radical wing, however, he was sharply censured. Notwithstanding the
necessity for harmony in the approaching campaign two of the boldest
leaders, disregarding every consideration of prudence, arraigned the
President in language which for severity was never surpassed by the
invectives of his ablest political opponents. In the entire experience
of the Republic no Executive had ever assumed to reject those provisions
in a legislative measure which he disliked and adopt those that were
acceptable. This is precisely what Mr. Lincoln did, and the reasons for
his action he declared to the people with a confidence which forcibly
recalls the direction of Andrew Jackson to the editor of his official
organ: “Speak out to the people, sir, and tell them that instead of
supporting me and my policy Congress is engaged in President-making.”
There was, however, this difference: Abraham Lincoln addressed the
people directly and ventured no criticism of their representatives. Like
his more impulsive though not less popular predecessor he was not
deceived in the reliance which he placed in the patriotic instincts of
the multitude, which cared little for nice metaphysical distinctions; by
the masses of the people he was trusted to the end.
By Henry Winter Davis and Benjamin F. Wade, chief authors of the bill,
its progress had been watched with feverish anxiety; when convinced that
their labor was lost they became greatly agitated and made no effort to
conceal their indignation at the conduct of the President. Their joint
protest, printed in the _New York Tribune_ of August 5, was, perhaps,
the most bitter attack made upon Mr. Lincoln during his Presidential
career. Their fierce manifesto, addressed “To the supporters of the
Government,” declares that the writers had “read without surprise, but
not without indignation, the proclamation of the President of the 8th of
July, 1864.
“The supporters of the Administration are responsible to the country for
its conduct; and it is their right and duty to check the encroachments
of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it to
confine itself to its proper sphere.”
The paper then related the history of the bill. Its treatment by the
President, they declared, indicated a persistent though unavowed purpose
to defeat the will of the people by the Executive perversion of the
Constitution. They insinuated that only the lowest personal motives
could have dictated this action. “The President,” they said, “by
preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of
the rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition.
“If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be supposed that
his competitor, defeated by such means, will acquiesce?
“If the rebel majority assert their supremacy in those States, and send
votes which elect an enemy of the Government, will we not repel his
claims?
“And is not that civil war for the Presidency inaugurated by the votes
of the rebel States?
“Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, ‘_the proper
constitutional authority_,’ formally declared that there are no State
governments in the rebel States, and provided for their erection at a
proper time; and both the Senate and the House of Representatives
rejected the Senators and Representatives chosen under the authority of
what the President calls the free constitution and government of
Arkansas.
“The President’s proclamation ‘holds for naught’ this judgment, and
discards the authority of the Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward
the anarchy his proclamation of the 8th of December inaugurated.
“If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those
States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the
President to ‘hold for naught’ the will of Congress rather than his
government in Louisiana and Arkansas.
“The judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of
an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution, to
determine what is the established government in a State, and in its own
nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other
departments of the Government.”
They ridiculed the President’s expressed hope that the constitutional
amendment abolishing slavery might be adopted. “We curiously inquire,”
continue Messrs. Wade and Davis, “on what his expectation rests, after
the vote of the House of Representatives at the recent session, and in
the face of the political complexion of more than enough of the States
to prevent the possibility of its adoption within any reasonable time;
and why he did not indulge his sincere hopes with so large an
installment of the blessing as his approval of the bill would have
secured?
* * * * *
“A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has
never been perpetrated.
“Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it, and then
by proclamation puts as much of it in force as he sees fit, and proposes
to execute those parts by officers unknown to the laws of the United
States, and not subject to the confirmation of the Senate.
“The bill directed the appointment of provisional governors by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate.
“The President, after defeating the law, proposes to appoint, without
law and without the advice and consent of the Senate, military governors
for the rebel States!
“He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana, and
defeated the bill to prevent its limitation.”
Scarcely an expression of the proclamation, which was examined in
detail, escaped its share of censure or of ridicule. To suppose that the
President was ignorant of the contents of the bill was out of the
question, for it had been discussed, they asserted, during more than a
month in the House of Representatives, by which it was passed as early
as the 4th of May. It passed the Senate in absolutely the form in which
it came from the House. Indeed, at the President’s request, a draft of a
bill substantially the same in material points, and almost identical in
those features objected to by the proclamation, was submitted for his
consideration during the winter of 1862–1863.
The “Protest” included also a sharp contrast between the Executive plan
of December 8, 1863, and that embodied in the bill which had passed
Congress. That measure, said Messrs. Wade and Davis, required a majority
of the voters to establish a State government, the proclamation was
satisfied with one tenth; “the bill requires one oath, the proclamation
another; the bill ascertains voters by registering, the proclamation by
guess; the bill exacts adherence to existing territorial limits, the
proclamation admits of others; the bill governs the rebel States _by
law_, equalizing all before it, the proclamation commits them to the
lawless discretion of military governors and provost marshals; the bill
forbids electors for President (in the rebel States), the proclamation
and defeat of the bill threaten us with civil war for the admission or
exclusion of such votes....”
This arraignment of the President’s course concluded with the language
of admonition, if not indeed of absolute menace: “The President has
greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his
Administration have so long practised, in view of the arduous conflict
in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political
opponents.
“But he must understand that our support is of a cause, and not of a
man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected;
that the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be
impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he
wishes our support, he must confine himself to his Executive duties,—to
obey and execute, not make the laws,—to suppress by arms armed
rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress.
“If the supporters of the Government fail to insist on this, they become
responsible for the usurpations which they fail to rebuke, and are
justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and
security, committed to their keeping, they sacrifice.
“Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and, having found
it, fearlessly execute it.”[343]
The authors of this remarkable paper were eminent in the councils of
their party and stood high in the estimation of Union men everywhere.
Senator Wade was distinguished no less for his physical than for his
moral courage—qualities impaired somewhat, it is true, by a temper
fierce and vindictive. Henry Winter Davis, whose zeal for civil liberty
will constitute his best claim to the gratitude of posterity, possessed
literary gifts scarcely surpassed by any statesman then in public life.
Though treated with extreme fairness, not to say generosity, by the
President, he pursued toward the Administration a course of consistent
hostility. This opposition, which even Mr. Lincoln’s tact could never
disarm, has been ascribed to disappointment at his failure to obtain a
place in the Cabinet. While the selection of Montgomery Blair from his
own State of Maryland may have been a cause of estrangement, a sense of
what Mr. Davis regarded as public duty contributed, doubtless, to
intensify this feeling, which led him ultimately to think the President
scarcely entitled to courteous treatment. With the Ohio Senator the
pitiless maxim, _vae victis_, had an undoubted influence. Both were
gentlemen of wide experience and acknowledged ability, and yet their
vigorous and fearless arraignment of the President revealed an
astonishing lack of political sagacity. They inquired, for example, on
what foundation he rested his expectation of an adoption of the
constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The incorporation, soon
after, of such a provision in the fundamental law shows their want of
insight into the tendencies of the times. The fire of the prophet,
indeed, was present in the protest; his inspiration was altogether
wanting. Their absurd assertion that the electoral votes of Louisiana,
Arkansas and Tennessee were the prime consideration with the President
must be attributed to the passion rather than to the reason of his
critics, for few men of that generation were more familiar with the
Constitution in all its relations. Better than most of their readers
they knew that the duty of counting such votes was entrusted not to a
possibly interested Executive, but to a joint convention of both Houses.
If the Maryland member believed the President had committed the
misdemeanors charged and insinuated it was his duty to bring before the
House the question of impeachment. Far less than was expressed in the
protest would have been ground for investigation. If tenderness to
Lincoln, a weakness of which Mr. Davis at least was never suspected, or
a concern for party welfare prevented such a step, then he was himself
guilty of a gross neglect of duty. Doubtless this consideration,
together with the want of moderation shown in the manifesto, subjected
its authors to a suspicion of insincerity. Indeed, one does not read a
dozen lines of their arraignment without discovering the chief if not
the sole cause of its publication. “The President,” they say, “did not
sign the bill ‘to guarantee to certain States whose governments have
been usurped, a republican form of government’—passed by the supporters
of his Administration in both Houses of Congress after mature
deliberation.” In brief, the political departments of Government had
entered upon a struggle for power; Congress had been defeated, and its
discomfited leaders sought to relieve their feelings by railing at the
President.
Except that it probably defeated the renomination of Mr. Davis for
Congress, their protest was followed by no political result of
moment.[344] In it the mass of Republicans perceived only the seeds of
dissension within their ranks. In this view it was a source of delight
to Democrats, though they felt little sympathy with either the defeated
bill or the purposes of its chief authors.
-----
Footnote 309:
See p. 23, _ante_.
Footnote 310:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 33.
Footnote 311:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 34.
Footnote 312:
Appendix, Part IV., Globe, 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 82–85; also
Speeches and Addresses of Henry Winter Davis. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1867, pp. 368–383.
Footnote 313:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 1970–1972.
Footnote 314:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 1974–1981.
Footnote 315:
Ibid., pp. 1981–1983.
Footnote 316:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 2002–2006.
Footnote 317:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 2008.
Footnote 318:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 2011–2014.
Footnote 319:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 2038.
Footnote 320:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 2039–2041.
Footnote 321:
Ibid., p. 2041.
Footnote 322:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 2041–2042.
Footnote 323:
Ibid., p. 2043.
Footnote 324:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 2071.
Footnote 325:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 2073.
Footnote 326:
Ibid., p. 2074.
Footnote 327:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess 38th Cong., p. 2078.
Footnote 328:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 2095–2102.
Footnote 329:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 2102–2105.
Footnote 330:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 2105–2107.
Footnote 331:
Globe, Part III., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 2108.
Footnote 332:
Globe, Part IV., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 3448–3449.
Footnote 333:
Ibid., p. 3449.
Footnote 334:
Globe, Part IV., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp 3448–3450.
Footnote 335:
Globe, Part IV., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 3451–3453.
Footnote 336:
Ibid., p. 3460.
Footnote 337:
Globe, Part IV., 1 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 3461.
Footnote 338:
Ibid., p. 3491.
Footnote 339:
Diary of John Hay, quoted in Abraham Lincoln, A History, Vol. IX. pp.
120–122.
Footnote 340:
Pierce’s Memoir of Sumner, Vol. IV. pp. 57, 60, 83, 84, 106, 108, 130,
etc.
Footnote 341:
Shuckers’ Life of Chase, pp. 440n, 442, 453, 495.
Footnote 342:
Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 545;
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 318–319.
Footnote 343:
Ann. Cycl., 1864, pp. 307–310n.
Footnote 344:
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. p. 44.
VIII
AN ATTEMPT TO COMPROMISE
When Congress met in December, 1864, Mr. Lincoln, who received the
electoral votes of twenty-two of the twenty-five States participating in
the contest, had again been chosen President. In the struggle for power
he had refrained with his usual prudence from improving his advantage
over the Legislative department. The annual message omitted all
reference to the controversy occasioned by his failure to sign, and his
proclamation concerning, the bill of Messrs. Wade and Davis; the
question of reconstruction was noticed in only the most casual manner. A
statement of the satisfactory condition of foreign relations introduced
the Executive communication; the subject of finance received the
consideration that its importance required. The vast proportions and the
efficient state of the navy were mentioned as matter of congratulation.
General Sherman’s projected march of three hundred miles through hostile
regions was characterized as the most remarkable feature in the military
operations of the year. This with other evidences of approaching
disruption in the Confederacy led logically to a summary of what had
been accomplished toward reorganization in those States already wrested
from insurgent armies. On this subject the message observed: “Important
movements have also occurred during the year to the effect of molding
society for durability in the Union. Although short of complete success,
it is much in the right direction that twelve thousand citizens in each
of the States of Arkansas and Louisiana have organized loyal State
governments, with free constitutions, and are earnestly struggling to
maintain and administer them.”[345] Movements in the same direction, he
said, more extensive though less definite, were in progress elsewhere
and should not be overlooked. No plan of reconstruction was proposed, or
even alluded to in the message.
Among questions beyond Executive authority to adjust was specified the
admission of members to Congress. In disclaiming power over this subject
he anticipated the criticism of those Senators and Representatives who
later in the session ascribed to him a design to usurp important
functions of the Legislative branch of Government.
From its concluding paragraphs we are enabled to collect the sentiments
of the President relative to his offer, a year before, of a general
pardon to designated classes upon specified terms. In this connection he
said: “But the time may come—probably will come—when public duty shall
demand that it [the door open to repentant rebels] be closed; and that,
in lieu, more rigorous measures than heretofore shall be adopted.” This
seems to establish beyond question the fact that Mr. Lincoln feared some
measures more stringent than he had been hitherto pursuing might be
rendered necessary by the failure of a policy of clemency to recall any
large number of insurgents to their obedience to the Constitution and
the laws.
He ventured to recommend a reconsideration of the proposed
constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the United
States, which at the preceding session had passed the Senate, but failed
to receive in the House the requisite two thirds vote. Though the
present, he reminded them, was the same Congress and composed of nearly
the same members, their judgments were, no doubt, influenced by an
intervening election, which, though it imposed on them no obligation to
change their views, made it reasonably certain that if they did not
submit the amendment to the States the succeeding Congress would. He
inquired, since its passage was merely a question of time, whether they
would not agree that the sooner the better? The voice of the people, he
added, had for the first time been heard on that question.[346]
As the President believed, the House had been so far converted to his
views that a joint resolution adopting the amendment was passed early in
the session by a vote of 119 to 56.[347]
When Congress assembled the public was occupied chiefly in watching the
progress of naval and military operations. The sinking of the _Alabama_
and the capture of the _Florida_ practically ended Confederate
privateering, for any expectations based upon the escape of the
_Albemarle_ were frustrated by the enterprise and daring of Lieutenant
Cushing. One army had been destroyed by Sheridan, another crippled by
Thomas. Tidings of telling blows inflicted by General Sherman gave
something like assurance of his safety. Though not without heavy loss,
Grant had forced Lee within the defences of Richmond and Petersburg.
Some of the lesser Union advantages had, it is true, been offset by
Southern victories; signs of disintegration within the Confederacy,
however, were multiplying, and this condition forced upon Congress the
inevitable question of reconstruction.
By unanimous consent of the House Thaddeus Stevens, on December 8,
offered resolutions distributing the President’s message. To the
Committee on the Rebellious States was referred so much of it as was
alleged to relate “to the duty of the United States to guaranty a
republican form of government to the States in which the governments
recognized by the United States have been abrogated or overthrown.”[348]
Nothing whatever in the message or the accompanying documents related to
any such duty on the part of the United States, and the resolution
assumed such a recommendation, no doubt, for the purpose of bringing the
subject before Congress. One week later, Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, reported a
bill, on the subject of Stevens’s resolution, which was read twice,
ordered to be printed and returned to the Committee. On January 12
succeeding Representative Eliot, of Massachusetts, gave notice of his
intention to offer at the proper time an amendment to the bill in charge
of Mr. Ashley. No objection having been made, it was ordered to be
printed. This was, in fact, a substitute for the bill reported by the
Ohio member, and provided “that no State engaged in rebellion against
the Government of the United States shall be allowed to resume its
political relations with the Government of the United States until by
the action of the loyal citizens within the limits of the same a State
constitution shall be ordained and established, republican in form,
forever prohibiting involuntary servitude within the State, and
guarantying to all persons freedom and equality of rights before the
law.” Its second section provided “that the State of Louisiana shall be
permitted to renew its political relations with the Government of the
United States under the constitution adopted by the convention assembled
at New Orleans on the 6th of April, 1864.”[349]
That some of the more influential among the radical members desired to
avoid, if possible, a controversy with the President may be fairly
inferred from a letter of Charles Sumner, written December 27, 1864, to
Doctor Lieber. Among other things the Senator says: “I have presented to
the President the duty of harmony between Congress and the Executive. He
is agreed. It is proposed to admit Louisiana (which ought not to be
done), and at the same time pass the reconstruction bill for all the
other States, giving the electoral franchise to ‘all citizens’ without
distinction of color. If this arrangement is carried out, it will be an
immense political act.”[350] A communication to John Bright, written a
few days after the above, January 1, 1865, confirms this view. On that
occasion Mr. Sumner said: “The President is exerting every force to
bring Congress to receive Louisiana under the Banks government. I do not
believe Louisiana is strong enough in loyalty and freedom for an
independent State. The evidence on this point seems overwhelming. I have
discussed it with the President, and have tried to impress on him the
necessity of having no break between him and Congress on such questions.
Much as I am against the premature recognition of Louisiana, I will hold
my peace if I can secure a rule for other States, so that we may be
saved from daily anxiety with regard to their condition.”[351] These
passages explain the amendment to the revived bill. Sumner was willing
to remain a neutral spectator of the debates on the recognition of
Louisiana provided the reorganization of the remaining States should be
made on the lines indicated by Congress.
On January 16, Ashley’s bill was reached in the regular order of
business; by direction of the Committee on the Rebellious States, it was
offered as a substitute for the original measure, from which it differed
in one very important particular. It expressly recognized the loyal
governments of both Louisiana and Arkansas. By unanimous consent the
proposed enactment, considered as an original bill, was offered for the
plan submitted by Henry Winter Davis at the preceding session.
Representative William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, would amend the
clause providing for the enrollment of “all the white male citizens of
the United States” by inserting the words “and all other male citizens
of the United States who may be able to read the Constitution thereof.”
Mr. Eliot then introduced the amendment of which he had previously given
notice. By Representative Arnold another amendment was offered to that
of Eliot.
Judge Kelley opened the debate by declaring that indemnity for the past
the victors in the war could not hope to obtain; they could, however,
demand security for the future. In a very long speech he discussed the
status of the negro in the early days of the Republic; this portion of
his address was concluded with the remark that his amendment did not
contemplate that the entire mass of people of African descent, degraded
and brutalized by laws and customs, be immediately clothed with all the
rights of citizenship, but only those so far fitted by education for its
judicious exercise as were able to read the Constitution and the laws of
the United States. This, indeed, he admitted, was only an entering wedge
and was to be regarded as an aid to their improvement; when sufficiently
advanced they were to be endowed with every right necessary to their
protection. A strong plea was made to confer the suffrage on the colored
man; otherwise, asked the Pennsylvania member, how will it be possible
to prevent his subjugation? He would not rely on men’s abstract sense of
justice, for that had not prevented outrages in the past. Justice should
be embodied in laws and constitutions while it was in the power of
Congress to do so. That body was to determine who should select
delegates to the conventions that were to frame governments for the
insurgent States. The Union minorities in the South required the
political support of every loyal man in their communities. It was the
power, he reminded Representatives, not the spirit of the rebellion that
Federal armies were overthrowing. In conclusion he declared himself in
favor of conferring the suffrage on “every man who fights or pays,” a
doctrine which he ascribed to Jefferson, in whose party he said he had
been trained.[352]
Mr. Eliot, who spoke on January 17, regretted that he had not been able
to support the amended bill reported from the select committee. Partly
because of the interest, he said, which his friend Henry Winter Davis
took in the subject he came to its consideration prepossessed in its
favor. The provisions of the measure passed at the preceding session,
however, were not then discussed. There were strong reasons for action
at that time which no longer existed to the same extent. There was time
enough on the present occasion, January, 1865, to make it more perfect
and more practicable than the plan offered by the committee.
Entering upon an examination of the bill he declared that its terms were
peremptory; eleven States were in rebellion, and by the first section
the President was called upon to appoint for each of them a provisional
governor. Such appointments were to be made when the measure became a
law. Except in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee these appointments
would be not only useless but a needless source of expense, and though
section _fifteen_ recognized the governments established in the two
former, the machinery of the bill would be applied to all the States in
rebellion.
It imposed upon the several governors proposed to be appointed executive
duties which they could not assume until the power of the United States
had vindicated itself within those States; there were other duties which
they should not be required to perform. They were to see that the laws
which were in force in that section in 1860 should be faithfully
executed, with no knowledge on the part of the House of the import of
those laws. Why should Congress assume responsibility for enforcing the
black code? Why demand the enforcement, he asked, of minute police
regulations in States where complexion appointed or reduced punishment?
Other laws were specified, such as those punishing the circulation of
books or writings advocating human rights, laws requiring the removal
from those States of free persons of color, prohibiting them from
engaging in business, and punishing by the lash upon suspicion of false
testimony and before conviction. There was a law, he said, in one of
those States requiring the imprisonment of free colored sailors in her
ports.[353] These provisions and many others of the same tenor were
contained in the statute books of those States in 1860 and had been
enforced. The penalty differed according to color; offences when
committed by a white man were punished in one way, and when committed by
colored men in another way. The provisional governor was charged with
the faithful execution of such laws.
The provision for the assessment and collection of taxes he
characterized as a remarkable proposition; they were to be imposed
without representation, without any persons at the national capital to
enlighten Congress on the subject; they were to be laid without the
knowledge of the parties concerned or the parties to be affected.
The sixth section, he continued, provided that every person who should
thereafter hold certain offices in the Confederacy was “declared not to
be a citizen of the United States.” That, Mr. Eliot contended, was
applying the punishment before the offence had been committed. If
Congress declared that a man should for a certain offence be deprived of
citizenship, could he, then, be indicted for treason subsequently
committed?
The question of electing delegates to constitutional conventions
presented a practical difficulty. Colored soldiers and sailors in the
service were made voters by the bill; but they were not enrolled, they
were not registered or credited to any county or parish; they were
aggregated. They had no legal local habitation. They may have belonged
to men owning plantations in several districts. The bill did not
designate. With the white soldier the case was different, for he was
known to belong to a certain district. If colored men entitled, because
of military or naval service, to participate in the choice of delegates
should be out of the service before the election occurred, and others
should have taken their places, which class could vote, those in the
service of the Government when the election for delegates took place, or
those serving when the bill passed Congress?
Whether the difficulties pointed out were inseparable from any bill on
the subject, he would not undertake to say. But in his judgment it would
be unsafe for Congress to permit a measure containing such provisions to
become a law. “Why,” he asked, “is it not more wise to take the States
as they shall present themselves for admission?” Arkansas had acted in
one way, Louisiana in another, and Tennessee was proceeding in still a
different manner.
Notwithstanding his objections to some features of the Louisiana
constitution, he favored her recognition. From information derived from
the highest sources, he had no doubt that her Legislature would supply
such deficiencies. There were influences bearing on that body which he
believed could not be resisted.
Thaddeus Stevens inquired, “If Louisiana and those other States are in
the Union, by what authority do we legislate for their internal police?”
This provoked laughter on the Democratic side of the House. “If they are
in the Union,” answered Mr. Eliot, “just as Pennsylvania is, we ought
not to; but the difficulty is that they are not in the Union in that
sense, to that extent, thus fully. They are not out of the Union
territorially, and yet rebellion has overthrown their governments for a
time, and it is needful that the Congress of the United States should
intervene and should legislate.” To this the Pennsylvania leader further
observed, “I understand the gentleman to say that they are partly in the
Union, and partly out. About how much are they in the Union and about
how much out?” This keen thrust was greeted by more laughter from the
Democratic members.[354]
On his motion to postpone further consideration for two weeks Mr. Wilson
demanded the previous question. Henry Winter Davis appealed to him to
withdraw the motion. This Mr. Wilson declined to do, upon which the
Maryland member observed, “a vote to postpone is equivalent to a vote to
kill the bill.” By 103 yeas to 34 nays, however, further debate was
postponed till the 1st of February succeeding.[355]
Though Representative Washburne, of Illinois, moved on February 7 a
further postponement of two weeks, the subject was before the House
again on the following day, when it went over informally. Debate was not
resumed till the 20th, when Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, took the floor.
The Thirty-eighth Congress, he said, was in the last days of its last
session; a bill containing the main features of the measure under
consideration, though it passed both Houses, failed at the preceding
session to become a law; this circumstance led him to make a careful
examination of the subject. The proposed enactment was not designed to
invigorate the army, the navy or the Executive; it was intended rather
to follow the army. It was intended to be applied to the condition in
which the army left the State. “it is an attempt,” he said, “to gather
up the ‘_disjecta membra_’ of those States, the broken and torn
fragments of those communities, and out of the chaos, as well as the
ruins and _debris_ that are left in the march of those armies, to create
a State capable of discharging the functions, exercising the authority,
and invoking the recognition of this Government, and of the people under
which it lives....
“... The bill proceeds upon the supposition not only that there are
States still existing, but that their old constitutions and laws are
still in full force and operation”; for it imposed upon the provisional
governor the faithful execution of those laws in force when rebellion
overthrew their State governments, with the single exception of the
provision touching the enforcement of laws against slavery and the mode
of trial and punishment of colored people. Two remarkable features of
the bill, he asserted, were those empowering the Executive in
Washington, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint
governors in every one of those States; then, no matter what provisions
for their election existed in the State law, the President was
authorized to appoint just as many and just as few officers as he
pleased. It might be a judge of the highest court of judicature in the
State; or it might be the humblest road-master; it might be any one or
all of the countless corps between them. There was no provision in the
bill that they should be even residents of the State. “An army of
officers,” he continued, “in one paragraph of four lines, is here
created, subject to the sole authority and control of the President of
the United States.” In a Confederate report Mr. Dawes noticed that there
were 13,000 of them in a single State.
“What,” he asked, “is the effect to be on the people over whom, from
every quarter of this Union, broken-down politicians, men without place,
foot-loose, are to be placed? Sir, it is a reproach to our Government at
this hour that there are, about this capital and in the Northern States,
men who have been appointed to the judgeships of district and other
courts of the rebel States and Territories, drawing quarterly the
salaries of those offices, although they have never been able, from the
hour they received their commissions to the present moment to set foot
in the States over whose courts they have been appointed. They could not
go one rod into the State, positions in whose highest courts they have
held for more than a year, without being hung on the first tree.... But
my friend [Mr. Ashley] has reported a bill here which authorizes an army
of thousands of these officeholders to go into those States, with
commissions from this capital in their pockets, to lord it over the
poor, miserable inhabitants left behind the army there. These rebel
States may be thus converted into asylums for broken-down politicians.”
In the language of indignation he entered into a criticism of that
policy which proposed to levy on the houseless and homeless wanderers in
the South, even then only saved from starvation by the charity of the
North, precisely the same amount of taxes raised in 1860 when, by
comparison, the people were in a princely state. “Sir,” he declared,
“there is not an army, great as our army is, that has power enough to
accomplish that one single feat provided for in this bill, for the very
plain reason that there is not money enough left in any one of these
States outside the Government with which to pay that round sum for one
single year.... This wise, efficacious policy is resorted to in this
bill to hasten on, I suppose, that other day mentioned in it, when a
majority of these people, molded by this process, won by its benignity
‘shall voluntarily take the oath of allegiance.’”
He asserted, as Eliot had done, that the committee were calling upon
Congress to sanction all the black codes of those States, save only that
part which held men in bondage, and that was allowed to enforce itself.
The omissions, he asserted, were not less remarkable than the provisions
of the bill. The state of things established by it was of indefinite
duration. There was no provision for the peculiar conditions existing
there. “There is no attempt at any adaptation of these laws to the new
state of things consequent upon the rebellion, and consequent upon our
constitutional action here. Not only is there no provision for the new
wants and necessities of this wasted and wretched people who have been
involved in the rebellion, but for that other people who have now passed
into freedom by our legislation, and by the military consequences of
this rebellion, who are now without food, without subsistence, without
knowledge, and without opportunity to support and maintain themselves;
yes, sir, without homes, literally without where to lay their heads.”
There were 3,000,000 of these people, he added, whose very existence was
ignored by the bill; there was no provision for schools; no provision
for even a poorhouse; no provision to teach them the arts of
civilization, no provision for kindling in them hope, for holding up
before them incentives to industry or securing to them its reward. Under
the operations of the bill they were the objects of free plunder; they
were to go forth to be hunted, despoiled and persecuted: outcasts in the
land.
By the bill it was left in the discretion of the provisional governor,
he asserted, to terminate the system set over them. He, as well as the
army of officeholders under him, would be interested in prolonging the
period until the people had _sufficiently_ returned to their obedience.
Before the initiatory steps could be taken, even if the provisional
governor were willing, a majority of the people in each State must of
their own choice signify their loyalty by taking the oath of allegiance.
This made the matter dependent not upon the wish of the loyal, but of
the disloyal persons who constituted the majority in those States.
The plan, he further stated, ignored the principle that the American
people have the right to shape and alter for themselves the rules by
which they are to be governed. If the matter was left in the hands of
the disloyal, the time would be far distant when Union governments would
be instituted in those States. The only wise policy was to establish a
government among the loyal; even though it might be weak and inefficient
at first, it would finally win back those who desired to be reconciled.
The other numerous class, those who deserved to be hanged, were not
provided for in the bill. He was opposed to the provision which would
turn over to insurgents the loyal minorities in those States, and was
not less opposed to prescribing a fixed iron rule by conformity to which
alone out of chaos and anarchy might be made a loyal government.
Further, the bill proceeded upon the assumption that there was no power
in these people, except what was conferred on them by Federal
legislation, to establish State governments. This he denied, and the
authors of the proposed measure, by offering to recognize the
establishments otherwise organized in Arkansas and Louisiana had
conceded as much. In the people, he said, and in them alone, existed the
authority to form an organic law subject to the constitutional provision
that the government should be republican in form. He favored a
recognition of the Louisiana government not because it was formed under
the guidance of General Banks, but because it was made by the loyal
people of that State, was acquiesced in by them, and because under it
they were building up a loyal government.
Governors Hahn and Murphy and the officials chosen in Louisiana and
Arkansas who had been exercising their functions for a year would be
dispossessed by foreigners sent amongst them by the President, who was
empowered to do so by the bill; bickerings, heartburnings and discontent
would follow any attempt to enforce this policy. Sooner or later the
people of those States must be allowed to form governments for
themselves, protected by the parental care of the central
authority.[356]
Fernando Wood declared that he had listened with interest and pleasure
to words of conciliation for the South; little but subjugation,
devastation and annihilation had thus far been heard from the party, the
Administration and the people represented by Mr. Dawes.
The seceding States, Mr. Wood contended, had republican forms of
government which the treason of individuals did not affect. Nor did
individual crimes destroy the rights of the people to regulate their
domestic institutions. The forms of government were the same as those
that existed in the rebellious States six years before. Even admitting
that they had not such governments in existence among them, the bill did
not provide a _republican_ form of government for those States.[357]
He was followed in opposition to the proposed enactment by Mr. LeBlond,
of Ohio, who discussed both the status of the rebellious States and
their form of government. His speech on the former question added
nothing of value to what Representative Pendleton had said at the
preceding session, nor did he enter upon so able an examination of the
clause guaranteeing a republican form of government as did Senator
Carlile on that occasion.
Henry T. Blow, of Missouri, made an appeal for the admission of Arkansas
and Louisiana to prevent destructive military raids into those States as
well as his own. He would support any measure that would restore them
and strengthen their loyal population. However, he did not favor negro
suffrage. His remarks scarcely touched the measure before the
House.[358]
Joseph K. Edgerton, of Indiana, who followed in a lengthy speech in
opposition, said:
The forerunner of this measure of legislation, so far as this House
is concerned, may be found in the territorial bill reported by the
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] from the Committee on Territories
in the Thirty-seventh Congress, in March, 1862. It was aptly termed
at the time by the gentleman’s colleague from the Cincinnati
district of Ohio [Mr. Pendleton] “A bill to dissolve the Union and
abolish the Constitution of the United States.” The bill was
summarily, if not indignantly, rejected by the House without a
second reading. But, sir, men and events have since changed, if the
Constitution of the United States has not changed, and the stone of
revolutionary reconstruction then rejected by the master-builders in
this House bids fair to become the head of the corner. Then the
Constitution was not altogether repudiated as the foundation of our
legislation; now revolutionary opinions and plans override it as a
thing of the past. Not many are there in this Congress, and fewer
there will be in the next, I fear, to do reverence to the
Constitution and obey its commands.
The President’s proclamation of December 8, 1863, was then noticed, and
his usurpation of authority denounced; the subject of the Louisiana
government was also entered upon and fully discussed. He next referred
to the introduction early in the preceding session of a resolution by
Henry Winter Davis providing for the appointment of a special committee
authorized to report a bill guaranteeing a republican form of government
to the rebellious States. The fate of that bill, President Lincoln’s
proclamation concerning it, and the protest of Wade and Davis were
successively dwelt upon.
The question between the President and his two Congressional friends,
Wade and Davis, was to Mr. Edgerton’s mind “one between two usurping
powers, the Executive and the Legislative”; but, he continued, “I am
free to say my sympathies were with the legislators and not with the
President. Executive edicts have done more than acts of Congress during
the last four years to sap the foundations and remove the landmarks of
the Constitution.” The majority in Congress, he asserted, by consenting
to recognize the governments of Louisiana and Arkansas, kissed the hand
that smote them.
He opposed a recognition of the Louisiana government because of its
unconstitutional origin; Arkansas, he said, differed from it in no
material respect. After stating the provisions of the bill he gave the
following summary of its effects:
1. To take from the people of the State all power to initiate
proceedings to reorganize their own State government in harmony with
the Constitution of the United States, or even to prescribe the
qualifications of suffrage. The bill ignores the idea that there is
any vital power in the people to restore their State government—not
only taken from them by rebellion but kept from them by Federal
power—....
2. The effect is to exclude from the reorganization the entire white
population of the State who shall have held office or voluntarily
borne arms against the United States, or who shall not take the oath
of July 2, 1862.
3. To confine the right of suffrage and power of reorganization to
enrolled men and Federal soldiers taking the oath; and the law
affords no guaranty that even the enrollment shall embrace a
majority of males over twenty-one years of age. The majority
required as a basis of action is so many of enrolled persons taking
the oath as, with the soldiers, shall constitute a majority of the
persons enrolled; that majority, through defect or fraud in
enrollment, may be not even one tenth of the males of the State over
twenty-one years of age.
4. The effect is the absolute disfranchisement of eleven States and
their continuance in a state of war until they accept “the
abandonment of slavery,” as dictated to them by the United States,
and until by organic law they declare that all persons shall have
“equality of civil rights before the law” of the State; a
well-seeming phrase of broad import; the precise meaning of which I
do not understand. A woman is a person, a negro is a person, an
alien is a person, and the right of suffrage is a civil right. Does
this high-sounding phrase of the bill mean that women, negroes, and
aliens shall have equal right to vote in a regenerated State with
white male citizens? What does “equality of civil rights before the
law for all persons” mean?
* * * * *
In fact and in purpose, then, the bill before the House is one to
abolish slavery in the United States, and to enfranchise and elevate
negroes, and to disfranchise and degrade white men; a bill to change
the social and industrial systems and internal policy of eleven
States; a bill to take from those States their inherent reserved
constitutional right to regulate in their own way their internal
policy, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States.
It is a bill to punish treason without trial or conviction; a bill
to confiscate private property without adequate compensation; in
short, a bill to reconstruct States and make State constitutions,
when in truth no States or their constitutions have been destroyed,
or need reconstruction, unless by the voluntary action of their own
people.
* * * * *
If this is a revolutionary Congress, you have a revolutionary power
to pass this bill; but if it be, as I am bound by my oath of office
to believe and assert, a Congress sitting under the Constitution of
the United States, and having no powers outside of or unknown to it,
then you cannot constitutionally pass this bill.
He stated further that the bill “embodies a spirit and purpose toward
the Southern people which, if impolitic and vindictive one year ago,
when the bill first came before the House, and when our enemy was far
stronger and more defiant than now, is still more impolitic and
vindictive at this time, when the minds of all good men are searching
diligently for ways of reconciliation and peace.”
In conclusion he declared: “The Congress of the United States, the
legislative power of the Union, and the Constitution, is asked by this
bill to be the minister and executioner of the great revenge of section
upon section, States North upon States South. For one, sir, I wash my
hands of the deed.”[359]
The passages quoted convey no adequate idea of the able and
comprehensive character of Mr. Edgerton’s speech. It was concerned not
only with the subject under discussion, but extended to a rather
searching examination of Republican professions in 1861 and the
revolutionary practices of a later time. It was marked throughout by
perfect temper, but was not on that account less effective. Any
extension of time, however, even twenty minutes, was denied him by the
majority.
At this point, February 21, Ashley withdrew a motion he had previously
made to recommit the bill, and by authority of his committee withdrew
the measure which was the original text and, in lieu thereof, introduced
another. With this substitution the pending amendments fell.
Representative Wilson desired his substitute to hold its original place.
Messrs. Wilson, Kelley and Eliot then modified their amendments to the
measure hitherto under discussion, and Ashley explained his action in a
brief address.
He referred to the bill which at the preceding session failed to receive
the President’s approval. Since then he had labored earnestly to
conciliate members on his side of the House who had scruples about the
measure as it originally passed, and, if possible, obtain a united vote
in its favor. For that purpose he consented to a compromise in providing
for the recognition of Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee. The conditions
were not such as he would prescribe if those States stood alone. But in
order to secure what he thought of paramount importance—universal
suffrage to the liberated black men of the South—he consented to insert
in the bill which he had proposed a few days previously, a conditional
recognition of existing governments in the States of Louisiana and
Arkansas, and the government then being organized in Tennessee.
Disappointed in his efforts to win the coöperation of Representatives
who entertained practically the same opinions which he did in favor of
universal suffrage for the colored man, and in favor of the early
recognition of every Confederate State with a population sufficient to
maintain a government, he now declined to offer his substitute. At the
request and with the concurrence of his committee the bill of the
preceding session was offered with some modifications. These alterations
were to strike out all that the bill contained to which gentlemen had
raised objection, in that it seemingly authorized the execution of State
laws as they existed at the commencement of the rebellion. To make it
perfectly clear what the committee intended, they had inserted a
provision that the governor should execute only such laws as related to
the protection of persons and property; that all laws inconsistent with
the proposed enactment, and all laws recognizing the relation of master
and slave, should not be enforced. The section which authorized the
collection of taxes had been omitted. He preferred not to commit himself
to a recognition of the Louisiana and Arkansas governments, unless he
could secure what he thought of paramount importance in reorganizing the
other States.
“It is very clear to my mind,” he asserted, “that no bill providing for
the reorganization of loyal State governments in the rebel States can
pass this Congress. I am pretty sure that this bill and all the
amendments and substitutes offered will fail to command a majority of
this House.”
The course of debate had shown on the Republican side, he said, so
strong an individuality that no compromise could bring them together on
the great question of reconstruction. Many on his side were capital
leaders in the minority; they were good at pulling down, but not so good
at leading majorities and building up. He admitted their utter inability
to agree on the subject, and had consented to a conditional recognition
of certain State governments because he knew they could be upheld by
military power until the rebellion should be crushed. Republicans were
so nearly unanimous at the preceding session, he said, that he felt the
concessions embodied in his substitute would enable them to agree
without much discussion or without consuming the valuable time of the
House so late in the session. His remarks not only showed disappointment
at the attitude of his party, but clearly revealed the existence of a
schism in its ranks.[360]
Henry Winter Davis then rose to state the case for the House. The bill,
he said, to which amendments were pending was the same as that which at
the preceding session received the assent of both Houses of Congress,
with some modifications to suit the tender susceptibilities of gentlemen
from Massachusetts: “first, the sixth section, declaring rebel officers
not citizens of the United States, has been stricken out; second, the
taxation clause has been stricken out; third, the word ‘government’ has
been inserted before ‘trial and punishment,’ to meet the refined
criticisms of the two gentlemen from Massachusetts who suppose that
penal laws would be in force and operative when the penalties were
forbidden to be enforced; that discriminating laws could survive the
declaration that there should be no discrimination between different
persons in trial or punishment. There has been one section added to meet
the present aspect of public affairs; that section authorizes the
President, instead of pursuing the method prescribed in the bill in
reference to the States where military resistance shall have been
suppressed, in the event of the legislative authority under the
rebellion in any rebel State taking the oath to support the Constitution
of the United States, annulling their confiscation laws and ratifying
the amendment proposed by this Congress to the Constitution of the
United States, before military resistance shall be suppressed in such
State, to recognize them as constituting the legal authority of the
State, and directing him to report those facts to Congress for its
assent and ratification. With these modifications, the bill which is now
the test for amendment is the bill which was adopted by this House at
the last session.”
He need not be at the trouble, he said, to answer the arguments of
gentlemen who at the preceding session voted for the bill, and who, in
the repose of the intervening period, had criticised in detail the
language and, not stopping there, had found in its substance that it
violated the principles of republican government and sanctioned the
enormities of those laws with which slavery had covered and defiled the
statutes of every Southern State.
With increasing severity Mr. Davis proceeded:
That these discoveries should have been made since the vote of last
session is quite as remarkable as that they should have been
overlooked before that vote. But they were neither overlooked before
nor discovered since. The vote was before a pending election. It is
the will of the President which has been discovered since.
It is not at all surprising, Mr. Speaker, that the President, having
failed to sign the bill passed by the whole body of his supporters
by both Houses at the last session of Congress, and having assigned,
under pressure of events, but without the authority of law, reasons,
good or bad, first for refusing to allow the bill to become a law,
and therefore usurping power to execute parts of it as law, while he
discarded other parts which interfered with possible electoral
votes, those arguments should be found satisfactory to some minds
prone to act upon the winking of authority.
The weight of that species of argument I am not able to estimate. It
bids defiance to every species of reply. It is that subtle,
pervading epidemic of the time that penetrates the closest argument
as spirit penetrates matter that diffuses itself with the atmosphere
of authority, relaxing the energy of the strong, bending down the
upright, diverting just men from the path of rectitude, and
substituting the will and favor of power for the will and interest
of the people as the rule of legislative action.
* * * * *
All I desire now to do is to state the case and predict results from
one course or the other. The course of military events seems to
indicate that possibly by the 4th of next July, probably by next
December, organized, armed rebellion will cease to lift its brazen
front in the land. Disasters may intervene; errors or weaknesses may
prolong the conflict; the proverbial chances of war may interpose
their caprices to defer the national triumph; but events now point
to the near approach of the end. But whether sooner or later,
whenever it comes, there is one thing that will assuredly accompany
it. If this bill do not become a law, when Congress again meets, at
our doors, clamorous and dictatorial, will be sixty-five
Representatives from the States now in rebellion, and twenty-two
Senators, _claiming_ admission, and, upon the theory of the
honorable gentleman, _entitled_ to admission beyond the power of
argument to resist it; for peace will have been restored, there will
be no armed power but that of the United States; there will be
quiet, and votes will be polled under the existing laws of the
State, in the gentleman’s view. Are you ready to accept that
consequence? For if they come to the door of the House they will
cross the threshold of the House, and any gentleman who does not
know that, or who is so weak or so wild as to suppose that any
declaratory resolution adopted by both Houses as a condition
precedent can stop that flood, had better put his puny hands across
the flood of the flowing Mississippi and say that it shall not enter
the Gulf of Mexico.
There are things, gentlemen, that are possible at one time and not
possible at another. You can now prevent the rise of the flood, but
when it is up you can not stop it. If gentlemen are in favor of
meeting that state of things, then do as has been already so
distinctly intimated in the course of this debate, vote against this
bill in all its aspects; leave the door wide open; let “our brethren
of the South,” whose bayonets are now pointed at our brothers’
hearts, drop their arms, put on the seemly garb of peace, go through
the forms of an election, and assert the triumph of their beaten
faction under the forms of political authority after the sword has
decided against them. I am no prophet, but that is the history of
next December if this bill be defeated; and I expect it not to
become a law.
But suppose the other course to be pursued; suppose the President
sees fit to do what there is not the least reason to suppose that he
desires to do; suppose that after he has destroyed the armies in the
field he should go further, and do, as I think he ought to do, what
the judgment of this country dictates, treat those who hold power in
the South as rebels and not as governors or legislators; disperse
them from the halls of legislation; expel them from executive
mansions, strip them of the emblems of authority, and set to work to
hunt out the pliant and supple “Union men,” so-called, who have
cringed before the storm, but who will be willing to govern their
fellow-citizens under the protection of United States bayonets;
suppose that the fruitful example of Louisiana shall spread like a
mist over all the rest of the southern country, and that
Representatives like what Louisiana has sent here, with such a
backing of votes as she has given, shall appear here at the doors of
this Hall; whose representatives are they? I do not mean to speak of
the gentlemen now here from Louisiana in their individual character,
but in their political relations to their constituency. Whose
representatives are they? In Louisiana they are the representatives
of the bayonets of General Banks and the will of the President, as
expressed in his secret letter to General Banks. If you admit such
representatives, you must admit, on the same basis and under the
same influences, Representatives from every State from Texas to
Virginia; the common council at Alexandria—which has just sent two
Senators to the other House and has ratified the amendment to the
Constitution abolishing slavery in all the rest of Virginia, where
none of them dare put his portly person—would be entitled to send
ten Representatives here and two Senators to speak for the
indomitable “Old Dominion.” If the rebel Representatives are not
here in December next you will have here servile tools of the
Executive who will embarrass your legislation, humble your Congress,
degrade the name of republican government for two years, and then
the natural majority of the South, rising indignantly against that
humiliating insult, will swamp you here with rebel Representatives
and be your masters. These are their alternatives and there is no
middle ground.
To Mr. Eliot’s objection the Maryland member replied that provisional
governors “are appointed _now without law_, and all we propose is that
they shall be _under the responsibility of law and subject to the
control and confirmation of the Senate_.” Having in mind this condition
and the Executive appointments to judicial places in Louisiana, Mr.
Davis added:
Sir, when I came into Congress ten years ago, this was a Government
of law. I have lived to see it a Government of personal will.
Congress has dwindled from a power to dictate law and the policy of
the Government to a commission to audit accounts and to appropriate
moneys to enable the Executive to execute his will and not ours. I
would stop at the boundaries of law. When I look around for them I
seem to be in a waste; they are as clean gone as the division fences
of Virginia estates from here to the Rapidan.
After explaining the efforts of Mr. Ashley and himself to remove the
objectionable features of the bill as pointed out by the two members
from Massachusetts [Messrs. Dawes and Eliot] he again criticised both
with some severity, and continued:
Sir, my successor may vote as he pleases. But when I leave this Hall
there shall be no vote from the third congressional district of
Maryland that recognizes anything but the body and mass of the
people of any State as entitled to govern them, and to govern the
people that I represent. And they who may wish to substitute one
tenth, or any other fractional minority, for that great power of the
people to govern, may take, and shall take, the odium. Ay! I shall
brand it upon them that in the middle of the nineteenth century, in
the only free Republic that the world knows, where alone the
principles of popular government are the rules of authority, they
have gone to the dark ages for their models, reviving the wretched
examples of the most odious governments that the world has ever
seen, and propose to stain the national triumph by creating a
wretched, low, vulgar, corrupt, and cowardly oligarchy to govern the
freemen of the United States—the national arms to guaranty and
enforce their oppressions. Not by my vote, sir; not by my vote!
If the majority of the people will not recognize the authority of
the Constitution of the United States, what does the gentleman say
who proposes these declaratory resolutions? That they shall come
here without it? No, sir; but I would govern them for a thousand
years first by the supreme authority of the Constitution which they
have defied and will not acknowledge. And govern them how? Not by
the uncontrolled will of this or any other President that ever
lived, George Washington included. I would govern them by the laws
that in the hours of their sanity they enacted, unaltered excepting
so far as the progress of events require that they should be
altered; to the extent that we have proposed to alter them in our
bill, and no further. I leave their own rules for their government,
make the President appoint, under his official and public
responsibility, the officers who are to execute them; and if they do
not like to be governed in that way, let us trust that the prodigal
will come one day to his senses, and humbly kneeling before the
Constitution that he has vainly defied, swear before Almighty God
that he will again be true to it.
That is my remedy for the grievance. That is what we propose....[361]
Though not his last word on the subject of reconstruction, this was the
last great speech of Mr. Davis in Congress on the question of restoring
political power to the rebellious States. His alliance with Stevens, a
somewhat unnatural union, had brought him only disaster. As noticed in
the preceding chapter, he had been defeated for renomination in his
district. It is thought that disappointment hastened somewhat his early
death, which occurred toward the close of the year, December 30, 1865.
Though a touch of pathos may be discerned in his concluding remarks, his
was not the craven spirit that was ready, in the words of Edgerton, to
kiss the hand that smote him.
Representative Mallory, of Kentucky, on his motion to lay the bill and
amendments on the table, called for the yeas and nays. The question
being taken was decided in the affirmative; 91 voting to lay the bill
and amendments on the table; 64 were opposed, and 27 did not vote.[362]
The Democratic members were a unit against the measure, and in a body
voted to lay it on the table.
The defeat of Davis now appeared complete, but the struggle was not to
be abandoned without another effort. On the following day, February 22,
1865, Mr. Wilson from the Committee on the Judiciary reported House Bill
No. 740, to establish the supremacy of the Constitution in the
insurrectionary States, with a substitute which provided that neither
the people nor the legislature of any rebellious State should elect
Representatives or Senators to Congress until the President had
proclaimed that armed hostility to the United States within such State
had ceased; nor until the people of such State had adopted a
constitution not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United
States; nor until by law of Congress such State had been declared
entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States.
The authority for this bill he professed to find in the fourth section
of Article I. of the Constitution, which reads as follows:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding elections for Senators and
Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature
thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter
such regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.
Mr. Wilson was somewhat embarrassed in defending his bill. Dawes and
Mallory exposed its weakness, and Representative Kernan, of New York,
believed it would put it in the power of the Executive to say whether
States should be represented in Congress. Fernando Wood observed that
neither by that bill nor any other could either House of Congress be
deprived of the right to pass upon the election, returns and
qualifications of members.[363]
Mr. Ashley at this point moved to amend the substitute offered by the
Committee on the Judiciary by striking out all after the enacting clause
and inserting the reconstruction bill that was tabled the day before.
When a point of order was raised against its introduction the Speaker
said that there was an important amendment; the word “white” having been
inserted before the expression “male citizen,” thus restricting the
class to be enrolled by the United States marshal. Mr. Kelley would
amend it by striking out the word “white.” To this the Ohio member had
no personal objection; indeed, he was abreast of Mr. Kelley in the
matter of the suffrage: the only restriction he would impose being that
of intelligence. Ashley appears, however, to have regarded himself as
but the mouthpiece of his committee by whose authority he had only a few
months before inserted a provision in his reconstruction bill to
recognize the Louisiana and Arkansas governments, though he expressly
declared on a subsequent occasion that he was opposed to such
recognition.
By a vote of 80 to 65 the bill and its amendments was again laid on the
table. Thirty-seven members abstained from voting; fourteen Republicans
voted with the Democrats.[364] This action was taken on the 22d of
February, 1865; the session closed on the 4th of March following without
any further attempt to pass the bill. Before the vote was taken Ashley
stated his sentiments candidly. He wanted a record made on the question.
“I do not expect,” said he, “to pass this bill now. At the next session,
when a new Congress fresh from the people shall have assembled, with the
nation and its Representatives far in advance of the present Congress, I
hope to pass even a better bill. Sir, I know that our loyal people will
never be guilty of the infamy of inviting the blacks to unite with them
in fighting our battles, and after our triumph—a triumph which we never
could have achieved but for their generous coöperation and aid—deny
those loyal blacks political rights while consenting that pardoned but
unrepentant white rebels shall again be clothed with the entire
political power of these States.”[365] The desire to obtain negro
suffrage explains the inconsistent course of Representative Ashley
throughout these debates.
By a singular method of abridging history Mr. Blaine in his _Twenty
Years of Congress_ passes without observation the attempt to revive the
“pocketed” bill, though it was during its discussion that there was for
the first time unmistakably revealed the existence of a schism in the
Republican party.
-----
Footnote 345:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 557.
Footnote 346:
McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 555–558.
Footnote 347:
Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. III. p. 452.
Footnote 348:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 12–13.
Footnote 349:
Ibid., p. 234.
Footnote 350:
Pierce, Memoir of Charles Sumner, Vol. IV. p. 205.
Footnote 351:
Ibid., p. 221.
Footnote 352:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 281–291.
Footnote 353:
An interesting account of the imprisonment of colored seamen in the
ports of South Carolina is given in The Rise and Fall of the Slave
Power in America, Vol. I. pp. 576–586.
Footnote 354:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 298–301.
Footnote 355:
Ibid.
Footnote 356:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 934–937.
Footnote 357:
Ibid., pp. 937–939.
Footnote 358:
Appendix to Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 73–75.
Footnote 359:
Appendix to Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 75–83.
Footnote 360:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 968–969.
Footnote 361:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 969–970.
Footnote 362:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 970–971.
Footnote 363:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 997–1001.
Footnote 364:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1002.
Footnote 365:
Ibid.
IX
THE ELECTORAL VOTE OF LOUISIANA
A preceding chapter has noticed the result of the Presidential election
of 1864. It was thought proper, however, to reserve for separate
treatment the various questions presented by the participation in that
contest of Louisiana and Tennessee, two States reorganized under
Executive auspices. On the introduction by Mr. Wilson of a joint
resolution declaring certain named States not entitled to representation
in the Electoral College, the entire subject came before the House soon
after the meeting of Congress in December.
The proposed resolution was read twice and referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary. On the following day, December 20, 1864, it was reported,
ordered to be printed and recommitted. Under the operation of the
previous question it passed the House on January 30 succeeding. Its
preamble, which was favorably considered at the same time, declared that
“the inhabitants and local authorities of the States of Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee rebelled against the
Government of the United States, and have continued in a state of armed
rebellion for more than three years, and were in a state of armed
rebellion on the 8th of November, 1864.”
The joint resolution provided that these States were not entitled to
representation in the Electoral College for the choice of President and
Vice-President for the term of office beginning March 4, 1865, and that
no electoral votes from them, relative to the choice of said officers
for that term, should be received or counted.[366]
In a modified form the measure subsequently passed the Senate, which
proposed that there be stricken from the preamble the words “and were in
such condition of armed rebellion for more than three years,” and that
there be inserted in lieu thereof, “and were in such condition on the
8th day of November, 1864, that no valid election for electors of
President and Vice-President, according to the Constitution and laws
thereof, was held therein on said day.” In this amendment the House
promptly concurred, February 6, 1865.
In the Senate, February 1, Mr. Trumbull asked consideration of the
measure inasmuch as the electoral votes were to be counted a week later.
When the amendment was under discussion, Senator Ten Eyck, of New
Jersey, moved to strike out the word “Louisiana” in the preamble, and
added that it was a matter of history that the State had reorganized, or
at least attempted to do so, and in the opinion of many, and perhaps
most, of her loyal citizens had reorganized as a State. It was matter of
history that they had elected State officers and a State Legislature;
that they had elected members to a constitutional convention and framed
a new constitution for that State; that the Legislature passed a law
authorizing the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of
the United States in the last Presidential election, and that such
electors had met and cast their votes. “Under these circumstances,” said
Mr. Ten Eyck, “I think there is a striking distinction between the State
of Virginia and the State of Louisiana.” The object of his amendment, he
stated, was to afford opportunity to a loyal people who had suffered all
the horrors of the rebellion, who had got the better of it, and put it
under foot, of coming back and resuming their place in the councils of
the nation. He did not then desire to make any further remarks.[367]
Senator Trumbull then took up the discussion of Ten Eyck’s amendment to
the amendment. The electoral votes, he said, were to be opened and
canvassed a week later, and it was known to all that no rules for action
had ever been adopted in that joint convention. He recalled the fact
that in 1856 there arose a question over the counting of the electoral
vote of Wisconsin. A severe snow storm had prevented the electors from
meeting at their State capital on the day fixed by law, and it was not
until the day following that they were able to cast their votes for
President and Vice-President. The question was not then decided, for
Buchanan and Breckenridge were the successful candidates in either
event, and were so declared.
He believed a similar question was likely to arise when the electoral
votes would be counted on February 8. It was a matter of public
notoriety, he continued, that several of the States included in the
President’s proclamation of 1861, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana, had
cast electoral votes. There was a question as to their authority to do
so in consequence of the insurrection which prevailed there on the 8th
of November, when the election took place, and the House of
Representatives had passed the joint resolution declaring that the votes
of certain named States should not be counted. The motion of the Senator
from New Jersey would have the effect of counting the vote of Louisiana.
“If we decide to receive the vote from Louisiana,” declared Mr.
Trumbull, “it will be a decision by the Congress of the United States
that the State of Louisiana was in such a condition as to vote for
President and Vice-President on the 8th of November last.”
The alteration proposed by the Committee on the Judiciary, said he, was
for the purpose of avoiding any such committal on the subject as the
motion of the Senator from New Jersey brought up. If the preamble “is
adopted and the resolution passed, Congress will not have decided
whether Louisiana is in the Union or out of the Union, whether she is a
State or not a State.” It would be time enough, he believed, to decide
that question when it was presented to the Senate. No statement of
facts, he asserted in reply to Senator Howe, accompanied the joint
resolution from the Committee on the Judiciary; it was a House
resolution, and no report accompanied it from the House Committee.
A large part of Louisiana, he added, was on the 8th of November
preceding in the possession of a hostile force. In a very considerable
portion of the State there was no opportunity to vote for President or
Vice-President, and it might be a very serious question whether, when
half a State or the third of a State was overrun by an enemy, an
election held under such circumstances and under the auspices of Federal
guns would be an election which would authorize the Congress of the
United States, when in joint convention it came to canvass the votes for
President and Vice-President, to count ballots cast under such
circumstances.
In acting upon the resolution he did not mean to commit the Senate one
way or another relative to the organization which had been formed in
Louisiana. A decision to strike out Louisiana would be to decide that
her electoral vote would be received and that on November 8th there was
a State government there. That he did not believe. No evidence, he
asserted, had been submitted to show how many votes were cast.
Pursuant to an act of Congress the President had declared the
inhabitants of Louisiana in insurrection against the United States. That
proclamation had not been recalled. “Sir,” concluded Mr. Trumbull,
“until there shall be some action by Congress recognizing the
organization which has been set up in Louisiana, we ought not in my
judgment to count electoral votes from the State.” Whether Congress
would recognize it, he could not say; that had not yet been done, and,
until it had been, the electoral vote ought not to be counted. He hoped,
therefore, that Ten Eyck’s amendment would not prevail.[368]
Mr. Ten Eyck said it was with great diffidence that he undertook to
propose an amendment to the resolution; but he held the doctrine that
these commonwealths having taken up their lot and part with their sister
States when admitted into the Union were not legally out of it; their
governments had been in abeyance; they had been overrun by the feet of
hostile armies, and many of their citizens, by usurpation and in
violation of their duty to their fellow-men and to their God, had
attempted to carry these States out of the Union.
That being his opinion, whenever these States, by the aid of the General
Government, or by the efforts of their own people, or by the act of both
combined, reëstablished themselves, or set their State governments in
action anew, and had commenced again to revolve in their old orbits, he
should feel it his duty, so far as he was concerned, to extend to them
all the privileges and all the rights to which the loyal people of a
loyal State were entitled at the hands of their sister States, whether
upon the floor of the Senate or anywhere else. It was to exclude
Louisiana from the operation of the resolution that he made his motion.
As to those States manifestly in the condition described in the preamble
there was propriety in passing the resolution.
In reply to an observation of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee,
that the majority desired to avoid a committal on this subject, Mr. Ten
Eyck suggested that it would not, perhaps, be amiss to insist that a
committal should not be had against the interest of the State any more
than in its favor, and if his amendment involved the question whether
Louisiana was in a condition to perform all the functions of a State
government and to appoint State officers and Senators and members of the
national House of Representatives, the same question was involved in the
resolution and it would be determined against her if the joint
resolution passed as it stood; for that would decide that Louisiana was
in a state of rebellion such as to deprive her of all the powers, rights
and privileges of a member of the Union. He was not prepared to go to
that extent.
From various memorials, papers and documents that had come into
possession of the Senate, he continued, and were published by its order,
as well as from information derived from other sources, it appeared that
nearly, if not quite, a year before an election for State officers was
held in Louisiana and a very large number of votes cast, about two
thirds or approximating two thirds of the largest number that had been
cast at any former election for State officers. Trumbull interrupted to
remark that no such statements had been received by the committee. In
those localities which voted, perhaps two thirds of the former vote had
been cast, but not two thirds of that cast in the entire State. Ten Eyck
replied that the vote was 11,414; it was alleged that a large number of
former voters had entered the rebel army and a great many had been
killed. He might be in error concerning the whole vote of the State. All
these elections were free and uninterrupted and without the interference
of any military power whatever. A person on the ground had declared that
“no effort whatever was made on the part of the military authorities to
influence the citizens of the State, either in the selection of
candidates or in the election of officers, and that the direct influence
of the Government of the United States was less in Louisiana than in the
elections probably of any State of the Union; that the officers
representing the Government, both civil and military, were divided, so
far as they entertained or expressed opinions, on the question of
candidates and upon the policy pursued in the organization of the
government.” If any military interference was exerted it was in aid of
the loyal people, and the civil authority was not at all in
subordination to the military.
In view of the invitation that had been held out by the Government to
all the loyal people of those States to come back and to endeavor to
organize themselves anew and, when they had gained sufficient strength,
to present themselves civilly and quietly at the ballot-box to choose
their own State officers and to choose delegates to form a new State
constitution, and when they claim the rights of other States, are they
to be met by the plea that upon certain out-bounds of the State there
may still be heard the tread of rebel feet? It appeared by all the
testimony that the population, the business and the property of
Louisiana were confined to the cities and regions of country immediately
bordering upon the river, and that the residue of the State was very
sparsely settled indeed. That portion not submerged was used for
planting purposes. The wealth and population of the State were confined
within a small space and this contracted area was chiefly under control
of the United States. The Presidential electors were chosen by the State
Legislature, and he did not think that method legal. That is why the
vote cast in the election did not appear in the testimony submitted to
the Committee on the Judiciary.
As to the withdrawal by the President of his proclamation declaring the
inhabitants of Louisiana in a state of insurrection, if that were the
test either the present incumbent or his successor could keep the loyal
people of those States from returning to the Union during the remainder
of his administration, and, if reëlected, for the following term. This
even if every soul within the State were loyal and anxious to
return.[369]
Mr. Howe announced his intention of voting for the amendment of Ten
Eyck, though for reasons very different from those which influenced the
New Jersey Senator. His support would not be controlled by the number of
citizens who participated in the choice of electors. “I am governed,”
said he, “by the single fact that a statute of your own, existing at the
time of that election, declared that the people of that State had the
right to choose electors, and that certain of them did participate in
making that choice. The Senator from Illinois [Trumbull] says but a
small portion of the people of the State participated in that choice.
Your statute said that all might. Does the refusal of a large portion or
a small portion of the people of a State to participate in an election
deprive the minority, if you please, no matter how small, of their right
under your statute?” Besides Louisiana he understood that two other
States had made choice of electors. He would vote for an amendment to
strike them out of the resolution also.[370]
Trumbull argued that a mere refusal to count the electoral vote of
Louisiana did not settle the question against the existing organization.
Wisconsin had a right to vote in 1856, and nobody supposed otherwise;
but many opposed the counting of that vote. The State organization may
be perfect and yet its electoral vote rejected. If the Senate had
refused to count Wisconsin’s vote, it would not therefore have decided
that there was no such State. Ten Eyck promptly indicated the weakness
of this reasoning by pointing out that the preamble of the pending
resolution declared Louisiana in such a condition of rebellion that no
election could be had. Senator Trumbull then put the case of a foreign
enemy having such possession of Louisiana that no election could be held
throughout the State, and asked whether the Senator from New Jersey
would count the electoral vote of Louisiana when not twenty men could
have assembled in the State and voted for President and Vice-President.
If the Senate refused to count her vote under such circumstances, would
it decide that the organization of the State of Louisiana was not to be
recognized, and was repudiated? Whether the organization established in
Louisiana was a valid one was a question which would come before the
Senate when they inquired into the right to seats of those gentlemen who
had presented themselves as Senators.
Replying to an assertion of Senator Howe, who was not in his seat, Mr.
Trumbull said he would like to see the statute which gave Louisiana a
right to vote in the Presidential election of 1864. If any such existed
it would be repealed by the act of Congress which empowered the
President to declare the people of certain commonwealths in a state of
insurrection.
In referring to the objection of Mr. Ten Eyck that the President, if he
desired, could keep a State out during his entire administration,
Senator Trumbull observed that it was only necessary for Congress to
repeal the act upon which the proclamation was based and then the
proclamation itself would fall.
The refusal of a State to vote when she had an opportunity to do so,
said Mr. Trumbull, would be no reason for excluding her electoral vote;
but the people of Louisiana did not have an opportunity unawed by
hostile armies and unrestrained by military authority to vote for
President and Vice-President. This, he said, was not the real point at
issue; the question for the Senate to consider and determine was whether
the Legislature of Louisiana was a lawful assembly, for it was by that
body that electors of President and Vice-President were chosen in the
election of 1864.
Mr. Trumbull believed that on November 8 about three fourths of the area
of Louisiana was in possession of the Confederates. No person could have
voted within that jurisdiction. Eleven or twelve thousand was the
largest vote ever cast under these organizations; while the vote of the
State, when all her legal voters had the privilege of going to the
polls, was more than 60,000.
Mr. Ten Eyck stated that 51,000 was the highest vote ever cast, and that
the average was but 34,000. Trumbull believed the Senate should concur
in the House resolution and that it need not commit itself one way or
the other on the Louisiana organization. The counting of the electoral
vote, which pressed for settlement, should soon be determined.[371]
Mr. Harris thought the question of counting the votes could be disposed
of without committing the Senate or deciding the matter of admitting
Senators, as was done in the case of Wisconsin in 1856. “If we count the
votes of these States,” said he, “the number of votes for Mr. Lincoln
and Mr. Johnson will be so many; if we reject these votes the number of
votes will be so many; and in either case these candidates are elected.”
By this or a similar declaration, the phraseology of which was suggested
by the precedent of 1856, the question could be passed over. He asked
the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary why Congress had not the
power to declare that New York should not vote. He opposed the preamble
because he did not believe it true, and he denied that the local
authorities in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee were in rebellion on
the 8th of November preceding.
When, on February 2, Senator Harris resumed his remarks he observed that
the question as to the power of Congress to legislate in relation to the
counting of votes for President and Vice-President was not considered by
the committee. Reflection had led him to doubt the competence of
Congress to legislate on the subject. That body could fix the time for
choosing electors and specify the time when they should perform the
functions of their office. That, he contended, was the extent of the
power of Congress over the subject. He could find no authority in the
Constitution, however, which empowered Congress to pass a law, for the
resolution amounted to that, excluding any votes returned to the
Vice-President. Even if Congress had the authority it was inexpedient to
exercise it. Why should such extreme power be exercised when the
necessity did not exist? The result, it was conceded, would be the same
whether Congress counted the votes of Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas
or not. The power was not contained in the Constitution. Those States
specified in the preamble did certainly rebel, but that Louisiana,
Arkansas and Tennessee were in that condition on November 8 was at least
open to question.[372]
Senator Doolittle believed that Congress by legislation could provide in
advance for the manner of counting electoral votes; but that, he
insisted, was very different from passing a law which declared certain
votes null and void after they had been cast. That would be retroactive
legislation. He doubted the power of Congress over the subject of
counting the electoral votes, beyond that contained in the Constitution.
“The Congress,” he continued, quoting the fourth clause of section one
of the second article, “may determine the time of choosing the electors,
and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the
same throughout the United States.” Pursuant to this provision Congress
passed the act of January 23, 1845. It was not for the president of the
Senate to open such as Congress told him to open, but he should “open
all the certificates” which were sent to him, “and the votes shall then
be counted.” Here, said the Senator, arose the grave question whether
the president of the joint convention was made the sole judge as to what
votes should be counted. The question practically came up in 1856, but
it was not then necessary to decide it, and it was waived as not being
essential to the result. On the present occasion, 1865, it was the same,
the result of the election would not be affected by the matter of
counting or not counting the votes of Tennessee and Louisiana; but it
was not necessary for Congress to assert a doctrine which in some future
time might be the very destruction of the Government, namely, “That a
political party in Congress can decide that certain votes of certain
States shall be canceled and others shall be received. It will never do
to set that precedent.” It would be time enough, he said in conclusion,
to meet the question when it came up in the joint convention.[373]
Mr. Hale said that he had foreseen the difficulty and at the preceding
session had introduced a joint resolution directing in advance what
should be done; but the pressure of other business, certainly not more
important, prevented action thereon. If the result of the Presidential
election had depended upon the votes of Louisiana, Tennessee and
Arkansas would the party have submitted against which their votes had
been cast? The rebellion then existing was caused, he believed, by
nothing at all in comparison with such a question.
He denied the assertion of Senator Doolittle that Congress had no power
over the counting of the electoral votes. Suppose, he argued, that,
contrary to the constitutional provision, a member of Congress or any
officer of the Federal Government holding an office of profit or trust
happened to be an elector, would not Congress have power to say that
such vote of Federal officer should not be counted?
The framers of the Constitution, he declared, made the most ample
provision for just such a case. That instrument confers on Congress the
power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this
Constitution in the Government of the United States.” Was not the power
to choose a President one vested in the Government of the United States?
Mr. Hale contended that then, when action by Congress would not affect
the result of the election, was the time to settle the principle, and
the precedent could be pointed to showing the action and sentiment of
Congress at a time when there was no inducement to anything but an
honest and straightforward decision of the case.
Suppose, he went on, that Nevada while in the territorial condition had
grown restless under her provincial state and had sent certificates
signed by her electors, would Congress have no authority to say whether
they should be counted? In Washington’s first election the vote of New
York State was not counted. Now her Senator, Mr. Harris, doubted the
competence of Congress either to exclude, or refuse to count, the votes
of a State.[374]
Mr. Doolittle objected to being quoted quite so strongly as to say that
Congress had no power over this subject. Congress had power over the
subject, but that power was limited. When the Constitution says that the
States shall do certain things, such as directing the appointment of
electors, that is a limitation on the power of Congress over the matter.
What he maintained was that after the ballots had been cast there was no
power in Congress as a legislative body to declare certain votes valid
or invalid. The tribunal to which the question was referred was the
president of the Senate presiding over the joint convention of both
Houses. The power in the first instance was with that officer to count
or not to count the votes. He was to decide whether they were from
States or from Territories.[375]
Senator Trumbull maintained that so far from being empowered to decide
disputes, the president of the joint convention was not authorized to
even count the votes. In the practice of the Government the
Vice-President had never since the days of Washington counted the votes.
The Constitution says that he shall “open all the certificates and the
votes shall then be counted.” It does not state by whom, but it does
state that Congress has power to pass all laws necessary to carry the
instrument into effect. Congress, he said, had exercised such power from
the beginning.
There was no legal difference, he asserted, between South Carolina and
Louisiana. An individual trading in the latter State, except under a
particular license, could be taken up and tried as a felon, and yet “we
are told that we cannot determine by act of Congress that they cannot
elect a President for us!”
Mr. Trumbull contended that if a question arose upon the counting of the
vote of any State, the joint convention could not decide upon it. The
bodies would have to separate and, by passing a concurrent resolution,
each act independently. There was no popular election, he said, in the
State of Louisiana, but a body assuming to be its Legislature had
appointed electors of President and Vice-President. He did not know
whether the new constitution of Louisiana authorized that method.
The purpose of the Senate, he continued, in amending the joint
resolution of the House was to avoid declaring that the people of
Louisiana were on the 8th of November in a state of armed insurrection.
The preamble, even as it was amended, did not wholly satisfy him; he
believed that he would be better pleased if it was altogether omitted.
He was informed that Tennessee had sent a vote as well as Louisiana. The
object of the committee was to settle the question before the meeting of
the joint convention.[376]
Senator Collamer thought that any law honestly intended to carry into
effect the provisions of the Constitution could not be objected to. It
could if it opposed or was inconsistent with that instrument. There had
been legislation on the subject and additional action by Congress might
be necessary. For the resolution he offered the following substitute:
That the people of no State, the inhabitants whereof have been
declared in a state of insurrection by virtue of the fifth section
of the act entitled “An act further to provide for the collection of
duties on imports, and for other purposes,” approved July 13, 1861,
shall be regarded as empowered to elect electors of President and
Vice-President of the United States until said condition of
insurrection shall cease and be so declared by virtue of a law of
the United States.[377]
By Mr. Howard the question was regarded as of very great importance not
only as a precedent for the future, but “as indicating the opinion of
Congress on the subject, to use a familiar term, of ‘reconstruction,’ or
rather the rights of the States in rebellion.” He believed it clear that
the Vice-President was to open the certificates and that the duty of
counting devolved upon the two Houses thus assembled. The act of 1792
seemed so to construe the Constitution.
“The power of counting the votes,” he asserted, “and of rejecting votes
which are void for fraud or illegality, is, under the Constitution, in
the joint convention thus assembled.” There was no doubt about it, he
declared, because the Houses convened for a great and protective
purpose; they were exercising the tutelary authority of the people, in
protecting the nation from the imposition of false and fraudulent
ballots and certificates. The inhabitants of the States mentioned in the
proclamation of the President were public enemies; therefore they had no
political rights under the United States.
“I look upon this measure as necessary,” continued Mr. Howard, “as one
form in which the sense of Congress ought to be expressed against any
hasty attempt to readmit these rebellious States into the Union.” For
one, he would require the loyalty and friendliness of a majority of the
people of the rebellious States to be proved before readmitting any of
them. “The theory of our Government,” he went on, “is different from
that of almost every other government on earth. It is that the will of
the majority shall govern; in common phrase, the majority of the people,
but practically the majority of the voting population.”
In conclusion he declared that it was “the bounden duty of Congress, in
every case, to keep out of the Union every one of these eleven seceded
States until, in pursuance of our laws, passed or to be passed, it has
become perfectly evident to us that there is in such a State a clear,
absolute majority of its voting population friendly to the Government of
the United States, and willing to proceed in the discharge of their
functions as a State; and, until that is done, you may be perfectly
sure, so long as I hold a seat in this body, my vote will be given
against any such proposal. I never will consent to admit into this Union
a State a majority of whose people are hostile and unfriendly to the
Government of my country. I prefer to hold them in tutelage (for that is
really the word) one year, five years, ten years, even twenty years,
rather than run the risk of a repetition of this rebellion, which has
cost us so much blood and treasure.”[378]
Ten Eyck, considering Louisiana as the strongest case, mentioned it in
preference to Arkansas or Tennessee, and, from a paper furnished by a
gentleman who was familiar with the situation there, was able to state
that “eleven thousand four hundred and fourteen votes were polled at
this election. The average vote for ten years prior to the rebellion in
these parishes was fifteen to sixteen thousand.” The same parishes cast
their highest vote, 21,000, in 1860. He expressed a wish to save
Tennessee also from the effect of the resolution, and declared that he
did not see how the Vice-President-elect, an alien, could preside over
the Senate. Further, a vote in favor of the resolution prejudged the
case of the Senators and the legality of the Legislature which sent
them.[379]
Senator Pomeroy did not suppose that States unrepresented in either
House could be represented in the Electoral College. He criticised the
correctness of the preamble so far as it related to Arkansas. The rebel
governor as well as the rebel legislature, he said, was driven out long
ago.
“Arkansas,” he continued, “has not voted at all in the Presidential
election.... Under the instructions and impressions that the members
from Arkansas received here last session, they distinctly understood
that States not represented in either branch of Congress would have no
right to vote at the Presidential election. They returned to Arkansas
and so reported, and they never had any election; there are no votes
here from that State. They have been in suspense awaiting the action of
Congress.” The resolution itself did not, of course, affect Arkansas,
for there were no votes from that State to be counted.[380]
Mr. Cowan, probably adopting a hint dropped by Senator Ten Eyck, noticed
the fact that the proclamation of January 1, 1863, exempted from its
operations thirteen named parishes of Louisiana because no rebellion
existed in them. The validity of that decree had been recognized, while
the proclamation of December 8 following invited the people of Louisiana
and other States to resume their rights. The question was whether the
arrangements of the President were to be executed in good faith.
It was the duty of the Executive, he continued, “to put down this
rebellion, to relieve the people from its oppression, and to restore
them precisely to where they were when the rebellion found them. If that
is done, in ten days after his proclamation, _eo instanti_, the people
resume their rights and functions; and in this case I understand they
are not only in possession of the right, but are actually in the
enjoyment of it, having a regularly organized government with all the
machinery necessary and proper to a government.” He believed that men
and money were furnished the President to sustain State governments and
make them supreme within their own limits.
Concluding this portion of his remarks he said: “Mr. President, this
involves a direct conflict between the Legislative and Executive bodies
of this Government, and at this time I am of opinion that we cannot
afford to enter into that conflict.”[381]
Senator Powell, of Kentucky, said that when it was asserted that General
Banks did not interfere in the Louisiana election the statement was not
true, for there could be no greater interference in the elections of a
State than to alter the qualifications of voters. He declared himself
“opposed to admitting on this floor persons who are elected under the
bayonet influence in any way whatever. I very well know that there was
no free expression of the people of Louisiana in these elections. I know
that they but obeyed the behests of the military, whatever commanders
may say about it.... But for its tragical results upon republican
liberty it [the election] would be the greatest of farces.”
The Kentucky member believed that the rebellious States were still in
the Union, and when a majority of the people in any of them returned to
loyalty, when their governments were organized, their Senators and
Representatives should be received.[382]
Cowan, entering again into the discussion, said: “We are bound by the
Constitution to preserve the Union and to preserve the rights of the
people under the Union; not merely the rights of a majority, but the
rights of the people, of all the people, and of any number of the people
however small. What are we to do? A minority of the people come forward
and say, ‘If you aid us for a while we can preserve this State and keep
her in the Union.’ ‘But no,’ according to the doctrine advanced here,
‘there must be a majority of you before we can recognize you as in the
Union.’... That will be very poor encouragement for the loyal men of the
rebel States to try and bring back their people to reason.” The
Pennsylvania Senator was one of the few who adhered to the opinion that
the masses of men at the South were not disloyal; that it was a leaders’
rebellion.[383]
Sherman, of Ohio, described the scene in the joint convention of 1856
when Humphrey Marshall wanted to speak and Mr. Mason, president of the
Senate, refused to recognize him. Speaker Banks, however, did recognize
him; upon this, Mason and others left the convention, and confusion
ensued; that, Mr. Sherman believed, was a reason why the resolution
should be disposed of.[384]
Mr. Wade said: “About a year ago Congress, anticipating that such
questions as this might arise, in my judgment very wisely framed a law
and passed it through both branches with the hope of settling this
matter in advance. That law was made upon great deliberation in both
bodies of Congress: it received a very large vote in each House. It was
very proper in my judgment that Congress should fix the matter then,
because everybody could anticipate that a question of the most serious
danger to the Republic might arise in the then approaching Presidential
election, which might endanger the stability of our Union, and which
might under certain circumstances precipitate these Northern States into
a civil war. Apprehending that such a question might arise, Congress
wisely, in my judgment, provided against it; but the President did not
agree with them, and he vetoed their bill, leaving the question open
with all its dangers, which, thank God, have not arisen.”
The President, added Mr. Wade, chose to pocket the bill, “and, as I
suppose, he did it in defence of the proclamation which he had put
forth, declaring that whenever a tenth part of the people of a State
would come back, he would recognize them as the State and as part and
parcel of this Government—a proposition which, with all my respect for
the Chief Magistrate, I am bound to say is the most absurd and
impracticable that ever haunted the imagination of a statesman.... And I
must say of that proclamation of the President that it was the most
contentious, the most anarchical, the most dangerous proposition that
was ever put forth for the government of a free people.
“... I had a conversation with the now Vice-President-elect of the
United States on that subject, and with other gentlemen on the Union
side in the Southern States, and I do not know of one of them who was
not filled with the deepest apprehension that if this principle should
prevail they would be annihilated by the nine tenths.”[385]
As to permitting citizens of Louisiana who were serving in the army and
navy to vote in the election of February 22, 1864, Mr. Doolittle
observed: “We have done the same thing in Wisconsin, in Ohio, in
Pennsylvania, in New York, all growing out of exigencies which have
occurred since this rebellion began, passing laws, authorizing men,
although in the Army of the United States, still to take part in the
elections, providing that they should not be deprived of their rights of
citizenship because they had enlisted in the Army to bear all the
sacrifices which are necessary to defend their country in this struggle.
And, sir, I maintain that there was nothing wrong in this.”[386] Even if
it were wrong, only 808 soldiers, he asserted, participated in the
election. A separate registry of this vote had been kept by General
Banks. So far, therefore, from being a military usurpation it was an
attempt of the President to lay down the military power. This he was
endeavoring in good faith to do.
After a somewhat excited defence of the Administration by Senator
Doolittle, and severe attacks on both President Lincoln and General
Banks by Mr. Powell and others, Ten Eyck’s motion to strike out
Louisiana from the joint resolution was defeated, February 3, 1865, by a
vote of 22 to 16.[387] Lane’s motion immediately after to strike out the
preamble, which would leave only an unmeaning resolution, was lost by a
vote of 30 nays to 12 yeas.[388]
Senator Harris proposed to amend Mr. Collamer’s substitute by resolving,
“That it is inexpedient to determine the question as to the validity of
the election of electors in the said States of Tennessee and Louisiana,
and that in counting the votes for President and Vice-President the
result be declared as it would stand if the votes of the said States
were counted, and also as it would stand if the votes of the said States
were excluded, such result being the same in either case.” By nearly the
same majority this proposition also was voted down without much
discussion.[389]
Reverdy Johnson, who favored the House resolution as amended by the
Committee on the Judiciary, did not think the rebellious States were out
of the Union, and asserted that there was no power in any branch of
Government to declare war against a State. Referring to the Whiskey
Insurrection in Washington’s administration, he said that Congress
passed no act declaring it at an end. The President declared it. It
ended itself. The insurrectionists laid down their arms, and expressed
willingness to yield obedience to the United States; that ended the
insurrection and disbanded the Federal forces, “and that happening, the
State of Pennsylvania, every part of it, stood exactly in the relation,
for all purposes, in which the State and every part of it stood before
the insurrection was commenced.”[390]
Mr. Collamer said that the real point in Senator Johnson’s argument was
whether Congress had anything to do in the reorganization or
reëstablishment of those States. Mr. Johnson, continued the Senator from
Vermont, seemed to think not. On resuming his speech, February 4, 1865,
he inquired: “When will, and when ought, Congress to admit these States
as being in their normal condition? When they see that they furnish
evidence of it. It is not enough that they stop their hostility and are
repentant. They should present fruits meet for repentance. They should
furnish to us by their actions some evidence that the condition of
loyalty and obedience is their true condition again, and Congress must
pass upon it; otherwise we have no securities. It is not enough that
they lay down their arms. Our courts should be established, our taxes
should be gathered, our duties should be collected in those States; and
before they come here to perform their duties or privileges again as
members of this Union, they should place themselves in an attitude
showing to us that they have truly taken that position, and we should
pass upon it; and I insist that the President, making peace with them,
if you please, by surceasing military operations, does not alter their
status until Congress passes upon it.... I believe that when
reëstablishing the condition of peace with that people, Congress,
representing the United States, has power, in ending this war as any
other war, to get some security for the future.”
The guaranty clause, Mr. Collamer asserted, implied that States were to
be kept in the Union; it was inserted for the security of the minority
in a State, though there might be but one man there to redeem Sodom. No
one State could discharge the United States from a performance of that
obligation. To keep it Congress, if it was essential to maintaining a
republican form of government, could abolish slavery if that institution
stood in the way of performing the guaranty. Before restoring the
States, he added in conclusion, the President would need the assistance
of Congress, else how could he get rid of the confiscation act.[391]
Collamer’s substitute, which shared the fate of the amendment offered by
Ten Eyck, could be construed only by an examination of the President’s
proclamation to ascertain what States were in insurrection.
To the preamble, which stated that four years earlier certain designated
States had rebelled, and on the 8th of November preceding were in such
condition of rebellion that no valid election for the choice of electors
of President and Vice-President could be held there, Senator Pomeroy
objected that the rebel governor of Arkansas had been killed, and the
entire disloyal government destroyed. When the election was held the
real local authorities in that State were Union men. It would not be
true, as the preamble declared, that these authorities were in rebellion
on November 8. The terms of the disloyal officials in Arkansas had
expired by limitation; the chief men in that government were not alive
to exert any influence if they were disposed to do so. It was not true
to say that they made war on the United States on the 8th of November,
1864, or that they were then in condition to do so. Since the rebellion
began they never had but one election.
Pomeroy’s amendment to substitute for “state of rebellion” the word
“condition” was carried by a vote of 26 to 13. The preamble, as thus
perfected, declared that certain States had rebelled four years before,
and on November 8 were in such “condition” that no valid election was
held.[392]
Mr. Lane believed that for the protection of Union men in those States a
loyal government was indispensable, and that it did more to demoralize
the insurgents and to close out the rebellion than any other act that
could be accomplished. It would be worth more than all the victories
that could be gained in the field.[393]
Senator Howe in closing the debate observed that four days had been
spent in discussing not the passage of the joint resolution, but the
reason to be assigned in its preamble for excluding the vote of certain
States. It belonged to the legislatures of those commonwealths, he
maintained, to declare whether valid elections had been held there. He
distrusted that sort of legislation, and in conclusion said: “If you
will take hold of the question of the political relations of these
communities, and if you will tell what is the truth, and has been the
truth since 1861, that there are no State organizations there, no State
governments, I am with you. When you establish that, you know what they
may and what they may not do.”[394]
By a vote of 29 to 10 the joint resolution was passed on February 4. In
the record the names of Cowan, Doolittle, Harris, Howe, Lane of Kansas,
Nesmith, Saulsbury, Ten Eyck, Van Winkle and Willey appear in
opposition.[395]
For the purpose of canvassing the electoral votes, both Houses assembled
in joint convention four days later, February 8, 1865. The
Vice-President in discharge of his duty proceeded to open and hand to
the tellers the votes of the several States, beginning with Maine. No
one dissenting it was agreed on a suggestion by Senator Wade to dispense
with the reading of everything in the certificate except the result of
the vote.
When all the votes had been recorded, Cowan said: “Mr. President, I
inquire whether there are any further returns to be counted.” The
Vice-President replied in the negative. To his former question Mr. Cowan
then added, “And if there be, I would inquire why they are not submitted
to this body in joint convention, which is alone capable of determining
whether they should be counted or not.” The Vice-President acknowledged
that he had in his possession returns from the States of Louisiana and
Tennessee, but in obedience to the law of the land “the Chair holds it
to be his duty not to present them to the convention.” The Pennsylvania
Senator thereupon inquired whether the joint resolution had been signed
by the President, and was informed that while the official communication
of its approval had not been received by either House, the Chair had
been apprised that the resolution had received the Executive approval.
Cowan then suggested that, as a motion was not in order, the votes of
Louisiana and Tennessee be counted, and that the convention determine
the fact. Representative Cox immediately recommended the reading of the
joint rule under which both Houses were then acting. On being directed
by the Vice-President the secretary complied with this suggestion.
Thaddeus Stevens did not think any question had arisen which required
the two Houses to separate, for that, according to the language of the
joint resolution, could only occur upon the reading of those returns
which had been opened by the president of the convention.
Mr. Cowan did what he could to bring the question before the two Houses,
and failing, withdrew it. The result, after some further effort to call
up the returns from Louisiana and Tennessee, was then announced. The
tellers reported that for President of the United States Abraham Lincoln
had received 212, and George B. McClellan 21 votes; that for
Vice-President Andrew Johnson had received 212, and George H. Pendleton
21 votes.[396]
On February 10 the president _pro tempore_ laid before the Senate the
following communication from Mr. Lincoln:
_To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives_:
The joint resolution entitled “Joint resolution declaring certain
States not entitled to representation in the Electoral College” has
been signed by the Executive, in deference to the view of Congress
implied in its passage and presentation to him. In his own view,
however, the two Houses of Congress, convened under the twelfth
article of the Constitution, have complete power to exclude from
counting all electoral votes deemed by them to be illegal; and it is
not competent for the Executive to defeat or obstruct that power by
a veto, as would be the case if his action were at all essential in
the matter. He disclaims all right of the Executive to interfere in
any way in the matter of canvassing or counting electoral votes, and
he also disclaims that, by signing said resolution, he has expressed
any opinion on the recitals of the preamble, or any judgment of his
own upon the subject of the resolution.[397]
Except for a brief speech by Reverdy Johnson this message was received
in silence by the Senate. Mr. Johnson commented upon the extraordinary
course of the President, whose duty, he said, was clearly to approve or
to disapprove, not virtually to read a lecture to the Senate as he had
done. The Maryland member did not doubt that the motives of the
President were perfectly correct and patriotic, but it was not the first
time, he asserted, that that had been done. The bill for the
reconstruction of the seceded States passed both Houses by an
overwhelming majority; but it was defeated by the President’s failure to
approve, and the adjournment of Congress before ten days elapsed. In his
manifesto or proclamation he approved portions and disapproved
others.[398]
Short as this paper was, however, it was entirely characteristic of the
President. This little lesson in constitutional law is only another
proof that Mr. Lincoln possessed in an eminent degree the faculty of
seeing clearly through the most intricate question. His disposal of this
difficulty as well as his reflections on Congress remind one of the
facility with which he straightened out for General Butler the liquor
problem at Norfolk. The succeeding chapter will describe another phase
of the controversy between the political departments of the Government.
-----
Footnote 366:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 505.
Footnote 367:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 533.
Footnote 368:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 534–535.
Footnote 369:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 535–536.
Footnote 370:
Ibid., p. 536.
Footnote 371:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 535–537.
Footnote 372:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 537, 548.
Footnote 373:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 548–549.
Footnote 374:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 549–550.
Footnote 375:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 550.
Footnote 376:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 550–551.
Footnote 377:
Ibid., pp. 551–552.
Footnote 378:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 553–554.
Footnote 379:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 554–555.
Footnote 380:
Ibid., pp. 555–556.
Footnote 381:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 556.
Footnote 382:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 557–558.
Footnote 383:
Ibid., p. 558.
Footnote 384:
Ibid.
Footnote 385:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 576–582.
Footnote 386:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 575.
Footnote 387:
Ibid., pp. 576–582.
Footnote 388:
Ibid., p. 582.
Footnote 389:
Ibid., p. 583.
Footnote 390:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 585.
Footnote 391:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 591.
Footnote 392:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 593.
Footnote 393:
Ibid., p. 594.
Footnote 394:
Ibid., pp. 594–595.
Footnote 395:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 595.
Footnote 396:
The subject of the counting of the electoral votes will be found in
the Congressional Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 668–669.
Footnote 397:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 711.
Footnote 398:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 711.
X
SENATE DEBATE ON LOUISIANA
At the opening of its second session, December 5, 1864, the Speaker of
the Thirty-eighth Congress laid before the House the credentials of W.
D. Mann, T. M. Wells, Robert W. Taliaferro, A. P. Field and M. F.
Bonzano, who claimed seats as Representatives from the State of
Louisiana. A petition, signed by numerous citizens of that commonwealth,
protesting against the admission of these claimants, was referred at the
same time on motion of Henry Winter Davis to the Committee of Elections
in connection with their credentials, which had already received the
same direction. On the 13th this remonstrance was ordered to be printed.
Mr. Dawes on February 11 following reported that “M. F. Bonzano is
entitled to a seat in this House as a Representative from the First
Congressional District of Louisiana.” Six days later he presented a
report and resolutions from his committee to the effect that Messrs.
Field and Mann from the Second and Third Districts, respectively, were
also entitled to seats. These reports with the accompanying resolutions
were laid on the table and ordered to be printed.
No further action was taken on the question of their admission, but on
March 3, 1865, Chairman Dawes by unanimous consent reported from the
Committee of Elections a resolution that there be paid to each of the
Louisiana claimants for compensation, expenses and mileage the sum of
$2,000 and a like amount to T. M. Jacks, J. M. Johnson and A. A. C.
Rogers, claimants from Arkansas.
The House, however, was not nearly so unanimous as its committee. Mr.
Washburne remarked that Congress, by allowing at the last session the
sum of $1,500 to one gentleman who claimed a seat, had fixed a sort of
rule in such cases. That amount he would, probably, not object to paying
to the present applicants; but if large payments, such as the
compensation proposed by the resolution, were made to men coming to the
Capitol it was feared they might not soon stop.
Representative Johnson, of Pennsylvania, believed that regardless of
their right to seats they should be compensated because they had been
encouraged to come; they appeared at the Capitol, he asserted, with an
honest expectation of getting seats, and in an honest effort to restore
popular government to their States.
Mr. Dawes declared that they came not as adventurers but under what they
supposed was the policy of the General Government; hence the favorable
recommendation of the committee. When he demanded the previous question,
Representative Brandegee moved to lay the resolution on the table.
Thaddeus Stevens asked to strike out the words “claimants for seats.” To
this the Massachusetts member offered no objection. “I do not want to
recognize the idea,” added Stevens, “that anybody on earth thinks that
these men are entitled to seats.”[399] This request, however, was
denied, and the resolution was then adopted.
It was during their three months’ sojourn in Washington that one of the
claimants, A. P. Field, committed an assault upon Representative William
D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, whom he regarded as the chief obstacle to
their admission. This occurrence, which took place on February 20 at the
Willard Hotel, was due, no doubt, to the artificial excitement of the
Louisiana claimant, but was without influence upon the action of the
House.[400]
The General Assembly of Louisiana, as previously related, had chosen
Charles Smith and R. King Cutler as United States Senators. With the
Representatives-elect these gentlemen also appeared in Washington as
claimants for seats. On December 7, two days after Congress assembled,
the president _pro tempore_ presented certain proceedings of the
Louisiana Legislature declaratory of the election of Smith and Cutler.
The papers, it was announced, would lie on the table unless otherwise
ordered. Just as Henry Winter Davis had done in the House, Senator Wade
offered a memorial from Louisiana citizens remonstrating against their
admission, and also against the reception of any electoral vote from
that State. On his motion it was agreed that all documents pertaining to
the subject be printed. On the following day, December 8, the
credentials as well as the remonstrance were referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.
Senator Trumbull on February 17 succeeding made a report from his
committee, and offered a joint resolution relative to the credentials of
Smith and Cutler. At the request of Charles Sumner the resolution was
read at length and was as follows:
That the United States do hereby recognize the government of the
State of Louisiana, inaugurated under and by the convention which
assembled on the 6th day of April, A. D., 1864, at the city of New
Orleans, as the legitimate government of the said State, and
entitled to the guarantees and all other rights of a State
government under the Constitution of the United States.[401]
This resolution was limited to Louisiana because the facts, while in
many respects similar, were not identical with those in the case of
Arkansas. Besides, when the subject first came up in committee the
Arkansas case had not been presented, though it arose before Louisiana
had been disposed of. Trumbull believed it the intention of the
committee to act immediately upon Arkansas when the case of Louisiana
had been considered.[402]
Sumner moved, February 23, to strike out all of the joint resolution
except the enacting clause, and to substitute the following:
That neither the people nor the Legislature of any State, the people
of which were declared to be in insurrection against the United
States by the proclamation of the President, dated August 16, 1861,
shall hereafter elect Representatives or Senators to the Congress of
the United States until the President, by proclamation, shall have
declared that armed hostility to the Government of the United States
within such State has ceased; nor until the people of such State
shall have adopted a constitution of government not repugnant to the
Constitution and laws of the United States; nor until, by a law of
Congress, such State shall have been declared to be entitled to
representation in the Congress of the United States of America.[403]
To this amendment Senator Trumbull objected that it would put it in the
power of the President, by refusing to issue his proclamation, to keep a
State out forever. Sumner’s substitute was promptly defeated by a vote
of 29 to 8.[404]
Of the members of the committee Powell alone opposed the resolution
offered by Mr. Trumbull. The chief object in recognizing the government
of Louisiana at that time, said the Kentucky Senator, was to allow that
State to vote for the proposed amendment of the Constitution; to do that
effectually those favorable to the resolution desired first to admit her
Senators and Representatives; their admission would be the immediate
effect of its passage.
A just conclusion on that subject could be reached only by information
concerning the action of the President, of the military, and of the
people of Louisiana in connection with the election. He opposed the
loyal government because it was not formed by the people of that State;
however, he did not want to be classed with those who thought Louisiana
out of the Union. He believed that something approximating a majority of
her people should indicate a willingness to return to the Union, and
should participate in the movement for reorganization. The formation of
the existing government, he asserted, was controlled and influenced by
persons who were not citizens of Louisiana, and, he added, “It is a
government formed really and virtually by the military power of the
United States, using as instruments delegates who were elected under and
by force of the bayonet.”
Before Senators could vote for the resolution, he continued, they must
maintain the doctrine announced in the President’s proclamation of
December 8, 1863, when he proposed that one tenth of the loyal voters in
a State who would comply with the conditions therein prescribed, could
form a State government; they must further maintain that the President,
of his own volition, had power by decretal order to alter the
constitution of a State; that the President had power to prescribe the
qualifications both of voters and candidates for office in the States;
finally they must believe that not only did the President possess these
powers, but that Major-General Banks, in virtue of his office, possessed
them in Louisiana.
Mr. Powell proposed to show that not only did Louisiana people not act
of their own volition, but that “they were coerced to do what they did.”
The constitution of that State, he asserted, was not made by the free
suffrage of the people.
The creation of a State government is a purely civil act; the people
must act without restraint. He had never heard any Senator say that the
President could legitimately exercise the power assumed in his
proclamation of December 8, 1863. Mr. Powell objected to the oath which
was to be taken as a condition precedent to becoming a qualified elector
in one of the revolted States, especially to that portion which promised
support of all future proclamations of the President on the question of
slavery. “Why, sir,” he exclaimed, “the President may proclaim that the
negro shall be the master and the white man the slave; that the negro
shall be the voter and the white man deprived of the right of suffrage;
and yet this oath requires the man taking it to swear in advance that he
would support even such a measure as that....
“At the very threshold, then,” he continued, “you repudiate the great
principle of republican government that majorities shall rule. Here you
propose to say not that majorities, but that less than one tenth shall
rule.” It was intimated by the President that when they made a
constitution it must not recognize African slavery. General Banks,
carrying out the suggestion of the President, as well as what had been
distinctly stated to General Steele in relation to Arkansas, took it
upon himself to alter the constitution of Louisiana in that respect.
Whence does the President, it was asked, derive the power to prescribe
qualifications for either electors or candidates? The proclamation, the
Kentucky Senator asserted, was the basis of the whole proceeding, and
those who voted for the resolution endorsed the proclamation.
Mr. Powell then reviewed the acts and read the proclamation of General
Banks, whose conduct he denounced for presuming to declare certain parts
of the Louisiana constitution no longer applicable to any class of
persons in that State, and, therefore, inoperative and void.
He further objected that Banks had no authority to call the convention,
for the constitution of Louisiana could be lawfully amended in only the
mode pointed out by itself. The President’s proclamation, he added,
would allow only those to vote who were qualified electors under the
fundamental law of the State; those in the army and navy were not, but
General Banks in his ukase of February 13, 1864, allowed them to
participate in the election.
He also invited attention to the action of the Department Commander in
designating provost marshals to take care that the polls were properly
opened, in the absence of the sheriffs, and that suitable persons were
appointed judges of election and so forth. Of the 11,414 votes he
asserted that 808 were cast by soldiers who under the President’s
proclamation were not legal voters. The fact, added Mr. Powell, that
General Banks after the inauguration of Hahn as governor continued to
issue proclamations shows that the civil was controlled by the military
authority.
Passing on to a discussion of the statement of Banks before the
Committee on the Judiciary that the military did not interfere in the
election of February 22, Senator Powell quoted the following passages
from a proclamation of the Department Commander:
Those who have exercised or are entitled to the rights of citizens
of the United States will be required to participate in the measures
necessary for the reëstablishment of civil government.... It is
therefore a solemn duty resting upon all persons to assist in the
earliest possible restoration of civil government. Let them
participate in the measures suggested for this purpose. Opinion is
free and candidates are numerous. Open hostility cannot be
permitted. Indifference will be treated as a crime, and faction as
treason.
“Talk to me,” exclaimed Mr. Powell, “of freedom of election under such
military orders! Why, sir, there was but one free man, in my opinion, in
all Louisiana at that time, and that was Major-General Banks; and I do
not know that he was free, for he was serving his master at the White
House.” The fundamental law there was martial law, which is but the will
of the commander-in-chief, and under that law he could have beheaded
them if they did not vote.
From beginning to end, he continued, the coercive finger of the military
was engaged in the establishment of that government. Under the various
proclamations even Unionists, men who had always been loyal, could not
vote unless they took the oath required in the President’s proclamation.
There was a large class of loyal men in Louisiana, he said, who refused
to take that oath, for there had been presented to the Judiciary
Committee an earnest protest signed by Thomas J. Durant and thirty-one
others, influential Union men of that State, against the admission of
Senators and Representatives and against counting its electoral vote.
Those Senators, he added toward the conclusion of his remarks, who only
a few days before opposed the counting of Louisiana’s electoral vote
should now vote against the resolution acknowledging the government
which appointed the Senators that are claiming seats.[405]
Sumner and Davis referred to the resolution as a shadow. To this Mr.
Doolittle replied that the vote of Louisiana might be necessary to
secure the constitutional amendment, and that the new constitution of
that State had struck the shackles from 90,000 slaves not reached by the
Emancipation Proclamation.
Mr. Henderson, who favored the resolution, secured the floor, and
observed, among other things, that Louisiana and Arkansas did not claim
that they were yet strong enough to maintain their governments without
the military aid of the nation; but neither was Maryland, West Virginia,
Kentucky or Missouri; even Ohio, Indiana or Illinois, he said, could not
without national assistance maintain their State organizations for sixty
days against the Confederate armies.
“If we would have State governments,” said Mr. Henderson, “we must begin
somewhere and at some time.” It was nonsensical, he argued to talk of
restoring the Union, while keeping the loyal people in those States for
all time to come under military domination. “We must declare the right
in Congress,” he added, “to make and establish these governments for the
States, or permit the President, under military law, to set them up, or
we must recognize such as the loyal people may set up for themselves.”
If, as Madison thought, Congress cannot make them, but can only
guarantee such as already exist and are found to be republican in form,
it must be left with the President, under his power as the head of the
army, or to the people of the respective States. If left entirely with
the President he might by military force impose upon the State a
constitution against the wishes of both the loyal and disloyal. The
Senator frankly admitted that neither House would be under any
obligation to receive members sent from a State so constituted.
“But,” he went on to say, “if the people—the loyal masses, whether a
majority or a minority of the whole voting population as formerly
known—participated in its creation and acquiesce in the revival of the
State government, the case though inaugurated by the President in my
judgment would be very different. According to the theory of our
Government, and its practice in all its past time in analogous cases, it
would seem that whether Congress or the President inaugurated the
proceeding, the constitution can only receive its validity and authority
from the approval or acquiescence of the people to be affected; and that
brings me to consider how the people in the seceded States shall revive
their governments, and who are the legally qualified voters for that
purpose in these States.
“At the threshold of the inquiry we are met with the objection that the
States are now without officers of any kind legally elected, and that of
themselves they are powerless to inaugurate any movement to set up a
loyal government. It is said they have no officials to superintend the
election, to count the votes, and grant certificates of election.
However desirable these formalities may be, it has not been the uniform
practice of Congress to require them.”
In the case of California, continued Mr. Henderson, the first election
was called by the military order of a subordinate officer of the army, a
delegate convention was chosen, a constitution was framed by that
assembly and submitted to Congress. It was accepted as republican in
form, and under it a State government was inaugurated that for fifteen
years had been administered with the greatest success. The territory, he
said, was wholly without civil authorities recognized by the United
States. Congress had passed no enabling act, had prescribed no forms of
proceeding, had failed to fix the qualifications of voters, had
appointed no judges of election or other officers to count and certify
the votes; yet the act, however informal, was ratified because the
constitution on its face was unobjectionable in form, and it was
believed that the people interested acquiesced in the government it
established.
If the people of Rhode Island, added Mr. Henderson, had acquiesced in
the government set up under Dorr, Congress and the Executive would have
recognized it as legitimate. The Senator from Kentucky contended that
although a majority of the legal and qualified voters of Louisiana
should acquiesce in the new constitution Congress could not admit the
State. In support of his view Mr. Henderson pointed to the State
government of Missouri, which was the offspring of a movement purely
revolutionary.
In the States whose representatives were seeking admission to Congress
but one government asked recognition, and what if these organizations
were of revolutionary origin?—the revolution was on the side of loyalty.
Revolutionary governments had been accepted in time of peace—governments
springing up in the midst of anarchy, without the sanctions of
regularity; why, he asked, should they be rejected now when they were
needed to protect the loyal inhabitants of the respective States and to
aid the nation in vindicating its lost authority?
The assertion that on the face of these constitutions they were
republican in form Senator Sumner denied. They did not follow out the
principles of the Federal Constitution. This general answer was
unsatisfactory, and Mr. Henderson said that the only question with him
was how could he best get these States performing their legitimate
functions in the Union again. If, as the Massachusetts Senator
maintained, the act of secession took the States out, why could not the
act of loyal men bring them back? If secession, he argued, was potent
enough to take a State out, and that was mere revolution, why could not
the loyal men perfect a revolution on the side of Government as well as
rebels perfect a revolution on the side of secession, outrage and wrong?
The doctrine that secession took the States out of the Union, Sumner
objected to have imputed to him. A subsequent remark indicated one
ground of his opposition to the government of Louisiana. “If the loyal
men, white and black, recognize it, then,” he declared, “it will be
republican in form. Unless that is done, it will not be.”
When asked whether Congress could interfere with the right of suffrage
in one of the States, Sumner evaded a candid reply, and concealed his
meaning under these words: “It is the bounden duty of the United States
by act of Congress to guarantee complete freedom to every citizen, and
immunity from all oppression, and absolute equality before the law.” No
government that does not guarantee these things, he added, can be
recognized as republican in form according to the theory of the Federal
Constitution, if the United States are called upon to enforce the
constitutional guaranty.
Senator Henderson, interpreting this answer in the affirmative, observed
that if under the guaranty clause the national Legislature could
regulate the suffrage in the States, there was no limitation except the
mere discretion of Congress. In support of this position he cited
Madison in No. 43 of _The Federalist_, and of course had this part of
the argument his own way, for the test of a republican form satisfactory
to the Massachusetts Senator would leave few representatives in
Congress.
Mr. Henderson denied that the admission of Senators and Representatives
from these commonwealths would be a precedent for other States to demand
recognition, even with the institution of slavery, thus bringing back
the germs of a new rebellion against the Government; because in the
constitutions presented involuntary servitude was abolished. With
slavery remaining any restoration would be utterly useless. It was
against union with the free States that the Southern people had taken up
arms, and against restoration that they continued to use them. In that
struggle they would employ every moral and material force, including the
slave himself, stimulated by the boon of freedom, to resist the return
of their States. Whatever the future might bring, it would fail to bring
to the doors of Congress seeking admission a State constitution without
a positive interdict of slavery.
To the objection that a majority of the people of these States were in
rebellion and that to recognize the loyal minority would be to subvert
the whole republican system Senator Henderson replied that if it were
strictly true that a majority in a particular community “not only shall
but must govern,” then a majority of legal voters in a State desiring to
secede would have the undoubted right to do so. As no principle of the
General Government authorized such action, it was not true, he said,
that a majority of citizens in a State can govern themselves except in
strict obedience to the Constitution of the United States. If a majority
proved derelict and undertook to destroy the very Government of which
the State is a part, it is right that the minority, who sustain the
Government in its entirety, State and national, should institute
government for their protection. He admitted that General Banks did a
great many things for which there was no legal authority; but the
question was whether this constitution was the will of the loyal men of
Louisiana. If it was, their representatives had a right to seats on the
floor of Congress.
In reply to Sumner, Senator Henderson said he favored the idea that the
loyal men should govern a State, and he added, if that be the government
of the few it results from the voluntary disloyalty of the many. They,
of their own will, had relinquished the right to govern themselves under
the Constitution, and as they had no right to govern themselves
otherwise they could not govern at all. As to the oligarchy of skin, to
which Sumner had referred, Henderson believed that the regulation of the
suffrage was a question for the consideration of the States; if they
conferred the franchise on the negro, he did not object.
As to the Louisiana constitution the question was whether it embodied
the will of those legally entitled to exercise the functions of the
State government. If the casting of illegal votes vitiated elections,
but few elections, he asserted, would be valid.
If those States were admitted, they could immediately settle all
questions of suffrage, and Congress would be relieved of the difficulty
in future. He put clearly the difference of opinion prevailing among
Senators on this subject when he stated that Mr. Powell objected to the
new constitution of Louisiana because negro soldiers were permitted to
vote, while Mr. Sumner opposed it because negroes at home did not vote.
Concluding this part of his speech, he declared that the Federal
Government by recognizing the old organization in Rhode Island against
Dorr expressed its preference for a constitution of restricted suffrage.
Without naming his authority Henderson then read from a private letter
the opinion of a gentleman whom he regarded as one of the ablest jurists
in the United States.[406] The correspondent said in part:
It must be observed that the civil society, and the political
society so to speak, of a State need not necessarily do [be] the
same. In other words the basis of _representation_ may be the whole
population, but the basis of _suffrage_ be property, adult years,
&c. The power to choose rulers is lodged in the voters, and they may
not exceed one tenth of the population.... That portion of the
population in which political power is lodged, determines who shall
fill the respective offices, make laws, etc. Although the members of
that society may have possessed every requisite therefor, yet the
moment they ceased to be citizens of the United States they ceased
to belong thereto.
That rule holds good with respect to every member, and the political
society may, by death, disqualification of members, &c., be reduced
to a very few persons. To state an extreme case, for illustration of
the principle, Massachusetts formerly had a property qualification,
and although her population entitled her to, say, thirteen
Representatives in the United States House, her voters may not have
exceeded fifty thousand. Suppose while that qualification remained,
by some financial or other disaster, only one thousand or one
hundred citizens retained the necessary income or property, would
not the persons chosen to Congress by the few and only remaining
voters be duly elected? So with regard to any other element of
suffrage, as United States citizenship, if by its loss the voters
are reduced to very few in number, do not those few constitute the
political or voting power? As to the policy or impolicy of
restricted suffrage, we are not now concerned, but are endeavoring
to reach a constitutional and legal analysis of our governmental
system.
But here is encountered the startling and practical difficulty,
“Shall a few persons be permitted to govern a State, despite the
wishes of its inhabitants, and without giving them all a voice? Is
that republican?”
But it must be remembered that the few voters, say one seventh, or
one tenth of the whole population, have always been intrusted with
that power. Wisdom has fixed the basis of suffrage, without regard
to relative numbers; that is, it has endeavored, under our popular
system, to give the right or privilege to as many citizens as were
supposed competent to exercise it intelligently. The rules
prescribed as to age, sex, citizenship, &c., were deemed essential,
right, and proper. Whether many or few come within the rules does
not affect their validity.... If persons heretofore entitled to a
vote chose to commit a felony, and incur thereby, as a penalty, the
deprivation of their former right of suffrage, it is not supposed
that the loss of such votes is anti-republican. If, then, a majority
choose to perpetrate treason, or to expatriate themselves, or in any
other way become disqualified, how does that action vitiate the
rule? If they, after becoming disqualified, remain in the State, are
they not bound to submit to its rulers and laws? If their rulers are
chosen without their voice, is it not in consequence of their own
voluntary action? Indeed, it often happens that the persons elected
to office receive only a meager minority of the votes which could
have been lawfully polled, yet that fact has no influence upon the
legal result. So a person is often chosen by a minority of the votes
actually cast, and is not the majority bound to submit?
The author of this letter appears to have been more familiar with the
Constitution, as it was understood by its framers, than almost any
member of either House, notwithstanding the presence in Congress of many
distinguished statesmen. In the following eight propositions Mr.
Henderson then gave a masterly summary of the Presidential plan of
reconstruction:
1. I hold that the seceded States are still in the Union and cannot
get out of it except through amendment of the Constitution
permitting it.
2. The seceded States being still in the Union are entitled to claim
all the rights accorded to other States.
3. That each State now in the Union has the right to stand upon the
form of its constitution as it existed at the time of its admission.
The people of such State may change its constitution, provided they
retain a republican form of government; but neither the President
nor Congress can reform, alter, or amend such constitution, nor
prescribe any alteration or amendment as a condition of association
with the other States of the Union. The General Government may
properly lend its aid to enable the people to express their will;
but any attempt to exercise power constitutionally reserved to the
State, beyond what may be demanded by the immediate exigencies of
war, will not tend to restore the Union, but rather to destroy our
whole system of government.
4. When citizens of a State rebel and take up arms against the
General Government they lose their rights as citizens of the United
States, and they necessarily forfeit those rights and franchises in
their respective States which depend on United States citizenship.
5. If a seceded State be still in the Union, entitled to recognition
as a State, and a majority of the people have voluntarily withdrawn
their allegiance, the loyal minority constitute the State and should
govern it.
6. Congress should not reject the governments presented because of
mere irregularity in the proceedings leading to their
reorganization.
7. If Congress has no right to make and impose a constitution upon
the people of any State; if its power extends no further than to
guaranty preëxisting republican forms of government; if the State
still exists, and the loyal men are entitled to exercise the
functions of its government, it follows that the only questions to
be examined here are, first, is the constitution the will of the
loyal men qualified to act? and, second, is it republican in form?
8. The constitutions of Louisiana and Arkansas are thought to be
republican in form, and it is admitted that the loyal men of those
States respectively acquiesce in them. Hence the duty of Congress to
recognize them, and the duty of each House to admit their
representatives.[407]
On February 25 debate on Trumbull’s resolution was resumed. At this
point Mr. Sumner offered an amendment in substance as follows:
That it is the duty of the United States at the earliest practicable
moment, consistent with the common defence and general welfare, to
reëstablish by act of Congress republican governments in those
States where loyal governments have been vacated by the existing
rebellion, and thus, to the full extent of their power, fulfil the
requirement of the Constitution, that “the United States shall
guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of
government.”
Sec. 2. _And be it further resolved_, That this important duty is
imposed by the Constitution in express terms on “the United States,”
and not on individuals or classes of individuals, or on any military
commander or executive officer, and cannot be intrusted to any such
persons, acting, it may be, for an oligarchical class, and in
disregard of large numbers of loyal people; but it must be performed
by the United States, represented by the President and both Houses
of Congress, acting for the whole people thereof.
Sec. 3. _And be it further resolved_, That, in determining the
extent of this duty, and in the absence of any precise definition of
the term “republican form of government,” we cannot err, if, when
called to perform this guaranty under the Constitution, we adopt the
self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence as an
authoritative rule, and insist that in every reëstablished State the
consent of the governed shall be the only just foundation of
government, and all men shall be equal before the law.
Not less important is the declaration in the fourth section that “in the
performance of this guaranty, there can be no power under the
Constitution to disfranchise loyal people, or to recognize any such
disfranchisement, especially when it may hand over the loyal majority to
the government of the disloyal minority; nor can there be any power
under the Constitution to discriminate in favor of the rebellion by
admitting to the electoral franchise rebels who have forfeited all
rights and by excluding loyal persons who have never forfeited any
right.” To allow the reëstablishment of any State without proper
safeguards for the rights of all the citizens, and especially without
making it impossible for rebels to trample upon the rights of those who
are now fighting the battles of the Union, would be, said the succeeding
section, for the United States to fail in duty under the Constitution.
More directly in opposition to the resolution reported by the chairman
of the Judiciary Committee, however, was the seventh section, which
declared “That a government founded on military power, or having its
origin in military orders, cannot be a ‘republican form of government’
according to the requirement of the Constitution; and that its
recognition will be contrary not only to the Constitution, but also to
that essential principle of our Government which, in the language of
Jefferson, establishes ‘the supremacy of the civil over the military
authority.’”
The resolutions further asserted that a government founded on an
oligarchical class, even if erroneously recognized as a “republican form
of government,” could not sustain itself without national support; that
such an organization was not at that moment competent to discharge the
duties and execute the powers of a State, and that its recognition would
tend to enfeeble the Union, to postpone the day of reconciliation and to
endanger the national tranquillity. The ninth section renders clear one
ground of Sumner’s hostility to the recognition of Louisiana. It asserts
that
Considerations of expediency are in harmony with the requirements of
the Constitution, and the dictates of justice and reason, especially
now, when colored soldiers have shown their military value; that as
their muskets are needed for the national defence against rebels in
the field, so are their ballots yet more needed against the subtle
enemies of the Union at home; and that without their support at the
ballot-box the cause of human rights and of the Union itself will be
in constant peril.[408]
It was agreed on motion of Mr. Sumner to have his amendment printed.
Senator Howard, of Michigan, entered at this point into the debate. Much
of what he said has already been related in the preceding narration of
events leading up to the reinauguration of a loyal government in
Louisiana. While admitting that the President’s plan had been undertaken
for patriotic ends, he could not, he said, recognize in the Executive,
without the subsidiary aid of an act of Congress, any right to assure a
community, composed of voters numbering one tenth of the electors who
participated in the Presidential contest of 1860, that it would be
recognized as a legitimate government and entitled to the constitutional
guaranty. This, he said, was a stretch of authority beyond any previous
attempt, and he thought it time that Congress, in whom, he believed,
rested solely the authority of readmitting and reconstructing the
rebellious States, “should lay hold of this subject, assert their power,
and provide by some statute of uniform application for the
reconstruction, as it is called, and readmission of the insurrectionary
States. That is their right and their duty; that is not the right, it is
not the duty of the President.”
A State he defined negatively as not “the geographical superficies,” the
land, on which population resides, and positively as “a moral person, a
political community, possessing the faculty of political government.”
The land, he said, is the theatre on which the political community moves
and acts, but is endowed with no thought, no right, no duty. The
thinking beings residing upon it constitute the State.[409]
“A State of the Union or a State in the Union is, therefore, a people
yielding obedience to the laws of the Union, that is, the acts of
Congress and the national treaties.... A people who have a State
government which is republican in form; a people who were one of the
original thirteen States which formed the United States, or a people who
have, since the adoption of the Constitution, been, in the language of
that Constitution, ‘admitted by the Congress into this Union’ as States
upon an equal footing with the original States; for this equality of
rights and powers as States is plainly implied by the language and the
manifest intention of the instrument; and no other people except such
original State or admitted State; none but a State which permits the
laws of the Union to have full scope and force within its limits; none
but a State which sends Senators and Representatives to Congress
friendly to the Government itself, willing to vote men and money to
support and uphold it, who believe that a person forcibly resisting its
authority is a traitor and deserving of death; none but a State which is
willing to bring to trial, to convict such a traitor, and to punish him
for his treason; none but a State whose population is capable of
furnishing both the grand jury to indict and the traverse jury to
convict such a traitor; none but a State whose population and whose
authorities are in favor not only of permitting the laws of the United
States relating to civil rights to be executed, but who are willing that
the punitive code of the nation, the code of vengeance against its
enemies, shall be carried out; none but such are States of the Union....
“To be in fact a State of the Union and in the Union, this will or
consent of the people must be in harmony with the Constitution, and its
movements subsidiary to it. It must regard the Constitution as its
highest political good; its injunctions as the highest human law, its
commands as the infallible and final measure of civil duty. In short, to
be in the Union is to be actively and willingly coöperating with other
States in the performance of all those acts and things without which the
Federal Government cannot act or move, cannot perform the functions
required of it by the Constitution; it is to elect Senators and
Representatives to the Congress of the United States; to permit the
courts of the United States to be held within their limits, and its
citizens to act as jurors and officers of the court; to permit the
judgments and sentences of the court to be executed against its
citizens; to permit the United States mail to be carried through the
State and its contents distributed according to law; to permit the
officers of the United States to collect the Federal revenue whether
derived from foreign or domestic products; to permit the United States
to manage and control their own property, whether consisting of forts,
dockyards, arsenals, mints, or public lands; to make such elections of
Senators and Representatives freely and as the means of maintaining
itself as a State in the Union; and to permit all these things willingly
and freely as rights belonging to the Federal Government with which
neither the State government nor the people of the State have any right
whatever to interfere. In short, to be a State in the Union is to use
all those powers of the State which have a relation to the Federal
Government in a manner friendly to that Government, friendly to its
existence and continuance, in a manner promotive of the objects of that
Government; and to permit without hindrance the exercise within the
State of all the powers of the Federal Government.”
Though he declined to discuss the question whether a State by omitting
to send Representatives and Senators to Congress would on that account
cease to be a member of the Union, he gave it as his opinion that mere
failure to be represented in Congress would not be followed by such
consequences; but if a State not only refused to participate in Federal
legislation but went farther, and as a political community made war upon
the General Government, he declared that “it would be folly, madness, to
say that the State was not our enemy in every sense in which that term
can be employed to describe hostile relations between independent
communities.... No one will pretend that such a community is in the
Union in fact, for that would be to make an admission and in the same
breath to contradict it. _De facto_, such a community, and, if it be
bounded by State lines, such a State, is as completely out of the Union
as is Canada or Mexico, from the moment it assumes the attitude of
hostility until it is subdued and conquered by our arms, or until it
voluntarily lays down its arms, ejects its hostile government and
returns _in fact_ to its once friendly sentiments and friendly relations
to the Federal Government.”
“Loyalty,” continued Senator Howard, “thus becomes the final test in
solving the question, what is a State in the Union? If a State by its
overt acts has shown a want of this friendship, it is no longer in the
Union _de facto_, and cannot be treated as if it were. The Supreme
Court, acting upon the soundest principles of public law, have decided
the waging of war by a State, although acting under an illegitimate and
revolutionary government, renders her territory enemy’s territory, and
the people there resident enemies of the United States, in the sense of
the laws of war. And their decision could not have been different.”
The State, he argued further, was in fact, though wrongfully, out of the
Union because its actual government was disloyal and treasonable. Out of
it because unsubdued rebellion made it for the time being an independent
though unrecognized nation on the earth’s surface, throwing off its
allegiance to its paramount Government, and assuming by the sword to
assert its separate nationality.
“But we are at war with the rebel States, and are told ... that the
Government, so far at least as the rebel States are concerned, is under
some peculiar constitutional restraint by which its hands are tied; that
we are prohibited from ‘subjugating’ those States; that all we can do,
under the Constitution, is to break up the military array of the rebels,
disperse their armed bands, take away their arms, and do that very
indefinite duty, _restore order_; that thereupon our task is ended and
the rebel States have a constitutional right to come back into the Union
and participate in the enactment of Federal laws and the conduct of the
Federal Government. And we are menaced both in Congress and out with
terrible retributions if we conquer or attempt to conquer, if we
subjugate or attempt to subjugate, the rebel States. It is admitted by
these our critics that in an international war ... we should have all
the rights and powers of other independent nations, and might rightfully
conquer our adversary, ... that we might make a complete conquest of his
people and his territory....
“Now, it is lawful to wage such a foreign war, for the purpose of
effectuating such a complete conquest, and of course lawful to attain
it; ... lawful to substitute the political authority of the United
States for that of a hostile foreign nation;” otherwise, he argued, the
war could not be a successful one; hence in a war with a member of the
Union the United States could substitute for the authority of such
hostile commonwealth its own authority. There was no difference between
the two cases. The former actual hostile government should be supplanted
by the Federal Government. No other government had a right to give the
law. Had the conquered rebel people that right? No; for that would be to
allow them at once to expel their conquerors by a popular decree, and to
deny the supremacy of the Federal Government which had subdued them. Had
the old State government, he asked, the once loyal government, the right
to govern the conquered people? No; there was no such government. It had
long since ceased to exist. “In fact, there is no government there, none
at all, which can for a moment be recognized or permitted by the United
States, as the party now holding the actual mastery of the country; and
like every other case where the possession of a country has arisen from
the use of superior force, the will of the conqueror is the law—that is,
the will of the United States expressed, in the absence of acts of
Congress, by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but by the acts of
Congress after Congress has spoken.
“... No one will deny that we have a right to subdue by arms and to
reduce to quietude and submission a rebel State, that is, the people of
a State in insurrection. But how absurd to make this concession, and at
the same time to deny to us the constitutional power to occupy and hold
the territory and its people in our military grasp—an occupation just as
necessary to the end in view as the firing of cannon, the charging of
cavalry, or any other operation in the field.
“... The true objects of the war ... are the suppression of the
rebellion, the reëstablishment of the original Federal authority within
the State, and the revival of the loyalty of the people of the State as
the sole foundation and condition of all its civil rights as a State of
the Union and of the right of its people to be treated as friends and
not as enemies. Although the United States have the full and complete
right which conquest gives, for the purpose of subjecting these domestic
enemies to the exercise of the powers granted by the Constitution to
Congress, and for the purpose of restoring to the body-politic its vital
blood, loyalty to the Government, yet those purposes, those distinct
ends, are without doubt limits beyond which we cannot go. We are
restrained by the manifest objects for which the national Government was
formed; but restrained by no particular clause of the Constitution. The
instrument contains no such clause, and the limitation and restraint are
of precisely the same nature as those which any other government is
under in subduing an insurrection of its own subjects or citizens; the
plain object of the war in both cases being the restoration of
legitimate authority and the revival of allegiance. And until this
revival of allegiance there must be the same need of military occupation
and repression in both cases.”
After showing that the existence of the States is indispensable to that
of the Federal Government, he proceeded, “it is not permissible by mere
interpretation to clothe that Government with a power permanently to
abolish the State government by way of punishing or suppressing the
rebellion; or to convert the States into mere Territories of the United
States, that is, public domain, to be divided up afterward by lines
different from those of the States, and again admitted into the Union
like matured Territories, with such new geographical limits as Congress
may see fit to establish.”
Article IV., Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution the Senator
regarded as an express prohibition to change the boundaries of any State
once in the Union without its consent; “its consent in its capacity as a
State, freely given by its own Legislature.” He believed that the
Amnesty Proclamation of President Lincoln indicated that its author held
a different opinion.
He rejected the idea that the rebellious States could be converted into
Territories. This term, under our system, he added, “implies land never
lying in any State, land ceded to the United States either by the old
States, or purchased or conquered from foreign nations. The term never
has been used to describe a State or any part of a State; and it implies
not only the ownership of the soil and right of disposition, but full
and complete political jurisdiction in the Federal Government over the
people resident there....”
The objects of the conquest being as stated above, such forcible
occupation was, he continued, in its very nature temporary and ought to
cease the moment those objects were attained. This could not be done
without establishing a government to preserve order, life and property—a
provisional government, for that is the true historic name to be applied
in all cases where an old government has been overthrown; a provisional
government instituted by the conqueror, and to be continued just so long
as Congress deemed it necessary to continue it for the attainment, and
while attaining, those high objects. The occupancy, that is, the
possession of all the reins of local government by the Federal
authorities would be but temporary, provisional, fiduciary. It should
necessarily last until the Federal Government had done its duty in the
reëstablishment of order and the revival of loyalty. Until then it was,
and should continue, the omnipotent sovereign of the State, holding
actually by right of conquest, though for a particular purpose, and
being itself necessarily the final judge to determine when its tutelary
mission had been accomplished.
He avoided, he said, a discussion of the question whether a State can
commit suicide, that is, extinguish its own being by waging a rebellious
war against the Federal Government; instead of presenting any such
abstract question of political dialectics, the case, he declared, merely
presented the usual question which arose whenever and wherever there had
been a forcible revolution. What, he inquired, was the duty of the
paramount and lawful government in its treatment of insurgent
communities? And was not the Government doing its whole duty in
punishing the ringleaders in the revolt and restoring the old and
constitutional Government over those districts?
The Government, Mr. Howard proceeded, must be the final judge of the
duration of this military occupation. It was bound by the plain terms of
the Constitution not only to suppress the insurrection, which was done
the moment it had obtained firm possession of the whole of the hostile
territory, but to guarantee to the conquered State a republican form of
government. To perform this high and sacred trust, time of course was
necessary; likewise a great variety of means and instrumentalities, “of
all which the Government of the United States must, because it has no
superior, no equal in the matter, be the sole and final judge. These
means may embrace acts of provisional legislation, creating private
rights and duties not previously in existence, but existing by law and
of a permanent nature, paramount to all subsequent State legislation
because arising under the supreme authority of the nation, as, for
instance, the giving freedom to slaves; or they may undoubtedly embrace
conditions to be performed by the subdued States on taking their places
again in the Union, such as would be an ordinance forever abolishing
slavery in the State....
“Yet while thus in our military power, awaiting our action, looking to
their restoration, nothing is clearer than that the citizens of the
rebel States, though owing obedience to all the laws of the United
States, possess no political rights under the Constitution except
protection. They are not free to act, because their freedom to act
would, if indulged, lead them again to draw the sword against the United
States.... They have no right to send members to this body or to the
House of Representatives, much less to participate in the election of
President and Vice-President. They are the ward-provinces of the United
States, progressing toward the maturity of revived loyalty, but not yet
entitled to exercise the elective franchise or to participate in the
enactment of laws.
“If I am asked what I mean by the Government of the United States, and
whether I mean that the President as Commander-in-Chief has the
exclusive power to establish these provisional governments, I answer, I
do not. He has the right to regulate military occupation until Congress
has acted upon the subject; ... but the establishment of provisional
governments, the quieting of the rebellious province and the
reëstablishment of legitimate authority over it, pertains to the
sovereign power, that is, the law-giving power of the nation. With us
that power is lodged in Congress and not in the President; and in my
opinion it is the business of Congress, and Congress alone, to establish
and uphold these provisional governments.... We need not doubt that
whatever we see fit to enact will be approved and carried out by the
President. We cannot be more truly anxious than he to fix upon a stable,
firm policy for restoring peace and union; but we ought not to shut our
eyes to the necessities he will continually be under, to the almost
irresistible importunities he will encounter, to provide some sort of
civil government for the subdued States or districts; or to the
consequences of leaving such mighty questions for him to decide. It is
our plain duty to establish a uniform rule on the subject, so that all
may be treated alike and the same remedy be applied with a paternal but
firm and resolute hand to each delinquent State.”
He opposed for two reasons the “scheme” of allowing one tenth or any
other minor part of the male citizens of a commonwealth to organize a
government and assume to act as a State: first, “because as against the
will of an actual majority the government of such a minority must
necessarily come to a speedy end and thus invite a renewal of the civil
war, in that locality at least; and second, because government by a
minority is of evil example and inconsistent with the genius of American
liberty.... As a Republican I would sooner hazard ten slaveholders’
rebellions than risk liberty in a government by a minority.” In this
connection he assigned an additional motive for his attitude toward the
resolution. The will of the friendly element, he said, could prevail
only by military support, and such an organization, if intended as a
civil government, was not republican in the sense of the Constitution.
When such aid was withdrawn the majority, he asserted, would wreak
vengeance on the weakened minority.
Concluding this part of his argument, he added: “The measure now before
you proposes to acknowledge eight thousand citizens of Louisiana as a
State, and to give them the rights and privileges exercised by a voting
population of more than fifty thousand in 1860. Eight thousand are thus
to give the law or assume to give it to forty-two thousand—to more than
five times their number. This they may do so long as their decrees are
sustained by the presence and consent of a competent military force; but
we all know, both parties there know, the world knows, and, sir,
posterity will know, that it is not the eight thousand who govern the
State, but the fear of the bayonet, and the fear is inspired solely by
the President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and Navy! Disguise it, or attempt to disguise it, as we may, to this
complexion doth it come at last. Yes, sir, both the eight thousand and
the forty-two thousand voters are governed not by themselves, but by the
bayonet! And this is at present the only government in Louisiana. The
object of the present measure is to continue this hybrid, unnatural
government there. It allows the meager and almost contemptible
proportion of less than one sixth of the voting population to govern the
whole State, and to have the influence of the whole State in our
legislation here, while we know that if the military forces were
withdrawn that privileged one sixth part would be swept away like chaff
before the hurricane breath of the enraged majority. Sir, such a
government is the merest bubble, especially if unsustained by military
power. This is too obvious to need further comment.”
“All this we might possibly endure,” continued Senator Howard, “were it
not that the measure before us clothes this mockery of a government,
this king of shreds and patches, this mistletoe State _régime_ that
falls to the earth the moment it ceases to cling around the flag-staff
of the national forces, with the high attribute of voting upon and
determining questions of legislation, questions of war or peace,
questions of prosecuting or ceasing to prosecute the present war, in
this Hall and in the Hall of the House of Representatives. This measure
introduces here Senators and Representatives whose immediate friends and
relatives at home have deliberately aided and assisted to put to death
myriads of Union soldiers from the North, and in swelling up that vast
debt of more than two thousand million dollars which now rests upon the
country. Think you that such Senators and Representatives, whose
constituents have already been stripped of their property by the rebel
government, and brought down to the depths of poverty; a community
without the habits of labor among the intelligent classes; naked,
hungry, despondent and sullen; think you that their Representatives
would at the present time be safe depositories of the power to tax their
constituents to pay this debt? Is it not, on the other hand, the part of
prudence to guard against the contingency of having that debt repudiated
by such legislators and the still more disgraceful contingency of being,
by their votes, aided by a Northern party, finally compelled to pay the
rebel debt of $4,000,000,000? And tell me, what right has Louisiana, the
majority of whose population is to-day, wherever they are, hostile to
this Government and anxious for its overthrow; what right has she, upon
any recognized principle of public law or justice, to be represented in
Congress?”
The treatment accorded Louisiana would, he feared, be a precedent for
the ten remaining States. There would be the expense of holding each for
a time in military occupation to bolster up their State governments. He
preferred for Louisiana and the other insurgent States a provisional
establishment for regulating domestic affairs, but without
representation in Congress until the mass of their people plainly
perceived their error in attempting to overthrow the General Government.
Congress should, he thought, take the subject of readmission into their
own hands. It was for them and not for the President to execute the
important guaranty to each State of a republican form of government, and
that duty became more and more urgent as the Federal armies swept on
from victory to victory. In making good that guaranty the great
indispensable necessity, he declared, was loyalty.[410]
Mr. Howard was followed immediately by Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, who
to the great surprise of his fellow-Democrats argued in favor of the
resolution. His remarks were introduced by a concise statement of the
chief political events occurring in Louisiana between the capture of New
Orleans and the ratification, in September, 1864, of the new
constitution. Concluding this part of his speech he said:
“These, sir, are the facts. The Committee on the Judiciary—and in the
conclusion to which they came I concurred—were of opinion that under the
circumstances in which the State was at the period when these
proceedings were had, she could not be recognized as a State of the
United States under that constitution adopted in 1864, except by an act
of Congress. The committee were of opinion that it was not in the power
of the Executive under the circumstances to bring the State back under
that constitution. They were of opinion, however, that it was competent
for Congress to do so, and the only question before the Committee was,
whether, under the circumstances under which the State was at the time,
it was not the duty of Congress to bring the State back so as to have
her represented in the Union.”
His objection to the conclusion of the committee was that the
proceedings which led to the adoption of the constitution were
instituted at the instance and under the power of the Federal military
authorities. The precedent, he admitted, was really a bad one, and the
proposition upon which the committee were called to decide was whether,
if they were satisfied that the number of votes said to have been cast
were in fact cast, and the persons voting were loyal citizens, they
should be denied the privilege of being represented in the councils of
the nation and subjected to a continuance of military power. Mr. Johnson
added: “My impression is that, no matter how the proceedings were
instituted, whether it was by the military authority, or by the coming
together of the people of the State, if in point of fact the people of
the State did act voluntarily and were competent to act under the
original constitution, and were authorized to act by being loyal at the
time they did act, it is the duty of the government of the United States
to receive them back.
“Another objection was that, however true it might be that it would be
in the power of all the voters of the State to adopt a constitution for
themselves, or to claim the right of coming back to the Union under the
constitution existing at the time of the rebellion, it was not true that
it was in the power of fourteen [eleven] thousand, four hundred and
fourteen voters, when the entire voting population of the State was
fifty-one thousand, to take that course. As it seemed to me then, and
seems now, there is no evidence to show that a single citizen of
Louisiana was excluded from the right of voting.”
It was not so certain, he argued further, that the eleven thousand
voters who participated were not a large majority of the actual electors
in Louisiana, for the war engaged the greater part of the voting
population, and nine tenths of those who entered the Confederate service
had forfeited their lives upon the battlefield; of those above or below
the military age many had gone elsewhere, or if they remained in the
State it was as disloyal citizens.
It was not pretended, he said, in discussing the relation of the loyal
minority to the General Government, that by the act of secession they
ceased to be citizens of the United States. Their fidelity to the Union
entitled them to Federal protection. If loyal, they had forfeited no
rights belonging to them before the commencement of the rebellion. No
Federal law had been violated, no constitutional obligation evaded by
them. They could not ask admission into the Union, because to speak such
a desire was to subject themselves to punishment; when the protection of
the United States was afforded them and they could once more declare
their sentiments without hazard they met at their several election
polls, organized their government under existing law, and then, wishing
to change it, met in convention and adopted the constitution which had
been submitted to the Senate. “Why,” inquired Mr. Johnson, “should we
not receive it?” The right of eleven thousand citizens to change their
constitution was not denied, but their action was questioned because
there were others, then in arms against the Government of the United
States, who did not join them in asserting it. In examining the question
who were to exercise the authority of the State, he argued: “Now, if it
be true that the secession ordinance had no operation to carry the State
out, and that I understand even the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr.
Sumner] admitted last night; if it be true that the State is in the
Union notwithstanding the ordinance, then the only question to be
considered is, who are the people of Louisiana that are to exercise the
sovereign authority belonging to the State of Louisiana? Are they the
loyal or the disloyal? There can be but one answer to that inquiry. It
must only be the loyal.”
Senator Howard admitted, continued Mr. Johnson, that it is not in the
power of the United States to change the territorial limits of the
States that had gone out, because the Constitution prohibits it. If he
had thought for a moment he would have seen that the Constitution
equally prohibits any interference on the part of the General Government
with the exercise of the right of suffrage in a State. He then combated
at some length the intimation of Senators Howard and Sumner that any
power without a State had a right to prescribe qualifications for the
exercise of the suffrage.
Mr. Powell, too, concurred in this view and asked by what authority
General Banks and the President undertook to prescribe the
qualifications of voters in Louisiana. The Maryland Senator replied that
this question had been anticipated. The eleven thousand four hundred and
fourteen voters, according to the proof before the Senate, were all
loyal men and entitled to vote by the original constitution of
Louisiana, no matter how they were brought together. If, coming
together, they did an act which they would have been authorized to do if
they had come together voluntarily they ought to be received.
Powell then inquired, what right had the Senate to presume that there
may not have been twelve thousand loyal voters in Louisiana who were
deprived of the right of suffrage because of this order of General
Banks? As the Kentucky Senator understood it, no man could vote “unless
he would go forward and take the oath prescribed by the President and
swear to support and sustain all proclamations in regard to African
slavery already issued and all that might afterward be issued.” Mr.
Johnson acknowledged this difficulty and admitted that he had always
felt it; but they had the same difficulty, he asserted, in his own
State, and a much greater one; he would be sorry to think Maryland was
not in the Union. “Maryland is in the Union,” said Senator Powell. “The
constitution,” observed Johnson in reply, “which now makes her a State
in the Union was adopted the other day. I mean the one which governs
her. She has manumitted her slaves by force of that constitution. No man
in Maryland seriously contests the obligation of that constitution in
that particular or in any other. But it was adopted, in fact, by the
exclusion of a good many men who were entitled to vote.”
Mr. Johnson at this point became engaged in an argument, not wholly
relevant, with Sumner in which he gained some advantage over the
Massachusetts Senator. As a specimen of the latter’s parliamentary
tactics at this time it may not be irrelevant to reproduce a passage
from the _Congressional Globe_.
=Mr. Sumner.= Allow me to ask the Senator [Johnson] whether, in his
opinion, the Ordinance governing the Northwest Territory,
prohibiting slavery everywhere throughout that Territory, and which
was declared to be a perpetual compact, could be set aside by any
one of the States in the Territory now.
=Mr. Johnson.= I certainly think they can, except so far as rights
are vested.
=Mr. Sumner.= The Senator, then, thinks Ohio can enslave a
fellow-man?
=Mr. Johnson.= Just as much as Massachusetts can.
=Mr. Sumner.= Massachusetts cannot.
=Mr. Johnson.= Why not?
=Mr. Sumner.= Massachusetts cannot do an act of injustice.
=Mr. Johnson.= Oh, indeed! I did not know that. [Laughter.][411]
Notwithstanding this claim for his native State Sumner admitted a moment
later that Massachusetts had united in the Convention of 1787 with South
Carolina to deny to Congress authority to prohibit the slave trade for
twenty years, and he confessed that such action was unjust. His
inconsistency was still further exposed by Senator Henderson, who called
attention to the fact that the educational qualification imposed by the
Massachusetts constitution would exclude from the franchise almost every
negro in Louisiana if the provisions were applicable in the latter
State.[412]
After this colloquy, not uninteresting to the student of constitutional
history, the Maryland Senator resumed his remarks:
“One word more, sir, and I have done. If Congress passes this
resolution, and the State is admitted, no court will hereafter be able
to decide that she is not a State in the Union, and no court therefore
can call in question the validity or effect of any provision to be found
in her constitution. One of the provisions of this constitution is that
all the slaves of Louisiana are emancipated. Pass this resolution, admit
the State, and that provision is effectual at once.”[413]
Mr. Sumner, having in mind the fundamental condition imposed by Congress
upon the admission of Missouri, offered the following amendment of the
resolution from the Committee on the Judiciary:
_Provided_, That this shall not take effect except upon the
fundamental condition that within the State there shall be no denial
of the electoral franchise, or of any other rights on account of
color or race, but all persons shall be equal before the law. And
the Legislature of the State, by a solemn public act, shall declare
the assent of the State to this fundamental condition, and shall
transmit to the President of the United States an authentic copy of
such assent whenever the same shall be adopted, upon the receipt
whereof he shall, by proclamation, announce the fact; whereupon,
without any further proceedings on the part of Congress, this joint
resolution shall take effect.[414]
Though Senator Clark favored the principle of Sumner’s amendment, he
opposed it, as it stood, because it affected a resolution which proposed
“to recognize the government in the State of Louisiana,” which in his
judgment was still a State in the Union, “having its constitution
overthrown, but desiring and attempting to establish a new” one; and he
added, “I hold that we have no power to amend that constitution; and
that is the reason why I shall be obliged to vote against it here.”
He spoke for the adoption of Trumbull’s resolution and, in doing so,
traveled some of the ground gone over by Henderson. The government of
Louisiana, Mr. Clark believed, belonged to the Union people. He was not
aware that any definite number of persons was required to constitute a
State, nor did he understand how the majority by going into rebellion
could take away the rights of the loyal minority.
The guaranty of a republican form of government was made, he asserted,
to meet precisely such a case as had arisen in Louisiana. In this view
it became the duty of Congress to protect the government established by
the minority.[415]
Mr. Pomeroy, speaking to the principle of Sumner’s amendment, declared
that he would vote against all measures that looked like Congressional
interference with the right to vote in the States. Saulsbury interrupted
him to inquire what he would have done had the President, or his
Secretary of War, sent armed soldiers to the polls and imposed a test
upon voters as was done in Delaware, where Democrats were chased into
swamps and compelled in the night time to lie out in the snow. Pomeroy’s
only reply to this was to relate his own experience under Democratic
supremacy in the early days of Kansas. He resumed his remarks on
Louisiana, but these had been anticipated by the speakers who preceded
him. In conclusion he asserted that there were two reasons for
recognizing Arkansas where there was but one in favor of Louisiana.[416]
The Delaware Senator did not fail to call attention to Pomeroy’s
evasion, and said he was glad to observe a change in the spirit of some
of his Republican friends. “I think,” he said, “they begin to scent the
danger in the distance; that they begin to see that if a Government of
law is to be destroyed, and power is to be concentrated in Executive
hands, or in the hands of Executive agents, there is an end of liberty
in this country. I hail the dawn, therefore, of a better day.”[417]
Mr. Henderson again entered into the discussion, and in the course of
his remarks drew from Senator Sumner this remarkable statement
concerning Louisiana: “It is in and it is not. [Laughter.] The territory
is in; but as yet there is no State government that is in.” In this
discussion Sumner asserted also that when the bill of his friend Senator
Wade was before Congress no one questioned its constitutionality though
it proposed to interfere in the suffrage and to impose a condition upon
States at the time of their reconstruction. Pomeroy dissented from the
doctrine that Congress could reconstruct the insurgent States, and
maintained that the only question then was whether they would recognize
what the people of Louisiana had done.
Reverdy Johnson pointed out to Sumner the great increase of
representation in Congress which the South would acquire by an extension
of the suffrage to negroes. The three fifths provision, he said, would
be done away with, and he made the further observation that for years to
come the entire colored vote of that section would be in the hands of a
few white men. He urged recognition of both Louisiana and Arkansas, so
that the constitutional amendment would become binding, for unless
ratified by three fourths of all the States it would be open to doubt.
The session was drawing rapidly toward its close; it was late in the
evening of February 25, and the resolution under discussion was too
important to be passed without due consideration. These circumstances
offered Mr. Wade, who vehemently opposed the measure, a decent pretext
for demanding the “yeas” and “nays” on his motion to postpone the
subject till the first Monday of December following, 1865.
Before a vote was reached on this motion, however, Powell spoke again at
considerable length. In addition to his former arguments, many of which
were repeated, he said that “all the loyal Union men in the State of
Louisiana who refused, like supple menials and slaves, to crouch beneath
the iron military power of General Banks, and take that oath were
excluded from voting,” and he added, “I believe to-day there are more
men of that description in Louisiana than voted to ratify this
constitution.”
When asked by Mr. Henderson whether he had heard of any objection to it
on the part of the loyal men of Louisiana, Powell answered that Thomas
J. Durant and thirty-one others, distinguished, leading, loyal men of
that State, had made earnest and powerful protest against it, and
remonstrated against the admission to Congress of Senators and
Representatives from Louisiana. They were also opposed to counting her
electoral vote. Mr. Durant, he believed, was the first district-attorney
appointed in Louisiana by the present Executive. Henderson insinuated by
an inquiry that Durant was himself a candidate for office at that
election and took the oath prescribed. Powell not being informed on
these points, the matter was left in doubt.
The Kentucky Senator took this opportunity to characterize the manner of
General Banks in his statement before the Judiciary Committee as that of
a “swift witness, to make a case that he thought would cause Louisiana
to be admitted.” He also called upon some advocate of the resolution to
explain a support of the present measure after voting a few days before
for the resolution declaring that the electoral vote of Louisiana should
not be counted. If Louisiana was then a legitimate government, why, he
asked, was she not entitled to cast her electoral vote? He did not then
believe it a legitimate government and so opposed the counting of her
electoral vote; but the Senator from Maryland [Mr. Johnson] and the
Senator from Missouri [Mr. Henderson], who then voted with him, now
supported the resolution.[418]
Wade’s motion to postpone further consideration of the joint resolution
till the first Monday of December was defeated by a vote of 17 to
12.[419]
In the course of the discussions to postpone Sumner said that he would
regard its passage as a national calamity. It would be the political
Bull Run of that Administration, sacrificing, as it would, a great cause
and the great destinies of this Republic. When Trumbull taxed him with
intent to postpone discussion by dilatory motions the Massachusetts
Senator admitted his opposition and declared that to defeat the measure
he would employ any weapon in the arsenal of parliamentary warfare.
The friends of the Administration endeavored to press their adversaries
to take final action on the resolution. The earnestness of the two
factions provoked rather sharp censure of Sumner and the few Republicans
who acted with him and were attempting by dilatory motions to fatigue
the Senate into a postponement. Doolittle was especially severe on them,
and particularly on Sumner, who replied with much asperity. He was
supported by Howard and Chandler, while Trumbull, Foster and Doolittle
undertook a defence of the resolution and its advocates. This wrangling
appears to have delighted the Democratic members. Mr. Hendricks, indeed,
made no attempt to conceal his satisfaction.
“The discordant elements of the Republican party are exhibiting
themselves here,” said the Indiana Senator, “and I venture the prophecy
that a like exhibition will be witnessed over the country within a very
few years. But four years ago, at the Chicago Convention, when Mr.
Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency a solemn pledge was made to the
people of this country that that party, when it came into power, would
not undertake to interfere with the institutions of the States. As soon
as the disturbed condition of the country gave the pretext for it, the
undertaking was commenced; and now, when, in the judgment of some, it
has been accomplished, there comes up the grave question, what is to be
done, and what is to be the political condition of the four million
negroes when they are set free? And upon that question the real strife
of to-night has been witnessed. That is the subject and it need not be
disguised. It is growing out of the discordant elements of the party
that now governs the country.”[420]
Trumbull, in reply to an inquiry of Senator Wade, said that he had voted
against receiving the electoral vote of Louisiana because it had not
been recognized. Now he proposed to put it in a condition where it could
cast electoral votes, and do all other acts belonging to a State.
To this Wade replied that “If the President of the United States,
operating through his major-generals, can initiate a State government,
and can bring it here and force us, compel us, to receive as associates
on this floor these mere mockeries, these men of straw who represent
nobody, your Republic is at an end.
“Sir, I have heard a great deal about this pretended election in
Louisiana that did not come from Major-General Banks, and I pronounce
the proceeding a mockery. It is not pretended that there could be
drummed up from the riffraff of New Orleans and sent into the vicinity
under the mandate of a Major-General more than about six thousand votes,
where over fifty thousand were formerly polled.
* * * * *
“Talk not to me of your ten per cent. principle. A more absurd,
monarchical, and anti-American principle was never announced on God’s
earth——“[421]
At this point Senator Sherman, of Ohio, interposed to obtain
consideration for a revenue measure which he had in charge, whereupon
his colleague changed somewhat the declamation against the resolution to
a denunciation of its advocates, especially Trumbull, upon whom he
retorted the charge of retarding legitimate business. Howard resented
the charge of radical factiousness and denounced Trumbull with
considerable warmth. Sherman suggested that enough had been said on both
sides, and in the lighter skirmishing of the breathing-spell which
followed, Mr. Sprague, of Rhode Island, hitherto a silent spectator of
these exciting scenes, declared that he held in his possession a paper
indicating the names of the members of the Louisiana Legislature, and it
showed that twenty-five, or twenty-seven or thirty of those gentlemen
who constituted that assembly were officeholders of the Federal
Government, or the government of the State, which, he said, was the same
thing.[422]
While Sherman’s measure and Trumbull’s resolution were competing for
priority of consideration Sumner remarked that during the preceding
summer, 1864, he had met a distinguished gentleman just returned from
Louisiana; he had been present at some of the sittings of the
convention, having been in New Orleans in discharge of important public
duties. This gentleman, added Sumner, said compendiously that the
convention was “nothing but a stupendous hoax.”
When Reverdy Johnson inquired the name of Sumner’s informant, Senator
Grimes replied that he could furnish a large number of names of persons
present in New Orleans when the convention was held, and added: “If the
Senate will give a committee I will undertake to prove and I will prove
that the voters whose votes were polled in the outlying parishes at
Thibodeaux and Placquemines, and other places, were carried in army
transports to those places where they polled the votes, being discharged
soldiers and persons belonging in New Orleans, and were brought back to
New Orleans, and were not residents of the places where they purported
to vote.”[423]
Sumner, immediately after the uncontroverted statement of Mr. Grimes,
added, with more energy than elegance: “The pretended State government
in Louisiana is utterly indefensible whether you look at its origin or
its character. To describe it, I must use plain language. It is a mere
seven-months’ abortion, begotten by the bayonet in criminal conjunction
with the spirit of caste, and born before its time, rickety, unformed,
unfinished—whose continued existence will be a burden, a reproach, and a
wrong. That is the whole case; and yet the Senator from Illinois now
presses it upon the Senate at this moment to the exclusion of the
important public business of the country.”[424]
The urgency of the army and navy appropriation bills prevented for the
time further consideration of the Louisiana question. The subject,
however, was again brought before the Senate on March 2, 1865, by Mr.
Doolittle, who had received and had been requested to file with the
secretary of the Senate a certificate, under seal of the State of
Louisiana, of the election of Michael Hahn as a Senator of the United
States from the State of Louisiana for six years from March 4, 1865. Mr.
Davis, of Kentucky, opposed its reception. Doolittle’s motion to have it
laid on the table and filed was, however, agreed to.
Only two days of the session remained; in the temper of the Senate it
was impossible that the resolution could pass at that time, and the
House had not yet taken it up for discussion. In these circumstances the
measure was abandoned, though very reluctantly, by its champions.
-----
Footnote 399:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1395.
Footnote 400:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 971–974.
Footnote 401:
Ibid., p. 903.
Footnote 402:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1011.
Footnote 403:
Ibid.
Footnote 404:
Ibid.
Footnote 405:
Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 1061–1064.
Footnote 406:
While this chapter was in press an interesting letter from Senator
Henderson informed the author that the Hon. Samuel Treat, of St.
Louis, formerly Judge of the United States Court for the Eastern
District of Missouri, is the distinguished jurist referred to in the
text.
Footnote 407:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 1065–1070.
Footnote 408:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1091.
Footnote 409:
In support of this view the Senator cited Penhallow’s Case, 3 Dallas,
p. 94.
Footnote 410:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 1091–1095.
Footnote 411:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1097.
Footnote 412:
Ibid.
Footnote 413:
Ibid., pp. 1095–1098.
Footnote 414:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1099.
Footnote 415:
Ibid., pp. 1101–1102.
Footnote 416:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 1101–1102.
Footnote 417:
Ibid., p. 1102.
Footnote 418:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., pp. 1106–1107.
Footnote 419:
Ibid., p. 1107.
Footnote 420:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1111.
Footnote 421:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1128.
Footnote 422:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1129.
Footnote 423:
Ibid.
Footnote 424:
Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1129.
XI
INCIDENTS OF RECONSTRUCTION
The Emancipation Proclamation did not affect, as is well known, the
status of slaves in the loyal border States or in the excepted parts of
Virginia and Louisiana. The State of Tennessee, too, as we have seen,
was not named in the edict of freedom; that was published by the
President simply as a measure of military necessity, and was not
regarded by him or by others as operative to prevent, when war had
ceased, a revival of servitude in the insurgent States, for negroes
could easily be imported from those loyal commonwealths still tolerating
that institution. It was uncertain, too, how the proclamation would
affect the status of slaves in those districts not yet overrun by the
Union armies. In the border States, in Tennessee and in the excepted
parts of Louisiana and Virginia there were probably 2,000,000 men in
bondage. In order, then, to abolish universally as well as permanently
to prohibit involuntary servitude an amendment of the Constitution was
proposed in the familiar language of the sixth section of the ordinance
of 1787. Though it passed the Senate, April 8, 1864, it failed at that
time to receive in the House the requisite two thirds vote. It has been
seen how upon the recommendation of Mr. Lincoln it was reconsidered and
passed by the Representatives at a succeeding session, January 31, 1865,
and submitted to the States for their action. It was adopted by his own
State, Illinois, on the following day. By the close of February sixteen
others had followed its example, and before the President’s death twenty
in all had ratified the Amendment. To Mr. Lincoln, who had long held
anti-slavery opinions, this expression of public sentiment was extremely
grateful; indeed, less than two months before his assassination he
declared his satisfaction at the popular verdict, and his confidence
that the States would consummate what Congress had so nobly begun. The
Thirteenth Amendment, however, was not announced as part of the organic
law until after the Presidential plan of reconstruction had been ignored
by the Thirty-ninth Congress. This subject, therefore, need not be
further discussed in these pages.
The extraordinary amount of work actually completed by the national
Legislature can be comprehended only by considering the degree of
perfection to which the committee system has been carried under
congressional government. Measures that conduct the reader over vast
stretches of the records of Congress occupy but a day or two in the
calendar. The discussions described in the two preceding chapters did
not, as might be supposed, engage the entire attention of Federal
legislators. It was desirable, if, indeed, it was not essential, that
the sentiments of the lawmaking body of the nation be authoritatively
declared on the question of admitting members to Congress from those
States reconstituted under the Executive plan; definitive action in the
matter of the electoral votes which they presented was also awaited with
not a little interest. Scarcely inferior in importance and more
instructive than these measures was the passage of an act, approved
March 3, 1865, which created in the War Department a “Bureau of
Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.” As the system of relief then
inaugurated was destined to become an important agency in the work of
reconstruction a brief account of its origin and institution may not be
deemed superfluous.
A former chapter has related how great numbers of “contrabands,” by
assembling early in the war at Fortress Monroe and Newport News, taxed
the ingenuity of even General Butler to provide for their maintenance;
it also noticed an attempt under Mr. E. L. Pierce to improve the
condition of abandoned slaves in South Carolina, and the friendly
interest of Secretary Chase in that experiment. But the hundreds of
fugitives within Federal lines in May, 1861, had grown to be millions by
the beginning of 1865. Of this army of homeless freedmen the policy of
enlisting colored troops provided directly for nearly 200,000
able-bodied males. The women, the children and the large class
unsuitable for military service left a multitude still unprovided for.
Some relief, it is true, was afforded by the Treasury Department, which
undertook to establish on abandoned and confiscated lands colonies of
self-supporting negroes, but the ignorance and rapacity of many persons
entrusted with the supervision of this work led to its general failure.
Here and there, indeed, more satisfactory results were obtained, though
these isolated successes seldom reached the point of actual
encouragement. The South Carolina experiment may, therefore, be properly
regarded as the germ of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The progress of these communities had been watched anxiously by the
abolition and the kindred associations which sprang up to continue the
work that anti-slavery men had begun. On this subject a committee
representing the Freedmen’s Aid Societies of Boston, New York,
Philadelphia and Cincinnati addressed, December 1, 1863, an able
memorial to the President. Without expressing a favorable opinion of the
plan suggested by the petitioners, Mr. Lincoln referred the question, as
one of great magnitude and importance, to the consideration of Congress.
The Freedmen’s Aid Societies, however, had been anticipated by
Representative Eliot, of Massachusetts, who had offered, January 12,
1863, a bill to establish a Bureau of Emancipation, which was referred
to a select committee; but other business, regarded as more urgent,
prevented them from reporting at that time a measure which had been
prepared. At the succeeding session the proposition was offered again.
After numerous efforts to secure favorable action, efforts extending
over a period of two years, Congress took the subject into
consideration. The House proposed one, the Senate a different measure; a
committee of conference suggested something unlike either, though
embodying important features of both. This, like every proposition
affecting the negro, encountered considerable opposition. The creation
of such a bureau, said its adversaries, conceded the very point that
pro-slavery men had always maintained; namely, that the negro was
incapable of taking care of himself. The extent of its powers, its
duration and the cost of its maintenance were successively made grounds
of opposition by those hostile to its establishment. Nor did its enemies
fail to point out the great temptation to abuse which was offered by the
system.
The act established in the War Department, to continue during the
rebellion and for one year thereafter, a bureau to which should be
committed the management of all confiscated or abandoned lands, and the
control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from any
district within the territory embraced in the operations of the army,
under such regulations as might be adopted by the head of the bureau and
approved by the President.
The conduct of the bureau was entrusted to a commissioner appointed by
the President with the concurrence of the Senate. In the exercise of his
functions he was to be assisted by such clerks as the Secretary of War
might assign him; their number, of course, was limited by law. For his
compensation the head of the new bureau was to receive a sum fixed at
$3,000 per annum. To aid in executing the provisions of the act the
President was authorized to select, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate, one assistant commissioner for each of the States
declared to be in insurrection, not, however, to exceed ten in number,
each to receive an annual salary of $2,500.
The Secretary of War, besides assigning clerks of the several grades
mentioned in the law, was authorized to issue, under regulations which
he might himself prescribe, such provisions, clothing and fuel as might
be deemed needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of
destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen as well as their wives and
children. Any military officer could be detailed to duty under the act,
but without increase of pay or allowances.
It was further provided that the commissioner, “under the direction of
the President, shall have authority to set apart, for the use of loyal
refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within the insurrectionary
States as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall
have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to every
male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be
assigned not more than forty acres of such land, and the person to whom
it was so assigned shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the
land for the term of three years at an annual rent not exceeding six per
centum upon the value of said land, as it was appraised by the State
authorities in the year 1860, for the purpose of taxation, and in case
no such appraisal can be found, then the rental shall be based upon the
estimated value of the land in said year, to be ascertained in such
manner as the commissioner may by regulation prescribe. At the end of
said term, or at any time during said term, the occupants of any parcels
so assigned may purchase the land, and receive such title thereto as the
United States can convey, upon paying therefor the value of the land, as
ascertained and fixed for the purpose of determining the annual rent
aforesaid.”[425]
It was made the duty of the assistant commissioners to submit a
quarterly report of their proceedings to the commissioner, who in turn
was required to report annually to the President before the commencement
of each regular session of Congress. Special reports might from time to
time be requested of either the head of the bureau or his subordinates.
The bureau thus established was organized principally by officers of the
regular army under direction of General Oliver O. Howard, who had been
selected by President Johnson as commissioner. It soon grew to vast
proportions. At first it was economically managed and beneficent in its
influence; subsequently, however, it degenerated into an abuse.
Interesting and instructive as would be an inquiry into its operations,
the history of this politico-philanthropic experiment does not fall
within the limits of this work.
Since the adjournment, February 27, 1861, of the Peace Convention, which
had been in session at Washington endeavoring to discover, if possible,
a means of avoiding the irrepressible conflict, there was a large class
who believed that if only they had been directing the policy of
Government the outbreak could have been averted; even when war was
flagrant and passions were highest this class, though diminished greatly
in numbers, did not altogether despair of effecting a settlement between
the sections. Besides these well-meaning patriots there were not a few
who were ambitious of notoriety or possessed of an undue opinion of
their own importance. Persons of both classes attempted from time to
time to bring about an armistice which would facilitate negotiations
between the two governments. The efforts of these men have no further
bearing on the subject of reconstruction than as they serve to show Mr.
Lincoln’s views in successive stages of the conflict.
Prominent among these attempts was the Jacquess-Gilmore mission, which
has been described in an interesting volume of Rebellion reminiscences
by one of the participants.[426] Horace Greeley’s career as a diplomat
is also a familiar story, which at once illustrates the guilelessness of
the editor and the sagacity of the President. Mr. Greeley’s failure at
Niagara Falls, however, did not discourage a similar undertaking by Hon.
Jeremiah S. Black, who, with no greater success, had an interview in
Canada with his former friend Jacob Thompson.[427]
More important, because of its consequences, than the work of any of
these volunteer commissioners was the visit of Francis P. Blair, Sr., to
Richmond. This distinguished politician and editor had in the days of
Nullification assisted in shaping the policy of the Government. The
bosom friend and confidential adviser of Andrew Jackson, Mr. Blair
thoroughly understood Southern feeling, and from long residence in
Washington was intimately acquainted with Southern leaders. His
political victories in the past encouraged, no doubt, the hope of some
notable achievement to crown his maturer years. For some time he had
been meditating a plan of reunion which would not only end the strife
but contribute to heal the wounds of war. Though anxious to communicate
his project to the President, he received no encouragement to do so. By
requesting Blair to call upon him after the fall of Savannah Mr. Lincoln
evaded a discussion of the subject. That contingency, however, was not
remote, and late in December the veteran political leader received from
the President a card bearing these words:
Allow the bearer, F. P. Blair, Sr., to pass our lines, go South, and
return.
=A. Lincoln.=
_December 28, 1864._
With this credential Mr. Blair went at once to the camp of General
Grant, whence under flags of truce he sent two communications to
Jefferson Davis requesting, among other things, permission for an
interview. This, after some delay, was granted, and on the 12th of
January, 1865, he found himself in Richmond face to face with the
Confederate President. What transpired is accurately known from accounts
of the meeting by both Blair and Davis. The former admitted frankly that
Mr. Lincoln afforded him no opportunity to explain the object of his
mission, and, indeed, appeared anxious to avoid an interview on that
subject. When he had been assured that the Confederate authorities were
under no engagements to European powers that would prevent their
entering into arrangements with the Government of the United States Mr.
Blair unfolded his plan by reading to Mr. Davis a carefully prepared
paper embodying the following suggestions:
Slavery, he said, was doomed, for even the South itself had proposed to
employ the slave in winning its independence. That institution,
therefore, no longer remained as an obstacle to peace. Louis Napoleon,
he continued, had declared publicly that his object was to make the
Latin race supreme in the southern part of North America. This, indeed,
had been an idea of the Emperor’s uncle, who desired at one time to make
conquests of territory in the States bordering the Gulf, and the
foothold already effected in Mexico was one step in the accomplishment
of this grand design. After developing these points Mr. Blair added,
“Jefferson Davis is the fortunate man who now holds the commanding
position to encounter this formidable scheme of conquest, and whose fiat
can at the same time deliver his country from the bloody agony now
covering it in mourning. He can drive Maximilian from his American
throne, and baffle the designs of Napoleon to subject our Southern
people to the ‘Latin race.’”
How this was to be accomplished Mr. Blair’s paper outlined. President
Lincoln’s amnesty proclamation looked to an armistice, which could be
enlarged to embrace all engaged in the war; then by secret preliminaries
to a cessation of hostilities Mr. Davis could transfer to Texas such a
portion of the Confederate army as was deemed adequate to his purpose.
With a Southern force on the Rio Grande and Juarez conciliated it could
enter Mexico and expel her invaders. If these combined forces were
insufficient, multitudes from the Federal army, officers and men, would
be found ready to engage in the enterprise. Both Republicans and
Democrats of the North had declared their adherence to the Monroe
Doctrine.
After thus indicating for Mr. Davis a means of escape from his dilemma
the adroit politician next appealed powerfully to his desire of fame.
“He who expels the Bonaparte-Hapsburg dynasty from our Southern flank,”
proceeded Mr. Blair, “which General Jackson in one of his letters warned
me was the vulnerable point through which foreign invasion would come,
will ally his name with those of Washington and Jackson as a defender of
the liberty of the country. If in delivering Mexico he should model its
States in form and principle to adapt them to our Union and add a new
Southern constellation to its benignant sky while rounding off our
possessions on the continent at the Isthmus, and opening the way to
blending the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, thus embracing our
Republic in the arms of the ocean, he would complete the work of
Jefferson, who first set one foot of our colossal Government on the
Pacific by a stride from the Gulf of Mexico.”[428]
Blair remarked in conclusion, “There is my problem, Mr. Davis; do you
think it possible to be solved?” After a little consideration came the
reply, “I think so.” Touching the question of bringing the sections
together again Mr. Davis observed that though a spirit of vindictiveness
had been engendered by the war, time and events would do something
toward its removal. The circumstance of Northern and Southern armies
united in a common cause would, he believed, assist greatly in restoring
the old feeling. He also acknowledged to his visitor that European
powers were pleased to see the sections exhausting their resources in
mutual war.
Thus was the Confederate leader persuaded to entertain the bold project
of conquering Mexico under pretence of relieving the Monroe Doctrine
from its peril. The explanation of this easy conversion, however, lies
mainly in the fact that Mr. Davis, however he might endeavor to conceal
his convictions, was convinced that the resources of the South were
scarcely equal to another campaign. Like other leaders of the
Confederacy he was anxious to seize any means of escape from an
embarrassing situation. He proposed to Mr. Blair, therefore, the
appointment of commissioners, and mentioned Judge Campbell, formerly of
the United States Supreme Court, as one qualified by his talents and
integrity to undertake such a mission.
During his short sojourn in Richmond Mr. Blair learned from other
prominent secessionists the hopelessness of the rebellion, and this,
perhaps, was the only tangible result of his celebrated intrigue. To
initiate the project Mr. Davis handed him a letter to be shown President
Lincoln. That interesting communication was as follows:
=Richmond, Virginia=, _12 Jany., ’65_.
=F. P. Blair=, Esq.:
=Sir=: I have deemed it proper, and probably desirable to you, to
give you, in this form, the substance of remarks made by me, to be
repeated by you to President Lincoln, etc., etc. I have no
disposition to find obstacles in forms, and am willing now, as
heretofore, to enter into negotiations for the restoration of peace;
and am ready to send a commission whenever I have reason to suppose
it will be received, or to receive a commission, if the United
States Government shall choose to send one. That, notwithstanding
the rejection of our former offers, I would, if you could promise
that a commissioner, minister, or other agent, would be received,
appoint one immediately, and renew the effort to enter into
conference, with a view to secure peace to the two countries.
Yours, etc.,
=Jefferson Davis=.[429]
Mr. Lincoln’s only response to the communication thus brought to his
attention was to open a little wider the door for negotiation by sending
to Mr. Blair the following letter:
=Washington=, _January 18, 1865_.
=F. P. Blair=, Esq.:
=Sir=: You having shown me Mr. Davis’s letter to you of the 12th
instant, you may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and
shall continue ready to receive any agent whom he, or any other
influential person now resisting the National authority, may
informally send to me, with the view of securing peace to the people
of our one common country.
Yours, etc.,
=A. Lincoln=.
With this note Mr. Blair returned to Richmond framing as best he could
excuses why President Lincoln rejected the overtures of Jefferson Davis
for a joint invasion of Mexico. With the nature of these explanations
this essay is not concerned. To cover his retreat from an unsuccessful
intrigue the disappointed commissioner then suggested that, perhaps,
Grant and Lee could enter into negotiations for peace with more
assurance of success than politicians could hope to do. Though Mr. Davis
offered no objection to this proposal, Blair was forced soon after to
report that military negotiations were out of the question.
The Confederate leader was then compelled to choose between obstinate
perseverance in his policy of a war for Southern independence or to
accept frankly Mr. Lincoln’s offer of reunion. Blair’s first visit to
Richmond did not escape observation, and, when his second conference was
known, interest in the purpose of his mission became intense. Without
some effort at negotiation Mr. Davis could not afterward satisfy the
peace party in the South without subjecting himself to the injurious
imputation of preferring war. In these circumstances, and after
consultation with his cabinet, he authorized Alexander H. Stephens, John
A. Campbell and R. M. T. Hunter to proceed to Washington as a commission
for the purpose of informally conferring with Mr. Lincoln “upon the
issues involved in the existing war, and for the purpose of securing
peace to the two countries.” They were burdened with no instructions,
and only one condition was insisted upon, that is, an acknowledgment of
Southern independence.
Toward the end of January they presented themselves at the Federal
military lines near Richmond, and, after an exchange of telegrams with
the authorities in Washington, were permitted to pass on to Fortress
Monroe. It was the original intention of President Lincoln to intrust
the work of the conference wholly to Secretary Seward, and for this
purpose he gave him the following written instructions:
=Executive Mansion,
Washington=, _January 31, 1865_.
Hon. =William H. Seward=, _Secretary of State_:
You will proceed to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, there to meet and
informally confer with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, on
the basis of my letter to F. P. Blair, Esq., of January 18, 1865, a
copy of which you have. You will make known to them that three
things are indispensable, to wit: _First_. The restoration of the
national authority throughout all the States. _Second._ No receding
by the executive of the United States on the slavery question from
the position assumed thereon in the late annual message to Congress,
and in preceding documents. _Third._ No cessation of hostilities
short of an end of the war and the disbanding of all forces hostile
to the Government. You will inform them that all propositions of
theirs, not inconsistent with the above, will be considered and
passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You will hear all
they may choose to say and report it to me. You will not assume to
definitely consummate anything.
Yours, etc.,
=Abraham Lincoln=.[430]
The different if not conflicting statements as to the object of their
mission nearly led to a return of the Confederate representatives
without any interview whatever. General Grant, fearing the unfavorable
influence on the Union cause of such a result, sent to Secretary Stanton
a confidential dispatch in which he referred to the evident sincerity of
Stephens and Hunter. He also expressed his regret that they were about
to return without an expression on the subject of their mission from any
person in authority. President Lincoln, who was about to recall Mr.
Seward by telegraph, decided, on reading Grant’s message, to join his
Secretary at Fortress Monroe, for which place he set out at once.
The famous conference, which took place February 3, 1865, on board a
steamer at Hampton Roads, has been treated in detail by nearly every
historian of the Rebellion, and, therefore, need only be briefly noticed
in these pages. An informal discussion of four hours occurred on the
_River Queen_. By a previous agreement no writings or memoranda were
made; hence our principal knowledge of what transpired at that
celebrated interview is derived from accounts subsequently written out
from memory by the Confederate commissioners, and from Secretary
Seward’s letter to Charles Francis Adams, United States Minister to
England.
Mr. Stephens, who began the discussion, asked whether there was no way
of restoring former relations; to this Mr. Lincoln replied, “There was
but one way that he knew of, and that was, for those who were resisting
the laws of the Union to cease that resistance.” Stephens observed that
they had been led to believe that both sections might for a time cease
their present strife and unite on some continental question until
passion had somewhat subsided and accommodation become possible.
To this suggestion Mr. Lincoln replied promptly: “I suppose you refer to
something that Mr. Blair has said. Now it is proper to state at the
beginning that whatever he said was of his own accord, and without the
least authority from me.” The President then stated that before the
visit to Richmond he had flatly refused to hear Mr. Blair’s
propositions; he was willing, however, to hear proposals for peace on
the conditions expressed in his reply to the letter of Mr. Davis. The
restoration of the Union was a _sine qua non_ with him, therefore his
instructions that no conference be held except on that basis.
Though the Confederate statesmen had resolved not to enter into any
agreement that would require their forces to unite in an invasion of
Mexico, Mr. Stephens continued to press the subject, and this after Mr.
Lincoln had refused even to discuss the question. The President then
brought the conversation back to the original object of the meeting, and
declared that he could not entertain a proposition looking to an
armistice until the paramount question of reunion was first determined.
The terms of reunion were then discussed. On this subject Mr. Lincoln is
reported by the commissioners to have said that the shortest way to
effect this was to disband the insurgent armies and permit “the National
authorities to resume their functions.” As to the admission of members
to Congress from the seceding States the President believed they ought
to be received, and also that they would be; however, he could enter
into no stipulations on that subject. By the cessation of resistance, he
is alleged to have declared, the States would be immediately restored to
their practical relations to the Union. This sentiment was probably
ascribed to him for party purposes.
As the enforcement of the confiscation and other penal laws was left
entirely with him he assured them that the Executive power would be
exercised with the utmost liberality. The courts could determine all
questions involving rights of property, and Congress, after passion had
been somewhat composed, would, no doubt, be liberal in making
restitution of forfeited property, or would indemnify those who had
suffered.
The President refused to promise any modification whatever of the terms
of his Emancipation Proclamation. He regarded it as a judicial question.
How the courts would decide it he did not know. His own opinion was that
as the proclamation was only a war measure, as soon as the war ceased it
would be inoperative for the future. It would be held to apply only to
such slaves as had come under its operation while it was in active
exercise. The courts, however, might hold that it effectually
emancipated all the slaves in the States to which it applied at the
time. He is reported further to have said that he interfered with
slavery to maintain the Union, and then only with hesitation and under
pressure of a public necessity. He had always favored emancipation, but
not immediate emancipation.
On the same occasion he is said to have stated as his belief that the
people of the North were not less responsible for slavery than those of
the South; if the war should then cease, with the voluntary abolition of
slavery by the States, he would favor, individually, payment by the
Government of a fair indemnity for the loss to owners. That feeling, he
believed, had an extensive existence in the loyal States. He knew some
who were in favor of an appropriation as high as $400,000,000 for that
purpose. However, he could enter into no stipulation. He merely
expressed his own views and what he believed to be the views of others
upon the subject.
Relative to the division of Virginia Mr. Lincoln said he could give only
“an individual opinion, which was, that Western Virginia would continue
to be recognized as a separate State in the Union.”
Seward brought to the notice of the commissioners one topic which to
them was new, that is, the passage by Congress three days earlier of the
proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution. He is reported to have
said that it was passed in deference to the war spirit, and that if the
South would agree to immediate restoration its ratification might be
defeated. This, however, is doubtful, for the Cabinet as well as the
President approved the action of Congress in submitting the Thirteenth
Amendment to the consideration of the States; besides, it is not in
harmony with Mr. Seward’s anti-slavery record.
In urging on Mr. Stephens separate State action to effect a cessation of
hostilities, the President said: “If I resided in Georgia, with my
present sentiments, I’ll tell you what I would do if I were in your
place. I would go home and get the Governor of the State to call the
Legislature together, and get them to recall all the State troops from
the war; elect Senators and Members to Congress, and ratify this
constitutional amendment prospectively, so as to take effect—say in five
years. Such a ratification would be valid, in my opinion. I have looked
into the subject, and think such a prospective ratification would be
valid. Whatever may have been the views of your people before the war,
they must be convinced now that slavery is doomed. It cannot last long
in any event, and the best course, it seems to me, for your public men
to pursue would be to adopt such a policy as will avoid, as far as
possible, the evils of immediate emancipation. This would be my course,
if I were in your place.”[431]
The advice was wasted. When the party was on the point of separating,
Mr. Stephens again asked the President to reconsider the plan of an
armistice on the basis of a Mexican expedition. “Well, Stephens,”
replied Mr. Lincoln, “I will reconsider it; but I do not think my mind
will change.” Thus ended the famous Hampton Roads conference.
On their return to Richmond the commissioners made a formal report to
Mr. Davis of the failure of negotiations; this he transmitted to the
Confederate Congress with an artful letter designed to strengthen the
war party in the South, and to silence effectually the adversaries of
his administration. To improve this advantage a day was appointed for
the purpose of getting a popular expression on the result of the
conference. Business was generally suspended, and the people crowded
every building in the city suitable for holding large assemblies.
Churches, theatres and halls of legislation were engaged for the
occasion. Twenty orators, among the ablest in the South, told their
hearers of the Northern “ultimatum,” not omitting to describe eloquently
all the consequences of subjugation. The old war spirit appeared to have
been kindled once more; “But,” says Mr. Pollard, “it was only the sickly
glare of an expiring flame; there was no steadiness in the excitement;
there was no virtue in huzzas; the inspiration ended with the voices and
ceremonies that invoked it; and it was found that the spirit of the
people of the Confederacy was too weak, too much broken to act with
effect, or assume the position of erect and desperate defiance.”[432] In
March General Lee revealed the weakness of his army at Fort Steadman;
Grant’s movements around Petersburg followed in April; the rest is a
familiar story.
From this brief discussion of topics only allied to the Presidential
method of reunion it is time to resume our examination of the main
theme.
It is almost a trite observation to remark that President Lincoln’s
opinions on public questions were formed only after mature deliberation,
and that to the conclusions thus reached he adhered with inflexible
tenacity. Notwithstanding the sentiments of Congress on the question of
reconstruction he evinced a decided preference for his own. This is
proved by a number of letters and speeches from which two may be
selected both because of the time of their appearance and the station of
the persons to whom they were addressed. To General Hurlbut, who had
temporarily succeeded Banks in command at New Orleans, the President
wrote, November 14, 1864, the following admonitory letter:
Few things, since I have been here, have impressed me more painfully
than what, for four or five months past, has appeared a bitter
military opposition to the new State government of Louisiana. I
still indulged some hope that I was mistaken in the fact; but copies
of a correspondence on the subject between General Canby and
yourself, and shown me to-day, dispel that hope. A very fair
proportion of the people of Louisiana have inaugurated a new State
government, making an excellent new constitution—better for the poor
black man than we have in Illinois. This was done under military
protection, directed by me, in the belief, still sincerely
entertained, that with such a nucleus around which to build we could
get the State into position again sooner than otherwise. In this
belief a general promise of protection and support, applicable alike
to Louisiana and other States, was given in the last annual message.
During the formation of the new government and constitution they
were supported by nearly every loyal person, and opposed by every
secessionist. And this support and this opposition, from the
respective standpoints of the parties, was perfectly consistent and
logical. Every Unionist ought to wish the new government to succeed;
and every disunionist must desire it to fail. Its failure would
gladden the heart of Slidell in Europe, and of every enemy of the
old flag in the world. Every advocate of slavery naturally desires
to see blasted and crushed the liberty promised the black man by the
new constitution. But why General Canby and General Hurlbut should
join on the same side is to me incomprehensible.
Of course, in the condition of things at New Orleans, the military
must not be thwarted by the civil authority; but when the
constitutional Convention, for what it deems a breach of privilege,
arrests an editor in no way connected with the military, the
military necessity for insulting the Convention and forcibly
discharging the editor is difficult to perceive. Neither is the
military necessity for protecting the people against paying large
salaries fixed by a legislature of their own choosing very apparent.
Equally difficult to perceive is the military necessity for forcibly
interposing to prevent a bank from loaning its own money to the
State. These things, if they have occurred, are, at the best, no
better than gratuitous hostility. I wish I could hope that they may
be shown to not have occurred. To make assurance against
misunderstanding, I repeat that in the existing condition of things
in Louisiana, the military must not be thwarted by the civil
authority; and I add that on points of difference the commanding
general must be judge and master. But I also add that in the
exercise of this judgment and control, a purpose, obvious and
scarcely unavowed, to transcend all military necessity, in order to
crush out the civil government, will not be overlooked.[433]
A similar communication, though less peremptory in tone, he felt
constrained to send to General E. R. S. Canby, who had been assigned to
command in the military division of West Mississippi. Under date of
December 12, 1864, he wrote that officer:
I think it is probable that you are laboring under some
misapprehension as to the purpose, or rather the motive, of the
Government on two points—cotton and the new Louisiana State
government.
It is conceded that military operations are the first in importance;
and as to what is indispensable to these operations, the department
commander must be judge and master.
But the other matters mentioned I suppose to be of public importance
also; and what I have attempted in regard to them is not merely a
concession to private interest and pecuniary greed.
* * * * *
As to the new State government of Louisiana. Most certainly there is
no worthy object in getting up a piece of machinery merely to pay
salaries and give political consideration to certain men. But it is
a worthy object to again get Louisiana into proper practical
relations with the nation, and we can never finish this if we never
begin it. Much good work is already done, and surely nothing can be
gained by throwing it away.
I do not wish either cotton or the new State government to take
precedence of the military while the necessity for the military
remains; but there is a strong public reason for treating each with
so much favor as may not be substantially detrimental to the
military.[434]
That Mr. Lincoln never modified these opinions is conclusively proved by
the last public utterance of his life. In addressing the citizens of
Washington, who were holding a demonstration in consequence of Lee’s
surrender, the President on the evening of April 11 said:
By these recent successes the reinauguration 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 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 mold 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 measure 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 cannot 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 December, 1863, and in the
accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruction, 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 of 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 [in] seeking a
reconstruction of a State government for Louisiana. When the message
of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New Orleans,
General Banks wrote me that he was confident that the people, with
his military coöperation, would reconstruct substantially on that
plan. I wrote to him and some of them to try it. They tried it, and
the result is known. Such has been my only 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
seceded 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 practical 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
that 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
50,000, or 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only about 12,000, 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 nation’s recognition and its
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 man: 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 safely be prescribed
as to details and collaterals. 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.
The promised announcement was never made; for within three days the
great career of Abraham Lincoln was brought to a close. The inherent
difficulties of reconstruction, as well as the mischievous consequences
of faction among Union men, he perceived and acknowledged at the outset.
Precisely how he would have removed the one and, without breaking with
his party, have avoided the other we can never know. His uniform success
in dealing with other embarrassing questions appears to justify the
opinion that he would not have failed altogether in solving the greater
problem presented by the return of peace. This subject will be further
discussed in the succeeding chapter.
-----
Footnote 425:
Globe, 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 141 (appendix).
Footnote 426:
Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, by James R. Gilmore.
Footnote 427:
Gorham’s Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton, Vol. II. pp.
148–153.
Footnote 428:
N. and H., Vol. X. pp. 101–102.
Footnote 429:
N. and H., Vol. X. p. 107.
Footnote 430:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 644–645.
Footnote 431:
An interesting account of this entire subject will be found in Nicolay
and Hay’s Lincoln, Vol. X. ch. VI.; see also Raymond’s Life of
Lincoln, pp. 647–662.
Footnote 432:
The Lost Cause, pp. 684–685.
Footnote 433:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 597–598.
Footnote 434:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 616–617.
XII
CULMINATION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PLAN
Able and candid exponents of public opinion in the South, even those who
were a part of the “Lost Cause,” are almost unanimous in regarding the
assassination of President Lincoln as one of the greatest calamities
that befell their section of the Union.[435] Indeed, the writer has
heard a distinguished editor ascribe to Jefferson Davis himself the
opinion that next to the failure of the Confederacy the untimely death
of Mr. Lincoln was the severest blow inflicted on Southern
interests.[436] Many of the evils experienced by their States during the
early years of Congressional reconstruction would have been avoided,
they believe, under a continuance of the wise and considerate policy of
the martyr President. While it is true that the confidence which he
enjoyed among the masses in the loyal States, his unquestionable
integrity and his splendid intellectual powers would have made him a
formidable adversary even in a controversy with Congress, yet we have no
assurance that these undoubted elements of strength would have enabled
him, in the confused times following the Rebellion, to do more than
postpone a contest with the Legislative branch in which a desire to
discipline the South was even then winning adherents. The passions of
the hour would have discovered a weakness in his clemency to the
vanquished, while his very breadth of soul and sense would have been
regarded by radical members of his party as only an evidence of his
desire to facilitate the restoration to power of red-handed rebels. But
it is idle to speculate on what might have been the result of his
endeavors to heal the wounds of war, for, by the assassin’s bullet, the
execution of his policy passed into other hands.
While the terrible tragedy of April 14 was still unknown to a great
majority of American citizens, Andrew Johnson was quietly installed in
the office of President. As every detail of the simple ceremony in the
Kirkwood Hotel is familiar to this generation of readers, that event
requires only a passing allusion. In the presence of the constitutional
advisers of his predecessor, except Secretary Seward, who had been
dangerously wounded by one of Booth’s accomplices, the oath of office
was administered by Chief Justice Chase, who, with the Attorney-General,
had examined the precedents and the law. Besides these officials a few
members of Congress, who still lingered at the capital, were in
attendance as witnesses.
Something of Andrew Johnson’s political career has been related in the
chapter on Tennessee. As military governor of that State his high
courage, his acknowledged patriotism, his honesty of purpose and
principle were evident to all. Traits of character suspected, but not
then fully disclosed, were developed by more complex conditions. The
problem that confronted him may be briefly stated.
When Mr. Johnson succeeded to the Presidential office Confederate armies
somewhat broken, indeed, but still capable of mischief were retarding
the victorious march of Sherman’s legions. Measures for disbanding the
former became necessary when Southern leaders, recognizing the
hopelessness of further resistance, made overtures looking to an
armistice which took place and to the surrender that subsequently
followed. It became necessary to discontinue at once the enlistment of
men in the loyal States, and, to economize expense, to muster out of
service as expeditiously as possible the grand army of Union volunteers.
The energy and promptness with which this task was accomplished were not
the least of Secretary Stanton’s services to the nation. The perfection
to which years of experience had brought the machinery of the War
Department enabled the bulk of the Union armies to return without delay
to their homes, where, discarding the character of soldiers, they melted
insensibly into the civil population and speedily resumed the pursuits
of peace. Relations with France were somewhat strained, and, owing to a
succession of unfriendly acts, a war with Great Britain was not
improbable. The public finances, too, required attention. To provide a
revenue adequate to the extraordinary demands of the time was beginning
to tax the resources of Government. A satisfactory settlement of even
the least of these might well have appeared a serious question. The
cessation of hostilities, however, presented a problem far transcending
the greatest of them in importance.
Many of the late Confederate States were threatened with anarchy, for in
those commonwealths the recent authority had been extinguished and no
organizations existed which the Administration could recognize as State
governments. The political reconstruction of four of them, it is true,
had been commenced under encouragement and direction of the national
Executive, but even in those much remained to be done. Before examining
the condition of the insurgent States as a whole it may be well,
therefore, to summarize the most important events that occurred in
Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Virginia between the institution of
loyal governments in those commonwealths and the meeting of the
Thirty-ninth Congress in December, 1865.
The General Assembly of Arkansas, though lacking its full membership,
convened in March, 1865, and unanimously adopted on April 14 succeeding
the proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution. The action of
Congress, however, in submitting that proposition to the States had been
anticipated by the Union men of that commonwealth, for their organic law
had already abolished involuntary servitude; by the same instrument they
had repudiated all debts created in the conduct of the war, thereby
complying with three of the principal conditions required for restoring
their State to the Union.
During the same session an act passed the Legislature disfranchising all
citizens who had aided the Confederate cause after the organization,
April 18, 1864, of a loyal government. By the adversaries of this
measure it was claimed that the lawmaking body exceeded its powers,
because the act in effect prescribed qualifications for the suffrage
different from those required by the State constitution, and, so far as
it attempted to deprive citizens of their privileges without judicial
conviction of crime, was contrary to the law of the land. This statute
awakened the indifferent, and, as the time approached for holding
Congressional elections, excited considerable discussion.
In the mean time the new government silently extended its authority over
those parts of the State occupied by Southern soldiers until the
cessation of hostilities. Governor Flanigan on retiring suggested that
Confederate county officers be continued under his successor. This
proposal, however, was promptly rejected and the secession establishment
in all its parts completely ignored. Governor Murphy then published a
proclamation urging the people in those regions hitherto dominated by
the enemy, which comprised nearly half the counties in the State, to
assemble and renew their local organizations. His address was favorably
received, and his administration soon acquiesced in throughout the
commonwealth. Outrages ceased with the disappearance of Confederate
soldiers, and by the beginning of July judicial tribunals had been
revived in nearly every county. Some of the courts had been in session,
and most of them were prepared to meet regularly for the transaction of
business. Taxes were collected as quietly as before the war, and civil
process could be executed in every part of the State. Hundreds had
returned from the South to their former homes and resumed the pursuits
of peace. Discontent, so far as any existed in the State, was confined
to some ex-Confederate officers and to a few non-combatants who had
sympathized with the rebellion. Both classes advised disregard of the
disfranchising law, but as a rule the returned soldiers on both sides
were quiet and orderly. All accounts concur in representing the
pacification of Arkansas as complete toward the end of summer, and by
October 13, 1865, the Secretary of State was able to report officially
that the new government was in successful operation, the civil
organization of every county having been effected. Governor Murphy in
approving a circular published near the close of the same month by
Brigadier General Sprague, an assistant commissioner of the Freedmen’s
Bureau, enjoined both civil officers and citizens to give all possible
encouragement to the officers and appointees of the bureau.[437]
The President on receiving intelligence of this satisfactory condition
of affairs sent to Governor Murphy the following dispatch:
There will be no interference with your present organization of
State government. I have learned from E. W. Gantt, Esq., and other
sources, that all is working well, and you will proceed and resume
the former relations with the Federal Government, and all the aid in
the power of the Government will be given in restoring the State to
its former relations.[438]
As the time approached for an election of national Representatives, the
Governor issued another address in which he advised the choice of
persons who could take the oath required by Congress. Three members were
elected, namely: William Ryers, G. H. Kyle and James M. Johnson, who
subsequently appeared at Washington and presented their
credentials.[439]
The foregoing account of the situation in Arkansas is confirmed by the
testimony of General Reynolds, military commander of the department, who
had sent officers into all the counties. These reported civil government
as everywhere reëstablished. The State, they asserted, had never enjoyed
greater tranquillity. There was not a shadow of conflict between the
civil and the military authority, for the latter in sustaining the
former was careful not to encroach on any of its functions. In short,
the restoration of civil law in that State was universally admitted.
In two thirds of the counties, however, great destitution prevailed.
Early in the summer the General Government felt compelled to distribute
among indigent freedmen and refugees vast quantities of food, and
Northern generosity alone, the Governor declared, could prevent great
distress during the ensuing winter. Nor was his expectation
disappointed. It is a splendid tribute to the character of Americans
that one of the most destructive conflicts in history, with all the
animosities which protracted civil wars engender, did not perceptibly
impair in them the feelings of humanity.
The organization of a Union government in Tennessee has elsewhere been
described. The Assembly chosen under its authority met at Nashville on
the 2d of April, 1865, and three days later ratified the Thirteenth
Amendment. On the 21st the President was requested to proclaim the
insurrection at an end in that commonwealth, though a few weeks later he
was called upon for troops to guarantee a republican form of government
and to protect the State against invasion and domestic violence. Besides
appointing executive officers the Legislature elected to the United
States Senate David T. Patterson and Joseph S. Fowler.
The most important measure of the session, however, was the enactment on
June 5 of a severe law affecting the elective franchise. By it the right
to vote was restricted, as formerly, to white males who had attained
their twenty-first year. To the classes excepted by the Proclamation of
December 8, 1863, were added all those who had left seats in the General
Assembly, all who were absentees from the United States for the purpose
of aiding the rebellion and all who had fled within the Confederate
lines with the same intention. These were disfranchised for the period
of fifteen years from the passage of the act.[440]
During this session there was presented by the freedmen of the State a
petition for the elective franchise. The “colored citizens of
Tennessee,” as they styled themselves, received no response to their
prayer beyond the approval of an order for printing 500 copies of their
memorial. The motion for this trifling concession was carried by a vote
of 41 to 10.
On June 12 the Legislature adjourned until the first Monday in October.
On the same day Governor Brownlow ordered an election to be held on
August 2 for Representatives to Congress in each of the eight districts
into which the State had just been divided. Vacancies in the General
Assembly were directed to be filled at the same time.
The disfranchising act, with the oath required thereunder, had the
effect of excluding a large number, probably three fourths, of the
citizens from voting. Its adversaries declared the law unconstitutional,
and it encountered much opposition, especially in Middle and West
Tennessee. Its constitutionality, however, was sustained by one of the
State courts in a decision rendered June 29, and the Governor, in a
proclamation of July 10 succeeding, argued in favor of the statute.
Those who should unite to defeat its execution would be “declared in
rebellion against the State of Tennessee, and dealt with as rebels.” It
was further signified that votes cast in violation of the law would not
be taken into account by the Secretary of State.
Nor were these idle threats, for the civil officers were instructed “to
arrest and bring to justice all persons who, under pretence of being
candidates for Congress or other office, are traveling over the State
denouncing and nullifying the Constitution and laws of the land, and
spreading sedition and a spirit of rebellion.”[441]
It was relative to these measures that President Johnson on July 20,
1865, sent the following despatch to Governor Brownlow:
I hope and have no doubt you will see that the recent amendments to
the constitution of the State as adopted by the people, and all the
laws passed by the last Legislature in pursuance thereof, are fairly
executed, and that all illegal votes in the approaching election be
excluded from the polls, and the election for members of Congress be
legally and fairly conducted. When and wherever it becomes necessary
to employ force for the execution of the laws and the protection of
the ballot-box from violence and fraud, you are authorized to call
upon Maj.-Gen. Thomas for sufficient military force to sustain the
civil authorities of the State. I have received your recent address
to the people, and think it well timed, and hope it will do much
good in reconciling the opposition to the amendment to the
constitution and the laws passed by the last Legislature. The law
must be executed and the civil authority sustained. In your efforts
to do this, if necessary, Gen. Thomas will afford a sufficient
military force. You are at liberty to make what use you think proper
of this despatch.[442]
Though no violence marked the election, considerable irregularities,
notwithstanding the Governor’s precautions, appear to have crept into
modes of registration, and he felt compelled in consequence to reject
the ballots of twenty-nine counties. In this contest 61,783 citizens
participated, but when those illegally enrolled were disregarded the
number was reduced to 39,509. The defective vote, which applied to all
the candidates, was thrown out in every county, though it changed the
result in only one district. Of the eight Representatives chosen all
were Union men; four, however, were conservatives, opposed both to test
oaths and measures of disfranchisement.[443] Governor Brownlow because
of his action was severely censured, but was supported by a majority of
the General Assembly.
In October, when the Legislature reassembled, a bill to render persons
of African and of Indian descent competent witnesses in the State courts
passed the Senate by the close vote of 10 to 9, but failed altogether to
receive the approval of the House. The Representatives of his State
declined at that time, by a vote of 35 to 25, to pass a simple
resolution endorsing the Administration of President Johnson, but almost
unanimously adopted in place of that proposition the following:
_Resolved_, That we endorse the administration of his Excellency the
President of the United States, and especially his declaration that
treason shall be made odious, and traitors punished.[444]
A colored convention representing the freedmen of the State was held at
the capital during the week succeeding the election. If the Legislature
did not grant before December 1, 1865, their petition for the elective
franchise, this body resolved to protest against the admission of the
Tennessee delegation to Congress. On the question of negro suffrage the
Governor in his October message said:
I think it would be bad policy, as well as wrong in principle, to
open the ballot-box to the uninformed and exceedingly stupid slaves
of the Southern cotton, rice, and sugar fields. If allowed to vote,
the great majority of them would be influenced by leading
secessionists to vote against the Government, as they would be
largely under the influence o£ this class of men for years to come,
having to reside on and cultivate their lands. When the people of
Tennessee become satisfied that the negro is worthy of suffrage,
they will extend it, and not before; and I repeat that this question
must be regulated by the State authorities and by the loyal voters
of the State, not by the General Government.[445]
Apprehending trouble from the antagonism of races Mr. Brownlow advocated
the old idea of colonization for the black man. He believed, however,
that negroes should be admitted to testify in the courts and argued in
favor of conferring such a privilege. Repugnance to their testimony, he
declared, was due principally to education and habit.
If the following account from _The Knoxville Whig_ of September 27 is
trustworthy the freedmen of Tennessee had but a slender claim to the
right to vote. That journal said:
Thousands of free colored persons are congregating in and around the
large towns in Tennessee, and thousands are coming in from other
States, one third of whom cannot get employment. Indeed, less than
one third of them want employment, or feel willing to stoop to work.
They entertain the erroneous idea that the Government is bound to
supply all their wants, and even to furnish them with houses, if, in
order to do that, the white occupants must be turned out. There is a
large demand for labor in every section of the State, but the
colored people, with here and there a noble exception, scorn the
idea of work. They fiddle and dance at night, and lie around the
stores and street corners in the day time.[446]
The Governor’s message, sent in at this session, was hopeful in tone. He
favored some amendment but not a repeal of the franchise law. He advised
also a “full pardon to the masses—the young and the deluded, who
followed blindly the standard of revolt, provided they act as becomes
their circumstances.” The unrepentant, however, should suffer the period
of disfranchisement; while the active leaders, he believed, were
entitled “neither to mercy nor forbearance.” To some negroes he would
give the right of suffrage, but, believing it unsafe, he was opposed to
conferring it on them all.
Tennessee, over which advancing and retreating armies had repeatedly
passed, suffered even more severely than Arkansas, for besides having
been the principal theatre of operations for the contending hosts in the
West, her territory had also been in the early rule of Governor Johnson
the scene of local strife. Old family feuds that for various reasons had
been allowed to slumber were in many instances revived, and the most
lawless outrages perpetrated in the face of day. These disorders,
however, had practically ceased toward the conclusion of his
governorship, and peace reigned once more within the borders of that
community. The existence there of a considerable demand for labor
assisted greatly in diminishing the burden of the authorities.
The closing months of the war found the loyal government of Louisiana
endeavoring with the influence of the Union army to extend its
jurisdiction over all the territory that had been brought under Federal
control. Notwithstanding its contracted area this commonwealth for
certain purposes was treated as a restored member of the Union. Like the
Northern States it was affected by the draft which, on February 15, took
place in some districts included in the Department of the Gulf. But the
great struggle that for four years had employed the attention and tested
the resources of the Government soon reached its close, thus rendering
unnecessary any field service from the recruits then obtained.
Though the attitude of Congress toward the Banks government has been
described in the preceding pages, that was not believed the proper place
to examine the nature of the election which was held on September 5, or
the _personnel_ of the Legislature chosen on that occasion. In
connection with the appointment by that assembly of Messrs. Smith and
Cutler as United States Senators the subject was noticed incidentally.
The action of Congress on the question of admitting members from
Louisiana was, however, fully entered into in that relation.
Some additional information affecting the validity of that election is
afforded by a proclamation published May 13, 1865, by the acting
Governor, J. Madison Wells.[447] This document asserts that the Register
of Voters for the city of New Orleans declared officially that there had
been enrolled 5,000 persons who did not possess the legal qualifications
for electors. To ascertain the political people, therefore, a new
registration was thought desirable. Mr. Wells accordingly declared the
old records closed from the date of his proclamation. The certificates
granted thereon, as well as the enrollment, were pronounced null and
void. He then authorized the opening on June 1, 1865, of a new set of
books, the enrollment to be made in accordance with the qualifications
prescribed by the constitution and laws of Louisiana. The old
registration having been made under an order of General Banks this
announcement led at once to a difference between the Department
Commander and the acting Governor. Many names recorded on the old books
were alleged to have been those of colored men, and a circumstance
presently to be related tends to support the assertion.
About that time the Confederate Governor, Allen, transferred to Federal
officials all the important military records in his possession, and from
his capital at Shreveport published a communication in which he
announced his administration closed on that day. He said in part: “The
war is over, the contest is ended, the soldiers are disbanded and gone
home, and now there is in Louisiana no opposition whatever to the
Constitution and laws of the United States.”[448]
On June 10 an address to the people of thirty-five parishes was issued
by the new Governor, who congratulated them on their return to the
protection of the national flag. It was not with the past, he reminded
them, but with the present and the future that their welfare was bound
up. They were exhorted to go manfully to work and reëstablish civil
government. The submission to law and the prompt acquiescence of those
recently hostile to the United States he regarded as a hopeful sign.
Even the soldiers, he said, returned to their homes better and wiser
men, promising by a cheerful obedience to law to atone for past errors.
All citizens were urged to imitate their example. Provisional
appointments to county offices would be made until they could be filled
by election. In naming persons for such places the Governor promised to
be guided by the recommendation of the people if they selected men of
good reputation who had taken the amnesty oath, which would be a
prerequisite in every case. If the people did not act promptly he would
feel compelled to make appointments upon the best information
obtainable. If errors were made, then citizens would be themselves to
blame for neglecting promptly to suggest the proper persons. A
provisional judiciary would also be constituted.
Important elections, he announced, would take place in the autumn, when
Representatives to Congress and members of a Legislature would be
chosen. If each parish was provided with the proper officers to open the
polls an election for governor and other State officers would take place
at the same time. The people addressed were informed that in making the
new constitution its framers did not intend to deprive them of their
rights. The response to this appeal was a local reorganization in nearly
all the parishes affected.
Governor Wells, on September 21, in a second order appointed the 6th of
November succeeding as the day for holding the election, and also
defined the qualifications of voters. White male citizens of the United
States who had attained the age of twenty-one years and had resided
twelve months in the commonwealth were declared entitled to exercise the
suffrage. Evidence was also required of every elector that he had taken
the oath of amnesty contained in the proclamation of December 8, 1863,
or that prescribed, May 29, 1865, by Mr. Johnson. The excepted classes
could vote only upon receiving a special pardon from the President. In
other respects the election would be conducted in accordance with the
constitution of 1852.
By a Democratic convention, held October 2 in New Orleans, at which
twenty-one parishes were unrepresented, Mr. Wells was unanimously
nominated for Governor. The preamble to a body of resolutions adopted on
that occasion asserts that the issue which for four years had tried the
strength of the Government had been made openly and manfully; that the
decision having been adverse they now came forward in the same spirit of
frankness and honor to support the Federal Government under the
Constitution.
The “National Democratic” party they believed to be the only agency by
which radicalism, to which they imputed a tendency toward consolidation,
could be successfully encountered, and through which the General
Government could be restored to its pristine purity. On the subject of
reorganization they endorsed President Johnson’s policy, which, it was
alleged, preserved unimpaired the rights of the States and maintained
their equality in the Union.
Noticing a question already assuming importance, they declared that, in
accordance with the constant adjudication of the Federal Supreme Court,
persons of African descent could not be regarded as citizens of the
United States; that under no circumstances could there exist any
equality between the white and other races; that as the national
Government was instituted by, so it was designed to be perpetuated for
the exclusive benefit of, white men. For the time they were content with
this oblique reference to the subject of negro suffrage. Another
resolution advised the calling of a convention to frame a constitution
for the State, that of 1864 being characterized as the creation of
fraud, violence and corruption.
This convention, which admitted the effectual abolition of slavery in
the South, assumed that those who had sustained loss by the policy of
emancipation could rightfully petition Congress for compensation. The
repeal was also advocated of those statutes and ordinances not in
harmony with the Federal Constitution. Believing it consonant with “the
chivalrous magnanimity” of President Johnson the convention earnestly
appealed for an early general amnesty and a prompt restitution of
property.
Almost a month preceding the meeting of this convention an address was
circulated by the “National Conservative Union” party, whose
representatives assembled one week later than the Democratic delegates.
Its members opposed both an extension of suffrage to negroes and the
calling of a new constitutional convention. Like the Democratic
delegates they endorsed the reconstruction policy of the President. They
approved the attitude of their conservative Northern friends who opposed
radicalism and an elevation of the freedmen to political equality with
whites. The doctrine of secession was repudiated, and to the payment of
all obligations created in carrying on the war they declared themselves
inflexibly opposed. They, too, favored the speedy passage of an act of
general amnesty as well as a repeal of the confiscation law.
Governor Wells was also the choice of this convention. He accepted both
nominations and perceived no inconsistency in doing so, never, he
asserted, having been a strict party man. Mr. Wells, who had formerly
been a Red River planter, proved his loyalty to the Federal Government
by coming within the Union lines as soon as they were established, and
bringing with him his slaves, thereby endangering somewhat his
ownership.
Though he had not yet returned to his home, the friends of Henry Watkins
Allen, the late Confederate executive, named him as their candidate for
governor.
In the election, which was held at the appointed time, the entire vote
polled was 27,808, of which Governor Wells received 23,312, and
ex-Governor Allen, 5,497. In every county except one the Democratic
ticket for members of the Legislature was successful.
Perhaps the most instructive incident of this contest was the part
played by those known as “Radical” Republicans. These held a
mass-meeting in the city of New Orleans on November 13 at which were
adopted resolutions claiming the election to Congress of Henry C.
Warmoth as territorial Delegate. When he subsequently appeared in
Washington his case was brought to the attention of the House by
Thaddeus Stevens, who offered, December 20, 1865, what purported to be a
certificate of Warmoth’s election as Delegate from the “Territory of
Louisiana.” On request of the Pennsylvania leader this document was
referred to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction.[449]
This extreme element, which assumed to regard Louisiana as a Territory,
polled 19,000 votes, most of which were alleged to have been cast by
colored men. It declared the State organization repugnant to the Federal
Constitution both in law and effect. The President, it was asserted,
could not restore Louisiana by proclamation, for reinstatement could be
accomplished in a constitutional manner only by petitioning Congress for
admission whenever a majority of the people deemed such a course
expedient, and the temper of the whites, nine tenths of whom were
disloyal, rendered it inadvisable at that time to take such a step. The
meeting rejoiced that the Republican party in the North had triumphed in
the recent elections, for these victories pointed to ultimate success.
The premature admission of Louisiana Congressmen, by placing the Union
people under rebel rule, would be disastrous. However, as loyal citizens
they would confine themselves to peaceable means of redress.
Warmoth appears shortly before the end of the war to have gone into
Louisiana with the Union army, in which he is said by one authority to
have acquired the reputation of a brave soldier and by another to have
merited dismissal from its ranks.[450] By organizing the freedmen and
insisting upon their political rights he won their confidence; his
shrewdness and engaging address retained their gratitude. In this
election his adherents not only sought to determine the Federal
relations of Louisiana, but also conferred upon negroes the privilege of
voting, for there was then no law of either the General or State
government investing them with any such right.
The Legislature, which was convoked in special session, assembled at New
Orleans on the 23d of November. The Governor’s message on that occasion
related chiefly to such local objects as required the attention of the
lawmaking body. By recommending an election of United States Senators
Mr. Wells repudiated the action of the General Assembly, which, at the
preceding session, had appointed Messrs. Smith and Cutler to represent
the State. Acting upon the Governor’s suggestion, the latter was again
chosen, with Hahn for his colleague. These appointments were intended to
fill vacancies caused by the withdrawal, February 5, 1861, of John
Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin.
One of the first acts of the lower House was the selection of a
committee to consider a resolution which provided for assembling a
convention to draft a State constitution. For reasons already assigned
the majority report of this committee recommended the calling of a
convention and counselled the Governor to order an election in which the
question could be voted on by the people. The minority recognized the
constitution of 1864 as binding, and on the ground of public economy
preferred its amendment, especially as it had already acted favorably on
the abolition of slavery. The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment and
the repeal of the ordinance of secession were mentioned by them as
conditions essential to the recognition of Louisiana as a State and as
indispensable to a restoration of all the privileges which that
condition implied.
As early as February 17 preceding the Legislature established under the
constitution of 1864 had ratified the Thirteenth Article amending the
Constitution. By a vote of two to one the Assembly again approved that
action. The session came to an end on the 22d of December.
This commonwealth, a veritable Eden when the strife began, had been
sadly changed in its progress. A generous Government, indeed, by
repairing the levees protected her fairest parishes from inundation. The
same beneficent authority maintained many public institutions of charity
that must else have ceased their noble work. Distress and want had
already invaded that once prosperous community, and in the city of New
Orleans alone 16,000 persons were dependent upon and maintained by
Federal bounty. Silence reigned in the great cotton market of the world.
The wreck of her public finances has elsewhere been described. Her
opulent commerce had been destroyed, agriculture everywhere languished.
Plantations that but lately teemed with rich harvests showed the effects
of interrupted cultivation, and the mighty river that had annually
poured into her metropolis the productions of a dozen States now flowed
untroubled to the Gulf.
To show the attitude of Congress toward the Alexandria government events
in Virginia have in part been anticipated. The Legislature of the loyal
portion of that Commonwealth was composed of members from only ten
counties and parts of other counties. It was by delegates from this
restricted area that the constitution of 1864 was framed and adopted.
By this instrument the elective franchise was confined to male whites
that had attained the age of twenty-one years, who had resided twelve
months in the State and were willing to swear support of the Federal
Constitution and the restored government; but officials and voters were
required in addition to make oath, or affirmation, that they had not,
since January 1, 1864, voluntarily given aid or assistance to those in
rebellion against the General Government. The Assembly, however, was
empowered, when it was deemed safe to do so, to restore to citizenship
all who would be disfranchised by this provision of the organic law.
Involuntary servitude was also abolished. While great numbers of negroes
were thus set at liberty, nothing was then done to elevate them to the
dignity of citizens. The question of making them voters was, of course,
still more remote.
The General Assembly was prohibited from making provision for the
payment of any debt or obligation created in the name of the
Commonwealth by the pretended State authorities at Richmond; and it was
also forbidden to permit any county, city or corporation to levy or
collect taxes for the discharge of any debt incurred for the purpose of
aiding any rebellion against the State or the United States, or to
provide for the payment of any bonds held by rebels in arms.[451]
The Confederate capital, long deemed impregnable, fell on the 2d of
April. Within a week came tidings of the surrender of Lee’s entire army,
greatly reduced in numbers, it is true, but hitherto the main reliance
of the Confederacy. Mr. Lincoln, apparently, was not altogether without
expectation of some such fortunate outcome of the extensive preparations
that had been made for ensuring the success of the final campaign, and
on the following day, April 10, 1865, he sent from Washington to the
executive head of the restored State this telegram:
=Governor Pierpont=, _Alexandria, Virginia_:
Please come up and see me at once.[452]
=A. Lincoln.=
Mr. Pierpont, as the writer has been credibly informed, called by
request on President Lincoln during the week of his assassination,
evidently in response to this telegram, when they spent three hours
together in conversation. No third party appears to have been present at
their consultation. The topic discussed it is not difficult to imagine.
Shortly before his death, which occurred in March, 1899, Governor
Pierpont informed his daughter that he never believed Andrew Johnson
carried out Mr. Lincoln’s idea in the reconstruction of Virginia.[453]
That policy, however, had not then, April 10, assumed definitive form in
the mind of the President himself, for he expressly stated to Mr.
Pierpont that he had no plan for reorganization, but must be guided by
events. His last public utterance establishes the correctness of this
statement.
Four weeks later President Johnson by executive order recognized the
Alexandria establishment, and toward the close of the same month, May
26, 1865, Mr. Pierpont, with other members of his government, arrived in
Richmond. The sneer of Thaddeus Stevens that the archives and property
of loyal Virginia were conveyed to the new capital in an ambulance
affords at least an adequate idea of the feeble condition of the
restored State. But notwithstanding the absence of all pomp and his lack
of the usual emblems of authority the Governor, we are told, was
received in a very flattering manner.
Virginia, which emerged from the struggle crippled by the loss of an
important part of her domain, suffered more in the destruction of the
elements of wealth than any of her errant sisters, and though entering
somewhat reluctantly on a career of rebellion, she was the only member
of the Confederacy that was permanently weakened. Industry could never
repair the alienation of her territory. While it may appear that the
General Government acted harshly toward a State to which the Union owed
so much, the preceding pages show clearly that the loss of her
trans-Alleghany counties was due chiefly to an unwise administration of
her internal affairs. Notwithstanding the statement of Mr. Blaine, the
writer does not think that Virginia was singled out for punishment. But
even apart from her dismemberment the ravages of war fell most heavily
on the Old Dominion. There it was that the Army of the Potomac and the
Army of Northern Virginia contended longest for supremacy. Troops in
their marches and countermarches foraged liberally on her people,
sometimes without distinction of friend or foe. Concrete illustrations
will occur to every reader acquainted with the military history of the
great conflict. The devastation of the Shenandoah valley was only a
striking example of what was constantly occurring within more restricted
areas of the State. Barns and dwelling houses, fences and crops perished
in the universal destruction. Cattle were either killed or carried off,
and even the implements of husbandry were frequently devoted to the
flames. The injury thus sustained by agricultural interests was followed
in many districts by an alarming scarcity of food during the ensuing
years, and to escape starvation numbers of her citizens fled from once
happy homes. Newspaper correspondents in their progress through the
State describe scenes of wretchedness and distress. In exploring for
their journals wide regions that had recently been the theatre of war
they witnessed spectacles of want, hunger and despair. Uncultivated
tracts in the wake of the armies contributed to heighten the picture of
desolation. Richmond, the centre of so many interesting historical
associations, though long exempt from pillage, perished ultimately in a
conflagration. In short, nearly every landmark of prosperity was effaced
by the calamities of war.
To repair these ravages, to repeople these solitudes, to revive commerce
and agriculture, to restore tranquillity and maintain order was the
stupendous task before Governor Pierpont, in whose public career it may
be regarded as the second stage. After the formation of West Virginia,
in which he had acted a conspicuous and honorable part, and one that can
scarcely be overrated, his exertions barely sufficed to preserve the
continuity of a loyal government in his native State. In the former
undertaking he had the coöperation of nearly every person of
consideration beyond the Alleghanies. His efforts in Richmond, however,
received but indifferent support. Whites of little influence and negroes
who were still but prospective citizens made up the greater number of
his adherents. A handful of secessionists, it is true, set the example
of obedience to the laws, though they found among their late associates
but few imitators. It was from such material and in such circumstances
that Mr. Pierpont was to reconstruct the grand old Commonwealth. The
Governor, however, applied himself at once to the duties imposed by his
office. He appointed persons to reorganize the various counties by
holding elections for local officers, though in numerous instances he
merely authorized to act for the preservation of peace those citizens
whom the military officers might select. The difficulties of the
situation were such that he summoned the Legislature to meet in special
session at Richmond on the 20th of June.
In response to this request the lawmaking body assembled at the
appointed time. The Executive message on that occasion related concisely
what had been done by the restored government subsequent to June, 1861.
It also stated that since his arrival at the capital the Governor had
conversed with intelligent men of every shade of political opinion and
representing every part of Virginia. He was convinced, he said, that if
the test of loyalty prescribed by their constitution was enforced in the
election and qualification of officers, it would render organization
impracticable in most of the counties. It was folly to suppose that a
State could be administered “under a republican form of government where
in a large portion of the State, nineteen twentieths of the people are
disfranchised and cannot hold office. But, fortunately, by the terms of
the constitution, the General Assembly has control of this subject. The
restricting clauses of the constitution were devised in time of war....
Men accept the facts developed by the logic of the past four years,
declare that they have taken the oath of allegiance to the Government of
the United States without mental reservation, and intend to be, and
remain, loyal to the Government of their fathers. It would not be in
accordance with the spirit of that noble Anglo-Saxon race, from which we
boast our common origin, to strike a fallen brother, or impose upon him
humiliating terms after a fair surrender.”[454]
For the oath required by the State constitution he suggested the
substitution of that prescribed by the President, or one of similar
character; he also recommended the passage of an act to legalize
marriage between persons of color, and the appointment of a day for
holding elections of Representatives to Congress and for members of the
Legislature in those counties where none had been chosen.
The subject of disfranchisement was immediately taken up in both Houses,
and the result of their action was to allow the suffrage to those who,
upon taking the amnesty oath, had not held office under the Confederacy
or its State governments. Those who had done so could neither vote nor
hold office. The Legislature submitted to the people, to be determined
at the election in October succeeding, the question of removing this
restriction upon officeholders.
This action of the Assembly was followed by the appearance of a large
number of competitors for office, and considerable interest was
awakened. Finding, however, that they would be unable to take the oath
required by Congress many of the candidates for the national Legislature
withdrew. The President was asked by some citizens of Albemarle County
whether, in his opinion, Congress would probably insist upon the oath.
The following reply to their inquiry was made by Attorney-General Speed:
The President has referred to me your letter, dated Charlottesville,
Virginia, September, 1865, and I am instructed by him to say that he
has no more means of knowing what Congress may do in regard to the
oath about which you inquire than any other citizen. It is his
earnest wish that loyal and true men, to whom no objections can be
made, should be elected to Congress.
This is not an official letter, but a simple expression of
individual opinion and wish.[455]
The election was held on October 12, the vote polled being the smallest
ever given in the history of the State. In the first eight Congressional
districts, however, it exceeded 40,000. The constitutional amendment met
with very little opposition, many counties voting unanimously to remove
the restriction upon the suffrage.[456] The Assembly then chosen
convened at Richmond on December 4, 1865, the time fixed for the meeting
of Congress.
While it is true that there were grounds for apprehension regarding the
stability of the new governments instituted in these four States, the
principal cause of anxiety to the Administration was the disorganized
political and social condition of the remaining members of the late
Confederacy. It was universally agreed that with the destruction of its
military power the authority of that government was completely
extinguished. From that moment until the revival within them of Federal
laws these commonwealths were destitute of all legislation of a general
character. Under our dual principle of government, however, this could
be endured temporarily. But the absence of a central organism would soon
be evident in the reappearance of those alarming symptoms which marked
American political and industrial life in the critical period between
the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, and the inauguration, nearly six years
later, of the present national system. In that unhappy interval,
however, the authority of the various States was ample for the
regulation of domestic affairs, while in the deranged and confused times
succeeding the Rebellion seven entire commonwealths were left without
any general or any particular government. Their territory, indeed, had
passed under control of the Union forces, for when the Administration of
Jefferson Davis was overthrown the disloyal State establishments, of
which it was only an emanation, fell likewise. Though internal progress
was not seriously to be expected in this situation, tolerable order was
preserved by Federal soldiers, who occupied the entire region between
the Potomac and the Rio Grande, for even in those States reorganized
under Executive auspices civil authority was not yet established on a
foundation sufficiently secure to maintain itself without assistance
from the military power of the nation.
Besides the absence of all civil government there were other elements of
discord that tended to increase the confusion in these States. Their
population, it need scarcely be observed, was not homogeneous. The
decree of emancipation together with the incidents of war had brought
freedom to almost the entire slave population of the South. This was
soon to be confirmed by the proposed constitutional amendment, which was
designed both to place beyond question the status of freedmen and to
strike the shackles from the limbs of the last bondman in the loyal as
well as in the disloyal States. About the middle of December nearly
4,000,000 negroes bereft of the hand that bestowed their daily
sustenance found themselves suddenly dependent for support upon their
own exertions. The General Government, it is true, by creating the
Bureau of Freedmen and Refugees, diminished considerably the danger from
this source, though this relief by no means solved the problem of
transforming the recent slave into a useful member of society; besides,
the bureau itself subsequently degenerated into a fruitful source of
abuse.
Nor were Southern whites by any means unanimous as to the best policy to
adopt in the circumstances in which an unsuccessful rebellion had placed
them. Between Union men and secessionists there existed a feeling of
extreme bitterness. Even among members of the latter class there was
considerable difference of opinion, as in North Carolina, where the
former Whigs, by the moderation of their views as much as by constantly
agitating the question of reconstruction, had somewhat embarrassed the
Richmond authorities while war was still flagrant. Add to these causes
of disorder the discontent of thousands of disbanded soldiers who
returned in the gloom of defeat not infrequently to ruined homes and
wasted fields. Then, too, there was the disappointment and humiliation
naturally felt by a brave and impulsive people who had fought gallantly
in support of a cause condemned, indeed, by the civilized world, but
believed by them to be not only just but indispensable to their
prosperity and happiness.
Though a volume could be profitably employed in describing, town by town
and county by county, the extent of destruction inflicted on the South,
a few brief paragraphs must suffice to suggest an imperfect idea of the
enormous loss of wealth sustained by that section. The wreck of four
members of the Confederacy has been noticed in the preceding pages. That
rapid sketch, however, took no account of the damage to individuals by
the liberation of their slaves, for, except in those instances where
negroes left the commonwealth, that was not in any sense a loss to the
State. If it were, a community, by reducing to servitude a part of its
inhabitants, could at any time increase the amount of its capital. It is
only from the slaveholder’s point of view, therefore, that emancipation
can be regarded as a pecuniary loss. Immense damage was sustained by
both North and South in the withdrawal of millions of men from the
various fields of production. The energy of these multitudes, which was
rapidly making the United States the most opulent and powerful nation on
the globe, had exerted itself for four years in the destruction of
former accumulations.
Almost at the moment that the star of the Confederacy had begun to
decline the imperial State of Georgia, hitherto exempt from punishment,
was wasted by fire and sword. Sometimes the Southern, sometimes the
Northern army stripped the country of everything capable of supporting
life. Crops had been harvested, indeed, but this served only to
facilitate their destruction. In the retreat of Johnston and the advance
of Sherman toward Atlanta highways had been injured, bridges burned and
many lines of railroad completely destroyed. Dwellings, when they
interfered with military operations, were levelled by even the
Confederate army, and the Union forces could not be expected to show
greater consideration for the property of public enemies. General Hood
not only wasted the vast stores accumulated in Atlanta but burned
habitations when they stood in the way of his fortifications. Though
winter was rapidly approaching, the Federal commander deemed it
necessary after the capture of that stronghold to expel from their
abodes a considerable part of its population. A brief truce, it is true,
enabled the miserable inhabitants to remove a part of their effects
farther south; thousands, outcasts from their ruined homes, were thus
driven to wander among strangers whose bounty had already been taxed by
earlier fugitives; both classes were dependent for their maintenance on
the precarious charity of an impoverished people. Crowded dwellings
forced great numbers in the inclement weather to seek shelter in the
neighboring forests, where they found a safe refuge, indeed, but a
scanty subsistence. Over the region traversed by Sherman and Johnston
the forces of Hood soon after traced a devastating march northward to
Dalton. The mischiefs of the great march to Savannah have frequently
been described. Its beginning was announced by the blaze of burning
buildings, and when the last of the Federal soldiers had set their faces
toward the sea the city of Atlanta was little more than a mass of
smoking ruins. Though the region traversed was probably the richest in
the State, extensive misery accompanied the progress of the army. The
meat and the vegetables needed for his command were taken by the Union
General. Horses, mules and wagons were freely appropriated; slaves also
were assisted to escape from their masters. Mills and cotton-gins were
frequently devoted to the flames. In Milledgeville factories,
storehouses and public buildings were destroyed. The principal edifices
of Macon perished about the same time. Indeed, Augusta was the only
considerable place in the State that escaped serious harm. The people in
northwestern Georgia were in the utmost destitution, large families
being frequently for whole days without food; venerable persons of both
sexes, sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, often walked
fifteen and even twenty miles to procure food enough to prevent
starvation. The injury to all the usual means of transportation greatly
increased the difficulty of bringing relief. When the conflict had
ended, however, Federal officers did what they could to alleviate the
almost universal distress, and their magnanimity was not without
influence on the future conduct of many an ex-Confederate veteran.
South Carolina, the fatal State that woke the sword of war, did not
suffer greatly in the earlier stages of the conflict, though even then
her foreign commerce was extinguished and her agriculture interrupted
along the coast. Before its close, however, she was destined to
experience most of its horrors. A restless generation of agitators had
assiduously inculcated the notion that the South was ruthlessly
oppressed by Yankee avarice. This teaching bore fruit, and the people of
South Carolina, coming to regard themselves as little better than
tributary slaves, were easily persuaded to resort to the wager of
battle. With the progress of the contest this proud State was growing
weaker within, hostile pressure was constantly increasing from without.
Time at length and the fortunes of war had brought round their revenge,
and when the veterans of Sherman turned northward from Savannah the
Palmetto State was powerless to prevent, or seriously to retard, their
advance. Transportation was greatly embarrassed by the destruction of
the bridges as well as the tracks of almost every important railway
within the State. Immense quantities of cotton and numbers of cotton
warehouses, uncounted dwellings and depots, machine shops and foundries,
as well as several sailing vessels and steamboats were consumed by
flames. Besides these blackened memorial’s of disaster and defeat, the
stately cities of Charleston and Columbia were almost simultaneously
laid in ruins by great conflagrations. The inability of the civil
authorities to furnish food for his army constrained General Sherman to
forage for supplies. In this manner all the cattle, hogs, sheep and
poultry, even the little stores of meal, treasured as the last barrier
against want, were consumed, and the people left entirely without
subsistence. To prevent general starvation the Confederate commander was
compelled to distribute the rations of his soldiers among the wretched
inhabitants. From various causes many ancient and wealthy families found
themselves suddenly reduced to a condition of beggary, and so low was
the condition of the public treasury that the Legislature as early as
the mid-summer of 1865 had already begun seriously to discuss the
question of repudiation.
With some slight alterations this picture of South Carolina’s ills will
serve for that of her northern and more deserving sister, so far at
least as concerns those parts overrun by the contending hosts. The
cessation of hostilities stopped the carnival of death and silenced the
engines of destruction before half of North Carolina’s territory had
been crossed. From the first years of the war there were numerous
instances of privation among the loyalists of that State. Toward its
close the more favored classes also began to feel the pressure of want.
The negroes required and received assistance from the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The whites, refugees as well as secessionists, were aided by the
commanders of the rival forces.
Florida, fortunately for her people, was so remote from the principal
scenes of war that she felt few of its evils. Battles, it is true,
occurred within the State, but they were as skirmishes compared to the
bloody engagements which took place elsewhere. The same observations are
substantially true of Texas. A fringe of Mississippi’s territory, too,
had been swept by the furnace-blast of war. The extensive movements
around Corinth, Iuka, Vicksburg, Jackson and Port Hudson will suggest
the extent of destruction that visited the northern half of that State.
There existed considerable privation in that section, though no general
distress as in other members of the Confederacy.
All the Gulf States, however, were not equally fortunate. Though long
impending, the fate of Alabama came swiftly. Almost in the same hour she
was invaded from the north and menaced from the south. A large portion
of her material resources was already exhausted when the cavalry raids
of General Wilson spread terror and devastation through the interior
counties. The city of Selma was laid in ashes; smaller towns and
villages were likewise consumed by flames; schools and colleges, private
buildings and public edifices perished in the universal wreck. Monuments
of ruin were everywhere conspicuous throughout a region the most
productive, probably, in all the South. Silence and desolation reigned
where but lately stood proud and hospitable mansions. Nor was the
destruction of wealth or its elements the only injury sustained, for
industry would soon repair the losses of capital. Labor itself had been
severely crippled. Of the army of 122,000 soldiers which Alabama
furnished to the cause of secession 35,000, it was estimated, had been
left on the field of battle, and at least an equal number had been
disabled for life. Mobile, enriched by the cotton trade, was silent as
some ancient necropolis. Her splendid commerce was ruined; her stately
ships were gone, and the wave broke unheeded on the shores of her
deserted harbor.
This hurried summary conveys only a very inadequate notion of the
complex problem which Mr. Johnson was forced to consider. His arduous
duty was to repair the ravages of military violence, to evoke order from
the discord of civil strife, to heal the wounds which the imperious
power of slavery had inflicted upon industries and institutions; in a
word, to restore the harmony of that Republic founded by the wisdom of
Washington and preserved by the policy of Lincoln. The sentiments of the
Chief Magistrate who was about to attempt this difficult but
indispensable task it is now time to consider. His deliberate
conclusions and his spontaneous utterances are best examined, it is
believed, in something like chronological order.
On June 9, 1864, almost a year before his accession to the Presidency,
he had said in addressing the people of Nashville:
But in calling a convention to restore the State, who shall restore
and reëstablish it?... Shall he who brought this misery upon the
State be permitted to control its destinies? If this be so, then all
this precious blood of our brave soldiers and officers so freely
poured out will have been wantonly spilled....
Why all this carnage and devastation? It was that treason might be
put down and traitors punished. Therefore I say that traitors should
take a back seat in the work of restoration. If there be but five
thousand men in Tennessee loyal to the Constitution, loyal to
freedom, loyal to justice, these true and faithful men should
control the work of reorganization and reformation absolutely. I say
that the traitor has ceased to be a citizen, and in joining the
rebellion has become a public enemy. He forfeited his right to vote
with loyal men when he renounced his citizenship and sought to
destroy our Government.... If we are so cautious about foreigners
who voluntarily renounce their homes to live with us what should we
say to the traitor, who, although born and reared among us, has
raised a parricidal hand against the Government which always
protected him? My judgment is that he should be subjected to a
severe ordeal before he is restored to citizenship.... Before these
repenting rebels can be trusted, let them bring forth the fruits of
repentance.... Treason must be made odious, and traitors must be
punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized,
and divided into small farms, and sold to honest, industrious men.
The day for protecting the lands and negroes of these authors of the
rebellion is past. It is high time it was.[457]
Though he had never been accustomed to conceal his opinions on questions
of public interest, and though there was no reason for supposing that
his views on reorganization had changed in the months intervening
between the Nashville speech and his inauguration, there was
considerable curiosity, if not indeed impatience, to learn his
sentiments on the paramount issue before the nation. Even the
unparalleled excitement and profound regret occasioned by the
assassination of Mr. Lincoln could not make men forget the grave
questions which the changed conditions of the Union presented for the
consideration of statesmen. Therefore the brief remarks addressed by the
new Executive to those who were present at his inauguration were eagerly
scrutinized for some indication of the principles which he was likely to
adopt in the conduct of his Administration. The absence, however, of
even a hint on that interesting subject gave universal disappointment,
and anxious patriots were not reassured by his failure to announce any
expression of a purpose to continue the policy of his predecessor. By
his intimate friends this omission was construed as an intention to
pursue in dealing with the South a less generous course than, it was
believed, Mr. Lincoln had marked out.
Among the more extreme “Radicals” this surmise occasioned little regret,
for they did not object to the accession of an Executive made, as they
believed, of sterner stuff than the late incumbent. From his fierce
denunciation of secessionists both while military governor of Tennessee
and subsequently, it was generally understood that more stringent
methods would be adopted by Mr. Johnson than had hitherto been employed.
Among other things he said in his inaugural: “As to an indication of any
policy which may be pursued by me in the administration of the
Government, I have to say that that must be left for development, as the
administration progresses. The message or declaration must be made by
the acts as they transpire. The only assurance that I can now give of
the future, is by reference to the past.”[458]
Delegations of citizens who waited upon him to tender their cordial
support were assured in the most explicit terms that his past course
was an indication of what his future policy would be. Three days after
entering upon the duties of his office a deputation of distinguished
persons called on Mr. Johnson under circumstances at once unusual and
touching. The remains of the late President still lay in the White
House. Before the sad procession of the dead left the national Capital
for Springfield, Governor Oglesby, with other gentlemen from Illinois,
called to assure the new Executive of their respect and confidence.
His record, they declared, gave assurance to their State that in his
hands they could safely trust the destinies of the Republic. The
President responded in a speech discussing a far wider range of topics
than he had treated in his inaugural. Appropriate reference to his
predecessor, the tragical close of whose career was scarcely alluded
to in his first address, was made in this more extended discourse. He
spoke with unaffected and profound emotion. “The beloved of all hearts
has been assassinated,” said he, “and when we trace this crime to its
cause, when we remember the source whence the assassin drew his
inspiration, and then look at the result, we stand yet more astounded
at this most barbarous, most diabolical act.... We can trace its cause
through successive steps back to that source which is the spring of
all our woes. No one can say that if the perpetrator of this fiendish
deed be arrested, he should not undergo the extremest penalty of the
law known for crime: none will say that mercy should interpose. But is
he alone guilty? Here, gentlemen, you perhaps expect me to present
some indication of my future policy. One thing I will say: every era
teaches its lesson. The times we live in are not without instruction.
The American people must be taught—if they do not already feel—that
treason is a crime and must be punished.... When we turn to the
criminal code we find arson laid down as a crime with its appropriate
penalty. We find theft and murder denounced as crimes, and their
appropriate penalty prescribed; and there, too, we find the last and
highest of crimes,—treason.... Let it be engraven on every mind that
treason is a crime, and traitors shall suffer its penalty.... I do not
harbor bitter or resentful feelings towards any.... When the question
of exercising mercy comes before me it will be considered calmly,
judicially—remembering that I am the Executive of the Nation. I know
men love to have their names spoken of in connection with acts of
mercy, and how easy it is to yield to that impulse. But we must never
forget that what may be mercy to the individual is cruelty to the
State.”
Commenting on this speech Mr. Blaine, from whom it is quoted, says that
it “was reported by an accomplished stenographer, and was submitted to
Mr. Johnson’s inspection before publication. It contained a declaration
intimating to its hearers, if not explicitly assuring them, that ‘the
policy of Mr. Lincoln in the past shall be my policy in the future.’
When in reading the report he came to this passage, Mr. Johnson queried
whether his words had not been in some degree misapprehended; and while
he was engaged with the stenographer in modifying the form of
expression, Mr. Preston King, of New York, who was constantly by his
side as adviser, interposed the suggestion that all reference to the
subject be stricken out. To this Mr. Johnson promptly assented. He had
undoubtedly gone farther than he intended in speaking to Mr. Lincoln’s
immediate friends, and the correction—inspired by one holding the
radical views of Mr. King—was equivalent to a declaration that the
policy of Mr. Lincoln had been more conservative than that which he
intended to pursue.”[459]
To a deputation of New Hampshire citizens he said in part: “This
Government is now passing through a fiery, and, let us hope, its last
ordeal—one that will test its powers of endurance, and will determine
whether it can do what its enemies have denied—suppress and punish
treason.” Though he had been urged, he asserted, by friends whose good
opinion he valued, he refrained from foreshadowing in a public manifesto
the policy which would guide him. He further observed on this occasion:
“I know it is easy, gentlemen, for any one who is so disposed, to
acquire a reputation for clemency and mercy. But the public good
imperatively requires a just discrimination in the exercise of these
qualities.... To relieve one from the penalty of crime may be productive
of national disaster. The American people must be taught to know and
understand that treason is a crime.... Treason is a crime, and must be
punished as a crime. It must not be regarded as a mere difference of
political opinion. It must not be excused as an unsuccessful rebellion,
to be overlooked and forgiven. It is a crime before which all others
sink into insignificance; and in saying this it must not be considered
that I am influenced by angry or revengeful feelings.” He added, that to
those who had been deluded and deceived by designing men, to those who
had been only technically guilty of treason, he would accord amnesty,
leniency and mercy. On the instigators of rebellion, however, should be
visited “the full penalty of their crimes.”[460]
Replying, April 21, to an address of Governor Morton, who introduced a
delegation from Indiana, he said: “Mine has been but one straightforward
and unswerving course, and I see no reason why I should depart from
it....
“I hold it as a solemn obligation in any one of these States where the
rebel armies have been driven back or expelled—I care not how small the
number of Union men, if enough to man the ship of State—I hold it, I
say, a high duty to protect and secure to them a republican form of
government. This is no new opinion.... In adjusting and putting the
government upon its legs again, I think the progress of this work must
pass into the hands of its friends. If a State is to be nursed until it
again gets strength, it must be nursed by its friends, and not smothered
by its enemies.”[461] To this delegation he declared himself not less
opposed to consolidation than to dissolution and disintegration. In a
brief reply on the same day to a deputation from Ohio he added nothing
of value to these observations, and on the 24th of April he addressed in
a similar strain a body of exiles from the South.
“The colored American asks but two things,” said the spokesman of a
negro delegation about the same time, “that he have, first, complete
emancipation, and secondly, full equality before American law.” To this
the President replied, among other things, that he feared leading
colored men did not “understand and appreciate the fact that they have
friends on the south side of the line. They have, and they are as
faithful and staunch as any north of the line. It may be a very easy
thing, indeed popular, to be an emancipationist north of the line, but a
very different thing to be such south of it. South of it, it costs a man
effort, property, and perhaps life.”[462]
Two months later, June 24, in replying to an address of a South Carolina
committee, he said in part: “The friction of the rebellion has rubbed
out the nature and character of slavery. The loyal men who were
compelled to bow and submit to the rebellion should, now that the
rebellion is ended, stand equal to loyal men everywhere. Hence the wish
of reconstruction, and the trying to get back the States to the point at
which they formerly moved in perfect harmony.” He reminded them that as
an institution slavery was gone, and said there was no hope that the
people of South Carolina would be admitted into either the Senate or the
House of Representatives until by their conduct they had afforded
evidence of this truth. In their circumstances the true policy was to
restore the State government, not through military rule, but by the
action of the people.[463]
Desiring to relieve all loyal citizens and well-disposed persons from
unnecessary trade restrictions, and to encourage a return to peaceful
pursuits, the President removed, April 29, 1865, the interdict on all
domestic and coastwise intercourse in that portion of the late
Confederate States east of the Mississippi and within the lines of
national military occupation. From this order, however, certain named
articles contraband of war were excepted. Military and naval regulations
in conflict with his proclamation were revoked. On May 22 following he
announced that ports in the same district would be reopened to foreign
commerce after July 1, 1865, though certain places in Texas were still
denied this privilege.
The insurrection hitherto existing in Tennessee was declared at an end
on June 13, 1865. The authority of the United States, this Proclamation
asserted, was unquestioned within the limits of that commonwealth, and
duly commissioned Federal officials were in undisturbed exercise of
their functions. All disabilities attaching to the State and its
inhabitants were therefore removed; but nothing contained in the order
was to be construed as affecting any of the penalties and forfeitures
for treason which had previously been incurred.
Ten days later, June 23, the blockade of Galveston and other ports
beyond the Mississippi was rescinded. These were to be opened to foreign
trade on the 1st of July succeeding. It was ordered, August 29, 1865,
that after September 1 all restrictions upon internal, domestic and
coastwise commerce be removed, so that even articles contraband of war
might be imported into and sold in the late insurgent States, the
necessity for prohibiting intercourse in those articles having in great
measure ceased.
In an order dated May 9, 1865, the President declared null and void all
acts and proceedings of the military and civil organizations of Virginia
which had been in rebellion against the General Government; also that
all persons who should exercise or attempt to exercise any authority,
jurisdiction or right under Jefferson Davis, and his confederates, or
under John Letcher or William Smith,[464] and their confederates, or any
pretended commission or authority issued by them, or any of them, since
April 17, 1861, would be deemed and taken as in rebellion against the
United States, and dealt with accordingly. By the same order the
authority of the United States was revived within the geographical
limits known as Virginia, and the heads of the several Executive
Departments were instructed to enforce therein all Federal laws the
administration of which belonged to their respective offices.
To carry into effect the constitutional guaranty of a republican form of
government and “afford the advantage and security of domestic laws, as
well as to complete the reëstablishment of the authority of the laws of
the United States, and the full and complete restoration of peace within
the limits aforesaid, Francis H. Pierpont, Governor of the State of
Virginia,” was assured of such assistance from the Federal authorities
as was believed necessary in any lawful measures that he might adopt for
extending the State government throughout that Commonwealth.[465]
The Secretary of the Treasury was directed to nominate without delay
assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal revenue, and
such other officers of his Department as were authorized by law, to
execute the revenue laws of the United States. Preference in making
appointments was to be given to qualified loyal residents of the
districts in which their respective duties were to be performed; but if
suitable persons could not be found residing there, then citizens of
other States or districts should be named.
In the matter of appointments similar instructions were given to the
Postmaster-General, who was empowered to establish post offices and post
routes, and to enforce the postal laws of the United States in the State
of Virginia.
The heads of the remaining Executive Departments, State, War, Navy and
Interior, were likewise ordered to enforce the acts of Congress
pertaining to their respective offices. The judge of the United States
District Court for Virginia was directed to hold courts in that
Commonwealth, while it was made the duty of the Attorney-General to
instruct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment,
confiscation and sale, property subject to confiscation, and to provide
for the administration of justice within the said State in all matters
of which the Federal courts had cognizance.
It was this recognition of his government, and this assurance of
support, that induced Mr. Pierpont less than three weeks afterward to
remove his capital from Alexandria. An account of this event as well as
of the nature of the Governor’s duties in his enlarged jurisdiction, has
been anticipated.
In recognizing Mr. Pierpont as Governor of Virginia, President Johnson
merely concluded to retain for reconstruction what had already been
accomplished by the loyal minority of that Commonwealth. Nor is it easy
to perceive why, by rejecting what had been done, he should have
increased the difficulties of a situation even then sufficiently
complicated. While military governor of Tennessee he had executed, and,
so far as appears, without remonstrance, all the measures recommended by
Mr. Lincoln, so that when he succeeded to the Presidency he was to some
extent committed to the policy of his predecessor. He preserved his
consistency by endeavoring to maintain that system in which he had
formerly acquiesced, and in sustaining the reconstructed governments of
Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia it is somewhat hazardous to
affirm that he acted unwisely. More than this the adherents of President
Lincoln could not reasonably have expected. Mr. Johnson was not,
however, required by any consideration of moment to apply that mode of
restoration to the seven remaining States; nor is it by any means
certain that he had a legal right to do so. With President Lincoln the
problem was to preserve the Union. To effect that object he believed it
necessary to institute loyal governments, and his action in so doing
appears to have been clearly within his powers as Commander-in-Chief.
Had his course been unwise or even prejudicial to national interests,
the reorganization of those States was still a legitimate war measure to
which his discretion undoubtedly extended. When Andrew Johnson became
President, however, the nature of the problem had greatly changed, for
even though no proclamation had yet announced the termination of the
Rebellion, hostilities had entirely ceased before he issued the first of
his orders on reconstruction. It was only by something like a legal
fiction, therefore, that the war powers could longer be exercised. It is
believed that his failure to recognize the different circumstances was
an error of judgment. The danger of a renewal of the conflict was not
sufficiently real to justify a continuance of the unlimited authority
that might be deemed necessary in time of war. He was aware that
Congress had refused to admit representatives or to count electoral
votes from those States reorganized during the Rebellion, when the
action of the Executive rested on the firm, if somewhat undefined,
foundation of the war powers. After a majority, even in these
circumstances, had pronounced against that system, on what ground could
the new President base his expectation of success? Without first
assuring himself of the coöperation of the Legislative branch he should
not have undertaken the arduous task of reviving Union governments in
those commonwealths where even the very image of civil authority had
been effaced. Perhaps he had been convinced that the method of
restoration was analogous to the process of terminating war with a
foreign power in which the initiative is to be taken by the Executive
Department of Government. On this subject Mr. Blaine acutely remarks,
that, “There is nothing of which a public officer can be so easily
persuaded as of the enlarged jurisdiction that pertains to his
station.”[466] It was while executing his measures of reconstruction
that Mr. Lincoln discovered the real sentiments and, to his surprise, no
doubt, encountered the determined opposition of Congress. In the case of
his successor the same excuse cannot be urged, for he was aware of the
temper of the Republican majority, and appears to have consulted only
his courage in espousing a cause already condemned by many of the most
influential leaders of the party to which he principally owed his
election.
As the order recognizing the Alexandria government marked no distinct
Executive policy, speculation could still amuse or employ itself on the
expected announcement by the new President. The first step in that
momentous undertaking was the appointment, May 29, 1865, of William W.
Holden as Provisional Governor of North Carolina. The order promulgating
that measure was as follows:
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution
of the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee
to every State in the Union a republican form of government, and
shall protect each of them against invasion and domestic violence;
and whereas the President of the United States is, by the
Constitution, made commander-in-chief of the army and navy, as well
as chief civil executive officer of the United States, and is bound
by solemn oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the
United States, and to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed; and whereas the rebellion, which has been waged by a
portion of the people of the United States against the properly
constituted authorities of the Government thereof, in the most
violent and revolting form, but whose organized and armed forces
have now been almost entirely overcome, has, in its revolutionary
progress, deprived the people of the State of North Carolina of all
civil government; and whereas it becomes necessary and proper to
carry out and enforce the obligations of the United States to the
people of North Carolina, in securing them in the enjoyment of a
republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States, and for the
purpose of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a
State government, whereby justice may be established, domestic
tranquillity insured, and loyal citizens protected in all their
rights of life, liberty, and property, I, Andrew Johnson, President
of the United States, and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of
the United States, do hereby appoint William W. Holden, Provisional
Governor of the State of North Carolina, whose duty it shall be, at
the earliest practicable period, to prescribe such rules and
regulations as may be necessary and proper for convening a
convention, composed of delegates to be chosen by that portion of
the people of said State who are loyal to the United States, and no
others, for the purpose of altering or amending the constitution
thereof; and with authority to exercise, within the limits of said
State, all the powers necessary and proper to enable such loyal
people of the State of North Carolina to restore said State to its
constitutional relations to the Federal Government, and to present
such a republican form of State government as will entitle the State
to the guarantee of the United States therefor, and its people to
protection by the United States against invasion, insurrection, and
domestic violence; _Provided_, that in any election that may be
hereafter held for choosing delegates to any State convention, as
aforesaid, no person shall be qualified as an elector, or shall be
eligible as a member of such convention, unless he shall have
previously taken the oath of amnesty, as set forth in the
President’s proclamation of May 29, A. D. 1865, and is a voter
qualified as prescribed by the Constitution and laws of the State of
North Carolina, in force immediately before the 20th day of May,
1861, the date of the so-called ordinance of secession; and the said
convention when convened, or the Legislature that may be thereafter
assembled, will prescribe the qualifications of electors, and the
eligibility of persons to hold office under the Constitution and
laws of the State, a power the people of the several States
composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the
origin of the Government to the present time.
And I do hereby direct:
_First._ That the military commander of the Department, and all
officers and persons in the military and naval service aid and
assist the said Provisional Governor in carrying into effect this
proclamation, and they are enjoined to abstain from, in any way,
hindering, impeding or discouraging the loyal people from the
organization of a State Government, as herein authorized.
Then followed instructions, similar to those contained in the order of
May 9, relative to Virginia, directing the heads of the several
Executive Departments to enforce those Federal laws in North Carolina of
which the administration belonged to their respective offices.
Somewhat earlier on the same day was published an Amnesty Proclamation,
renewing in effect the provisions of that issued by Mr. Lincoln on the
8th of December, 1863. It increased, however, the number of classes
excepted from the benefits of the original offer by adding the
following:
All persons who have been or are absentees from the United States
for the purpose of aiding the rebellion.
All military and naval officers in the rebel service, who were
educated by the Government in the Military Academy at West Point or
the United States Naval Academy.
All persons who held the pretended offices of governors of States in
insurrection against the United States.
All persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and
protection of the United States, and passed beyond the Federal
military lines into the pretended confederate States for the purpose
of aiding the rebellion.
All persons who have been engaged in the destruction of the commerce
of the United States upon the high seas, and all persons who have
made raids into the United States from Canada, or been engaged in
destroying the commerce of the United States upon the lakes and
rivers that separate the British Provinces from the United States.
All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits
hereof by taking the oath herein prescribed, are in military, naval,
or civil confinement, or custody, or under bonds of the civil,
military, or naval authorities, or agents of the United States, as
prisoners of war, or persons detained for offences of any kind,
either before or after conviction.
All persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebellion, and
the estimated value of whose taxable property is over twenty
thousand dollars.
All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as prescribed in the
President’s proclamation of December 8, A. D. 1863, or an oath of
allegiance to the Government of the United States since the date of
said proclamation, and who have not thenceforward kept and
maintained the same inviolate.[467]
The proclamation provided, however, that persons belonging to the
excluded classes could make special application for pardon, when such
liberal clemency would be exercised by the President as was deemed
consistent with the facts in each case, and with the peace and dignity
of the United States.
Secretary Seward, who attested the proclamation, approved its general
tenor as well as its details. At first he appears to have opposed the
“Twenty-thousand-dollar exclusion,” but finally yielded to the arguments
of the President, who by this description had hoped to include a
numerous class that did not come under any of those specified. In this
respect it possessed the comprehensive as well as the convenient
character of a general warrant. All attempts to fix responsibility for
secession have proved futile, and it is difficult to explain the
President’s attitude toward Southern men of property unless, indeed, he
meant to humiliate a class that he personally disliked, or, perhaps, he
intended to act upon the principle that to be mild it is necessary first
to appear cruel. Precisely why the other classes were excepted from the
offer of indemnity the reader of Rebellion literature need not be
informed. The amnesty proclamation applied to all the insurgent States.
Like the “Louisiana plan,” the order appointing Mr. Holden was based on
that clause of the Federal Constitution which guarantees “to every State
in this Union a republican form of government.” It was in his character
of Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as Executive, that
he assumed to appoint a provisional governor. The Rebellion, which in
its progress had “deprived the people of the State of North Carolina of
all civil government,” he described as having been “almost entirely
overcome.” This condition rendered it necessary to fulfill the Federal
obligation to secure to the people of that State a republican form of
government. The order being self-explanatory, it only remains to observe
that none but “loyal people” were to participate in electing delegates
to the convention, which it was made the duty of the Governor to
convoke. The term “loyal people” included all who would take the oath
and receive the pardon provided for in the proclamation. These were
required to be qualified voters under the laws in force immediately
before the act of secession. By this provision the negroes of the State
were excluded from the electoral people, and the work of reconstruction
left entirely in the hands of the whites. The convention chosen by these
citizens, or the Legislature that might be thereafter assembled, was
authorized to “prescribe the qualifications of electors, and the
eligibility of persons to hold office under the constitution and laws of
the State, a power,” added the order, which “the people of the several
States composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the
origin of the Government to the present time.”
Governor Holden in a proclamation of June 12, 1865, announced his
appointment and declared his purpose to order an election of delegates
to a State convention, the object of calling which was briefly noticed.
He also made known his intention to commission justices of the peace for
the purpose of administering the oath of allegiance and opening the
polls. He urged the people to resume their accustomed pursuits; refugees
were encouraged by an offer of protection to return to the State, and
freedmen were instructed in the duties peculiar to their altered
circumstances.
By a second proclamation, dated August 8, the choice of delegates to the
proposed convention was fixed for September 21 succeeding. Some delay in
appointing a date for holding the election was occasioned by a desire to
afford the people an opportunity of enrolling their names and obtaining
the required certificates.
By such voters as were not included in any of the excepted classes,
together with the few who had been able to procure the Presidential
pardon, full delegations were chosen in all but three counties. The
details of this election accessible to the writer are exceedingly
meagre. Owing much to the timely publication and the admirable character
of the orders of General Schofield, who had exercised the functions of
military governor until superseded by Mr. Holden, the contest appears to
have been free from unusual violence, though newspaper correspondents,
it is true, reported disturbances at several polling places and mention
rumors of rioting.
The convention, which assembled at Raleigh on October 2, was composed
for the most part of members who had either openly opposed or
reluctantly joined the secession movement. There were few, however, who
had not given aid and comfort to the enemy. In other words, they were
Whigs and conservative Democrats. Every representative readily took the
oath to support the Constitution of the United States. The convention
organized by electing Edwin G. Reade, an ex-member of the Thirty-fifth
Congress, as president. On taking his seat Mr. Reade made an appropriate
and conciliatory address.
The Provisional Governor also submitted to the members of the convention
a brief message in which he observed that their duties were too plain to
require any suggestions from him. North Carolina, he said, attempted in
May, 1861, to separate herself from the Union. That attempt involved her
in protracted and disastrous war. She entered the rebellion a
slaveholding and emerged from it a non-slaveholding State. “In other
respects,” he declared, “so far as her existence as a State and her
rights as a State are concerned, she has undergone no change.”[468] He
assumed that the convention would insert in the organic law a provision
forever prohibiting involuntary servitude in North Carolina. The
language abolishing that institution, the form of the resolution
abrogating the ordinance of secession and the nature of the action to be
taken on the war debt were the most important questions before the
convention.
On October 7 the repealing ordinance was passed unanimously in the
following terms:
The ordinance of the convention of the State of North Carolina,
ratified on the 21st day of November, 1789, which adopted and
ratified the Constitution of the United States, and also all acts
and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting
amendments to the said Constitution, are now, and at all times since
the adoption and ratification thereof, have been, in full force and
effect, notwithstanding the supposed ordinance of the 20th of May,
1861, declaring the same to be repealed, rescinded, and abrogated;
and the said supposed ordinance is now, and at all times hath been,
null and void.[469]
The resolution abolishing slavery, reported on the following day, was
adopted on the 9th of October, and is as follows:
_Be it declared and ordained by the delegates of the people of the
State of North Carolina in convention assembled, and it is hereby
declared and ordained_, That slavery and involuntary servitude,
otherwise than for crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly
convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited within the
State.[470]
Not without some reluctance there was also adopted a resolution
prohibiting any future Legislature from assuming or paying any State
debt created directly or indirectly for the purpose of aiding the
Rebellion. There seems to have been in the convention a strong element
opposed to the passage of such a measure, or at all events who preferred
to refer it to a popular vote. The decision of the convention on this
subject appears to have been influenced by a telegram from the President
to Governor Holden, in which the former says:
Every dollar of the debt created to aid the rebellion against the
United States should be repudiated finally and forever. The great
mass of the people should not be taxed to pay a debt to aid in
carrying on a rebellion which they in fact, if left to themselves,
were opposed to. Let those who have given their means for the
obligations of the State look to that power they tried to establish
in violation of law, Constitution, and will of the people. They must
meet their fate. It is their misfortune, and cannot be recognized by
the people of any State professing themselves loyal to the
Government of the United States and in the Union....[471]
The convention adjourned October 19 to reassemble on the fourth Thursday
of May, 1866. Judge Reade, its president, previously delivered a
farewell address, in which he said: “Our work is finished. The breach in
the Government, as far as the same was by force, has been overcome by
force; and so far as the same has had the sanction of legislation, the
legislation has been declared to be null and void. So that there remains
nothing to be done except the withdrawal of military power when all our
governmental relations will be restored, without further asking, on the
part of the United States. The element of slavery, which so long
distracted and divided the sections, has by an unanimous vote been
abolished. Every man in the State is free. The reluctance which for a
while was felt to the sudden and radical change in our domestic
relations—a reluctance which was made oppressive to us by our kind
feelings for the slave, and by our apprehensions of the evils which were
to follow him—has yielded to the determination to be to him, as we
always have been, his best friends; to advise, protect, educate and
elevate him; to seek his confidence, and to give him ours, each
occupying appropriate positions to the other.... It remains for us to
return to our constituents and engage with them in the great work of
restoring our beloved State to order and prosperity.”[472]
An election, fixed for November 9, was ordered by Mr. Holden for the
choice of Governor, members of a General Assembly, county officers and
Representatives in Congress. On the same occasion the people were to
vote on the ordinance abolishing and prohibiting slavery. The action of
the convention on the Confederate debt being final, that subject was not
referred to the popular judgment.
On behalf of the convention the president and other delegates soon after
adjournment proceeded to Washington to acquaint Mr. Johnson with the
result of their deliberations. They related to him what has already been
placed before the reader. As the convention had yielded what was
involved in the war, President Johnson was requested to declare on the
part of the Federal authorities that the governmental relations of North
Carolina had been reconciled. Notwithstanding what had been done they
feared that their State delegation would be excluded from Congress by
the imposition of a test oath which few men in that commonwealth could
take. The convention, therefore, petitioned Congress, through Mr.
Johnson, to repeal the requirement. The President, after expressing his
satisfaction with what North Carolina had done, reminded the delegates
that to make restoration practicable one thing still remained to be
accomplished, namely, their acceptance of the amendment abolishing
slavery throughout the United States.
The ordinances submitted to the people were ratified at the November
election, when Jonathan Worth was chosen Governor over Mr. Holden by a
majority of 6,730, in a total of 58,554 votes. The repeal of the
secession ordinance was ratified by a vote of 20,506 to 2,002, and that
prohibiting slavery by 19,039 against 3,970.
In a dispatch of November 27, President Johnson, thanking the
Provisional Governor for the efficient manner in which he had executed
his duties, said that the result of the election was greatly to damage
the prospects of the State in the restoration of its government, that if
the action and spirit of the Legislature were in the same direction it
would greatly increase the harm already done, and might prove fatal. He
hoped the mischief would be repaired.[473]
Meanwhile the Legislature during a brief session ratified, with only six
dissenting votes, the Thirteenth Amendment, and elected John Pool and
William A. Graham United States Senators. Seven Representatives in
Congress had been previously chosen.
Mr. Holden, who continued to perform the functions of his office until
the inauguration of his successor on the 15th of December, probably owed
his appointment to his reputation as a Democratic editor. Though his
rise to political prominence was similar to that of the President, he
had not the latter’s inflexibility of principle. A secessionist in 1856,
when the success of Fremont appeared probable, he soon began to recede
from that position, and in 1859 was opposed to disunion; subsequently he
drifted with the popular current and even went so far in an advanced
stage of the Rebellion as to advocate a “last-dollar-and-last-man”
resolution. But even this, together with the expression of extreme
opinions, did not restore him to public confidence, and before the end
of the war the _Standard_, which he edited, became the organ of the
disaffected. Notwithstanding this wavering and inconsistent career the
fact that he was generally regarded as an enemy of secession singled him
out as the proper person to reorganize the government of North Carolina.
Though the President was not indifferent to the demoralized condition of
his native State, that consideration alone does not appear to have
induced him to begin the process of reconstruction with that
commonwealth. There is strong testimony to prove that Mr. Lincoln had
prepared a similar proclamation for restoring the former relations of
North Carolina, and on July 8, 1867, General Grant testified before the
Joint Committee on Reconstruction that he had twice heard read at
meetings of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet a paper embodying the same provisions
as that published by President Johnson.
Before taking the second step a brief interval elapsed; perhaps the
President was hesitating; however this may be, he informed Hon. George
S. Boutwell that “the measure was tentative.” The fears of the
Massachusetts statesman and his concern for harmony in the Republican
party, of which he was an able and honored leader, induced him, in
company with Senator Morrill, of Vermont, to call on the President.
During their conversation Mr. Johnson, when the dangers of his policy
were indicated, assured his visitors “that nothing further would be done
until the experiment had been tested.”[474]
Notwithstanding this deliberate assurance, the President at that time
appears to have almost determined on the system that he intended to
adopt, for scarcely two weeks had passed when he appointed, by a
proclamation similar to that for North Carolina, William L. Sharkey,
Provisional Governor of Mississippi. Within a month from the date of Mr.
Holden’s appointment others were made for all the remaining States
except Florida, the order for reorganizing which was delayed till July
13.[475]
The origin and development of the Executive plan having now been traced
with some degree of minuteness, it is not the design of this essay to
pursue circumstantially the institution of that system in the six
remaining States. By proclamations almost identical with that issued in
the case of North Carolina, provisional governors were appointed in all
of those commonwealths before the middle of July. Though the method of
reorganization in these States presented similar features, several were
distinguished in some respects from the others. Observations on those
differences will employ nearly all that remains to be said on
Reconstruction under President Johnson.
The appointment of Mr. Holden alarmed Republican leaders; the successive
proclamations for restoring the other States directed public attention
to the questions involved in reconstruction. Seeing that Congress was
not in session, that the President had assumed an expectant attitude,
and that every plan of reunion proposed was liable to serious objection,
it is not a matter of wonder that the recent Confederate authorities
attempted of themselves to restore Federal relations.
These were among the considerations that induced Governor Clarke, of
Mississippi, to summon the Legislature of that State to meet on May 18.
In his address convoking the disloyal assembly he urged the people, in
order to remove the necessity for sending Federal troops among them, to
restore and preserve peace. The Legislature came together accordingly,
and, among other measures, provided for the election, on June 19, of
delegates to a State convention. Before that date, however, the
President had appointed William L. Sharkey, an eminent jurist,
Provisional Governor, thus ignoring both the measures of Mr. Clarke and
the insurgent assembly. The latter was dispersed by a military order,
while the Governor was carried off to a fortress in Boston harbor.
Mr. Sharkey, in a dutiful and able address, appointed August 7 as the
day for holding an election of delegates to a State convention which was
to meet at the city of Jackson one week later. In this proclamation, he
said: “The negroes are now free—free by the fortunes of war—free by
proclamation—free by common consent—free practically, as well as
theoretically, and it is too late to raise questions as to the means by
which they became so.”[476] Though the Governor, to avoid the delay of
separate county organization, had appointed many local officials who had
held their posts during the Rebellion, he required all of them to take
the oath of allegiance prescribed by the President.
The convention, which assembled at the appointed time, declared the
ordinance of secession null and void, prohibited slavery and made it the
duty of the next Legislature to provide for the protection of the person
and the property of freedmen. The lawmaking body was also to take
measures for guarding both the negroes and the commonwealth against any
evils that might arise from sudden emancipation. The first Monday in
October was appointed for the election of State officers and members of
Congress. A memorial was also adopted urging the President to remove the
colored troops from the State. The members, acting apparently in their
individual capacity, united in a petition for the pardon of Jefferson
Davis and of Governor Clarke. The amendment of the State constitution
abolishing slavery was adopted by the decisive vote of 86 to 11. After
South Carolina, Mississippi contained the greatest proportion of slaves,
and was thus very deeply involved in the system.
While the convention was in session the President sent to Governor
Sharkey a telegram in which he made the following remarkable suggestion:
I am gratified to see that you have organized your convention
without difficulty.... If you could extend the elective franchise to
all persons of color who can read the Constitution of the United
States in English and write their names, and to all persons of color
who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty
dollars and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the
adversary and set an example the other States will follow. This you
can do with perfect safety, and you would thus place Southern States
in reference to free persons of color upon the same basis with the
free States. I hope and trust your convention will do this, and as a
consequence the radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be
completely foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern States from
renewing their relations to the Union by not accepting their
Senators and Representatives.[477]
From the view point of practical politics this recommendation was
undoubtedly a wise one, but it will scarcely be contended that it was
the suggestion of enlightened statesmanship. The South, distrusting the
President’s sincerity, refused to adopt his suggestion. The
communication is reproduced, not to show that the President was not
always impelled by the highest motives so much as to show that even
before Congress had assembled he had already come to regard as “the
adversary” those whose exertions secured his election.
In his proclamation appointing a date for the election of delegates
Governor Sharkey advised the people, when it might be necessary in
consequence of the remoteness of a military force, to form a county
patrol for the apprehension of offenders. Information having reached him
that in many parts of the State organized bands had been robbing and
plundering, and that the Federal troops were insufficient to suppress
these disorders, he urged citizens, especially the young men who had “so
distinguished themselves for gallantry,” to organize promptly in each
county volunteer companies, one of cavalry and one of infantry if
practicable, to assist in detecting, punishing and preventing crime.
From his headquarters at Vicksburg, General Slocum, the Federal
commander, immediately published an order to prevent the proposed
reorganization of the militia. The contemplated force, he said, would be
numerically superior to his own, and, as many of the Union troops on
duty in Mississippi were freedmen, collisions would be unavoidable. The
crimes referred to by Mr. Sharkey were, the General asserted, committed
against Northern men, Government couriers and negroes. Southerners, it
was true, had been halted by these marauders, but were promptly released
and informed that they had been stopped by mistake. Citizens who
recognized the persons were unwilling to disclose the names of these
lawless members of the community. The State, too, he declared, had not
yet been relieved from the attitude of hostility which she assumed
against the General Government. Those engaged in attempts to organize
the militia would be arrested.
Fearing that the President would not support General Slocum, Carl
Schurz, who had been sent South on a mission to assist in carrying out
the Administration policy, expressed in a communication to the President
some doubt as to the wisdom of the Governor’s action. To this the
President, in a reply of August 30, said he presumed that General
Slocum, without first consulting the Government, would issue no order
interfering with Mr. Sharkey in his effort to restore the functions of
the State government. In the matter of organizing patrols Mr. Johnson
took the same view as the Governor, and in that connection said, “The
people must be trusted with their government, and, if trusted, my
opinion is that they will act in good faith and restore their former
constitutional relations with all the States composing the Union.”[478]
The lapse of fifteen months had worked a revolution in the opinions of
the President. Circumstances, it is true, had changed since the delivery
of his Nashville speech; the main question, however, had not greatly
altered, for it was still important to determine the political people of
the late insurgent States. From declaring that “rebels” must take a back
seat in the work of restoration, the President had come to believe that
“the people must be trusted with their government.” It is not to convict
Mr. Johnson of inconsistency that his opinions are here brought into
juxtaposition, but rather to inquire whether every important
consideration for ignoring secessionists in 1864 had disappeared by
1865.
On representation from the Provisional Governor that the Federal
commander interfered to prevent the execution of his proclamation for
reorganizing the militia, the President on September 2 required General
Slocum to revoke his military order. Under instructions somewhat
peremptory in tone, that officer two days later rescinded his
proclamation.
The condition of the freedmen, as well as their exact legal status,
became about this time the subject of much discussion in Mississippi.
While many continued in the service of their old masters, numbers roamed
about the country in idleness, and nearly all of them had very
extravagant notions of their newly acquired rights and privileges.
Though the whites admitted of necessity the complete freedom, they were
for the most part unprepared to grant equal rights to negroes. Between
them and their employers, however, there occurred but little serious
trouble. All labor was contracted for, and owners of plantations,
apprehensive that labor would be difficult to secure at the beginning of
the season, were anxious to make contracts for the year 1866. Toward the
close of September the assistant commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau
turned over to the civil authorities all the business of his court. To
get rid of military tribunals, Governor Sharkey promised that in all
cases involving the rights of negroes their testimony would be accepted.
In the election, which was held on October 9, General Benjamin G.
Humphreys, late of the Confederate army, was chosen Governor;
immediately thereafter he was pardoned by the President. Five
Representatives in Congress were also elected. By the Legislature, which
convened and organized one week later, Governor Sharkey was appointed
United States Senator to fill the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis. For
the long term, Mr. J. L. Alcorn was elected. The legislation relative to
freedmen will be subsequently considered.
Besides his complaint to the President relative to the interference of
General Slocum with the proposed reorganization of the militia, Governor
Sharkey expressed dissatisfaction with the military authorities who
refused to obey writs of _habeas corpus_ issued by local judges. To this
Secretary Stanton replied that the grant of a provisional government did
not affect the proper jurisdiction of military courts, and that this
jurisdiction was still called for in cases of wrong done to soldiers,
whether white or colored, and in cases of wrong done to colored
citizens, and where the local authorities were unable or unwilling to do
justice, either from defective machinery, or because some State law
declared colored persons incompetent as witnesses. Mississippi was to a
considerable extent still under military law, and the suspension of the
writ of _habeas corpus_ had not been revoked. To a similar remonstrance
the Secretary of State replied that, the commonwealth being still under
martial law, the military power was supreme.
On receiving tidings of General Johnston’s surrender, Governor Brown, of
Georgia, called a session of the Confederate Legislature, but General
Gilmore, who commanded the department including that commonwealth,
issued a counter-proclamation annulling the late Executive’s order.
General Wilson, in writing the ex-Governor, used expressions that were
needlessly harsh, and whether the language was his own or that of the
President, to whom the commander ascribed it, the style was neither
dignified nor magnanimous. Whoever may have been responsible for the
phraseology, the Union General appears to have believed in a rigorous
exercise of the rights of conquest. With the defeat of this attempt of
the recent authorities to restore their commonwealth to its old status,
Georgia remained in military hands till the appointment, June 17, of
James Johnson as Provisional Governor.
In the work of reconciling the people of that State the Provisional
Executive was assisted by a sensible address of ex-Governor Brown, and
by the support of many leading secessionists. Now that the
“irrepressible conflict” had been settled, the people appeared anxious
for the reorganization of their State. The 4th of October was early
fixed as the date for holding an election of delegates. The suffrage of
citizens was solicited and received by candidates of ability and
character. These were pledged to advocate the necessary measures for
restoring their commonwealth.
The convention assembled at Milledgeville on October 25, was called to
order by the Provisional Governor, and elected Herschel V. Johnson as
its president. Instead of declaring the nullity of the secession and
kindred ordinances the convention “repealed” them. On the question of
repudiating the war debt the vote stood 133 to 117 in favor of the
proposition. This resolution, however, was not carried until November 7,
and appears even then to have been passed only after considerable
pressure from Washington, whence the President directed or assisted by
telegraph the proceedings in all the reconstruction conventions. The war
debt thus declared void amounted to $18,135,775. The necessity for this
action is evident; the hardships occasioned thereby can be easily
imagined.
The State constitution, which was thoroughly revised, recognized the
changes that had occurred in civil and social affairs. In that
instrument the freedom of slaves was expressly declared, and the
Legislature was required to make regulations respecting the altered
relations of this class of persons. The constitution as thus amended was
unanimously adopted by the convention.
Though Georgia was not the most loyal supporter of Jefferson Davis in
the time of his prosperity, now that adversity had overtaken him, the
convention, in a memorial to President Johnson, invoked the Executive
clemency in behalf of their late chief. The convention assumed for the
people their share in the crime for which Mr. Davis and a few others
were undergoing punishment.
As in the case of Mississippi, the President approved the organization
of “a police force” in the several counties, for the purpose of
arresting marauders, suppressing crime and enforcing authority.
The Legislature, which was elected November 15, assembled at
Milledgeville on the 4th of December following. With its proceedings we
are not now concerned more than to observe that the Thirteenth Amendment
was adopted by that body five days subsequently.[479] The measures of
the Georgia Assembly were not before Congress when it convened.
Like the chief magistrates in several other Southern States, the
Confederate Governor of Texas, when convinced after the surrender of
General Kirby Smith that the war had ceased, took steps toward bringing
his commonwealth into its old practical relations with the Union. He
accordingly ordered an election of delegates to a convention to be held
on June 19, but was anticipated by President Johnson, who two days
earlier had appointed Andrew J. Hamilton Provisional Governor. Though
the latter did not promptly appoint a day for holding the election, he
announced his intention of doing so at an early date. There was probably
in the minds of the less intelligent Texans a notion that emancipation
was to be gradual, or that it was not yet an accomplished fact. To
dispel any such idea the new Executive circulated an address which
informed the public that if, “in the action of the proposed convention,
the negro is characterized or treated as less than a freeman,” Senators
and Representatives from Texas would vainly seek admission to the halls
of Congress. The choice of delegates having been fixed for January 8,
1866, an account of the convention or of the proceedings in the Assembly
subsequently organized in that State does not fall within the scope of
this work. In the interval justice was administered by officers
temporarily commissioned for that purpose.
The negro population, which, because of the influx from other Southern
States, had doubled since 1860, presented a difficult problem in the
reorganization of Texas. They knew little of the uses of freedom and
were kept systematically at work only by the candid admonitions of
General Granger and the Governor. Toward the close of December, however,
a better feeling prevailed among them; but it appears to have been a
serious problem to have kept the freedmen of Texas steadily at work.
Planters throughout the State lost heavily by their inability to engage
or to retain in their service laborers enough to gather the standing
cotton crop. The full consideration of this subject is inseparable from
an analysis of Texan legislation relative to freedmen. Though well
advanced, the reconstruction of Texas under the Executive plan was not
completed before the meeting of the Thirty-ninth Congress.
Nothing in the reorganization of Alabama or of South Carolina calls for
especial mention. The same is true of Florida. Both the spirit and
tendency of Southern legislation, however, require to be noticed, and
with that examination a brief recapitulation will complete this
investigation.
Before concluding this inquiry two related topics require briefly to be
noticed, namely, the character of the reconstruction conventions, and
the _personnel_ as well as the spirit of the legislatures organized
under their authority. As to the former it may be observed that there
were several modes in which constitutional conventions could have been
assembled; all, however, were objectionable because of an element of
irregularity. Considering them chronologically, rather than logically,
the first was the method employed by the Union men of western Virginia.
The Wheeling convention of June, 1861, was composed of delegates chosen
at elections called, not by the constituted authorities, for they were
already committed to a policy of rebellion, but by a spontaneous popular
movement inaugurated by loyal and influential leaders. The work of this
body, even though revolutionary, or at least irregular in its origin,
was acquiesced in by the people affected and subsequently approved by
the General Government. So few, however, were the loyalists of the
insurgent States generally, that it was not practicable elsewhere in the
South to reorganize governments in a similar manner.
A second mode was that adopted by Mr. Lincoln. Under this method, the
President, as Commander-in-Chief, protected Union minorities in their
efforts to reëstablish local governments in harmony with the Federal
Constitution. This plan, it is evident, could be justified merely as a
military measure, and, therefore, was lawful only during the continuance
of the Rebellion. On the return of peace all such provisional schemes
would disappear unless tolerated by the neglect or confirmed by the
legislation of Congress. The conventions held under this theory rested
on the authority of the commanding officer, who was himself acting by
Executive direction. In reorganizing the government of Louisiana,
General Banks, it will be remembered, declared that the fundamental law
of that commonwealth was martial law, which was no more than his
arbitrary will. In purging the electoral people and amending the
constitution of that State he acted in strict conformity with that
assumption. If in the preceding pages the reconstruction measures of Mr.
Lincoln have been characterized as legitimate, it must not be supposed
that it was intended to assert that they would have been lawful in time
of peace, for under the American system it has never been deemed
competent for the national Executive to call a convention. Though the
establishments instituted under his authority, except in the case of
Tennessee, never received the permanent sanction of Congress, the
conventions which organized these governments stand on a foundation
somewhat different from those assembled by the appointees of President
Johnson, for in the summer of 1865 the plea of military necessity could
no longer be urged. If, therefore, the conventions held in Louisiana,
Arkansas and Tennessee were tainted with irregularity, those assembled
in the remaining States were undoubtedly revolutionary. Technically,
however, the conventions of both classes stand on the same footing.
Governor Perry, of South Carolina, regarded as revolutionary the body
which he convoked to reorganize his commonwealth, and for that reason,
as he alleged, dissolved the convention before it had taken final action
on the important question of the Southern debt.
The course of the Confederate governors of Mississippi, Georgia and
Texas, who summoned the insurgent legislatures of their respective
States for the purpose of calling conventions, suggests a third mode in
which the machinery of government could have been set in motion. This
plan, however, presented an evident difficulty, inasmuch as these
assemblies could not have been recognized without admitting in some sort
the validity of the secession and kindred ordinances. Mr. Lincoln, it is
true, intended, before hostilities had ceased, to permit the members of
the Virginia Legislature to meet as influential individuals for the
purpose of recalling their State troops from the Confederate army. The
surrender of Lee occurring soon after, and the President’s action having
been misunderstood, he withdrew this permission, and did it the more
readily as the necessity which suggested it had passed completely away.
The department commanders prevented any response to the proclamations of
the Executives in the three States named above, and President Johnson by
his prompt appointment of provisional governors ignored or anticipated
their action. To say nothing of the revolutionary course contemplated by
the ex-Confederate governors, the success of their plan required the
approval or at least the connivance of Federal authorities.
Still another manner of proceeding was for Congress, by calling or
authorizing conventions, to inaugurate the movement for reconstruction;
but the power of the national Legislature extends only to the passage of
enabling acts for Territories, and these commonwealths appear to have
been neither constitutional Territories nor constitutional States.
However, as some irregularity was inseparable from any system of
reorganization, the Legislative branch of Government was the authority
least objectionable for controlling informal changes in the nature of
the Union. If powers not conferred by the Constitution must be assumed,
it is better in the interests of civil liberty for the representatives
of the people to transcend the organic law.
The second mode, it need scarcely be observed, was that embodied in the
Executive plan. The conventions which assembled under encouragement and
direction of President Johnson had an opportunity unequaled since the
formation of the Constitution of winning the gratitude of the nation. By
adopting an enlightened and humane policy they could have furnished an
example of patriotism that would serve to influence the deliberations
not only of the first assemblies to meet under the new order, but of all
future legislatures in those States. It is well known that they did not
prove equal to this emergency; the concessions to Northern opinion were
not gracefully yielded, and lost much of their merit by having been
extorted from the fears of the delegates. In some instances the
conventions, by assuming functions of the ordinary legislative
character, transcended their powers, and many of them “repealed” the
ordinances without condemning the principle of secession. They amended
and even adopted constitutions that were never submitted to the people.
The civil rights of the negro were abandoned to the mercy of those who
had fought to perpetuate human servitude. No provision was made for
freedmen in the fundamental law, it having been assumed that the new
legislatures could be trusted to extend justice equally to all classes
in the community. In a word, those were disappointed who had expected
from the conventions a display of civic virtues commensurate to the
occasion.
The remaining topic, that is, the character of the reconstructed
governments as well as the spirit and tendency of their legislation, may
in this place be briefly dismissed. Not, indeed, that the subject is
unimportant, for it was mainly upon this question that the Thirty-ninth
Congress justified its refusal to admit members from the South, and
vindicated its rigorous treatment of the subjugated States. While an
investigation of public opinion in that section is essential to a
correct understanding of legislative action, the full consideration of
the subject belongs properly to a treatise on Congressional
reconstruction, a theme to which this essay is only introductory. For
the present purpose, therefore, a brief outline must suffice.
Though the reconstruction conventions were correctly regarded as
revolutionary, that character would not affect the legislatures
instituted by their authority if the people concerned acquiesced in
their proceedings. Americans of that day were not altogether indifferent
to the sacred right of revolution, even if the principle was not so
highly esteemed as formerly. An objection far more serious than the
irregular origin of these conventions was the spirit which animated
Southern legislators.
When the Thirty-ninth Congress convened at its first session members had
before them only the merest fragments of the mass of testimony
subsequently reported by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, though
even then they possessed evidence of the temper of the Southern mind
sufficient, they believed, to recommend the most deliberate procedure.
It would not be difficult to collect from contemporary literature proofs
of hostility to the General Government sufficient to justify the
attitude of Congress when it assembled on the 4th of December, 1865.
From various sources the Northern people had caught glimpses of the
actual condition of affairs within the late Confederacy. These
manifestations of unfriendliness to the Union were enough to excite
suspicion, and, in a matter affecting the future welfare of a great and
powerful nation, suspicion is a just ground for inquiry.
The alacrity with which the Southern people rushed to battle, as well as
the vigor with which they prosecuted the war, was a phenomenon not more
remarkable than the unanimity and promptness with which they apparently
acquiesced in the result. It was long before the people of the North
could believe that the rebellion was anything more than a leaders’
insurrection, and they could not easily be persuaded after its close
that those who had fought so desperately to destroy, were sincere in
their professions of loyalty to, the Union. It was not unnatural,
therefore, that the late adversaries of the South would look with
suspicion on her instant submission. With few exceptions Southern
statesmen seemed desirous of effecting an early reunion. While various
reasons might be assigned to explain this dutiful and almost unlimited
obedience, it is certain that the argument chiefly relied upon by the
provisional governors was that it was only by such a course that they
could hope soon to be relieved of the presence among them of Yankee
soldiers. Apprehension that more burdensome conditions might be imposed
by Stevens and other radical leaders in Congress was, perhaps, not
altogether without influence in producing this general acquiescence in
the policy of the President.[480] As every citizen who engaged in
rebellion had forfeited both his life and his estate, it would be
prudent temporarily to conceal any feeling of resentment, or any desire
of revenge. These considerations were not without influence on the
conduct of both the leaders and the people. With the quick upgrowth,
however, of a feeling of personal safety, encouraged, no doubt, by a
lavish distribution of pardons, and with an expectation, not unfounded,
that reconciliation would speedily be followed by either a restoration
of, or indemnity for, confiscated property, this policy of conformity
would vanish. Thus under exterior tranquillity rankled bitter memories
of disaster and defeat nourishing a state of unrest which even the
unquestioned influence of their late commanders could not always keep
from expressing itself in acts of violence. However, as Henry Winter
Davis had foretold, the Southern population generally put on the seemly
garb of peace and observed the form of holding elections.
Notwithstanding that many of their most enlightened citizens
recommended, and that their most trusted leaders enjoined, submission to
the new order, the transition from a state of hostility was marked even
at the outset by acts of the highest indiscretion. Nor were these
confined to irresponsible individuals whose utterances might have been
justly regarded as the momentary inspiration of passion. Some of the
acts referred to were the deliberate convictions of legislative bodies,
and, as these measures appear to have escaped criticism, they may fairly
be supposed to reflect the sentiments of the South. In the circumstances
this was especially unfortunate, postponing as it did the day of peace
and reconciliation; it afforded also a decent pretext to the “Radicals,”
if they desired one, for excluding the Southern delegations from
Congress. It justified inquiry, and investigation was fatal to Southern
claims of universal submission.
Though the exclusion of representatives undoubtedly intensified, it did
not occasion the change in Southern feeling, for the Mississippi
measures, presently to be noticed, were passed before the meeting of
Congress. Acts of frequent occurrence tended to confirm the worst fears
of that body, and long before the Joint Committee had completed their
labors they were supplied with new species of violence if any
description of outrage was lacking to crown their indictment. With due
allowance for the fact that during many years preceding the war outrages
were much more numerous in the slave than in the free States, it soon
became apparent that it was unsafe to leave to the justice of Southern
courts either the few Unionists who had remained faithful in that
section or the recently enfranchised slaves. The estimation in which the
former were held appears in the fact that in competition for office they
were uniformly defeated by ex-Confederate candidates, sometimes by
unpardoned, and even unrepentant ones. The feeling toward freedmen was
one of extreme bitterness. Overlooking scattered acts of violence and
outrage of which negroes were generally, though not always, the victims,
Southern hostility toward them found unmistakable expression in the
November legislation of Mississippi. On the 22d of that month was
enacted a law regulating the relation of _master_ and _apprentice_ in
the case of “freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes.” Among other things
this statute provided:
That it shall be the duty of all ... civil officers ... in this
State to report to the probate courts of their respective counties,
semiannually, ... all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, under
the age of eighteen, within their respective counties, beats or
districts, who are orphans, or whose parent or parents have not the
means, or who refuse to provide for and support said minors, and
thereupon it shall be the duty of said probate court to order the
clerk of said court to apprentice said minors to some competent and
suitable person, on such terms as the court may direct, having a
particular care to the interest of said minors: Provided, That the
former owner of said minors shall have the preference, when in the
opinion of the court, he or she shall be a suitable person for that
purpose.
Sec. 2.... That the said court shall be fully satisfied that the
person or persons to whom said minor shall be apprenticed shall be a
suitable person to have the charge and care of said minor, and fully
to protect the interest of said minor. The said court shall require
the said master or mistress to execute bond and security, payable to
the State of Mississippi, conditioned that he or she shall furnish
said minor with sufficient food and clothing, to treat said minor
humanely, furnish medical attention in case of sickness, teach or
cause to be taught him or her to read and write, if under fifteen
years old, and will conform to any law that may be hereafter passed
for the regulation of the duties and relation of master and
apprentice: Provided, that said apprentice shall be bound by
indenture, in case of males until they are twenty-one years old, and
in case of females until they are eighteen years old.
Sec. 3.... That in the management and control of said apprentices,
said master or mistress shall have power to inflict such moderate
corporeal chastisement as a father or guardian is allowed to inflict
on his or her child or ward at common law: Provided, That in no case
shall cruel or inhuman punishment be inflicted.
Sec. 4.... That if any apprentice shall leave the employment of his
or her master or mistress, without his or her consent, said master
or mistress may pursue and recapture said apprentice, and bring him
or her before any justice of the peace of the county, whose duty it
shall be to remand said apprentice to the service of his or her
master or mistress; and in the event of a refusal on the part of
said apprentice so to return, then said justice shall commit said
apprentice to the jail of said county, on failure to give bond,
until the next term of the county court; and it shall be the duty of
said court, at the first term thereafter, to investigate said case,
and if the court shall be of opinion that said apprentice left the
employment of his or her master or mistress without good cause, to
order him or her to be punished, as provided for the punishment of
hired freedmen, as may be from time to time provided for by law, for
desertion, until he or she shall agree to return to his or her
master or mistress: Provided, that the court may grant continuances,
as in other cases; and provided further, that if the court shall
believe that said apprentice had good cause to quit his said master
or mistress, the court shall discharge said apprentice from said
indenture, and also enter a judgment against the master or mistress,
for not more than one hundred dollars, for the use and benefit of
said apprentice, to be collected on execution, as in other cases.
Sec. 5.... That if any person entice away any apprentice from his or
her master or mistress, or shall knowingly employ an apprentice, or
furnish him or her food or clothing, without the written consent of
his or her master or mistress, or shall sell or give said apprentice
ardent spirits, without such consent, said person so offending shall
be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction
thereof before the county court, be punished as provided for the
punishment of persons enticing from their employer hired freedmen,
free negroes or mulattoes.[481]
In the matter of apprenticing minors it will be observed that the former
owner, when a person satisfactory to the court, was to have the
preference; in the event of his death his widow or other member of his
family was, if deemed suitable, to have the preference in
re-apprenticing the minor. When there was no record testimony of the
date of birth, judges of county courts were empowered to fix the age of
the minor. The act was to go into force immediately after its
passage.[482]
The act of November 25, conferring civil rights on emancipated slaves,
provided:
That all freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes may sue and be sued,
implead and be impleaded in all the courts of law and equity of this
State, and may acquire personal property and chooses in action, by
descent or purchase, and may dispose of the same, in the same
manner, and to the same extent that white persons may; Provided,
that the provisions of this section [1] shall not be so construed as
to allow any freedman, free negro or mulatto, to rent or lease any
lands or tenements, except in incorporated towns or cities in which
places the corporate authorities shall control the same.
* * * * *
Sec. 5.... That every freedman, free negro and mulatto, shall, on
the second Monday of January, one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-six, and annually thereafter, have a lawful home or
employment, and shall have written evidence thereof, as follows, to
wit: if living in any incorporated city, town or village, a license
from the mayor thereof, and if living outside of any incorporated
city, town or village, from the member of the board of police of his
beat, authorizing him or her to do irregular and job work, or a
written contract, as provided in section six of this act, which
licenses may be revoked for cause, at any time, by the authority
granting the same.
Sec. 6.... That all contracts for labor made with freedmen, free
negroes and mulattoes, for a longer period than one month shall be
in writing and in duplicate, attested and read to said freedman,
free negro or mulatto, by a beat, city or county officer, or two
disinterested white persons of the county in which the labor is to
be performed, of which each party shall have one; and said contracts
shall be taken and held as entire contracts, and if the laborer
shall quit the service of the employer, before the expiration of his
term of service, without good cause he shall forfeit his wages for
that year, up to the time of quitting.
Sec. 7.... That every civil officer shall, and every person may
arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman,
free negro or mulatto, who shall have quit the service of his or her
employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without
good cause, and said officer and person shall be entitled to receive
for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid,
the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of
arrest to the place of delivery, and the same shall be paid by the
employer, and held as a set-off for so much against the wages of
said deserting employee: Provided, that said arrested party after
being so returned may appeal to a justice of the peace or member of
the board of the police of the county, who on notice to the alleged
employer, shall try summarily whether said appellant is legally
employed by the alleged employer and has good cause to quit said
employer; either party shall have the right of appeal to the county
court, pending which the alleged deserter shall be remanded to the
alleged employer, or otherwise disposed of as shall be right and
just, and the decision of the county court shall be final.
Sec. 8.... That upon affidavit made by the employer of any freedman,
free negro or mulatto, or other credible person, before any justice
of the peace or member of the board of police, that any freedman,
free negro or mulatto, legally employed by said employer, has
illegally deserted said employment, such justice of the peace or
member of the board of police, shall issue his warrant or warrants,
returnable before himself, or other such officer, directed to any
sheriff, constable or special deputy, commanding him to arrest said
deserter and return him or her to said employer, and the like
proceedings shall be had as provided in the preceding section; and
it shall be lawful for any officer to whom such warrant shall be
directed to execute said warrant in any county of this State, and
that said warrant may be transmitted without indorsement to any like
officer of another county, to be executed and returned as aforesaid,
and the said employer shall pay the cost of said warrants and arrest
and return, which shall be set off for so much against the wages of
said deserter.
Sec. 9.... That if any person shall persuade or attempt to persuade,
entice or cause any freedman, free negro or mulatto, to desert from
the legal employment of any person, before the expiration of his or
her term of service, or shall knowingly employ any such deserting
freedman, free negro or mulatto, or shall knowingly give or sell to
any such deserting freedman, free negro or mulatto, any food,
raiment or other thing, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,
and upon conviction shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars
and not more than two hundred dollars and the costs, and if said
fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall
sentence said convict to not exceeding two months’ imprisonment in
the county jail, and he or she shall moreover be liable to the party
injured in damages: Provided, if any person shall, or shall attempt
to persuade, entice, or cause any freedman, free negro or mulatto,
to desert from any legal employment of any person with the view to
employ said freedman, free negro or mulatto, without the limits of
this State, such person, on conviction, shall be fined not less than
fifty dollars and not more than five hundred dollars and costs, and
if said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court
shall sentence said convict to not exceeding six months’
imprisonment in the county jail.
This arbitrary and cruel act, wholly inconsistent with a state of
personal freedom, by forbidding the lease to freedmen, free negroes and
mulattoes of either lands or tenements outside of cities, not only made
of the emancipated slaves a landless and homeless class, but deprived
them of all hope of rising out of that condition. On the second Monday
of January, 1866, less than two months after the passage of this act,
and annually thereafter, they were required to have a lawful home or
employment, and to possess written evidence thereof. This requirement
extended to the doing of even irregular and job work, and a written
contract for all labor for a longer period than one month. If the
laborer, without good cause, left the service of his employer before the
expiration of his term, he forfeited all wages for that year up to the
time of quitting. As the freedmen were wholly without representation in
the State judiciary, the master class could in every instance determine
the sufficiency of the cause. The intermarriage of the races was made a
felony, and the white or the black person convicted of that crime was to
be confined in the State penitentiary for life.[483] Southern whites had
no objection to the personal attendance, even in first-class railway
coaches, of colored servants, but as other than a servant, the freedman
was considered exceedingly obnoxious, and this sentiment was enacted
immediately before either of the statutes mentioned, into a law which
excluded negroes from riding in cars of the first class.[484]
There was some apprehension lest this and similar legislation would lead
to bloody outbreaks. The colored race generally was growing distrustful
and discontented. The fear of violence was probably not unconnected with
the passage of a law approved November 29, which provided:
Sec. 1.... That no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the
military service of the United States Government, and not licensed
so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or
carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk, or
bowie-knife, and on conviction thereof, in the county court, shall
be punished by fine, not exceeding ten dollars, and pay the costs of
such proceedings, and all such arms or ammunition shall be forfeited
to the informer, and it shall be the duty of every civil and
military officer to arrest any freedman, free negro or mulatto,
found with any such arms or ammunition, and cause him or her to be
committed for trial in default of bail.
Sec. 2.... That any freedman, free negro or mulatto, committing
riots, routs, affrays, trespasses, malicious mischief and cruel
treatment to animals, seditious speeches, insulting gestures,
language or acts, or assaults on any person, disturbance of peace,
exercising the function of a minister of the Gospel without a
license from some regularly organized church, vending spirituous or
intoxicating liquors, or committing any other misdemeanor, the
punishment of which is not specifically provided for by law, shall,
upon conviction thereof, in the county court, be fined not less than
ten dollars and not more than one hundred dollars, and may be
imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty
days.
Sec. 3.... That if any white person shall sell, lend or give to any
freedman, free negro or mulatto, any fire-arms, dirk or bowie-knife,
or ammunition, or any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, such
person or persons so offending, upon conviction thereof, in the
county court of his or her county, shall be fined, not exceeding
fifty dollars, and may be imprisoned at the discretion of the court,
not exceeding thirty days....
Sec. 4.... That all the penal and criminal laws now in force in this
State, defining offences, and prescribing the mode of punishment for
crimes and misdemeanors committed by slaves, free negroes or
mulattoes, be and the same are hereby re-enacted, and declared to be
in full force and effect, against freedmen, free negroes and
mulattoes, except so far as the mode and manner of trial and
punishment have been changed or altered by law.
Sec. 5.... That if any freedman, free negro or mulatto, convicted of
any of the misdemeanors provided against in this act, shall fail or
refuse, for the space of five days after conviction, to pay the fine
and costs imposed, such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or
other officer, at public outcry, to any white person who will pay
said fine and all costs, and take such convict for the shortest
time.[485]
Though the General Government was solemnly pledged to guarantee the
entire freedom of the negro, he was completely disarmed by these
statutes, which were to be administered by men who had been but recently
serving the Confederate cause. The purpose of the last measure is
rendered clear by Section 4, which reënacted against freedmen all the
penal and criminal laws that had applied to slaves. It revived, in
short, the black code of _ante bellum_ times.
Persons convicted of vagrancy, under an amendatory act, approved
November 24, 1865, were subject to a fine not exceeding one hundred
dollars and costs, besides a maximum imprisonment of ten days. The first
section, which defined who were vagrants, was general in its
application. The provisions especially affecting freedmen were the
following:
Sec. 2.... That all freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this
State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in
January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business,
or found unlawfully assembling themselves together either in the day
or night time, and all white persons so assembling with freedmen,
free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen,
free negroes or mulattoes on terms of equality, or living in
adultery or fornication with a freedwoman, free negro or mulatto,
shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined
in the sum of not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro
or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and
imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free negro not
exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months.
* * * * *
Sec. 5.... That all fines and forfeitures collected under the
provisions of this act shall be paid into the county treasury for
general county purposes, and in case any freedman, free negro or
mulatto, shall fail for five days after the imposition of any fine
or forfeiture upon him or her for violation of any of the provisions
of this act, to pay the same, that it shall be, and is hereby made
the duty of the sheriff of the proper county to hire out said
freedman, free negro or mulatto, to any persons who will, for the
shortest period of service, pay said fine or forfeiture and all
costs: Provided, a preference shall be given to the employer, if
there be one, in which case the employer shall be entitled to deduct
and retain the amount so paid from the wages of such freedman, free
negro or mulatto, then due or to become due; and in case such
freedman, free negro or mulatto cannot be hired out, he or she may
be dealt with as a pauper.[486]
* * * * *
No extended knowledge of human affairs is necessary to perceive that, by
a rigorous enforcement of these laws, the great mass of freedmen could
be easily restored to a state of practical servitude during the season
when their labor was desirable, and that for the remainder of the year
their condition would be little better than that of the pauper. That the
two races were regarded as equal before the law will scarcely be
contended. An act approved December 1 made it a misdemeanor in certain
cases for either a white or a black man to hunt hogs or other stock upon
any lands other than his own; the white man was liable, on conviction,
to a fine of from $100 to $500, or imprisonment from one to three months
in the county jail, or both, at the discretion of the court. For the
same offence no imprisonment was provided in the case of freedmen, and
the fine was fixed between $10 and $20. The latter, however, could be
hired at public outcry to the lowest bidder who would pay the fine and
cost. The employer, it was provided, was to have the preference in
hiring.[487]
The Legislature first to meet under the reformed government not only
expressed for the people of Mississippi no profound regret for resisting
the Federal authority, but left no doubt in what estimation it held
those who fought for Southern independence by releasing ex-Confederate
soldiers from indictments for misdemeanors committed before the
war.[488] In perfect harmony with the spirit of this act of oblivion was
one which changed the name of Jones County to that of Davis, and the
name of Ellisville in the same county to Leesburg.[489] This, it should
be observed, was only three days before the meeting of Congress.
This legislation, by no means the most severe enacted under the new
governments, marks in Southern sentiment a reaction no less unexpected
than the complete and almost instantaneous submission following the
surrender of Johnston. The sudden change in opinion has been ingeniously
and even absurdly accounted for. In the latter class of explanations may
be included the notion that the people of the South were exasperated by
the interference of Congress, that body, as already mentioned, not
having convened till after the passage of the obnoxious laws. On the
other hand, it was not generally known, even in Mississippi, that the
President in the work of reorganization had resolved to ignore the
coördinate political branch of Government; he had, indeed, fairly
signified to Governor Sharkey the position that he intended to assume,
but his communication to that official, which was never designed for
publication, was not immediately circulated through the State; the
knowledge, therefore, that the Executive had concluded to oppose the
policy of Congress could not have been a factor in disturbing the brief
repose of the seceding States, and we must seek elsewhere for the cause.
In many of the insurgent commonwealths rebellion had involved almost
every citizen in the guilt of treason, almost every estate in the
liability to confiscation. The President and his advisers hoped by a
generous distribution of pardons to win the esteem and confidence of
this numerous and influential class, and to leave to “Radical” members
of Congress the ungrateful office of punishment. This policy contributed
to awaken the undaunted spirit of the South, and was, no doubt, an
element in unsettling the conditions that prevailed after the surrender.
Northern magnanimity, which was content to regard the defeat of
secession as sufficient discipline for the rebellious States, and the
attitude of the Democratic party were also important influences in
misleading the South. More responsible for the reaction, however, than
any of these was the unsatisfactory administration of the Freedmen’s
Bureau. The testimony of General Grant can be cited to prove that, while
accomplishing much that was desirable, this institution was retarding
somewhat the progress of reconstruction. In a hurried tour of the late
Confederate States he had observed that it was not conducted with good
judgment or economy, and remarked in his report to the President that
“the belief widely spread among the freedmen of the Southern States,
that the lands of their former owners will, at least in part, be divided
among them, has come from the agents of this bureau. This belief is
seriously interfering with the willingness of the freedmen to make
contracts for the coming year.... Many, perhaps the majority, of the
agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau advise the freedmen that by their own
industry they must expect to live. To this end they endeavor to secure
employment for them, and to see that both contracting parties comply
with their engagements. In some instances, I am sorry to say, the
freedman’s mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a
freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future.
The effect of the belief in division of lands is idleness and
accumulation in camps, towns, and cities.”[490]
Though its management was open to criticism, the necessity for the
existence of the bureau, to afford at least temporary protection to the
newly enfranchised, was perceived and acknowledged by the General. It
probably accorded well with the political aspirations of bureau agents
to create in the minds of freedmen a belief that the Government would
give to each of them “forty acres of land and a mule”; for this
expectation would be a pledge of allegiance to the Federal
representative, without the approval of whom no negro could seriously
hope to secure so enviable a start in his career of freedom.
That confusion would follow the violent overthrow of a long-established
industrial system was to be expected, and it was not unnatural for the
South to ascribe to the influence of bureau agents much of the mischief
inseparable from immediate emancipation. While the complaints of the
late insurgents were commonly considered with deference, it was scarcely
to be expected that they would not sometimes be despised, and it would
be easy to impute to their discontent every outrage reported to the
officers of the bureau or the commanders of the posts. Though Federal
representatives as a rule labored faithfully to restore and preserve
order, it would be singular if some of them, assuming the arrogant
manner of conquerors, did not occasionally depart from that system of
conciliation which the generous nature of Mr. Lincoln had adopted.
These were among the causes of the Southern reaction. It is no
justification of these severe and even cruel enactments to show, as Mr.
Herbert has done, that similar laws disgraced the statute books of many
Northern States. In the settlement then in progress the Southern people
conceded nothing of importance that was not won in the war, and if they
were as sincere in their desire for reunion as some writers contend,
they should not have feared the paradox of improving by their example
the ancient legislation of the free States, or have been alarmed at the
innovation of reducing to practice the principles of the Declaration of
Independence.
It is not to be denied that there was considerable ground for complaint
because of the influence of many employees of the bureau in demoralizing
the Southern system of labor, but the further punishment of a race that
had been trodden down by oppressive generations does not commend itself
as either a humane or an enlightened remedy; besides, the South was
greatly indebted to the fidelity of the negro, who during the war
possessed, without abusing, the opportunity as well as the capacity for
mischief. On the other hand, there was some obligation to Northern men
for their magnanimity, and under wiser counsels their wishes, and even
their prejudices, would have been respected. In the victorious section
public opinion, then in the formative stage, was watching anxiously the
progress and the proceedings of the new governments. Except a few
extremists, the voters of the loyal States did not dream at that time,
as was persistently asserted at the South, of forcing negro suffrage on
the rebellious States. They did, however, desire to see embodied in the
new State constitutions such provisions as would establish before the
law the equality of all classes.
While the policy of President Johnson did not altogether escape
criticism at the South, so general and so prompt was the acquiescence in
his plan, that when Congress convened nearly all the States recently in
rebellion had remodeled their governments and elected members of
Congress who were at the national capital waiting to be admitted to
seats. Without separately considering the new establishments, they may
be described concisely and with sufficient accuracy as governments
differing but little from those extinguished by the fall of the
Confederacy. The members of the former, it is true, had taken an oath of
allegiance, and the influence of that act upon their conduct will
presently be noticed. Though it certainly was not the original
intention, and appears never to have become the fixed purpose of Mr.
Johnson to entrust to enemies of the Government the work of restoring
the insurgent States, the result of his endeavors was that
reconstruction was left almost exclusively in the hands of those who had
attempted to destroy the Union. It was precisely such a contingency that
Mr. Lincoln had in mind when he declared in his message of December 8,
1863, that, “An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State
government, constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very
element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected, is
simply absurd.”[491]
This deliberate statement, as well as the subsequent administrative acts
of Mr. Lincoln, sufficiently disposes of the notion that he favored a
rather loose system of reconstruction. Without attempting to distinguish
between theories really identical, there was still a considerable
difference in the reorganization effected under the two Executives. The
conditions which confronted the President and Congress in December,
1865, could have arisen only from disregarding the principle laid down
by Mr. Lincoln. From his solemn and reiterated declarations there can be
little doubt that he would have rejected without hesitation any system
of which the first fruits were little more than a nullification of his
decree of emancipation.
Notwithstanding his tireless threats of severity, we can easily perceive
in the reorganization directed by Mr. Johnson, a noticeable falling back
from the Executive plan of December, 1863, as announced and enforced by
his predecessor. Nor did this retrogression proceed from the greater
humanity, but rather from the greater weakness of the new President.
Even in the matter of fealty there was a difference; for while the
conflict was still doubtful, the taking of an oath of allegiance to the
General Government was a serious step for the Southern Unionist, because
the record thereafter singled him out, if not for destruction, at least
for annoyance, or for punishment by the friends of secession, and,
perhaps, the oath then effected some such object as it was designed to
accomplish. When war had ceased, however, there was no longer a choice
of sides, and thenceforth universal swearing as an instrument of
government became practically worthless. It was not regarded, at all
events, as an efficient security for the future. Mr. Johnson probably
continued to exact oaths of allegiance because they were formerly of
value in distinguishing the friends from the enemies of the Government.
Though professing the same general opinion on the subject of amnesty,
the principles on which the two Presidents granted pardons were
sufficiently distinct.
We have seen that President Johnson, who had once declared that “rebels”
should take a back seat in the work of reconstruction, so far changed
his opinion that he subsequently said the people must be trusted in the
restoration of their governments; he likewise modified his early
impressions as to the permanence of the establishments instituted under
his predecessor, for it was his original opinion that those governments
were merely provisional in their nature, and would require the
confirmation or the approval of Congress. Ultimately, however, he came
to regard himself as the judge of their sufficiency. The evidence of
this is conclusive. In a telegram of July 14, 1865, to Governor Sharkey,
Secretary Seward said:
“The government of the State [Mississippi] will be provisional only
until the civil authorities shall be restored, with the approval of
Congress. Meanwhile military authority cannot be withdrawn.”[492]
If it be contended that Mr. Seward made this important declaration upon
his personal responsibility the argument fails, because in a dispatch to
Governor Marvin, of Florida, dated September 12, 1865, nearly two months
later, the Secretary of State repeated the substance of the message in
language even more explicit. On that occasion he said: “It must,
however, be distinctly understood that the restoration to which your
proclamation refers will be subject to the decision of Congress.”[493]
The determination of President Johnson to retain the members of Mr.
Lincoln’s Cabinet would indicate his original intention of applying to
the subjugated States the system adopted by his predecessor. The
influence which led to the modification of the method of enforcing
without abandoning the principles underlying that plan it is not easy to
discover. His change of attitude toward the South has been variously
explained. By Mr. Blaine it has been ascribed to the flattery of
Southern leaders, as well as to the personal influence of Secretary
Seward, whose wide culture, and consequent humanity, would favor a
policy of conciliation. Without intending to underestimate the
insinuating address of the New York statesman it may be observed that
his powers of persuasion appear to have exerted themselves with most
success in the direction of the President’s inclination. The attention
of Southern leaders, a class of men by whom the President had hitherto
been ignored, deserves, however, to be noticed in any enumeration of
even the probable cause of the change. Another theory has it that Mr.
Johnson both feared and hated several of the leading Republicans,
because of their connection with a movement to procure his resignation
from the Vice-Presidency, a station which, they believed, he had
disgraced by appearing in an intoxicated state to take the oath of
office. His desire to punish those who had constituted themselves
custodians of the national dignity, it is asserted, was a principal
motive in his surrender to the South. A more reasonable explanation of
the change which occurred in the President’s attitude toward his own
section is that offered by Dr. Chadsey, who regards Mr. Johnson as an
inconsistent advocate of State Sovereignty.[494] In this principle he
believed as firmly as Jefferson Davis himself, though unlike the
Confederate chieftain he refused, by stopping short of secession, to
accept its logical results. Nearly all his administrative acts are those
which might have been expected from a Democrat of the strict
construction school, and Andrew Johnson never professed allegiance to
any other political party.
The governments of which the reorganization has been described in the
preceding pages continued in operation until suspended by the
Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867. Except Texas all these
establishments, as previously observed, had sent members to the
Thirty-ninth Congress. Their claims to seats, it is well known, were
completely ignored, and a select body, consisting of nine members from
the lower and six from the upper House, was appointed to investigate the
condition of the late Confederate States, and to report whether any of
them were entitled to representation in either branch of Congress. With
the conclusions of the celebrated Joint Committee this essay is not
concerned further than to observe that on the recommendation of the
majority the Tennessee delegation was admitted on the 24th of July,
1866. Long before that event, however, the task of restoring the Union
had been taken altogether out of Executive hands.
If we reflect how much swifter in a political organism is the progress
of ruin than that of repair, and consider that four years had been
abandoned to the destruction and disorders of civil war, we cannot but
be surprised at the attempt of the President, single-handed, to adapt
and execute in less than three months a series of measures designed to
restore tranquillity and revive prosperity among the impoverished
inhabitants of a wasted country. In this view his failure in the work of
reconstruction can excite little astonishment. One reason for this
precipitate action was a desire to reunite the sections before the
meeting of Congress, and it was so far a praiseworthy if not a prudent
course to adopt. But had he proceeded ever so leisurely there would
still have existed undoubted obstacles to success. To say that he was
lacking in the tact of his predecessor, that he was naturally of an
obstinate and even of a combative disposition, and that he possessed
defects, both of temper and judgment, would be merely to repeat a few
trite observations.[495] Conditions were rapidly changing, but with Mr.
Johnson, conditions passed for almost nothing, though in reality
circumstances make legislative acts beneficial or otherwise. Like the
measures of the Thirty-eighth Congress for restoring the Union, those of
Mr. Johnson may be carefully examined without discovering any
considerable traces of originality. Indeed, if we except President
Lincoln, this entire period seems to have been somewhat lacking in
constructive statesmanship, though no branch of the public service was
without officials of integrity, judgment and ability.
In the course of the preceding pages the inaugurals, the messages, the
letters and other communications of Mr. Lincoln have been freely quoted
to show his opinions on all of the principal and most of the subordinate
phases of reconstruction. To complete the design of this inquiry, there
remains to be considered but a single topic related to the main theme,
namely, the limitations of the Presidential plan for restoring the
Union. Many of these defects having been incidentally noticed, a general
recapitulation does not appear to be required, and the subject, it is
believed, may be appropriately concluded by an examination of those
features of the Executive system which the narrative has not hitherto
sufficiently emphasized.
This summary disclaims, however, any intention of attempting the
absurdity of testing the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln by contrasting
a method of reconstruction proposed in 1863 with that deemed adequate by
Congress to meet the changed conditions of 1867. We may, indeed, fairly
and even profitably compare the sentiments of the two political
departments in the summer of 1864, when, for the first time during the
war, they were arrayed in opposition on a fundamental policy of civil
administration. Because of its variance with received notions of
representative government, the so-called “ten _per cent._ principle”
will be first considered.
The proportion of the political people that Mr. Lincoln offered to
recognize as constituting a State encountered, probably, more opposition
than any single feature of his plan. While its merits and its defects
were equally evident, the latter, as might be expected, were given by
its adversaries the place of prominence in all their criticisms.
Exception was taken as well to the legality as to the expediency of the
principle. The former has been fully discussed, and on that subject all
that need be observed is that President Lincoln believed it
constitutional to preserve the Union, and every measure conducive to
that end he regarded as lawful.
On the question of expediency, however, several considerations suggest
themselves. Apart from its repugnance to the American idea of majority
rule, its palpable weakness was that governments founded on the consent
of a minimum proportion of the electors would require the support of
Federal power. Here occurs the question, did the forces thus engaged so
greatly impair the efficiency of the main armies as sensibly to retard
the work of destroying the enemy? It cannot be denied that there were
occasions when a few additional regiments could have been employed to
advantage; but neither the reverses nor the disasters of the Union
armies were caused by lack of numbers so much as by the need early in
the war of commanders of military genius. On the other hand, the troops
who sustained the new governments, besides weakening the Confederacy,
were affording protection to organizations that otherwise could not have
been recruited. There is record of not less than sixty-five regiments
furnished by the States restored during the Presidency of Mr.
Lincoln.[496] But even more important than this gratifying result was
the influence which the reinstatement of four seceding commonwealths
exerted on the attitude of those European powers which had proved early
in the conflict their hostility to the United States. The “Johnson
governments,” so-called, were never required to furnish any such
unquestioned evidence of reviving loyalty, and that fact should not be
overlooked in any comparison of the results accomplished by the two
Executives.
Notwithstanding the general existence of a strong opposition to minority
rule, the revolutionary proceedings in western Virginia were sanctioned
by every department of Government. Members from the loyal eastern
counties were at first admitted to seats in both branches of Congress;
their successors, however, were in turn refused this indulgence until
there was presented the novel spectacle of a single Senator representing
the diminished glory of the Old Dominion. Louisiana, too, which for a
few days was heard in the lower House, was subsequently excluded
altogether by the changing views of Congress. The revived bill of Wade
and Davis provided in one of its many forms for recognizing that State
as well as Arkansas, and even when the extremists obtained control of
Congress the loyal government organized in Tennessee was approved by
avowed opponents of the Executive plan. Mr. Lincoln, indeed, clearly
perceived the inherent weakness of his system, and no one could have
been more anxious than he to secure a wider constituency. These facts
seem to indicate that between him and Congress there was not then so
wide a gulf as, for partisan purposes, is sometimes represented. It is
true that there was a difference of principle between the two
departments; that there was a powerful party in Congress who believed
that reconstruction was essentially a work of peace and, therefore,
pertained exclusively to the national Legislature. The holders of this
view were, doubtless, confirmed in their opinion by a conviction that
the Executive was encroaching on a coördinate branch of government.
The Presidential system as well as the contemporary theory of Congress
restricted the suffrage of whites, by whom it was almost universally
engrossed at the foundation of the Republic. On the ground of justice
and to encourage the cultivation of civic virtues among the negroes, Mr.
Lincoln would admit those qualified to exercise this important
privilege. His successor acknowledged in a private communication that
for party purposes he favored some extension of the elective franchise
to freedmen. Though Congress advanced rapidly toward negro suffrage, the
first essay of that body in the work of reconstruction included no
provision for conferring on the colored race a right to participate in
government. By Wade and Davis it was not then deemed necessary even as a
defensive power. Only a few bold innovators, considered almost fanatic
on the question, were in favor of bestowing the right to vote on the
multitudes maintained by the Freedmen’s Bureau; it was not then deemed
within the commission of the general Government, the teachings of
political science were still respected by the majority in Congress, and
the fruits of victory, it was hoped, could be secured without a resort
to radical measures.
The form of an oath to support the proclamations and laws respecting
slavery appeared in the Presidential plan as a condition indispensable
to reinstatement. On this subject the difference between the Executive
and Congress was merely one of degree; for the Wade-Davis bill,
doubtless in imitation of the Presidential system, imposed terms
precedent, and the new constitutions were to repudiate the rebel debt,
abolish slavery and prohibit the higher insurgent officials, civil as
well as military, from holding the office of governor, from serving in
the State legislatures and even from voting.
By its adversaries the plan of Mr. Lincoln was condemned for its failure
to exact any security for the future beyond the oath of allegiance, the
telegraphic supervision by the President and the power of Congress over
the admission of members. This defect the legislative theory endeavored
to supply, but even the guardianship proposed by Wade and Davis could
give no assurance that the rebellious communities would not, after
reinstatement, eliminate by constitutional amendment the conditions
imposed on their readmission.[497]
However crude we may now consider Mr. Lincoln’s system it should not be
forgotten that with him the paramount consideration was the overthrow of
the Confederacy. With that purpose all his measures harmonized, and it
is scarcely critical to examine them from any other point of view. How
far necessity, which had originally suggested, would subsequently have
modified his plan it is now impossible to state. Without detracting a
particle from his well-won fame it may be admitted that his method,
which could not have foreseen the rapid succession of changes following
his death, was but indifferently adapted to solve the problem with which
Congress was compelled to deal in 1867; but the measure of permanent
success which attended the deliberate legislation of that body by no
means justifies the conclusion that some other system would have proved
a total failure. With all its immaturity the plan of the President was
not without its advantages. It aimed to restore with as little
innovation as possible the Union of the Fathers; with some exceptions
the natural leaders of Southern society were to participate in the work
of reorganization, and the author of this simple plan approached his
difficult task in a generous and enlightened spirit.
On the life and character of Abraham Lincoln an admiring generation has
exhausted the language of panegyric; the terms of censure have been
reserved almost exclusively for his method of restoring the Union; but
neither the critic’s ken, nor the ambitious phrase of eulogy, nor all
the thoughts that since his death have dropped from poets’ pens affords
that clear insight into his nature which is unconsciously revealed in
the simple and beautiful exhortation that concludes his last inaugural.
The sentiments which immortalize that celebrated state paper could have
proceeded only from the depths of a noble soul—a soul that would have
imposed silence on the voice of vengeance and would never have consented
to the revenge of section upon section. In this book an endeavor has
been made fully to discuss his plan of reconstruction; the spirit in
which he approached that difficult task is best stated in his own
generous and patriotic words, with which may be fittingly closed this
long though interesting inquiry: “With malice toward none; with charity
for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s
wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his
widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and
lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”[498]
THE END.
-----
Footnote 435:
Why the Solid South? p. 1.
Footnote 436:
This recollection has been verified by correspondence with Col. A. K.
McClure, the gentleman referred to.—=Author.=
Footnote 437:
Ex. Doc. No. 70, H. of R., 1 Sess. 39th Cong., p. 78.
Footnote 438:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 28.
Footnote 439:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 28.
Footnote 440:
Acts of the State of Tennessee, 1865, p. 33.
Footnote 441:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 779.
Footnote 442:
Ibid.
Footnote 443:
This election resulted in the choice of Nathaniel G. Taylor, Horace
Maynard, Edmund Cooper, Isaac R. Hawkins, John W. Leftwich, William B.
Stokes, William B. Campbell and Dorsey B. Thomas. The last named,
however, was affected by the Governor’s recount, and Daniel W. Arnell,
who was declared the successful candidate, was admitted to Congress
with the other Tennessee Representatives on the 24th of July, 1866.
See Why the Solid South? pp. 182–183.
Footnote 444:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 780.
Footnote 445:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 781.
Footnote 446:
Ibid.
Footnote 447:
Having been elected United States Senator, Mr. Hahn resigned the
governorship on the 4th of March and was succeeded in office by
Lieutenant-Governor Wells.
Footnote 448:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 510.
Footnote 449:
Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 39th Cong., p. 101.
Footnote 450:
Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 429; also Why the Solid
South? p. 397.
Footnote 451:
Poore’s Charters and Constitutions, Vol. II. p. 1938 _et seq._
Footnote 452:
Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 670.
Footnote 453:
Letter of Mrs. Anna Pierpont Siviter to the author.
Footnote 454:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 817.
Footnote 455:
Ibid.
Footnote 456:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 817.
Footnote 457:
McPherson’s Hand-Book of Politics, 1868, p. 46.
Footnote 458:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 800.
Footnote 459:
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. pp. 9–11.
Footnote 460:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 800.
Footnote 461:
McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, pp. 45–46.
Footnote 462:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, pp. 801–802.
Footnote 463:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 802.
Footnote 464:
Letcher and Smith were Governors of Virginia during the war.
Footnote 465:
McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, p. 8.
Footnote 466:
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. p. 70.
Footnote 467:
McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, pp. 10–11.
Footnote 468:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 626.
Footnote 469:
This ordinance was ratified by a vote of 20,506 to 2,002; Poore’s
Charters and Constitutions, Vol. II. p. 1419n; also Three Decades of
Federal Legislation, p. 385.
Footnote 470:
Ratified by 19,039 to 3,970 votes. Poore’s Charters and Constitutions,
Vol. II. p. 1419n.
Footnote 471:
McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, p. 19.
Footnote 472:
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXXII., p. 127.
Footnote 473:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 628.
Footnote 474:
McClure’s Magazine, Dec., 1899, p. 174.
Footnote 475:
The Provisional appointments were made in the following order: June
13, 1865, William L. Sharkey, Mississippi; June 17, James Johnson,
Georgia, and Andrew J. Hamilton, Texas; June 21, Lewis E. Parsons,
Alabama; June 30, Benjamin F. Perry, South Carolina; July 13, William
Marvin, Florida.
Footnote 476:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 580.
Footnote 477:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 581.
Footnote 478:
Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 583.
Footnote 479:
Constitution of the United States, by Francis N. Thorpe, p. 49.
Footnote 480:
See Why The Solid South? pp. 9–10, for an ingenious explanation of the
unanimity and promptness with which the Presidential policy of
reconstruction was accepted by the South.
Footnote 481:
Laws of Mississippi, pp. 86–88.
Footnote 482:
Ibid., pp. 89–90.
Footnote 483:
Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 82–86.
Footnote 484:
Ibid., p. 231.
Footnote 485:
Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 165–167.
Footnote 486:
Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 90–93.
Footnote 487:
Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 199–200.
Footnote 488:
Ibid., pp. 210–211.
Footnote 489:
Ibid., p. 240.
Footnote 490:
Ann. Cycl., 1866, p. 132.
Footnote 491:
Ann. Cycl., 1863, pp. 780–781.
Footnote 492:
Gorham’s Life of Stanton, Vol. II. p. 255.
Footnote 493:
McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, p. 25.
Footnote 494:
President Johnson and Reconstruction, pp. 33–34.
Footnote 495:
In this connection his repudiation of the Sherman-Johnston agreement
will occur to the reader.
Footnote 496:
Strait’s Roster of Regimental Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons, p. 314.
This estimate includes all the troops furnished by the new State of
West Virginia.
Footnote 497:
The author believes himself fortunate in being able to place before
his readers a letter from the pen of Hon. J. B. Henderson, the only
surviving Senator who participated in the debates summarized in
chapter X., and, so far as the writer is informed, the only living
member who served in the United States Senate during that eventful
period. Coming, as it does, from one who supported many of Mr.
Lincoln’s most cherished measures, the letter will be welcomed as a
valuable historical document. It contrasts forcibly the Presidential
plan with the theory of Senator Sumner, and though written on August
21, 1901, more than a generation after the occurrence of the principal
events discussed in this book, it is characterized by the clearness
and the energy of expression which marked even the unpremeditated
addresses of the Senator’s Congressional career. On the subject of
reunion he writes as follows:
“Time, in my judgment, has stamped its approval on Mr. Lincoln’s views
touching the questions of reconstruction during the Civil War. He was
always calm and judicial. He was philosophical in periods of the most
intense excitement. He never lost his head, but under all
circumstances preserved his temper and his judgment. He was not the
buffoon described by his enemies. On the contrary, he was a wise
statesman, a learned lawyer, and a conscientious patriot; and, better
than all, an honest man.
“The infirmity in Mr. Sumner’s theories of reconstruction came from
the great exuberance of his learning. He ransacked history, ancient
and modern, for precedents growing out of civil wars. But these
precedents all antedated the American Constitution. They grew out of
monarchical systems of government, and had no relation to the
republican forms created by our Constitution. Under our system there
can be no suicide of a State. Individual citizens by rebellion and
disloyalty may forfeit their political rights, but the State as an
entity commits no treason and forfeits no rights to existence. Under
our Constitution the State cannot die. It is the duty of the Federal
Government to see that it does not die—that it shall never cease to
exist. If the State be invaded from without, the duty of the General
Government is to protect and defend it. If domestic violence threatens
the subversion of the local government, the nation’s duty is to
intervene and uphold the hands of those who maintain the laws. The
trustee of an express trust cannot excuse himself to a minority of the
beneficiaries because the majority repudiate his agency.
“‘The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
republican form of government.’ No State government is republican in
form that does not acknowledge the supremacy of the Federal
Constitution. This is the essential test of republicanism. No State
can enter the Union without conforming its Constitution to this
supreme organic law. And whenever by force or violence, a majority of
its citizens undertake to withdraw the State from its obedience to
Federal law and to repudiate the sovereignty of the Federal
Government, it at once becomes the duty of Congress to act.
“This duty of Congress is not to destroy the State or to declare it a
suicide, and proceed to administer on its effects. On the contrary,
the duty clearly is to preserve the State, to restore it to its old
republican forms. Its duty is not to territorialize the State and
proceed to govern it as a conquered colony. The duty is not one of
demolition, but one of restoration. It is not to make a Constitution,
but to guarantee that the old Constitution or one equally republican
in form, and made by the loyal citizens of the State, shall be upheld
and sustained.
“If a majority of the people of a State conspire to subvert its
republican forms, that majority may be, and should be, put down by the
Federal power, while the minority, however few, sustaining republican
forms may be constitutionally installed as the political power of the
State.
“These, as I understand, were the views of Mr. Lincoln; and they were
not the views of Mr. Sumner, as enunciated in his resolutions of 1862
and advocated by him in his subsequent career in the Senate.
“A departure from these views gave us the carpet-bag governments of
the Southern States, and brought upon us divers other evils in our
ideas and theories of government, whose effects are yet visible.”
Footnote 498:
N. & H., Vol. X., p. 145.
APPENDIX A
THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS
SENATE
First session, July 4, 1861, to August 6, 1861. Republicans (31) in
Roman, Democrats (10) in _Italics_, Unionists (7) in =SMALL CAPITALS=,
vacancies 2.
Second session, Dec. 1, 1862, to Mar. 4, 1864.
CALIFORNIA.—_Milton S. Latham_ and _James A. McDougall_ (_vice_ E.
D. Baker, who died).
CONNECTICUT.—James Dixon and Lafayette S. Foster.
DELAWARE.—_James A. Bayard_ and _Willard Saulsbury_.
ILLINOIS.—Lyman Trumbull and Orville H. Browning.
INDIANA.—Henry S. Lane and _Jesse D. Bright_ (expelled Feb. 5, 1862,
and was succeeded by _David Turpie_).
IOWA.—James W. Grimes and James Harlan.
KANSAS.—James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy.
KENTUCKY.—_Lazarus W. Powell_ and =Garrett Davis= (_vice_ _John C.
Breckenridge_, expelled).
MAINE.—Lot M. Morrill and William Pitt Fessenden.
MASSACHUSETTS.—Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson.
MARYLAND.—=Anthony Kennedy= and _James A. Pearce_ (died Dec. 20,
1862, and was succeeded by =Thomas H. Hicks=).
MICHIGAN.—Zachariah Chandler and Jacob M. Howard.
MINNESOTA.—_Henry M. Rice_ and Morton S. Wilkinson.
MISSOURI.—=John B. Henderson= (_vice_ Trusten Polk, expelled) and
=Robert Wilson= (_vice_ Waldo Porter Johnson, expelled).
NEW HAMPSHIRE.—John P. Hale and Daniel Clark.
NEW YORK.—Preston King and Ira Harris.
NEW JERSEY.—John C. Ten Eyck and _John R. Thomson_ (died Sept. 12,
1862, Richard S. Field was temporarily appointed to fill the
vacancy, and James W. Wall was subsequently elected for the
unexpired term).
OHIO.—Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman (_vice_ Salmon P. Chase, who
resigned Mar. 6, 1861).
OREGON.—Edward D. Baker (died Oct. 21, 1861, and was succeeded by
=Benjamin F. Harding=) and _James W. Nesmith_.
PENNSYLVANIA.—Edgar Cowan and David Wilmot (_vice_ Simon Cameron,
who resigned in March, 1861).
RHODE ISLAND.—Henry B. Anthony and James F. Simmons (resigned,
=Samuel G. Arnold= elected to fill the unexpired term).
VERMONT.—Solomon Foot and Jacob Collamer.
VIRGINIA.—=Waitman T. Willey= and =John S. Carlile=.
WISCONSIN.—James R. Doolittle and Timothy O. Howe.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
CALIFORNIA.—Aaron A. Sargent, Timothy G. Phelps, Frederick F. Low.
CONNECTICUT.—Dwight Loomis, _James E. English_, Alfred A. Burnham,
_George C. Woodruff_.
DELAWARE.—=George P. Fisher.=
ILLINOIS.—Elihu B. Washburne, Isaac N. Arnold, Owen Lovejoy, William
Kellogg, _William A. Richardson_, _James C. Robinson_, _Philip B.
Fouke_, _John A. Logan_.
INDIANA.—_John Law_, _James A. Cravens_, William McKee Dunn,
_William S. Holman_, George W. Julian, Albert G. Porter, _Daniel
W. Voorhees_, Albert S. White, Schuyler Colfax, William Mitchell,
John P. C. Shanks.
IOWA.—James F. Wilson, William Vandever.
KANSAS.—Martin F. Conway.
KENTUCKY.—=James S. Jackson= (died in 1862 and was succeeded by
=George H. Yeaman=), =Henry Grider=, =Aaron Harding=, =Charles A.
Wickliffe=, =George W. Dunlap=, =Robert Mallory=, =John J.
Crittenden=, =William H. Wadsworth=, =John W. Menzies=, =Samuel L.
Casey= (_vice_ Mr. Burnett, expelled).
MAINE.—John N. Goodwin, Charles W. Walton (resigned, Thos. A. D.
Fessenden elected to fill vacancy), Samuel C. Fessenden, Anson P.
Morrill, John H. Rice, Frederick A. Pike.
MARYLAND.—=John W. Crisfield=, =Edwin H. Webster=, =Cornelius L. L.
Leary=, _Henry May_, =Francis Thomas=, =Charles B. Calvert=.
MASSACHUSETTS.—Thomas D. Eliot, James Buffinton, Benjamin F. Thomas
(sometimes classed as a Unionist), Alexander H. Rice, Samuel
Hooper, John B. Alley, Daniel W. Gooch, Charles R. Train,
Goldsmith F. Bailey (died May 8, 1862, and was succeeded by Amasa
Walker), Charles Delano, Henry L. Dawes.
MICHIGAN.—Bradley F. Granger, Fernando C. Beaman, Francis W.
Kellogg, Rowland E. Trowbridge.
MINNESOTA.—Cyrus Aldrich and William Windom.
MISSOURI.—Francis P. Blair, jr. (resigned in 1862), =James S.
Rollins=, =William A. Hall=, _Elijah H. Norton_, =Thomas L.
Price=, _John S. Phelps_, _John W. Noell_.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.—Gilman Marston, Edward H. Rollins, Thomas M. Edwards.
NEW JERSEY.—John T. Nixon, John L. N. Stratton, _William G. Steele_,
_George T. Cobb_, _Nehemiah Perry_.
NEW YORK.—_Edward H. Smith_, _Moses F. Odell_, _Benjamin Wood_,
_James E. Kerrigan_, William Wall, Frederick A. Conkling, _Elijah
Ward_, _Isaac C. Delaplaine_, _Edward Haight_, Charles H. Van
Wyck, _John B. Steele_, Stephen Baker, Abraham B. Olin, _Erastus
Corning_, James B. McKean, William A. Wheeler, Socrates N.
Sherman, _Chauncey Vibbard_, Richard Franchot, Roscoe Conkling, R.
Holland Duell, William E. Lansing, Ambrose W. Clark, Charles B.
Sedgwick, Theodore M. Pomeroy, Jacob P. Chamberlain, Alexander S.
Diven, Robert B. Van Valkenburg, Alfred Ely, Augustus Frank, Burt
Van Horn, Elbridge G. Spaulding, Reuben E. Fenton.
OHIO.—_George H. Pendleton_, John A. Gurley, _Clement L.
Vallandigham_, _William Allen_, James M. Ashley, _Chilton A.
White_, =Richard A. Harrison=, Samuel Shellabarger, _Warren P.
Noble_, Carey A. Trimble, Valentine B. Horton, _Samuel S. Cox_,
Samuel T. Worcester, Harrison G. Blake, _Robert H. Nugen_, William
P. Cutler, _James R. Morris_, Sidney Edgerton, Albert G. Riddle,
John Hutchins, John A. Bingham.
OREGON.—George K. Shiel.
PENNSYLVANIA.—_William E. Lehman_, _Charles J. Biddle_, John P.
Verree, William D. Kelley, William Morris Davis, John Hickman,
_Thomas B. Cooper_ (died April 4, 1862, and was succeeded by John
D. Stiles), _Sydenham E. Ancona_, Thaddeus Stevens, John W.
Killinger, James H. Campbell, =Hendrick B. Wright=, _Philip
Johnson_, Galusha A. Grow, James T. Hale, _Joseph Baily_, Edward
McPherson, Samuel S. Blair, John Covode, _Jesse Lazear_, James K.
Moorhead, Robert McKnight, John W. Wallace, John Patton, Elijah
Babbitt.
RHODE ISLAND.—=George H. Browne=, =William P. Sheffield=.
TENNESSEE.—=Horace Maynard.=
VERMONT.—Ezekiel P. Walton, Justin S. Morrill, Portus Baxter.
VIRGINIA.—=Charles H. Upton=, =Edmund Pendleton=, =William G.
Brown=, =Jacob B. Blair=, =Killian V. Whaley=, =Joseph E. Segar=.
WISCONSIN.—John F. Potter, Luther Hanchett (died Nov. 24, 1862, and
was succeeded by Walter McIndoe), A. Scott Sloan.
DELEGATES FROM TERRITORIES
COLORADO.—Hiram P. Bennett.
DAKOTA.—John B. S. Todd.
NEBRASKA.—Samuel G. Daily.
NEVADA.—_John C. Cradlebaugh._
NEW MEXICO.—John S. Watts.
UTAH.—_John M. Bernhisel._
WASHINGTON.—James H. Wallace.
APPENDIX B
THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS
SENATE
First regular session, Dec. 7, 1863, to July 4, 1864.
Second session from Dec. 5, 1864, to March 3, 1865.
CALIFORNIA.—John Conness and _James A. McDougall_.
CONNECTICUT.—James Dixon and Lafayette S. Foster.
DELAWARE.—_Willard Saulsbury_ and _George Read Riddle_ (_vice_
Senator _Bayard_, who resigned).
ILLINOIS.—_William A. Richardson_ and Lyman Trumbull.
INDIANA.—_Thomas A. Hendricks_ and Henry S. Lane.
IOWA.—James Harlan and James W. Grimes.
KANSAS.—Samuel C. Pomeroy and James H. Lane.
KENTUCKY.—=Garrett Davis= (Senator =Davis= is sometimes mentioned as
a Democrat) and _Lazarus W. Powell_.
MAINE.—Lot M. Morrill and William Pitt Fessenden (resigned in 1864,
and was succeeded by Nathan A. Farwell).
MASSACHUSETTS.—Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson.
MARYLAND.—=Reverdy Johnson= and =Thomas H. Hicks= (died Feb. 13,
1865).
MICHIGAN.—Zachariah Chandler and Jacob M. Howard.
MINNESOTA.—Alexander Ramsey and Morton S. Wilkinson.
MISSOURI.—John B. Henderson (sometimes mentioned as a Unionist) and
B. Gratz Brown (_vice_ Waldo Porter Johnson, expelled, Robert
Wilson having been appointed _pro tem._).
NEW HAMPSHIRE.—Daniel Clark and John P. Hale.
NEW JERSEY.—_William Wright_ and John C. Ten Eyck.
NEW YORK.—Edwin D. Morgan and Ira Harris.
OHIO.—Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman.
OREGON.—Benjamin F. Harding and _James W. Nesmith_.
PENNSYLVANIA.—_Charles R. Buckalew_ and Edgar Cowan.
RHODE ISLAND.—William Sprague and Henry B. Anthony.
VERMONT.—Solomon Foot and Jacob Collamer.
VIRGINIA.—=Lemuel J. Bowden= and =John S. Carlile= (sometimes
mentioned as a Democrat).
WEST VIRGINIA.—Waitman T. Willey and Peter G. Van Winkle.
WISCONSIN.—James R. Doolittle and Timothy O. Howe.
NEVADA.—James W. Nye and William M. Stewart.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
CALIFORNIA.—Thomas B. Shannon, William Higby, Cornelius Cole.
CONNECTICUT.—Henry C. Deming, _James E. English_, Augustus
Brandegee, John H. Hubbard.
DELAWARE.—Nathaniel B. Smithers.
ILLINOIS.—Isaac N. Arnold, John F. Farnsworth, Elihu B. Washburne,
_Charles M. Harris_, Owen Lovejoy (died Mar. 25, 1864, and was
succeeded by Ebon C. Ingersoll), Jesse O. Norton, _John R. Eden_,
_John T. Stuart_, _Lewis W. Ross_, _Anthony L. Knapp_, _James C.
Robinson_, _William R. Morrison_, _William J. Allen_, _James C.
Allen_.
INDIANA.—_John Law_, _James A. Cravens_, _Henry W. Harrington_,
_William S. Holman_, George W. Julian, Ebenezer Dumont, _Daniel W.
Voorhees_, Godlove S. Orth, Schuyler Colfax, _Joseph K. Edgerton_,
_James F. McDowell_.
IOWA.—James F. Wilson, Hiram Price, William B. Allison, J. B.
Grinnell, John A. Kasson, A. W. Hubbard.
KANSAS.—A. Carter Wilder.
KENTUCKY.—Lucien Anderson, =George H. Yeaman=, =Henry Grider=,
=Aaron Harding=, =Robert Mallory=, Green Clay Smith, Brutus J.
Clay, William H. Randall, =William H. Wadsworth=.
MAINE.—_Lorenzo D. M. Sweat_, Sidney Perham, James G. Blaine, John
H. Rice, Frederick A. Pike.
MARYLAND.—John A. J. Cresswell, Edwin H. Webster, Henry Winter
Davis, Francis Thomas, _Benjamin G. Harris_.
MASSACHUSETTS.—Thomas D. Eliot, Oakes Ames, Alexander H. Rice,
Samuel Hooper, John B. Alley, Daniel W. Gooch, George S. Boutwell,
John D. Baldwin, William B. Washburn, Henry L. Dawes.
MICHIGAN.—Fernando C. Beaman, Charles Upson, John W. Longyear,
Francis W. Kellogg, _Augustus C. Baldwin_, John F. Driggs.
MINNESOTA.—William Windom, Ignatius Donnelly.
MISSOURI.—=Francis P. Blair=, jr. (seat successfully contested by
Samuel Knox of St. Louis), Henry T. Blow, _John G. Scott_, Joseph
W. McClurg, Sempronius H. Boyd, _Austin A. King_, Benjamin F.
Loan, _William A. Hall_, _James S. Rollins_.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.—_Daniel Marcy_, Edward H. Rollins, James W.
Patterson.
NEW JERSEY.—John F. Starr, _George Middleton_, _William G. Steele_,
_Andrew J. Rogers_, _Nehemiah Perry_.
NEW YORK.—_Henry G. Stebbins_ (resigned in 1864 and was succeeded by
_Dwight Townsend_), _Martin Kalbfleisch_, _Moses F. Odell_,
_Benjamin Wood_, _Fernando Wood_, _Elijah Ward_, _John W.
Chanler_, _James Brooks_, _Anson Herrick_, _William Radford_,
_Charles H. Winfield_, _Homer A. Nelson_, _John B. Steele_, _John
V. L. Pruyn_, _John A. Griswold_, Orlando Kellogg, Calvin T.
Hulburd, James M. Marvin, Samuel F. Miller, Ambrose W. Clark,
_Francis Kernan_, DeWitt C. Littlejohn, Thomas T. Davis, Theodore
M. Pomeroy, Daniel Morris, Giles W. Hotchkiss, Robert Van
Valkenburg, Freeman Clark, Augustus Frank, _John B. Ganson_,
Reuben E. Fenton (resigned Dec. 10, 1864).
OHIO.—_George H. Pendleton_, _Alexander Long_, Robert C. Schenck,
_J. F. McKinney_, _Frank C. Le Blond_, _Chilton A. White_, _Samuel
S. Cox_, _William Johnson_, _Warren P. Noble_, James M. Ashley,
_Wells A. Hutchins_, _William E. Fink_, _John O’Neill_, _George
Bliss_, _James R. Morris_, _Joseph W. White_, Ephraim R. Eckley,
Rufus P. Spaulding, James A. Garfield.
OREGON.—John R. McBride.
PENNSYLVANIA.—_Samuel J. Randall_, Charles O’Neill, Leonard Myers,
William D. Kelley, M. Russell Thayer, _John D. Stiles_, John M.
Broomall, _Sydenham E. Ancona_, Thaddeus Stevens, _Myer Strouse_,
_Philip Johnson_, _Charles Dennison_, Henry W. Tracy, _William H.
Miller_, _Joseph Bailey_, _Alexander H. Coffroth_, _Archibald
McAllister_, James T. Hale, Glenni W. Scofield, Amos Myers, _John
L. Dawson_, James K. Moorhead, Thomas Williams, _Jesse Lazear_.
RHODE ISLAND.—Thomas A. Jenckes, Nathan F. Dixon.
VERMONT.—Frederick E. Woodbridge, Justin S. Morrill, Portus Baxter.
VIRGINIA.—Had Senators but no Representatives. =Joseph Segar=,
=Lucius H. Chandler= and =Benjamin M. Kitchen=, claimants for
seats, were not admitted.
WEST VIRGINIA.—Jacob B. Blair, William G. Brown, Killian V.
Whaley.[499]
WISCONSIN.—_James S. Brown_, Ithamar C. Sloan, Amasa Cobb, _Charles
A. Eldridge_, _Ezra Wheeler_, Walter D. McIndoe.
DELEGATES FROM TERRITORIES
ARIZONA.—Charles D. Poston.
COLORADO.—Hiram P. Bennett.
DAKOTA.—William Jayne (seat successfully contested by John B. S.
Todd).
IDAHO.—William H. Wallace.
MONTANA.—Samuel McLean.
NEBRASKA.—Samuel G. Daily.
NEVADA (admitted as a State).—Gordon N. Mott (Henry G. Worthington
was elected Representative when Nevada became a State).
NEW MEXICO.—Francisco Perea.
UTAH.—_John F. Kenney._
WASHINGTON.—_George E. Cole._
-----
Footnote 499:
The West Virginia Representatives took their seats Dec. 7, 1863.
INDEX
_A_
Abolition societies, Southern, ended by new industrial era, 5
Adams, Charles Francis, 50
Alabama, in Federal control, 50;
Arkansas Legislature addressed by commissioner from, 77;
insurrection in, 314;
injury sustained by, 437
Alabama, The, 50, 288
Albemarle, The, destruction of, 288
Alexandria, capital of loyal Virginia, 129;
convention meets at, 130;
blockade of, rescinded, 133;
Legislature assembles at, 137;
ceases to be capital, 446;
recognition of government of, marks no distinct Executive policy, 448
Alleghany Mountains, Virginia divided by, 96
Allegiance, oath of, 24;
Governor Johnson’s modification of, 27;
registration of, 28;
required of Louisiana voters, 45;
value of, 487
Allen, Henry Watkins, end of administration of, 418;
mentioned for governor of Louisiana, 422
Amendment, Thirteenth, Hampton Roads conference refers to, 399;
adoption of, by Georgia Legislature, 466
Amnesty and Reconstruction, Lincoln’s proclamation of, 23, 24, 25, 224;
authority for, 24;
classes excepted from benefits of, 25;
explanation of, 28;
applied in Louisiana, 61;
Howard’s reference to, 365;
Johnson’s proclamation of, 450;
Seward’s approval of, 451;
all insurgent States affected by, 452.
See Reconstruction
Anthony, Lieutenant-Colonel, arrest of, 169
Antietam, Md., Lee defeated at, 186
Arkansas, effect of Union victories in, 10;
enrolling agent sent to, 27;
loyal part of, 77;
Alabama commissioner addresses Legislature of, 77;
position of, 77;
interests of, 77;
opposition to separate State action in, 77;
convention bill passed by, 77;
conditional secession defeated in, 78;
influence of President’s inaugural in, 78;
secession of, 78;
secession favored by Governor of, 78;
military preparations in, 78;
confiscation ordinance of, 78;
Confederate Congress admit delegates from, 79;
convention conflicts with government of, 79;
military division of, 79;
dissatisfaction among soldiers of, 80;
troops of, in Confederate army, 80;
indifference of Germans and Irish, 80;
bonds of, 81;
Union sentiment in, 81;
menaced by Federal troops, 81;
flight of Governor, 82;
troops sent to Corinth from, 82;
John S. Phelps, military governor of, 82;
regiments furnished Union army by, 83;
return of leading secessionists, 83;
Federal reverses in, 84;
reconstruction of, 85;
amended constitution of, 88;
Confederate debt repudiated by, 88;
division among Union men of, 88;
Lincoln’s letter on reconstruction in, 89;
Gen. Steele’s address to people of, 90;
election in, 90;
adoption of amended constitution for, 90;
Congressman elected in, 91;
Congress excludes Representatives from, 91;
no Presidential election in, 92, 195;
legality of government of, maintained by Lincoln, 195;
loyal government in, 286;
insurrection in, 314;
Reverdy Johnson favors recognition of, 378;
Thirteenth Amendment ratified by, 409;
slavery abolished by constitution of, 410;
disfranchising act of, 410;
loyal government acquiesced in, 410;
pacification of, 411;
destitution in parts of, 412
Arnell, Daniel W., election of, 415
Arnold, Isaac N., resolution introduced by, 170
Army of the United States, Provost Court of, 40;
discontinuance of enlistments for, 408;
mustering out of volunteers in the, 409
Ascension, parish of, vote in, 74
Ashley, James M., reconstruction bill reported by, 289;
proposal to confer suffrage on negro soldiers and sailors, 294;
no provision for education of negroes in bill of, 298;
effects of reconstruction bill of, 302;
substitute introduced by, 304;
remarks on reconstruction by, 304;
motives for compromise offered by, 306;
reconstruction bill of, tabled, 311;
revived bill of, 312;
explanation of inconsistency of, 312;
reconstruction bill of, tabled, 313;
remarks on reconstruction by, 313
Atlantic Monthly, The, Sumner’s article in, 200
_B_
Baker, Joshua, member-elect from Louisiana, 56
Baldwin, Augustus C., reconstruction bill opposed by, 241
Baltimore convention, Lincoln renominated by, 32;
Lincoln did not openly influence, 34;
adjournment of, 277
Bancroft, George, relief meeting presided over by, 150;
address of, 151;
letter of, to Lincoln, 151;
Lincoln’s letter to, 152
Banks, N. P., expedition of, 43;
at Port Hudson, 49;
plans for invasion of Texas, 51;
petition of New Orleans convention to, 59;
intention of ordering an election, 61;
Free State General Committee’s attack of, 61;
decides against Free State Committee, 64;
Gen. Shepley’s disagreement with, 64;
Lincoln’s letter to, 65;
reconstruction letter of, 66;
Lincoln appreciates services of, 67;
urged by President to reconstruct Louisiana, 67;
date for election fixed by, 67;
Shepley’s registration approved by, 68;
proclamation by, 69;
order of, relative to election, 69;
letter to Lincoln, 70;
date of delegate election fixed by, 74;
before Congressional committee, 75;
Boutwell’s defence of, 255;
Powell’s criticism of, 346;
Governor Wells not in harmony with, 418
Bates, Edward, Attorney-General, letter to A. F. Ritchie, 105;
on admission of West Virginia, 123;
on Norfolk affairs, 135;
letter to Marshal McDowell, 147
Batesville, Gen. Curtis’s occupation of, 82
Baton Rouge, secession convention in, 36
Baxter, Elisha, election of, 91
Bayard, James F., 103;
admission of West Virginia Senators opposed by, 193
Bell, Joseph M., 40
Bell and Everett, vote for in Louisiana, 37
Belmont, August, Lincoln’s letter to, 39
Benjamin, Judah P., resignation of, 76, 424
Bent, Charles, 12
Berkeley County, provision for annexing to West Virginia, 110;
annexation of, 127
Bingham, John A., debate on West Virginia closed by, 119
Black, Jeremiah S., diplomatic mission of, 390
Blaine, James G., 73;
existence of schism in Republican party ignored by, 313;
quotation from, 441;
Johnson’s change of policy explained by, 489
Blair, Francis P., Sr., Lincoln interviewed by, 390;
camp of Gen. Grant visited by, 391;
Jefferson Davis interviewed by, 391;
plan of reunion proposed by, 391;
Mr. Davis’s letter to, 393;
Lincoln’s letter to, 394;
mission a failure, 394
Blair, Montgomery, on admission of West Virginia, 123;
time of emancipation deemed inopportune by, 188;
reply to Sumner by, 208
Bliss, C. C., 88
Blockade of Louisiana ports, 37
Blow, Henry T., remarks on reconstruction by, 301
Bonzano, M. F., election of, 76;
seat in Congress claimed by, 341;
report by Committee of Elections on, 341
Bordeaux, visit of Confederate naval agent to, 50
Border States, Lincoln supported by delegates from, 1;
Cotton States expected aid from, 161;
Lincoln interviewed by Congressmen from, 163, 171;
interests of South bound up with, 171;
majority reply of Congressmen from, 173;
emancipation proclamation did not affect status of slaves in, 383
Boreman, Arthur I., 100, 128, 129
Bouligny, John E., 43
Boutwell, George S., reconstruction speech of, 254;
President Johnson visited by, 458
Bowden, Lemuel J., 131, 138
Boyers, J. E., 128
Bradley, General, 79
Bragg, General, raid of, 19
Brandegee, Augustus, 342
Brazos, battle of, 50
Breckenridge, John C., election of, 316
Bright, Hon. John, Sumner’s letters to, 200, 290
Brooks, James, inquiry of, 225
Brown, B. Gratz, substitute of, 264;
amendment of, 272
Brown John, 142
Brown, William G., bill of, 113;
remarks on admission of West Virginia, 114
Brownlow, William G., 7;
unites in call for convention, 21, 29;
nomination of, 31;
election of, 32;
Mr. Johnson’s dispatch to, 414;
remarks on negro suffrage, 416;
policy recommended by, 417
Brownson, Orestes, theory of State suicide summarized by, 210
Bryant, William Cullen, 150
Buchanan, James, election of, 316
Buell, General Don Carlos, army of, 3, 10, 19;
treatment of fugitive slaves by, 158
Bullett, Cuthbert, Lincoln’s letter to, 39
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. See Freedmen’s Bureau
Burke, Edmund, 200
Burnside, General Ambrose E., 150
Butler, General Benjamin F., 33;
investigation of, 38, 39;
relieved from command, 40;
Lincoln’s letter to, 44;
new department assigned to, 133;
Pierpont criticised by, 134;
Attorney-General criticised by, 135;
Lincoln’s letter to, 136;
department of Virginia commanded by, 143;
fugitive slaves arrive at camp of, 144, 147;
legal defence of attitude toward slaves, 146
_C_
Caldwell, A. B., 128
California, Upper, 12;
admission of, 13;
first election in, 350
Cameron, Simon, Butler’s treatment of slaves approved by, 146
Campbell, John A., commissioner to Hampton Roads conference, 393, 395
Campbell, William B., election of, 415
Canby, General E. R. S., Lincoln’s letter to, 402
Carey, John B., fugitive slave law pleaded by, 144
Carlile, John S., 98;
election of, 103;
admission of, to United States Senate, 104;
speech on admission of West Virginia, 111;
term expires, 131;
reconstruction speech of, 267
Chadsey, Charles E., President Johnson’s surrender to the South
explained by, 489
Chandler, Lucius H., Representative-elect from Virginia, 131;
remarks of, 132;
exclusion of, 133
Chandler, Zachariah, interest in reconstruction bill, 274;
Sumner’s opposition to Trumbull’s resolution supported by, 380
Chase, Salmon P., on admission of West Virginia, 121;
authorized to organize labor of abandoned slaves, 160, 386;
emancipation favored by, 180;
quotation from diary of, 186;
conservatism of Lincoln observed by, 275;
Andrew Johnson takes oath of office before, 408
Chattanooga, 4;
taken by Federal forces, 22
Clark, Daniel, remarks on reconstruction by, 376
Clarke, Governor Charles, insurgent legislature convoked by, 459;
imprisonment of, 460;
petition for pardon of, 460
Clarke, Isaac E., 43
Cleveland, Tennessee, 4
Colfax, Schuyler, on admission of West Virginia, 115
Collamer, Jacob, on admission of West Virginia, 111;
substitute of, 328;
amendment of substitute, 334;
defeat of amendment of, 334;
defeat of substitute of, 336;
remarks on electoral vote of Louisiana by, 328, 335
Colonization, suggested by Lincoln, 153;
resolutions of Baltimore Union Convention on, 167;
message of Governor Brownlow on, 416
Colored troops, Lincoln urges raising of, 20, 22;
General Hunter recommends raising of, 180;
policy of enlistment of, 386
Committee, Central Executive of Louisiana, 53
Committee, Free State General of Louisiana, 47, 54, 59, 61;
controversy of, with General Banks, 62;
confers with General Shepley, 63;
friends of, protest against election, 70
Confederate army, Louisiana troops in, 37;
Arkansas troops in, 80;
driven from western Virginia, 98
Confederate Government, offer of Arkansas to, 80;
Arkansas not aided by, 81, 82;
hold of, weakened in Arkansas, 83;
aid from border States expected by, 171
Confederate officers, disfranchisement of, 236
Confederate States, theory that disunionists were in a minority in,
192;
functionaries in, not bound by oaths, 204;
governments of, vacated, 205;
governments could be organized by Congress in, 206;
Constitution the only law in, 206;
power of Congress over, 210;
people of, unable to plead Constitution, 212;
original idea relative to reorganization of, 213;
Stevens’s idea of status of, 214;
status of, 260;
approaching disruption of, 286;
rights of citizens in, 366;
political rights of people in, 367;
no foreign engagements entered into by, 391;
anarchy threatens many of, 409, 431;
Federal troops preserve order in, 432;
obstacles to restoration in, 432;
blockade of, 444;
importance of understanding public opinion in, 471;
legislation of, 472;
prompt acquiescence of, 472;
sentiments of citizens of, 474;
Congress excludes delegations from, 474;
reaction in, 482;
Northern example no defence of legislation in, 485;
reconstructed not very different from disloyal governments of, 486;
States represented at opening of 39th Congress, 489;
Congress ignores claims of members from, 490
Confiscation, in Arkansas, 78
Congress, amnesty authorized by, 24;
President disclaims authority to admit members to, 26;
electoral vote of Tennessee excluded by, 35;
Representatives from Louisiana admitted to, 46;
Louisiana elects members to, 55;
organization of, 55;
Louisiana not redistricted by, 57;
A. P. Field denied admission to, 60;
Louisiana elects members to, 76;
government of Louisiana not recognized by, 76;
electoral vote of Louisiana excluded by, 76;
Arkansas elects members to, 91;
consents to transfer of Virginia counties, 127;
resolution on compensated emancipation passed by, 167;
slavery in Territories abolished by, 170;
confiscation act of, 179;
restored Virginia recognized by, 191;
President in agreement with, 191;
slavery in rebellious States should be ended by, 197;
power possessed over seceding States by, 206;
doctrines of Stevens abhorrent to members of, 216;
unanimity of, 221;
reconstruction discussed by, 224;
form of State government should be determined by, 228;
reconstruction bill passed by, 273;
Lincoln’s contest with, 284;
President disclaims right to admit members to, 287;
constitutional amendment passed by, 288;
exclusion of electoral votes by resolution of, 338;
protest against admission of members to, 341;
power to readmit States resides in, 358;
authority over rebellious States possessed by, 365;
desire to discipline South winning adherents in, 407;
Johnson’s distrust of, 461;
why reconstruction conventions should have been called by, 470;
Southern States reorganized at meeting of, 486;
Johnson intended to be guided by, 488;
Presidential system suspended by legislation of, 489;
Southern members not admitted to, 490;
reconstruction assumed by, 490;
suffrage in the first reconstruction measure, 494
Confederate Congress, 36;
admission of Arkansas delegates to, 79
Contrabands, multitudes of, in camp of General Butler, 147
Constitution, The, those who repudiate cannot plead provisions of, 212,
213;
ceases to be a restraint on Government, 213;
State in rebellion not embraced by, 214;
scope of not contracted by secession ordinances, 218;
necessity as an interpreter of, 222;
number of States necessary to ratify amendment of, 232;
Georgia adopts Thirteenth Amendment of, 466
Constitutional Union men, attitude of, 7
Convention bill, defeated by popular vote in Tennessee, 8
Convention, Lincoln nominated by the Chicago, 1;
Southern commercial held at Knoxville, 6;
the Greeneville, 9;
the Nashville, 30;
meeting of the Louisiana constitutional, 75;
the Arkansas constitutional, 87;
the Richmond secession, 93;
the Wheeling, 99, 104;
ordinances of the Wheeling, 100;
the Wheeling votes on dismemberment, 101;
the Wheeling adjourns, 101, 107;
the Wheeling authorizes formation of new State, 105;
slavery in the Wheeling, 107;
meeting of the Baltimore Union, 167;
revolutionary character of the Wheeling, 468
Conventions, the reconstruction, character of, 468;
irregularity of those called under Presidential plan, 469;
why Congress should have called, 470;
character and work of those called by President Johnson, 470;
origin would not affect work of, if acquiesced in, 472
Conway, Martin, speech on West Virginia by, 113
Cooper, Edmund, election of, 415
Cooper Union, Lincoln’s address in, 1;
relief meeting in, 150
Cottman, Thomas, 48;
election of, 56;
Lincoln’s letter to, 64
Cotton States, aid from border States expected by, 161
Cowan, Edgar, on admission of Mr. Segar, 139;
remarks on electoral vote of Louisiana, 330, 332;
inquiry of, concerning electoral votes, 338
Cox, Samuel S., reconstruction speech of, 252
Crane, Samuel, 128
Cravens, James A., reconstruction speech of, 249
Creole, The, 6
Crisfield, John W., interview with Lincoln reported by, 163
Crittenden, John J., speech on West Virginia by, 116
Crittenden Resolution, introduction of, 220;
Mr. Strouse refers to, 249
Cruisers, Confederate, 50
Curtin, Governor Andrew G., 98
Cutler, R. King, Senator-elect from Louisiana, 76, 343, 424
_D_
Davis, Garrett, admission of West Virginia Senators opposed by, 128;
resolutions of, 210
Davis, Henry Winter, remarks on Louisiana election, 58;
amendment of, 225;
chairman of Committee on Rebellious States, 226;
reconstruction address of, 226;
on Southern loyalists, 231;
on modes of establishing republican governments, 232;
Thirteenth Amendment approved by, 232;
policy of Lincoln criticised by, 232;
protest of against policy of Lincoln, 279;
character of, 283;
defeat of, for renomination, 284;
postponement of Ashley’s bill opposed by, 295;
reconstruction speech of, 307;
last reconstruction speech in Congress, 310;
alliance with Stevens, 311;
motion relative to Louisiana, 341
Davis, Jefferson, Blair’s interview with, 391;
proposal for joint invasion of Mexico entertained by, 392;
letter to Mr. Blair, 393;
on Lincoln’s assassination, 407;
members of Mississippi convention intercede for, 460;
Georgia convention invokes Executive clemency in behalf of, 466
Davis-Wade Bill, passed by House, 262;
passed by Senate, 273;
Lincoln’s action on, 273;
proclamation concerning, 277;
no provision for negro suffrage in, 494
Dawes, Henry L., on Louisiana Representatives, 56;
on admission of West Virginia, 116;
report on Mr. Segar’s election, 131;
on election of Mr. Chandler, 132;
reconstruction speech of, 295;
Mr. Davis’s criticism of, 306;
bill of Representative Wilson criticised by, 312;
report on election of Mr. Bonzano, 341;
remarks of, 342
Delaware, slave interest in, 155;
Lincoln’s bill for compensated emancipation in, 155;
Federalist party in, 157;
Federal interference in, 377
Democratic party, defeat of, 1;
vote of, in West Virginia, 129;
reconstruction theory of, 218;
attitude on reconstruction, 220;
negro suffrage opposed by New Orleans convention of, 421;
South misled by attitude of, 483
Dennison, Charles, reconstruction speech of, 247
Dennison, William, 32
Dickinson, Daniel S., 33
District of Columbia, slaves not allowed to depart from, 148;
colored persons liable to arrest if found in, 152;
compensation to owners of slaves in, 167
Dix, General John A., 33;
treatment of fugitive slaves by, 149
Donnelly, Ignatius, reconstruction speech of, 245
Doolittle, James R., credentials of Mr. Underwood offered by, 141;
reconstruction bill opposed by, 273;
on electoral vote of Louisiana, 324, 326, 333;
remarks on Louisiana, 348;
policy of Administration supported by, 380;
credentials of Mr. Hahn offered by, 383
Doubleday, General Abner, treatment of fugitive slaves by, 159
Douglas-Lincoln debates, 1
Dorr, Thomas W., government under, 350
Dunlap, George W., admission of West Virginia opposed by, 214
Durant, Thomas J., 47;
Attorney-General of Louisiana, 48;
registry conducted by, 51;
spokesman of planters, 53;
enrollment by, satisfactory to Lincoln, 63;
disagreement with General Banks, 65;
protest of, against election, 348;
recognition of Louisiana opposed by, 378
Durell, E. H., 75
_E_
East, E. H., 28
Edgerton, Joseph K., reconstruction speech of, 219, 301
Election, Presidential, loss of a pretext for secession, 1;
in Tennessee, 29;
in Arkansas, 92;
in West Virginia, 129;
electoral votes in, 338;
result of, 339
Elections, Committee of, report on Louisiana Representative, 56
Electoral College, bill on representation in, 314
Eliot, Thomas W., amendment to reconstruction bill offered by, 289;
reconstruction speech of, 292;
Stevens’s interruption of, 294;
Davis’s criticism of, 306;
bill for bureau of emancipation introduced by, 386
Emancipation, in Tennessee, 22;
East Tennessee convention favors immediate, 29;
Lincoln’s proclamation of, 47;
proclamation of not to be revoked, 52;
vote on, in West Virginia, 110;
in West Virginia constitution, 125;
Lincoln suggests compensated, 155;
Lincoln considering, 178;
discussion in Cabinet, 180;
draft of proclamation of, 181;
urged by Chicago clergymen, 184;
not hastened by deputations, 186;
Lincoln reads proclamation of, 187;
Sumner proposes to convert proclamation of, into law, 272;
effect of proclamation on status of slaves, 384;
discussed at Hampton Roads Conference, 398;
Lincoln favored gradual, 398
Emancipation, compensated, Lincoln prepares bill on, 155;
message refers to, 161;
New York Tribune favors, 164;
resolution of Congress on, 167;
Baltimore Union convention’s resolution on, 167;
House of Representatives appoints committee on, 168
Emancipator, The, 5
England, Cromwell’s division of, 200
Europe, the civil war pleasing to powers of, 393
_F_
Federalist, The, 269
Fellows, John Q. A., nomination of, 69;
defeat of, 70
Fishback, William M., Lincoln’s letter to, 89;
election of, 91
Fisher, George P., interest in compensated emancipation, 155
Flanders, Benjamin F., election of, 46;
Lincoln’s letter to, 52;
vote received by, 60;
interview with Lincoln, 63;
nomination of, 69;
defeat of, 70;
hostility of Congress toward Louisiana said to have been promoted by,
73
Florida, martial law proclaimed over, 168;
unworthy of a place in the Union, 256;
insurrection in, 314;
damage sustained by, 436;
nature of reorganized government of, 488
Florida, The, capture of, 288
Forfeiture, State, idea of, 204
Forrest, General, 15
Fort Donelson, General Grant in possession of, 10
Fort Henry, Federal occupation of, 10
Fortress Monroe, fugitive slaves at, 144, 385
Foster, Lafayette S., reconstruction policy of Lincoln supported by,
380
Fowler, Joseph S., election of, 413
France, relations with, 409
Franchise, elective, in Tennessee to be fixed by Legislature, 30;
free negroes of Louisiana petition for, 55;
States have always exercised right to confer, 452
Franchise, negro, Lincoln’s opinion concerning, 73.
See Negroes
Frederick City, 184
Frederic County, provision for annexing to West Virginia, 110
Freedmen, no provision for education of, 298;
Brownlow would admit testimony of, 416;
character of, 416;
Southern feeling toward, 475;
Mississippi legislation relative to, 475
Freedmen’s Aid Societies, Lincoln memorialized by, 386
Freedmen’s Bureau, act of Congress relative to, 385, 387;
germ of, 386;
duties of commissioner of, 387;
Governor of Arkansas coöperates with, 411;
influence in producing Southern reaction, 483;
political aspirations of agents of, 484
Fremont, General John C., proclamation concerning slaves, 148;
Lincoln’s letter to, 148;
reply to Lincoln, 149
Fugitive slaves, repeal of acts for rendition of, 144;
exclusion from Department of Washington, 148
_G_
Gantt, General E. W., secession abjured by, 83
Garrison, William Lloyd, 7
Georgia, martial law proclaimed over, 168;
Boutwell would exclude from restored Union, 256;
insurrection in, 314;
injuries sustained by, 433;
Governor Brown’s efforts at restoration of, 465;
appointment of provisional governor for, 465;
leading ex-Confederates aid governor, 465;
reconstruction convention of, 465;
convention repeals secession ordinance, 465;
war debt repudiated by, 465;
slaves freed by constitution of, 466;
Executive clemency in behalf of Jefferson Davis invoked by
convention, 466
Germans, The, indifferent to secession, 80
Gilmore-Jacquess mission, 389
Gooch, Daniel W., reconstruction address of, 250
Government, a republican form guaranteed by reconstruction
proclamation, 26;
perfection of Congressional system, 385
Grant, General Ulysses S., in possession of Forts Henry and Donelson,
10;
martial law proclaimed by, 15;
at Mission Ridge and Lookout Mountain, 23;
Lee driven back by, 288;
Blair visits camp of, 391;
influence in bringing about Hampton Roads Conference, 396;
movements by army of, 401;
management of Freedmen’s Bureau criticised by, 484
Great Britain, relations with, 409
Greeley, Horace, 390
Greeneville, Tennessee, 4, 9
Grimes, James W., remarks on Louisiana election, 382
Gulf, Department of, Butler relieved from command in, 40;
General Banks in command of, 49
_H_
Hahn, Michael, election of, 46;
Lincoln’s letter to, 52;
vote of, 60;
nomination of, 69;
election of, 70;
oath of, 72;
Lincoln’s letter to, 73;
election of delegates authorized by, 74;
election called by, 75;
credentials filed in U. S. Senate, 383, 418, 424
Hall, Ellery R., 107
Hall, John, 107
Hale, John P., on admission of West Virginia, 111;
on electoral vote of Louisiana, 325
Halleck, General H. W., Tennessee included in department of, 20;
General Buell instructed by, 21;
General Banks instructed by, 51;
order on surrender of fugitive slaves, 158
Hamilton, Andrew J., appointment of, 467
Hampton Roads Conference, 396;
Confederate commissioners to, report failure, 400;
results of, 400
Harris, Ira, remarks on Crittenden resolution by, 222;
remarks on electoral vote of Louisiana, 323, 334;
amendment offered by, 334
Harris, Isham G., authorized to appoint commissioners, 8;
Legislature convoked at Memphis by, 15
Harlan, James, bill of, 195
Hawkins, Isaac R., election of, 415
Hay and Nicolay, account of Lincoln’s message by, 24;
quotation from history of, 273
Helena, Arkansas, Union occupation of, 82, 86
Henderson, John B., reply to Lincoln’s appeal, 177;
reconstruction bill opposed by, 273;
recognition of Louisiana favored by, 348;
inconsistency of Sumner exposed by, 375, 377;
inquiry concerning Louisiana loyalists, 378;
letter on reconstruction, 495
Hendricks, Thomas A., Republican factiousness agreeable to, 380
Hiestand, Judge J., appointment of, 41
Holden, William W., appointment of, 448;
proclamation of, 450;
message of, 454;
President Johnson’s telegram to, 455;
public career of, 457;
Republican leaders alarmed at appointment of, 459
Holman, William S., resolution introduced by, 222
Hood, General J. B., 30
Hooker, General Joseph, treatment of fugitive slaves, 158
Howard, Jacob M., on electoral vote of Louisiana, 328;
on recognition of Louisiana, 358;
Sumner’s opposition to Trumbull’s resolution supported by, 380
Howard, Oliver O., General, Freedmen’s Bureau organized by, 389
Howe, Timothy O., speech on Ten Eyck’s amendment, 321
Howell, Rufus K., 41
Hughes, Augustus de B., 43
Humphreys, Benjamin G., election and pardon of, 464
Hungary, similarity of ideas lacking in, 237
Hunter, General David, freedom of slaves proclaimed by, 168;
authority to arm negroes requested by, 180
Hunter, Robert M. T., authorized to act as commissioner, 395
Hurlbut, General S. A., on reorganization of Tennessee, 21;
Lincoln’s letters to, 84, 401
_I_
Illinois, amendment abolishing slavery adopted by, 384
Indiana, troops from, assist western Virginians, 98
Intelligencer, The National, 61
Ireland, unsuccessful campaign of James II in, 203;
similarity of ideas lacking in, 237
Irish, The, indifference to secession, 80
_J_
Jacks, T. M., Congressman-elect, 91;
proposed compensation to, 342
Jackson, General Andrew, new industrial era marked by inauguration of,
5;
invasion by way of Mexico expected by, 392
Jacquess-Gilmore mission, 389
James II, King, abdication of, 202
Jefferson County, provision for annexation of, 110;
annexation of, 127
Jefferson, Thomas, declaration of, 357
Johnson, Andrew, 12;
in Thirtieth Congress, 14;
people of Nashville addressed by, 15;
activity of, 18;
Nashville saved by, 19;
Lincoln’s opinion of, 19;
addresses of, 19;
urged to raise negro troops, 20;
Lincoln’s letter to, 22;
enlarged authority of, 23;
Nashville meeting called by, 27;
election of county officers authorized by, 27;
proclamation of, 31;
nomination of, for Vice-Presidency, 32;
Nashville address of, 32;
letter of, to Mr. Dennison, 32;
popularity in the North, 33;
credentials of West Virginia Senators presented by, 103;
resolution offered by, 221;
election of, as Vice-President, 339;
installation of, as President, 408;
problem confronting, 408;
letter to Governor Murphy, 411;
despatch to Governor Brownlow, 414;
reconstruction policy endorsed by National Democratic party, 420;
Lincoln’s policy alleged to have been changed by, 426;
Pierpont’s government recognized by, 427;
Nashville speech of, 438;
forecast of policy of, 439;
addresses of, 440;
visit of Illinois delegation to, 440;
visit of Indiana delegation to, 442;
visit of negro delegation, 443;
South Carolina delegation addressed by, 443;
blockade partly raised by, 444;
blockade of trans-Mississippi ports rescinded by, 445;
work done for reconstruction retained by, 447;
Lincoln’s policy need not have been adopted by, 447;
at inauguration sentiments of Congress already known to, 448;
results of attempting reunion without coöperation of Congress, 448;
reconstruction of North Carolina begun by, 448;
amnesty proclamation of, 450;
cases excluded from benefits of amnesty, 450;
reconstruction plan of, based on guaranty clause of Constitution,
452;
telegram to Governor Holden, 455;
visit of North Carolina delegation to, 456;
North Carolina election unsatisfactory to, 457;
interview of Boutwell and Morrill with, 458;
William L. Sharkey appointed Provisional Governor by, 459;
appointment of provisional governors by, 459;
telegram to Governor Sharkey, 461;
attitude of Congress characterized by, 461;
Governor Sharkey’s reorganization of militia approved by, 462;
Mississippi people trusted by, 463;
change in sentiments of, 463, 488;
General Slocum directed to revoke order by, 463;
proceedings in reconstruction conventions directed by, 465;
organization of a police force for Georgia approved by, 466;
policy toward Congress unknown in the South, 483;
prompt acquiescence of South in policy of, 486;
reconstruction theory similar to Lincoln’s, 487;
falling back from Lincoln’s plan, 487;
Lincoln’s Cabinet retained by, 488;
change of attitude of, 489;
influence of Seward upon, 489;
movement to procure resignation from Vice-Presidency, 489;
limitations of, 490;
reconstruction work of, not marked by originality, 491;
negro suffrage, 494
Johnson, Bradish, 48
Johnson, Herschel V., election of, 465
Johnson, James, appointment of, 459, 465
Johnson, James M., election of, 91;
proposed compensation to, 342;
election of, 412
Johnson, Reverdy, in New Orleans, 38;
on electoral vote of Louisiana, 335;
on President’s message, 339;
remarks on recognition of Louisiana, 370;
Sumner’s argument with, 374;
remarks on negro suffrage, 378;
recognition of Arkansas and Louisiana favored by, 378
Johnson, R. W., secession of, 91
Johnston, General Joseph E., retires to Murfreesboro, 11
Jones, Hon. Ira P., 12
Jordan, Warren, 27
_K_
Kanawha, proposed State of, 105;
change in name of, 107
Kearney, General Stephen W., 12
Kelley, William D., reconstruction speech of, 252, 291;
proposes amendment of Ashley’s bill, 312;
Field’s assault of, 342
Kernan, Francis, bill of Mr. Wilson criticised by, 312
Kimball, General, 86
King, Preston, Mr. Johnson influenced by, 441
Kingwood, Va., Union meeting at, 99
Kitchen, Benjamin M., Representative-elect, 131;
denied admission to Congress, 133
Knoxville, early capital of Tennessee, 4;
Southern Commercial Convention held at, 6;
taken by Federal forces, 22
Kyle, G. H., election of, 412
_L_
Lamont, George D., 43
Lane, James H., on electoral vote of Louisiana, 337
LeBlond, Frank C., reconstruction speech of, 300
Lee, General Robert E., Maryland invaded by, 183;
repulse of, 186;
driven back by Grant, 288;
weakness of, 401;
surrender of, 426
Leftwich, John W., election of, 415
Letcher, Governor John, United States could not recognize, 205, 445
Lieber, Dr. Francis, 150, 151;
Sumner’s letters to, 199, 289
Lincoln, Abraham, Cooper Union address of, 1;
conservatism of, 1;
nomination of, 1;
border State delegations support of, 1;
popular vote received by, 1;
peer of tried Republican leaders, 1;
policy of, 2;
sympathy for Tennessee loyalists, 3, 10;
Andrew Johnson appointed by, 11;
in Thirtieth Congress, 14;
authority for appointing military governors, 14;
view of their utility, 20;
letter to Governor Johnson, 20, 22;
authority of Johnson enlarged by, 23;
reply to General Rosecrans, 23;
proclamation issued by, 23;
authority to admit members to Congress disclaimed by, 26;
enrolling agents sent to Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana by, 27;
renomination of, 32;
declined to interfere in nominating convention, 34;
reply to protest of McClellan electors, 35;
letter to Cuthbert Bullett, 39;
letter to August Belmont, 39;
Court of Record for Louisiana constituted by, 42;
letter to General Butler and others, 44;
restoration of Louisiana urged by, 44;
letter to General Shepley, 44;
Emancipation Proclamation published by, 47;
requested to order an election, 48;
reply to Louisiana committee, 48;
more advanced ground taken by, 49;
letter to General Banks and others, 51;
urges restoration, 51;
enrollment of Durant approved by, 63;
willingness to recognize part of Louisiana, 63;
letter to Thomas Cottman, 64;
letter to General Banks, 65;
General Banks’s letter to, 66;
Banks’s services appreciated by, 67;
authority conferred on General Banks by, 67;
Banks on Louisiana election, 70;
letter to Governor Hahn, 73;
authority of Mr. Hahn enlarged by, 73;
letter to General Hurlbut, 84;
letter to General Steele, 89;
letter to William M. Fishback, 89;
result of Arkansas election gratifying to, 91;
requests opinion of Cabinet on admission of West Virginia, 119, 124;
approves bill for admission of West Virginia, 125;
proclamation concerning West Virginia, 126;
letter to General Butler, 136;
slavery in first inaugural of, 143;
letter to General Fremont, 148;
General Fremont instructed by, 149;
Bancroft’s letter to, 151;
letter to Mr. Bancroft, 152;
emancipation and colonization suggested by, 153;
advance in position of, 154;
arming of slaves opposed by, 154, 180;
bill for compensated emancipation drafted by, 155;
Mr. Pierce’s interview with, 160;
compensated emancipation proposed by, 161;
further advance in position of, 162;
letter to Henry J. Raymond, 163;
border State Congressmen interview, 163;
letter to James A. McDougall, 165;
proclamation of General Hunter rescinded by, 168;
Sumner’s letter concerning, 170;
border State Congressmen appealed to, 171;
emancipation proposed by, 178;
confiscation act approved by, 179;
draft of emancipation proclamation read by, 181;
rebellious citizens warned by, 183;
Chicago clergymen interview, 184;
resolves to issue postponed proclamation, 186;
meeting of Cabinet, 186;
emancipation proclamation read by, 187;
first inaugural of, 190;
central idea of reconstruction plan of, 190;
confidence in ultimate success, 191;
Congress substantially agrees with, 191;
change in policy of, 193;
only one plan of reconstruction proposed by, 194;
remarks on Blair-Sumner controversy, 208;
reconstruction plan of, criticised by Henry Winter Davis, 232;
Mr. Donnelly’s character of, 245;
Mr. Boutwell defends reconstruction policy, 254;
treatment of reconstruction bill by, 273;
Sumner’s opinion of, 275;
proclamation on reconstruction bill, 277;
Wade-Davis manifesto concerning action of, 279;
result of contest with Congress, 284;
reëlection of, 286;
silence as to controversy with Congress, 286;
no right over admission of Congressmen claimed by, 287;
adoption of more vigorous measures hinted at, 287;
resolution relative to electoral votes approved by, 339;
electoral votes received by, 339;
popular approval of Thirteenth Amendment pleasing to, 385;
Freedmen’s Aid Societies appeal to, 386;
Mr. Blair’s visit to, 390;
Blair’s mission not officially sanctioned by, 391;
letter to Mr. Blair, 394;
letter to Secretary Seward, 395;
conference opposed by, except on basis of reunion, 397;
last speech on reconstruction, 403;
assassination of, a calamity to the South, 407;
policy would have saved South from many evils, 407;
telegram to Governor Pierpont, 426;
Pierpont’s interview with, 426;
attitude toward Confederate legislatures, 470;
a loose system of reconstruction opposed by, 487;
reconstruction theory of, similar to Johnson’s, 487;
President Johnson retains Cabinet of, 488;
constructive statesmanship of, 491;
a wide constituency favored by, 493;
conditions on returning States imposed by, 494;
Mr. Henderson’s views on, 495
Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1
Little Rock, seized by Confederate troops, 79;
threatened by Federal forces, 82;
capture of, 83;
loyal newspaper published in,83;
Union convention at, 87
Liverpool, abandoned by Confederate naval agent, 50
Longyear, John W., reconstruction address of, 244
Lookout Mountain, battle of, 23, 224
Louisiana, effect of Union victories in, 10;
enrolling agent sent to, 27;
secession spirit in, 36;
secession of, 36;
prosperity at the beginning of the war, 36;
treasury of, 37;
citizens of, in Confederate army, 37;
blockade of ports in, 37;
attitude toward Richmond government, 37;
loyalists of, 37;
secessionists of, intimidated, 38;
activity of Unionists in, 38;
necessity of courts in, 40;
courts established in, 41;
court of record for, 42;
Supreme Court of, 43;
Lincoln urges restoration of, 44;
Union associations request an election, 45;
proclamation for an election in, 45;
members of Congress elected in, 46;
vote cast in, 46;
admission of Representatives to Congress, 46;
named as one of the rebellious States, 47;
parishes excepted from emancipation proclamation, 47;
disagreement among Unionists of, 47;
enrollment of citizens in, 48;
Lincoln visited by committee from, 48;
reorganization interrupted, 49;
portion covered by Union arms, 50;
Lincoln urges reconstruction of, 52;
condition of, 53;
amended constitution of 1852 destroyed by rebellion, 54;
voting in, 55;
franchise asked by free negroes, 55;
credentials of Representatives from, 56;
suppression of election in, 56;
constitution altered by General Shepley, 58;
citizens from, in Union army, 60;
General Banks to order an election in, 61, 64;
Banks on reconstruction in, 66;
Banks fixes date of election for, 67;
constitution modified by proclamation of General Banks, 68;
provision for voting of loyalists in, 69;
election in, 70;
protest against election in, 70;
Hahn inaugurated Governor, 72;
civil subordinate to military power, 73;
Free State leaders unite with Radicals in Congress, 74;
election in, 74;
vote on constitution, 75;
Legislature chosen in, 76;
Presidential electors appointed for, 76, 195;
Senators elected by, 76;
government of, not recognized by Congress, 76;
electoral vote of, 129, 314;
radicals propose to recognize government of, 290;
insurrection in, 314;
amendment to except from joint resolution, 315;
Ten Eyck’s speech on electoral vote of, 318;
Howe’s speech on electoral vote of, 321;
Trumbull’s speech on electoral vote of, 321;
highest vote cast in, 323;
remarks of Harris on electoral vote of, 323;
speech of Doolittle on electoral vote of, 324;
remarks of Hale on electoral vote of, 325;
remarks of Collamer on electoral vote of, 328;
Howard’s speech on electoral vote of, 328;
Cowan’s remarks on electoral vote of, 330;
Powell on electoral vote of, 331;
Wade’s remarks on electoral vote of, 332;
loss of Ten Eyck’s amendment concerning, 334;
Johnson’s remarks on electoral vote of, 335;
Pomeroy’s amendment, 337;
passage of joint resolution, 338;
Cowan’s inquiry, 338;
Senate debate on recognition of, 341;
Representatives-elect from, 341;
protest against admission of members from, 341;
compensation to claimants from, 341;
United States Senators chosen in, 343;
Trumbull’s resolution relative to, 343;
Powell opposes recognition of, 344;
Henderson favors recognition of, 348;
recognition of, would enfeeble Union, 358;
Howard’s speech on recognition of, 358;
governed by bayonet, 367;
Howard characterizes government of, 369;
Reverdy Johnson’s argument on recognition of, 370, 377;
Sprague’s remarks on election in, 381;
Grimes’s remarks on election in, 382;
slavery in parts of, not affected by emancipation proclamation, 384;
draft in, 417;
election in, 418;
Mr. Wells chosen Governor, 422;
Warmoth elected as Territorial Delegate, 422;
United States Senators chosen, 424;
Thirteenth Amendment ratified by, 424;
injuries which rebellion inflicted on, 424
Lovejoy, Owen, resolution offered by, 132;
resolution of, relative to emancipation, 170;
doctrines of Thaddeus Stevens repudiated by, 217
Lundy, Benjamin, Genius of Universal Emancipation published by, 5
Lyon, General Nathaniel, 79
_M_
Madison, parish of, 75
Malhiot, E. E., 48
Mallory, Robert, yeas and nays on Ashley’s bill demanded by, 311;
bill of Mr. Wilson criticised by, 312
Manassas, battle of, 183
Mann, W. D., Representative-elect from Louisiana, 76;
seat in Congress claimed by, 341
Manumission Intelligencer, The, 5
Marcy, William, Secretary, 12
Marvin, Governor, Seward’s message to, 488
Maryland, attitude on emancipation, 165
Mason, James M., 103
Mason, Richard B., 13, 14
Massachusetts, sentiments on slavery, 375
Maynard, Horace, 9, 10; joins in call for convention, 21;
emancipation policy of Lincoln approved by, 177;
election of, 415
Memphis, Legislature convenes in, 15
Mexico, 12, 13;
French interests in, 50;
invasion of, a part of Napoleon’s policy, 391;
proposal for joint invasion of, 392
Mileage, allowed to Arkansas claimants, 91
Military commissions, 12
Military Governor, office of, 11, 12, 14, 193
Minority, loyal, rule by, inconsistent with American principles, 205,
217;
should institute government for their own protection, 353;
further examination of, 491
Mission Ridge, battle of, 23, 224
Missouri, provisional government appointed in, 10;
origin of government of, 350
Mississippi, State of, in Federal control, 50;
insurrection in, 314;
injury sustained by, 437;
Provisional Governor for, 459;
Governor Clarke summons insurgent Legislature of, 459;
secession ordinance declared null and void, 460;
slavery abolished in, 460;
people advised to form a patrol, 461;
disorder in, 462;
General Slocum prevents organization of militia in, 462;
freedmen of, 463;
election in, 464;
conflict of civil and military authorities, 464;
supremacy of military in, 464;
November legislation of, 475;
practical revival of black code in, 480;
spirit of reconstructed Legislature, 482;
character of reorganized government, 488
Monroe Doctrine, Northern Democrats and Republicans adhere to, 392;
Mexico to be conquered under pretence of defending, 393
Morrill, Justin S., President Johnson visited by, 458
Morton, Oliver P., Governor, President Johnson interviewed by, 442
McClellan, electors, protest of, 34;
ticket in Tennessee withdrawn, 35
McClellan, George B., General, proclamation concerning slaves, 145;
instructions to, 152;
collapse of Richmond campaign of, 178;
Union army again commanded by, 184;
Lee defeated by, 186;
vote for Presidency received by, 339
McCulloch, General, 79
McDougall, James A., on admission of Mr. Segar, 139;
Lincoln’s letter to, 165–166
McDowell, General Irwin, treatment of fugitive slaves by, 144
McDowell, J. L., inquiry concerning fugitive slaves, 147
_N_
Napoleon III, 50;
policy of, 391
Nashville, occupation of, 10;
panic in, 11;
occupied by General Nelson, 15;
Governor Johnson arrives in, 15;
Governor Johnson addresses people of, 15;
mayor and council imprisoned, 17;
press under restraint, 17;
treatment of clergymen in, 17;
Union convention at, 21;
action of convention, 21;
public meeting at, 27;
convention at, 29;
convention of January, 1865, 30;
Legislature meets at, 32
National Conservative Union party, negro suffrage opposed by, 421;
reconstruction policy of Mr. Johnson endorsed by, 421;
Mr. Wells nominated for governor by, 422
Navy, proportions of, 286
Negroes, free, elective franchise asked by, 55;
North Carolina denies franchise to, 452;
condition of, in Mississippi, 463;
testimony of, 464;
numbers in Texas, 467
Nelson, General, enters Nashville, 15
Nelson, Thomas A. R., 9
New Hampshire, President Johnson addresses citizens of, 442
New Mexico, 12
New Orleans, State troops from, seize Federal property, 36;
enthusiasm in, 37;
bankruptcy of, 37;
importance to Confederacy, 38;
capture of, 38;
results of Federal occupation of, 39;
members of court of record arrive in, 43;
excepted from emancipation proclamation, 47;
menaced by General Taylor, 49;
General Shepley forbids election in, 56;
amount of taxes paid by, 58;
without civil government, 58;
extent of the State of Louisiana, 75;
constitutional convention in, 75;
unqualified voters enrolled in, 418;
new registration in, 418;
J. Madison Wells nominated by convention held in, 420
Newport News, fugitive slaves arrive at, 144, 386
New York, electoral vote not counted in Washington’s election, 326
Nicolay and Hay. See Hay and Nicolay
Noell, John W., on admission of West Virginia, 118;
inquiry of, 164
Norfolk, Va., destitution in, 133
North Carolina, Union victories in, 10;
secession spirit in, 150;
insurrection in, 314;
injuries sustained by, 436;
Provisional Governor appointed for, 448;
“loyal people” of, 452;
suffrage withheld from negroes of, 452;
nearly all counties choose delegates, 453;
ordinance of secession repealed by, 454;
abolition of slavery in, 454;
payment of rebel debt prohibited by, 455;
adjournment of convention, 455;
convention ordinances ratified, 457;
election unsatisfactory to President Johnson, 457;
Thirteenth Amendment ratified by, 457;
Congressmen chosen by, 457;
why President began reconstruction policy with, 458
_O_
Oglesby, Governor, President Johnson visited by, 440
Ohio, western Virginians assisted by troops of, 98
Olin, Abraham B., on admission of West Virginia, 116
Olustee, battle of, a result of administration policy, 253
Orange, William, Prince of, 203
Orleans, courts established in, 41
_P_
Paine, Colonel, arrest of, 169
Parker, Granville, anti-slavery work of, 108
Parliament, absolute power vested in, 203
Patterson, David T., election of, 413
Patterson, General, proclamation relative to slaves, 145
Peabody, Charles A., appointment of, 42
Peace and Constitutional Society, in Arkansas, 81
Pea Ridge, battle of, 82
Pendleton, George H., reconstruction speech of, 257;
votes received by, for Vice-Presidency, 339
Pensacola, Florida, Louisiana soldiers vote at, 70
Perry, Nehemiah, reconstruction address of, 250
Phelps, General John S., alleged opposition to rule of, 38;
military governor, 82
Pierce, E. L., labor of abandoned slaves organized by, 160, 386;
Lincoln interviewed by, 160
Pierpont, Francis Harrison, chosen Governor of restored Virginia, 101;
inauguration of, 101;
views of the Constitution, 102;
message of, 109;
address of, 128;
elected Governor, 129;
duties of, 133;
protests against military interference, 134;
application for assistance, 191;
Lincoln’s telegram to, 426;
Lincoln visited by, 426;
reception at Richmond, 427;
the problem confronting, 428
Placquemines, voting in parish of, 56;
vote of, 74
Poland, similarity of ideas lacking in, 237
Polk, President James K., message of, 13
Pollard, E. A., quotation from “Lost Cause” of, 400
Pool, John, election of, 457
Pomeroy, Samuel C., on electoral vote of Louisiana, 330;
amendment offered by, 337;
remarks on reconstruction by, 376;
extent of Congressional power over reconstruction stated by, 377
Port Hudson, General Banks at, 49;
fall of, 49
Portsmouth, Va., Union vote in, 132;
destitution in, 133
Powell, Lazarus W., remarks on Louisiana, 331;
recognition of Louisiana opposed by, 344;
General Banks denounced by, 346;
proclamation of Banks quoted by, 347;
remarks on Trumbull’s resolution by, 373
Property, Federal, seizure of, in Baton Rouge, 36
_R_
Raleigh, convention assembles at, 453
Raymond, Lincoln’s letter to, 163
Reade, Edwin G., North Carolina convention presided over by, 453;
farewell address of, 455
Reconstruction, in Tennessee, 1;
Lincoln’s proclamation of, 23;
in Louisiana, 36, 44, 61;
loyal minority authorized to restore States, 25;
Lincoln’s plan not indispensable to, 26;
interrupted in Louisiana, 49;
Lincoln’s letter relative to, 51;
President urges in Louisiana, 52;
Banks’s plan of, 66;
proposed for Arkansas, 85;
Lincoln’s letters on, 89;
in Louisiana connected with war powers of President, 36;
emancipation introduced into, 189;
theories and plans of, 190;
central idea of Lincoln’s plan, 190;
both parties agree on Presidential plan, 193;
great number of theories and plans of, 193;
difficulties of, increased by abolition, 194;
Lincoln propounded only one plan of, 194;
“Louisiana plan” and negro suffrage, 195;
sensation caused by Sumner’s scheme of, 198;
final work of, influenced by Sumner’s resolutions, 199;
Stevens’s theory of, 211;
first act of, a modification of Stevens’s theory, 212;
theory held at commencement of rebellion, 213;
Democratic theory of, 217;
Edgerton’s speech on, 219;
attitude of Democratic party toward, 220;
conservative views of Senators on, 220;
House of Representatives on, 220;
resolution of Thaddeus Stevens concerning, 224;
resolution of Henry Winter Davis, 225;
address of Mr. Davis, 226;
of Southern States premature, 230;
President’s plan criticised by Mr. Davis, 232;
address of Representative Scofield on, 236;
address of Representative Williams on, 238;
indemnity, security and punishment, elements of, 240;
bill opposed by Mr. Baldwin, 241;
address of Representative Thayer on, 242;
remarks of Representative Yeaman on, 243;
address of Representative Longyear on, 244;
speech of Ignatius Donnelly on, 245;
speech of Representative Dennison, 247;
remarks of Thaddeus Stevens on, 247;
bill opposed by Representative Strouse, 249;
opposition of Mr. Cravens, 249;
Representative Gooch on, 250;
Representative Perry’s remarks on, 250;
Fernando Wood’s opposition to bill for, 251;
remarks of William D. Kelley on, 252;
speech of S. S. Cox on, 252;
Mr. Boutwell’s speech on, 254;
speech of George H. Pendleton, 257;
bill for, unconstitutional, 258;
Representatives pass bill on, 262;
provisions of bill on, 262;
Senator Wade on, 264;
Senator Carlile’s speech on, 267;
Congress passes bill on, 273;
Lincoln’s treatment of bill on, 273;
interest of Mr. Chandler in bill on, 274;
Lincoln’s proclamation concerning bill on, 277;
notice of in annual message, 286;
progress of, 287;
forced upon attention of Congress by Union victories, 288;
Mr. Ashley reports bill on, 289;
Representative Eliot offers amendment to bill on, 289;
provisions of Ashley’s bill, 289;
revived bill recognizes Louisiana and Arkansas, 289;
new bill a substitute for Wade-Davis bill, 290;
Kelley’s speech on, 291;
Eliot’s speech on, 292;
consideration of bill postponed, 295;
Mr. Dawes resumes debate on, 295;
power conferred on President by bill, 296;
remarks of Fernando Wood on, 300;
speech of Mr. LeBlond on, 300;
remarks of Representative Blow, 301;
speech of J. K. Edgerton, 301;
Edgerton’s summary of bill, 302;
substitute for Ashley’s bill, 304;
further remarks of Ashley on, 305;
Ashley explains compromise, 306;
Henry Winter Davis speaks on, 306;
Mr. Davis’s last words in Congress on, 310;
Mr. Wilson’s bill, 311;
revival of Ashley’s bill on, 312;
defects of Presidential plan of, 358;
Howard’s speech on, 358;
Reverdy Johnson’s remarks on, 370;
Sumner proposes conditions of, 376;
remarks of Senator Clark, 376;
remarks of Senator Pomeroy, 377, 378;
Presidential plan of, ignored by Congress, 385;
Lincoln’s conditions for effecting, 395, 397;
Lincoln’s letter to General Hurlbut on, 401;
Lincoln’s letter to General Canby, 402;
Lincoln’s last words on, 403;
culmination of Presidential plan of, 407;
President Johnson’s policy of, endorsed by Democratic convention,
420;
views of Louisiana Republicans on, 422;
Andrew Johnson’s views of, in 1864, 438;
Johnson under no obligation to accept Lincoln’s plan of, 447;
Mr. Johnson’s policy of, 449;
steps to, in Mississippi, 458;
obstacles to, in Texas, 467;
conventions called under Presidential plan, 468;
course of Confederate governors relative to, 469;
Lincoln’s intention to employ Confederate legislatures in work of,
470;
expected results of, 473;
prediction of Henry Winter Davis relative to, 473;
enemies of Union entrusted with, 486;
Lincoln opposed a loose system of, 486;
Lincoln’s and Johnson’s theories identical, 487;
organizations effected under Lincoln different from “Johnson
governments,” 487;
Johnson’s original policy of, 488;
acts of Congress suspend governments established under Presidential
plan, 489;
Joint Committee on, 490;
Presidential plan examined, 491;
the suffrage in the Presidential system of, 494;
precedent conditions for returning States, 494;
Senator Henderson’s letter on Lincoln’s plan, 495
Rector, Governor, call for troops, 81;
threat of seceding from Confederacy, 82;
flight of, 82
Red River, General Taylor retires to, 50
Republican electoral ticket, none offered for suffrage of Tennesseeans
in 1860, 7
Republican form of government, Sumner’s resolutions relative to, 196;
position that war was fought to fulfil guaranty of, untenable, 209;
Henry Winter Davis on, 228;
duty of Congress to guarantee, 228;
Mr. Davis on modes of establishing, 232;
Fernando Wood on, 251;
Pendleton on, 259, 260, 261;
Carlile on, 268, 269;
cannot originate in military orders, 357;
military government not republican under the Constitution, 368
Republican party, radical members of, unite with Free State leaders,
74;
Sumner’s resolutions disavowed by leaders of, 199;
relations of Stevens to, 216;
change in attitude of, 220;
revolutionary policy of, 257;
beginning of division in, 273;
some radical members of, opposed controversy with President, 289;
schism in, 313;
change in sentiments of, 377;
Hendricks on factiousness of, 380;
mass-meeting in New Orleans held by radical members of, 422
Representation, basis of, 354
Representatives, House of, committee on compensated emancipation
appointed by, 168;
reconstruction views of, 220;
reconstruction bill passed by, 262;
Ashley’s reconstruction bill tabled by, 311, 312;
resolution of Mr. Wilson introduced into, 314;
measure excluding electoral votes of certain States passed by, 314;
constitutional amendment abolishing slavery passed by, 384
Revenue, surplus of 1837, distribution of, 157
Revolution, American, legal forms not ignored in effecting, 206
Revolution, English, 202
Reynolds, General, report on government of Arkansas, 412
Rhode Island cases, 228
Richmond, Arkansas messenger sent to, 80;
secession convention meets in, 93;
work of convention denounced, 100;
fall of, 426
Richmond government, offers concessions to western Virginia, 97;
resistance to, 97
Riddell, John Leonard, certificate from, 56
Riley, General Bennett, 13
Ritchie, A. F., letter to Attorney-General Bates, 105
Rogers, A. A. C., Congressman-elect, 91;
proposed compensation of, 342
Rosecrans, General W. S., inactivity of, 21;
suggestion to Lincoln, 23;
removed from command, 23, 224
Ryers, William, election of, 412
_S_
Saulsbury, Willard, 103;
on admission of Mr. Segar, 139;
admission of West Virginia Senators opposed by, 193;
Administration criticised by, 377
Schenck, General, 251
Schofield, General, Governor Holden assisted by, 453
Schurz, General Carl, Governor Sharkey criticised by, 462
Scofield, Glenni W., address of, 236
Sebastian, William K., resignation from United States Senate, 85;
return to loyalty, 85
Secession, in Tennessee, 8;
Tennessee abrogates act of, 30;
spirit of, in Louisiana, 36;
ordinance of, 36;
in Arkansas, 78;
Germans and Irish of Arkansas indifferent to, 80;
in Virginia, 93;
western Virginia refuses to acquiesce in, 97;
war powers unlocked by, 213;
attitude of Democratic party toward, 218;
Henry Winter Davis on, 227;
Pendleton on acts of, 259;
Henderson on potency of, 351;
Sumner denies that States were taken out of Union by, 351
Secessionists, in Arkansas, 77
Segar, Joseph E., on admission of West Virginia, 118;
remarks of, 131;
Committee of Elections reports concerning, 131;
denied admission to Congress, 133;
election to United States Senate, 138
Senate, The United States, reconstruction bill in, 264;
exclusion of States from Electoral College, 315;
Trumbull’s resolution abandoned by, 383;
amendment abolishing slavery passed by, 384
Seward, William H., on admission of West Virginia, 120;
General McClellan instructed by, 152;
Lincoln broaches emancipation to, 178;
postponement of emancipation recommended by, 182;
Lincoln’s letter to, 395;
injuries prevented attendance at inauguration of Mr. Johnson, 408;
message to Governor Marvin, 488;
President Johnson influenced by, 489
Sharkey, William L., appointment of, 459;
address of, 460;
Johnson’s telegram to, 461;
conduct of, criticised by Carl Schurz, 462;
negro testimony to be considered by, 464
Shelbyville, Tenn., Andrew Johnson’s address at, 19
Shenandoah Valley, discontent of, 96;
proposed annexation to West Virginia, 109
Shepley, General George F., appointment of, 39;
system of courts established by, 41;
Lincoln’s letter to, 44;
requested to hold an election, 45;
proclamation for an election issued by, 45;
plan of Louisiana Free State Committee approved by, 48;
Attorney-General for Louisiana appointed by, 48;
orders an enrollment of loyal citizens, 53;
election prohibited by, 56, 58;
conference of Free State Committee with, 63;
disagreement with General Banks, 64, 65;
General Banks approves registration of, 68;
Norfolk proclamation of, 134
Sheridan, General Philip H., at Mission Ridge and Lookout Mountain, 23;
a Confederate army destroyed by, 288
Sherman, John, on election of Mr. Segar, 140;
on electoral vote of Louisiana, 332
Sherman, General Thomas W., instructions of War Department to, 149
Sherman, General William Tecumseh, projected march of, 286;
safety of, 288
Shreveport, movement toward, 51;
ceases to be capital of Louisiana, 419
Slavery, abolition of, in British colonies, 6;
to be ignored in reconstruction, 27;
Nashville convention urges abolition of, 29;
amended Tennessee constitution abolishes, 30;
constitution of Arkansas abolishes, 88;
introduction into Virginia, 94;
in the Wheeling convention, 107;
Lincoln’s views of, 143;
Congress claims no right to interfere with, 167;
advance of Northern opinion on, 167;
abolished in District of Columbia, 167;
not possible for negroes freed by war, 194;
reconstruction rendered more difficult by abolition of, 194;
ceases to exist when State ceases to exist, 197;
duty of Congress to put an end to, 197;
recognition of, by a Federal officer analogous to treason, 197;
government should protect persons in a state of, 198;
Chicago platform on, 207;
Emancipation Proclamation not necessary to abolish in seceding
States, 207;
destruction of, not an end of the war, 222;
the one subject of estrangement in the Union, 237;
theory of the Fathers concerning, 237;
anti-slavery amendment recommended to consideration of Congress, 287;
Congress passes joint resolution relative to, 288;
restoration useless with, 352;
sentiments of Massachusetts and South Carolina on, 375;
not affected by emancipation proclamation in certain States, 384;
Congress passes anti-slavery amendment, 384;
amendment ratified by 20 States, 384;
Arkansas abolishes, 410;
Virginia abolishes, 425;
abolition an injury to slave owners, 433;
North Carolina abolishes, 454;
Mississippi abolishes, 460;
Georgia abolishes, 466
Slaves, bred in Virginia, 94;
number in Virginia, 94;
in western Virginia, 95;
policy of commanders relative to fugitive, 144, 145, 158, 159;
declared contraband of war, 146;
compensated emancipation of, 153;
colonization of, 153;
abandoned by masters, 160;
to organize labor of abandoned, 160;
General Hunter proclaims freedom of, 168;
Lincoln asserts right to emancipate, 168;
employment of, 169;
confiscation of property in, 179;
proposed emancipation of, 182;
Stevens on employment of, against United States, 212;
abandoned lands to be colonized by, 385
Slidell, John, resignation from United States Senate, 423
Slocum, General, organization of Mississippi retarded by, 462;
orders of, revoked by President, 463
Smith, Caleb B., resignation of, 119
Smith, Charles, Senator-elect from Louisiana, 76, 343
Smith, General E. Kirby, 50
Smith, Governor William, nullity of acts of, 445
Snow, William D., election of, 91
Society, civil not necessarily identical with political, 354;
political liable to reduction, 354;
political may be reduced by loss of citizenship, 354
South Carolina, martial law proclaimed over, 168;
Stevens on secession ordinance of, 215;
Boutwell would exclude from restored Union, 256;
insurrection in, 314;
sentiments on slavery, 375;
damage sustained by, 435;
Mr. Johnson receives citizens of, 443;
revolutionary character of convention, 469
Southern States, reorganization of, premature, 230;
black code of, 293;
an asylum for broken-down politicians, 297;
proposed taxation of, 297;
power of Congress over, 362;
not convertible into Territories, 364.
See Confederate States
Speed, Attorney-General, reply to Albemarle County voters, 430
Sprague, William, remarks on Louisiana election, 381
Stanton, Edwin M., aids western Virginians, 98;
on admission of West Virginia, 122;
disbanding of army by, 409
State, indestructibility of, 192;
suicide of a, 197, 201, 209;
effect of termination of, 197;
slavery terminated by termination of, 197;
Federal restraints upon action of a, 198;
difficulty of defining, 201;
basis of suicide theory, 208;
levying war changes status of, 217;
the people of, constitute the, 218;
constitutions must be formed by people of, 218;
only successful revolution can unmake, 218;
attitude of Democratic party on suicide of, 219
St. Bernard, parish of, voting in, 56
Steele, General Frederick, Lincoln’s letters to, 85, 86, 89
Stephens, A. H., peace commissioner, 395;
Lincoln’s advice to, 399
Stevens, Thaddeus, on admission of West Virginia, 117, 214;
reconstruction theory of, 211;
characteristics of, 211;
consistency of, 212;
remarks on slaves employed in hostility to Government, 212;
taxation of seceding States proposed by, 213;
secession discussed by, 215;
relations to his party defined by, 216;
conquered province theory of, 217;
remarks on minority government, 217;
resolution relative to President’s message, 224;
on constitutional amendments, 232;
reconstruction speech of, 247;
distributing President’s message, 288;
Mr. Eliot interrupted by, 294;
remarks of, 342;
credentials of Warmoth offered by, 422;
sneer at Pierpont’s government, 427
Stokes, William B., election of, 415
Strouse, Myer, reconstruction speech of, 249
Suffrage, Representative Kelley on, 291;
provisions of Ashley’s bill on, 294, 304;
a restricted electorate favored by Government, 354;
basis of, 354;
qualifications for, in Massachusetts, 354;
proposal to confer on negroes, 358;
Reverdy Johnson on, 378;
negroes petition for, 413;
Brownlow opposes conferring on negroes, 416;
National Conservative party on, 421;
provision of Virginia constitution on, 425;
North did not intend to force on South, 486
Sumner, Charles, on admission of West Virginia, 110;
letter on policy of Lincoln, 170;
faith of, 191;
resolutions of, 196;
sensation produced by restoration scheme of, 198;
letters to Francis Lieber, 199, 289;
public character of, 199;
letters to John Bright, 200, 290;
article in Atlantic Monthly, 200;
Mr. Blair replies to, 208;
preamble to resolutions of, 210;
proposal relative to emancipation proclamation, 272;
estimate of Lincoln, 275;
substitute offered by, 344;
amendment offered by, 356;
Reverdy Johnson’s argument with, 374;
inconsistency of, 375;
conditions of reunion proposed by, 376;
remarks on Trumbull’s resolution, 379, 382;
Howard and Chandler support position of, 380;
remarks on Louisiana election, 382
Sumter, influence of fall, on Arkansas, 78
Supreme Court, The United States, opinion in Cross _vs._ Harrison, 13;
decision relative to rebellious States, 362
_T_
Taliaferro, Robert W., seat in Congress claimed by, 341
Taney, Roger B., Chief Justice, quoted by Mr. Davis, 228
Tarr, Campbell, 98, 128
Taylor, Nathaniel, attitude of loyal Tennesseeans defined by, 7;
election of, 415
Taylor, General Richard, 37, 49, 50
Ten Eyck, John C., reconstruction bill opposed by, 273;
amendment offered by, 315;
remarks in support of amendment, 318;
defeat of amendment offered by, 334
Tennessee, Presidential reconstruction in, 1;
no Republican electoral ticket in, 7;
league with Confederacy authorized by, 8;
turns military force over to the Confederacy, 8;
secession of, 8;
activity of loyalists in, 9;
proposed dismemberment of, 9;
Confederates losing hold of, 10;
derangement of government in, 10;
Legislature assembles at Memphis, 15;
Andrew Johnson appointed military governor of, 15;
condition in the Union, 16;
judges imprisoned, 18;
reprisals on secessionists, 18;
lawlessness of, 18;
citizens in Union army, 20;
included in department of General Halleck, 20;
ready for restoration, 21;
free from armed insurrectionists, 22;
emancipation in, 22;
excluded from effects of emancipation proclamation, 22, 384;
enrolling agent sent to, 27;
county elections in, 27;
returns, 28;
reconstruction in, 29;
Presidential election in, 29, 195;
amended constitution of, 30;
abrogates act of secession, 30;
bonds of disloyal government, 30;
constitution ratified by, 31;
slaves emancipated in, 31;
meeting of loyal Legislature, 31;
McClellan electors, 35;
electoral vote of, 35, 76, 129;
Lincoln maintains legality of government in, 195;
Mr. Davis on Unionists of, 230;
insurrection in, 314;
electoral vote of, 334;
exclusion of electoral votes, 338;
Cowan’s inquiry concerning vote of, 338;
Thirteenth Amendment ratified by, 412;
United States Senators chosen by, 413;
disfranchising act of, 413;
irregularities in election, 414;
negroes and Indians made witnesses, 415;
harshness to traitors favored by, 414;
franchise demanded by freedmen of, 415;
ravages of war in, 417;
insurrection ended in, 444;
Joint Committee recommend admission of, 490
Tennessee, Bank of, notes of, irredeemable, 30
Tennessee, East, slavery in, 3;
loyalty of, 3;
services in Revolution, 4;
resources of, 4;
anti-slavery journals in, 5;
abolition movement in, 5;
a thoroughfare to the south-west, 6;
Yancey agitates in, 7;
treatment of loyalists in, 9;
importance of, 21;
convention of, revived, 29
Tennessee, West, politics influenced by industries of, 4;
martial law in, 15
Texas, expedition into, 50, 51;
insurrection in, 314;
damages sustained by, 437;
blockade of, 444;
appointment of Provisional Governor for, 467;
obstacles to restoration in, 467;
negro population of, 467;
reconstruction incomplete, 467;
not represented at opening of Thirty-ninth Congress, 490
Thayer, General, 89
Thayer, M. Russell, reconstruction address of, 242
Thomas, Dorsey B., counted out, 415
Thomas, General George, at Mission Ridge and Lookout Mountain, 23;
a Confederate army crippled by, 288
Thompson, Jacob, Mr. Black’s visit to, 390
Thompson, General Jefferson, 245
Treat, Hon. Samuel, excerpt from letter of, 354
Tribune, The New York, emancipation favored by, 164;
protest of Wade and Davis printed in, 279
Trumbull, Lyman, on admission of Mr. Segar, 139;
remarks on Crittenden resolution, 221;
reconstruction bill opposed by, 273;
speech on Ten Eyck’s amendment, 316;
on electoral vote of Louisiana, 321, 327;
resolution offered by, 343;
Sumner’s offer to amend resolution of, 356;
Howard’s speech on resolution of, 358;
Wade moves postponement of resolution, 378;
Powell’s speech on resolution of, 378;
consistency of, 380;
resolution recognizing Louisiana abandoned, 383
Tyng, Rev. Doctor, 151
_U_
Underwood, John C., Senator-elect from Virginia, 141
Union, dismemberment of, 1;
admission of new States into, 207
Union army, Arkansas troops in, 83;
troops of restored Virginia in, 109
Union associations, demand an election in Louisiana, 45;
delegates appointed by, 47
Unionists, importance of Southern, 3;
in Louisiana, 37, 38, 47;
Lincoln’s advice to, 38;
numbers in Arkansas, 77;
loyalty in Arkansas, 88;
conflicting views of, 88;
difficulty of enlisting in Virginia, 133;
oath of allegiance taken by, in North Carolina, 150;
Henry Winter Davis on Southern, 231
Union party, vote of, in West Virginia, 129
United States, The, policy toward conquered provinces, 12;
Tennessee promised republican form of government by, 16;
oath of allegiance required of Louisiana voters, 45;
policy toward loyal minorities, 105, 349;
policy toward South after rebellion, 190;
number of States not diminished by secession, 192;
republican governments obligatory on members of, 208;
duty of each to be represented in Congress, 208;
union of, perpetual, 218, 219;
Chase’s dictum concerning nature of, 219;
Government not to interfere in affairs of States, 220;
authorized to impose conditions on returning States, 366;
demand for revenue felt by, 409;
disloyal governments not recognized by, 409
Universal Emancipation, The Genius of, 5
Upshur County, emancipation favored by citizens of, 108
_V_
Van Winkle, P. G., election of, 128
Vicksburg, surrender of, 49
Virginia, rebel government abrogated in, 10;
loyalists without civil government, 93;
secession of, 93;
opposition to secession in, 94;
physical features of, 94;
slavery introduced into, 94;
slaves in, 94;
historical part of, 94;
birthplace of many illustrious Americans, 94;
settlement of trans-Alleghany region, 95;
population of western, 95;
sympathy of people in western, 95;
representation in Legislature, 96;
taxation in, 96;
power in hands of slaveholders, 96;
dismemberment of, discussed, 96;
danger of insurrection in, 96;
change of representation in, 96;
expenditure of revenue, 96;
concessions to western, 97;
western refuses to acquiesce in secession, 97;
the disloyal in, 97;
State officials favor secession, 97;
Federal Government aids western, 98;
ravages of war in western, 98;
movement for dismemberment, 98;
secession denounced by Clarksburgh meeting, 99;
State government reconstituted, 100;
Legislature of restored government, 102;
election of United States Senators, 102;
State of Kanawha to be erected in, 105;
dismemberment ratified, 107;
convention of, 107;
Legislature meets, 109;
Legislature consents to formation of new State, 110;
Assembly consents to transfer of Berkeley County, 126;
act annexing counties to West Virginia, 127;
transfer of Berkeley and Jefferson counties, 127;
opposition to transfer, 127;
removal of capital, 129;
Legislature passes convention bill, 130;
who were voters in, 130;
amended constitution of, 130;
civil in conflict with military authorities, 134;
Legislature meets, 137;
attitude of Congress and army toward, 138;
feebleness of restored government, 138;
admission of Senators from, 141;
disloyal government discusses emancipation, 162;
United States should protect loyalists of, 191;
electoral vote from restored government, 314;
slavery in parts of, excepted from emancipation proclamation, 384;
division permanent, 399;
constitution of 1864, 425;
suffrage in, 425;
slavery abolished in, 425;
prohibitions on Legislature, 425;
President Johnson recognizes government of Pierpont, 427, 445;
ravages of war in, 427;
steps to restoration of, 428;
election in, 431;
acts of secession authorities void, 445;
acts of Congress to be enforced in, 446;
Alexandria ceases to be capital of, 446
_W_
Wade, Benjamin F., bill for admission of West Virginia reported by,
110;
remarks on admission of West Virginia, 111;
reconstruction bill reported by, 264;
address of, 264;
protest of, with Henry Winter Davis, 279;
character of, 283;
on electoral vote of Louisiana, 333;
remonstrance offered by, 343;
postponement of Trumbull’s resolution moved by, 378;
motion to postpone, defeated, 379;
Louisiana election criticised by, 381
Wade-Davis bill, House of Representatives passes, 262;
Senate passes, 273;
President’s action on, 273;
President’s proclamation concerning, 277;
revival of, 290;
no provision for negro suffrage in, 494
War, expenses of, 161;
condition of cessation of, 161, 397;
obligations between States abrogated by, 214;
Crittenden resolution on objects of, 221;
objects of, 364;
vindictiveness engendered by, 393
Ward, Artemus, 186
War Department, application of part of contingent fund of, 43
Warmoth, Henry C., election of, 422;
elements of political strength possessed by, 423
Washburne, Elihu B., remarks of, 342
Webster, Daniel, prediction of, 126
Welles, Gideon, on admission of West Virginia, 122;
Lincoln broaches emancipation to, 178;
quotation from diary of, 178;
narrative of, 188
Wells, J. Madison, proclamation of, 418;
General Banks not in harmony with, 418;
address of, 419;
qualifications of voters defined by, 420
Wells, T. M., seat in Congress claimed by, 341
Wellsburgh, meeting at, 97;
appointment of commissioners by, 98;
arms and ammunition stored at, 98
West Virginia, Congress admits Senators from, 104, 193;
prosecution of war favored by, 104;
stay law passed by, 104;
of revolutionary origin, 105;
convention for, 107;
slavery in, 107;
vote on constitution, 109;
vote on emancipation, 110;
Senate bill for admission of, 110;
allotment of Representatives to, 110;
Sumner on admission of, 110;
proposal to prohibit slavery in, 111;
Senate on admission of, 110;
Senate passes bill to admit, 113;
House bill for admission of, 113;
House on admission of, 113;
House passes bill for admission, 119;
Lincoln approves bill for admission of, 125;
constitutional amendment, 125;
convention approves constitution, 126;
constitution ratified by voters, 126;
becomes a State, 126;
Berkeley County transferred to, 126;
proposal to annex counties to, 127;
election in, 128;
inauguration of, 128;
United States Senators chosen by, 128;
opposition to admission of Senators from, 128;
Democrats alienated by President’s recognition of, 193;
Stevens finds no warrant in constitution for admission of, 214;
strong enough to maintain a loyal government, 230
Wheeling, delegate convention at, 99;
resolutions adopted by convention of, 100;
adjournment of convention, 101;
convention reassembles at, 104
Whiskey Insurrection, effects on status of Pennsylvania, 335
White, R. T. J., 88
Whittaker, John S., 41
Wickliffe, Charles A., Lincoln interviewed by, 165
Willey, Waitman T., election of, 103, 128;
admitted to seat, 104;
on admission of West Virginia, 112;
remarks on credentials of Mr. Segar, 138, 140
Williams, General, treatment of fugitive slaves by, 159
Williams, Thomas, reconstruction address of, 238
Wilson, Henry, on recognition of restored Virginia, 140
Wilson, James F., previous question on Ashley’s bill demanded by, 295;
reconstruction bill introduced by, 311;
joint resolution introduced by, 314
Wisconsin, electoral vote of, 316
Wood, Fernando, reconstruction bill opposed by, 251;
remarks on Ashley’s bill, 300;
remarks on Wilson’s bill, 312
_Y_
Yancey, William L., 7
Yeaman, George H., reconstruction address of, 243
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Enclosed smallcaps font in =EQUALS=.
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