Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 13

Officers of high rank in the volunteer service were not wanting.

Generals Butler and Banks of Ma.s.sachusetts, Palmer and Farnsworth of Illinois, Negley, Geary, Hartranft and Collis of Pennsylvania, Cochrane, Barnum and Barlow of New York, Chamberlain from Maine, Schenck and c.o.x from Ohio, Duncan and Harriman from New Hamps.h.i.+re, Daniel McCauley of Indiana, and many of their fellow-officers, took active and zealous part in the convention. Every loyal State except possibly Oregon was represented. Far-off California and Nevada, then without the facility of railway connection, sent delegates. The border States of the South were present in full force, and Union men who had borne their part in the civil contest came from every Confederate State. General John A. Logan had been unanimously elected as permanent president of the convention, but at the last moment he found himself unable to attend and his place was filled, with equal unanimity of selection, by General Jacob D. c.o.x of Ohio. General c.o.x, on taking the chair, made an address of great firmness. It was even radical in its positions and aggressive in its general tone.

He said it was "unpleasant to recognize the truth that it is in the minds of some to exalt the Executive Department of the Government into a despotic power and to abase the representative portion of our Government into the mere tools of despotism. Learning that this is the case, we now, as heretofore, know our duty, and knowing, dare maintain it. The citizen soldiery of the United States recognize the Congress of the United States as the representative government of the people. We know and all traitors know that the will of the people has been expressed in the complexion and character of the existing Congress. . . . We have expressed our faith that the proposition which has been made by Congress for the settlement of all difficulties in the country [the Fourteenth Amendment] is not only a wise policy, but one so truly magnanimous that the whole world stood in wonder that a people could, under such circ.u.mstances, be so magnanimous to those whom they had conquered. And when we say we are ready to stand by the decision of Congress, we only say as soldiers that we follow the same flag and the same principles which we have followed during the war."

The resolutions, read by General B. F. Butler, were explicit and unqualified in their declarations, and were indorsed with absolute unanimity. They declared that "the action of the present Congress in pa.s.sing the pending Const.i.tutional amendment is wise, prudent and just.

That amendment clearly defines American citizens.h.i.+p and guarantees all his rights to every citizen. It places on a just and equal basis the right of representation, making the vote of a man in one State equally potent with the vote of another man in any State. It righteously excludes from places of honor and trust the chief conspirators and guiltiest rebels, whose perjured crimes have drenched the land in blood. It puts into the very frame of our Government the inviolability of our National obligations, and nullifies forever the obligations contracted in support of the Rebellion." The resolutions further declared it to be "unfortunate for the country that the propositions contained in the Fourteenth Amendment have not been received with the spirit of conciliation, clemency and fraternal feeling in which they were offered, as they are the mildest terms ever granted to subdued rebels."

The members of the convention were in a tempest of anger against the President. They declared "that his attempt to fasten his scheme of Reconstruction upon the country is as dangerous as it is unwise; that his acts in sustaining it have r.e.t.a.r.ded the restoration of peace and unity; that they have converted conquered rebels into impudent claimants to rights which they have forfeited and to places which they have desecrated. If the President's scheme be consummated it would render the sacrifice of the Nation useless, the loss of her buried comrades vain, and the war in which we have so gloriously triumphed a failure, as it was declared to be by President Johnson's present a.s.sociates in the Democratic National Convention of 1864." Many other propositions of an equally decisive character were announced by the convention, and General John Cochrane declared that "a more complete, just and righteous platform for a whole people to occupy has never before been presented to the National sense."

Of the four conventions held, this, of the soldiers who had fought the battles of the Union, was far the most influential upon public opinion.

In its members.h.i.+p could be found representatives of every great battle-field of the war. Their testimony was invaluable. They spoke for the million comrades with whom they had stood in the ranks, and their influence consolidated almost _en ma.s.se_ the soldier vote of the country in support of the Republican party as represented by Congress.

Their enthusiasm was greater, their feeling more intense, their activity more marked than could be found among the civilians of the country who were supporting the same principles. They declared the political contest to be _their own fight_, as they expressed it, and considered themselves bearing the banner of loyalty as they had borne it in the actual conflict of arms. Their convention, their expressions, their determination were felt throughout the entire Union as an aggressive, irresistible force. From their ranks came many of the most attractive and most eloquent speakers, who discussed the merits of the Const.i.tutional amendment before popular audiences as ably as they had upheld the flag of the Union through four years of b.l.o.o.d.y strife. Their convention did more to popularize the Fourteenth Amendment as a political issue than any other instrumentality of the year. Not even the members of Congress, who repaired to their districts with the amendment as the leading question, could commend it to the ma.s.s of voters with the strength and with the good results which attended the soldier orators who were inspired to enter the field.

Other events powerfully contributed to the political overthrow of the President. After the change in his policy in the summer and autumn of 1865, which has already been noted, the Southern rebels, who had at first been cast down and discouraged, saw before them the prospect of regaining complete ascendency in their respective States. As the division between the President and Congress widened, their confidence increased; and as their confidence increased, a reign of lawlessness and outrage against the rights of the defenseless was inaugurated. The negroes, who had begun to learn their freedom, were not only subjected to laws of practical re-enslavement, but to a treatment whose brutality could not have been foreseen. It was estimated that before the adjournment of Congress more than a thousand negroes and many white Unionists had been murdered in the South, without even the slightest attempt at prosecuting the murderers. Though the aggregate number of victims was so great, they were scattered over so vast a territory that it was difficult to impress the public mind of the North with the real magnitude of the slaughter. But this incredulity vanished in a moment when the nation was startled on the 30th of July, two days after the adjournment of Congress, by a ma.s.sacre at New Orleans, which had not the pretense of justification or even or provocation.

The circ.u.mstances that led to it may be briefly stated. The convention which formed the free const.i.tution of the State in 1864 was ordered to re-a.s.semble by its president, upon authority which, he held, was conferred upon him by the convention at the time the const.i.tution was formed. Apprehending that some measures were to be taken hostile to the re-establishment of rebel power in the State of Louisiana, it was resolved by the opponents of the Republican party that the members of the convention should not be allowed to come together and organize.

Threats were insufficient to effect this end. Intimidation of every character had been tried in vain. The men who thought they had the right, as American citizens, to meet for conference refused to be bullied out of their plain privileges under the guarantees of the National Const.i.tution. There was a dispute as to their legal right to take any action touching the const.i.tution of the State--a dispute altogether proper for judicial inquiry. Even if they had a.s.sembled and proceeded to amend the const.i.tution, their action could have had no binding effect until approved by the vote of the people. The question which lay at the bottom of the agitation was that of negro suffrage; but the negroes were not ent.i.tled to vote under the const.i.tution as its stood, nor could they vote upon an amendment to the const.i.tution conferring the right of suffrage upon them. Whatever the convention might do, therefore, would be ineffectual until approved by a majority of the white men of the State. It obviously followed that the men who violently resisted the a.s.sembling of the convention could not justify themselves by the declaration that negro suffrage was about to be imposed upon them. Their position practically was that a majority of the white population should not exercise the right of giving suffrage to the negro.

When the convention attempted to a.s.semble against the desire and remonstrance of their political opponents, a b.l.o.o.d.y riot ensued--not a riot precipitated by the ordinary material that makes up the mobs of cities, but one sustained by the obvious sympathy and the indirect support of the munic.i.p.al authorities of New Orleans, and by the leading rebels of the State. General Absalom Baird, an able and prudent officer of the regular army, was in command of the district, but was purposely deceived by the munic.i.p.al authorities, to the end that troops might not be at hand to quell the riot and stop the a.s.sa.s.sination which had been planned with diabolical ingenuity. The slaughter, in point of numbers, resembled that of a brisk military engagement in the field.

The number killed outright was about forty. The wounded exceeded one hundred and fifty, of whom perhaps one-third were severely injured, many of them mortally. The city police of New Orleans aided the rioters. General Sheridan, in command of the department, officially reported that "the killing was in a manner so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say it was murder." The lamentable transaction was investigated by a committee of Congress, composed of Messrs. Eliot of Ma.s.sachusetts, Sh.e.l.labarger of Ohio, and Boyer of Pennsylvania, the first two being Republicans, the last-named a Democrat. An investigation was also made under the direction of the War Department, by a commission of military officers, composed of Generals Mower, Quincy, Gregg, and Baldy. These officers reported that in their opinion "the whole drift and current of the evidence tend irresistibly to the conclusion that there was among the cla.s.s of _violents_ known to exist in the State, and among the members of the ex-Confederate a.s.sociations, a preconcerted plan and purpose of attack upon the convention, provided any possible pretext therefor could be found."

The majority of the Congressional Committee took the same view, declaring that "the riotous attack upon the convention with its terrible results of ma.s.sacre and murder was not an accident. It was the determined purpose of the mayor of the city of New Orleans to break up this convention by armed force." The Congressional Committee did not make their investigation until the succeeding winter session of 1866-7. "We state one fact," said the committee, "significant both as bearing upon the question of preparation and as indicating the true and prevailing feeling of the people of New Orleans. Six months have pa.s.sed since the convention a.s.sembled, when the ma.s.sacre was perpetrated and more than two hundred men were slain and wounded. This was done by city officials and New-Orleans citizens, but not one of those men has been punished, arrested or even complained of. These officers of the law, living in the city and known to that community, acting under the eye of superiors, clothed with the uniform of office, and some of them known, as the proof shows, to the chief officer of police, have not only escaped punishment but have been continued in their places."

Not only were the men who instigated and committed the terrible murders left unpunished, but, as the committee said, "the gentlemen who composed the convention have not, however, been permitted to escape.

Prosecutions in the criminal court, under an old law pa.s.sed in 1805, were at once commenced and are now pending against them for breach of the peace." Another authority declares that "the judge of the criminal court in New Orleans instructed the grand jury to find bills of indictment against the members of the convention and the spectators, charging them with murder; giving the principle of law and applying it in this case, that whoever is engaged in an unlawful proceeding from which death ensues to a human being, is guilty of murder, and alleging that as the convention had no right to meet and the police had killed many men on the day of its meeting, the survivors were, therefore, guilty of murder." The Congressional Committee did not hesitate to declare that "the facts tend strongly to prove that the criminal actors in the tragedy were the agents of more criminal employes, and demonstrate the general sympathy of the people in behalf of the men who did the wrong against those who suffered the wrong."

The President came in for a full share of censure in connection with this unhappy event. The committee reported that "The President knew that riot and bloodshed were apprehended. He knew what military orders were in force, and yet, without the confirmation of the Secretary of War or the General of the Army, upon whose responsibility these military order had been issued, he gave orders by telegraph, which if enforced, as they would be, would have compelled our soldiers to aid the rebels against the men in New Orleans who had remained loyal during the war, and sought to aid and support, by official sanction, the persons who designed to suppress, by arrest and criminal process under color of law, the meeting of the convention; and all this, although the convention was called with the sanction of the governor, and by one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Louisiana claiming to act as President of the convention. The effect of the action of the President was to encourage the heart, to strengthen the hand, and to hold up the arms of those who intended to prevent the convention from a.s.sembling."

Mr. Boyer, the minority member of the committee, submitted a report dissenting from the conclusions of the majority, and making, as nearly as could be done, a defense of the men who had really been the guilty aiders and abettors of the crime; but he did not deny the fact of the riot nor of the great number of its victims.

The substantial correctness of the report made by the majority of the Congressional Committee was never shaken, though it was angrily attacked by the supporters of the Administration. Aside from the credit imparted to it by the conscientious character of both Mr. Eliot and Mr. Sh.e.l.labarger, the corroboration of all its material statements by the Commission of Army officers was invaluable. The military men were not suspected of partisan motives. They had no political theories to maintain, no animosities to indulge, no personal revenges to cherish. They proceeded as coolly as though they were investigating alleged frauds by army contractors or were hearing evidence touching the damage to frontier settlers by an Indian raid. The intelligence and impartiality of investigations entrusted to army officers have become proverbial, and their report of the facts in the New Orleans riot arrested the attention of the North in an unprecedented degree.

Every thing possible was done by the opponents of the Republican party to break the force of the damaging facts, but apparently without success. Indeed the people of the United States have rarely been stirred to greater excitement than that aroused by the full details of this nefarious transaction as it came to them through the public press and through official reports. The effect was disastrous to the President, and was hurtful, in the extreme, to the cause of prompt reconstruction. The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of transferring the government of States to the control of men who had already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds. In their wrathful zeal for justice they would hear no apology and no defense of the President. They held him as an accomplice in the crime,--as one having in advance a guilty knowledge of the pre-arranged a.s.sa.s.sination. In every way in which public indignation can be expressed, in every form in which public anger can vent itself, the loyal people of the Northern states manifested their feelings, and did not spare in their bitter denunciations the personal character of the President or the unspeakable guilt of his Southern supporters.

The b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy of midsummer, which had weighed down the people with a sense of the gravest solicitude, was followed by what might well be termed its comedy. During the early spring the President had accepted an invitation from the citizens of Chicago to attend the ceremony of laying a corner-stone for a monument to be erected to the memory of Stephen A. Douglas. The date fixed for the President's visit was September 6th, and he left Was.h.i.+ngton on the 28th of August, accompanied by Secretary Welles, Postmaster-general Randall, General Grant, Admiral Farragut, by a considerable number of army officers and by a complement of private secretaries and newspaper reporters,--apparently intending to convert the journey into a political canva.s.s. Mr. Seward joined the company in New York. The somewhat ludicrous effect produced by combining a series of turbulent partisan meetings to be addressed by the President with the solemn duty of paying respect to the memory of a dead statesman, did not fail to have its effect upon the appreciative mind of his countrymen, and from the beginning to the end of the tour there was a popular alternation between harsh criticism and contemptuous raillery of Mr. Johnson's conduct.

His journey was by way of Philadelphia and New York, to Albany; thence westward to Chicago. At all the princ.i.p.al cities and towns along the route large bodies of people a.s.sembled. Democrat and Republican, Administration and anti-Administration, were commingled. The President spoke everywhere in an aggressive and disputatious tone. It has been the decorous habit of the Chief Magistrate of the country, when upon a tour among his fellow-citizens, to refrain from all display of partisans.h.i.+p, and to receive popular congratulations with brief and cordial thanks. President Johnson, however, behaved as an ordinary political speaker in a heated canva.s.s, receiving interruptions from the crowd, answering insolent remarks with undignified repartee, and lowering at every step of his progress the dignity which properly appertains to the great office. At Cleveland the meeting resembled occasions not unfamiliar to our people, where the speaker receives from his audience constant and discourteous demonstrations that his words are unwelcome. The whole scene was regarded as lamentable and one which must have been deeply humiliating to the eminent men who accompanied the President.

He made the tour the occasion for defending at great length his own policy of Reconstruction, and arraigned with unsparing severity the course of Congress in interposing a policy of its own. The most successful political humorist of the day(1), writing in pretended support of the President, described his tour as being undertaken "to arouse the people to the danger of concentrating power in the hands of Congress instead of diffusing it through one man." Wit and sarcasm were lavished at the expense of the President, gibes and jeers and taunts marked the journey from its beginning to its end. "My policy"

was iterated and reiterated, until the very boys in the streets, without knowing its meaning, knew it was the source and subject of ridicule, and made it a jest and a by-word at Mr. Johnson's expense.

The whole journey came to be known as "swinging around the circle,"

and its incidents entered daily into the thoughts of the people only as subjects of disapprobation on the part of the more considerate, and of persiflage and ribaldry on the part of those who regarded it only as a matter of amus.e.m.e.nt. With whatever strength or prestige the President left Was.h.i.+ngton, he certainly returned to the Capital personally discredited and politically ruined. Upon the direct public issue which he had raised he would undoubtedly have been beaten in nearly all the Northern states, but when his weakness had brought him within fair range of ridicule, he became powerless even in the place of power.

Meanwhile, during the National Conventions referred to and during the remarkable tour of the President, the cause of his opponents was urged in every State and in every district, with extraordinary energy on the part of leaders, with corresponding interest on the part of the people.

The contest for the governors.h.i.+p of New York between Reuben E. Fenton and John T. Hoffman, and for the governors.h.i.+p of Pennsylvania between John W. Geary and Hiester Clymer, excited deep interest far beyond the borders of either State. The vote for these candidates was looked to as giving the aggregate popular expression touching the merits of the Administration, and carried with it the united interest which attached to all the Congressional districts. When at last a test was reached and the people had an opportunity to speak the Administration was overwhelmingly defeated. Vermont, usually so strong in its Republican vote, now increased the ordinary majority by thousands. Maine elected General Chamberlain governor by twenty-eight thousand majority.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa were then all known in current phrase as October States. They voted for members of Congress and State officers on the second Tuesday of that month. The result was a significant verdict against the Administration. In Pennsylvania Geary, on a much fuller vote than was cast at the Presidential election two years before, led Clymer by nearly as large a majority as that by which Lincoln led McClellan. The Congressional elections resulted in the choice of eighteen Republicans to six Democratic representatives.

Ohio, on her State ticket, gave forty-three thousand majority against the Administration, and elected sixteen Republican representatives in Congress, leaving only three districts to the Democrats. In Indiana, a State always hotly contested, the Republicans secured the popular vote by a majority of nearly fifteen thousand and carried every Congressional district except three. Iowa gave a popular majority of thirty-six thousand and carried every Congressional district for the Republicans.

Under the impulse and influence of these great victories in October the November States recorded a like result. New York, of course, absorbed the largest share of public interest. Two years before, Lincoln had beaten McClellan by less than seven thousand votes. Fenton had now double that majority over Hoffman and the Republicans carried two-thirds of the Congressional districts. Throughout the West, Republican victory swept every thing before it. Michigan gave thirty-nine thousand popular majority and a unanimous Republican delegation in Congress. Illinois gave fifty-six thousand popular majority, with nearly all the representatives. Wisconsin gave twenty-four thousand popular majority and elected every Republican candidate for representative except one. Northern States which had been tenaciously Democratic gave way under the popular pressure. New-Jersey Republicans elected a majority of the members of Congress and a majority of each branch of the State Legislature. Connecticut was carried by Governor Hawley against the most popular Democrat in the State, James E.

English. California gave seven thousand majority for the Republicans, while Oregon elected a Republican governor and Republican representative in Congress.

The aggregate majority for the Republicans and against the Administration in the Northern States was about three hundred and ninety thousand votes. In the South the elections were as significant as in the North, but in the opposite direction. Wherever Republican or Union tickets were put forward for State or local offices in the Confederate States, they were defeated by prodigious majorities.

Arkansas gave a Democratic majority of over nine thousand, Texas over forty thousand, and North Carolina twenty-five thousand. The border slave States were divided. Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky gave strong majorities for the Democrats, while West Virginia and Missouri were carried by the Republicans. The unhappy indication of the whole result was that President Johnson's policy had inspired the South with a determination not to submit to the legitimate results of the war, but to make a new fight and, if possible, regain at the ballot-box the power they had lost by war. The result of the whole election was to give to the Republicans one hundred and forty-three representatives in Congress and to the Democrats but forty-nine. The defeat was so decisive that if the President had been wise he would have sought a return of friendly relations with the party which had elected him, or at least some form of compromise which would have averted constant collision, with the certainty of defeat and humiliation. But his disposition was unyielding. His prejudices obscured his reason.

It was well known that the President felt much cast down by the result. He had, as is usual with Presidents, been surrounded by flatterers, and had not been advised of the actual state of public opinion. Political deserters, place-seekers and personal sycophants had constantly a.s.sured the President that his cause was strong and his strength irresistible. They had discovered that one of his especial weaknesses was an ambition to be considered as firm and heroic in his Administration as General Jackson had proved in the Executive chair thirty years before. He received, therefore, with evident welcome the constant adulation of a comparison between his qualities and those of General Jackson, and he came to fancy that he would prove, in his contest for the unconditional re-admission of Southern States to representation, as mighty a power in the land as Jackson had proved in his struggle with the Bank monopolists and with the Disunionists of South Carolina. But those who had studied the character of Johnson knew that aside from the possession of personal integrity, he had few qualities in common with those which distinguished Jackson. Johnson was bold and fluent in public speech, irresolute and procrastinating in action: Jackson wasted no words, but always acted with promptness and courage. Johnson was vain, loquacious, and offensively egotistic: Jackson, on the other hand, was proud, reserved, and with such abounding self-respect as excluded egotism. The two men, instead of being alike, were in fact signal contrasts in all that appertains to the talent for administration, to the quick discernment of the time for action, and to the prompt execution of whatever policy might be announced.

The Republicans had found an easier victory over Johnson than they had antic.i.p.ated. They were well led in the great contest of 1866. In New England the President really secured no Republican support whatever.

Soon after his accession to the Presidency he had induced Hannibal Hamlin, with whom he had been on terms of personal intimacy in Congress, to accept the Collectors.h.i.+p of Customs at Boston, but as soon as Mr. Hamlin discovered the tendency of Johnson's policy he made haste, with that strict adherence to principle which has always marked his political career, to separate himself from the Administration by resigning the office. It was urged upon him that he could maintain his official position without in any degree compromising his principles, but his steady reply to earnest friends who presented this view, was that he was an old-fas.h.i.+oned man in his conception of public duty, and he would not consent to hold a political office under a President from whose policy he instinctively and radically dissented. Mr. Hamlin's course was highly applauded by the ma.s.s of Republicans throughout the country, and especially by his old const.i.tuents in Maine. His action took from Mr. Johnson the last semblance of a prominent Republican friend in New England and gave an almost unprecedented solidity to the public opinion of that section.

The adherence of Mr. Seward to the Administration, the loss of Thurlow Weed as an organizer, and the desertion of the _New-York Times_, had created great fear as to the result in New York, but the popularity of Governor Fenton, supplemented by the support of Senator Morgan and of the younger cla.s.s of men then coming forward, of whom Roscoe Conkling was the recognized chief, imparted an energy and enthusiasm to the canva.s.s which proved irresistible. In Pennsylvania the contest was waged with great energy by both parties. The result would determine not merely the control of the local administration, not merely the character of the delegation in Congress, but the future leaders.h.i.+p of the Republican party of the State. Simon Cameron sought a restoration to his old position of power by a return to the Senate. During the five years that had elapsed since he retired from the War Department Mr. Cameron's supremacy had been challenged by the political _coterie_ that surrounded Governor Curtin. They boastfully proclaimed indeed that the sceptre of power was in their hands and could not be wrenched from them. But the reaction against them was strong and did not cease until Cameron had driven his leading enemies to seek refuge in the Democratic party.

In the West the hostility to the President and the support of the policy of Congress were even more demonstrative than in the East. All the prominent Republicans of Ohio were on the stump and the canva.s.s was extraordinarily heated, even for a State which has had an animated contest every year since the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

Governor Morton's candidacy for the Senate gave great earnestness to the struggle in Indiana, while Senator Chandler not only rallied Michigan to the necessity of giving an immense majority, but with his tremendous vitality added nerve and zeal to every contest in the North-western States. The whole result proved to be one of commanding influence on the future course of public events. The Republicans plainly saw that the triumph of President Johnson meant a triumph of the Democratic party under an _alias_, that the first-fruits of such a victory would be the re-establishment of the late Confederate States in full political power inside the Union, and that in a little more than five years from the firing upon Sumter, and a little more than one year from the surrender of Lee, the same political combination which had threatened the destruction of the Union would be recalled to its control.

The importance, therefore, of the political struggle of 1866 cannot be overestimated. It has, perhaps, been underestimated. If the contest had ended in a victory for the Democrats the history of the subsequent years would, in all probability, have been radically different. There would have been no further amendment to the Const.i.tution, there would have been no conditions of reconstruction, there would have been such a neutralization of the anti-slavery amendment as would authorize and sustain all the State laws already pa.s.sed for the practical re-enslavement of the negro, with such additional enactments as would have made them cruelly effective. With the South re-admitted and all its representatives acting in cordial co-operation with the Northern Democrats, the result must have been a deplorable degradation of the National character and an ign.o.ble surrender to the enemies of the Union, thenceforth to be invested with the supreme direction of its government.

There was an unmistakable manifestation throughout the whole political canva.s.s of 1866, by the more advanced section of the Republican party, in favor of demanding impartial suffrage as the basis of reconstruction in the South. It came from the people rather than from the political leaders. The latter cla.s.s, with few exceptions, shunned the issue, preferring to wait until public sentiment should become more p.r.o.nounced in favor of so radical a movement. But a large number of thinking people, who gave more heed to the absolute right of the question than to its political expediency, could not see how, with consistency, or even with good conscience and common sense, the Republican party could refrain from calling to its aid the only large ma.s.s of persons in the South whose loyalty could be implicitly trusted.

To their apprehension it seemed little less than an absurdity, to proceed with a plan of reconstruction which would practically leave the State governments of the South under the control of the same men that brought on the civil war.

They were embarra.s.sed, however, in this step by the constantly recurring obstacle presented by the const.i.tutions of a majority of the loyal States. In five New-England States suffrage to the colored man was conceded, but in Connecticut only those negroes were allowed to vote who were admitted freedmen prior to 1818. New York permitted a negro to vote after he had been three years a citizen of the State and had been for one year the owner of a freehold worth two hundred and fifty dollars, free of all inc.u.mbrances. In every other Northern State none but "white men" were permitted to vote. Even Kansas, which entered the Union under the shadow of the civil war, after a prolonged and terrible struggle with the spirit of slavery, at once restricted suffrage to the white man; while Nevada, whose admission to the Union was after the Thirteenth Amendment had been pa.s.sed by Congress, denied suffrage to "any negro, Chinaman or mulatto." A still more recent test was applied. The question of admitting the negro to suffrage was submitted to popular vote in Connecticut, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the autumn of 1865, and at the same time in Colorado, when she was forming her const.i.tution preparatory to seeking admission to the Union.

In all four, under the control of the Republican party at the time, the proposition was defeated.

With these indisputable evidences of the unpopularity of negro suffrage in the great majority of the Northern States, there was ample excuse for the reluctance of leading statesmen to adopt it as a condition of reconstruction, and force it upon the South by law before it had been adopted by the moral sense of the North. The period, however, was one calculated to bring about very rapid changes in public opinion; and there had undoubtedly been great advance in the popular judgment concerning this question since the elections of the preceding year.

The question was really in the position where it would be materially influenced by the course of events in the South. The violence and murder at New Orleans in July had changed the views of many men; and, while the more considerate and conservative tried to regard that outbreak as an exceptional occurrence, the ma.s.s of the Northern people feared that it indicated a dangerous sentiment among a people not yet fitted to be entrusted with the administration of a State Government.

While these views were rapidly taking form throughout the North, they were strongly tempered and restrained by the better hope that the people of the South would be able to restore such a feeling of confidence as would prevent the exaction of other conditions of reconstruction and the consequent postponement of the re-admission of the Southern States to representation. The average Republican sentiment of the North was well expressed by the Republican State Convention of New York, which, after reciting the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, and declaring that "That amendment commends itself, by its justice, humanity, and moderation, to every patriotic heart," made this important declaration: "_That when any of the late insurgent States shall adopt that amendment, such State shall, at once, by its loyal representatives, be permitted to resume its place in Congress._" This view was generally concurred in by the Western States; and, if the Southern States had accepted the broad invitation thus given, there is little doubt that before the close of the year they might have been restored to the enjoyment of every power and privilege under the National Const.i.tution. There would have been opposition to it, but the weight of public influence, and the majority in both branches of Congress, would have been sure to secure this result.

[(1) Petroleum V. Nasby.]

CHAPTER XI.

The rejoicing over the result of the elections throughout the free States had scarcely died away when the Thirty-ninth Congress met in its second session (December 3, 1866). There was no little curiosity to hear what the President would say in his message, in regard to the issue upon which he had sustained so conclusive a defeat. He was known to be in a state of great indignation, and as he had broken forth during the campaign in expressions altogether unbecoming his place, there was some apprehension that he might be guilty of the same indiscretion in his official communication to Congress. But he was saved from such humiliation by the evident interposition of a judicious adviser. The message was strikingly moderate and even conciliatory in tone. The President re-argued his case with apparent calmness and impartiality, repeating and enforcing his position with entire disregard of the popular result which had so significantly condemned him. After rehearsing all that had been done in the direction of reconstruction, so far as his power could reach it, and so far as the Thirteenth Amendment of the Const.i.tution was an essential part of it, the President expressed his regret that Congress had failed to do its duty by re-admitting the Southern States to representation.

"It was not," said he, "until the close of the eighth month of the session that an exception was made in favor of Tennessee by the admission of her senators and representatives." "I deem it," he continued, "a subject of profound regret that Congress has thus far failed to admit to seats loyal senators and representatives from the other States, whose inhabitants with those of Tennessee had engaged in the Rebellion. Ten States, more than one-fourth of the whole number, remain without representation. The seats of fifty members in the House and twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant, not by their own consent, nor by a failure of election, but by the refusal of Congress to accept their credentials. Their admission, it is believed, would have accomplished much towards the renewal and strengthening of our relations as one people, and would have removed serious cause for discontent upon the part of the inhabitants of those States." The President did not discuss the ground of difference between his policy and that of Congress, simply contenting himself with a restatement of the case, in declaratory rather than in argumentative form. He did not at all seem to realize, or even to recognize, the vantage ground which Congress had obtained by the popular decision in the recent elections. He apparently did not understand that every issue dividing the Executive and Legislative Departments of the Government had been decided in favor of the latter by the masters of both--decided by those who select and control Presidents and Congresses.

The President's position in pursuing a policy which had been so pointedly condemned, excited derision and contempt in the North, but it led to mischievous results in the South. The ten Confederate States which stood knocking at the door of Congress for the right of representation, were fully aware, as was well stated by a leading Republican, that the key to unlock the door had been placed in their own hands. They knew that the political canva.s.s in the North had proceeded upon the basis, and upon the practical a.s.surance (given through the press, and more authoritatively in political platforms), that whenever any other Confederate State should follow the example of Tennessee, it should at once be treated as Tennessee had been treated. Yet, when this position had been confirmed by the elections in all the loyal States, and was, by the special warrant of popular power, made the basis of future admission, these ten States, voting upon the Fourteenth Amendment at different dates through the winter of 1866-67, contemptuously rejected it. In the Virginia Legislature only one vote could be found for the Amendment. In the North-Carolina Legislature only eleven votes out of one hundred and forty-eight were in favor of the Amendment. In the South-Carolina Legislature there was only one vote for the Amendment. In Georgia only two votes out of one hundred and sixty-nine in the Legislature were in the affirmative.

Florida unanimously rejected the Amendment. Out of one hundred and six votes in the Alabama Legislature only ten could be found in favor of it. Mississippi and Louisiana both rejected it unanimously. Texas, out of her entire Legislature, gave only five votes for it, and the Arkansas Legislature, which had really taken its action in the preceding October, gave only three votes for the Amendment.

This course on the part of the Southern States was simply a declaration of defiance to Congress. It was as if they had said in so many words: "We are ent.i.tled to representation in Congress, and we propose to resume it on our own terms; and therefore we reject your conditions with scorn. We will not consent to your Fourteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution. We will not consent that the freedom of the negro shall be made secure by endowing him with citizens.h.i.+p. We demand that without giving negroes the right to vote, they shall yet be counted in the basis of representation, thus increasing our political power when we re-enter Congress beyond that which we enjoyed before we rebelled, and beyond that which white men in the North shall ever enjoy. We decline to give any guarantee for the validity of the public debt.

We decline to guarantee the sacredness of pensions to soldiers disabled in the War for the Union. We decline to pledge ourselves that the debts incurred in aid of the Rebellion shall not in the future be paid by our States. We decline, in brief, to a.s.sent to any of the conditions or provisions of the proposed amendment to the Const.i.tution, and we deny your right to amend it without our consent."

The madness of this course on the part of the Southern leaders was scarcely less than the madness of original secession; and it is difficult, in deliberately weighing all the pertinent incidents and circ.u.mstances, to discover any motive which could, even to their own distorted view, justify the position they had so rashly taken. Strong as the Republican party had shown itself in the elections, it grew still stronger in all the free States, as each of the Confederate States proclaimed its refusal to accept the Fourteenth Amendment as the basis of their return to representation. The response throughout the North, in the mouths of the loyal people, was in effect: "If these rebel States are not willing now to resume representation on the terms offered, let them stay out until their anger ceases and their reason returns. If they are not willing to concede the guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment, and to give that pledge to the country of their future loyalty and their common sense of justice, they shall find that we can be as resolute as they, and we shall insist on the right as stubbornly as they persist in the wrong." These were not merely the declamations of statesmen, or of the press, or of the popular speakers of the Republican party. They came spontaneously, as if by inspiration, from the ma.s.s of the people, and were based on that instinctive sense of justice which the mult.i.tude rarely fails to exhibit.

It was naturally inferred and was subsequently proved, that the Southern States would not have dared to take this hostile att.i.tude except with the encouragement and the unqualified support of the President. He was undoubtedly in correspondence, directly and indirectly, with the political powers that were controlling the action of the insurrectionary States, and he was determined that the policy of Congress should not have the triumph that would be implied in a ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by those States. Telegraphic correspondence clearly establis.h.i.+ng the President's position, subsequently came to light. Governor Parsons of Alabama telegraphed him indicating that the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment might be reconsidered by the Alabama Legislature, if in consequence thereof an enabling Act could be pa.s.sed by Congress for the admission of the State to representation. Johnson promptly replied on the same day: "What possible good can be obtained by reconsidering the Const.i.tutional Amendment? I know of none in the present posture of affairs, and I do not believe the people of the country will sustain any set of individuals in attempts to change the whole character of our Government by enabling Acts or otherwise. I believe on the contrary, that they will eventually uphold all those who have patriotism and courage to stand by the Const.i.tution and who place their confidence in the people.

There should be no faltering on the part of those who are honest in a determination to sustain the several co-ordinate Departments of the Government in accordance with the original design." It was evident from this disclosure that Johnson's hand was busy throughout the South, secretly as well as openly, and that he inspired the resolute obstinacy with which the insurrectionary States resisted the fair and magnanimous offers of Reconstruction made by Congress. The Rebel element of the South had gradually come to repose implicit confidence in Johnson, and this fact increased his power to sow dissension and produce discord.

His stubborn and apparently malicious course at this time, was inspired in large part by a desire to be avenged on the Northern States and Northern leaders for the stinging rebuke administered to him in the recent election.

Sustained by the same popular sentiment which had given offense to the President, Congress did not doubt its duty or hesitate in its action.

Its course, indeed, was firm to the point of severity. It met the spirit of defiance on the part of the South with an answer so decisive, that the misguided people of that section were rapidly undeceived as to their power to command the situation, even with all the aid the President could bring. The princ.i.p.al debates for the first two months of the session related wholly to the condition of the South, and on the 6th of February (1867) Mr. Stevens, from the Committee on Reconstruction, reported a bill which after sundry amendments became the leading measure of the Thirty-ninth Congress. In its original form the preamble declared that "whereas the pretended State governments of the late so-called Confederate States afford no adequate protection for life or property, but countenance and encourage lawlessness and crime; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said so-called Confederate States, until loyal State governments can be legally established; _therefore_ be it enacted that said so-called Confederate States shall be divided into military districts, and made subject to the military authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed; and for that purpose Virginia shall const.i.tute the first district, North Carolina and South Carolina the second district, Georgia, Alabama and Florida the third district, Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district, and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district."