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:

Please come up and see me at once.^[452]

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]