JOHNSON'S THEORY: THE EXPERIMENT, AND ITS RESULTS.
1. We have briefly reviewed the theories that obtained greater or less
consideration during the progress of the war, and have seen that plan had
been agreed upon by which the Southern States might resume their normal
relations with the rest of the Union. Two or three States had, it is true,
been nominally reconstructed under the provisions of the proclamation of
December 8, 1863, but their good faith was strongly suspected, and their
representatives were not able to secure recognition in Congress. The high
personal esteem in which President Lincoln was held had prevented general
demonstrations against his policy, but there was a wide-spread suspicion
that he was inclined to deal too leniently with a people who had brought
so much expense and misery upon the nation. The indignation of the North
had increased with the progress of the war, and the belief that the South
could be held in check only by the most stringent regulations and
requirements was held by many.
2. So long as armed rebellion existed the question of reconstruction was a
minor one, the attention of all being chiefly directed to the problem:
"How can this rebellion be crushed out, and the South made thoroughly to
realize that resistance is useless?" But when Andrew Johnson took the oath
of office the rebellion was virtually a thing of the past, and the giant
problem for the nation to solve during his administration was: "How shall
we treat these conquered States lying helpless, awaiting whatever fate
may be allotted them?" No other issue of importance served to offset it.
The whole nation was debating the question, and all were waiting to see in
what way the Executive would grapple with it.[38]
3. Those who feared that Lincoln had lacked sufficient firmness and had
been too tender hearted, believed that in Johnson the nation had as its
Executive a man with correct convictions and a strength of character which
ensured both the proper treatment of the South and the stability of the
Union. Johnson had an excellent record as military governor of Tennessee,
where his fearlessness and vigorous administration had given him a
reputation which brought to him the nomination of vice-president. From his
severity to the rebels while governor of Tennessee it was reasoned that he
would still remain severe and unyielding in his treatment of them as
President of the United States. He himself was always fond of alluding to
his past record as indicating his future course. Thus, only six days after
he took the oath of office, he said while addressing a delegation of
citizens of Indiana:[39] "In reference to what my administration will be,
while I occupy my present position, I must refer you to the past. You may
look back to it as evidence of what my course will be; * * * mine has been
but one straightforward and unswerving course, and I see no reason now why
I should depart from it. * * * My past is a better foreshadowing of my
future course than any other statement on paper that might be made."
Moreover, an examination of the speeches made by him during the war shows
the grounds on which the people were justified in expecting a severe
policy. An extract from an address delivered in Nashville, June 9, 1864,
shows his views at that time as to who should carry on the work of
reconstruction.[40] "In calling a convention to restore the State, who
shall restore and re-establish it? Shall the man who gave his influence
and his means to destroy the government * * * participate in the great
work of reorganization? * * * 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." Later on in the same speech he said, referring to the traitor
"born and reared among us:" "My judgment is that he should be subjected to
a severe ordeal before he is restored to citizenship. A fellow who takes
the oath merely to save his property, and denies the validity of the oath,
is a perjured man, and not to be trusted."
4. Emphatic statements such as these, often repeated, insisting that the
government of the States must be carefully kept in the hands of those
whose loyalty was above suspicion, and advocating severe ordeals for those
considered traitors, warranted the people of the nation in their faith in
his extreme devotion to a strong Union. Yet soon after his inauguration a
change in his attitude could be noticed. In his numerous speeches and
interviews he shifts his ground, very gradually at first, but soon meeting
the issue squarely, pledging himself to a policy which he faithfully
carried into execution, and which the candid student must recognize as
being thoroughly believed in by the President. Clemency towards the
masses, but severity towards the leaders of the rebellion, was his
attitude in his speech of April 21, above alluded to. He expressed his
views as follows:[41] "It is not promulgating anything I have not
heretofore said, to say that traitors must be made odious, that treason
must be made odious, that traitors must be punished and impoverished.
They must not only be punished, but their social power must be destroyed.
If not, they will still maintain an ascendency, and may again become
numerous and powerful; for, in the words of a former senator of the United
States, 'when traitors become numerous enough, treason becomes
respectable.' And I say that, after making treason odious, every Union man
and the Government should be remunerated out of the pockets of those who
have inflicted this great suffering upon the country. But do not
understand me as saying this in a spirit of anger, for, if I understand my
own heart, the reverse is the case; and while I say that the penalties of
the law, in a stern and inflexible manner, should be executed upon
conscious, intelligent and influential traitors--the leaders, who have
deceived thousands upon thousands of laboring men who have been drawn into
this rebellion--and while I say, as to the leaders, punishment, I also say
leniency, conciliation and amnesty to the thousands whom they have misled
and deceived."
As Johnson said, he promulgated nothing new in this statement of his
beliefs regarding the treatment of the South, save possibly a more
definite affirmation of clemency to the masses. In the Nashville speech of
June 9, 1864, he had still more emphatically urged extreme measures
towards the leaders.[42] "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." Again on April 24, 1865, in an interview with a number of Virginia
refugees, he reiterated the necessity of severity. In this case, perhaps
owing to the nature of the interview, and the character of those to whom
he was speaking, he makes no distinction between the leaders and their
followers, his definition of treason apparently including all soldiers and
their abettors. In it he says:[43] "It is time that our people were taught
that treason is a crime, not a mere political difference, not a mere
contest between two parties, in which one succeeded and the other simply
failed. They must know it is treason; for if they had succeeded, the life
of the nation would have been reft from it, the Union would have been
destroyed. Surely the Constitution sufficiently defines treason. It
consists in levying war against the United States, and in giving their
enemies aid and comfort."
The great liberality with which, beginning with the following month, the
President used the pardoning power, and the extreme leniency with which
all the leaders were treated, were in striking contrast with these
sentiments. A situation was presented for Johnson to meet as President,
which necessitated modifications of views held by him as governor. His
attitude towards the leaders must be admitted to have undergone actual
modification, notwithstanding his claim a few months later that he simply
wished to make the leaders sue for pardon and realize the enormity of
their offence.
5. The real secret of the apparently strange development of his policy,
which we are about to trace out, lies in the fact that although at this
time nominally a Republican, he was in reality a strict constructionist.
He had always been a Democrat, and still held Democratic views. Only when
secession began to be urged by the southern branch of the Democracy, did
he break loose from his old ties. Accustomed to interpret the Constitution
from a strict constructionist standpoint, accustomed to the belief that
the power of the State was restricted only by the specific limitations of
the Constitution, and that the federal government could exercise no power
beyond that expressly granted it, he naturally treated the question of
reconstruction from the same standpoint. The surprising thing in Johnson's
career is the fact that in spite of his strict construction views, he was
strongly opposed to secession. He was therefore not strictly logical. The
extreme strict constructionist claimed that the fact that the Constitution
did not forbid a State from seceding, made secession constitutional. But
Johnson's love for the Union was too great to permit him to carry his
strict construction views to such an extreme. On the contrary, the fact
that the Constitution offered no way for a State to secede from the Union
proved to him that secession was unconstitutional, and he looked upon that
fact as one of the greatest safeguards for the protection of the
Commonwealth.[44] To his mind it logically followed that because secession
was unconstitutional, it was absolutely impossible for a State to secede,
and therefore equally impossible for a State to commit treason.
Individuals might commit treason and be punished therefor, but States
never. However strongly at any time he may have urged the punishment of
traitors, he never argued for or believed in the abrogation of any of the
State's privileges. His reputation for belief in severity was based
entirely upon severity on individuals. "Make treason odious" was his
favorite expression, but always used in a concrete sense.[45]
6. After his accession to the Presidency, the only modification of his
policy was an increased clemency to the conquered rebel. This can be
accounted for easily as the natural result of actual contact with the
problem. Rhetorically to assert that all traitors must be punished is one
thing--to apply the punishment is another. Then Johnson's most able
advisers approved his attitude and urged even greater moderation. Finally,
his firm faith in the success of his provisional governments persuaded him
to a still more liberal use of the pardoning power, while the growing
opposition of Congress added the element of stubbornness to the
complication. But, the true explanation of the change is to be found in
his general constitutional views.
So early as April 21 he frankly states his position. In his speech on
that day he says: "Provision" (in the Constitution) "is made for the
admission of new States; no provision is made for the secession of old
ones. * * * The Government is composed of parts, each essential to the
whole, and the whole essential to each part."[46] He emphatically urges
that the Constitution provides a panacea for rebellion. "The United States
(that is, the great integer) shall guarantee to each State (the integers
composing the whole) in this Union a republican form of government. Yes,
if rebellion has been rampant, and set aside the machinery of a State for
a time, there stands the great law to remove the paralysis and revitalize
it, and put it on its feet again." He also harmonizes his strict
construction views with the fact of emancipation. "A State may be in the
Government with a peculiar institution, and by the operation of rebellion
lose that feature; but it was a State when it went into rebellion, and
when it comes out without the institution it is still a State."
President Johnson did not allow many days to pass by after his
installation, before he began to give practical evidence of his attitude
towards the conquered South.[47] The first step which he made was an
order, issued April 29, restoring partial commercial intercourse to that
portion of the Confederate States lying east of the Mississippi river and
within the lines of national military occupation. This removed at the
outset one of the chief burdens that had resulted from the insurrection,
and would he thought act powerfully in the restoration of peaceful
pursuits in that section. The following August another proclamation
removed all remaining restrictions on trade in those States, declaring
that all necessity for restriction had ceased.[48]
On May 9, 1865, the order restoring the administration of the United
States in the State of Virginia was issued.[49] It authorized the
Secretary of the Treasury to nominate assessors of taxes, collectors of
customs, and other officers of the Treasury Department, and further
provided that in making appointments the preference should be given to
"qualified loyal persons residing within the districts where their
respective duties are to be performed. But if suitable persons shall not
be found residents of the districts, then persons residing in other States
or districts shall be appointed." Post offices and post routes were to be
established, and district judges empowered to hold courts, while "to carry
into effect the guarantee of the Federal Constitution of a republican form
of state government, * * * Francis H. Pierpiont, Governor of the State of
Virginia, will be aided by the Federal Government," in his administration
of the state government, in whatever way might be necessary.
The Amnesty Proclamation was issued on May 29, and was in effect a renewal
of the provisions of Lincoln's proclamation of December 8, 1863, relating
to amnesty; but it increased the number of classes excepted from the
benefits of the proclamation, from seven to fourteen,[50] and provided
that special application for pardon might be made by any of the excepted
classes, to the President, who would exercise liberal clemency. Inasmuch
as the excepted classes included all those whom less than three weeks
previously he had been denouncing as traitors to be punished and
impoverished, such great liberality, displayed in so short a time, was
somewhat surprising.[51] The proclamation further empowered the Secretary
of State to make all needful regulations for the administration and
recording of the amnesty oath; and in accordance with this provision the
Secretary of State ordered that the oath might be taken before any
commissioned officer of the United States, or before any civil or military
officer of a loyal State or Territory, who was legally qualified to
administer oaths.
On the same day that he issued the Amnesty Proclamation, President Johnson
appointed William W. Holden Provisional Governor of North Carolina.[52]
This was his first radical step in the carrying out of his policy of
reconstruction. The order restoring the authority of the United States in
Virginia was not of so great importance, as the State had nominally been
under the Pierpiont government since near the beginning of the war, and the
mere restoration of certain United States officers in that State did not
involve to any extent the vital questions of the hour.[53] But with the
appointment of Mr. Holden, and the instructions accompanying the order of
appointment, President Johnson unfolded, in its entirety, his theory.
The order declared that the rebellion, though now almost entirely
overcome, had deprived the people of North Carolina of all civil
government, and that accordingly the United States was constitutionally
bound to secure to them a republican form of government. Therefore for the
purpose of enabling the people to organize a government, he appointed
William W. Holden Provisional Governor of North Carolina, whose duty it
should 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, however, that all electors
should have previously taken the oath of allegiance, and should be voters
according to the law of North Carolina in force previous to secession. The
order further directed that the Provisional Governor should be aided by
the military power in carrying out the proclamation. The other clauses
were similar to clauses in the order re-establishing the authority of the
United States in Virginia.
Similar proclamations were issued as follows: June 13, for Mississippi;
June 17, for Georgia and Texas; June 21, for Alabama; June 30, for South
Carolina; July 13, for Florida.
Within three months after his inauguration, accordingly, Johnson had set
the forces going throughout the South by which he hoped that peace and
tranquillity might be established, and the Union once more become an
undivided whole. In the execution of this most important work, he had not
asked for the co-operation or advice of Congress. Confident of the
correctness of his ideas, feeling sure that they were only the logical
results of a true interpretation of the Constitution, he pursued his
policy of reconstruction. In so doing he was also consistently following
the path marked out by his predecessor. His plan was essentially that
which Lincoln had advocated and attempted to carry into execution. But we
have seen that even under a man enjoying such universal confidence as did
Lincoln, the country viewed with distrust, and Congress openly resented, a
policy which seemed to commit to a recently insurrectionary people the
whole responsibility for proper reconstruction, requiring from them no
surety for sincerity save an oath which all knew would be regarded by the
majority as a mere form with little significance. The same policy when
adopted by Johnson was naturally looked upon with still more suspicion.
Lincoln was a man of tact and judgment, who was capable of seeing and
confessing a mistake, whose sole object was to do that which, all things
being considered, should seem best for the Union.
Johnson, on the contrary, from his natural arbitrariness and narrowness,
was a man who held most tenaciously to his views, had little consideration
for the views of others, and who was always determined that his own way
should be carried out. Under such circumstances it would have been little
short of marvelous, had he been able to carry out a policy in itself
disliked, without sooner or later coming into collision with those who
disapproved his theory.
The provisional governors appointed were not slow in carrying out the
provisions of the proclamations, and conventions met in the various states
as follows: Mississippi, August 14; Alabama, September 12; South Carolina,
September 13; North Carolina, October 2; Georgia, October 25; Florida,
October 25; and Texas in March, 1866. In all these conventions the
secession ordinances were repealed, annulled or declared null and
void,[54] and slavery was declared abolished. All but Mississippi and
South Carolina repudiated the rebel debt, and all but Mississippi and
Texas ratified the 13th Amendment.
Meanwhile Johnson made liberal use of the pardoning power, and large
numbers of the excepted classes were thus restored to all the privileges
of citizens of the United States. The reconstruction was very rapid; so
rapid, as Johnson himself said, that he could scarcely realize it; "it
appears like a dream."
The extreme similarity of this method of reconstruction to that advocated
by the Democracy could not escape attention, and Democrats freely asserted
that in his ideas the President was "going over to them." This, while to a
certain extent true, for he was always a Democrat in principle, was
vigorously denied by Johnson in an interview with Geo. L. Stearns on
October 3, 1865. In it he claimed that the Democratic party, finding its
own views untenable, was gradually coming to adopt his principles, which
he reasserted in the following form: "The States are in the Union, which
is one and indivisible. Individuals tried to carry them out, but did not
succeed, as a man may try to cut his throat and be prevented by the
bystanders; and you can not say he cut his throat because he tried to do
it. * * * Now we want to reconstruct the state governments, and have the
power to do it. The state institutions are prostrated, laid out on the
ground, and they must be taken up and adapted to the progress of events;
this cannot be done in a moment. * * * We must not be in too much of a
hurry; it is better to let them reconstruct themselves than to force them
to do it; for if they go wrong the power is in our hands, and we can check
them in any stage, to the end, and oblige them to correct their errors; we
must be patient with them. I did not expect to keep out all who were
excluded from the amnesty, or even a large number of them; but I intended
they should sue for pardon, and so realize the enormity of the crime they
had committed."
7. Johnson realized that the sentiment in favor of negro suffrage was
gaining great power in the North; and while feeling that pure manhood
suffrage was undesirable and totally impracticable, because of the danger
of thereby creating a "war of races," which he seemed constantly to fear,
he determined to use his influence towards a gradual introduction of the
suffrage. He would give the suffrage to negroes who had served in the
army, to those who could read and write, and to those owning real estate
to the value of two hundred and fifty dollars. He made suggestions of this
nature in letters to Governor Starkey of Mississippi, and Governor Hahn of
Louisiana.[55] By some such limited suffrage he hoped that the radical
element in the North would be satisfied, while there could result no
danger to those States in which the negro population predominated.
He had long believed that the apportionment of Representatives should be
based on the number of qualified voters; while a member of the legislature
of Tennessee he had moved that the apportionment in that State be so made;
and in the interview with Mr. Stearns he said: "The apportionment is now
fixed until 1872; before that time we might change the basis of
representation from population to qualified voters, North as well as
South, and, in due course of time, the States, _without regard_ to color,
might extend the elective franchise to all who possessed certain mental,
moral or such other qualifications as might be determined by an
enlightened public judgment."[56]
But however desirable a limited suffrage might be, he insisted that the
only safety for the nation lay in leaving the whole subject to the
discretion of the individual State. The only approach which he would make
to national interference would be through constitutional amendment. In an
interview with Senator Dixon of Connecticut, on January 28, 1866, he
suggested that such an amendment might be worded in the following manner:
"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may
be included within this Union according to the number of qualified voters
in each State.
"Direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be
included within this Union according to the value of all taxable property
in each State."[57]
The great advantage of an amendment of this kind, in President Johnson's
opinion, was that Congress would thus shift all responsibility regarding
negro suffrage to the States. Each State would determine the
qualifications for voters, and its representation in Congress would depend
entirely upon the narrowness or broadness of the suffrage.
In the same interview with Senator Dixon, he described the current
contention over negro suffrage as "ill-timed, uncalled for, and calculated
to do great harm."
8. While the President was expressing his belief in qualified
representation, and advising the States in process of reconstruction to
grant some form of limited suffrage, the States themselves manifested no
disposition to follow his advice. While he was describing them in October
as lying helpless, they were busy framing laws which were aimed to
counteract, so far as possible, the force of the emancipation
proclamation.
When Georgia declared slavery abolished she did so with the proviso that
"acquiescence in the action of the Government of the United States is not
intended to operate as a relinquishment, or waiver, or estoppel of such
claim for compensation of loss sustained by reason of the emancipation of
his slaves, as any citizen of Georgia may hereafter make upon the justice
and magnanimity of that Government."[58] Alabama, South Carolina, and
Florida in their ratifications of the 13th Amendment stated their
understanding to be that it did not confer upon Congress power to
legislate upon the political status of the freedman. The Alabama
legislature passed joint resolutions in which it was affirmed: "That
Alabama will not voluntarily consent to change the adjustment of political
power as fixed by the Constitution of the United States, and to constrain
her to do so, in her present prostrate and helpless condition, with no
voice in the councils of the nation, would be an unjustifiable breach of
faith."[59]
But most important of all was the legislation of these States respecting
the freedman. All were confronted by a host of emancipated blacks, whose
legal status had to be determined. The legislatures had before them work
of the most delicate nature, inasmuch as it not only vitally affected
every person in their own section, but also attracted the keenest interest
from the whole North. All realized that Johnson's policy would here
undergo the crucial test. Would the legislators of these States, so soon
thrown upon their own responsibility, show due consideration for the new
order of things, or would they take advantage of their opportunity and
proceed to draw the color line as sharply as ever, discriminating against
the negro, and denying him privileges which should be allowed him? Had
the South proved equal to the situation, the wisdom of Johnson's policy
would have been sustained, and the bitterness characteristic of the 39th
and 40th Congresses would have been avoided.
Mississippi was the first to adopt "black laws" obnoxious to the North.
Her vagrant act was passed November 24, 1865. This provided that freedmen
found with no lawful employment or business, or unlawfully assembling
together, should be deemed vagrants, and be fined and imprisoned at the
discretion of the court. A poll tax for a freedmen's pauper fund was to be
levied on all freedmen, and should any fail or refuse to pay, he was to be
hired out by the sheriff to any one who would pay the tax and costs,
preference being given to his former master. Two days later a civil rights
act was passed. This allowed freedmen to sue and be sued, implead and be
impleaded, and to own personal property, but added the important proviso
that the section should not be construed "to allow any freedman, free
negro or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tenements, except in
incorporated towns or cities," where they should be controlled by the
corporate authorities. Intermarriage of a white with any freedman, free
negro or mulatto, should be punished by imprisonment in the state
penitentiary for life. A laborer quitting before expiration of term of
service without good cause, forfeited to his employer all wages for that
year up to the time of quitting. Any one was authorized to arrest and
return a deserting freedman, receiving therefor five dollars reward and
mileage, all costs to be paid from the wages of the deserter. Any one
persuading or attempting to persuade any freedman to desert his employer
before his term of service expired, was guilty of a misdemeanor, and
liable to a fine of not less than twenty-five and not more than two
hundred dollars, and if the offender attempted to persuade the freedman
to desert, with a view of employing him without the limits of the State,
the fine was to be not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars.
While it was made lawful for a freedman to charge a white man with a
criminal offence against his person or property, and to make all needful
affidavits, a supplementary act passed December 2 provided that where
sufficient proof was made before a court or jury that the arrest and trial
had been falsely or maliciously caused, the freedman should be fined, and
charged with all costs, and on failure to pay should be hired out at
public outcry for the shortest time necessary to discharge the debt. An
act passed November 29, among other restrictions, forbade freedmen to
carry any fire arms, ammunition, dirk or bowie knife, under penalty, and
declared that a freedman exercising the functions of a minister of the
gospel, without a license from some regularly organized church, should be
guilty of a misdemeanor, and become liable to an imprisonment not
exceeding thirty days and to a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars.
Similar laws were enacted in the other States, varying slightly in
severity of punishment. The labor contract act of Louisiana, passed in
December, is of especial interest as an evidence of the systematic way in
which the Southern legislators hoped to mould the unwieldy mass of
freedmen into a docile set of serfs. All agricultural laborers were
required by this act to make their contract for the ensuing year before
the tenth day of January; said contract to embrace the labor of the whole
family. After the contract had been agreed to, no laborer was to be
allowed to "leave his place of employment until the fulfillment of his
contract, unless by consent of his employer, or on account of harsh
treatment, or breach of contract on the part of employer," under penalty
of forfeiture of all wages to the time of leaving. "Failing to obey
reasonable orders, neglect of duty, and leaving home without permission,
will be deemed disobedience; impudence, swearing, or indecent language to
or in the presence of the employer, his family or agent, or quarreling or
fighting with one another, shall be deemed disobedience. For any
disobedience a fine of one dollar shall be imposed upon the offender. For
all lost time from work hours, unless in case of sickness, the laborer
shall be fined twenty-five cents per hour. For all absence from home
without leave the laborer will be fined at the rate of two dollars per
day."[60]
The cruelty and injustice possible in the administration of these acts is
even greater than their casual perusal would indicate. Many of these acts,
nominally applying to both races with equal severity, were in reality
intended to apply solely to the negro. The vagrants always proved to be
colored. The acts purporting to secure the protection of the freedmen were
cunningly hedged in by limitations which made them worthless. The employer
was made the sole judge of the acts of his employees--a privilege which
could not but be flagrantly abused. Laws that made it almost impossible
for the freedman to secure the just return for his labor, were followed by
laws punishing him for his poverty. The fines for his so-called offences
were excessively severe, and the punishments were almost always such as to
reduce him to slavery for limited terms. The whole system, taken advantage
of as it could not fail to be where the dominant classes were almost
unanimously desirous to retain the negro in subjection, resulted in his
practical slavery during those seasons of the year in which his labor was
most needed, and in utter neglect and lack of support when his labor was
not in demand.
9. Although the enactment of these stringent laws at this time was a
political mistake, and was fraught with most serious consequences for the
South, it is proper to notice what was said in their justification. Many
of them did not differ materially from similar statutes in the Northern
States. Even some of the harshest laws, those which were received with
wide-spread indignation throughout the North, could almost be duplicated
by laws at that time in force in such States as Rhode Island and
Connecticut. Even the phraseology, the using of the words master, mistress
and servant, which was deemed objectionable and suggestive by Northern
Republicans, could be found in Northern statutes.
The South felt confident that the negro was unable actively to assume the
duties of citizenship. The Southern people feared, and with reason, that
the immense mass of undeveloped humanity was liable to become turbulent
and unmanageable, unless stringent laws could be framed which would hold
it in check.[61] They were sincere in their statements that they believed
that the interests of property, peace and good order demanded these laws.
Unfortunately, the humanitarian ideas of the North harmonized too well
with the political ideas of Congress. The enactment of the laws against
the negro seemed to strike at the one and make possible the success of the
other. The radical majority were quick to see their advantage, and did not
hesitate to make the most of the opportunity. They assumed that the South
deliberately intended to defy Northern sentiment, and ignored the
possibility that the legislation in question was sincerely believed to be
a necessary act of self-defense.
10. To Stevens and his followers the South had proved its impenitent
condition, and had justified the most stringent measures of
reconstruction. They declared that Johnson's policy had been fairly tested
and that the results of the experiment were apparent. They argued that the
South, emboldened by the conciliatory conduct of the President, was
permitting the old rebel leaders to continue to wield the chief influence
in affairs of state. The exclusion of these leaders from participation in
the preliminary work of the reconstruction conventions was no check upon
their influence in the State, and with the completion of reconstruction
there was nothing to prevent them from occupying the chief state offices.
What the President in the previous April had feared, was coming to pass,
through his failure to do that which he had then said must be done--to
make treason and traitors odious. In proof of the ascendency of the old
elements, the highly questionable legislation of the South was cited, and
the conviction of the Republican party that sterner measures were
necessary was strengthened. As a natural result the doctrine of Thaddeus
Stevens that the South should be regarded and governed as a conquered
territory became practically the doctrine of the majority of Republicans,
and Stevens became the leader of the House of Representatives. The year
1865 had made plain the necessities of the hour, the condition of the
South, the attitude of the President, and in short had prepared the people
for the great struggle which was to follow in the 39th and 40th
Congresses.[62]