AFTER THE WAR.
The assassination of President Lincoln was in a special way most
calamitous to the citizens of the South. It intensified and augmented
to the highest degree the angry passions engendered by four years of
war and postponed for years that reconciliation of the two sections
that the surrender of the Confederate armies should have brought
about, happening as it did when the North was ablaze with bonfires
in exultation over the downfall of the Confederate government; for
General Lee had evacuated Petersburg, Richmond the capital had
fallen, and its civil officers were fugitives.
The great crime committed by Booth was the act of a madman, born of
the spirit that had suggested the burning of the ancient and famed
Temple of Diana. Notwithstanding this, the Northern press teemed
with the most exciting and inflammatory editorials, even charging
well-known and most respectable citizens of the South and the
officials of the Confederate government itself with complicity in
the crime. Reason was dethroned, and it was unsafe to express a
different conclusion.
At the South the act met with the most profound and pronounced
condemnation, not only by the citizens of the South, but by the
soldiers who had surrendered and were awaiting their paroles. I
remember that when the information reached the army at Greensboro,
N. C., one would have supposed that there would have been some
indiscreet expressions or exultations, but instead of that it was
received in silence and with pronounced expressions of the severest
condemnation.
It is believed that if Mr. Lincoln had survived the war there would
have been no such radical measures enacted and enforced as existed
for years after the declaration of peace. The changed condition that
the war had wrought was accepted in good faith by the people of the
South, and the legislation necessary to adjust the autonomy of the
seceded States would have taken place peaceably and at once. In fact,
it is surprising that the good and just people of the North did not
intervene to prevent this long period of misrule and the unlawful
exercise of power and oppression. It is not my purpose to speak in
detail of this now more than to say that I do not think a darker
picture was ever spread before human minds than was presented during
the long years of reconstruction in the South.
The first ray of sunshine to penetrate the darkness was when
Brownlow’s self-constituted legislature elected him to the United
States Senate. It was well assumed that his counterpart could not be
produced again. DeWitt Senter was Speaker of the Senate and became
Governor by virtue of his office. He was from East Tennessee and had
been a consistent Union man, with no feelings of enmity toward his
fellow citizens from whom he differed regarding public questions.
Col. W. B. Stokes, a native of Middle Tennessee, was the logical
successor to Brownlow. The Governor and legislature of the State
were to be elected in a short time after Brownlow’s election to the
Senate, and Acting Governor Senter was a candidate for the office,
as well as Colonel Stokes. To beat Stokes it was necessary to have
another registration of votes, for as the poll stood Stokes was
certain to be elected. Senter was fully aware of this; and having
the power by law to ask for another registration, he did so, and
at once issued indiscriminately to the voters of the State the
necessary certificates. He was elected Governor, with a conservative,
representative legislature. A constitutional convention was called,
to which was elected by the whole people an able and representative
body of men, who enacted a new State constitution in 1870 embracing
the necessary amendments. In due time after this all obnoxious and
oppressive laws were repealed by the legislature, and the State
government was placed in the hands of its citizens again, which was
the signal for the accumulated horde of vampires to fold their tents
and march away in quest of a more congenial clime.
If there lingered in the minds of the people of the North a feeling
that the South was disloyal to the government, it was dispelled by
the breaking out of the Spanish-American War in 1898, when they
saw with what alacrity and unmistakable patriotism the Southern
States answered the call made upon them for their quota of volunteer
troops; and tendering at once more than were necessary, it could not
but satisfy every doubting Thomas. Besides this, quite a number of
the South’s most noted generals during the War between the States
tendered their services and were accepted by the President, valiantly
assisting in bringing the war to a satisfactory conclusion. If that
war effected no other result, it was sufficient, if not necessary,
that it had happened in order to silence forever all doubt upon the
question of the loyalty and patriotism of the Southern people.
The territory of the United States has broadened by the annexation of
a number of new sovereign States. Its population in every section has
been increased to a remarkable degree since the war. We feel that we
are justified in saying that peace, prosperity, and happiness exist
to-day throughout its borders. To extend these national blessings
to future generations, we should remember that it can be done only by
the enactment and enforcement of laws tempered with justice, founded
in wisdom, and in sustaining the decisions of an incorruptible
judiciary, which is the last and strongest hope of the liberty and
freedom of the people.
The ex-Confederate soldier who faithfully performed his duty during
the War between the States can now rest satisfied that the future
historian will do him justice in his heroic effort to maintain the
Constitution enacted by his rebellious forefathers and his attempt to
enforce the decisions made by the highest tribunal of his country. He
is as law-abiding to-day, nearly half a century afterwards, as he was
then.