Mr. Johnson continued his public receptions, his interviews
and his speeches for nearly a month after his accession to the
Presidency--until indeed, in the judgment of his most anxious and most
cautious friends, he had talked too much. All were agreed that the
time had now come when he must do something. He evidently sought to
impress the country with the belief that his Administration was to be
marked by a policy of extraordinary vigor, that the standard of
loyalty was to be held high, that the leaders of the Rebellion were
to be dealt with in a spirit of stern justice. His position gave
satisfaction to those who thought the chief conspirators against the
Union could not be punished too severely; but it led to uneasiness
among the anti-slavery philanthropists, lest, in wreaking vengeance
upon white traitors, the President might leave the loyal negroes
unprotected in their newly acquired civil rights.
On the 10th of May the President issued a proclamation declaring
substantially that actual hostilities had ceased, and that "armed
resistance to the authority of the Government in the insurrectionary
States may be regarded as at an end." This great fact being officially
recognized, the President found himself face to face with the momentous
duty of bringing the eleven States of the Confederacy into active and
harmonious relations with the Government of the Union. He had reached
the point where he must take the first step in the serious task of
Reconstruction, and the country awaited it with profound interest. He
had in other official stations given distinct intimations of the
conditions which he considered essential to the restoration of a rebel
State to its place in the Union, but in the numerous speeches he had
delivered since his accession to the Presidency he had studiously
avoided a repetition of his former position, and had with equal care
refrained from a public committal to any specific line of action.
The manner in which the insurrectionary States should be dealt with at
the close of hostilities had been the object of solicitous inquiry
throughout the war. It was indeed often a question of angry
disputation in Congress, in the press, and among the people. The
tentative and somewhat speculative efforts in this field, which had
been made or at least encouraged by Mr. Lincoln, had confused rather
than solved the problem, and yet his action could not fail to exert an
embarrassing and possibly a decisive influence upon the course of his
successor. Difficult as it might have proved to Mr. Lincoln himself to
go forward on the line he had marked out, it would obviously prove far
more difficult to Mr. Johnson to maintain the same policy with the
inevitable result of renewing the conflict with Congress which Mr.
Lincoln had only allayed and postponed--not removed. A brief review of
what Mr. Lincoln had done in the field of Reconstruction will give a
more accurate knowledge of President Johnson's policy, which afterwards
became the subject of prolonged and bitter controversy. Mr. Lincoln
had naturally been anxious from the beginning of the war to re-establish
civil government in any and every one of the Confederate States where
actual resistance should cease. A military autocracy controlling people
who were engaged in the ordinary avocations of life was altogether
contrary to his views of expediency, altogether repugnant to his
conceptions of right.
At the end of the first year of the war (April, 1862) the rebel
fortifications on the Lower Mississippi and the city of New Orleans
surrendered to the guns of Farragut, and not long afterwards a
movement was made to re-establish in Louisiana a civil government that
would be loyal to the Union. The first step was the election on the
third of December, 1862, of Benjamin F. Flanders and Michael Hahn, old
citizens of Louisiana, as Representatives in Congress.
On the 9th of February, 1863, when the Thirty-seventh Congress was
drawing to its close, Messrs. Flanders and Hahn were admitted to their
seats, though not without contention and misgiving. They had been
chosen at an election ordered by the military governor of Louisiana
(General George F. Shepley), and their credentials bore the signature
of that official. General Shepley had undoubtedly been permitted, if
not specifically authorized, by the National Administration to take
this step; though it was afterwards perceived by all friends of the
Union to be useless if not mischievous, and its repetition for the
ensuing Congress was seriously opposed. On the 21st of November--only
a fortnight before the election ordered by General Shepley--Mr. Lincoln
addressed him a note which in effect was a warning that Federal
officers, not citizens of Louisiana, must not be chosen to represent
the State in Congress. "We do not," said the President, referring to
the South, "particularly need members of Congress from those States to
enable us to get along with legislation here. What we do want is the
conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are willing
to be members of Congress and to swear support to the Constitution, and
that other respectable citizens are willing to vote for them and send
them. To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives,
elected as would be understood (and perhaps really so) at the point of
the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous."
Previous to this instruction to Governor Shepley, Mr. Lincoln had been
in correspondence with Cuthbert Bullett, Esq., a Southern gentleman,
who enjoyed his personal regard and confidence. In a letter to Mr.
Bullett of July 28, 1862, the President reviewed some of the
impracticable methods of re-establishing civil authority desired by
certain citizens of Louisiana who were very anxious to prevent any
interference with property in slaves. Mr. Thomas Durant was the
spokesman for this large class of men who professed anxiety for the
fate of the Union but were unwilling to do any thing to aid in saving
it. Mr. Lincoln's letter is very characteristic. He says, "Mr. Durant
speaks of no duty, apparently thinks of none resting upon Southern
Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they
should be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They
are to touch neither a sail nor a pump, live merely as passengers
('dead-heads' at that) to be carried snug and dry throughout the storm
and safely landed right side up. Nay, more, even a mutineer is to go
untouched, lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound.
Of course the Rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if the
professed Union men there will neither help to do it nor permit the
Government to do it without their help. . . . What would _you_ do in my
position? Would you drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute
it in the future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water?
Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give
up the contest leaving every available means unapplied? I am in no
boastful mood: I shall not do more than I can, but I _shall_ do _all_
I can to save the Government, which is my sworn duty as well as my
personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with
is too vast for malicious dealing."
The pressure of these political events in Louisiana had increased Mr.
Lincoln's desire to attempt some form of reconstruction, and the
admission of Messrs. Flanders and Hahn to seats in the House of
Representatives had to a certain degree misled him as to the temper and
tendency of Congress on the whole subject of re-establishing civil
government in the insurrectionary States. During the year 1862, when
the original movements were made in Louisiana, the military situation
grew so critical and so discouraging that the Administration had no
time for the consideration of any other subject than the raising of men
and money. But in 1863 the Government was incalculably strengthened by
General Meade's victory at Gettysburg and by the opening of the
Mississippi River to navigation in consequence of General Grant's
capture of the rebel stronghold of Vicksburg. The latter event
practically destroyed the military power of the Rebellion on the
western side of the Mississippi, and opened, as Mr. Lincoln hoped, a
great opportunity for the formation of State governments loyal to the
Union and able to aid effectively in the overthrow of the Rebellion.
To this end the President proposed a definite plan of reconstruction in
his message of December 8, 1863, sent to the Thirty-eighth Congress at
its first session. He accompanied the message with a public
proclamation which more fully embodied his conception of the
necessities of the situation and the duties of the loyal people.
According to the message of the President "the constitutional
obligation to guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form
of government and to protect the State in such cases is explicit and
full. . . . This section of the Constitution contemplates a case
wherein the elements within a State favorable to Republican government
in the Union may be too feeble for an opposite and hostile element
external to or even within the State, and such are precisely the cases
with which we now are dealing. 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. There must be a test by which to
separate the opposing elements so as to build only from the sound, and
that test is a sufficiently liberal one which accepts as sound whoever
will make a sworn recantation of his former unsoundness."
In his proclamation the President made known that "to all persons who
have directly or by implication participated in the existing rebellion
except as herein after excepted, a full pardon is hereby granted with
restoration of all rights of property except as to slaves, upon
condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and
thenceforward maintain said oath inviolate," to the following effect:
viz., to "henceforth faithfully support and defend the Constitution and
the Union of the States thereunder," and to abide by all laws and
proclamations "made during the existing rebellion, having reference to
slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by
decision of the Supreme Court." Those excepted from the benefits of
the pardon were first the civil and diplomatic officers of the
Confederate Government; second, those who left judicial stations in
the United-States Government to aid the rebellion; third, military
officers of the Confederacy above the rank of colonel, and naval
officers above the rank of lieutenant; fourth, all who left seats in
the Congress of the United States to aid the rebellion; fifth, all
who left the National Army or Navy to aid the rebellion; sixth, all
who had treated colored persons found in the military or naval service
of the United States otherwise than as prisoners of war.
The President was willing to intrust the task of establishing State
governments to a population whose loyalty to the Union should be tested
by taking the prescribed oath, _provided_ that the population should be
sufficiently numerous to cast a vote one-tenth as large as that cast at
the Presidential election of 1860. A government thus established, the
President declared, "shall be recognized as the true government of the
State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the
constitutional provision which declares that the United States shall
guarantee to each State a Republican form of government." At the same
time the President was careful to affirm that "whether members sent to
Congress from any State shall be admitted to seats constitutionally
rests exclusively with the respective Houses, and not to any extent
with the Executive."
The Union men in Louisiana had been so encouraged by the admission of
Flanders and Hahn to seats in Congress, that they were active in the
year 1863 in maturing schemes for re-establishing a loyal State
government. But the decisive step was not taken until the opening of
the ensuing hear. On the 8th of January, 1864, a large Free-State
Convention was held in New Orleans, which proved to be in harmony with
the National Administration at all points, accepting the emancipation
policy of the President as the basis of all their action. General
Banks, then in command of the military district, at once issued a
proclamation as requested by the convention, appointing an election for
State officers on the 22d of February--the officers chosen, to be
installed on the 4th of March. Michael Hahn was elected governor as
the especial representative of the President's firm yet cautious and
moderate policy. B. F. Flanders and C. Roselius were the opposing
candidates, the former representing a more radical the latter a more
conservative policy than the President was willing to accept.
Mr. Hahn was duly installed in office on the 4th of March, and on the
15th the President issued an order declaring the new governor to be
"invested until further orders with the powers exercised hitherto by
the military governor of Louisiana." In a personal note to Governor
Hahn at the same time the President said, "I congratulate you on having
fixed your name in history as the first Free-State Governor of
Louisiana. Now you are about to have a convention which among other
things will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest
for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may
not be let in, as for instance the very intelligent and especially
those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help
in some trying time in the future to keep the jewel of Liberty in the
family of Freedom." The form of the closing expression, quite unusual
in Mr. Lincoln's compact style, may have been pleonastic, but his
meaning was one of deep and almost prophetic significance. It was
perhaps the earliest proposition from any authentic source to endow
the negro with the right of suffrage, and was an indirect but most
effective answer to those who subsequently attempted to use Mr.
Lincoln's name in support of policies which his intimate friends
instinctively knew would be abhorrent to his unerring sense of justice.
The scheme of reconstruction in Louisiana was completed by the
assembling of a convention to form a constitution for the State. The
convention was organized early in April, and its most important act
was the prompt incorporation of an anti-slavery clause in the organic
law. By a vote of seventy to sixteen the convention declared slavery
to be forever abolished in the State. The constitution was adopted
by the people on the fifth day of the ensuing September by a vote of
6,836 in its favor to 1,566 against it. As the total vote of Louisiana
at the Presidential election of 1860 was 50,510, the new State
government had obviously fulfilled the requirement of the President's
proclamation in demonstrating that it was sustained by more than
one-tenth of that number. The President's scheme had therefore so far
succeeded that Louisiana was at least in form under a loyal government.
It was, however, a government that could not sustain itself for a day
if the military support of the Nation should be withdrawn, and therein
lay the weakness of the President's plan.
The action of Louisiana was accompanied, indeed in some parts preceded,
by a similar action in Arkansas. A loyal governor (Isaac Murphy) was
elected, an anti-slavery constitution adopted, a government duly
installed over the State, and senators and representatives in Congress
were elected in due form. These successive steps were taken in the
early spring of 1864. But when the senators, Messrs. Fishback and
Baxter, presented themselves for admission to the body to which they
were thus chosen, it was found that Congress was not in sympathy with
what was derisively termed the "short-hand" method of reconstruction
proposed in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. Mr. Sumner, when the
credentials were presented, offered a resolution declaring that "a
State pretending to secede from the Union, and battling against the
General Government to maintain that position, must be regarded as a
rebel State subject to military occupation and without representation
on this floor until it has been re-admitted by a vote of both Houses of
Congress; and the Senate will decline to entertain any such application
from any such rebel State until after such a vote of both Houses."
Mr. Sumner's resolution embodied a radical and absolute dissent from
the President's scheme of reconstruction. The Senate, however, was
not quite ready for so emphatic a declaration, and the resolution was
referred with the credentials to the Judiciary Committee. A few weeks
alter, on the 27th June (1864), the committee made a report covering
substantially the ground of Mr. Sumner's resolution. By a vote of
twenty-seven to six the State declared that "the rebellion is not so
far suppressed in Arkansas as to entitle that State to representation
in Congress, and therefore Messrs. Fishback and Baxter are not entitled
to admission as senators." Similar action was taken in the House--the
representatives not being allowed to take seats.
The conflict between the President and Congress on the subject of
reconstruction was made still more apparent by the further action of
each. After the Arkansas case had been disposed of, Congress passed a
bill embodying its own views of the proper process of reconstruction.
By this measure it was directed that the President should appoint a
provisional governor for each of the States declared to be in
rebellion; that said governor should, as soon as military resistance
to the United States ceased, make an enrolment of the white male
citizens, submitting to each an oath to support the Constitution. If a
majority of the citizens should take and subscribe the oath, the
governor was to order an election of delegates to a constitutional
convention.
It was made the duty of the convention as its initial proceeding to
declare on behalf of the people of the State their submission to the
Constitution of the United States, and to incorporate in their own
organic law three fundamental provisions: First, No one who has held
any office under the Confederate Government except civil offices merely
ministerial, or military office below the rank of colonel, shall vote
for or be a member of the Legislature, or shall vote for or be elected
governor. Second, Involuntary servitude shall be forever prohibited,
and the freedom of all persons in the State guaranteed. Third, No
debt, State or Confederate, created in aid of the rebellion shall ever
be paid. In the event of a constitution being framed with these
provisions inserted, and then adopted by a majority of the popular vote
as already enrolled, the governor shall certify that fact to the
President, and thereupon the President, _after obtaining the assent of
Congress_, shall recognize the State government so established as a
legitimate and constitutional government competent to elect senators
and representatives in Congress and electors of President and
Vice-President.
This bill was passed on the last day of the session, July 4, 1864. It
was commonly regarded as a rebuke to the course of the President in
proceeding with the grave and momentous task of reconstruction without
waiting the action or invoking the counsel of Congress. Some of the
more radical members of both Houses considered the action of the
President as beyond his constitutional power, and they were very
positive and peremptory in condemning it. But Mr. Lincoln, with his
habitual caution and wise foresight, had specially avoided any form of
guaranty, or even suggestion to the States whose reconstruction he was
countenancing and aiding, that their senators and representatives would
be admitted to seats in Congress. Admission to membership he took care
to advise them was a discretion lodged solely in the respective Houses.
What he had done was in his own judgment clearly within his power as
Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Union, and was thus obviously
and solely an Executive act.
Mr. Lincoln was not therefore in the humor to be rebuked by Congress.
Though the least pretentious of men, he had an abounding self-respect
and a full appreciation of the dignity and power of his office. He had
given careful study to the duties, the responsibilities, and the
limitations of the respective departments of the Government, and he was
not willing that his judgment should be revised or his course censured,
however indirectly, by a co-ordinate branch of the Government. He
therefore declined to sign the bill. He did not veto it but let it
quietly die. Four days after the session had closed, he issued a
proclamation in which he treated the bill merely as the expression of
an opinion by Congress as to the plan of Reconstruction--"which plan,"
he remarked, "it is thought fit to lay before the people for their
consideration."
The President further stated in his proclamation that he had "already
propounded one plan of restoration," and that he was "unprepared by a
formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single
plan of restoration," and also "unprepared to declare that the Free-State
constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in
Louisiana and Arkansas shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby
repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same
as to further effort;" and also "unprepared to declare a constitutional
competency in Congress to abolish slavery in the States"--though
"sincerely hoping at the same time that a constitutional amendment
abolishing slavery in all the States might be adopted." While with
these objections Mr. Lincoln could not approve the bill, he concluded
his proclamation in these words: "Nevertheless I am fully satisfied
with the plan of restoration contained in this bill as one very proper
for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and I am and at
all times shall be prepared to give executive aid and assistance to any
such people so soon as the military resistance to the United States
shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof
shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution
and Laws of the United States--in which cases military governors will
be appointed with directions to proceed according to the bill."
It must be frankly admitted that Mr. Lincoln's course was in some of
its aspects extraordinary. It met with almost unanimous dissent on
the part of Republican members of Congress, and violent opposition
from the more radical members of both Houses. If Congress had been in
session at the time, a very rancorous hostility would have been
developed against the President. Fortunately the senators and
representatives had returned to their States and districts before the
proclamation was issued, and they found the people united and
enthusiastic in Mr. Lincoln's support. No contest was raised,
therefore, by the great majority of those who had sustained the bill
which the President had refused to approve. The pending struggle for
the Presidency demanded harmony, and by common consent agitation on the
question was abandoned. Two of the ablest, most fearless, most
resolute men then in public life--Senator Wade of Ohio, and
Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland--were exceptions to the
general rule of acquiescence. They were respectively the chairmen in
Senate and House of the "Committees on the Rebellious States," and were
primarily and especially responsible for the bill which the President
criticized in his proclamation. They united over their own signatures
in a public "Protest" against the action of Mr. Lincoln. The paper was
prepared by Mr. Davis, which of itself was guaranty that it would be
able, caustic, and unqualified. Mr. Wade was known to be a man of
extraordinary courage, both physical and moral. To these qualities Mr.
Davis added a highly cultivated mind and a style of writing which in
political controversy has rarely been surpassed--a style at once
severe, effective, and popular.
The "Protest" embodied a sharp contrast between the President's plan of
Reconstruction in his proclamation of December 8 (1863), and that
contained in the bill presented by Congress for his approval. "The
bill," said Messrs. Wade and Davis, "requires a majority of the voters
to establish a State government, the proclamation is satisfied with
one-tenth; the bill requires one oath, the proclamation another; the
bill ascertains voters by registering, the proclamation by guess; the
bill exacts adherence to existing territorial limits, the proclamation
admits of others; the bill governs the rebel States _by law_ equalizing
all before it, the proclamation commits them to the lawless discretion
of military governors and provost marshals; the bill forbids electors
for President (in the rebel States), the proclamation with the defeat
of the bill threatens us with civil war for the exclusion of such votes."
The criticisms of the President's course closed with the language of
stern admonition if not indeed of absolute menace. The act of the
President was denounced as "rash and fatal," and as "a blow at the
friends of the Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the
principles of Republican government." The President was warned that
the support of the Republican party was "of a cause and not of a man,"
that the "authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected,"
that the "whole body of Union men of Congress will not submit to be
impeached by him or rash and unconstitutional legislation," that he
must "confine himself to his Executive duties--to obey and execute,
not make the laws;" that he "must suppress armed rebellion by arms
and leave political re-organization to Congress."
No political result followed the publication of this remarkable paper
save that it probably defeated the renomination of Mr. Davis for
Congress. The Democrats were of course hostile to it in spirit and in
letter, and the leading Republicans saw in it the seeds of a
controversy between the President and Congress which might rapidly grow
into dangerous proportions. The very strength of the paper was, by
one of the paradoxes that frequently recur in public affairs, its
special weakness. It was so powerful an arraignment of the President
that of necessity it rallied his friends to his support with
that intense form of energy which springs from the instinct of
self-preservation. It was at once seen and profoundly realized by
the great majority of the loyal people that even if the President had
fallen into an error, no result could possibly flow from adhering to it
that would prove half so perilous to the Union cause as would
dissension and division in the ranks of those who were relied upon to
keep the Government in the control of an Administration, devoted heart
and soul to the preservation of the Union. It was, they thought, safer
to follow Mr. Lincoln who had all the power in his hands than to follow
Messrs. Wade and Davis who had no power in their hands.
When Congress convened in December (1864), Mr. Lincoln, who had
meanwhile been re-elected to the Presidency, studiously refrained from
any reference in his annual message to the controversy over his
proclamation. With the intuitive sagacity and caution which never
failed him, he did not touch upon the question of reconstruction. He
had foreseen that the unhappy differences with which the close of the
previous session of Congress had been marked might be renewed, and
thence lead the party into warring factions if he should again attempt
to urge his own views. This was undoubtedly a disappointment to those
who had regarded the controversy with the President as only postponed
till the assembling of Congress, and who were impatiently awaiting its
renewal. The assumed views of the President were antagonized later in
the session by the passage of a joint resolution "declaring certain
States not entitled to representation in the electoral college." This
was done to cut off the electoral votes (should any such votes be
returned) of Louisiana and Arkansas, satirically referred to by the
opponents of the Administration policy as Mr. Lincoln's "ten per cent
States"--in allusion to the permission given to one-tenth of the
population to organize a State government.
The passage of this joint resolution, to which great importance was
attached by the critics of the President, was met by Mr. Lincoln in a
spirit and with a tact which deprived its authors of all sense of
triumph. In a brief special message (February 8, 1865) the President
declared that he had "signed the joint resolution in defence to the
view of Congress implied in its passage and presentation." In his own
view, however, the two Houses of Congress, convened under the twelfth
article of the Constitution, "have complete power to exclude from
counting all electoral votes deemed by them to be illegal, and it is
not competent for the Executive to defeat or obstruct the power by a
veto, as would be the case if his action were at all essential to the
matter." The President further informed Congress that "he disclaims
all right on the part of the Executive to interfere in any way in the
matter of canvassing or counting the electoral votes, and he also
disclaims that by signing said resolution he has expressed any opinion
of the recitals of the preamble or any judgement of his own upon the
subject of the resolution."
The message was indeed throughout a sarcastic reflection upon the
action of Congress. It was as if the President had said, "You have
passed a resolution making certain declarations which nobody
controverts: you have claimed certain powers which nobody denies.
If I should sign your resolution without explanation, it might imply
my right to veto it, and thereby take from you your undoubted
Constitutional power. You are really guilty of weakening your own
prerogatives under the Constitution by asking me to assent to their
existence. If you intended your resolution as a reflection on my
policy of reconstruction, you might have spared yourself the trouble,
for that policy never contemplated the slightest violation of the
rights and prerogatives of Congress." The message throughout was
a singularly apt illustration of that keen perception and abounding
common sense which made Mr. Lincoln so formidable an antagonist in
every controversy political and official in which he became involved.
His triumph was complete both in the estimation of Congress and of the
people.
Mr. Lincoln really adhered with unexpected tenacity to the plan of
reconstruction which he had attempted, and which, putting aside the
opprobrious names applied to it, was called by himself "The Louisiana
Plan." He had stubbornly maintained his ground against the almost
unanimous protest of Republican senators and representatives, and he
justified himself by elaborate argument. He had been much influenced
by the representations made by General Banks who was commander of the
Military District, and much impressed by the perfect faith in its
success entertained by leading men of the State. In the last speech
he ever made (April 11, 1865), referring to the twelve thousand men
who had organized the Louisiana Government, the President said, "If we
now reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse
them. We say to the white man, you are worthless or worse. We will
neither help you nor be helped by you. To the black man we say, this
cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we
will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the
spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when and
where and how. If this course, discouraging and paralyzing to both
white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper
practical relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to
perceive it. If, on the contrary, they recognize and sustain the new
government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. We
encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of twelve thousand men to
adhere to their work and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight
for it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored
man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance and
with energy and daring to the same end. Grant that he desired the
elective franchise. He will yet attain it sooner by saving the already
advanced steps towards it than by running backward over them. Concede
that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as
the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the
egg than by smashing it."
Mr. Lincoln described also at some length the process by which he had
been induced to try the Louisiana plan. Like all his conclusions it
was reached after much consultation and serious reflection. He was
conscientiously convinced that, all things considered, it was the
promptest and most feasible process of re-establishing civil government
in the insurrectionary States. Mr. Lincoln was especially anxious that
neither the ruling power nor the conquered rebels should be needless
procrastination become accustomed to military government--a form of
administration which he regarded as very tempting, but very sure to
undermine, and in time to destroy, the real spirit of independence and
self-government. It was his belief, as he expressed it himself, that
"We must begin with and mold from disorganized and discordant elements,
nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people,
differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of
reconstruction. As a general rule I abstain from reading the reports
of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I
cannot properly make answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it
comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency
in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State Government of
Louisiana. In this I have done just so much and no more than the
public knows." He then gave somewhat full details of the successive
steps he had taken in his attempt at reconstruction,--steps already
detailed with precision in this chapter. After completing his recital
he stated with entire frankness that he had done nothing else. "Such,"
said he, "has been my only agency in setting up the Louisiana
Government." He was thus explicit because certain members of Congress,
in the excitement caused by the hostility to the President's plan, had
been rash enough to insinuate that the President had a secret
understanding with certain rebels, who, as soon as the President's hand
was withdrawn, would turn the control of the State over to the
unrepentant Democracy who had been so active in precipitating the war.
Concluding his remarks to an audience loath to leave and eager to hear
every word from lips which seemed then to be those of an oracle, Mr.
Lincoln dwelt with great seriousness, even with solemnity, upon this
subject which now wholly engrossed his mind. The contest of arms was
over, but the President realized that the great pressure of duty which
had been weighing him down was not removed by the coming of peace. Its
character was changed, its exactions were perhaps less urgent, but
withal he felt that the war would have been in vain unless, in exchange
for all its agonies and all its burdens, there should come to the
institutions of the country some great reforms, and to the people a new
baptism of patriotic interest and philanthropic duty. He dwelt with
deep solicitude on the situation in the rebellious States, and, unable
to speak as fully as he desired, and with evident emotion, "It may be
my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am
considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will
be proper."
The "new announcement" to the South was never made. Three days after
it was promised, Mr. Lincoln met his fate. What changes might have
been wrought if he had lived to make the promised exposition can only
be surmised. It may be well believed however that the confidence
reposed in him universally in the North, and the respect he had as
universally won in the South, would have given such commanding power to
his counsel as would have seriously influenced, if not promptly
directed, the mode of reconstruction. Mr. Lincoln's position when he
spoke his closing words was very different from that which he held
when Senator Wade and Henry Winter Davis ventured upon a controversy
with him the preceding summer--boldly assailing his measures and
challenging his judgment. He was at that time a candidate for
re-election, undergoing harsh criticism and held rigidly accountable for
the prolongation of the war. Now he stood triumphant in every public
relation--chosen by an almost unprecedented vote to his second term,
the rebellion conquered, the Union firmly re-established! Never since
Washington's exalted position at the close of the Revolution, or his
still more elevated station when he entered upon the Presidency, has
there been a man in the United States of so great personal power and
influence as Mr. Lincoln then wielded.
It was perhaps not unnatural that from the day of Mr. Lincoln's death,
his views as to the proper mode of reconstruction should become a
subject of warm dispute between the partisans of different theories;
yet no controversy could be less profitable for the single reason that
it was absolutely incapable of settlement. Beyond his experiment with
the "Louisiana plan" Mr. Lincoln had never given the slightest
indication either by word or deed as to the specific course he would
adopt in the rehabilitation of the insurrectionary States. His
characteristic anecdote of the young preacher who was exhorted "not to
cross 'Big Muddy' until he reached it" was a perfect illustration of
the painstaking, watchful habit in which he dealt with all public
questions. He invariably declined to anticipate an issue or settle a
question before it came to him in its natural, logical order.
Louisiana was wholly in the possession of the Union troops in 1862-3,
and presented a question that to his view had ripened for decision.
Hence his prompt and definite procedure in that State. Severely
challenged for what his accusers deemed a blunder, Mr. Lincoln defended
himself with fair and full statements of fact, and was apparently
justified in adopting the policy he had chosen. He had fortified his
own judgment, as he frankly declared, "by submitting the Louisiana plan
in advance to every member of the Cabinet, and every member approved
it." His "promise was out," he said, to sustain this policy, but "bad
promises," he significantly added, "are better broken than kept, and I
shall treat this as a bad promise and break it whenever I shall be
convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public interest."
It is apparent therefore that Mr. Lincoln had no fixed plan for the
reconstruction of the States. Pertinently questioned on the subject
by one whose personal relations entitled him to unreserved confidence,
the President answered by one of his homely and apt illustrations:
"The pilots on our Western rivers steer from _point to point_ as they
call it--setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see;
and that is all I propose to myself in this great problem." This
position was practically re-affirmed in the speech, already copiously
quoted. "So great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such
important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so
new and so unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and
inflexible plan can safely be prescribed in details and collaterals.
Such exclusive and inflexible plan would only become a new
entanglement." Such was the latitude of judgment which the President
reserved to himself, such the liberty of action which he deemed
essential to the complex problem, for whose solution there was no
prescribed rule, no established precedent. On all questions of
expediency the President maintained not only the right but the
frequent necessity of change. "Principle alone," said he, "must be
inflexible."
Encouraged by the result of the controversy, if it may be so termed,
between the President and Congress as to the mode of reconstruction,
Andrew Johnson determined to re-organize the government of his State.
Though Vice-President he was still discharging the functions of
military governor of Tennessee. A popular convention, originating
from his recommendation and assembling under his auspices, was
organized at Nashville on the ninth day of January, 1865. Membership
of the body was limited to those who "give an active support to the
Union cause, who have never voluntarily borne arms against the
Government, who have never voluntarily given aid and comfort to the
enemy." The manifest purpose, indeed the proclaimed intention, was to
re-organize the State, so as to bring all its powers distinctly and
unreservedly under the control of that small minority of the population
which had remained loyal to the Government of the Union. The preamble
which prefaced their action cited the Declaration of Rights in the
constitution of Tennessee to the effect that "all power is inherent in
the people, and the people have an inalienable right to alter, reform,
to abolish the Government in such manner as they may think proper."
This was followed by a declaration which might well be viewed as a _non
sequitur_. "Therefore," said the convention, "_a portion of the
citizens_ of the State of Tennessee and of the United States of America
in convention assembled do propound the following amendments to the
Constitution, which when ratified by the sovereign, loyal people shall
be and constitute a part of the permanent constitution of the State of
Tennessee."
It was very easy by strict logic to state grave objections to this mode
of procedure. It was easy to say that "a portion of the people" did
not constitute "the people" in the sense in which the phrase was used
in the constitution of Tennessee. It was easy to charge that the
proposed mode of proceeding embodied all the heresy of the Dorr
Rebellion of Rhode Island in 1842-43, which had fallen under the
animadversion of every department of the United States Government. But
in answer to such objections, Governor Johnson, and those who co-operated
with him, could urge that the objections and cavilings of all critics
seemed to ignore the controlling fact that they were acting in
a time of war, and were pursuing the only course by which the power of
civil government in Tennessee could be brought to the aid of the
military power of the National Government. Tennessee, as Johnson
bluntly maintained, could only be organized and controlled as a State
in the Union by that portion of her citizens who acknowledged their
allegiance to the Government of the Union.
Under this theory of procedure the popular convention proposed an
amendment to the State constitution "forever abolishing and prohibiting
slavery in the State," and further declaring that "the Legislature
shall make no law recognizing the right of property in man." The
convention took several other important steps, annulling in whole and
in detail all the legislation which under Confederate rule had made
the State a guilty participant in the rebellion. Thus was swept away
the ordinance of Secession, and the State debt created in aid of the
war against the Union. All these proceedings were submitted to a
popular vote on the 22d of February, and were ratified by an
affirmative vote of 25,293 against a negative vote of 48. The total
vote of the State at the Presidential election of 1860 was 145,333.
Mr. Lincoln's requirement of one-tenth of that number was abundantly
complied with by the vote on the questions submitted to the popular
decision. Small as was the ratio of avowed Union men at the time, Mr.
Johnson argued with much confidence that Tennessee, freed from
coercion, would adhere to the Union by a large majority of her total
vote. His faith was based on the fact that when the plain and direct
question of Union or Disunion was submitted to the people in the winter
of 1860-61, the vote for the former was 91,813, and for the latter only
24,749.
Under this new order of things, William G. Brownlow, better known to
the world by his _soubriquet_ of "Parson" Brownlow, was chosen
governor without opposition on the fourth day of March, 1865, the day
of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration. The new Legislature met at
Nashville a month later, on the 3d of April, and on the 5th ratified
the Thirteenth Amendment; thus adding the abolition of slavery by
National authority to that already decreed by the State. The
Legislature completed its work by electing two consistent Union men,
David T. Patterson and Joseph S. Fowler, to the United-States Senate.
The framework of the new Government was thus completed and in operation
before the death of Mr. Lincoln. It had not received the recognition
and approval of the National Government in any specific or direct
manner. But Andrew Johnson was inaugurated as Vice-President on the
4th of March, and the only form of government left in Tennessee was
that of which Brownlow was the acknowledged head. The crucial test
would come when the senators and representatives, elected under the
Brownlow government, should apply for their seats in Congress.
The course pursued in Tennessee afforded a significant index to Mr.
Johnson's conception of what was deemed necessary to prepare a State
that had been in rebellion, for its full rehabilitation as a member
of the Federal Union. His position was rendered still more pronounced
and positive by his declarations in the remarkable speech delivered by
him when he took the oath of office as Vice-President: "Before I
conclude this brief Inaugural address in the presence of this audience,
. . . I desire to proclaim that Tennessee, whose representative I have
been, is free. She has bent the tyrant's rod, she has broken the yoke
of slavery, she stands to-day redeemed. She waited not for the
exercise of power by Congress; it was her own act; and she is now as
loyal, Mr. Attorney-General, as the State from which you come. It is
the doctrine of the Federal Constitution that no State can go out of
this Union. Thank God, Tennessee has never been out of the Union!
It is true the operations of her government were for a time
interrupted; there was an interregnum; but she is in the Union, and I
am her representative. This day (March 4, 1865) she elects her
Governor and her Legislature, which will be convened on the first
Monday of April, and her senators and representatives will soon mingle
with those of her sister States; and who shall gainsay it, for the
Constitution provides that to every State shall be guaranteed a
Republican form of government."
The very positive declaration by Mr. Johnson that "Tennessee has never
been out of the Union" indicated the side he would take in a pending
controversy which was waxing warm between the disputants. Whether the
act of Secession was void _ab initio_ and really left the State still
a member of the Union, or whether it did, however wrongfully, carry the
State out of the Union as claimed by those engaged in the Rebellion,
was one of the purely abstract political questions concerning which men
will argue without ceasing,--reaching no conclusion because there is
no conclusion to be reached. Both propositions were at the time
affirmed and denied with all the earnestness, indeed with all the
temper, which distinguished the mediæval theologians upon points of
doctrine once regarded as essential to salvation, but the very meaning
of which is scarcely comprehended by modern ecclesiastics. With his
mental acumen and with his never-failing common sense, Mr. Lincoln
declined to take part in the discussion. In his last public speech he
treated this question with admirable perspicuity, and with his wonted
felicity of homely illustration: "I have been shown what is supposed
to be an able letter," said he, "in which the writer expresses regret
that my mind has not seemed to be definitely fixed upon the question
whether the seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it.
. . . It would perhaps add astonishment to his regret to learn that as
it appears to me, that question has not been and is not a practically
material one, and that any discussion of it could have no effect other
than the mischievous one of dividing friends. As yet, whatever it may
become, the question is bad as the basis of a controversy--a merely
pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded States, so
called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and
that the sole object of the Government is to get them back into their
proper practical relation. I believe it is easier to do this without
deciding or even considering whether those States have ever been out of
the Union. The States finding themselves once more at home, it would
seem immaterial to me to inquire whether they had ever been abroad."
The essential difference between the upholders and the opponents of
this theory was not shown in the practical treatment proposed for the
States which had been in rebellion. It was in truth a difference only
in degree. The stoutest defenders of the dogma that the States had
not been out of the Union did not propose to permit the re-organization
of their local governments except upon conditions prescribed by the
National authority, and did not assert the rightfulness of their
claims to representation in the Senate and House until the prescribed
conditions were complied with. Those who protested against the dogma
did not assert the right to keep the States out of the Union, but only
claimed an unrestricted power to exact as the prerequisite of
re-admission such conditions as might be deemed essential to the public
safety--especially such as would most surely prevent another rebellion
against National authority. The two schools in short marked the
dividing line between the radical and the conservative. Perhaps
another feature might still more clearly indicate the difference
between the two. The conservatives thought the process of
reconstruction could be accomplished under the sole authority and
direction of the Executive Department of the Government, while the
radicals held it to be a matter for the exclusive determination of
Congress, affirming that the President's right of intervention was
limited to approval or veto of the bills which Congress should send to
him, and to the execution of all laws which should be constitutionally
enacted.
An extra session of Congress seemed specially desirable at the time,
and had one been summoned by the President, many of the troubles
which subsequently resulted might have been averted. The propriety
of ordering an earlier assemblage of the Thirty-ninth Congress than
that already provided by the Constitution had been discussed to a
very considerable extent among the members of the Thirty-eighth, as its
final adjournment (March 3, 1865) approached. The rebellion seemed
tottering to its fall, and it was the belief of many of the leading men
both of the Senate and the House, that it might be a special advantage
if Congress should be in session when the final surrender of the
Confederate forces should be made. But the prevailing opinion was in
favor of leaving the matter to Mr. Lincoln's discretion. It was felt
by the members that if the situation should demand the presence of
Congress, Mr. Lincoln would promptly issue his proclamation, and if the
situation should not demand it, the presence of Congress might prove
hurtful, and would certainly not be helpful. The calamity of Mr.
Lincoln's death had never entered into the public mind, and therefore
no provision was made with any view of its remotest possibility.
Mr. Johnson, however, is scarcely to be blamed for not calling an extra
session of Congress. Aside from his confidence in his own power to
deal with the problems before him, he shared, no doubt, in the general
dislike which Presidents in recent years have shown for extra sessions.
Indeed, to the Executive Department of the Government, Congress, even
in its regular sessions, is a guest whose coming is not welcomed with
half the heartiness with which its departure is speeded. But an
extra session, especially at the beginning of an Administration, is
looked upon with almost superstitious aversion, and is always to be
avoided if possible. It was remembered that all the woes of the
elder Adams' Administration, all the intrigues which the choleric
President fancied that Hamilton was carrying on against him in
connection with our French difficulties, had their origin in the extra
session of May, 1797. It was remembered also that the unpopularity
which attached to the Presidency of Mr. Madison was connected with the
two extra sessions which his timid Administration was perhaps too ready
to assemble. So deeply was the hostility to extra sessions implanted
in the minds of political leaders by the misfortunes of Adams and
Madison that another was not called for a quarter of a century. In
September, 1837, Mr. Van Buren inaugurated the ill-fortune of his
Administration by assembling Congress three months in advance of its
regular session. John Tyler in turn never recovered from the
dissensions and disasters of the extra session of May, 1841,--though it
was precipitated upon him by a call issued by President Harrison. All
those extra sessions except the one in Mr. Van Buren's Administration
had been held in May, and even in his case the proclamation summoning
Congress was issued in May. No wonder, therefore, that ill-luck came
to be associated with that month. When the necessity of assembling
Congress was forced upon Mr. Lincoln by the firing on Sumter, Mr.
Seward warned him that in any event he must not have the session begin
in May. It must be confessed therefore that the precedents were
sufficiently alarming to influence Mr. Johnson against an extra
session. Nor was there any popular demand for it because the
President's policy had not as yet portended trouble or strife in the
ranks of the Republican party.