Declining to seek the advice of Congress in the embarrassments of his
position, President Johnson necessarily subjected himself to the
counsel and influence of his Cabinet. He had inherited from Mr.
Lincoln an organization of the Executive Department which, with the
possible exception of Mr. Seward, was personally agreeable to him and
politically trusted by him. He dreaded the effect of changing it, and
declined upon his accession to make room for some eminent men who by
long personal association and by identity of views on public questions
would naturally be selected as his advisers. He had not forgotten the
experience and the fate of the chief magistrates who like himself had
been promoted from the Vice-Presidency. He instinctively wished to
avoid their mistakes and to leave behind him an administration which
should not in after years be remembered for its faults, its blunders,
its misfortunes.
The Federal Government had existed fifty-two years before it
encountered the calamity of a President's death. The effect which such
an event would produce upon the _personnel_ of the Government and upon
the partisan aspects of the Administration was not therefore known
prior to 1841. The Vice-President in previous years had not always
been on good terms with the President. In proportion to his rank there
was no officer of the Government who exercised so little influence.
His most honorable function--that of presiding over the Senate--was
purely ceremonial, and carried with it no attribute of power except in
those rare cases when the vote of the Senate was tied--a contingency
more apt to embarrass than to promote his political interests. He was,
of course, neither sought nor feared by the crowds who besieged the
President. He was therefore not unnaturally thrown into a sort of
antagonism with the Administration--an antagonism sure to be stimulated
by the _coterie_ who, disappointed in efforts to secure favor with the
President, were disposed to take refuge in the Cave of Adullam, where
from chagrin and sheer vexation the Vice-President had too frequently
been found. The class of disappointed men who gathered around the
Vice-President held a political relation not unlike that of the class
who in England have on several occasions formed the Prince of Wales'
party--composed of malcontents of the opposition, who were on the worst
possible terms with the Ministry.
John Tyler, as President Johnson well knew from personal observation,
began his Executive career with an apparent intention of following in
the footsteps of the lamented Harrison, to which course he had been
indeed been enjoined by the dying President in words of the most solemn
import. Tyler gave assurances to his Cabinet that he desired them to
retain their places. But the suggestion--which he was too ready to
adopt--was soon made, that he would earn no personal fame by
submissively continuing in the pathway marked out by another. With
this uneasiness implanted in his mind, it was impossible that he should
retain a Cabinet in whose original selection he had no part, and whose
presence was the symbol of a political subordination which constantly
fretted him. A cause of difference was soon found; difference led to
irritation, irritation to open quarrel, and quarrel ended in a
dissolution of the Cabinet five months after Mr. Tyler's accession to
the Executive chair. The dispute was then transferred to his party,
and grew more angry day by day until Tyler was driven for political
shelter and support to the Democratic Party, which had opposed his
election.
Mr. Fillmore had not been on good terms with General Taylor's
Administration, and when he succeeded to the Presidency he made haste
to part with the illustrious Cabinet he found in power. He accepted
their resignations at once, and selected heads of departments
personally agreeable to himself and in political harmony with his
views. He did not desert his party, but he passed over from the
anti-slavery to the pro-slavery wing, defeated the policy of his
predecessor, secured the enactment of the Fugitive-slave Law, and
neutralized all efforts to prohibit the introduction of slavery in the
Territories. In this course Mr. Fillmore had the support of the
great leaders of the party, Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, but he
disregarded the young Whigs who under the lead of Mr. Seward were
proclaiming a new political dispensation in harmony with the advancing
public opinion of the world. Mr. Fillmore did not leave his party,
but he failed to retain the respect and confidence of the great mass
of Northern Whigs; and his administration came to an end in coldness
and gloom for himself, and with the defeat, and practically the
destruction, of the party which had chosen him to his high place four
years before. His faithlessness to General Scott gave to the
Democratic candidate an almost unparalleled victory. Scott encountered
defeat. Fillmore barely escaped dishonor.
With the ill-fortune of these predecessors fresh in his memory, Mr.
Johnson evidently set out with the full intention not merely of
retaining the Cabinet of his predecessor, not merely of co-operating
with the party which elected him, but of espousing the principles of
its radical, progressive, energetic section. A Southern man, he
undoubtedly aspired to lead and control Northern opinion--the opinion
which had displayed the moral courage necessary to the prolonged
anti-slavery struggle in Congress, and had exhibited the physical
courage to accept the gage of battle and prosecute a gigantic war
in support of deep-rooted convictions. The speeches of the President
had defined his position, and the Nation awaited the series of
measures with which he would inaugurate his policy. Public interest
in the subject would indeed have caused greater impatience if public
attention had not in every Northern State been intently occupied in
welcoming to their homes the troops, who in thinned ranks and with
battered standards were about to close their military career and resume
the duties of peaceful citizens.
The personal character and political bias of the members of the
Cabinet, and especially their opinions respecting the policy which the
President had indicated, became therefore a matter of controlling
importance. The Cabinet had undergone many changes since its original
organization in March, 1861. The substitution of Mr. Stanton for Mr.
Cameron and of Mr. Fessenden for Mr. Chase has already been noticed;
but on the day of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration Mr. Fessenden
returned to the Senate, resuming the seat which he had left the July
previous, and which had in the interim been filled by Nathan A.
Farwell, an experienced ship-builder and ship-master of Maine, who
possessed an extraordinarily accurate knowledge of the commercial
history of the country. Mr. Farwell is still living, vigorous in
health and in intellect.
When Mr. Fessenden left the Treasury, he was succeeded by Hugh
McCulloch, whose valuable service as Comptroller of the Currency had
secured for him the promotion with which Mr. Lincoln now honored him.
Mr. McCulloch was a native of Maine, who had gone to the West in his
early manhood, and had earned a strong position as a business man in
his Indiana home. He was a descendant of that small but prolific
colony of Scotch and Scotch-Irish who had settled in northern New
England, and whose blood has enriched all who have had the good fortune
to inherit it. Mr. McCulloch was a devoted Whig, and was so loyal to
the Union that during the war he could do nothing else than give his
influence to the Republican party. But he was hostile to the creed of
the Abolitionist, was conservative in all his modes of thought, and
wished the Union restored quite regardless of the fate of the negro.
He believed that unwise discussion of the slavery question had brought
our troubles upon us, and that it would be inexcusable to continue an
agitation which portended trouble in another form. The policy which he
desired to see adopted was that which should restore the Rebel States
to their old relations with the Union upon the freest possible
conditions and within the shortest possible time.
Mr. Stanton, though originally a pro-slavery Democrat, had by the
progress of the war been converted to the creed of the most radical
wing of the Republican party. The aggressive movement, the
denunciatory declarations made by Mr. Johnson against the "rebels" and
"traitors" of the South, immediately after his accession to the
Presidency, were heartily re-echoed by Mr. Stanton, who looked forward
with entire satisfaction to the vigorous policy so vigorously
proclaimed. Mr. Stanton's tendency in this direction had been
strengthened by the intolerance and hatred of his old Democratic
friends,--of whom Judge Black was a type,--who lost no opportunity to
denounce him as a renegade to his party, as one who had been induced
by place to forswear his old creed of State rights. Such hostility
should, however, be accounted a crown of honor to Mr. Stanton. He
certainly came to the public service with patriotic and not with
sordid motives, surrendering a most brilliant position at the bar, and
with it the emolument of which in the absence of accumulated wealth his
family was in daily need.
Mr. Stanton's observation and wide experience through the years of the
war had taught him to distrust the Southern leaders. Now that they
had been subdued by force, yielding at the point of the bayonet when
they could no longer resist, he did not believe that they should be
regarded as returning prodigals to be embraced and wept over, for whom
fatted calves should be killed, and who should be welcomed at once to
the best in their father's house. He thought rather that works meet
for repentance should be shown by these offenders against the law both
of God and man, that they should be held to account in some form for
the peril with which they had menaced the Nation, and for the agony
they had inflicted upon her loyal sons. Mr. Stanton was therefore, by
every impulse of his heart and by every conviction of his mind,
favorable to the policy which the President had indicated, if not
indeed assured, to the people.
Gideon Welles of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy, was a member of
the original Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln. He belonged by habit of thought
and former affiliation to the Democratic party: he had united with
the Republicans solely upon the slavery issue. With the destruction
of slavery his sympathies with the party were lessened. The industrial
policy which the Republicans had adopted during the war was distasteful
to Mr. Welles in time of peace. He had been a bureau-officer in the
Navy Department during Mr. Polk's administration, and believed in the
wisdom of the tariff of 1846, to which he gave the support of his pen.
He possessed a strong instinct, but manifested little warmth of feeling
or personal attachment to any one. He was a man of high character,
but full of prejudices and a good hater. He wrote well, but was
disposed to dip his pen in gall. He was careful as to matters of fact,
fortified his memory by an accurate diary, and had an innate love of
controversy. With slavery abolished, the tendency of his mind was
towards a lenient policy in Southern matters and for the promptest
mode of reconstruction.
James Harlan of Iowa was Secretary of the Interior. Caleb B. Smith,
who was a member of Mr. Lincoln's original Cabinet, had resigned in
order to accept a Federal judgeship in Indiana, and his able
assistant-secretary, John P. Usher, had been promoted to the head of
the department, fulfilling his trust to Mr. Lincoln's satisfaction.
He in turn resigned, and was succeeded by Mr. Harlan who was nominated
by Mr. Lincoln, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on the 9th of
March--the confirmation to take effect on the 15th of May. It was an
exceptional form of appointment; but when the date was reached,
President Johnson insisted that the new Secretary should assume the
duties of the office. Mr. Harlan was a well-educated man with strong
natural parts. He had shown admirable capacity for public affairs in
various positions in Iowa, and had served that State efficiently in the
Senate of the United States, which he entered March 4, 1855, at
thirty-five years of age. He was a pronounced and unflinching
Republican, ready from personal attachment to Mr. Lincoln to follow him
in any public policy, and while somewhat distrustful of Johnson was
undoubtedly gratified and re-assured by the tone of his speeches. Mr.
Harlan was not hasty in judgment but thoughtful and reflective, and
aimed always to be just in his conclusions.
William Dennison of Ohio was Postmaster-General. He had succeeded
Montgomery Blair during the Presidential campaign of 1864, when that
officer's resignation was asked by the President as a means of
appeasing the unreasonable and unreasoning body of men who had
attempted to divide the Republican party at the height of the war by
the nomination of General Frémont as a candidate for the Presidency.
Mr. Dennison was an amiable man of high principles and just intentions,
but he was not endowed with executive force or the qualities of a
leader. He had secured the warm friendship of Mr. Lincoln during
his service as war governor of Ohio. His selection of president of
the convention that nominated Mr. Lincoln a second time was due to the
zeal and the warmth with which he had supported the National
Administration. His sympathies and associations were all with the
strong Republican element of the country, and he was sure to be firm
and exacting in his views of a reconstruction policy.
James Speed was Attorney-General. He had succeeded Edward Bates in
December, 1864, and was selected for reasons which were partly
personal, partly public. He was a Kentuckian and a Clay Whig, two
points in his history which strongly attracted the favor of Mr.
Lincoln. But more than all, he was the brother of Joshua Speed, with
whom in young manhood, if not indeed in boyhood, Mr. Lincoln had been
closely associated in Illinois. Of most kindly and generous nature,
Mr. Lincoln was slow to acquire intimacies, and had few close
friendships. But those who knew him well cannot fail to remember the
kindling eye, the warmth of expression, the depth of personal interest
and attachment with which he always spoke of "Josh Speed," and the
almost boyish fervor with which he related incidents and anecdotes of
their early association. James Speed, to whom Mr. Lincoln had been
thus drawn, was a highly respectable lawyer, and was altogether a fit
man to succeed Mr. Bates as the Border-State member of the Cabinet. As
a Southern man, he was expected to favor a lenient policy towards his
offending brethren, and was supposed to look coldly upon much that was
implied in the President's declarations.
Of the six Cabinet ministers thus enumerated, it will be seen that
three--Mr. McCulloch, Mr. Welles, and Mr. Speed--might be regarded as
favoring a conservative plan of reconstruction, and three--Mr. Stanton,
Mr. Harlan, and Mr. Dennison--a radical plan. These positions were
thus assigned from circumstantial evidence rather than from direct
declarations of the gentlemen themselves. At a time so critical,
responsible officials were naturally reserved and cautious in the
expression of opinions. But it was instinctively perceived by close
observers of public events, that in correctly estimating the influence
of the Cabinet upon the policy of President Johnson, great
consideration must be given to the attitude which Mr. Seward might
assume. If his strength should go with Mr. Stanton and the radical
wing of the Cabinet, the President would be readily and completely
confirmed in the line of policy frequently forecast in his speeches.
If on the other hand, Mr. Seward should follow the generally
anticipated course, and take ground against the harsh and vengeful
spirit indicated by the President, a struggle would ensue, of which
the issue would be doubtful.
During the period in which Mr. Johnson had been copiously illustrating
the guilt of treason, and avowing his intention to punish traitors with
the severest penalty known to the law, Mr. Seward lay wounded and
helpless. His injuries, received at the hands of the assassin, Payne,
at almost the same moment in which Booth fired his fatal shot at the
President, were at first considered mortal. The murderous assault came
only a short time after a severe injury Mr. Seward had received in
consequence of being violently thrown from his carriage. The shock to
his nervous system from the attack of the assassin was so great that
his physicians did not for some days permit him to learn the fate of
the President, or even to know that his own son, Mr. Frederick Seward,
who had been his faithful and able assistant at the State Department,
was also one of the victims of the plot of assassination, and was
lying, as it was feared, and indeed generally believed, at the point of
death.
To the joy no less than to the surprise of the entire country Mr.
Seward rallied and regained his strength very rapidly. He was wounded
on the night of the 14th of April. By the first of May he had so far
recovered as to be informed somewhat minutely of the sorrowful
situation. By the tenth of the month he received visits from the
President and his fellow-members of the Cabinet, and conferred with
them on the engrossing questions that pressed upon the Administration.
On the 20th he repaired to the Department of State--which then occupied
the present site of the north front of the Treasury building--and held
conference with foreign ministers, especially with the minister of
France, touching the complication in Mexico. From that time onward,
though still weak, and bowed down with grief by the death of Mr.
Lincoln and the possibly impeding death of one still nearer to him, Mr.
Seward gave close attention to public affairs. The need of action and
of energy so pressed upon him that he found no time to utter
lamentation, none to indulge even in the most sacred personal grief.
The heroic element of the man was displayed at its best. His moral
strength, his mental fibre, his wiry constitution were all tested to
their utmost, and no doubt to the serious shortening of his days.
Mr. Seward feared that the country was in danger of suffering very
seriously from a possible, if not indeed probable, mistake of the
Administration. In the creed of his own statesmanship, there was no
article that comprehended revenge as a just motive for action. No man
had suffered more of personal obloquy from the South than he, no one
living had received deeper personal injury from the demoniac spirit,
the wicked inspiration of the rebellion. But he did not for one
moment permit those causes which would have powerfully influenced lower
natures to control his action, or even to extort a single word of
passionate resentment.
It had been Mr. Seward's fortune at different epochs in the country's
history and in different phases of his own career to incur the harshest
censure from political associates. He had been accused at one time of
urging the anti-slavery cause so far as to endanger the Union; and,
when the Union was endangered, he was accused of being willing to
sacrifice the anti-slavery cause to save it. "The American people,"
said he in February, 1861, "have in our day two great interests,--one
the ascendency of freedom, the other the integrity of the Union. The
slavery interest has derived its whole political power from bringing
the latter object into antagonism with the former. Twelve years ago
Freedom was in danger, and the Union was not. . . . To-day practically
Freedom is not in danger, and the Union is. With the loss of the
Union, all would be lost." Mr. Seward, influenced by this belief,
went farther in the direction of conciliation for the avoidance of war
than his associates were willing to follow. His words gave offense to
some who had long been his most earnest supporters,--a fact thus
pointedly recognized by him: "I speak now singly for Union, striving
if possible to save it peaceably; if not possible, then to cast the
responsibility upon the party of slavery. For this singleness of
speech, I am suspected of infidelity to freedom." But Mr. Seward held
his course firmly, and waited for vindication as men of rectitude and
true greatness can afford to wait. "I refer myself not to the men of
my time, but to the judgment of history."
A similar dedication of himself to the judgment of history was in Mr.
Seward's opinion again demanded of him. He was firmly persuaded that
the wisest plan of reconstruction was the one which would be speediest;
that for the sake of impressing the world with the strength and the
marvelous power of self-government, with its Law, its Order, its Peace,
we should at the earliest possible moment have every State restored to
its normal relations with the Union. He did not believe that
guarantee of any kind beyond an oath of renewed loyalty was needful.
He was willing to place implicit faith in the coercive power of
self-interest operating upon the men lately in rebellion. He agreed
neither with the President's proclaimed policy of blood, nor with that
held by the vast majority of his own political associates, which,
avoiding the rigor of personal punishment, sought by exclusion from
political honor and emolument to administer wholesome discipline to the
men who had brought peril to the Government and suffering to the people.
Mr. Seward was undoubtedly influenced in no small degree in these
conclusions by the habit of mind he had acquired in conducting the
foreign affairs of the Government during the period of the war. He had
keenly felt the reproach, the taunt, and the open or ill-disguised
satisfaction reflected by a large number of the public men of Europe
that we were no longer and could never again be "the _United_ States of
America." He felt that the experiment of Imperial Government in
Mexico, then in progress under Maximilian, was a disturbing element,
and tended by possible conflicts on this continent to embroil us with
at least two great European powers. The defense against that unwelcome
alternative, and the defense against its evil result, if it should
come, would in his judgment be found in a completely restored Union--with
the National Government supreme, and all its parts working in
harmony and in strength. He believed moreover that the legislation
which should affect the South, now that peace had returned, should be
shared by representatives of that section, and that as such
participation must at last come if we were to have a restored Republic,
the wisest policy was to concede it at once, and not nurture by delay
a new form of discontent, and induce by withholding confidence a new
phase of distrust and disobedience among the Southern people.
Entertaining these views, and deeply impressed with the importance of
incorporating them in the plan of reconstruction, Mr. Seward rose
from his sick-bed, pale, emaciated, and sorrowful, to persuade his
associates in the Government, of the wisdom and necessity of adopting
them. He had undoubtedly a hard task with the President. The two men
were naturally antagonistic on so many points that agreement and
cordiality seemed impossible upon a question in regard to which they
held views diametrically opposite. Mr. Johnson inherited all his
political principles from the Democratic party. He had been filled
with an intense hatred of the Whigs and with an almost superstitious
dread of the Federalists. Mr. Seward and he were therefore political
antipodes. The one was the eulogist and follower of John Quincy Adams,
the other was a sincere believer in the creed and the measures of
Andrew Jackson. As Adams and Jackson had agreed only in devotion to
the Union, so now Seward and Johnson seemed to have no other principle
of Government in common, and that principle was equally strong in each.
Not only was this obstacle of inherent difference of political view in
Mr. Seward's way, but he also encountered an intense personal
prejudice which even while he was disabled by wounds had been
insinuated into the President's mind. Nor had Mr. Seward any force of
popularity at the time with the Republican party of the country. It
had fallen to his lot during the four eventful years of the war to
assume unpleasant responsibilities and to perform ungracious acts. He
was not at the head of a department where popular applause awaited his
ablest work, or where popular attention was attracted by the most
brilliant triumphs of his diplomatic correspondence.
The successful placing of a vast loan among the people redounded
everywhere to the praise of Mr. Chase. The gaining of a victory in
the field reflected credit upon Mr. Stanton. But a series of
diplomatic papers far outreaching in scope and grasp those of any
statesman or publicist with whom he was in correspondence, recalling in
skill the best efforts of Talleyrand, and in spirit the loftiest ideals
of Jefferson, did not advance the popularity of Mr. Seward because the
field of his achievements and triumphs was not one in which the masses
of the people took an active interest. The most difficult and in many
cases the most successful of diplomatic work is necessarily
confidential for long periods. In legislative halls, discussion on
questions of interest enlists public attention and holds the popular
mind in suspense before the fate of the measure is decided. But the
dispatches and arguments of a minister of Foreign Affairs, which may
lead to results of great consequence to his country, are not gazetted
till long after they have borne their fruit; and the public rejoicing
in the conclusion, seldom turns to examine the toilsome process by
which it was attained. It was from the comparative isolation of the
Department of State, four years removed from active contact with the
people, that Mr. Seward now assumed the task of controlling the new
President and directing his policy on the weightiest question of his
Administration.
Those who thoroughly knew Mr. Seward through all the stages of his
political career were aware that, great as he was in public speech, in
the Senate, at the Bar, before popular assemblies, cogent and powerful
as he had so often proved with his pen, his one peculiar gift, greater
perhaps than any other with which he was endowed, was his faculty, in
personal intercourse with one man or with a small number of men, of
enforcing his own views and taking captive his hearers. With the
President alone, or with a body no larger than a Cabinet, where the
conferences and discussion are informal and conversational, Mr. Seward
shone with remarkable brilliancy and with power unsurpassed. He
possessed a characteristic rare among men who have been long accustomed
to lead,--he was a good listener. He gave deferential attention to
remarks addressed to him, paid the graceful and insinuating compliment
of seeming much impressed, and offered the delicate flattery, when he
came to reply, of repeating the argument of his opponent in phrase far
more affluent and eloquent than that in which it was originally stated.
In his final summing up of the case, when those with whom he was
conferring were, in Dr. Johnson's phrase, "talked out," Mr. Seward
carried all before him. His logic was clear and true, his illustration
both copious and felicitous, his rapid citation of historical
precedents surprising even to those who thought they had themselves
exhausted the subject. His temper was too amiable and serene for
stinging wit or biting sarcasm, but he had a playful humor which kept
the minds of his hearers in that receptive and compliant state which
disposed them the more readily to give full and generous consideration
to all the strong parts of his argument. It might well indeed be said
of Mr. Seward as Mr. Webster said of Samuel Dexter, "The earnestness
of his convictions wrought conviction in others. One was convinced and
believed and assented because it was gratifying and delightful to think
and feel and believe in unison with an intellect of such evident
superiority."
Equipped with these rare endowments, it is not strange that Mr. Seward
made a deep impression upon the mind of the President. In conflicts of
opinion the superior mind, the subtle address, the fixed purpose, the
gentle yet strong will, must in the end prevail. Mr. Seward gave to
the President the most luminous exposition of his own views, warm,
generous, patriotic in tone. He set before him the glory of an
Administration which should completely re-establish the union of the
States, and re-unite the hearts of the people, now estranged by civil
conflict. He impressed him with the danger of delay to the Republic
and with the discredit which would attach to himself if he should
leave to another President the grateful task of reconciliation. He
pictured to him the National Constellation no longer obscured but with
every star in its orbit, all revolving in harmony, and once more
shining with a brilliancy undimmed by the smallest cloud in the
political heavens.
By his arguments and his eloquence Mr. Seward completely captivated the
President. He effectually persuaded him that a policy of anger and
hate and vengeance could lead only to evil results; that the one
supreme demand of the country was confidence and repose; that the ends
of justice could be reached by methods and measures altogether
consistent with mercy. The President was gradually influenced by Mr.
Seward's arguments, though their whole tenor was against his strongest
predilections and against his pronounced and public committals to a
policy directly the reverse of that to which he was now, almost
imperceptibly to himself, yielding assent. The man who had in April
avowed himself in favor of "the halter for intelligent, influential
traitors," who passionately declared during the interval between the
fall of Richmond and the death of Mr. Lincoln that "traitors should be
arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged," was now about to proclaim a
policy of reconstruction without attempting the indictment of even one
traitor, or issuing a warrant for the arrest of a single participant in
the Rebellion aside from those suspected of personal crime in
connection with the noted conspiracy of assassination.
In this serious struggle with the President, Mr. Seward's influence
was supplemented and enhanced by the timely and artful interposition
of clever men from the South. A large class in that section quickly
perceived the amelioration of the President's feelings, and they used
every judicious effort to forward and develop it. They were ready to
forget all the hard words of Johnson, and to forgive all his harsh
acts, for the great end to be gained to their States and their people
by turning him aside from his proclaimed policy of punishing a great
number of rebels with the utmost severity of the law. Johnson's wrath
was evidently appeased by the complaisance shown by leading men of
the South. He was not especially open to flattery, but it was noticed
that words of commendation from his native section seemed peculiarly
pleasing to him.
The tendency of his mind under such influences was perhaps not
unnatural. It is a common instinct of mankind to covet in an especial
degree the good will of the community among whom the years of childhood
and boyhood are spent. Applause from old friends and neighbors is the
most grateful that ever reaches human ears. When Washington's renown
filled two continents, he was still sensitive respecting his popularity
among the freeholders of Virginia. When Bonaparte had kingdoms and
empires at his feet, he was jealous of his fame with the untamed
spirits of Corsica, where among the veterans of Paoli he had received
the fiery inspiration of war. The boundless admiration and gratitude
of American never compensated Lafayette for the failure of his career
in France. This instinct had its full sway over Johnson. It was not
in the order of nature that he should esteem his popularity among
Northern men, to whom he was a stranger, as highly as he would esteem
it among the men of the South, with whom he had been associated during
the whole of his career. In that section he was born. There he had
acquired the fame which brought him national honors, and after his
public service should end he looked forward to a peaceful close of life
in the beautiful land which had always been his home.
Still another influence wrought powerfully on the President's mind. He
had inherited poverty in a community where during the slave system
riches were especially envied and honored. He had been reared in the
lower walks of life among a people peculiarly given to arbitrary social
distinction and to aristocratic pretensions as positive and tenacious
as they were often ill-founded and unsubstantial. From the ranks of
the rich and the aristocratic in the South, Johnson had always been
excluded. Even when he was governor of his State or a senator of the
United States, he found himself socially inferior to many whom he
excelled in intellect and character. His sentiments were regarded as
hostile to slavery, and to be hostile to slavery was to fall inevitably
under the ban in any part of the South for the fifty years preceding
the war. His political strength was with the non-slave-holding white
population of Tennessee which was vastly larger than the slave-holding
population, the proportion indeed being twenty-seven to one. With
these a "good fellow" ranked all the higher for not possessing the
graces or, as they would term them, the "airs" of society.
As Mr. Johnson grew in public favor and increased in reputation, as his
talents were admitted and his power in debate appreciated, he became
eager to compel recognition from those who had successfully proscribed
him. A man who is born to social equality with the best of his
community, and accustomed in his earlier years to its enjoyment, does
not feel the sting of attempted exclusion, but is rather made
pleasantly conscious of the _prestige_ which inspires the adverse
effort and can look upon its bitterness in a spirit of lofty disdain.
Wendell Phillips, descended from a long line of distinguished ancestry,
was amused rather than disconcerted by the strenuous but futile
attempts to ostracize him for the maintenance of opinions which he
lived to see his native city adopt and enforce. But the feeling is far
different in a man who has experienced only a galling sense of
inferiority. To such a one, advancing either in fortune or in fame,
social prominence seems a necessity, without which other gifts
constitute only the aggravations of life.
It was therefore with a sense of exaltation that Johnson beheld as
applicants for his consideration and suppliants for his mercy many of
those in the South who had never recognized him as a social equal. A
mind of true loftiness would not have been swayed by such a change of
relative positions, but it was inevitable that a mind of Johnson's
type, which if not ignoble was certainly not noble, should yield to
its flattering and seductive influence. In the present attitude of
the leading men of the South towards him, he saw the one triumph
which sweetened his life, the one requisite which had been needed to
complete his happiness. In securing the good opinion of his native
South, he would attain the goal of his highest ambition, he would
conquer the haughty enemy who during all the years of his public career
had been able to fix upon him the bade of social inferiority.
On the 29th of May (1865), nineteen days after Mr. Seward's first
interview with President Johnson, and nine days after his first visit
to the State Department, two decisive steps were taken in the work of
reconstruction. Both steps proceeded on the theory that every act
needful for the rehabilitation of the seceded States could be
accomplished by the Executive Department of the Government. This was
known to be the favorite doctrine of Mr. Seward, and the President
readily acquiesced in its correctness. There in nothing of which a
public officer can be so easily persuaded as of the enlarged
jurisdiction which pertains to his station. If the officer be of bold
mind, he arrogates power for purposes of ambition; and even with timid
men power is often assumed as a measure of protection and defense. Mr.
Johnson was a man of unquestioned courage, and was never afraid to
assume personal and official responsibility when circumstances
justified and demanded it. Mr. Seward had therefore no difficulty in
persuading him that he possessed, as President, every power needful to
accomplish the complete reconstruction of the rebellious States.
The first of these important acts of reconstruction, upon the
expediency of which the President and Mr. Seward had agreed, was the
issuing of a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to "all persons who
have directly or indirectly participated in the existing Rebellion"
upon the condition that such persons should take and subscribe an oath
--to be registered for permanent preservation--solemnly declaring that
henceforth they would "faithfully support, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States and the union of the States
thereunder;" and that they would also "abide by and faithfully support
all laws and proclamation which have been made during the existing
Rebellion, with reference to the emancipation of slaves." It was the
first official paper which Mr. Seward attested as Secretary of State
under President Johnson. He undoubtedly intended to signalize his
return to health and his resumption of official duty by public
participation in an act which he regarded as one of wisdom and mercy
--an act which was wise because merciful.
The general declaration of amnesty was somewhat narrowed in its scope
by the enumeration, at the end of the proclamation, of certain classes
which were excepted from its benefit. In naming these classes a keen
discrimination had been made as to the character and degree of guilt
on the part of those who had participated in the Rebellion.
--First, "All diplomatic officers and foreign agents of the Confederate
Government" were excluded. Their offense was ranked high because of
their efforts to embroil us with other nations.
--Second, "All who left judicial stations under the United States to
aid the Rebellion." They were held to be specially culpable because
they had been highly honored by their Government, and because they
could not, like many, plead in excuse the excitement and antagonisms
which spring from an active participation in political affairs.
--Third, "All military and naval officers of the Confederacy above the
rank of colonel in the army or lieutenant in the navy." The men who
actually bore arms were, of course, the chief offenders; but holding
officers only of high grade accountable, was intended as an act of
marked and significant leniency to the multitude of the rank and file.
--Fourth, "All who left seats in the Congress of the United States to
join the Rebellion." These should, indeed, have been first named, for
they, above all other men, fomented the Rebellion in its early stages.
--Fifth, "All who resigned, or tendered resignations, in the Army or
Navy of the United States to evade duty in resisting the Rebellion."
These men were even more culpable than those who joined the Rebellion.
They were not openly traitors, but were popularly and significantly
termed "sneaks."
--Sixth, "All who have been engaged in treating otherwise than as
lawful prisoners of war, persons found in the United-States service as
officers, soldiers, or seamen." This was specially directed against
those who had maltreated negro troops and attempted, by personal
cruelty, to frighten them from the National service.
--Seventh, "All persons who have been, or are, absentees from the
United States for the purpose of aiding the Rebellion." The men who
had misled public opinion in England, and who hovered along the
Canadian border during the war, concocting schemes for burning Northern
cities, and for spreading the infection of yellow-fever and the plague
of small-pox in the loyal States, were especially aimed at in this
exclusion.
--Eighth, "All officers in the rebel service who had been educated at
the United-States Military or Naval Academy." These men had received
the bounty of the Government, shared its confidence, and were under
peculiar obligation to defend it.
--Ninth, "All men who held the pretended offices of governors of
States in insurrection against the United States." As the civil war
had for its basis the dogma of _State-rights_, the chief executive
officers of States represented in an especial manner the guilt of the
Rebellion.
--Tenth, "All persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and
protection of the United States, and passed beyond the Federal military
lines into the pretended Confederate States for the purpose of aiding
the Rebellion." The personal guilt of these men lay in the fact that,
according to their own theory of _State-rights_, they were traitors.
They did not adhere to the States which gave them birth, or to the
States of which they were citizens.
--Eleventh, "All persons who have been engaged in the destruction of
the commerce of the United States upon the high seas, and all persons
who have been engaged in destroying the commerce of the United States
upon the lakes and rivers that separate the British Provinces from the
United States." The acts of these men were specially reprobated
because they did not proceed according to the laws of war. In the
popular mind they were held amenable to the charge of piracy.
--Twelfth, "All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain
amnesty and pardon, are in military, naval, or civil confinement, as
prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind either
before or after conviction." Many prisoners in the custody of the
Government were charged with acts of peculiar cruelty or perfidy,
especially with the committal of personal outrages which did not, in
any degree, affect the fortunes of the war, and were not therefore
entitled to the excuse of having been the necessities of a bad cause.
--Thirteenth, "All participants in the Rebellion, the estimated value
of whose taxable property is over twenty thousand dollars." The
intention of this exception was to draw the line between the men who
could exert influence in their respective communities, and those who
were necessarily led by others. Fixing this partition between
voluntary and involuntary guilt on the property line was a favorite
measure with President Johnson. It met with much opposition from the
loyal as well as the disloyal.
A fourteenth class was excepted, not from the benefits of the
proclamation of amnesty, but from the necessity of taking the oath
demanded from the other classes. Full pardon was granted, without
further act on their part, to all who had taken the oath prescribed
in President Lincoln's proclamation of December 8, 1863, and who had
thenceforward kept and maintained the same inviolate. The status of
every man in the Confederate States was thus determined and proclaimed,
--a procedure which was intended to be the corner-stone of the work of
reconstruction.
Standing naked and unqualified these thirteen exceptions might seem to
imply a harshness of treatment inconsistent with the spirit of
forgiveness and generosity upon which Mr. Seward had been insisting,
and to which the President had apparently assented. The classes
excepted were more numerous and far more comprehensive than those
excluded from amnesty under the proclamation issued by Mr. Lincoln on
the 8th of December, 1863. That proclamation not only embodied the
views of Mr. Lincoln, but was approved by Mr. Seward in whole and in
detail. The difference between the two proclamations was not, however,
radical, and was readily reconcilable with Mr. Seward's purpose. He
had indeed equalized their attributes of mercy by inducing President
Johnson to insert a proviso declaring that "special application may be
made to the President for pardon by any person belonging to the
excepted classes," and the assurance was added that "such clemency will
be liberally extended for amnesty and pardon." Applications came in
great numbers from the South. In the archives of the State Department
there are some twenty-four large volumes recording the pardons granted
in less than nine months after the proclamation. The aggregate number
is nearly fourteen thousand, and the list includes prominent men of all
classes in the South, who, recognizing the fact that the Rebellion had
failed, turned, as the only alternative, to the Government which had
conquered and was now ready to extend a magnanimous forgiveness. Many
of those sought to place themselves in harmony with the restored Union,
and looked forward hopefully to the events of the future. Many others,
as it must be regretfully but truthfully recorded, appeared to have no
proper appreciation of the leniency extended to them. They accepted
every favor with an ill grace, and showed rancorous hatred to the
National Government even when they knew it only as a benefactor.
Having by the proclamation extended amnesty on the simple condition of
an oath of loyalty to the Union and the Constitution, and obedience to
the Decree of Emancipation, the President had established a definite
and easily ascertainable constituency of white men in the South to
whom the work of reconstructing civil government in the several States
might be intrusted. A circular from Mr. Seward accompanied the
proclamation, directing that the oath might "be taken and subscribed
before any commissioned officer, civil, military, or naval, in the
service of the United States, or before any civil or military officer
of a loyal State or Territory, who, by the laws thereof, may be
qualified to administer oaths." Every one who took the oath was
entitled to a certified copy of it, as the proof of his restoration
to all civil rights, and a duplicate, properly vouched, was forwarded
to the State Department, to be "deposited and remain in the archives
of the Government." Mr. Seward had thus adapted the simplest, most
convenient, and least expensive process for the administration of the
oath of loyalty. Indeed the certifying officer was almost brought to
the door of every Southern household. The mercy and grace of the
Government fell upon the great mass of those who had been engaged in
rebellion as gently and as plenteously as the rain from heaven upon
the place beneath the feet of the offenders.
With these details complete, a second step of great moment was taken
by the Government on the same day (May 29). A proclamation was
issued appointing William W. Holden provisional governor of the State
of North Carolina, and intrusting to him, with the co-operation of the
constituency provided for in the first proclamation, the important work
of reconstructing civil government in the State. The proclamation made
it the duty of Governor Holden "at the earliest practicable period, to
prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for
assembling a convention--composed of delegates 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
limit of said State, all the powers necessary and proper to enable the
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 guaranty of the United States therefor and its people against
invasion, insurrections, and domestic violence."
It was especially provided in the proclamation that in "choosing
delegates to any State Convention no person shall be qualified as an
elector or eligible as a member unless he shall have previously taken
the prescribed oath of allegiance, and unless he shall also possess the
qualifications of a voter as defined under the Constitution and Laws of
North Carolina as they existed on the 20th of May, 1861, immediately
prior to the so-called ordinance of secession." Mr. Lincoln had in
mind, as was shown by his letter to Governor Hahn of Louisiana, to try
the experiment of negro suffrage, beginning with those who had served
in the Union Army, and who could read and write; but President
Johnson's plan confined the suffrage to white men, by prescribing the
same qualifications as were required in North Carolina before the war.
The convention that might be chosen by the voters whose qualifications
were thus preliminarily defined, or the Legislature which the
convention might order to meet, were empowered to prescribe the
permanent qualifications of voters and the eligibility of persons to
hold office under the Constitution and Laws of the State--"a power,"
as the President was careful to declare, "which the people of the
several States composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised
from the origin of the Government to the present time."
The military commander of the Department of North Carolina and all
officers and persons in the military and naval service of the United
States were directed to aid and assist in carrying the proclamation
into effect, and they were specially ordered to "abstain from
hindering, impeding, or discouraging the loyal people in any manner
whatever from the organization of a State Government as herein
authorized." The several heads of the Executive Departments were
directed to re-establish the entire machinery of the National
Government within the limits of North Carolina. The Secretary of the
Treasury was directed to nominate for appointment, collectors of
customs, assessors and collectors of internal revenue, and such other
officers of the Treasury Department as were authorized by law. The
Postmaster-General was directed to re-establish the post-offices and
postmasters. The United-States district judge was directed to hold
courts in North Carolina, and the Attorney-General was ordered to
"enforce the administration and jurisdiction of the Federal courts."
In short, every power of the National Government in North Carolina
was re-asserted, every function re-established, every duty re-assumed.
In making appointments for office, it was ordered in the proclamation
that "preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed.
But if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then
persons residing in other States or districts shall be appointed."
A fortnight later, on the 13th of June, a proclamation was issued for
the reconstruction of the civil government of Mississippi, and William
L. Sharkey was appointed provisional governor. Four days later, on
the 17th of June, a similar proclamation was issued for Georgia with
James Johnson for provisional governor, and for Texas with Andrew J.
Hamilton for provisional governor. On the 21st of the same month
Lewis E. Parsons was appointed provisional governor of Alabama, and on
the 30th Benjamin F. Perry was appointed provisional governor of South
Carolina. On the 13th of July the list was completed by the
appointment of William Marvin as provisional governor of Florida. The
precise text of the North-Carolina proclamation, _mutatis mutandis_,
was repeated in each one of those relating to these six States. The
process was designed to be exhaustive by fully restoring every
connection existing under the Constitution between the States and the
National Government. Viewed merely as a theory it was perfect. The
danger was that in the test of actual practice it might end like so
many similar experiments in other countries. An opponent wittily
characterized it as Government by _diagram_, accurately drawn on an
Executive blackboard.
For the reconstruction of the other four States of the Confederacy
different provisions were made. In Virginia Francis H. Pierpont had
been made governor after the State had seceded and the State of West
Virginia had been established. He was the head of the Loyal Government
of Virginia, which gave its assent to the division of the State. His
Government, the shell of which had been preserved after West Virginia's
separate existence had been recognized by the National Government,
with its temporary capital at Alexandria, was accepted by President
Johnson's Administration as the legitimate Government of Virginia. All
its archives, property, and effects, as was afterwards said by
Thaddeus Stevens, were taken to Richmond in an ambulance. As early as
the 9th of May President Johnson had issued a proclamation recognizing
Mr. Pierpont as governor of the State, and assuring him that he would
be "aided by the Federal Government, so far as may be necessary, in
the lawful measures he may take for the extension and administration
of the State Government throughout the geographical limits of said
State." The same proclamation declared that "All acts and proceedings
of the political, military, and civil organizations which have been in
a state of insurrection and rebellion within the State of Virginia
against the laws and authority of the United States are declared null
and void." The proclamation further declared that any person assuming
to exercise any authority in Virginia by virtue of a military of civil
commission issued by Jefferson Davis, President of the so-called
Confederate States, or by John Letcher, or William Smith, Governors of
Virginia, "shall be deemed and taken as in rebellion against the
United States, and dealt with accordingly."
A course not dissimilar to that adopted in Virginia was followed in
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. In all of them the so-called "ten
per cent" governments established under Mr. Lincoln's authority were
now recognized. Governor Hahn was held to be the true executive of
Louisiana,--a concession all the more readily made, because, under the
revised constitution of the State, the people would be called upon in
the approaching autumn to choose his successor. In Arkansas also, the
Government, with Isaac Murphy at its head, was now recognized; and in
Tennessee the authority of William G. Brownlow as governor was promptly
accepted as constitutional and regular. This Government, as already
narrated, had been brought into existence by the earnest effort of Mr.
Johnson in the period which had elapsed between his election and
inauguration as Vice-President. The direct committal of the President
to the legality of his own work was the controlling cause which led to
the recognition of the Governments of the four States under
consideration. But for the impossibility of disowning or in any way
discrediting the existing Government of Tennessee, it is probably that
the plan by which provisional governments were established in seven of
the rebellious States would have been uniformly applied to the entire
eleven which formed the Confederacy. The same executives would
doubtless have been selected for provisional service, but there would
have been evident advantage in treating all the States in precisely the
same manner.
The scope and design of the President's reconstruction policy were
thus made fully apparent. The work was committed to the white men of
the several States, who, outside of the excepted classes, were ready
to take the oath of allegiance to the Government. They were empowered
to form the Convention which should shape the organic law of the
State, and in that law they were authorized to establish the basis of
suffrage,--a right which the President held to belong to the State, to
be, indeed, inalienable from the State. It was, therefore, evident
that the white men who were allowed to regain all the rights of
citizenship by a mere oath of fidelity would not, in framing an organic
law for the State, exclude the classes whom the President had excepted
from pardon. The excluded classes had been the leaders, the
commanders, the men of position, the friends and the patrons of those
who, only less guilty because less influential and powerful, were now
intrusted with the initial work in the re-establishment of civil
Government in their respective States.
It was not a possible supposition that these men, when they assembled
in convention, would exclude the entire leading class of the South, or
even one member of it, from the full constitutional privileges and
benefits of the civil Government they were about to re-organize. The
suffrage conferred on others would, in like manner, be conferred on
them: the offices of rank and emolument in the new Government would
likewise be open to them, and it would thus be made evident that the
President's exclusion of these classes was merely an inhibition from
doing a preliminary work which others would do equally well for them.
Unless, therefore, some other form of denial or exclusion should be
announced,--and none other apparently was intended,--the President's
policy would end in promptly handing over to the authors and designers
of the Rebellion the complete control of the States whose civil power
they had willfully perverted and turned against the National authority.
Mr. Seward's magnanimity, his boundless confidence in human nature, had
led him to believe that this was wise policy. He believed it so firmly
that he had persuaded the President--against his own will and purpose
--to adopt it, and to attempt its enforcement.
It soon became evident that President Johnson realized how completely
he had excluded men of the colored race from any share of political
power in the Southern States by his process of reconstruction. It is
true that he stood loyally by the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which had been submitted to Congress before his accession
to the Presidency but had not yet been ratified by the States. He used
his influence, which was commanding, to induce the Southern States to
accept it in good faith. But he saw, as others had seen before him,
that this was not going far enough to satisfy the reasonable desire of
many in the North whom he felt it necessary to conciliate. To
emancipate the negro and conceded to him no possible power wherewith to
protect his freedom would, in the judgment of many Northern
philanthropists, prove the merest mockery of justice. This sentiment
wrought on Mr. Johnson so powerfully that against his own wish he was
compelled to address a circular to his provisional governors,
suggesting that the elective franchise should be extended to all
persons of color "who can read the Constitution of the United States,
and write their names, and also to those who own real estate valued at
not less than two hundred and fifty dollar, and pay taxes thereon."
In writing to Governor Sharkey of Mississippi in relation to this
subject the President argued that his recommendations touching colored
suffrage could be adopted "with perfect safety," and that thereby "the
Southern States would be placed, with reference to free persons of
color, upon the same basis with the free States." That Mr. Johnson
made this recommendation simply from policy and not from any proper
conception of its inherent justice is indicated by the closing
paragraph in his letter to Governor Sharkey. Indeed, by imprudent
language the President made an unnecessary exposure of the character
of his motives, and deprived himself of much of the credit which might
otherwise have belonged to him. "I hope and trust," he wrote to his
Mississippi governor, "that your convention will do this, and as a
consequence the Radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be
completely foiled in their attempt to keep the Southern States from
renewing their relations to the Union by not accepting their senators
and representatives."
At this period the President did not contemplate a break with the
Republican party, much less a coalition with its opponents. He had the
vanity to believe, or was at least under the delusion of believing that
--with the exception of those whom he denominated Radicals--he could
induce the party to follow him. Mr. Seward had undoubtedly influenced
him to this conclusion, as the Secretary of State indulged the same
hopeful anticipation himself. The President seemed to have no
comprehension of the fact that with inconsiderable exceptions the
entire party was composed of Radicals, men who in aim and sympathy were
hostile to the purposes indicated by his policy. His own radicalism,
from which Mr. Seward had succeeded in turning him, was the radicalism
of revenge upon the authors of the Rebellion. The radicalism to which
he now contemptuously indicated his opposition was that which looked to
the broadening of human rights, to philanthropy, to charity, and to
good deeds. Every intelligent Republican saw that the attempt which
the President was now making with his provisional governors to secure a
partial franchise to the colored man, was really only a petition to the
States to act in a certain manner upon a subject over which, by his own
proclamation, their power of control was declared to be absolute. With
the prejudices which inspired the South,--prejudices made still more
intense by the victory of the Union,--it was altogether certain that
the Southern Conventions would not extend the elective franchise or
civil right of any kind to the colored men of any class. The Southern
States would undoubtedly agree _pro forma_ to the Thirteenth Amendment
as a means of regaining their representation in Congress. Beyond that,
so long as the National Government conceded their right of control, it
was probable that every step which did not conflict with the
Constitution and Laws of the United States would be taken by the
Southern States to deprive the negro of all power or opportunity for
advancement. Mr. Seward, by the generous instinct of his own
philanthropy, believed all things for the Union, which had been
regenerated by the emancipation of the slave, and hoped all things for
the Southern people, who had been chastened by defeat. His
philanthropy taught him a faith in others as strong as his own
consciousness of right; and, by assuming the full responsibility of
the President's position, he brought to its support thousands of
advocates who, but for his personal influence and persuasive power,
would have opposed and spurned it.
The whole scheme of reconstruction, as originated by Mr. Seward and
adopted by the President, was in operation by the middle of July, three
months after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. Every step taken was
watched with the deepest solicitude by the loyal people. The rapid and
thorough change in the President's position was clearly discerned and
fully appreciated. His course of procedure was dividing the Republican
party, and already encouraging the hopes of those in the North who had
been the steady opponents of Mr. Lincoln's war policy, and of those in
the South who had sought for four years to destroy the Great Republic.
It soon became evident that the Northern Democrats who had been opposed
to the war, and the Southern Democrats who had been defeated in the
war, would unite in political action, and that the course of the
National Administration would exercise a potential influence upon their
success or failure. In turn, the course of the National Administration
would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined,
by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing
unbounded trust. Public interest was therefore transferred for the
time from the acts of the President at the National Capital to the
acts of the Reconstruction conventions about to assemble in the
Southern States.