Military Governors--Lincoln's Theory of Reconstruction--Congressional
Election in Louisiana--Letter to Military Governors--Letter to
Shepley--Amnesty Proclamation, December 8, 1863--Instructions to
Banks--Banks's Action in Louisiana--Louisiana Abolishes
Slavery--Arkansas Abolishes Slavery--Reconstruction in
Tennessee--Missouri Emancipation--Lincoln's Letter to Drake--Missouri
Abolishes Slavery--Emancipation in Maryland--Maryland Abolishes Slavery
To subdue the Confederate armies and establish order under martial law
was not the only task before President Lincoln. As rapidly as rebel
States or portions of States were occupied by Federal troops, it became
necessary to displace usurping Confederate officials and appoint in
their stead loyal State, county, and subordinate officers to restore the
administration of local civil law under the authority of the United
States. In western Virginia the people had spontaneously effected this
reform, first by repudiating the Richmond secession ordinance and
organizing a provisional State government, and, second, by adopting a
new constitution and obtaining admission to the Union as the new State
of West Virginia. In Missouri the State convention which refused to pass
a secession ordinance effected the same object by establishing a
provisional State government. In both these States the whole process of
what in subsequent years was comprehensively designated "reconstruction"
was carried on by popular local action, without any Federal initiative
or interference other than prompt Federal recognition and substantial
military support and protection.
But in other seceded States there was no such groundwork of loyal
popular authority upon which to rebuild the structure of civil
government. Therefore, when portions of Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas,
and North Carolina came under Federal control, President Lincoln, during
the first half of 1862, appointed military governors to begin the work
of temporary civil administration. He had a clear and consistent
constitutional theory under which this could be done. In his first
inaugural he announced the doctrine that "the union of these States is
perpetual" and "unbroken." His special message to Congress on July 4,
1861, added the supplementary declaration that "the States have their
status in the Union, and they have no other legal status." The same
message contained the further definition:
"The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to
make its nest within her borders; and this government has no choice left
but to deal with it where it finds it. And it has the less regret, as
the loyal citizens have, in due form, claimed its protection. Those
loyal citizens this government is bound to recognize and protect, as
being Virginia."
The action of Congress entirely conformed to this theory. That body
admitted to seats senators and representatives from the provisional
State governments of West Virginia and Missouri; and also allowed
Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee to retain his seat, and admitted
Horace Maynard and Andrew J. Clements as representatives from the same
State, though since their election Tennessee had undergone the usual
secession usurpation, and had as yet organized no loyal provisional
government.
The progress of the Union armies was so far checked during the second
half of 1862, that Military Governor Phelps, appointed for Arkansas, did
not assume his functions; and Military Governor Stanley wielded but
slight authority in North Carolina. Senator Andrew Johnson, appointed
military governor of Tennessee, established himself at Nashville, the
capital, and, though Union control of Tennessee fluctuated greatly, he
was able, by appointing loyal State and county officers, to control the
administration of civil government in considerable districts, under
substantial Federal jurisdiction.
In the State of Louisiana the process of restoring Federal authority was
carried on a step farther, owing largely to the fact that the territory
occupied by the Union army, though quite limited, comprising only the
city of New Orleans and a few adjacent parishes, was more securely held,
and its hostile frontier less disturbed. It soon became evident that
considerable Union sentiment yet existed in the captured city and
surrounding districts, and when some of the loyal citizens began to
manifest impatience at the restraints of martial law, President Lincoln
in a frank letter pointed the way to a remedy:
"The people of Louisiana," he wrote under date of July 28, 1862, "who
wish protection to person and property, have but to reach forth their
hands and take it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate the national
authority and set up a State government conforming thereto under the
Constitution. They know how to do it, and can have the protection of the
army while doing it. The army will be withdrawn so soon as such State
government can dispense with its presence, and the people of the State
can then, upon the old constitutional terms, govern themselves to their
own liking."
At about this date there occurred the serious military crisis in
Virginia; and the battles of the Peninsula, of the second Bull Run, and
of Antietam necessarily compelled the postponement of minor questions.
But during this period the President's policy on the slavery question
reached its development and solution, and when, on September 22, he
issued his preliminary proclamation of emancipation, it also paved the
way for a further defining of his policy of reconstruction.
That proclamation announced the penalty of military emancipation against
all States in rebellion on the succeeding first day of January; but also
provided that if the people thereof were represented in Congress by
properly elected members, they should be deemed not in rebellion, and
thereby escape the penalty. Wishing now to prove the sincerity of what
he said in the Greeley letter, that his paramount object was to save the
Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery, he wrote a circular
letter to the military governors and commanders in Louisiana, Tennessee,
and Arkansas, instructing them to permit and aid the people within the
districts held by them to hold elections for members of Congress, and
perhaps a legislature, State officers, and United States senators.
"In all available ways," he wrote, "give the people a chance to express
their wishes at these elections. Follow forms of law as far as
convenient, but at all events get the expression of the largest number
of the people possible. All see how such action will connect with and
affect the proclamation of September 22. Of course the men elected
should be gentlemen of character, willing to swear support to the
Constitution as of old, and known to be above reasonable suspicion of
duplicity."
But the President wished this to be a real and not a sham proceeding, as
he explained a month later in a letter to Governor Shepley:
"We do not particularly need members of Congress from there 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 there 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; and were I a member of
Congress here, I would vote against admitting any such man to a seat."
Thus instructed, Governor Shepley caused an election to be held in the
first and second congressional districts of Louisiana on December 3,
1862, at which members of Congress were chosen. No Federal office-holder
was a candidate, and about one half the usual vote was polled. The House
of Representatives admitted them to seats after full scrutiny, the
chairman of the committee declaring this "had every essential of a
regular election in a time of most profound peace, with the exception of
the fact that the proclamation was issued by the military instead of the
civil governor of Louisiana."
Military affairs were of such importance and absorbed so much attention
during the year 1863, both at Washington and at the headquarters of the
various armies, that the subject of reconstruction was of necessity
somewhat neglected. The military governor of Louisiana indeed ordered a
registration of loyal voters, about the middle of June, for the purpose
of organizing a loyal State government; but its only result was to
develop an inevitable antagonism and contest between conservatives who
desired that the old constitution of Louisiana prior to the rebellion
should be revived, by which the institution of slavery as then existing
would be maintained, and the free-State party which demanded that an
entirely new constitution be framed and adopted, in which slavery should
be summarily abolished. The conservatives asked President Lincoln to
adopt their plan. While the President refused this, he in a letter to
General Banks dated August 5, 1863, suggested the middle course of
gradual emancipation.
"For my own part," he wrote, "I think I shall not, in any event, retract
the emancipation proclamation; nor, as Executive, ever return to slavery
any person who is freed by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of
the acts of Congress. If Louisiana shall send members to Congress, their
admission to seats will depend, as you know, upon the respective houses
and not upon the President."
"I would be glad for her to make a new constitution recognizing the
emancipation proclamation and adopting emancipation in those parts of
the State to which the proclamation does not apply. And while she is at
it, I think it would not be objectionable for her to adopt some
practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves
out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better
prepared for the new. Education for young blacks should be included in
the plan. After all, the power or element of 'contract' may be
sufficient for this probationary period, and by its simplicity and
flexibility may be the better."
During the autumn months the President's mind dwelt more and more on
the subject of reconstruction, and he matured a general plan which he
laid before Congress in his annual message to that body on December 8,
1863. He issued on the same day a proclamation of amnesty, on certain
conditions, to all persons in rebellion except certain specified
classes, who should take a prescribed oath of allegiance. The
proclamation further provided that whenever a number of persons so
amnestied in any rebel State, equal to one tenth the vote cast at the
presidential election of 1860, should "reëstablish a State government
which shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said oath," such
would be recognized as the true government of the State. The annual
message discussed and advocated the plan at length, but also added:
"Saying that reconstruction will be accepted if presented in a specified
way, it is not said it will never be accepted in any other way."
This plan of reconstructing what came to be called "ten percent States,"
met much opposition in Congress, and that body, reversing its action in
former instances, long refused admission to members and senators from
States similarly organized; but the point needs no further mention here.
A month before the amnesty proclamation the President had written to
General Banks, expressing his great disappointment that the
reconstruction in Louisiana had been permitted to fall in abeyance by
the leading Union officials there, civil and military.
"I do, however," he wrote, "urge both you and them to lose no more time.
Governor Shepley has special instructions from the War Department. I
wish him--these gentlemen and others coöperating--without waiting for
more territory, to go to work and give me a tangible nucleus which the
remainder of the State may rally around as fast as it can, and which I
can at once recognize and sustain as the true State government."
He urged that such reconstruction should have in view a new free-State
constitution, for, said he:
"If a few professedly loyal men shall draw the disloyal about them, and
colorably set up a State government repudiating the emancipation
proclamation and reëstablishing slavery, I cannot recognize or sustain
their work.... I have said, and say again, that if a new State
government, acting in harmony with this government and consistently with
general freedom, shall think best to adopt a reasonable temporary
arrangement in relation to the landless and houseless freed people, I do
not object; but my word is out to be for and not against them on the
question of their permanent freedom."
General Banks in reply excused his inaction by explaining that the
military governor and others had given him to understand that they were
exclusively charged with the work of reconstruction in Louisiana. To
this the President rejoined under date of December 24, 1863:
"I have all the while intended you to be master, as well in regard to
reorganizing a State government for Louisiana as in regard to the
military matters of the department, and hence my letters on
reconstruction have nearly, if not quite, all been addressed to you. My
error has been that it did not occur to me that Governor Shepley or any
one else would set up a claim to act independently of you.... I now
distinctly tell you that you are master of all, and that I wish you to
take the case as you find it, and give us a free-State reorganization of
Louisiana in the shortest possible time."
Under this explicit direction of the President, and basing his action
on martial law as the fundamental law of the State, the general caused a
governor and State officials to be elected on February 22, 1864. To
override the jealousy and quarrels of both the conservative and
free-State parties, he set out in his proclamation that the officials to
be chosen should--
"Until others are appointed by competent authority, constitute the civil
government of the State, under the constitution and laws of Louisiana,
except so much of the said constitution and laws as recognize, regulate,
or relate to slavery; which, being inconsistent with the present
condition of public affairs, and plainly inapplicable to any class of
persons now existing within its limits, must be suspended, and they are
therefore and hereby declared to be inoperative and void."
The newly elected governor was inaugurated on March 4, with imposing
public ceremonies, and the President also invested him "with the powers
exercised hitherto by the military governor of Louisiana." General Banks
further caused delegates to a State convention to be chosen, who, in a
session extending from April 6 to July 25, perfected and adopted a new
constitution, which was again adopted by popular vote on September 5
following. General Banks reported the constitution to be "one of the
best ever penned.... It abolishes slavery in the State, and forbids the
legislature to enact any law recognizing property in man. The
emancipation is instantaneous and absolute, without condition or
compensation, and nearly unanimous."
The State of Arkansas had been forced into rebellion by military
terrorism, and remained under Confederate domination only because the
Union armies could afford the latent loyal sentiment of the State no
effective support until the fall of Vicksburg and the opening of the
Mississippi. After that decisive victory, General Steele marched a
Union column of about thirteen thousand from Helena to Little Rock, the
capital, which surrendered to him on the evening of September 10, 1863.
By December, eight regiments of Arkansas citizens had been formed for
service in the Union army; and, following the amnesty proclamation of
December 8, the reorganization of a loyal State government was speedily
brought about, mainly by spontaneous popular action, of course under the
direction and with the assistance of General Steele.
In response to a petition, President Lincoln sent General Steele on
January 20, 1864, a letter repeating substantially the instructions he
had given General Banks for Louisiana. Before these could be carried
out, popular action had assembled at Little Rock on January 8, 1864, a
formal delegate convention, composed of forty-four delegates who claimed
to represent twenty-two out of the fifty-four counties of the State. On
January 22 this convention adopted an amended constitution which
declared the act of secession null and void, abolished slavery
immediately and unconditionally, and wholly repudiated the Confederate
debt. The convention appointed a provisional State government, and under
its schedule an election was held on March 14, 1864. During the three
days on which the polls were kept open, under the orders of General
Steele, who by the President's suggestion adopted the convention
program, a total vote of 12,179 was cast for the constitution, and only
226 against it; while the provisional governor was also elected for a
new term, together with members of Congress and a legislature which in
due time chose United States senators. By this time Congress had
manifested its opposition to the President's plan, but Mr. Lincoln stood
firm, and on June 29 wrote to General Steele:
"I understand that Congress declines to admit to seats the persons sent
as senators and representatives from Arkansas. These persons apprehend
that in consequence you may not support the new State government there
as you otherwise would. My wish is that you give that government and the
people there the same support and protection that you would if the
members had been admitted, because in no event, nor in any view of the
case, can this do any harm, while it will be the best you can do toward
suppressing the rebellion."
While Military Governor Andrew Johnson had been the earliest to begin
the restoration of loyal Federal authority in the State of Tennessee,
the course of campaign and battle in that State delayed its completion
to a later period than in the others. The invasion of Tennessee by the
Confederate General Bragg in the summer of 1862, and the long delay of
the Union General Rosecrans to begin an active campaign against him
during the summer of 1863, kept civil reorganization in a very uncertain
and chaotic condition. When at length Rosecrans advanced and occupied
Chattanooga, President Lincoln deemed it a propitious time to vigorously
begin reorganization, and under date of September 11, 1863, he wrote the
military governor emphatic suggestions that:
"The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and
its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its
friends there into political exile.... You must have it otherwise. Let
the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for
the Union. Exclude all others; and trust that your government so
organized will be recognized here as being the one of republican form to
be guaranteed to the State, and to be protected against invasion and
domestic violence. It is something on the question of time to remember
that it cannot be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold,
nor what he will do. I see that you have declared in favor of
emancipation in Tennessee, for which, may God bless you. Get
emancipation into your new State government--constitution--and there
will be no such word as fail for your case."
In another letter of September 19, the President sent the governor
specific authority to execute the scheme outlined in his letter of
advice; but no substantial success had yet been reached in the process
of reconstruction in Tennessee during the year 1864, when the
Confederate army under Hood turned northward from Atlanta to begin its
third and final invasion of the State. This once more delayed all work
of reconstruction until the Confederate army was routed and dispersed by
the battle of Nashville on December 15, 1864. Previous popular action
had called a State convention, which, taking immediate advantage of the
expulsion of the enemy, met in Nashville on January 9, 1865, in which
fifty-eight counties and some regiments were represented by about four
hundred and sixty-seven delegates. After six days of deliberation the
convention adopted a series of amendments to the constitution, the main
ordinance of which provided:
"That slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are hereby
forever abolished and prohibited throughout the State."
These amendments were duly adopted at a popular election held on
February 22, and the complete organization of a loyal State government
under them followed in due course.
The State of Missouri needed no reconstruction. It has already been said
that her local affairs were administered by a provisional State
government instituted by the State convention chosen by popular election
before rebellion broke out. In this State, therefore, the institution of
slavery was suppressed by the direct action of the people, but not
without a long and bitter conflict of party factions and military
strife. There existed here two hostile currents of public opinion, one,
the intolerant pro-slavery prejudices of its rural population; the
other, the progressive and liberal spirit dominant in the city of St.
Louis, with its heavy German population, which, as far back as 1856, had
elected to Congress a candidate who boldly advocated gradual
emancipation: St. Louis, with outlying cities and towns, supplying
during the whole rebellion the dominating influence that held the State
in the Union, and at length transformed her from a slave to a free
State.
Missouri suffered severely in the war, but not through important
campaigns or great battles. Persistent secession conspiracy, the Kansas
episodes of border strife, and secret orders of Confederate agents from
Arkansas instigating unlawful warfare, made Missouri a hotbed of
guerrilla uprisings and of relentless neighborhood feuds, in which armed
partizan conflict often degenerated into shocking barbarity, and the
pretense of war into the malicious execution of private vengeance.
President Lincoln drew a vivid picture of the chronic disorders in
Missouri in reply to complaints demanding the removal of General
Schofield from local military command:
"We are in civil war. In such cases there always is a main question; but
in this case that question is a perplexing compound--Union and slavery.
It thus becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at least four
sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing of those
who are against it. Thus, those who are for the Union _with_, but not
_without_, slavery--those for it _without_, but not _with_--those for it
_with_ or _without_, but prefer it _with_--and those for it _with or
without_, but prefer it _without_. Among these again is a subdivision of
those who are for _gradual_ but not for _immediate_, and those who are
for _immediate_, but not for _gradual_ extinction of slavery. It is easy
to conceive that all these shades of opinion, and even more, may be
sincerely entertained by honest and truthful men. Yet, all being for the
Union, by reason of these differences each will prefer a different way
of sustaining the Union. At once sincerity is questioned, and motives
are assailed. Actual war coming, blood grows hot, and blood is spilled.
Thought is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception breeds and
thrives. Confidence dies and universal suspicion reigns. Each man feels
an impulse to kill his neighbor, lest he be first killed by him. Revenge
and retaliation follow. And all this, as before said, may be among
honest men only. But this is not all. Every foul bird comes abroad and
every dirty reptile rises up. These add crime to confusion. Strong
measures deemed indispensable, but harsh at best, such men make worse by
maladministration. Murders for old grudges, and murders for pelf,
proceed under any cloak that will best cover for the occasion. These
causes amply account for what has occurred in Missouri, without
ascribing it to the weakness or wickedness of any general. The newspaper
files, those chroniclers of current events, will show that the evils now
complained of were quite as prevalent under Frémont, Hunter, Halleck,
and Curtis, as under Schofield.... I do not feel justified to enter
upon the broad field you present in regard to the political differences
between radicals and conservatives. From time to time I have done and
said what appeared to me proper to do and say. The public knows it all.
It obliges nobody to follow me, and I trust it obliges me to follow
nobody. The radicals and conservatives each agree with me in some things
and disagree in others. I could wish both to agree with me in all
things; for then they would agree with each other, and would be too
strong for any foe from any quarter. They, however, choose to do
otherwise, and I do not question their right. I, too, shall do what
seems to be my duty. I hold whoever commands in Missouri, or elsewhere,
responsible to me, and not to either radicals or conservatives. It is my
duty to hear all; but at last I must, within my sphere, judge what to do
and what to forbear."
It is some consolation to history, that out of this blood and travail
grew the political regeneration of the State. Slavery and emancipation
never gave each other a moment's truce. The issue was raised to an acute
stage by Frémont's proclamation in August, 1861. Though that ill-advised
measure was revoked by President Lincoln, the friction and irritation of
war kept it alive, and in the following year a member of the Missouri
State convention offered a bill to accept and apply President Lincoln's
plan of compensated abolishment. Further effort was made in this
direction in Congress, where in January, 1863, the House passed a bill
appropriating ten million dollars, and in February, the Senate another
bill appropriating fifteen million dollars to aid compensated
abolishment in Missouri. But the stubborn opposition of three
pro-slavery Missouri members of the House prevented action on the latter
bill or any compromise.
The question, however, continually grew among the people of Missouri,
and made such advance that parties, accepting the main point as already
practically decided at length only divided upon the mode of procedure
The conservatives wanted the work to be done by the old State
convention, the radicals desired to submit it to a new convention fresh
from the people. Legislative agreement having failed, the provisional
governor called the old State convention together. The convention
leaders who controlled that body inquired of the President whether he
would sustain their action. To this he made answer in a letter to
Schofield dated June 22, 1863:
"Your despatch, asking in substance whether, in case Missouri shall
adopt gradual emancipation, the general government will protect
slave-owners in that species of property during the short time it shall
be permitted by the State to exist within it, has been received.
Desirous as I am that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri, and
believing as I do that gradual can be made better than immediate for
both black and white, except when military necessity changes the case,
my impulse is to say that such protection would be given. I cannot know
exactly what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from
the initiation to the final end should be comparatively short, and the
act should prevent persons being sold during that period into more
lasting slavery, the whole would be easier. I do not wish to pledge the
general government to the affirmative support of even temporary slavery
beyond what can be fairly claimed under the Constitution. I suppose,
however, this is not desired, but that it is desired for the military
force of the United States, while in Missouri, to not be used in
subverting the temporarily reserved legal rights in slaves during the
progress of emancipation. This I would desire also."
Proceeding with its work, the old State convention, which had hitherto
made a most honorable record, neglected a great opportunity. It indeed
adopted an ordinance of gradual emancipation on July 1, 1863, but of
such an uncertain and dilatory character, that public opinion in the
State promptly rejected it. By the death of the provisional governor on
January 31, 1864, the conservative party of Missouri lost its most
trusted leader, and thereafter the radicals succeeded to the political
power of the State. At the presidential election of 1864, that party
chose a new State convention, which met in St. Louis on January 6, 1865,
and on the sixth day of its session (January 11) formally adopted an
ordinance of immediate emancipation.
Maryland, like Missouri, had no need of reconstruction. Except for the
Baltimore riot and the arrest of her secession legislature during the
first year of the war, her State government continued its regular
functions. But a strong popular undercurrent of virulent secession
sympathy among a considerable minority of her inhabitants was only held
in check by the military power of the Union, and for two years
emancipation found no favor in the public opinion of the State. Her
representatives, like those of most other border States, coldly refused
President Lincoln's earnest plea to accept compensated abolishment; and
a bill in Congress to give Maryland ten million dollars for that object
was at once blighted by the declaration of one of her leading
representatives that Maryland did not ask for it. Nevertheless, the
subject could no more be ignored there than in other States; and after
the President's emancipation proclamation an emancipation party
developed itself in Maryland.
There was no longer any evading the practical issue, when, by the
President's direction, the Secretary of War issued a military order,
early in October, 1863, regulating the raising of colored troops in
certain border States, which decreed that slaves might be enlisted
without consent of their owners, but provided compensation in such
cases. At the November election of that year the emancipation party of
Maryland elected its ticket by an overwhelming majority, and a
legislature that enacted laws under which a State convention was chosen
to amend the constitution. Of the delegates elected on April 6, 1864,
sixty-one were emancipationists, and only thirty-five opposed.
After two months' debate this convention by nearly two thirds adopted an
article:
"That hereafter in this State there shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude except in punishment of crime whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held to service or labor
as slaves are hereby declared free."
The decisive test of a popular vote accepting the amended constitution
as a whole, remained, however, yet to be undergone. President Lincoln
willingly complied with a request to throw his official voice and
influence in favor of the measure, and wrote, on October 10, 1864:
"A convention of Maryland has framed a new constitution for the State; a
public meeting is called for this evening at Baltimore to aid in
securing its ratification by the people; and you ask a word from me for
the occasion. I presume the only feature of the instrument about which
there is serious controversy is that which provides for the extinction
of slavery. It needs not to be a secret, and I presume it is no secret,
that I wish success to this provision. I desire it on every
consideration. I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity
of the already free, which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would
bring. I wish to see in process of disappearing that only thing which
ever could bring this nation to civil war. I attempt no argument.
Argument upon the question is already exhausted by the abler, better
informed, and more immediately interested sons of Maryland herself. I
only add that I shall be gratified exceedingly if the good people of the
State shall, by their votes, ratify the new constitution."
At the election which was held on October 12 and 13, stubborn Maryland
conservatism, whose roots reached far back to the colonial days, made
its last desperate stand, and the constitution was ratified by a
majority of only three hundred and seventy-five votes out of a total of
nearly sixty thousand. But the result was accepted as decisive, and in
due time the governor issued his proclamation, declaring the new
constitution legally adopted.