RECONSTRUCTION
In his inaugural address President Lincoln said: "The union of these
States is perpetual.... No State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully
get out of the Union; resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally
void." In these words was imbedded a principle which later on he showed
his willingness to pursue to its logical conclusions concerning the
reconstruction of the body politic. If no State, by seceding, had got
itself out of the Union, there was difficulty in maintaining that those
citizens of a seceding State, who had not disqualified themselves by
acts of treason, were not still lawfully entitled to conduct the public
business and to hold the usual elections for national and state
officials, so soon as the removal of hostile force should render it
physically possible for them to do so. Upon the basis of this principle,
the resumption by such citizens of a right which had never been lost,
but only temporarily interfered with by lawless violence, could
reasonably be delayed by the national government only until the loyal
voters should be sufficient in number to relieve the elections from the
objection of being colorable and unreal. This philosophy of
"reconstruction" seemed to Mr. Lincoln to conform with law and good
sense, and he was forward in meeting, promoting, almost even in creating
opportunities to apply it. From the beginning of the war he had been of
opinion that the framework of a state government, though it might be
scarcely more than a skeleton, was worth preservation. It held at least
the seed of life. So after West Virginia was admitted into statehood,
the organization which had been previously established by the loyal
citizens of the original State was maintained in the rest of the State,
and Governor Pierpoint was recognized as the genuine governor of
Virginia, although few Virginians acknowledged allegiance to him, and
often there were not many square miles of the Old Dominion upon which
the dispossessed ruler could safely set his foot. For the present he
certainly was no despot, but in the future he might have usefulness. He
preserved continuity; by virtue of him, so to speak, there still was a
State of Virginia.
Somewhat early in the war large portions of Tennessee, Louisiana, and
Arkansas were recovered and kept by Union forces, and beneath such
protection a considerable Union sentiment found expression. The
President, loath to hold for a long time the rescued parts of these
States under the sole domination of army officers, appointed "military
governors."[55] The anomalous office found an obscure basis among those
"war powers" which, as a legal resting-place, resembled a quicksand, and
as a practical foundation were undeniably a rock; the functions and
authority of the officials were as uncertain as anything, even in law,
possibly could be. Legal fiction never reached a droller point than when
these military governorships were defended as being the fulfillment by
the national government "of its high constitutional obligation to
guarantee to every State in this Union _a republican form of
government_!"[56] Yet the same distinguished gentleman, who dared
gravely to announce this ingenious argument, drew a picture of facts
which was in itself a full justification of almost any scheme of
rehabilitation; he said: "The state government has disappeared. The
Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is
in abeyance." In this condition of chaos Mr. Lincoln was certainly bound
to prevent anarchy, without regard to any comicalities which might creep
into his technique. So these hermaphrodite officials, with civil duties
and military rank, were very sensibly and properly given a vague
authority in the several States, as from time to time these were in part
redeemed from rebellion by the Union armies. So soon as possible they
were bidden, in collaboration with the military commanders in their
respective districts, to make an enrollment of loyal citizens, with a
view to holding elections and organizing state governments in the
customary form. The President was earnest, not to say pertinacious, in
urging forward these movements. On September 11, 1863, immediately after
the battle of Chattanooga, he wrote to Andrew Johnson that it was "the
nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal state government" in Tennessee;
and he suggested that, as touching this same question of "time when," it
was worth while to "remember that it cannot be known who is next to
occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do." He warned the
governor that reconstruction must not be so conducted "as to give
control of the State, and its representation in Congress, to the enemies
of the Union.... It must not be so. 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."[57]
At the same time these expressions by no means indicated that the
President intended to have, or would connive at, any sham or colorable
process. Accordingly, when some one suggested a plan for setting up as
candidates in Louisiana certain Federal officers, who were not citizens
of that State, he decisively forbade it, sarcastically remarking to
Governor Shepley: "We do not particularly want 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."
Again he said that he wished the movement for the election of members of
Congress "to be a movement of the people of the district, and not a
movement of our military and quasi-military authorities there. I merely
wish our authorities to give the people a chance,--to protect them
against secession interference." These instructions were designed as
genuine rules of action, and were not to be construed away. Whatever
might be said against the theory which the President was endeavoring to
establish for state restoration, no opponent of that theory was to be
given the privilege of charging that the actual conduct of the
proceedings under it was not rigidly honest. In December, 1862, two
members of Congress were elected in Louisiana, and in February, 1863,
they were admitted to take seats in the House for the brief remnant of
its existence. This was not done without hesitation, but the fact that
it was done at all certainly was in direct line with the President's
plan. Subsequently, however, other candidates for seats, coming from
rehabilitated States, were not so fortunate.
As reorganizations were attempted the promoters generally desired that
the fresh start in state life should be made with new state
Constitutions. The conventions chosen to draw these instruments were
instructed from Washington that the validity of the Emancipation
Proclamation and of all the legislation of Congress concerning slavery
must be distinctly admitted, if their work was to receive recognition.
Apart from this, so strenuous were the hints conveyed to these bodies
that they would do well to arrange for the speedy abolition of slavery,
that no politician would have been so foolish as to offer a
constitution, or other form of reorganization, without some provision of
this sort. This practical necessity sorely troubled many, who still
hoped that some happy turn of events would occur, whereby they would be
able to get back into the Union with the pleasant and valuable group of
their slaves still about them, as in the good times of yore. Moreover,
in other matters there were clashings between the real military
commanders and the quasi-military civilian officials; and it was
unfortunately the case that, in spite of Mr. Lincoln's appeal to loyal
men to "eschew cliquism" and "work together," there were abundant
rivalries and jealousies and personal schemings. All these vexations
were dragged before the President to harass him with their pettiness
amid his more conspicuous duties; they gave him infinite trouble, and
devoured his time and strength. Likewise they were obstacles to the
advancement of the business itself, and, coming in addition to the
delays inevitable upon elections and deliberations, they ultimately kept
all efforts towards reconstruction dallying along until a late period in
the war. Thus it was February 22, 1864, when the state election was held
in Louisiana; and it was September 5 in the same year when the new
Constitution, with an emancipation clause, was adopted. It was not until
January, 1865, that, in Tennessee, a convention made a constitution, for
purposes of reconstruction, and therein abolished slavery.
Pending these doings and before practical reconstruction had made
noticeable progress, Mr. Lincoln sent in, on December 8, 1863, his third
annual message to Congress. To this message was appended something which
no one had anticipated,--a proclamation of amnesty. In this the
President recited his pardoning power and a recent act of Congress
specially confirmatory thereof, stated the wish of certain repentant
rebels to resume allegiance and to restore loyal state governments, and
then offered, to all who would take a prescribed oath, full pardon
together with "restoration of all rights and property, except as to
slaves, and ... where rights of third parties shall have intervened."
The oath was simply to "support, protect, and defend" the Constitution
and the Union, and to abide by and support all legislation and all
proclamations concerning slavery made during the existing rebellion.
There were, of course, sundry exceptions of persons from this amnesty;
but the list of those excepted was a moderate and reasonable one. He
also proclaimed that whenever in any seceded State "a number of persons
not less than one tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the
presidential election of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and sixty, each having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since
violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the
State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and
excluding all others, shall reëstablish a state government which shall
be republican, and in no wise contravening said oath, such shall be
recognized as the true government of the State, and the State shall
receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which
declares that 'the United States shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them
against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or the
executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic
violence.'"
Also further: "that any provision that may be adopted by such state
government, in relation to the freed people of such State, which shall
recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their
education, and which may yet be consistent, as a temporary arrangement,
with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless
class, will not be objected to by the national executive. And it is
suggested as not improper that, in constructing a loyal state government
in any State, the name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the
constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be
maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the
conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not
contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those
framing the new state government."
Concerning this proclamation, the message which communicated it noted:
that it did not transcend the Constitution; that no man was coerced to
take the oath; and that to make pardon conditional upon taking it was
strictly lawful; that a test of loyalty was necessary, because it would
be "simply absurd" to guarantee a republican form of government in a
State "constructed in whole, or in preponderating part, from the very
element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected;"
that the pledge to maintain the laws and proclamations as to slavery was
a proper condition, because these had aided and would further aid the
Union cause; also because "to now abandon them would be not only to
relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and astounding
breach of faith."
He continued: "But why any proclamation, now, upon the subject? This
question is beset with the conflicting views that the step might be
delayed too long or be taken too soon. In some States the elements for
resumption seem ready for action, but remain inactive, apparently for
want of a rallying point,--a plan of action. Why shall A adopt the plan
of B rather than B that of A? And if A and B should agree, how can they
know but that the general government here will reject their plan? By the
proclamation a plan is presented which may be accepted by them as a
rallying point, and which they are assured in advance will not be
rejected here. This may bring them to act sooner than they otherwise
would.
"The objection to a premature presentation of a plan by the national
executive consists in the danger of committals on points which could be
more safely left to further developments.
"Care has been taken to so shape the document as to avoid embarrassments
from this source. Saying that, on certain terms, certain classes will be
pardoned, with rights restored, it is not said that other classes or
other terms will never be included. 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.
"The movements, by state action, for emancipation in several of the
States, not included in the emancipation proclamation, are matters of
profound gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have
heretofore so earnestly urged upon this subject, my general views and
feelings remain unchanged; and I trust that Congress will omit no fair
opportunity of aiding these important steps to a great consummation.
"In the midst of other cares, however important, we must not lose sight
of the fact that the war power is still our main reliance. To that power
alone we can look yet for a time, to give confidence to the people in
the contested regions, that the insurgent power will not again overrun
them. Until that confidence shall be established, little can be done
anywhere for what is called reconstruction.
"Hence our chiefest care must be directed to the army and navy, who have
thus far borne their harder part so nobly and well. And it may be
esteemed fortunate that in giving the greatest efficiency to these
indispensable arms, we do also honorably recognize the gallant men, from
commander to sentinel, who compose them, and to whom, more than to
others, the world must stand indebted for the home of freedom
disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, and perpetuated."
This step, this offer of amnesty and pardon, and invitation to state
reconstruction, took every one by surprise. As usual the President had
been "doing his own thinking," reaching his own conclusions and acting
upon them with little counsel asked from any among the multitudes of
wise men who were so ready to furnish it. For a moment his action
received a gratifying welcome of praise and approval. The first
impulsive sentiment was that of pleasure because the offer was in so
liberal, so conciliatory, so forgiving a spirit; moreover, people were
encouraged by the very fact that the President thought it worth while to
initiate reconstruction; also many of the more weak-kneed, who desired
to see the luring process tried, were gratified by a generous measure.
Then, too, not very much thought had yet been given, at least by the
people in general, to actual processes of reconstruction; for while many
doubted whether there would ever be a chance to reconstruct at all, very
few fancied the time for it to be nearly approaching. Therefore the
President occupied vacant ground in the minds of most persons.
But in a short time a very different temper was manifested among members
of Congress, and from them spread forth and found support among the
people. Two reasons promoted this. One, which was avowed with the
frankness of indignation, was a jealousy of seeing so important a
business preempted by the executive department. The other was a natural
feeling of mingled hostility and distrust towards rebels, who had caused
so much blood to be shed, so much cost to be incurred. In this point of
view, the liberality which at first had appeared admirable now began to
be condemned as extravagant, unreasonable, and perilous.
Concerning the first of these reasons, it must be admitted that it was
entirely natural that Congress should desire to take partial or, if
possible, even entire charge of reconstruction. Which department had the
better right to the duty, or how it should be distributed between the
legislative and executive departments, was uncertain, and could be
determined only by inference from the definite functions of each as
established by the Constitution. The executive unquestionably had the
power to pardon every rebel in the land; yet it was a power which might
conceivably be so misused as to justify impeachment. The Senate and the
House had the power to give or to refuse seats to persons claiming to
have been elected to them. Yet they could not dare to exercise this
power except for a cause which was at least colorable in each case.
Furthermore, the meaning of "recognition" was vague. Exactly what was
"recognition" of a state government, and by what specific process could
it be granted or withheld? The executive might recognize statehood in
some matters; Congress might refuse to recognize it in other matters.
Every one felt that disagreement between the two departments would be
most unfortunate and even dangerous; yet it was entirely possible; and
what an absurd and alarming condition might be created, if the
President, by a general amnesty, should reinstate the ex-rebels of a
State as citizens with all their rights of citizenship, and Congress
should refuse to seat the senators and representatives elected by these
constituents on the alleged ground of peril to the country by reason of
their supposed continuing disloyalty. Even worse still might be the
case; for the Senate and the House might disagree. There was nothing in
law or logic to make this consummation impossible.
People differed much in feeling as well as opinion upon this difficult
subject, this problem which was solved by no law. Treason is a crime and
must be made odious, said Andrew Johnson, sternly uttering the
sentiments of many earnest and strenuous men in Congress and in the
country. Others were able to eliminate revengefulness, but felt that it
was not safe in the present, nor wise for the future, to restore to
rebels all the rights of citizenship upon the moment when they should
consent to abandon rebellion, more especially when all knew and admitted
that the abandonment was made not in penitence but merely in despair of
success. It was open to extremists to argue that the whole seceded area
might logically, as conquered lands, be reduced to a territorial
condition, to be recarved into States at such times and upon such
conditions as should seem proper. But others, in agreement with the
President, insisted that if no State could lawfully secede, it followed
that no State could lawfully be deprived of statehood. These persons
reinforced their legal argument with the sentimental one that lenity was
the best policy. As General Grant afterward put it: "The people who had
been in rebellion must necessarily come back into the Union, and be
incorporated as an integral part of the nation. Naturally the nearer
they were placed to an equality with the people who had not rebelled,
the more reconciled they would feel with their old antagonists, and the
better citizens they would be from the beginning. They surely would not
make good citizens if they felt that they had a yoke around their
necks." The question, in what proportions mercy and justice should be,
or safely could be, mingled, was clearly one of discretion. In the wide
distance betwixt the holders of extreme opinions an infinite variety of
schemes and theories was in time broached and held. Very soon the
gravity of the problem was greatly enhanced by its becoming complicated
with proposals for giving the suffrage to negroes. Upon this Mr. Lincoln
expressed his opinion that the privilege might be wisely conferred upon
"the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in
our ranks," though apparently he intended thus to describe no very large
percentage. Apparently his confidence in the civic capacity of the negro
never became very much greater than it had been in the days of the joint
debates with Douglas.
Congress took up the matter very promptly, and with much display of
feeling. Early in May, 1864, Henry Winter Davis, a vehement opponent of
the President, introduced a bill, of which the anti-rebel preamble was
truculent to the point of being amusing. His first fierce _Whereas_
declared that the Confederate States were waging a war so glaringly
unjust "that they have no right to claim the mitigation of the extreme
rights of war, which are accorded by modern usage to an enemy who has a
right to consider the war a just one." But Congress, though hotly
irritated, was not quite willing to say, in terms, that it would eschew
civilization and adopt barbarism, as its system for the conduct of the
war; and accordingly it rejected Mr. Davis's fierce exordium. The words
had very probably only been used by him as a sort of safety valve to
give vent to the fury of his wrath, so that he could afterward approach
the serious work of the bill in a milder spirit; for in fact the actual
effective legislation which he proposed was by no means unreasonable.
After military resistance should be suppressed in any rebellious State,
the white male citizens were to elect a convention for the purpose of
reëstablishing a state government. The new organization must
disfranchise prominent civil and military officers of the Confederacy,
establish the permanent abolition of slavery, and prohibit the payment
by the new State of any indebtedness incurred for Confederate purposes.
After Congress should have expressed its assent to the work of the
convention, the President was to recognize by proclamation the
reorganized State. This bill, of course, gave to the legislative
department the whole valuable control in the matter of recognition,
leaving to the President nothing more than the mere empty function of
issuing a proclamation, which he would have no right to hold back; but
in other respects its requirements were entirely fair and
unobjectionable, from any point of view, and it finally passed the House
by a vote of 74 to 59. The Senate amended it, but afterward receded from
the amendment, and thus the measure came before Mr. Lincoln on July 4,
1864. Congress was to adjourn at noon on that day, and he was at the
Capitol, signing bills, when this one was brought to him. He laid it
aside. Zachariah Chandler, senator from Michigan, a dictatorial
gentleman and somewhat of the busybody order, was watchfully standing
by, and upon observing this action, he asked Mr. Lincoln, with some show
of feeling, whether he was not going to sign that bill. Mr. Lincoln
replied that it was a "matter of too much importance to be swallowed in
that way." Mr. Chandler warned him that a veto would be very damaging at
the Northwest, and said: "The important point is that one prohibiting
slavery in the reconstructed States." "This is the point," said Mr.
Lincoln, "on which I doubt the authority of Congress to act." "It is no
more than you have done yourself," said the senator. "I conceive,"
replied Mr. Lincoln, "that I may in an emergency do things on military
grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress." A few
moments later he remarked to the members of the cabinet: "I do not see
how any of us now can deny and contradict what we have always said: that
Congress has no constitutional power over slavery in the States.... This
bill and the position of these gentlemen seem to me, in asserting that
the insurrectionary States are no longer in the Union, to make the fatal
admission that States, whenever they please, may of their own motion
dissolve their connection with the Union. Now we cannot survive that
admission, I am convinced. If that be true, I am not President; these
gentlemen are not Congress. I have laboriously endeavored to avoid that
question ever since it first began to be mooted.... It was to obviate
this question that I earnestly favored the movement for an amendment to
the Constitution abolishing slavery.... I thought it much better, if it
were possible, to restore the Union without the necessity for a violent
quarrel among its friends as to whether certain States have been in or
out of the Union during the war,--a merely metaphysical question, and
one unnecessary to be forced into discussion."[58] So the bill remained
untouched at his side.
A few days after the adjournment, having then decided not to sign the
bill, he issued a proclamation in which he said concerning it, that he
was "unprepared by a formal approval of [it] to be inflexibly committed
to any single plan of restoration;" that he was also "unprepared to
declare that the free-state constitutions and governments, already
adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana, [should] be set aside
and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal
citizens, who have set up the same, as to further effort;" also that he
was unprepared to "declare a constitutional competency in Congress to
abolish slavery in the States." Yet he also said that he was fully
satisfied that the system proposed in the bill was "_one_ very proper
plan" for the loyal people of any State to adopt, and that he should be
ready to aid in such adoption upon any opportunity. In a word, his
objection to the bill lay chiefly in the fact that it established one
single and exclusive process for reconstruction. The rigid exclusiveness
seemed to him a serious error. Upon his part, in putting forth his own
plan, he had taken much pains distinctly to keep out this
characteristic, and to have it clearly understood that his proposition
was not designed as "a procrustean bed, to which exact conformity was to
be indispensable;" it was not _the only_ method, but only _a_ method.
So soon as it was known that the President would not sign the bill, a
vehement cry of wrath broke from all its more ardent friends. H.W. Davis
and B.F. Wade, combative men, and leaders in their party, who expected
their opinion to be respected, published in the New York "Tribune" an
address "To the Supporters of the Government." In unbridled language
they charged "encroachments of the executive on the authority of
Congress." They even impugned the honesty of the President's purpose in
words of direct personal insult; for they said: "The President, by
preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of
the rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition.... If
electors for president be allowed to be chosen in either of those States
[Louisiana or Arkansas], a sinister light will be cast on [his]
motives." They alleged that "a more studied outrage on the legislative
authority of the people has never been perpetrated." They stigmatized
this "rash and fatal act" as "a blow at the friends of the
administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of
republican government." They warned Mr. Lincoln that, if he wished the
support of Congress, he must "confine himself to his executive
duties,--to obey and execute, not make the laws; to suppress by arms
armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress." If
they really meant what they said, or any considerable part of it, they
would have been obliged to vote "Guilty" had the House of
Representatives seen fit to put these newspaper charges of theirs into
the formal shape of articles of impeachment against the President.
To whatever "friends" Mr. Lincoln might have dealt a "blow," it is
certain that these angry gentlemen, whether "friends" or otherwise, were
dealing him a very severe blow at a very critical time; and if its
hurtfulness was diminished by the very fury and extravagance of their
invective, they at least were entitled to no credit for the salvation
thus obtained. They were exerting all their powerful influence to
increase the chance, already alarmingly great, of making a Democrat the
next President of the United States. Nevertheless Mr. Lincoln, with his
wonted imperturbable fixedness when he had reached a conviction, did not
modify his position in the slightest degree.
Before long this especial explosion spent its force, and thereafter very
fortunately the question smouldered during the rest of Mr. Lincoln's
lifetime, and only burst forth into fierce flame immediately after his
death, when it became more practical and urgent as a problem of the
actually present time. The last words, however, which he spoke in
public, dealt with the matter. It was on the evening of April 11, and he
was addressing in Washington a great concourse of citizens who had
gathered to congratulate him upon the brilliant military successes, then
just achieved, which insured the immediate downfall of the Confederacy.
In language as noteworthy for moderation as that of his assailants had
been for extravagance, he then reviewed his course concerning
reconstruction and gave his reasons for still believing that he had
acted for the best. Admitting that much might justly be said against the
reorganized government of Louisiana, he explained why he thought that
nevertheless it should not be rejected. Concede, he said, that it is to
what it should be only what the egg is to the fowl, "we shall sooner
have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." He conceived
that the purpose of the people might be fairly stated to be the
restoration of the proper practical relations between the seceded
States and the Union, and he therefore argued that the question properly
took this shape: Whether Louisiana could "be brought into proper
practical relation with the Union _sooner_ by _sustaining_ or by
_discarding_ her new state government."[59]
By occurrences befalling almost immediately after Mr. Lincoln's death
his opinions were again drawn into debate, when unfortunately he could
neither explain nor develop them further than he had done. One of the
important events of the war was the conference held on March 28, 1865,
at Hampton Roads, between the President, General Grant, General Sherman,
and Admiral Porter, and at which no other person was present. It is
sufficiently agreed that the two generals then declared that one great
final battle must yet take place; and that thereupon Mr. Lincoln, in
view of the admitted fact that the collapse of the rebellion was
inevitably close at hand, expressed great aversion and pain at the
prospect of utterly useless bloodshed, and asked whether it could not by
some means be avoided. It is also tolerably certain that Mr. Lincoln
gave very plainly to be understood by his remarks, and also as usual by
a story, his desire that Jefferson Davis and a few other of the leading
rebels should not be captured, but rather should find it possible to
escape from the country. It is in other ways well known that he had
already made up his mind not to conclude the war with a series of
hangings after the historic European fashion of dealing with traitors.
He preferred, however, to evade rather than to encounter the problem of
disposing of such embarrassing captives, and a road for them out of the
country would be also a road for him out of a difficulty. What else was
said on this occasion, though it soon became the basis of important
action, is not known with accuracy; but it may be regarded as beyond a
doubt that, in a general way, Mr. Lincoln took a very liberal tone
concerning the terms and treatment to be accorded to the rebels in the
final arrangement of the surrendering, which all saw to be close at
hand. It is beyond doubt that he spoke, throughout the conference, in
the spirit of forgetting and forgiving immediately and almost entirely.
From this interview General Sherman went back to his army, and received
no further instructions afterward, until, on April 18, he established
with General Johnston the terms on which the remaining Confederate
forces should be disbanded. This "Memorandum or basis of agreement,"[60]
then entered into by him, stipulated for "the recognition by the
executive of the United States, of the several state governments, on
their officers and legislatures taking the oaths prescribed by the
Constitution of the United States;" also that the inhabitants of the
Southern States should "be guaranteed, so far as the executive can,
their political rights and franchises, as well as their rights of person
and property;" also that the government would not "disturb any of the
people by reason of the late war," if they should dwell quiet for the
future; and, in short, that there should be "a general amnesty," so far
as it was within the power of the executive of the United States to
grant it, upon the return of the South to a condition of peace.
No sooner were these engagements reported in Washington than they were
repudiated. However they might have accorded with, or might have
transcended, the sentiments of him who had been president only a few
days before, they by no means accorded with the views of Andrew Johnson,
who was president at that time, and still less with the views of the
secretary of war, who well represented the vengeful element of the
country. Accordingly Mr. Stanton at once annulled them by an order,
which he followed up by a bulletin containing ten reasons in support of
the order. This document was immediately published in the newspapers,
and was so vituperative and insulting towards Sherman[61] that the
general, who naturally did not feel himself a fitting object for
insolence at this season of his fresh military triumphs, soon afterward
showed his resentment; at the grand parade of his army, in Washington,
he conspicuously declined, in the presence of the President and the
notabilities of the land, to shake the hand which Secretary Stanton did
not hesitate then and there to extend to him,--for Stanton had that
peculiar and unusual form of meanness which endeavors to force a
civility after an insult. But however General Sherman might feel about
it, his capitulation had been revoked, and another conference became
necessary between the two generals, which was followed a little later by
still another between Generals Schofield and Johnston. At these meetings
the terms which had been established between Generals Grant and Lee were
substantially repeated, and by this "military convention" the war came
to a formal end on April 26, 1865.
By this course of events General Sherman was, of course, placed in a
very uncomfortable position, and he defended himself by alleging that
the terms which he had made were in accurate conformity with the
opinions, wishes, and programme expressed by Mr. Lincoln on March 28. He
reiterates this assertion strongly and distinctly in his "Memoirs," and
quotes in emphatic corroboration Admiral Porter's account of that
interview.[62] The only other witness who could be heard on this point
was General Grant; he never gave his recollection of the expressions of
President Lincoln concerning the matters in dispute; but on April 21 he
did write to General Sherman that, after having carefully read the terms
accorded to Johnston he felt satisfied that they "could not possibly be
approved."[63] He did not, however, say whether or not they seemed to
him to contravene the policy of the President, as he had heard or
understood that policy to be laid down in the famous interview. In the
obscurity which wraps this matter, individual opinions find ample room
to wander; it is easy to believe that what General Sherman undertook to
arrange was in reasonable accordance with the broad purposes of the
President; but it certainly is not easy to believe that the President
ever intended that so many, so momentous, and such complex affairs
should be conclusively disposed of, with all the honorable sacredness
attendant upon military capitulations, by a few hasty strokes of General
Sherman's pen. The comprehensiveness of this brief and sudden document
of surrender was appalling! Mr. Lincoln had never before shown any
inclination to depute to others so much of his own discretionary
authority; his habit was quite the other way.
It is not worth while to discuss much the merits or demerits of
President Lincoln's schemes for reconstruction. They had been only
roughly and imperfectly blocked out at the time of his death; and in
presenting them he repeatedly stated that he did not desire to rule out
other schemes which might be suggested; on the contrary, he distinctly
stated his approval of the scheme developed in the bill introduced by
Senator Davis and passed by Congress. Reconstruction, as it was actually
conducted later on, was wretchedly bungled, and was marked chiefly by
bitterness in disputation and by clumsiness in practical arrangements,
which culminated in that miserable disgrace known as the regime of the
"carpet-baggers." How far Lincoln would have succeeded in saving the
country from these humiliating processes, no one can say; but that he
would have strenuously disapproved much that was done is not open to
reasonable doubt. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that his
theories, at least so far as they had been developed up to the time of
his death, either could have been, or ought to have been carried out.
This seems to be generally agreed. Perhaps they were too liberal;
perhaps he confided too much in a sudden change of heart, an immediate
growth of loyalty, among persons of whom nearly all were still
embittered, still believed that it was in a righteous cause that they
had suffered a cruel defeat.
But if the feasibility of Mr. Lincoln's plan is matter of fruitless
disputation, having to do only with fancied probabilities, and having
never been put to the proof of trial, at least no one will deny that it
was creditable to his nature. A strange freak of destiny arranged that
one of the most obstinate, sanguinary wars of history should be
conducted by one of the most humane men who ever lived, and that blood
should run in rivers at the order of a ruler to whom bloodshed was
repugnant, and to whom the European idol of military glory seemed a
symbol of barbarism. During the war Lincoln's chief purpose was the
restoration of national unity, and his day-dream was that it should be
achieved as a sincere and hearty reunion in feeling as well as in fact.
As he dwelt with much earnest aspiration upon this consummation, he
perhaps came to imagine a possibility of its instant accomplishment,
which did not really exist. His longing for a genuinely reunited country
was not a pious form of expression, but an intense sentiment, and an end
which he definitely expected to bring to pass. Not improbably this frame
of mind induced him to advance too fast and too far, in order to meet
with welcoming hand persons who were by no means in such a condition of
feeling that they could grasp that hand in good faith, or could fulfill
at once the obligations which such a reconciliation would have imposed
upon them, as matter of honor, in all their civil and political
relations. The reaction involved in passing from a state of hostilities
to a state of peace, the deep gratification of seeing so mortal a
struggle determined in favor of the national life, may have carried him
somewhat beyond the limitations set by the hard facts of the case, and
by the human nature alike of the excited conquerors and the impenitent
conquered. On the other hand, however, it is dangerous to say that Mr.
Lincoln made a mistake in reading the popular feeling or in determining
a broad policy. If he did, he did so for the first time. Among those
suppositions in which posterity is free to indulge, it is possible to
fancy that if he, whom all now admit to have been the best friend of the
South living in April, 1865, had continued to live longer, he might have
alleviated, if he could not altogether have prevented, the writing of
some very painful chapters in the history of the United States.
NOTE.--In writing this chapter, I have run somewhat ahead of the
narrative in point of time; but I hope that the desirability of treating
the topic connectedly, as a whole, will be obvious to the reader.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] These appointments were as follows: Andrew Johnson, Tennessee,
February 23, 1862; Edward Stanley, North Carolina, May 19, 1862; Col.
G.F. Shepley, Louisiana, June 10, 1862.
[56] So said Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee, March 18,
1862.
[57] In a contest in which emancipation was indirectly at stake, in
Maryland, he expressed his wish that "all loyal qualified voters" should
have the privilege of voting.
[58] N. and H. ix. 120-122, quoting from the diary of Mr. John Hay.
[59] He had used similar language in a letter to General Canby, December
12, 1864; N. and H. ix. 448; also in his letter to Trumbull concerning
the Louisiana senators, January 9, 1865; _ibid._ 454. Colonel McClure,
on the strength of conversations with Lincoln, says that his single
purpose was "the speedy and cordial restoration of the dissevered
States. He cherished no resentment against the South, and every theory
of reconstruction that he ever conceived or presented was eminently
peaceful and looking solely to reattaching the estranged people to the
government." _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 223.
[60] Sherman, _Memoirs_, ii. 356.
[61] Grant stigmatizes this as "cruel and harsh treatment ...
unnecessarily ... inflicted," _Mem._ ii. 534, and as "infamous," Badeau,
_Milit. Hist. of Grant_, iii. 636 n.
[62] Sherman, _Memoirs_, ii. 328. The admiral says that, if Lincoln had
lived, he "would have shouldered all the responsibility" for Sherman's
action, and Secretary Stanton would have "issued no false telegraphic
dispatches." See also Senator Sherman's corroborative statement;
McClure, _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 219 n.
[63] Sherman, _Memoirs_, ii. 360.