The Victory of the Radicals
The soldiers who fought through the war to victory or to defeat had been
at home nearly two years before the radicals developed sufficient
strength to carry through their plans for a revolutionary reconstruction
of the Southern States. At the end of the war a majority of the Northern
people would have supported a settlement in accordance with Lincoln's
policy. Eight months later a majority, but a smaller one, would have
supported Johnson's work had it been possible to secure a popular
decision on it. How then did the radicals gain the victory over the
conservatives? The answer to this question is given by James Ford Rhodes
in terms of personalities: "Three men are responsible for the
Congressional policy of Reconstruction: Andrew Johnson, by his obstinacy
and bad behavior; Thaddeus Stevens, by his vindictiveness and
parliamentary tyranny; Charles Sumner, by his pertinacity in a misguided
humanitarianism." The President stood alone in his responsibility, but
his chief opponents were the ablest leaders of a resolute band of
radicals.
Radicalism did not begin in the Administration of Andrew Johnson.
Lincoln had felt its covert opposition throughout the war, but he
possessed the faculty of weakening his opponents, while Johnson's
conduct usually multiplied the number and the strength of his enemies.
At first the radicals criticized Lincoln's policy in regard to slavery,
and after the Emancipation Proclamation they shifted their attack to his
"ten per cent" plan for organizing the state governments as outlined in
the Proclamation of December, 1863. Lincoln's course was distasteful to
them because he did not admit the right of Congress to dictate terms,
because of his liberal attitude towards former Confederates, and because
he was conservative on the negro question. A schism among the Republican
supporters of the war was with difficulty averted in 1864, when Frémont
threatened to lead the radicals in opposition to the "Union" party of
the President and his conservative policy.
The breach was widened by the refusal of Congress to admit
representatives from Arkansas and Louisiana in 1864 and to count the
electoral vote of Louisiana and Tennessee in 1865. The passage of the
Wade-Davis reconstruction bill in July, 1864, and the protests of its
authors after Lincoln's pocket veto called attention to the growing
opposition. Severe criticism caused Lincoln to withdraw the propositions
which he had made in April, 1865, with regard to the restoration of
Virginia. In his last public speech he referred with regret to the
growing spirit of vindictiveness toward the South. Much of the
opposition to Lincoln's Southern policy was based not on radicalism,
that is, not on any desire for a revolutionary change in the South, but
upon a belief that Congress and not the Executive should be entrusted
with the work of reorganizing the Union. Many congressional leaders were
willing to have Congress itself carry through the very policies which
Lincoln had advocated; and a majority of the Northern people would have
endorsed them without much caring who was to execute them.
The murder of Lincoln, the failure of the radicals to shape Johnson's
policy as they had hoped, and the continuing reaction against the
excessive expansion of the executive power added strength to the
opposition. But it was a long fight before the radical leaders won.
Their victory was due to adroit tactics on their own part and to
mistakes, bad judgment, and bad manners on the part of the President.
When all hope of controlling Johnson had been given up, Thaddeus Stevens
and other leaders of similar views began to contrive means to circumvent
him. On December 1, 1865, before Congress met, a caucus of radicals held
in Washington agreed that a joint committee of the two Houses should be
selected to which should be referred matters relating to reconstruction.
This plan would thwart the more conservative Senate and gain a desirable
delay in which the radicals might develop their campaign. The next day
at a caucus of the Union party the plan went through without arousing
the suspicion of the supporters of the Administration. Next, through the
influence of Stevens, Edward McPherson, the clerk of the House, omitted
from the roll call of the House the names of the members from the South.
The radical program was then adopted and a week later the Senate
concurred in the action of the House as to the appointment of a Joint
Committee on Reconstruction.
On the issues before Congress both Houses were split into rather clearly
defined factions: the extreme radicals with such leaders as Stevens,
Sumner, Wade, and Boutwell; the moderate Republicans, chief among whom
were Fessenden and Trumbull; the administration Republicans led by
Raymond, Doolittle, Cowan, and Dixon; and the Democrats, of whom the
ablest were Reverdy Johnson, Guthrie, and Hendricks. All except the
extreme radicals were willing to support the President or to come to
some fairly reasonable compromise. But at no time were they given an
opportunity to get together. Johnson and the administration leaders did
little in this direction and the radicals made the most skillful use of
the divisions among the conservatives.
Whatever final judgment may be passed upon the radical reconstruction
policy and its results, there can be no doubt of the political dexterity
of those who carried it through. Chief among them was Thaddeus Stevens,
vindictive and unscrupulous, filled with hatred of the Southern leaders,
bitter in speech and possessing to an extreme degree the faculty of
making ridiculous those who opposed him. He advocated confiscation, the
proscription or exile of leading whites, the granting of the franchise
and of lands to the negroes, and in Southern States the establishment of
territorial governments under the control of Congress. These States
should, he said, "never be recognized as capable of acting in the Union
... until the Constitution shall have been so amended as to make it what
the makers intended, and so as to secure perpetual ascendancy to the
party of the Union."
Charles Sumner, the leader of the radicals in the Senate, was moved less
than Stevens by personal hostility toward the whites of the South, but
his sympathy was reserved entirely for the blacks. He was unpractical,
theoretical, and not troubled by constitutional scruples. To him the
Declaration of Independence was the supreme law and it was the duty of
Congress to express its principles in appropriate legislation. Unlike
Stevens, who had a genuine liking for the negro, Sumner's sympathy for
the race was purely intellectual; for the individual negro he felt
repulsion. His views were in effect not different from those of Stevens.
And he was practical enough not to overlook the value of the negro vote.
"To my mind," he said, "nothing is clearer than the absolute necessity
of suffrage for all colored persons in the disorganized States. It will
not be enough if you give it to those who read and write; you will not,
in this way, acquire the voting force which you need there for the
protection of unionists, whether white or black. You will not secure the
new allies who are essential to the national cause." A leader of the
second rank was his colleague Henry Wilson, who was also actuated by a
desire for the negro's welfare and for the perpetuation of the
Republican party, which he said contained in its ranks "more of moral
and intellectual worth than was ever embodied in any political
organization in any land ... created by no man or set of men but brought
into being by Almighty God himself ... and endowed by the Creator with
all political power and every office under Heaven." Shellabarger of Ohio
was another important figure among the radicals. The following extract
from one of his speeches gives an indication of his character and
temperament: "They [the Confederates] framed iniquity and universal
murder into law.... Their pirates burned your unarmed commerce upon
every sea. They carved the bones of the dead heroes into ornaments, and
drank from goblets made out of their skulls. They poisoned your
fountains, put mines under your soldiers' prisons; organized bands whose
leaders were concealed in your homes; and commissions ordered the torch
and yellow fever to be carried to your cities and to your women and
children. They planned one universal bonfire of the North from Lake
Ontario to the Missouri."
Among the lesser lights may be mentioned Morton and Wade, both bluff,
coarse, and ungenerous, and thoroughly convinced that the Republican
party had a monopoly of loyalty, wisdom, and virtues, and that by any
means it must gain and keep control; Boutwell, fanatical and mediocre;
and Benjamin Butler, a charlatan and demagogue. As a class the Western
radicals were less troubled by humanitarian ideals than were those of
the East and sought more practical political results.
The Joint Committee on Reconstruction which finally decided the fate of
the Southern States was composed of eight radicals, four moderate
Republicans, and three Democrats. As James Gillespie Blaine wrote later,
"it was foreseen that in an especial degree the fortunes of the
Republican party would be in the keeping of the fifteen men who might be
chosen." This committee was divided into four subcommittees to take
testimony. The witnesses, all of whom were examined at Washington,
included army officers and Bureau agents who had served in the South,
Southern Unionists, a few politicians, and several former Confederates,
among them General Robert E. Lee and Alexander H. Stephens. Most of the
testimony was of the kind needed to support the contentions of the
radicals that negroes were badly treated in the South; that the whites
were disloyal; that, should they be left in control, the negro, free
labor, the nation, and the Republican party would be in danger; that the
army and the Freedmen's Bureau must be kept in the South; and that a
radical reconstruction was necessary. No serious effort, however, was
made to ascertain the actual conditions in the South. Slow to formulate
a definite plan, the Joint Committee guided public sentiment toward
radicalism, converted gradually the Republican Congressmen, and little
by little undermined the power and influence of the President.
Not until after the new year was it plain that there was to be a fight
to the finish between Congress and the President. Congress had refused
in December, 1865, to accept the President's program, but there was
still hope for a compromise. Many conservatives had voted for the delay
merely to assert the rights of Congress; but the radicals wanted time to
frame a program. The Northern Democrats were embarrassingly cordial in
their support of Johnson and so also were most Southerners. The
moderates were not far away from the position of the President and the
administration Republicans. But the radicals skillfully postponed a test
of strength until Stevens and Sumner were ready. The latter declared
that a generation must elapse "before the rebel communities have so far
been changed as to become safe associates in a common government. Time,
therefore, we must have. Through time all other guarantees may be
obtained; but time itself is a guarantee."
To the Joint Committee were referred without debate all measures
relating to reconstruction, but the Committee was purposely making
little progress--contented merely to take testimony and to act as a
clearing house for the radical "facts" about "Southern outrages" while
waiting for the tide to turn. The "Black Laws" and the election of
popular Confederate leaders to office in the South were effectively used
to alarm the friends of the negroes, and the reports from the Bureau
agents gave support to those who condemned the Southern state
governments as totally inadequate and disloyal.
So apparent was the growth of radicalism that the President, alarmed by
the attitude of Sumner and Stevens and their followers, began to fear
for the Constitution and forced the fight. The passage of a bill on
February 6, 1866, extending the life of the Freedmen's Bureau furnished
the occasion for the beginning of the open struggle. On the 19th of
February Johnson vetoed the bill, and the next day an effort was made to
pass it over the veto. Not succeeding in this attempt, the House of
Representatives adopted a concurrent resolution that Senators and
Representatives from the Southern States should be excluded until
Congress declared them entitled to representation. Ten days later the
Senate also adopted the resolution.
Though it was not yet too late for Johnson to meet the conservatives of
Congress on middle ground, he threw away his opportunity by an
intemperate and undignified speech on the 22d of February to a crowd at
the White House. As usual when excited, he forgot the proprieties and
denounced the radicals as enemies of the Union and even went so far as
to charge Stevens, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips with endeavoring to
destroy the fundamental principles of the government. Such conduct
weakened his supporters and rejoiced his enemies. It was expected that
Johnson would approve the bill to confer civil rights upon the negroes,
but, goaded perhaps by the speeches of Stevens, he vetoed it on the 27th
of March. Its patience now exhausted, Congress passed the bill over the
President's veto. To secure the requisite majority in the Senate,
Stockton, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, was unseated on technical
grounds, and Senator Morgan, who was "paired" with a sick colleague,
broke his word to vote aye--for which Wade offensively thanked God. The
moderates had now fallen away from the President and at least for this
session of Congress his policies were wrecked. On the 16th of July the
supplementary Freedmen's Bureau Act was passed over the veto, and on the
24th of July Tennessee was readmitted to representation by a law the
preamble of which asserted unmistakably that Congress had assumed
control of reconstruction.
Meanwhile the Joint Committee on Reconstruction had made a report
asserting that the Southerners had forfeited all constitutional rights,
that their state governments were not in constitutional form, and that
restoration could be accomplished only when Congress and the President
acted together in fixing the terms of readmission. The uncompromising
hostility of the South, the Committee asserted, made necessary adequate
safeguards which should include the disfranchisement of the white
leaders, either negro suffrage or a reduction of white representation,
and repudiation of the Confederate war debt with recognition of the
validity of the United States debt. These terms were embodied in the
Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted by Congress and sent to the
States on June 13, 1866.
In the congressional campaign of 1866 reconstruction was almost the sole
issue. For success the Administration must gain at least one-third of
one house, while the radicals were fighting for two-thirds of each
House. If the Administration should fail to make the necessary gain, the
work accomplished by the Presidents would be destroyed. The campaign was
bitter and extended through the summer and fall. Four national
conventions were held: the National Union party at Philadelphia made a
respectable showing in support of the President; the Southern Unionists,
guided by the Northern radicals met at the same place; a soldiers' and
sailors' convention at Cleveland supported the Administration; and
another convention of soldiers and sailors at Pittsburgh endorsed the
radical policies. A convention of Confederate soldiers and sailors at
Memphis endorsed the President, but the Southern support and that of the
Northern Democrats did not encourage moderate Republicans to vote for
the Administration. Three members of Johnson's Cabinet--Harlan, Speed,
and Dennison--resigned because they were unwilling to follow their chief
further in opposing Congress.
The radicals had plenty of campaign material in the testimony collected
by the Joint Committee, in the reports of the Freedmen's Bureau, and in
the bloody race riots which had occurred in Memphis and New Orleans. The
greatest blunder of the Administration was Johnson's speechmaking tour
to the West which he called "Swinging Around the Circle." Every time he
made a speech he was heckled by persons in the crowd, lost his temper,
denounced Congress and the radical leaders, and conducted himself in an
undignified manner. The election returns showed more than a two-thirds
majority in each House against the President. The Fortieth Congress
would therefore be safely radical, and in consequence the Thirty-ninth
was encouraged to be more radical during its last session.
Public interest now for a time turned to the South, where the Fourteenth
Amendment was before the state legislatures. The radicals, taunted with
having no plan of reconstruction beyond a desire to keep the Southern
States out of the Union, professed to see in the ratification of the
Fourteenth Amendment a good opportunity to readmit the States on a safe
basis. The elections of 1866 had pointed to the ratification of the
proposed amendment as an essential preliminary to readmission. But would
additional demands be made upon the South? Sumner, Stevens, and
Fessenden were sure that negro suffrage also must come, but Wade, Chase,
Garfield, and others believed that nothing beyond the terms of the
Fourteenth Amendment would be asked.
In the Southern legislatures there was little disposition to ratify the
amendment. The rapid development of the radical policies during 1866 had
convinced most Southerners that nothing short of a general humiliation
and complete revolution in the South would satisfy the dominant party,
and there were few who wished to be "parties to our own dishonor." The
President advised the States not to accept the amendment, but several
Southern leaders favored it, fearing that worse would come if they
should reject it. Only in the legislatures of Alabama and Florida was
there any serious disposition to accept the amendment; and in the end
all the unreconstructed States voted adversely during the fall and
winter of 1866-67. This unanimity of action was due in part to the
belief that, even if the amendment were ratified, the Southern States
would still be excluded, and in part to the general dislike of the
proscriptive section which would disfranchise all Confederates of
prominence and result in the breaking up of the state governments. The
example of unhappy Tennessee, which had ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment and had been readmitted, was not one to encourage conservative
people in the other Southern States.
The rejection of the amendment put the question of reconstruction
squarely before Congress. There was no longer a possibility of
accomplishing the reconstruction of the Southern States by means of
constitutional amendments. Some of the Border and Northern States were
already showing signs of uneasiness at the continued exclusion of the
South. But if the Constitutional Amendment had failed, other means of
reconstruction were at hand, for the radicals now controlled the
Thirty-ninth Congress, from which the Southern representatives were
excluded, and would also control the Fortieth Congress.
Under the lead of Stevens and Sumner the radicals now perfected their
plans. On January 8, 1867, their first measure, conferring the franchise
upon negroes in the District of Columbia, was passed over the
presidential veto, though the proposal had been voted down a few weeks
earlier by a vote of 6525 to 35 in Washington and 812 to 1 in
Georgetown. In the next place, by an act of January 31, 1867, the
franchise was extended to negroes in the territories, and on March 2,
1867, three important measures were enacted: the Tenure of Office Act
and a rider to the Army Appropriation Act--both designed to limit the
power of the President--and the first Reconstruction Act. By the Tenure
of Office Act the President was prohibited from removing officeholders
except with the consent of the Senate; and by the Army Act he was
forbidden to issue orders except through General Grant or to relieve him
of command or to assign him to command away from Washington unless at
the General's own request or with the previous approval of the Senate.
The first measure was meant to check the removal of radical
officeholders by Johnson, and the other, which was secretly drawn up for
Boutwell by Stanton, was designed to prevent the President from
exercising his constitutional command of the army.
The first Reconstruction Act declared that no legal state government
existed in the ten unreconstructed States and that there was no adequate
protection for life and property. The Johnson and Lincoln governments in
those States were declared to have no legal status and to be subject
wholly to the authority of the United States to modify or abolish. The
ten States were divided into five military districts, over each of which
a general officer was to be placed in command. Military tribunals were
to supersede the civil courts where necessary. Stevens was willing to
rest here, though some of his less radical followers, disliking military
rule but desiring to force negro suffrage, inserted a provision in the
law that a State might be readmitted to representation upon the
following conditions: a constitutional convention must be held, the
members of which were elected by males of voting age without regard to
color, excluding whites who would be disfranchised by the proposed
Fourteenth Amendment; a constitution including the same rule of suffrage
must be framed, ratified by the same electorate, and approved by
Congress; and lastly, the legislatures elected under this constitution
must ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, after which, if the
Fourteenth Amendment should have become a part of the Federal
Constitution, the State should be readmitted to representation.
In order that the administration of this radical legislation might be
supervised by its friends, the Thirty-ninth Congress had passed a law
requiring the Fortieth Congress to meet on the 4th of March instead of
in December as was customary. According to the Reconstruction Act of the
2nd of March it was left to the state government or to the people of a
State to make the first move towards reconstruction. If they preferred,
they might remain under military rule. Either by design or by
carelessness no machinery of administration was provided for the
execution of the act. When it became evident that the Southerners
preferred military rule the new Congress passed a Supplementary
Reconstruction Act on the 23d of March designed to force the earlier act
into operation. The five commanding generals were directed to register
the blacks of voting age and the whites who were not disfranchised, to
hold elections for conventions, to call the conventions, to hold
elections to ratify or reject the constitutions, and to forward the
constitutions, if ratified, to the President for transmission to
Congress.
In these reconstruction acts the whole doctrine of radicalism was put on
the way to accomplishment. Its spread had been rapid. In December, 1865,
the majority of Congress would have accepted with little modification
the work of Lincoln and Johnson. Three months later the Civil Rights Act
measured the advance. Very soon the new Freedmen's Bureau Act and the
Fourteenth Amendment indicated the rising tide of radicalism. The
campaign of 1866 and the attitude of the Southern States swept all
radicals and most moderate Republicans swiftly into a merciless course
of reconstruction. Moderate reconstruction had nowhere strong support.
Congress, touched in its amour propre by presidential disregard, was
eager for extremes. Johnson, who regarded himself as defending the
Constitution against radical assaults, was stubborn, irascible, and
undignified, and with his associates was no match in political strategy
for his radical opponents.
The average Republican or Unionist in the North, if he had not been
brought by skillful misrepresentation to believe a new rebellion
impending in the South, was at any rate painfully alive to the fear that
the Democratic party might regain power. With the freeing of the slaves
the representation of the South in Congress would be increased. At first
it seemed that the South might divide in politics as before the war, but
the longer the delay the more the Southern whites tended to unite into
one party acting with the Democrats. With their eighty-five
representatives and a slight reaction in the North, they might gain
control of the lower House of Congress. The Union-Republican party had a
majority of less than one hundred in 1866 and this was lessened slightly
in the Fortieth Congress. The President was for all practical purposes a
Democrat again. The prospect was too much for the very human politicians
to view without distress. Stevens, speaking in support of the Military
Reconstruction Bill, said:
There are several good reasons for the passage of this bill. In the
first place, it is just. I am now confining my argument to negro
suffrage in the rebel States. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a
right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites? In the second
place, it is necessary in order to protect the loyal white men in the
seceded States. With them the blacks would act in a body, and it is
believed that in each of these States, except one, the two united would
form a majority, control the States, and protect themselves. Now they
are the victims of daily murder. They must suffer constant persecution
or be exiled. Another good reason is that it would insure the ascendancy
of the union party.... I believe ... that on the continued ascendancy of
that party depends the safety of this great nation. If impartial
suffrage is excluded in the rebel States, then every one of them is sure
to send a solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their kindred
Copperheads of the North, would always elect the President and control
Congress.
The laws passed on the 2d and the 23d of March were war measures and
presupposed a continuance of war conditions. The Lincoln-Johnson state
governments were overturned; Congress fixed the qualifications of voters
for that time and for the future; and the President, shorn of much of
his constitutional power, could exercise but little control over the
military government. Nothing that a State might do would secure
restoration until it should ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Federal Constitution. The war had been fought upon the theory that the
old Union must be preserved; but the basic theory of the reconstruction
was that a new Union was to be created.