FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[67]Riddle'sRecollections of War-Time, p. 267.[68]Nicolay & Hay, ix, 251.[69]A letter dated August 9, 1910, in my possession, from Mr. Gist Blair, son of Montgomery Blair, says: "I have always understood that my father retired from Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet in order to secure the withdrawal of Frémont as a candidate against Mr. Lincoln. There are letters which I cannot now put my hand on, which indicate that Mr. Lincoln continued to consult my father practically the same as if he were a member of the Cabinet, up to the time of Mr. Lincoln's death."

[67]Riddle'sRecollections of War-Time, p. 267.

[68]Nicolay & Hay, ix, 251.

[69]A letter dated August 9, 1910, in my possession, from Mr. Gist Blair, son of Montgomery Blair, says: "I have always understood that my father retired from Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet in order to secure the withdrawal of Frémont as a candidate against Mr. Lincoln. There are letters which I cannot now put my hand on, which indicate that Mr. Lincoln continued to consult my father practically the same as if he were a member of the Cabinet, up to the time of Mr. Lincoln's death."

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

Donn Piatt, meeting William H. Seward on the street on the morning immediately after the issuing of the preliminary proclamation of emancipation, complimented him for his share in the act, whereupon the following colloquy ensued:

"Yes," said Seward, "we have let off a puff of wind over an accomplished fact."

"What do you mean, Mr. Seward?"

"I mean that the emancipation proclamation was uttered in the first gun fired at Sumter and we have been the last to hear it. As it is, we show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."[70]

Seward did not say this in a censorious spirit, but what he did say was true. The proclamation applied only to states and parts of states under rebel control. It did not emancipate any slaves within the emancipator's reach. Whether it freed anybody anywhere was a matter of dispute. What its legal effect would be after the war should cease, no one could say. Moreover, if the President had legal authority to issue the proclamation, then he, or a successor in office, could revoke it.

The Constitution had not given to the Federal Government power to emancipate slaves. The proclamation did not purport to rest upon any constitutional power, but upon war powers solely. But war powers last only whilewar lasts, and when it comes to an end, all sorts of people have all sorts of opinions as to the validity of acts done under them.

Public opinion at the time was keenly alive to doubts regarding the President's powers in this particular. Congress was flooded with petitions calling for action to confirm and validate the proclamation, but the way was beset with difficulties. Should the Constitution be amended, or would an act of Congress suffice? If the Constitution should be amended, should it abolish slavery everywhere or only in the places designated by the President? Should loyal slave-owners be compensated, as Lincoln desired? What were the chances of getting such an amendment ratified by three fourths of the states? And for this purpose should the rebel states be counted as still in the Union? If so, the requisite number might not be obtained.

The first resolution offered in Congress for such an amendment of the Constitution was proposed in the House on the 14th of December, 1863, by Representative James F. Wilson of Iowa, in these words:

Section1. Slavery being incompatible with a free government is forever prohibited in the United States; and involuntary servitude shall be permitted only as a punishment for crime.Section2. Congress shall have power to enforce the foregoing section by appropriate legislation.

Section1. Slavery being incompatible with a free government is forever prohibited in the United States; and involuntary servitude shall be permitted only as a punishment for crime.

Section2. Congress shall have power to enforce the foregoing section by appropriate legislation.

On the 13th of January, 1864, Senator Henderson, of Missouri, offered a resolution to amend the Constitution by adding thereto the following article:

Slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall not exist in the United States.

These resolutions were referred to the Judiciary Committees of the respective houses.

On the 10th of February, Trumbull reported the Henderson Resolution from the Committee on the Judiciary, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute in the following terms:

Article XIIISection1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.Section2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Article XIII

Section1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The phraseology followed pretty closely that of the Ordinance of 1787. Trumbull adopted it because it was among the household words of the nation. To become effective as a part of the Constitution, this article required the votes of two thirds of each branch of Congress and ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of the States.

Presenting the resolution to the Senate, Trumbull said that nobody could doubt that the conflict then raging, and all the desolation and death consequent thereon, had their origin in the institution of slavery; that even those who contended that the trouble was due to the agitators and abolitionists of the North must admit that if there were no slavery there would be no abolitionists. So also it must be admitted that if there had been no slavery there would have been no secession and no civil war. All the strife that had ever afflicted the nation, or all that could be considered menacing to the country's peace, had had its source in that institution. Various laws had been passed by Congress to give freedom to slaves of rebel owners and even these laws had not been executed properly. The President of the United States had issued a preliminary proclamation in September, 1862, and a final one in January, 1863, declaring all slaves under rebel control free,but not those under our control. The legal effect of such a proclamation had been a matter of dispute. Some persons held that the President had the constitutional power to issue it and that all the slaves designated were free, or would become so whenever the rebellion should be crushed; while others contended that it had no effect eitherde jureorde facto. It was the duty of the lawmaking power to put an end to this uncertainty by some act more comprehensive than any that had yet been adopted. Would a mere act of Congress suffice? It had been an axiom of all parties from the beginning of the Government that Congress had no authority to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. We had authority, of course, to put down the enemies of the country and the right to slay them in battle; we had authority to confiscate their property; but did that give us authority to slay the friends of the Union, to confiscate their property, or to free their slaves? In his opinion the only conclusive and irrepealable way to make an end of slavery was by an amendment of the Constitution, and the only practical question remaining was whether the resolution recommended by the committee could secure a two-thirds vote in Congress and the concurrence of three fourths of the states. There were thirty-five states, including those in rebellion, and two territories about to become states. Presumably the affirmative votes of twenty-eight states would be required for ratification.

In this speech Trumbull gave public expression to his feelings regarding the feeble prosecution of the war to which he had given private expression in the letters to friends referred to in the preceding chapter. He said:

I trust that within a year, in less time than it will take to make this constitutional amendment effective, our armies will have put to flight the rebel armies. I think it ought to have beendone long ago. Hundreds of millions of treasure and a hundred thousand lives would have been saved had the power of this republic been concentrated under one mind and hurled in masses upon the main rebel armies. This is what our patriotic soldiers have wanted and what I trust is now soon to be done. But instead of looking back and mourning over the errors of the past, let us remember them only for the lessons they teach for the future. Forgetting the things which are past, let us press forward to the accomplishment of what is before. We have at last placed at the head of our armies a man in whom the country has confidence, a man who has won victories wherever he has been, and I trust that his mind is to be permitted, uninterfered with, to unite our forces, never before so formidable as to-day, in one or two grand armies, and hurl them upon the rebel force.[71]

The feeling here expressed by Trumbull was the prevailing sentiment at Washington at that time, even in President Lincoln's Cabinet. Both Gideon Welles and Edward Bates shared it. Welles wrote:

In this whole summer's campaign I have been unable to see or hear or obtain evidence of power or will or talent or originality on the part of General Halleck. He has suggested nothing, decided nothing, done nothing but scold and smoke and scratch his elbows. Is it possible that the energies of a nation should be wasted by the incapacity of such a man?

When Welles said to the President that he had observed the "inertness if not incapacity of the General-in-Chief, and had hoped that he [the President] who had better and more correct views would issue peremptory orders," Lincoln replied that it was better that he, who was not a military man, should defer to Halleck, rather than Halleck to him.

Additional light is thrown by an entry in Hay's "Diaries"[72]under date April 28, 1864, where Lincoln says:

When it was proposed to station Halleck in general command, he insisted, to use his own language, on the appointment of a General-in-Chief who should be held responsible for results. We appointed him, and all went well enough until after Pope's defeat, when he broke down,—nerve and pluck all gone,—and has ever since evaded all possible responsibility, little more, since that, than a first-rate clerk.

General Francis V. Greene, reviewing the war as a whole, says that

If Lincoln had placed Grant in command of the Western armies in July, 1862, when Halleck was made General-in-Chief, instead of in October, 1863, it would have probably shortened the war by a year.[73]

This opinion is concurred in by General Grenville M. Dodge, one of the surviving major-generals of the Civil War,[74]and I imagine that it will not be disputed by any military man at the present day. These citations show that the opinions held by Trumbull, as to the inefficiency of the directing force of the Union armies, up to the time when Grant was called to take command at Washington, were not those of a mere fault-finder and backbiter.

A notable speech in favor of the anti-slavery amendment was made by Henderson, of Missouri, who was himself a slave-owner. The most impressive speech made in either branch of Congress, however, was that of Senator Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland. The fact that he represented a slaveholding State could not fail to add force to any argument he might make in support of the measure, but the argument itself, both in its moral and its legal aspects, was of surpassing merit. It deserves a high place in the annals of senatorial eloquence.

The constitutional amendment was under debate in the Senate until the 8th of April, 1864, when it was passed bya vote of 38 to 6. The negative votes were the two from Delaware, two from Kentucky, and those of Hendricks, of Indiana, and McDougall, of California. It then went to the House, where it was under consideration till the 15th of June, when it failed of passage by a vote of 93 to 65, not two thirds. The Democrats generally voted in the negative. A second attempt to pass it was made in the House on February 1, 1865, this time successfully, the yeas being 119 and the nays, 56. There was an extraordinary scene in the House when the final vote was taken. It is described by George W. Julian, in his "Recollections" (page 250), thus:

The time for the momentous vote had now come, and no language could describe the solemnity and impressiveness of the spectacle pending the roll-call. The success of the measure had been considered very doubtful, and depended upon certain negotiations, the result of which was not fully assured, and the particulars of which never reached the public.[75]The anxiety and suspense during the balloting produced a deathly stillness, but when it became certainly known that the measure had prevailed, the cheering in the densely packed hall and galleries surpassed all precedent and beggared all description. Members joined in the general shouting, which was kept up for several minutes, many embracing each other, and others completely surrendering themselves to their tears of joy....

The ratification of the amendment was announced by the Secretary of State on the 18th of December, 1865. Three states, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida, when they ratified it, passed resolutions expressing their understanding that the second section did not authorize Congress to legislate on the political status or civil relations of the negroes, but merely to confirm and protect their freedom. On November 1, 1865, Governor Perry, of South Carolina, wrote to President Johnson, saying that his state had abolished slavery in all good faith and never would wish to restore it again, but that his people feared that the second section might be construed to give Congress local power over legislation respecting negroes and white men in the state of freedom. To this letter Secretary Seward replied that the second section was "really restraining in its effect instead of enlarging the powers of Congress." By this he meant that it restrained Congress to the single subject of slavery. It did not give citizenship or civil rights to the freedmen. The legislature of South Carolina accordingly ratified the amendment on the 13th of November, and put on record the letter of Seward as the official interpretation of this clause by the Federal Executive. Alabama did substantially the same on the 2d of December and Florida on the 28th of December. Seward's interpretation of the second section of the amendment turned out to be correct, but many years of doubt and gloom were to pass before a decision upon it was reached in the Supreme Court.

From what has gone before it appears doubtful whether President Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation freed any slaves legally. Its immediate value was not so much in its effect upon the blacks as upon the whites. It liberatedmillions of the latter from bondage to a false philosophy and a monstrous social creed and made possible and necessary the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. To Senator Trumbull belongs the distinction of having traced its lines and this is his title to immortality.

FOOTNOTES:[70]Memories of Men who Saved the Union, by Donn Piatt, p. 150.[71]Cong. Globe, 1863-64, part 2, p. 1314.[72]Vol.i, p. 187.[73]Scribner's Magazine, July, 1909.[74]In a letter to the writer.[75]The particulars referred to by Julian were subsequently made public by Mr. A. G. Riddle in hisRecollections of War-Time, p. 325. Two Democrats were induced to vote in the affirmative and one other to be absent when the vote was taken. One of them was induced to vote right by the promise of an office for his brother; another was facing an election contest in the coming Congress where his own seat was claimed by a Republican opponent. The Democrat was promised favorable consideration by the Republicans before the testimony in the case was examined. The third was counsel for a railroad against whose interests a bill was about to be reported in the Senate, which bill was in the control of Charles Sumner. The bill would not be reported, or not reported soon, if the Congressman should be absent when the vote was taken. These arrangements, Riddle says, were negotiated by James M. Ashley, of Ohio, in whose hands the Republicans of the House had deposited their honor for the time being. If the three Democrats had voted in the negative, the result would have been 117 to 59, one less than the necessary two thirds. But that would only have delayed the adoption of the amendment till the next Congress.

[70]Memories of Men who Saved the Union, by Donn Piatt, p. 150.

[71]Cong. Globe, 1863-64, part 2, p. 1314.

[72]Vol.i, p. 187.

[73]Scribner's Magazine, July, 1909.

[74]In a letter to the writer.

[75]The particulars referred to by Julian were subsequently made public by Mr. A. G. Riddle in hisRecollections of War-Time, p. 325. Two Democrats were induced to vote in the affirmative and one other to be absent when the vote was taken. One of them was induced to vote right by the promise of an office for his brother; another was facing an election contest in the coming Congress where his own seat was claimed by a Republican opponent. The Democrat was promised favorable consideration by the Republicans before the testimony in the case was examined. The third was counsel for a railroad against whose interests a bill was about to be reported in the Senate, which bill was in the control of Charles Sumner. The bill would not be reported, or not reported soon, if the Congressman should be absent when the vote was taken. These arrangements, Riddle says, were negotiated by James M. Ashley, of Ohio, in whose hands the Republicans of the House had deposited their honor for the time being. If the three Democrats had voted in the negative, the result would have been 117 to 59, one less than the necessary two thirds. But that would only have delayed the adoption of the amendment till the next Congress.

RECONSTRUCTION

The next event of world-wide concern was the assassination of President Lincoln, which took place April 14, 1865. It does not come within the scope of this work, except as it finds expression or comment in the Trumbull papers. One such, found in a letter of Norman B. Judd, Minister to Prussia, dated Berlin, May 7, ought to be preserved.

At the present moment he [Lincoln] is deified in Europe. History shows no similar outburst of grief and indignation. Crowned heads and statesmen, parliaments and corporate bodies, literary institutions and the people, all vie in pronouncing the eulogy. The entire press of Europe has for the last ten days been filled with nothing else. We have had a very impressive and imposing funeral service. Kings, Representatives, Ministers, and the Diplomatic Corps were amongst the number present. The people assembled to three times the capacity of the church. I told my colleagues to come without uniform.—Something new under the sun at this Court of Uniforms.

When the work of Reconstruction began, two opposing ideas came in conflict with each other respecting the status of the seceding states. One was that the act of secession annihilated the State Governments and put the inhabitants and their belongings in the condition of newly acquired territories, subject in all things to the conquering power. This opinion was held by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens. The other view was that every act ofsecession was null and void; that state sovereignty was suspended but not extinguished in the Confederacy; and that when the rebellion was crushed, it became the duty of the General Government to recognize the loyal men in each state, as the rightful nucleus of sovereignty, to assist them to set the state Governments going again; in harmony, however, with accomplished facts, including the abolishment of slavery.

The latter view had been adopted by President Lincoln in a proclamation issued simultaneously with his annual message to Congress December 8, 1863. This proclamation declared that whenever the voters of any seceding state, not less in number than one tenth of those who had voted in the presidential election of 1860, should reëstablish a loyal State Government, it should be recognized as the true Government of the state. The qualifications of voters should be those existing in the state immediately before secession, "excluding all others," but it was provided that all previous proclamations of the President and all acts of Congress in reference to slavery should be held inviolable. It was explained that the question of admitting to seats in Congress any persons who might be elected by such states as members would rest with the respective houses exclusively. It was added that while this plan of Reconstruction was favored by the President he did not mean that no other would be acceptable.

In pursuance of the proclamation an election was held in February, 1864, in that portion of Louisiana controlled by the Union army under command of General Banks, at which election 11,411 votes were cast—the whole vote of the state had usually been about 40,000. At this election, Michael Hahn had been chosen governor and he was inaugurated as such on the 4th of March, with impressiveceremonies, "in the presence of more than 50,000 people," as General Banks announced. Writing to Governor Hahn under date, March 13, 1864, Lincoln said:

Now you are about to have a convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as, for instance, the very intelligent and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They will probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public but to you alone.

A constitutional convention of Louisiana was elected March 28, 1864; it assembled April 6; adopted a free state constitution July 22, which was ratified by popular vote September 5. Under this constitution a legislature was elected by which two Senators were chosen to represent the state at Washington. Their credentials were referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and on the 8th of January, 1865, Trumbull called at the White House to consult with Lincoln respecting their admission. One of the consequences of the interview was the unanimous agreement of the Judiciary Committee in favor of a joint resolution recognizing the Government of which Michael Hahn was the head. This resolution was reported by Trumbull on the 23d of February. Sumner objected to it because the constitution did not grant negro suffrage, and he avowed the intention of using all parliamentary means to defeat it. In this endeavor he had the coöperation of Senators Chandler and Wade and of most of the Democrats. The latter opposed the resolution because the constitution was not the work of the majority of the white people of the state. On the 24th, there was a debate of some bitterness between Sumner and Doolittle. The latter contended that the vote of Louisiana was needed toratify the Thirteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. To this Sumner replied that the so-called state of Louisiana was a shadow, that no such state existed, and that its ratification would be worthless if obtained. In this contention he was sustained by Garrett Davis, of Kentucky.

There were only seven working days remaining of the Thirty-eighth Congress, and Sumner managed to stave off the vote, although there was a large majority in favor of the resolution, as was shown by roll-calls on various motions. There was a sharp passage-at-arms between Trumbull and Sumner, which made a breach between them for a considerable time.

On the 11th of April, five days before his assassination, Lincoln delivered a carefully prepared address from the balcony of the White House in response to a greeting of citizens who had assembled to welcome him on his return from Richmond after the surrender of that city. He embraced the occasion to call attention again to the question of Reconstruction which was now becoming momentous. He referred to the plan which he had recommended in his annual message of December, 1863, and said that it had received the approval of every member of his Cabinet (which then included Chase and Blair). It had not been objected to by any professed emancipationist until after the news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana were about to take action in accordance with it. Then the question had been raised whether the seceded states were in the Union or out of it. He did not consider that question a material one, but rather a pernicious abstraction, having only the mischievous effect of dividing loyal men. The question now uppermost was how to get the seceded states again into their proper practical relations with the Union. "Let us all join," he said, "indoing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these states and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether, in doing the acts, he brought the states from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out." The question was not whether the Louisiana Government as reconstructed was quite all that was desirable, but whether it was wiser to take it and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it. "Concede that the new Government of Louisiana is only, to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." He concluded by saying that his remarks would apply generally to other states, but that there were peculiarities pertaining to each state, and important and sudden changes occurring in the same state, so that no exclusive and inflexible plan could safely be prescribed as to details. Therefore, he held himself free to make some new announcement to the people of the South when satisfied that such action would be proper.

This was, in a political sense, his last will and testament. No other communication from him to his countrymen was more fraught with wisdom and patriotism. It received the prompt endorsement of William Lloyd Garrison, who defended it when attacked by Professor Newman, of London University.[76]Garrison held not only that Lincoln had no right to interfere with the voting laws of the states, but that it would be bad policy to do so; for if negro suffrage were imposed upon the South against the will of the people, then, "as soon as the State was organized and left to manage its own affairs, the white population, with their superior intelligence, wealth, and power, would unquestionably alter the franchise in accordancewith their prejudices and exclude those thus summarily brought to the polls."

Garrison saw further than Sumner, but nobody at the North then imagined the tremendous consequences that were to follow the upsetting of Lincoln's plan. If Trumbull's resolution had passed, it would have served as a precedent for all the seceding states, in which case most of the misery of the next fifteen years in the South, including the carpet-bag governments and the Ku-Klux-Klan, would have been avoided.

President Johnson at first had been rather more radical than the majority of his party as to the measure of punishment to be visited upon the leaders of the rebellion. He had several times talked about "making treason odious," and had said that traitors should take back seats in the work of Reconstruction, and had used language which implied that some of the more prominent Confederates ought to be tried and executed for treason. He had a sharp difference with General Grant as to the inclusion of General Lee in that category, Grant insisting that no officer or soldier who had observed the terms of capitulation at Appomattox could be rightfully molested.[77]

But this feeling of animosity on Johnson's part gradually passed away. In an authorized interview with George L. Stearns, October 3, 1865, on the subject of Reconstruction, and again in an interview with Frederick Douglass and others, February 7, 1866, on the suffrage question, he said nothing about making treason odious, but declared himself opposed to unrestricted negro suffrage because he believed it would lead to a war of races—a war between the non-slaveholding class (the poor whites) and the negroes. The former hated and despisedthe latter, and this feeling he thought would be intensified if the suffrage were granted to the negroes.

"The query comes up," said Johnson in his colloquy with Douglass, "whether these two races, situated as they were before, without preparation, without time for the slightest improvement, whether the one should be turned loose upon the other, and be thrown together at the ballot-box with this enmity and hate existing between them. The question comes up right there, whether we don't commence a war of races. I think I understand this thing, and especially is this the case when you force it upon a people without their consent."

Johnson had adopted not only Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction, but his Cabinet also. At its first meeting, April 16, the unfinished project for the establishment of civil government in Virginia, drafted by Secretary Stanton at Lincoln's instance, was presented but not acted on. At a subsequent meeting, May 8, it was considered and adopted, and was promulgated as an Executive Order on the following day. It recognized Francis M. Peirpoint, who had been nominal governor in Lincoln's time, as actual governor, and declared that in order to guarantee to the state of Virginia a republican form of government and to afford the advantage and security of domestic laws, and the full and complete restoration of peace, he would be aided by the Government of the United States in the measures he might take to accomplish those ends.

A loyal State Government of considerable scope and solidity, formed by Johnson himself as military governor, already existed in Tennessee. This was now recognized by the President as an accomplished fact. W. G. Brownlow had been elected governor, and a legislature had been constituted, which had passed a franchise act that limited the voting privilege to whites and excluded rebels of acertain grade. The Lincoln State Government of Louisiana and a similar one in Arkansas were allowed to stand.

On the 29th of May, the President issued an Executive Order appointing W. W. Holden provisional governor of North Carolina, and prescribing certain duties to be performed by him; among others that of calling a convention to be chosen by the loyal people of the state for the purpose of altering or amending the state constitution, and forming a government fit to be recognized and defended by the Government of the United States. Following the precedent made by Lincoln in the Louisiana case, the qualifications of voters at the election of delegates to the convention were fixed and declared to be those "prescribed by the constitution and laws of North Carolina in force immediately before the 20th day of May, 1861, the date of the so-called ordinance of secession," excepting, however, certain classes of whites. Similar orders followed in rapid succession for reorganizing Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida, the last one bearing date July 13, 1865. Before the form of the order was adopted, a vote had been taken in the Cabinet on the question whether negroes should be allowed to vote in the election of Delegates. Of the six members present, three had voted in the affirmative and three in the negative. Seward was not present, being still confined to his bed by the wounds inflicted on him the night when Lincoln was assassinated. The President then took the matter in his own hands, and at the next meeting of the Cabinet read the North Carolina order and none of the members offered any objection to it.

Thus Reconstruction had been mapped out, so far as the executive branch of the Government was concerned, before the Thirty-ninth Congress assembled.

Together with the order for Reconstruction in NorthCarolina, the President issued a proclamation of amnesty for all persons who had participated in the rebellion, excepting, however, certain specified classes of offenders. This proclamation bore the same date, and was published simultaneously with the North Carolina order; but the newspapers of the day, while commenting upon and generally approving, made little account of the fact that negroes were excluded from voting at the election for delegates. The New YorkTribuneof May 30 merely said: "Of course no blacks can vote." The New YorkTimesmade mention of the same fact.

The New YorkEvening Postof the same date, however, after pointing out that only white men and taxpayers could vote in the coming election in North Carolina, said:

Unless, in the process of the reorganization, we build upon the principle laid down in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, there is no assurance that the different elements of which our social and political state is composed will subsist in harmony and tranquil coöperation. In that direction lies our way to political safety. If we attempt to build upon any foundation of inequality between races and castes, we shall find a condition of things prevailing similar to that which has been the source of so many calamities to Ireland.

The first blast against Andrew Johnson was sounded by Wendell Phillips at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston, May 31, on a resolution offered by himself affirming that

The reconstruction of the rebel states without negro suffrage is a practical surrender to the Confederacy and will make the anti-slavery proclamation of the late President, and even the expected amendment of the Constitution utterly inefficient for the freedom and protection of the negro.

This resolution was supported by Phillips in a spirit of blind fury. Every life and every dollar that had beenspent by the North had been stolen, he contended, if this policy should prevail, and "there was but one way in which the people could still hold the helm of affairs, and that was by a repudiation of the entire war debt!" Such a party would have his voice and vote until God called him home. "Better, far better, would it have been for Grant to have surrendered to Lee, than for Johnson to have surrendered to North Carolina."

The New YorkTribune, June 2, took notice of Phillips, and, after adverting to his intemperate attacks on Salmon P. Chase and Abraham Lincoln in the past, turned to his "like delicate attentions" to Mr. Lincoln's successor.

President Johnson [it said] believes in, and favors, the extension of the elective franchise to blacks, but since he holds that no state has gone out, or could go out, of the Union, he believes that the Southern state constitutions stand as before, and that the right of suffrage stands as before until legally changed. We do not insist [it continued] that this is the true doctrine—we do not admit anunqualifiedright in the enfranchised people of any state to do as they will with the residue. Yet we insist that President Johnson's view is one that a true man may honestly, conscientiously hold—may hold it without being a hypocrite, a demagogue, or a tool of the slave power. And we think few considerate persons will deny that it is greatly desirable,ifthe desired reparation in thestatusof the freedmen can be achievedthroughthe several states rather than over them—that it would be more stable, less grudging, more real, if thus accomplished. In fact, we should prefer waiting a year or two, or accepting a limited enfranchisement, to a full recognition of the Equal Rights of Man by virtue only of a presidential edict, or order from the War Department, or even an act of Congress.

The New YorkTimes, June 21, concurred, saying:

It is an open question whether the Government should or should not attempt to secure suffrage to the Southern blacks; the best men may differ about it.

It scored Wendell Phillips for advocating repudiation of the national debt as a cure for any other evil whatsoever.

When Mr. Phillips says that if the Government and the people do not accept his doctrine, he will turn scoundrel and join a party of scoundrels, he does his doctrine the very worst injury possible.

Meanwhile there was a witches' caldron boiling in the South. The Confederate States had been impoverished by the war. Their labor system had been overturned under circumstances and in a mode that no other people had ever experienced. The negroes knew nothing of the responsibilities of freedom. They could not understand the meaning of a contract. The ex-slaves, when hired for a specified time, might abandon their work the next day or the next week, and return the following day or week and run the risk of being flogged or shot, either for going away or for coming back. The ex-masters, knowing only one way of getting work out of the negro,—that of compulsion,—contended and believed that there was no other way, or none that would serve the purpose duringtheirlifetime; and since the crops of the present year could not wait for the milder teachings of education and reason, they adopted the only means that would secure immediate results. The planters, or the majority of them, were still further crippled by having no money to pay wages. All of their money had become filthy rags by the downfall of the Confederacy. The only alternative was hiring labor on shares. This was an embarrassment that the Northern men (carpet-baggers) who went to the South directly after the war did not suffer from. Some of these, tempted by the high price of cotton and the low price of land, hired or bought plantations, and they had the pick of the labor market because they could pay cash. Their example was a fresh irritation to the impecunious native planter,who, in losing the Confederacy, had lost everything except the clothes he stood in, which were much the worse for wear.

If there was to be a crop of cotton, or of anything, in 1865, the laboring population must be kept in some kind of order. Work days must be continuous, and not alternative with hunting and fishing days and play days. The planters looked to their legislatures in this emergency, and the legislatures enacted laws as near to the old slave codes as the condition of emancipation would allow,—if not nearer. These enactments began to reach the North before the Thirty-ninth Congress assembled. They were accompanied by tales of cruelty and outrage committed upon the freedmen, and of disloyal utterances and threats on the part of the unreconciled whites, male and female, who had been deprived of every weapon except their tongues. Little account was made of the need of time in which to become reconciled to these changes and to acquire admiration for those who had brought them about.

Among letters which reached Trumbull was one from Colonel J. W. Shaffer, of the Union Army, dated New Orleans, December 25, 1865, who gave the following account of what he had observed along the Gulf Coast:

I have been to Mobile, spent a week there, have traveled around in this state, talked much with friend and enemy, and I unhesitatingly say that our President has been going too fast. I am told by all Union men that after the surrender of the rebel armies the men returned perfectly quiet, came to Southern and Northern Union men, saying, "We don't know what is expected of us by the Government, but one thing is certain, we are tired of war and desire above all things to return to the quiet pursuits of life and try to mend our fortune as best we can, and cultivate a friendly feeling with all parts of the country once more; now tell us how to do this." Soon, however, to their surprise they found that the control of everything was to be again put in their hands, and at once they became insolent, abused the Government openly, and openly declared that Union men and Yankees must leave as soon as the military is withdrawn. Had they been given to understand that the Government was going to continue to govern and control, and that Union men alone would be trusted with the management of affairs, these people would have been entirely satisfied, glad to escape with their lives, and would at once have adapted themselves to circumstances. Now they are drunk with power, ruling and abusing every loyal man, white and black.

Per contra, Dr. C. H. Ray wrote, under date September 29, 1865, on the subject of Reconstruction:

What are our Republican papers thinking of when they make war upon the President as they are now doing? I see that there is hardly one to stand up in his defense, and that he will be fought out of our ranks into the arms of the Democracy. I do not see that he is so guilty as he is said to be, and for one I cannot join the cry against him. What do his assailants expect—to carry the country on the Massachusetts idea of negro suffrage, female suffrage, confiscation, and hanging? If so, they will drive all moderate men out of the party and the remainder straight to perdition.

Only five Northern States at this time allowed negroes to vote at elections, and one of these (New York) required a property qualification from blacks but not from whites. The state of Illinois had an unrepealed black code similar to that of Kentucky, and had added to it, as lately as 1853, a law for imprisoning any black or mulatto person brought into, or coming into, the state, for the purpose of residing there, whether free or otherwise. Some litigation for the enforcement of this act was begun in Cass County in 1863, while the Civil War was in progress.[78]

FOOTNOTES:[76]Life of Garrison, by his sons,iv, 123.[77]Grant's testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary, July 18, 1867. McPherson, p. 303.[78]Journalof the Illinois State Historical Society, vol.iv, no. 4.

[76]Life of Garrison, by his sons,iv, 123.

[77]Grant's testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary, July 18, 1867. McPherson, p. 303.

[78]Journalof the Illinois State Historical Society, vol.iv, no. 4.

ANDREW JOHNSON'S FIRST MESSAGE

Said the New YorkTimes, December 6, 1865:

Probably no executive document was ever awaited with greater interest than the message transmitted to Congress yesterday. It is safe to say that none ever gave greater satisfaction when received. Its views on the most momentous subjects, domestic and foreign, that ever concerned the nation, are full of wisdom, and are conveyed with great force and dignity.

The original manuscript of the message thus eulogized was discovered nearly half a century later by Professor Dunning, of Columbia University, in the handwriting of George Bancroft, among the Johnson papers in the Library of Congress.

It remains a document creditable alike to the man who composed it and to the one who made it his own by sending it as an official communication to Congress. It breathed the spirit of peace and harmony, of justice tempered with mercy, of human kindness and helpfulness, of self-abnegation and self-restraint, all couched in the tone of high statesmanship. It adhered, however, to the opinion previously expressed by the President, that the Executive had no right to extend the suffrage to persons to whom it had not been granted by state authority.

A discriminating yet warm eulogium of the message was pronounced by the New YorkNation, which was then in the sixth month of its existence. It had criticized the President's Reconstruction acts as too hasty. Two or three months' time it considered too short to reconcile whites and blacks and teach them to respect each other'srights. Nevertheless, taken for all in all, the message was one which every American might read with pride.

We do not know [it continued] where to look in any other part of the globe, for a statesman whom we could fix upon as likely to seize the points of so great a question, and state them with so much clearness and breadth, as this Tennessee tailor who was toiling for his daily bread in the humblest of employments when the chiefs of all other countries were reaping every advantage which school, college, and social position could furnish. Those who tremble over the future of democracy may well take heart again when men like Lincoln and Johnson can at any great crisis be drawn from the poorest ranks of society, and have the destinies of the nation placed in their hands with the free assurance that their very errors will be better and wiser than the skill and wisdom of kings and nobles. For if the President were to commit to-morrow every mistake or sin which his worst enemies have ever feared, his plan of Reconstruction would still remain the brightest example of humanity, self-restraint, and sagacity ever witnessed—something to which the history of no other country offers any approach, and which it is safe to say none but a democratic society would be capable of carrying out.

The statesmanship of George Bancroft did not govern very long. The irony of fate decreed that within two months of the time when such words as the foregoing were uttered by the most competent critics in the land, the President of whom they were spoken should be in bitter strife with the majority of his own party, and within two years be facing trial by impeachment.

Andrew Johnson was born of a fighting race and in a region of fighters. He shared the poverty and ignorance of the mountaineers of East Tennessee. Hard labor was his portion in youth and early manhood. He was a tailor by trade.[79]He could read, but could not write until hewas married, when the latter accomplishment was imparted to him by his wife. With this kind of start he became, like Abraham Lincoln, and in much the same way and facing the same difficulties, a public speaker, and acquired by steady practice the faculty of making his meaning clear to the commonest understanding. When he found himself in the Senate of the United States, shortly before the outbreak of secession, he had few if any superiors as a debater in that body, and the Union had not a more unflinching defender, North or South. Alexander H. Stephens, a competent judge, considered Johnson's speech against secession the best one made in the Senate during the whole controversy. Secretary Seward, who accompanied him in his "swing around the circle" in 1866, said that he was then the best stump speaker in the country. Certainly the speech with which he began that tour at New York on the 29th of August was a great one. It fills five pages of McPherson's "History of Reconstruction." It was extemporaneous, but faultless in manner and matter; it was charged with the spirit of patriotism, and it will bear comparison with anything in the annals of American polemics. If he had made no other speech in that campaign the results might have been far different, and the Union party which elected him might have avoided the breach which soon became remediless.

The first blow leading to this breach was struck by Sumner in the Senate, December 19, 1865, when he referred to a message of the President, of the previous day, on the condition of the South, as a "whitewashing message" akin to that of President Pierce on the affairs ofKansas. When Reverdy Johnson deprecated such an assault on the President of the United States, Sumner replied that it was "no assault at all," but after two other Senators (Doolittle and Dixon) had said that it was the same as accusing the President of falsifying, he replied that he did not so intend it, but he did not withdraw or modify it.

Certain acts of Southern legislatures on the subjects of apprenticeship, vagrancy, domicile, wages, patrols, idleness, disobedience of orders, and violation of contracts on the part of laborers were early brought to the attention of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Many of these acts betokened an intention on the part of the lawmakers to reduce the freedmen to a state of serfdom or peonage. The Virginia legislature, for example, passed a vagrancy act, the ultimate effect of which, Major-General Terry said, would be to "reduce the freedmen to a condition of servitude worse than that from which they had been emancipated—a condition which will be slavery in all but its name." Whereupon the general, being in command of the military department, issued an order dated January 26, 1866, that "no magistrate, civil officer, or other person, shall, in any way or manner, apply or attempt to apply, the provisions of said statute to any colored person in this department." President Johnson refused to interfere with General Terry's order when it was brought to his attention.

On the 13th of December, Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced a bill to declare invalid all acts, ordinances, rules, and regulations in the states lately in insurrection, in which any inequality of civil rights was established between persons on account of color, race, or previous condition of servitude. The Natick cobbler was as keen and fluent a debater as the Knoxville tailor.He had a Yankee drawl in his pronunciation which detracted from the real merits of his argument, and so it came to pass that, contrary to the usual fate of extempore speaking, his speeches read better than they sounded. His speech in support of his measure on the 21st of December was in his best style. It was devoid of passion or invective. He cherished no ill-feeling toward any person, high or low, who had been engaged in the rebellion. He did not seek or desire to punish anybody. Least of all did he desire to raise an issue with the President. He wanted only peace, order, friendship, and brotherhood between North and South, as soon as possible; but there could be no peace with these statutes staring us in the face. Therefore, he demanded that they be swept into oblivion with the slave codes that had preceded them.

Wilson desired an immediate vote on his bill. Senator Sherman thought that it ought to be referred to a committee and postponed until the anti-slavery amendment of the Constitution should be officially proclaimed. Trumbull concurred with Sherman. He said:

I do not rise, sir, with a view of discussing the bill under consideration: it is one relating to questions of a very grave character, and ought not to pass without due consideration. The Senator from Massachusetts tells us that it has been submitted to distinguished lawyers, and they all conceded its propriety, and nobody disputes the power of Congress to pass it. Doubtless that was their opinion and is the opinion of the Senator from Massachusetts. Perhaps it would be my opinion upon investigation. I will not undertake to say, at this time, what the powers of the Congress of the United States may be over the people in the lately rebellious states.There was a time between the suppression of the rebellion and the institution of any kind of government in those states when it was absolutely necessary that some power or other to prevent anarchy should have control. The Senator from Delaware, and I believe the Senator from Maryland, said the rebellion was over, but at the time that the rebellion ceased there was no organized government whatever in most of the rebel states; and was the Government of the United States to withdraw its forces and leave the people in a state of anarchy for the time being? Surely not. As a consequence of the rebellion and of the authority clearly vested in the Government of the United States to put down the rebellion, in my judgment the Government had the right, in the absence of any local governments, to control and govern the people till state organizations could be set up by the people which should be recognized by the Federal Government as loyal and true to the Constitution. It must be so. It is a necessity of the condition of things.But, sir, I do not propose at this time to discuss this bill. It is one, I think, of too much importance to be passed without a reference to some committee. The bill does not go far enough, if what we have been told to-day in regard to the treatment of freedmen in the Southern States is true. The bill, perhaps, also may be premature in the sense stated by the Senator from Ohio. We have not yet the official information of the adoption of the constitutional amendment. That that amendment will be adopted, there is very little question; until it is adopted there may be some question (I do not say how the right is) as to the authority of Congress to pass such a bill as this, but after the adoption of the constitutional amendment there can be none.The second clause of that amendment was inserted for some purpose, and I would like to know of the Senator from Delaware for what purpose? Sir, for the purpose, and none other, of preventing state legislatures from enslaving, under any pretense, those whom the first clause declared should be free. It was inserted expressly for the purpose of conferring upon Congress authority by appropriate legislation to carry the first section into effect. What is the first section? It declares that throughout the United States and all places within their jurisdiction neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist; and then the second section declares that Congress shall have authority by appropriate legislation to carry this provision into effect. What that "appropriate legislation" is, is for Congress to determine, and nobody else.

There was a time between the suppression of the rebellion and the institution of any kind of government in those states when it was absolutely necessary that some power or other to prevent anarchy should have control. The Senator from Delaware, and I believe the Senator from Maryland, said the rebellion was over, but at the time that the rebellion ceased there was no organized government whatever in most of the rebel states; and was the Government of the United States to withdraw its forces and leave the people in a state of anarchy for the time being? Surely not. As a consequence of the rebellion and of the authority clearly vested in the Government of the United States to put down the rebellion, in my judgment the Government had the right, in the absence of any local governments, to control and govern the people till state organizations could be set up by the people which should be recognized by the Federal Government as loyal and true to the Constitution. It must be so. It is a necessity of the condition of things.

But, sir, I do not propose at this time to discuss this bill. It is one, I think, of too much importance to be passed without a reference to some committee. The bill does not go far enough, if what we have been told to-day in regard to the treatment of freedmen in the Southern States is true. The bill, perhaps, also may be premature in the sense stated by the Senator from Ohio. We have not yet the official information of the adoption of the constitutional amendment. That that amendment will be adopted, there is very little question; until it is adopted there may be some question (I do not say how the right is) as to the authority of Congress to pass such a bill as this, but after the adoption of the constitutional amendment there can be none.

The second clause of that amendment was inserted for some purpose, and I would like to know of the Senator from Delaware for what purpose? Sir, for the purpose, and none other, of preventing state legislatures from enslaving, under any pretense, those whom the first clause declared should be free. It was inserted expressly for the purpose of conferring upon Congress authority by appropriate legislation to carry the first section into effect. What is the first section? It declares that throughout the United States and all places within their jurisdiction neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist; and then the second section declares that Congress shall have authority by appropriate legislation to carry this provision into effect. What that "appropriate legislation" is, is for Congress to determine, and nobody else.

Mr. Saulsbury here interrupted, saying, "I wish to ask the honorable Senator a question, with his consent, first answering his own. He asks me for what purpose that second section was introduced. I do not know; I had nothing to do with it. And now I wish to ask the honorable Senator whether, when it was before this body for adoption, he avowed in his advocacy of it that it was meant for such purposes as are now claimed."

Then the following colloquy ensued:

Mr. Trumbull.I never understood it in any other way.Mr. Saulsbury.Did you state it to the Senate?Mr. Trumbull.I do not know that I stated it to the Senate. I might as well have stated to the Senator from Delaware that the clause which declared that Slavery should not exist anywhere within the United States means that slavery should not exist within the United States! I could make it no plainer by repetition or illustration than the statement itself makes it. I reported from the Judiciary Committee the second section of the constitutional amendment for the very purpose of conferring upon Congress authority to see that the first section was carried out in good faith, and for none other; and I hold that under that second section Congress will have the authority, when the constitutional amendment is adopted, not only to pass the bill of the Senator from Massachusetts, but a bill that will be much more efficient to protect the freedman in his rights. We may, if deemed advisable, continue the Freedmen's Bureau, clothe it with additional powers, and if necessary back it up with a military force, to see that the rights of the men made free by the first clause of the constitutional amendment are protected. And, sir, when the constitutional amendment shall have been adopted, if the information from the South be that the men whose liberties are secured by it are deprived of the privilege to go and come when they please, to buy and sell when they please, to make contracts and enforce contracts, I give notice that, if no one else does, I shall introduce a bill and urge its passage through Congress that will secure to those men every one of these rights: they would not be freemen without them. It is idle to say that a man is free who cannot go and come at pleasure, who cannot buy and sell, who cannot enforce his rights. These are rights which the first clause of the constitutional amendment meant to secure to all; and to prevent the very cavil which the Senator from Delaware suggests to-day, that Congress would not have power to secure them, the second section of the amendment was added.There were some persons who thought it was unnecessary to add the second clause. It was said by some that wherever a power was conferred upon Congress there was also conferred authority to pass the necessary laws to carry that power into effect, under the general clause in the Constitution of the United States which declares that Congress shall have authority to pass all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution any of the powers conferred by the Constitution. I think Congress would have had the power, even without the second clause, to pass all laws necessary to give effect to the provision making all persons free; but it was intended to put it beyond cavil and dispute, and that was the object of the second clause, and I cannot conceive how any other construction can be put upon it.Now, sir, I trust that this bill may be referred, because I think that a bill of this character should not pass without deliberate consideration and without going to some of the committees of the Senate. But the object which is had in view by this bill I heartily sympathize with, and when the constitutional amendment is adopted I trust we may pass a bill, if the action of the people in the Southern States should make it necessary, that will be much more sweeping and efficient than the bill under consideration. I will not sit down, however, without expressing the hope that no such legislation may be necessary. I trust that the people of the South, who in their state constitutions have declared that slavery shall no more exist among them, will by their own legislation make that provision effective. I trust there may be a feeling among them in harmony with the feeling throughout the country, and which shall not only abolish slavery in name, but in fact, and that the legislation of the slave states in after years may be as effective to elevate, enlighten, and improve the African as it has been in past years to enslave and degrade him.[80]

Mr. Trumbull.I never understood it in any other way.

Mr. Saulsbury.Did you state it to the Senate?

Mr. Trumbull.I do not know that I stated it to the Senate. I might as well have stated to the Senator from Delaware that the clause which declared that Slavery should not exist anywhere within the United States means that slavery should not exist within the United States! I could make it no plainer by repetition or illustration than the statement itself makes it. I reported from the Judiciary Committee the second section of the constitutional amendment for the very purpose of conferring upon Congress authority to see that the first section was carried out in good faith, and for none other; and I hold that under that second section Congress will have the authority, when the constitutional amendment is adopted, not only to pass the bill of the Senator from Massachusetts, but a bill that will be much more efficient to protect the freedman in his rights. We may, if deemed advisable, continue the Freedmen's Bureau, clothe it with additional powers, and if necessary back it up with a military force, to see that the rights of the men made free by the first clause of the constitutional amendment are protected. And, sir, when the constitutional amendment shall have been adopted, if the information from the South be that the men whose liberties are secured by it are deprived of the privilege to go and come when they please, to buy and sell when they please, to make contracts and enforce contracts, I give notice that, if no one else does, I shall introduce a bill and urge its passage through Congress that will secure to those men every one of these rights: they would not be freemen without them. It is idle to say that a man is free who cannot go and come at pleasure, who cannot buy and sell, who cannot enforce his rights. These are rights which the first clause of the constitutional amendment meant to secure to all; and to prevent the very cavil which the Senator from Delaware suggests to-day, that Congress would not have power to secure them, the second section of the amendment was added.

There were some persons who thought it was unnecessary to add the second clause. It was said by some that wherever a power was conferred upon Congress there was also conferred authority to pass the necessary laws to carry that power into effect, under the general clause in the Constitution of the United States which declares that Congress shall have authority to pass all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution any of the powers conferred by the Constitution. I think Congress would have had the power, even without the second clause, to pass all laws necessary to give effect to the provision making all persons free; but it was intended to put it beyond cavil and dispute, and that was the object of the second clause, and I cannot conceive how any other construction can be put upon it.

Now, sir, I trust that this bill may be referred, because I think that a bill of this character should not pass without deliberate consideration and without going to some of the committees of the Senate. But the object which is had in view by this bill I heartily sympathize with, and when the constitutional amendment is adopted I trust we may pass a bill, if the action of the people in the Southern States should make it necessary, that will be much more sweeping and efficient than the bill under consideration. I will not sit down, however, without expressing the hope that no such legislation may be necessary. I trust that the people of the South, who in their state constitutions have declared that slavery shall no more exist among them, will by their own legislation make that provision effective. I trust there may be a feeling among them in harmony with the feeling throughout the country, and which shall not only abolish slavery in name, but in fact, and that the legislation of the slave states in after years may be as effective to elevate, enlighten, and improve the African as it has been in past years to enslave and degrade him.[80]

On the 18th of December the adoption of the anti-slavery amendment was officially announced. On the same day the President sent to the Senate two reports on the condition of affairs, and the state of opinion, in the South,—a very brief one from Lieutenant-General Grant and a much longer one from Major-General Carl Schurz. The former was an incidental result of a three weeks' tour of inspection for military purposes.

General Grant had spent one day in Raleigh, North Carolina, two days in Charleston, South Carolina, and one day each in Savannah and Augusta, Georgia. The substance of his report was that he did not think it practicable to withdraw the military at present; that the citizens of the Southern States were anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as possible; that they were in earnest in wishing to do what they supposed was required of them by the Government and not humiliating to them as citizens.

I am satisfied [he said] that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. The questions which have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections—slavery and state rights, or the right of a state to secede from the Union—they regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal—arms—that man can resort to. I was pleased to learn from the leading men whom I met that they not only accepted the decision arrived at as final, but, now that the smoke of battle has cleared away and time has been given for reflection, that this decision has been a fortunate one for the whole country, they receiving like benefits from it with those who opposed them in the field and in council.

He alluded to a belief widely spread among the freedmen that the lands of their former owners were to be divided, in part at least, among them and that this belief was seriously interfering with their willingness to make labor contracts for the ensuing year. Then he added:

In some instances, I am sorry to say, the freedman's mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future. The effect of the belief in the division of lands is idleness and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities. In such cases, I think, it will be found that vice and disease will tend to the extermination or great reduction of the colored race. It cannot be expected that the opinions held by men at the South for years can be changed in a day; and, therefore, the freedmen require for a few years not only laws to protect them, but the fostering care of those who will give them good counsel and on whom they can rely.

General Schurz's investigation had been made at the special request of the President. He had spent three months in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The President, when appointing him, had said that his own policy of Reconstruction was merely experimental and subject to change if it did not lead to satisfactory results. Schurz says in his "Reminiscences?"[81]that when he returned to Washington from his journey he had much difficulty in procuring an interview with the President; that the latter received him coldly and did not ask him for the results of his investigation; and that when he (Schurz) said that he intended to write a report, the President said that he need not take that trouble on his account. Schurz was convinced that the President wished to suppress his testimony and he resolved that he should not do so. He accordingly wrote the report and sent it in, with the accompanying documents, and let his friends in the Senate know that he had done so. On the 12th of December the Senate, on Sumner's motion, called for the report. The President did not respond immediately. In the mean time he had had a conversation with General Grant whose views were forthe most part in accord with his own, and he asked the latter to communicate the information he had gained during his Southern tour in order to make it a part of his reply to the Senate Resolution. The reply occupies only one page and a half of McPherson's "Reconstruction." Schurz's consists of forty-four printed pages of text and fifty-eight pages of appendix; Schurz considered this the best paper he had ever written on a public matter, and there can be no doubt that it had great influence in Congress and on the Republican party. Yet the brief report of Grant was the sounder of the two. Indeed, Schurz himself in his later years had doubts as to the validity of his own conclusions.[82]

Schurz's conclusions may be summarized thus:

If nothing were necessary but to restore the machinery of government in the states lately in rebellion in point of form, the movements made to that end by the people of the South might be considered satisfactory. But if it is required that the Southern people should also accommodate themselves to the result of the war in point of spirit, those movements fall far short of what must be insisted upon....The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But although the freedman is no longer considered the property of the individual master, he is considered the slave of society, andall independent state legislation will share the tendency to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery, passed by the conventions under pressure of circumstances, will not be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude.Practical attempts on the part of the Southern people to deprive the negro of his rights as a freeman may result in bloody collisions, and will certainly plunge Southern society into restless fluctuations and anarchical confusion. Such evils can be prevented only by continuing the control of the National Government in the states lately in rebellion until free labor is fully developed and firmly established, and the advantages and blessings of the new order of things have disclosed themselves. This desirable result will be hastened by a firm declaration, on the part of the Government, that national control in the South will not cease until such results are secured....The solution of the problem would be very much facilitated by enabling all the loyal and free-labor elements in the South to exercise a healthy influence upon legislation. It will hardly be possible to secure the freedman against oppressive class legislation and private persecution, unless he be endowed with a certain measure of political power.

The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But although the freedman is no longer considered the property of the individual master, he is considered the slave of society, andall independent state legislation will share the tendency to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery, passed by the conventions under pressure of circumstances, will not be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude.

Practical attempts on the part of the Southern people to deprive the negro of his rights as a freeman may result in bloody collisions, and will certainly plunge Southern society into restless fluctuations and anarchical confusion. Such evils can be prevented only by continuing the control of the National Government in the states lately in rebellion until free labor is fully developed and firmly established, and the advantages and blessings of the new order of things have disclosed themselves. This desirable result will be hastened by a firm declaration, on the part of the Government, that national control in the South will not cease until such results are secured....

The solution of the problem would be very much facilitated by enabling all the loyal and free-labor elements in the South to exercise a healthy influence upon legislation. It will hardly be possible to secure the freedman against oppressive class legislation and private persecution, unless he be endowed with a certain measure of political power.

It is fitting to notice here a letter written by Hon. J. L. M. Curry, of Alabama, to Senator Doolittle and read by him in the Senate on April 6, 1866.

I was [said Mr. Curry] a secessionist, for a while a member of the Confederate Congress, and afterward in the army, on the staff of generals, or in command of a regiment. It would be merest affectation to pretend that I was not somewhat prominent as a secessionist.... Having laid the predicate for my competency, I desire to aver, as a gentleman, and a Christian, I hope, that with large personal intercourse with the people and those who are suspected of rebel intentions, I never heard (of course, since the surrender) of any conspiracy or movement or society or purpose, secret or public, present or prospective, to overthrow the United States Government, to resist its authority, toreënslave the negroes, or in any manner to disturb the relations that now exist between the Southern States as constituent elements of the Federal Government and that Government, until I read of such intentions recently in Northern newspapers.With perfect certainty as to the truth of my affirmation, I can state that there is not a sane or sober man in Alabama who believes or expects that African slavery will be reëstablished. As unalterable facts, the people accept the abolition of slavery, the extinction of the right of secession, and the supremacy of the Federal Government. It is as idle, a thousand times more so, to speak of another contemplated resistance to Federal authority as to anticipate the overthrow of the British Government by the Fenians.[83]

Mr. Curry's words were true, but at the time when they were written the weight of testimony available at Washington and in the North generally was of a contrary sort, and Mr. Curry counted for no more at the national capital than any other disarmed secessionist. At a later period he became known to the North as one of the great benefactors of his time and country, especially noted for his labors in educating and upbuilding both races in the Southern States.[84]

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