The veto message was a very able document. In all official papers of importance the President appeared at his best. He had the inestimable advantage of Mr. Seward's calm temper and of his attractive and forcible statement of the proper argument. Few among the public men of the United States have rivaled Mr. Seward in the dignity, felicity, and vigor which he imparted to an official paper. No one ever surpassed him. In the veto message under consideration his hand was evident in every paragraph; and if it had been President Johnson's good fortune to go down to posterity on this single issue with Congress, he might confidently have anticipated the verdict of history in his favor. The delicate, almost humourous sarcasm in the closing words above quoted from the message, afford a good specimen of Mr. Seward's facility of stating the gravest of organic propositions in a form attractive to the general reader. He wrote as one who felt that in this particular issue with Congress, whatever might be the adverse votes of the Senate and House, time would be sure to vindicate the position of the President. But the message did not arrest the action, indeed scarcely the attention, of Congress, and the bill was promptly, even hurriedly, passed over the veto,—in the Senate by 35ayesto 11noes;in the House by 133ayesto 37noes.
The bill was not passed, however, without considerable misgiving on the part of many members of both Houses who voted for it. It was an extreme proposition,—a new departure from the long-established usage of the Federal Government, and for that reason, if for no other, personally degrading to the incumbent of the Presidential office. It could only have grown out of the abnormal excitement created by the dissensions between the two great Departments of the Government. The bitterness engendered resembled that which always distinguishes a family quarrel. The measure was resorted to as one of self-defense against the alleged aggressions and the unrestrained power of the Executive Department. But the history of its operation, and of its subsequent modification, which practically amounted to its repeal, is one to which the Republican party cannot recur with any sense of pride or satisfaction. As matter of fact, a Republican Congress, largely composed of the same members who had enacted the law, indirectly confessed two years later that it could not be maintained. Regarded only in the light of expediency at the time, it could readily be demonstrated (as was afterwards admitted by candid men among those who supported it) to be a blunder,—a blunder all the more censurable because the Act was not needed to uphold the Reconstruction policy of Congress, in aid of which it was devised. That policy relied for its vindication upon the judgment and conscience of the loyal people, and it was an impeachment of their good faith to say that either could be affected by the removal of one man, or of many men, from official position under the Federal Government. The Reconstruction policy stood upon a strong and enduring principle,—as strong and enduring as the question of human right,—and was sustained with vigor and enthusiasm by the great party which was responsible for the war measures that had saved the Union. The same sentiment did not attach to the Tenure-of-office Law, which indeed was only the cause of subsequent humiliation to all who had taken part in its enactment.(2)
It was part of the fixed policy of Mr. Lincoln's administration to increase the number of distinctively free States from that section of the public domain which had never been in any way contaminated by the institution of slavery. To this end he was anxious to encourage the settlement of the Territories already organized west of the Missouri river. To provide for the still more rapid creation of North-western States, two additional Territories, Idaho and Montana, were organized from the area which had been included in Dakota. Mr. Lincoln's evident motive was to place beyond the calculation, or even the hope of the disloyal States the possibility of ever again having sufficient political power to compete in the Senate for the mastery of the Republic. He was persuaded that the sectional contest would be fatally pursued as long as the chimerical idea of equality in the Senate should stimulate Southern ambition. He knew, moreover, that the war could not close with victory for the Union, without the proposal of certain changes in the Constitution, and to this end it was desirable that the loyal States should as early and as nearly as possible constitute three-fourths of the entire Union. With this motive, he had towards the close of his first term, somewhat prematurely it was believed by many, stimulated the desire of the settlers of Nevada for a State government. He had faith not only in the justice, but in the popularity, of this policy; for he took pains to issue the proclamation declaring Nevada a State in the Union only a week preceding the Presidential election of 1864, when the existence of his administration was at stake, and when every public measure was scanned with special scrutiny.
Nebraska had been organized as a Territory in the original Douglas bill repealing the Missouri Compromise, in 1854; and Colorado was made a Territory the week preceding Mr. Lincoln's first inauguration. After Nevada, these Territories offered the earliest promise of becoming States. They were both parts of the old Louisiana purchase from France, and had in popular estimation and in the classification of the earlier geographers been included within the borders of the Great American Desert. But settlers has swarmed upon the plains of Nebraska, and the waving fields of grain and the innumerable herds of cattle browsing on her rich pasture-land soon dispelled that misconception, and gave promise of the prosperous development which the State has since attained. Earlier than the farmer or the grazier could reach its soil, Colorado was settled by an intelligent mining population, whose industry has extracted from her mountains more than two hundred millions of the precious metals, contributed in the last quarter of a century to the wealth of the world. Encouraged by the policy of the Administration, and especially by the precedent of Nevada, both Territories sought an enabling Act from Congress in the winter of 1862-63. Neither succeeded at the time; but in the next Congress a bill "to enable the people of Colorado to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of said State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States," passed both Houses, and was approved by Mr. Lincoln of the 21st of March, 1864. A month later (April 19, 1864) a similar bill for Nebraska was signed by the President.
It appeared that the citizens of each Territory who had been forward in asking an enabling Act from Congress were somewhat in advance of popular sentiment, for when the question of forming a State government was submitted to direct vote in Colorado it was rejected, and the same action was taken in Nebraska. But soon afterward (in the year 1865) the movement for a State government gained strength in both Territories. Through duly organized conventions and the formation and adoption of State constitutions, the people indicated a willingness, if not an active desire, to be admitted to the Union. In Colorado 5,895 votes were cast when the constitution was submitted, and the majority in favor of the new State was but 155. William Gilpin was elected governor, and John Evans and Jerome W. Chaffee were chosen senators of the United States. But when the new senators reached Washington (early in the year 1866) they found that the policy of the National Administration on the subject of new States had changed, and that instead of a friend in the White House, as Mr. Lincoln had steadily proved, they had a determined opponent in the person of Mr. Johnson. Congress with reasonable promptness passed the bill in both Houses for the admission of Colorado, though it was opposed by the more radical class of Republicans because negroes were excluded from the right of suffrage. It is a striking illustration of the rapid change of public sentiment, that in the winter and early spring of 1866 a bill containing that provision could pass a Congress in which the Republicans had more than two-thirds of the membership of each branch, whereas in less than a year negro suffrage was required as the condition of re-admission of the Southern States.
The Colorado bill passed the Senate by a vote of nineteen to thirteen, and the House by eighty-one to fifty-seven. It reached the President on the fifth day of May and was promptly vetoed. Mr. Johnson did not believe that the establishment of a state government was necessary to the welfare of the people of Colorado; "nor was it satisfactorily established that a majority of the citizens of Colorado desire, or are prepared for, an exchange of the Territorial for a State government." He thought that Colorado, instead of increasing, had declined in population. "At an election for a Territorial Legislature in 1861, 10,580 votes were cast; at an election in 1864 only 6,192 votes were cast; while at the election of 1865 only 5,905 votes have been cast." He said, "I regret this apparent decline of population in Colorado, but it is manifest that it is due to emigration which is going out from that Territory into other regions of the United States, which either are in fact, or are believed to be by the citizens of Colorado, richer in mineral wealth and agricultural resources." The President commented upon the injustice of creating from so small a population a State with senatorial strength equal to that of the largest State in the Union. He thought Colorado did not have a population of more than twenty thousand persons "whereas one hundred and twenty-seven thousand are required in other States for a single representative in Congress." The President did not neglect his one constant theme—the unrepresented condition of the Southern States. He insisted that "so long as eleven of the old States remain unrepresented in Congress, no new State should be prematurely and unnecessarily admitted to a participation in the political power which the Federal Government wields." The strong minority which had opposed the Colorado bill gave no hope of overriding the President's veto, which was simply laid on the table and ordered to be printed.
The bill for the admission of Nebraska came later in the session, not being introduced for consideration until the 23d of July. It passed very promptly by a vote of twenty-four to eighteen in the Senate, and by sixty-two to fifty-two in the House. As in the case of Colorado the constitution excluded the negro from the right of suffrage, and for that reason a very considerable proportion of the Republicans of each branch voted against the bill. The vote was so close in the House that but for a frank and persuasive statement made by Mr. Rice of Maine, from the Committee on Territories, it would have been defeated. He pictured the many evils that would come to the people of Nebraska, now more than sixty thousand in number, if they could not do for themselves, as a State, many things which the National Government would not do for them as a Territory. Under the influence of his speech a majority of ten was found for the bill, but Congress adjourned the day after it was finally passed by both branches, and the President quietly "pocketed" the bill; and thus the earnest and prolonged effort to create two new States came to naught for the time.
Nothing daunted by the President's veto of the bill admitting Colorado, and his pocketing the bill admitting Nebraska, Mr. Wade promptly introduced both bills anew, at the beginning of the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress. The case of Nebraska was, in popular judgment, stronger than the case of Colorado. The population was larger, and being devoted to agriculture, was naturally regarded as more stable than that of Colorado, which was based principally upon the somewhat fortuitous discovery of mines of the precious metals. But there was an admitted political embarrassment in regard to both Territories, the principal debate on which occurred when the bill admitting Nebraska was under consideration. Congress was, at the time, engaged in passing the Reconstruction Act for the States lately in rebellion, and had made it imperative that negroes should be endowed with suffrage by those States. While insisting on this condition for the Southern States it was obviously impossible for Congress to admit two Northern States with constitutions prohibiting suffrage to the negro. In the months of the Congressional vacation public opinion in the North had made great strides on this question.
A minority of Republicans were intent on sending the bill back and having the question of negro suffrage submitted for popular decision, but in the opinion of the majority of the party this was a needless postponement of a pressing question, and all propositions looking to such postponement were rejected. A final compromise of views was reached, by inserting in the Act of admission an additional section declaring "that this Act shall not take effect except upon the fundamental condition that within the State of Nebraska there shall be no denial of the elective franchise or of any other right to any person, by reason of race or color, excepting Indians not taxed; and upon the further fundamental condition that the Legislature of said State, by a solemn public act, shall declare the assent of said State to the said fundamental condition and shall transmit to the President of the United States an authentic copy of said Act." When notified of this solemn public act by the Legislature, it was made the duty of the President to announce the fact by proclamation, and thereupon the admission of the State to the Union, without further proceedings of Congress, was to be considered complete. The objection to this compromise by those who opposed it and by others who reluctantly supported it, was that it did not have the force of Organic Law; that the proposed act of the Legislature would not be rendered any more binding by reason of being called a solemn act, and that it might be repealed by any subsequent Legislature. Much argument was expended upon this point, but the general judgment was that an act of the Legislature, made in pursuance of such an understanding with Congress, was in the nature of a compact which, without discussing the question of power, would certainly be regarded as binding upon the State. With this understanding, Congress passed a bill admitting the State, but the vote in both branches was divided on the line of party.
This action was accomplished late in January (1867), and on the 29th of that month the President vetoed the bill. He objected especially to the clause just referred to, because it was an addition to the enabling Act which Congress had no moral right to make, and because it required of Nebraska a condition not theretofore required of States, —contradicting flatly the declaration of the first section of the bill, in which the State was declared to be "admitted into the Union upon an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever." He argued that the imposition of the condition prescribed in the bill, and its acceptance by the Legislature, was practically a change in the organic law of the State without consulting the people, which he regarded as an innovation upon the safe practice of the Government. But his arguments fell upon unwilling ears, and the bill was passed over the veto by a vote of thirty to nine in the Senate, and in the House by one hundred and twenty to forty-three.
Colorado did not fare so well. The bill was passed by both branches of Congress, though not with so full a vote nor with so much confidence in the propriety and necessity of the measure. Precisely the same condition in regard to suffrage was inserted as in the case of the Nebraska bill. It met with a prompt veto, more elaborately argued and presented with more confidence by the President than in the case of Nebraska. He said, "I cannot perceive and reason for the admission of Colorado that would not apply with equal force to nearly every other Territory now organized, and I submit whether, if this bill becomes a law, it will be possible to resist the logical conclusion that such Territories as Dakota, Montana, and Idaho must be received as States whenever they present themselves, without regard to the number of inhabitants they may respectively contain." He dwelt forcibly upon the necessity of requiring population enough to secure one representative. "The plain facts of our history," said he, "will attest that the leading States admitted since 1845, namely, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, and Kansas (including Texas, which was admitted in that year), have all come in with an ample population for one representative, and some of them with nearly, if not quite, enough for two."
There were really no facts before Congress tending to prove the existence of those great resources which have since advanced Colorado so rapidly in population and prosperity. Little was known of the Territory. It was several hundred miles beyond the Western border of continuous settlement, and the men who came from it were regarded as adventurous pioneers on the very outposts of civilization. Under this condition of affairs it is not strange that the Senate failed to pass the bill for the admission of the State over the veto of the President. Edmunds, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Morgan, and some other Republicans, less prominent, voted in the negative. The result was twenty-nine in favor of passing it over the veto, and nineteen against. Defeated in the Senate the bill did not go to the House, and the admission of Colorado was by this action postponed for several years.
The President gave specious reasons for his vetoes, especially in the case of Colorado, but they did not conceal the fact that his position was radically different from that which Mr. Lincoln had held—radically different from the position which he would himself had assumed if he had maintained in good faith the principles he had professed when he secured the suffrages of the Republican party for the Vice-Presidency. Having allied himself with the South and compromised his patriotic record by espousing the cause he had so hotly opposed, he naturally adopted all its principles and its worst prejudices. For nearly half a century the leading exponents of Southern sentiment had been envious of the growth of the free North-West, and so far as lay in their power they had obstructed it—being unwilling for a long period to admit one of its giant Territories to the Union until its power could be politically offset by one of less population and wealth in the South. Mr. Johnson in his new associations at once adopted this jealous and ungenerous policy—which had indeed lost something of its significance by the abolition of slavery, but was still stimulated by partisan considerations and was invariable hostile to the admission of a Republican State. The most bitter prejudices could not blind Mr. Johnson or the Southern leaders to the inevitable growth of free commonwealths in the North-West, but it seemed to be an object with both to keep them from participation in the government of the Union so long as possible, and to accomplish this end by every expedient that could be adopted.
An Act in relation to the President's power to grant pardon and amnesty, passed at this session, was more important in its spirit than in its results. By the thirteenth section of the Confiscation Act of July 17, 1862, the President was authorized, at any time, by proclamation, "to extend to any persons who may have participated in the existing rebellion in any state or part thereof, pardon and amnesty." Under a suspension of the rules, the House of Representatives, by a vote of one hundred and twelve to twenty-nine, repealed this section on the first day of the session (December 3, 1866). There was anxiety on the part of many, under the lead of Mr. Chandler of Michigan, to repeal it so promptly in the Senate, but it was referred to the Judiciary Committee and passed after discussion. Mr. Chandler said, "It is a notorious fact, as notorious as the records of a court, that pardons have been for sale around this town, for sale by women—by more than one woman. The records of your court in the District of Columbia show this. Any senator who desires this disgraceful business to go on, of course desired that this clause shall remain."
The repeal of the clause, however, would not take from the President his constitutional power of pardoning, but in the judgment of Mr. Trumbull, who had charge of the bill in the Senate, it took from him the power to pardon by proclamation and confined him to his right of issuing individual pardons. The difference between pardon and amnesty was defined by Mr. Trumbull. Pardon is an act of mercy extended to an individual. It must be by deed. It must be pleaded. According to Chief Justice Marshall, it is essential to its validity that it be delivered to the person pardoned. But an amnesty is a general pardon by proclamation. Mr. Trumbull thought the repeal would be a "valuable expression of opinion on the part of Congress that general pardons and restoration of property will not be continued, and if they President continues to pardon rebels and restore their property by individual acts under the Constitution, let him do so without having the sanction of Congress for his act."
Mr. Reverdy Johnson took issue with Mr. Trumbull. He maintained that the President's powers to grant pardons, as conferred by the Constitution, had not been affected by the provision of law whose repeal was now urged. He declared that the power of the President "to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States" was as broad, as general, as unrestricted as language could make it. He could find no logical ground for the distinction made by Mr. Trumbull between individual pardons and general amnesties by proclamation—in illustration of which he said President Washington had by proclamation pardoned the offenders engaged in the Whiskey Insurrection. The enactment of the provision had not, in Mr. Johnson's opinion, enlarged the President's pardoning power, and its repeal would not restrict it.
It was thought that a majority of the Senate concurred in Mr. Johnson's interpretation of the Constitution, but they passed the bill as a rebuke to the scandalous sale of pardons which Mr. Chandler had brought to the attention of the Senate. This vile practice had no doubt been pursued to some extent, but only by a class of "middle men" who had neither honor nor sensibility. They had in some form the opportunity to secure the interposition of men who could reach the ear of the President or the Attorney-General. It is hardly necessary to add that neither of those high officials was in the remotest degree reflected upon even by their bitterest opponents. However wrong-headed Mr. Johnson and Mr. Stanbery might have been considered on certain political issues, the personal integrity of both was unblemished. It was believed that the nefarious practice was stopped by Mr. Chandler's action in the Senate. Exposure made public men careful to examine each application for pardon before they would consent to recommend it to the President.
The President neither approved the bill nor objected to it, but allowed it to become a law by the expiration of the Constitutional limit of ten days. He obviously took the same view that had been advanced by Mr. Reverdy Johnson, and did not take the trouble to sign it, much less to veto it. It wasbrutum fulmen, and the President used his Constitutional power to pardon by proclamation just as freely after its enactment as before.
[NOTE.—"Pocketing a bill" is the phrase commonly used to describe the President's course when he permits a bill which reaches him within the last ten days of the session, to die without action on his part. It is frequently termed the "pocket veto."]
[(1) The original Reconstruction Act and the several supplementary Acts are given in full in Appendix A.]
[(2) The full text of the Act to regulate the tenure of certain civil offices, is given in Appendix B.]
The Fortieth Congress met at the very moment the Thirty-ninth closed—on the fourth day of March, 1867. The valedictory words of the presiding officers in both branches were followed immediately by the calling to order of the succeeding bodies. The contest between the President and Congress had grown so violent, the mutual distrust had become so complete, that the latter was unwilling to have its power suspended for the customary vacation of nine months between the 4th of March and the first Monday of the ensuing December; and therefore at the preceding session a law had been passed directing that each Congress should be organized immediately after the existence of its predecessor had closed. The Republican leaders felt that without the supervising and counteracting power of Congress, full force and effect might not be given to the Reconstruction laws by the President; that they might possibly be neutralized by hostile action from the office of the Attorney-General, and that for this reason it would be well, nay, it was imperatively demanded, that the legislative power should be kept ready to interpose with fresh enactments, the very moment those already in force should be dulled by adverse construction, or haltingly administered by Executive agents not in sympathy with the policy of Congress.
The membership of the Fortieth Congress was changed in some important respects in both branches. Simon Cameron, at sixty-eight years of age, returned from Pennsylvania as the successor of Edgar Cowan in the Senate. It was the third time he had entered that body, and now, as it proved, for a longer period than ever before.—Roscoe Conkling, who had been steadily growing in strength, with the Republican party of New York, was transferred from the House and took the seat of Ira Harris.—Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, after twelve years of useful and honorable service in the House, was now promoted to the Senate for a still longer and equally honorable and useful service in that body.—Oliver P. Morton, bearing his great reputation as the War Governor of Indiana, now took the seat of Henry S. Lane, whom, six years before, he had succeeded in the gubernatorial chair of his State.—James W. Patterson of New Hampshire had grown rapidly in favor by four years' service in the House and now entered the Senate as the successor of Daniel Clark.—Orris S. Ferry, who but for physical disability would have acquired wider fame, succeeded Lafayette S. Foster as senator from Connecticut.—James Harlan returned from Iowa after a somewhat extraordinary experience with the President during his two years' absence.—Charles D. Drake, fresh from bitter political controversies, entered from Missouri as the successor of B. Gratz Brown.—Cornelius Cole, who had already served in the House, came from California.—Henry W. Corbett, a successful merchant, came from Oregon. The Senate on the whole had received valuable accessions. Some of the men who entered that day became prominent and influential in the public councils for many years.
The House also received some noteworthy additions among the new members. Two marked men from the North-West, who had served as representatives in opposing parties, before the Rebellion, now returned as members of the same political organization, having in the four intervening years acquired great distinction in the war for the Union —John A. Logan of Illinois, and Cadwalader C. Washburn of Wisconsin.—Grenville M. Dodge, who had attained high rank in the volunteer service, entered from Iowa.—Norman B. Judd, who had gained much influence by his long membership of the State Senate of Illinois between 1844 and 1860, and by his service as minister to Berlin under Mr. Lincoln, now came from one of the Chicago districts.
The New-York delegation was strengthened by the advent of some new men. —Dennis McCarthy, an enterprising and successful merchant, with wide knowledge of public affairs, entered from the Syracuse district. He proved a most intelligent and useful member of the House, as he already had of the Legislature of New York. His ability, his industry, and his broadly liberal views have given him a high standing among the people of his State.—William H. Robertson entered at the same time from the Westchester district. He was a member of the House for only a single term, but he left a clear imprint of the high character which has since been put to severe tests and was never found wanting. Able and frank, conscientious and careful in the discharge of every trust, Mr. Robertson has established a reputation without spot or blemish.—Orange Ferriss, since of honorable repute as one of the Auditors in the Treasury Department, John C. Churchill, who had already attained a good standing at the Bar, and Addison H. Laflin, afterwards appointed to an important customs office in the city of New York, all entered at this session.
John Coburn, who had made a good record in the war, came from the State of Indiana. Firm and tenacious in his opinions, even to the point of obstinacy, he was for years an active and useful representative of the people. He could not be deflected from what he regarded as the line of duty and he soon acquired the respect of both sides of the House.—Morton C. Hunter, who had done good service in the Army of the Tennessee, as Colonel of an Indiana regiment, and afterwards commanded a brigade in Sherman's Atlanta campaign, now entered from the Bloomington district.—Austin Blair, who had won great praise as Governor of Michigan during the war, now entered as representative from the Jackson district. He exhibited talent in debate, was distinguished for industry in the work of the House and for inflexible integrity in all his duties. He was not a party man in the ordinary sense of the word, but was inclined rather to independence of thought and action. This habit separated him from many friends who had wished to promote his political ambition, and estranged him for a time from the Republican party. But it never lost him the confidence of his neighbors and friends, and did not impair the good reputation he had earned in his public career.—George A. Halsey, a successful manufacturer and a most intelligent, worthy man, entered from the Newark district of New Jersey, bringing to the House a thorough and valuable knowledge of the trade relations of the country, both domestic and foreign.—The New-Hampshire delegation, not present at the organization of the House, had been entirely changed by the late election. Aaron F. Stevens, a lawyer of high standing, Jacob H. Ela, afterwards for many years an Auditor in the Treasury Department, and Jacob Benton, well known in the politics of his State, were the new members.—Worthington C. Smith, an experienced man of affairs, entered from Vermont as the successor Justin S. Morrill.—Henry L. Cake, an enthusiastic representative of the Pennsylvania Germans and of the anthracite-coal minters, came from the Schuylkill district.—Green B. Raum, afterward for a considerable period Commissioner of Internal Revenue, entered from Illinois.—William A. Pile and Carman A. Newcomb, two active and earnest young Republicans, came as representatives of the city of St. Louis.
Benjamin F. Butler now took his seat in Congress for the first time. He was sent from a Massachusetts district of which he was not a resident, thus breaking a long established and approved custom. Though his military career had been the subject of adverse and bitter criticism, it had been marked by certain features which pleased the people, and he came out of the war with an extraordinary popularity in the loyal States. He engaged at once in political strife. During the canvass against the President's policy in 1866 he went through the country, it may with truth be said, at the head of a triumphal procession. He was received everywhere with a remarkable display of enthusiasm, and was fortunate in commending himself to the good will of the most radical section of the Republican party. He naturally affiliated with that side because it never was General Butler's habit to be moderate in the advocacy of any public policy. When he was a Democrat he sustained the extreme Southern wing of the party with all his force and zeal; and when the course of his political associates pointed to a disruption of the Government he turned upon them with savage hostility, declared without hesitation for the support of the Union, offered his services as a soldier, and was constantly in the vanguard of those who demanded the most aggressive and most destructive measures in the prosecution of the war. He entered Congress, therefore, with apparent advantages and in the full maturity of his powers, at forty-nine years of age.
—General Butler had long been regarded as a powerful antagonist at the bar and he fully maintained his reputation in the parliamentary conflicts in which he became at once involved. He exhibited an extraordinary capacity for agitation, possessing in a high degree what John Randolph described as the "talent for turbulence." His mind was never at rest. While not appearing to seek controversies, he possessed a singular power of throwing the House into turmoil and disputation. The stormier the scene, the greater his apparent enjoyment and the more striking the display of his peculiar ability. His readiness of repartee, his great resources of information, his familiarity with all the expedients and subtleties of logical and illogical discussion, contributed to make him not only prominent but formidable in the House for many years. He was distinguished by habits of industry, had the patience and the power required for thorough investigation, and seemed to possess a keen insight into the personal defects, the motives, and the weaknesses of his rivals. He was audacious in assault, apparently reckless in his modes of defense, and in all respects a debater of strong and notable characteristics. Usually merciless in his treatment of an aggressive adversary, he not infrequently displayed generous and even magnanimous traits. He had the faculty of attaching to himself, almost as a personal following, those members of the House who never came in conflict with him, while he regarded his intellectual peers of both political parties as natural foes whom he was destined at some time to meet in combat, and for whose overthrow he seemed to be in constant preparation.
Another marked character came from New England,—John A. Peters of Maine,—a graduate of Yale, a man of ability, of humor, of learning in the law. He had enjoyed the advantage of a successful career at the bar and was by long training and indeed by instinct devoted to his profession. In his six years' service in the House he acquired among his fellow-members a personal popularity and personal influence rarely surpassed in Congressional experience. He made no long speeches and was not frequently on the floor, but when he rose he spoke forcibly, aptly, attractively, and with that unerring sense of justice which always carried him to the right side of a question, with unmistakable influence upon the best judgment of the House. Since his retirement from Congress his career on the Supreme Bench of Maine, and more recently as its Chief Justice, has given roundness and completeness to a character whose integrity, generosity, and candor have attracted not only the confidence and respect of an entire State, but the devoted attachment of a continually enlarging circle of friends.
James B. Beck took his seat for the first time as representative from the Ashland District of Kentucky. He was born in Scotland in 1822, and though he came to the United States while yet a lad, he has retained in strength and freshness all the characteristics and peculiarities of his race. He has a strong mind in a strong body. Well grounded in the rudiments of education in his native land, he completed his intellectual training in Kentucky and bears the diploma of Transylvania University—in whose list of graduates may be found many of the ablest men of the South-West. Originally a Whig, Mr. Beck followed John C. Breckinridge into the Democratic party at a period when the pro-slavery crusaders had gone mad and were commanding, indeed morally coercing, the services of a great majority of the able and ambitious young men of the South. He became the law partner of Breckinridge, and was zealously and devoted attached to him to the end. Had Beck been a native of the South he would undoubtedly followed Breckinridge hastily and hot-headedly into the rebellion. He was saved from that fate by the abundant caution and the sound sense which he inherited with his Scotch blood.
—But Mr. Beck had all the sympathy with the Rebellion which was necessary to secure popular support in Kentucky—without which, indeed, a Democrat in that State has had no chance for promotion since the war closed. He has grown steadily in Congress from the day of his entrance. He is honest-minded, straightforward, extreme in his views on many public questions, and though a decided partisan of Southern interests has always had the tact and the good fortune to maintain kindly relations with his political opponents—a desirable end to which his generous gift of Scotch humor has essentially aided him. It is among the singular revolutions of political opinion and political power in this country, that the State and the very city made memorable by Mr. Clay's impassioned devotion to the National Union and his prolonged advocacy of protection, should be represented in Congress by a disciple of the extreme State-rights school and by a radical defender of free trade.
As soon as the Clerk of the House finished the calling of the roll and announced that a quorum had answered to their names, Mr. Brooks of New York rose and called attention to the fact that there were seventeen absent States, ten of which, belonging to the late Confederacy, were not called at all, and the remaining seven—New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Kentucky, Tennessee, Nebraska, and California—had presented no credentials of members, inasmuch as under their respective laws, Representatives to the Fortieth Congress had not yet been chosen. Among the absent were seven of the "old thirteen"—an absolute majority of the States which founded the Republic. The absentees in all amounted to eighty members; and on behalf of his political associates Mr. Brooks presented a formal protest, signed by every Democratic member present, "against any and every action tending to the organization of this House until the absent States be more fully represented." He asked that it be entered upon the Journal as the protest of the minority of the House. Under the rules the Clerk refused to receive or submit the paper for consideration, and the House immediately proceeded to the election of Speaker. Mr. Colfax was chosen for the third and last time. He received one hundred and twenty-seven votes against thirty cast for Mr. Samuel S. Marshall, a highly respectable Democrat member from Illinois. As before, Mr. Colfax, in his remarks when he took the chair, sought to present an embodiment of Republican policy on the current issues. He declared that "the freeman's hands should wield the freeman's ballot;" that "none but loyal men should govern a land which loyal sacrifices have saved;" that "there can be no safe or loyal reconstruction on a foundation of unrepentant treason or disloyalty."
The principal business of the session was to provide supplementary legislation to the Reconstruction Act which had been passed over the President's veto only two days before the new Congress assembled. That Act, from a variety of circumstances, had been forced through at the last under whip and spur. Upon close examination by the leading Republicans of both Senate and house it was found to be defective in many important respects, and especially to lack the detail necessary to give life and vigor to proceedings looking to the practical reconstruction of the Southern States. The two Houses therefore addressed themselves promptly to the task of supplying the necessary amendments and additions. On the 19th of March they sent to the President an Act prescribing in detail the mode for the registering of voters in the insurrectionary States, and for the summoning of a convention to frame a constitution preparatory to the re-admission of each State to representation. The Act declared that "if the constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the votes of the registered electors qualified to vote, at least one-half of all the registered voters voting upon the question, a copy of the same, duly certified, shall be transmitted to the President of the United States, who shall forthwith transmit the same to Congress and if it shall appear to Congress that the election was one at which all the registered and qualified electors in the State had an opportunity to vote freely and without restraint, fear, or the influence of fraud, and if Congress shall be satisfied that such constitution merits the approval of a majority of all the qualified electors in the State, and if the said constitution shall be declared by Congress to be in conformity with the provisions of the Act to which this is supplementary, and the other provisions of said Act shall have been complied with, and the said constitution shall be approved by Congress, the State shall be declared entitled to representation, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom as therein provided."
The President promptly vetoed the bill. Among various objections he said, "This supplemental bill superadds an oath to be taken by every person, before his name can be admitted upon the registration, that he 'has not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States.' It thus imposes upon every person the necessity and responsibility of deciding for himself, under the penalty of punishment by a military commission if he makes a mistake, what works disfranchisement by participation in rebellion and what amounts to such participation. . . . The question with the citizen to whom this oath is to be proposed must be a fearful one, for while the bill does not declare that perjury may be assigned for such false swearing nor fix any penalty for the offense, we must not forget that martial law prevails and that every person is answerable to a military commission, without previous presentment by a grand jury, for any charge that may be made against him, and that the supreme authority of the military commander determines the question as to what is an offense and what is to be the measure of punishment. . . . I do not deem it necessary further to investigate the details of this bill. No consideration could induce me to give my approval to such an election law for any purpose, and especially for the great purpose of framing the constitution of a State. If ever the American citizen should be left to the free exercise of his own judgment, it is when he is engaged in the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is to live. That is his work and it cannot properly be taken out of his hands."
The whole issue presented by this bill was but another of the countless phases of that prolonged and fundamental contest between those who believed that guarantees should be exacted from the rebel States, and those who believed that these States should be freely admitted, without condition and without restraint, to all the privileges which they had recklessly thrown away in their mad effort to destroy the Government. The strength of each side had again been well stated in the debates of the Senate and House and in the veto-message of the President, and no change of opinion was expected by either party from the reasoning or the protest of the other. The President's argument was therefore met by a prompt vote passing the bill over his veto, in the House by 114ayesto 25noes, and in the Senate by 40ayesto 7noes. The resistance was very slight, and the fruit of the great Republican victory of 1866 was now realized in the formidable strength which the President's opponents exhibited in both branches.
The session lasted until the thirtieth day of March, and though Congress had then completed all the business pressing upon its attention the Republican leaders would not permit an adjournmentsine die. They decided to meet again in midsummer. The same necessity that had induced them to convene in March persuaded them that the President should not be allowed to have control of events for eight months without the supervision of the legislative branch of the Government. It was resolved therefore that Congress should meet on Wednesday, July 3d. The vigilance and determination evinced by this action did not prove useless or go unrewarded. Only a few weeks after Congress had taken its recess the danger anticipated by the Republican leaders, from hostile interpretation of the Reconstruction Acts by the Attorney-General, was made fully apparent. On the 24th of May and the 12th of June Mr. Stanbery gave two opinions to the President, which in many respects neutralized the force both of the original and supplementary acts of Reconstruction. His adverse views were elaborately and skilfully presented, and tended to embarrass the military commanders of the Southern districts in the administration of law, and to hinder the registration of voters and the holding of elections for constitutional conventions. Republican leaders therefore felt not only justified in the precautions they had taken to keep the power of Congress alive, but esteemed it peculiarly fortunate that they could so promptly prevent the evil effects which might otherwise flow from the unfriendly constructions of the Attorney-General. The principal business of the July session was to provide a second supplementary Act which effectually remedied all the objections and obstructions which Mr. Stanbery's acute legal knowledge had suggested. The bill passed both branches by the 13th of July and reached the President on the 14th—meeting at his hands the same fate that its predecessors had incurred. On the 19th he vetoed it—rehearsing the objections he had repeatedly stated on the same issues.
The President complained that within less than a year Congress had attempted to strip the Executive Department of the Government of some of its essential powers. "The military commander," said he, "is, as to the power of appointment, made to take the place of the President, and the General of the Army the place of the Senate, and any attempt on the part of the President to assert his own Constitutional power may, under pretense of law, be met by official insubordination. It is to be feared that these military officers, looking to the authority given by these laws, rather than to the letter of the Constitution, will recognize no authority but the commander of the district or the General of the Army. . . . If there were no other objection than this to the proposed legislation it would be sufficient. While I hold the chief executive authority of the United States, while the obligations rests upon me to see that all laws are faithfully executed, I can never willingly surrender that trust or the powers given for its execution. I can never give my assent to be made responsible for the faithful execution of laws, and at the same time surrender that trust and the powers which accompany it to any other executive officer, high or low, or to any number of executive officers."
Many of those who kept closest watch of the controversy between the President and Congress saw in the foregoing words something ominous. In their apprehensions of evil they construed it as a threat that the President would exercise his power as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy with which he was fully invested by the Constitution, to change the assignment of military officers at will. Should he stubbornly or capriciously assert this power he might seriously embarrass the entire administration of the Reconstruction Acts in the approaching registrations and elections in the Southern States. A change of officers at a single point might frustrate all the preparations for the reconstruction of a State, and a general change might produce chaos in the South and possibly develop a spirit of violence of which no man could measure the effect. The President's words made a deep impression on Congress. Mr. Boutwell saw in them a deadly intent "which provokes and demands the exercise of the highest and gravest duty of this House"—meaning that the President should be impeached. Mr. Randall of Pennsylvania taunted Mr. Boutwell with the declaration that all the talk of impeachment was "mere bluster;" while Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, though believing that Mr. Johnson deserved impeachment, considered it "a vain and futile thing." "There are," said he, "unseen agencies at work, invisible powers operating everywhere in the country, which will protect a man like Johnson when called upon." Debate, however, was very brief, and the House passed the bill over the veto byayes108,noes25. In the Senate there was no discussion whatever on the President's message, that body being content to pass the bill against his objections by 30ayesto 6noes.
The Senate and the House were both ready to adjourn on the 20th of July, but Mr. Sumner, Mr. Howard of Michigan, and others of the most radical type in both branches, desired that Congress might remain in session for the summer and autumn, or at least have such short vacations as would practically amount to a continuous session. Their object was to keep constant watch of the course of the Administration and be at all times ready to neutralize its evil purpose. Aside from the great personal inconvenience which this would occasion to many members, the judgment of the majority was against so radical a step. The more conservative members of the Republican party feared that a continuous session of Congress would seriously increase the uneasiness and excitement in the country by creating the impression that the Senate and House were sitting as a committee of public safety, in the apprehension of a civil revolution. The reply of those who opposed the adjournment was that the condition of public affairs did actually tend to revolution, and that instead of fanning the popular excitement by remaining in session, Congress would be thus most wisely allaying the fears which had entered the minds of so large a number of the people. But this argument did not prevail, and the conservative view secured a majority in both Houses. The vote in the Senate however was very close, there being only one more Republican in the affirmative that in the negative, leaving to Democratic votes, really, the decision of the question. A very inconvenient compromise was made by an adjournment to the 21st of November—only a fortnight before Congress would convene in regular annual session on the first Monday of December. No good reason was assigned for so extraordinary a step, and no benefit resulted from it.
The Reconstruction Acts, both original and supplementary, were now in full operation throughout the South. The President did not interpose serious objection to the assignment of the Army officers whose names were suggested by General Grant, and the ten insurrectionary States not yet re-admitted to representation were remanded to military government with apparent quiet and order. General Schofield was directed to take charge of the district of Virginia; General Sickles was placed in command of the district of North Carolina and South Carolina; General John Pope was assigned to the district of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida; General Ord to the district of Mississippi and Arkansas; and General Sheridan to the district of Louisiana and Texas. These assignments were made with due promptness after the enactment of the laws, and the several commanders at once proceeded to their novel and responsible duties.(1)
Under the enlargements of suffrage in the direction of loyalty, and its restrictions in the direction of disloyalty, the Southern States once more turned their attention to the question of Reconstruction. They saw, as the law intended them to see, that military government would exist until the loyal inhabitants of those States should present themselves before Congress with a constitution adapted to the changed circumstances resulting from the war, and to the necessities superinduced by the abolition of slavery. The Southern men who had defiantly rejected the Fourteenth Amendment, and had with confidence relied upon the power of President Johnson to vindicate their position, now discovered their mistake, and were reluctantly but completely convinced that the only road to representation in Congress for their States was through submission to the conditions imposed by the Acts of Reconstruction,—conditions far more exacting than those which had been required by the preceding Congress and which they had so unwisely refused to accept.
The assignments of Army officers to the Southern districts were made early in the spring of 1867. From that time onward it was hoped that the preservation of order would be secured in the South, and that the rights of all classes would be adequately protected. But notwithstanding the anticipation of this desirable result, there was throughout the summer and autumn of 1867 a feeling of great anxiety concerning the condition of the Southern States,—a constant apprehension that some outbreak similar to that in New Orleans the preceding year might lead to deplorable consequences, among the least of which would be the postponement of the organization of State governments. The cause of this solicitude among Northern people was the novel experiment in the South of allowing loyal men regardless of race or color to share in the suffrage and to participate in the administration of the Government. Under any less authoritative mandate than that which is conveyed in a military order with the requisite force behind it, the Southern communities would never have accepted or submitted to the conditions thus imposed. But the sympathy which their condition under other circumstances might have evoked in the North, was stifled by the pertinent consideration that they had refused other forms of Reconstruction, and had wilfully drawn upon themselves all that was unwelcome in the one now about to be enforced. It was to be noted moreover that the feature which was most unwelcome —impartial suffrage—was the one especially founded upon justice, abstract as well as practical.
Conventions were held successively in all the States, the elections being conducted in good order, while every man entitled to vote was fully secured in his suffrage. The conventions were duly assembled, constitutions formed, submitted in due time, and approved by popular vote. State governments were promptly organized under these organic laws, Legislatures were elected, and the Fourteenth Amendment ratified in each of the States with as hearty a unanimity as in the preceding winter it has been rejected by the same communities. The proceedings were approximately uniform in all the States, and the constitutions, with such minor differences and adaptations as circumstances required, were in all essential points the same. All were ordained in the spirit of liberty, all prohibited the existence of any form of slavery, and all heartily recognized the supreme sovereignty of the National Government as having been indisputably established by the overthrow of the Rebellion which was undertaken to confirm the adverse theory of State-rights.
These proceedings in the South were in full progress when the second or long session of the Fortieth Congress began, on the first Monday of December, 1867. While President Johnson had not interposed any obstructions to the working of the Reconstruction Act which had not been effectively cured by the two supplementary Acts, he had neither concealed nor abated his utter hostility to the policy of Congress,—a form of hostility that grew in rancor in proportion as he had been thwarted and rendered powerless by the enactment of the laws over his veto. When Congress came together he seemed to have gathered all his strength for a final assault upon its Reconstruction work and for a final vindication of his own policy. His message was laden with every form of attack which ingenuity could devise to throw discredit upon Congress, and if possible to affright the people by the dismal consequences destined in his judgment to follow the flagrant violation of the Constitution which he saw in the Reconstruction policy. He appealed to the people on the ground of patriotism, public safety, and personal interest. He pictured anew the advantage and the grandeur of having the old Union fully restored; he warned the people of the danger of sowing the seeds of another rebellion by allowing continued maltreatment of the Southern people; and he appealed to the commercial and financial interests of the country by pointing out how every form of property was endangered by the chaotic conditions of affairs to which, in his belief, the policy of Congress was steadily tending. Beyond these considerations he endeavored to arouse among the people all possible prejudice against negro suffrage. He declared that "of all the dangers which our Nation has yet encountered, none are equal to those which must result from the success of the effort now making to Africanize the half of our country." "We must not," said he, "delude ourselves. It will require a strong standing army, and probably more than two hundred millions per annum, to maintain the supremacy of negro governments after they are established,—a sum thus thrown away which would, if properly used, form a sinking-fund large enough to pay the whole National debt in less than fifteen years."
The argument of the President however was not merely a twice-told tale. It had been repeated many times and though never more artfully stated than now, it fell upon unlistening ears, making no impression whatever upon Congress and very little upon the country. The process of Reconstruction went on, and its first fruit was the presentation of a constitution from Arkansas, framed in exact accordance with the requirements prescribed by Congress, and accompanied by proof that the State had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. A bill was introduced in the House by Mr. Stevens, on the 7th of May (1868), to admit the State of Arkansas to representation in Congress. The question of Reconstruction had been debated so elaborately and for so long a period of time that there was little disposition now to open the subject afresh, and with far less resistance than had been anticipated the Arkansas bill was passed in both branches, and the State declared entitled to all those rights in the Union which she, with her sisters in rebellion, had so flippantly thrown aside in 1861. A fundamental condition was attached to the admission, declaring "that the Constitution of Arkansas shall never be so amended or changed as to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the United States of the right to vote, who are entitled to vote by the Constitution herein recognized, except as a punishment for such crimes as are now felonies at common law, whereof they shall have been duly convicted under laws equally applicable to all the inhabitants of said State."
The Act re-admitting Arkansas to the right of representation was followed immediately by one of the same general scope with respect to the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. The same fundamental condition already cited as imposed on Arkansas was imposed on all these States, and the further condition was exacted from Georgia that certain provisions in her Constitution should be a solemn Act of her Legislature be declared null and void. The provision to be thus annulled related to the collection of debts, and their spirit and intent may be inferred from the opening declaration that "no court in the State shall have jurisdiction to try or determine any suit against any resident of this State upon any contract or agreement made or implied prior to the first day of June, 1865, or upon any contract made in renewal of any debt existing prior to the date named." The provision as the Georgia convention had framed it would have wrought great injury to a large number of creditors in the North. It was a complete outlawry of thousands of dollars legally and equitably due to honest creditors, and Georgia was compelled to agree to its nullification before her senators and representatives could be admitted to seats in Congress.
The bills admitting these States to representation did not secure Executive approval. On the 20th of June (1868) the President sent a message to the House of Representatives with his objections to the Arkansas bill. "The approval of this bill," said he, "would be an admission on the part of the Executive that the Act for the more efficient government of the rebel States, passed March 2, 1867, and the Act supplementary thereto, were proper and constitutional. My opinion however in reference to these measures has undergone no change, but on the contrary has been strengthened by the results which have attended their execution." He then proceeded to state his objections as he had so often done before, with no variation of argument, without the production of new facts.—Five days later, on the 25th of June, the President communicated his objections to the bill admitting the other Southern States to representation. He had apparently become fatigued with the reiteration of his arguments, and he frankly stated that he would not "undertake at this time to re-open the discussion upon the grave Constitutional question involved in the Reconstruction Acts." He declared that "the bill assumed authority over the States which has never been delegated to Congress," and "imposes conditions which are in derogation of equal rights." The vetoes did not evoke long debate in either House, and both bills were promptly passed over the objections of the President by a party vote, amounting indeed to more than three to one in both Senate and House.
In the arguments which the President had found such frequent occasion to submit, he quietly ignored the facts of secession, the crime of rebellion, the ruthless sundering of Constitutional bonds which these States had attempted. He took no note of the immense losses both of life and property which they had inflicted upon the Nation, and gave no consideration to the suffering which they had causelessly brought upon the people. If the President's logic should be accepted as indicting the true measure of Constitutional obligation imposed on the different members of the Union, then any State might rebel at any time, seize and destroy the National property, levy war, form alliances with hostile nations, and thus subject the Republic to great peril and great outlay, her citizens to murder and to pillage. If the rebellious State be finally subdued, the National Government must not attach the slightest condition to her re-admission to the Union; must not impose discipline or even administer reproof. The fact that the rebellion fails is the full warrant for its guilty authors to be at once repossessed of all the rights and all the privileges which in the frenzy of anger and disobedience they had thrown away. Such was in effect the argument of the President throughout the Reconstruction contest; such was the demand of the leaders of the Rebellion; such was the concession which the Democratic party constantly urged in Congress, through the press, and in all the channels through which its great power was exerted.
The position of the Republicans was steadily the opposite of that described. They held that the States which had rushed into a rebellion so wicked, so causeless, and so destructive, should not be allowed to resume their places of authority in the Union except under such conditions as would guard, so far as human foresight could avail, against the outbreak of another insurrection. They should return to the Union on precisely the same terms as those on which the loyal States held their places; they should have the same privileges and be subjected to the same conditions. As slavery had been the chief inciting cause of disunion, slavery should die. As the vicious theory of State-rights had been constantly at enmity with the true spirit of Nationality, the Organic Law of the Republic should be so amended that no standing-room for the heresy would be left. As the basis of representation in the Constitution has always given the slave States an advantage, these States, now that slavery was abolished, should not be permitted to oppress the negro population and use them merely for an enlarged Congressional power to the white men who had precipitated the rebellion. As the war to maintain Union and Liberty had cost a vast treasure and sacrificed countless lives, the States that had forced the bloody contest should agree by solemn amendment to the Constitution that the National debt and the pension to the soldier should be secured. Those conditions—applying to all the States alike, to the loyal and the disloyal in the same measure—must be honorably agreed to by the States that had gone into Disunion before they should be permitted to resume and enjoy the blessings of Union. History and the just judgment of mankind will vindicate the wisdom and the righteousness of the Republican policy, and that vindication will always carry with it the condemnation of Andrew Johnson.
The long contest over Reconstruction, so far as it involved the re-admission of the States to representation, was practically ended. Eight of the eleven Confederate States, at the close of June 1868, had their senators and representatives in Congress. Three—Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas—were prevented by self-imposed obstacles from enjoying the same privilege until after President Johnson had retired from office. Of the representatives on the floor of the Fortieth Congress from the eight states lately in rebellion, only two were Democrats. The senators were unanimously Republican. Of the aggregate number about one-half were natives of the South. The war upon the "Carpet-bagger" had not yet reached the era of savage atrocity, but the indignation pervading the governing classes of the South, as they were termed, was poured forth in unstinted measure upon the heads of all native Southerners who consented to accept offices conferred by negro votes. It was evident that the admission of the States to representation was to be taken as the signal for a new contest in the South—embittered in its character and sanguinary in its results. The men who had been foremost in plunging their States into the vortex of rebellion were determined to rule them—their determination being of that type which disregards the restraint of law and considers that the end justifies the means.
With all the advantages of old association and in numberless instances of kindly relation with the colored race, the former masters showed themselves singularly deficient in the tact and management necessary to win the negroes and bind them closely to their interest, in the new conditions which emancipation had created. Of the evil results that flowed from the contest now about to ensue—a contest that had many elements of provocation and of wrong on both sides—one of the most remarkable features was the complete control which the white men from the North, entire strangers to the negro, to his habits and to his prejudices, so readily obtained over him. The late slave-masters did not adapt themselves to the new situation. They gave way to repining and regretting, to sulking and to anger, to resentment and revenge, and thereby lost a great opportunity for binding together the two races in those ties of sympathy and confidence which must be maintained as an indispensable condition of prosperity, or even of domestic order and the reign of law, in the Southern States. The lack of moral courage among the physically brave men of the South has already been indicated and illustrated. It was something of this same defect that held back the slave-masters from the condescension, as they esteemed it, of establishing any relation whatever with the negro in his new condition of freedom. Such action was frowned upon by the public opinion of this class throughout the South, and for lack of bold leadership at the critical period, for lack of that consideration which in many subsequent instances has been lavished upon the colored man, the current of fatal prejudice was set strongly against the old master in the mind of his former slave. Events, as they developed in the stirring and sorrowful years that followed, were but a continual proof of that form of original blunder on the part of the Southern whites, which in affairs of civil administration is worse than a crime.
In excuse, or at least in explanation, of this unfortunate blunder on the part of Southern men, the obstinacy and wrong-headed course of President Johnson must be pleaded. It was his causeless, voluntary, unpardonable quarrel with his party which misled Southern men at the time when they most needed lessons of wisdom and moderation. The different result which we may well conceive might have followed in the South under the considerate and kindly spirit which Mr. Lincoln would have brought to the problem, gives us by contrast some faint appreciation of the enormity of Johnson's conduct and of the evil effects flowing from it. At the very moment when the President should have stood as a generous mediator, calming the irritation of the South —an irritation inevitably incident to defeat—and restraining somewhat, at least in the manner of preferring them, the demands and requirements which the Government in its hour of victory was justified in making, Johnson committed the grievous fault of espousing the Southern cause and quarreling with the party which had confided to him the power he was abusing.
Under the patronage and protection of the President, Southern men would have been more or less than human if they had not grown arrogant and defiant towards the men of the North. The chivalric sympathy which always moves the magnanimous in their treatment of a fallen foe, was therefore drowned in the indignation to which Northern men were naturally moved by provocations as unexpected as they were extraordinary. Stimulated by the protection of the President and encouraged by his contumacious quarrel with Congress, the South was driven from one unwise step to another, until the entire situation became hopelessly entangled, and every movement affected by anger and passion;—the North resolving more and more to insist on the fruits of victory, the South resolving more and more to act as though they had conquered in the contest. It was not unnatural, under the anxieties and discouragements of the crisis, that the South should have clung to Mr. Johnson for protection; but in the calm review which the lapse of twenty years affords, the most ardent Southern partisan must see that the President's policy was at enmity with the interest and happiness of his section.
It is not to be forgotten, however, that Mr. Johnson's course was marked by the inherent qualities of his mind. He had two signal defects, either of which would impair his fitness for Executive duty; united they rendered him incapable of efficient administration:—he was conceited and he was obstinate. Conceit without obstinacy may be overcome by the advice of judicious counselors; united with obstinacy it carries its possessor beyond the bounds of prudence, almost beyond the control of reason. Obstinacy united with good judgment is softened into the virtue of firmness. It has often been said that self-made men, as they are termed, are necessarily conceited. Like all aphorisms, this must be taken with numberless exceptions, but it was singularly applicable to Johnson, who was in all respects a self-made man. His great career was never absent from his thoughts, and he was always looking at himself as he fancied he would appear in history. He came to regard himself as the hero upon a remarkable stage of action, and naturally made the reflection that if he could have had in his early years the advantages which so many possess without improving, he would have made strides in life which would have left him without rivals. It would be impossible to gain a full and correct apprehension of Mr. Johnson's character without taking into account these qualities —qualities which were both the remote and immediate cause of his extraordinary career as Chief Magistrate.
The earlier Presidents, filled with the spirit of the convention that formed the Constitution, were extremely careful in the use of the veto-power. In eight years Washington used it but twice. Neither John Adams nor Thomas Jefferson used it even once. Madison resorted to it three times, Monroe only once, John Quincy Adams in not a single instance. Under the first six Presidents, the veto-power had been used but six times in all; unless there should be included some private bills sent back for correction and not in any sense furnishing matter of contest between parties. The country had thus been educated by the sages of the era of the Constitution in the belief that only an extraordinary occasion justified a resort to what, in the popular dislike of its character, had received the name of "the one-man power." President Jackson, therefore, surprised the country and shocked conservative citizens by his frequent employment of this great prerogative. During his term he thwarted the wish and the expressed resolve of Congress no less than eleven times on measures of great public consequence. Seven of these vetoes were of the kind which, during his Presidency, received the name of "pocket-vetoes."
In Madison's administration a bill which reached the President during the last ten days of the session failed by accident or inadvertence to receive the President's signature, and did not become a law. Mr. Webster is authority for saying that there was not a single instance prior to the administration of General Jackson in which the President by design omitted to sign a bill and yet did not return it to Congress. "The silent veto," said he, "is the executive adoption of the present administration." There had been instances in which, during a session of Congress, a President, unwilling to approve and yet not prepared to veto a measure, suffered it to become a law by the lapse of the Constitutional period of ten days; but it was an entirely new device, to defeat a bill by permitting the period of less than ten days to expire at the close of the session—defeat it without action, without expression of opinion, without the responsibility which justly attaches to the Executive office. Commenting with great power, at the time, upon the new use of the veto-power in all its forms by President Jackson, Mr. Webster declared its tendency was "to disturb the harmony which ought always to exist between Congress and the Executive, and to turn that which the Constitution intended only as an extraordinary remedy for extraordinary cases, into a common means of making Executive discretion paramount to the discretion of Congress in the enactment of laws." It was literally making the extreme medicine of the Constitution its daily bread.
An example set by so strong a ruler as Jackson, especially in the establishment of a practice so congenial to man's natural love of power, was certain to be followed by other Presidents. It was followed so vigorously indeed that the forty years succeeding Jackson's advent to power presented a strong contrast with the forty years that preceded it. The one began with Washington, the other ended with Andrew Johnson. Mr. Van Buren, though in all respects a lineal heir to the principles of Jackson, did not imitate him in the frequent use of the veto-power. But Mr. Tyler on nine different occasions ran counter to the action of Congress by the interposition of his veto. Mr. Polk resorted to it in three signal instances, but neither General Taylor nor Mr. Fillmore came in conflict with Congress on a single measure. President Pierce almost rivaled General Jackson in the ten vetoes with which he emphasized his own views as distinct from those of Congress. Mr. Buchanan used his arbitrary power on four occasions during his term. Mr. Lincoln permitted one bill to be defeated, as already noted in these pages, by expiration of Congress, and arrested the passage of another by direct use of his veto. President Johnson, who in many features of his career has been suspected of an attempted imitation of Jackson, far surpassed his great prototype in the use of the veto-power, employing it directly in no less than twenty-one instances, besides pocketing at least two bills of public importance. The aggregate number of vetoes, therefore, in the forty years that followed General Jackson's first election exceeded fifty, as against six for the forty years preceding it.
It will not escape observation that the most frequent resort to the veto has been by those Presidents who were chosen by the political organization which has always declared its hostility to Executive power. The Democratic party had its origin and its early growth in the cry against the overshadowing influence of the Presidential office —going so far in their denunciations as to declare that it was aping royalty in its manners and copying monarchy in its prerogatives. The men who made this outcry defeated John Quincy Adams who never used the veto, and installed Jackson who resorted to it on all occasions when his judgment differed from the conclusion of a majority of Congress. Neither Taylor nor Fillmore—both reared in the Whig school —ever attempted to defeat the will of Congress, though each wielded Executive power at a time when questions even more exciting than those of Jackson's era engaged public attention. Mr. Lincoln presents a strong contrast with his predecessors,—Pierce and Buchanan,—illustrating afresh the contradiction that the party declaiming most loudly against Executive power has constantly abused it. Mr. Tyler and Mr. Johnson were both chosen by the opponents of the Democracy, but they were both reared in that school, and both returned to it—exhibiting in their apostasy the readiness with which the Democratic mind turns to the tyranny of the veto.