Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 4

The first of these important acts of reconstruction, upon the expediency of which the President and Mr. Seward had agreed, was the issuing of a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to "all persons who have directly or indirectly partic.i.p.ated in the existing Rebellion"

upon the condition that such persons should take and subscribe an oath --to be registered for permanent preservation--solemnly declaring that henceforth they would "faithfully support, protect, and defend the Const.i.tution of the United States and the union of the States thereunder;" and that they would also "abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamation which have been made during the existing Rebellion, with reference to the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves." It was the first official paper which Mr. Seward attested as Secretary of State under President Johnson. He undoubtedly intended to signalize his return to health and his resumption of official duty by public partic.i.p.ation in an act which he regarded as one of wisdom and mercy --an act which was wise because merciful.

The general declaration of amnesty was somewhat narrowed in its scope by the enumeration, at the end of the proclamation, of certain cla.s.ses which were excepted from its benefit. In naming these cla.s.ses a keen discrimination had been made as to the character and degree of guilt on the part of those who had partic.i.p.ated in the Rebellion.

--First, "All diplomatic officers and foreign agents of the Confederate Government" were excluded. Their offense was ranked high because of their efforts to embroil us with other nations.

--Second, "All who left judicial stations under the United States to aid the Rebellion." They were held to be specially culpable because they had been highly honored by their Government, and because they could not, like many, plead in excuse the excitement and antagonisms which spring from an active partic.i.p.ation in political affairs.

--Third, "All military and naval officers of the Confederacy above the rank of colonel in the army or lieutenant in the navy." The men who actually bore arms were, of course, the chief offenders; but holding officers only of high grade accountable, was intended as an act of marked and significant leniency to the mult.i.tude of the rank and file.

--Fourth, "All who left seats in the Congress of the United States to join the Rebellion." These should, indeed, have been first named, for they, above all other men, fomented the Rebellion in its early stages.

--Fifth, "All who resigned, or tendered resignations, in the Army or Navy of the United States to evade duty in resisting the Rebellion."

These men were even more culpable than those who joined the Rebellion.

They were not openly traitors, but were popularly and significantly termed "sneaks."

--Sixth, "All who have been engaged in treating otherwise than as lawful prisoners of war, persons found in the United-States service as officers, soldiers, or seamen." This was specially directed against those who had maltreated negro troops and attempted, by personal cruelty, to frighten them from the National service.

--Seventh, "All persons who have been, or are, absentees from the United States for the purpose of aiding the Rebellion." The men who had misled public opinion in England, and who hovered along the Canadian border during the war, concocting schemes for burning Northern cities, and for spreading the infection of yellow-fever and the plague of small-pox in the loyal States, were especially aimed at in this exclusion.

--Eighth, "All officers in the rebel service who had been educated at the United-States Military or Naval Academy." These men had received the bounty of the Government, shared its confidence, and were under peculiar obligation to defend it.

--Ninth, "All men who held the pretended offices of governors of States in insurrection against the United States." As the civil war had for its basis the dogma of _State-rights_, the chief executive officers of States represented in an especial manner the guilt of the Rebellion.

--Tenth, "All persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and protection of the United States, and pa.s.sed beyond the Federal military lines into the pretended Confederate States for the purpose of aiding the Rebellion." The personal guilt of these men lay in the fact that, according to their own theory of _State-rights_, they were traitors.

They did not adhere to the States which gave them birth, or to the States of which they were citizens.

--Eleventh, "All persons who have been engaged in the destruction of the commerce of the United States upon the high seas, and all persons who have been engaged in destroying the commerce of the United States upon the lakes and rivers that separate the British Provinces from the United States." The acts of these men were specially reprobated because they did not proceed according to the laws of war. In the popular mind they were held amenable to the charge of piracy.

--Twelfth, "All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain amnesty and pardon, are in military, naval, or civil confinement, as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind either before or after conviction." Many prisoners in the custody of the Government were charged with acts of peculiar cruelty or perfidy, especially with the committal of personal outrages which did not, in any degree, affect the fortunes of the war, and were not therefore ent.i.tled to the excuse of having been the necessities of a bad cause.

--Thirteenth, "All partic.i.p.ants in the Rebellion, the estimated value of whose taxable property is over twenty thousand dollars." The intention of this exception was to draw the line between the men who could exert influence in their respective communities, and those who were necessarily led by others. Fixing this part.i.tion between voluntary and involuntary guilt on the property line was a favorite measure with President Johnson. It met with much opposition from the loyal as well as the disloyal.

A fourteenth cla.s.s was excepted, not from the benefits of the proclamation of amnesty, but from the necessity of taking the oath demanded from the other cla.s.ses. Full pardon was granted, without further act on their part, to all who had taken the oath prescribed in President Lincoln's proclamation of December 8, 1863, and who had thenceforward kept and maintained the same inviolate. The status of every man in the Confederate States was thus determined and proclaimed, --a procedure which was intended to be the corner-stone of the work of reconstruction.

Standing naked and unqualified these thirteen exceptions might seem to imply a harshness of treatment inconsistent with the spirit of forgiveness and generosity upon which Mr. Seward had been insisting, and to which the President had apparently a.s.sented. The cla.s.ses excepted were more numerous and far more comprehensive than those excluded from amnesty under the proclamation issued by Mr. Lincoln on the 8th of December, 1863. That proclamation not only embodied the views of Mr. Lincoln, but was approved by Mr. Seward in whole and in detail. The difference between the two proclamations was not, however, radical, and was readily reconcilable with Mr. Seward's purpose. He had indeed equalized their attributes of mercy by inducing President Johnson to insert a proviso declaring that "special application may be made to the President for pardon by any person belonging to the excepted cla.s.ses," and the a.s.surance was added that "such clemency will be liberally extended for amnesty and pardon." Applications came in great numbers from the South. In the archives of the State Department there are some twenty-four large volumes recording the pardons granted in less than nine months after the proclamation. The aggregate number is nearly fourteen thousand, and the list includes prominent men of all cla.s.ses in the South, who, recognizing the fact that the Rebellion had failed, turned, as the only alternative, to the Government which had conquered and was now ready to extend a magnanimous forgiveness. Many of those sought to place themselves in harmony with the restored Union, and looked forward hopefully to the events of the future. Many others, as it must be regretfully but truthfully recorded, appeared to have no proper appreciation of the leniency extended to them. They accepted every favor with an ill grace, and showed rancorous hatred to the National Government even when they knew it only as a benefactor.

Having by the proclamation extended amnesty on the simple condition of an oath of loyalty to the Union and the Const.i.tution, and obedience to the Decree of Emanc.i.p.ation, the President had established a definite and easily ascertainable const.i.tuency of white men in the South to whom the work of reconstructing civil government in the several States might be intrusted. A circular from Mr. Seward accompanied the proclamation, directing that the oath might "be taken and subscribed before any commissioned officer, civil, military, or naval, in the service of the United States, or before any civil or military officer of a loyal State or Territory, who, by the laws thereof, may be qualified to administer oaths." Every one who took the oath was ent.i.tled to a certified copy of it, as the proof of his restoration to all civil rights, and a duplicate, properly vouched, was forwarded to the State Department, to be "deposited and remain in the archives of the Government." Mr. Seward had thus adapted the simplest, most convenient, and least expensive process for the administration of the oath of loyalty. Indeed the certifying officer was almost brought to the door of every Southern household. The mercy and grace of the Government fell upon the great ma.s.s of those who had been engaged in rebellion as gently and as plenteously as the rain from heaven upon the place beneath the feet of the offenders.

With these details complete, a second step of great moment was taken by the Government on the same day (May 29). A proclamation was issued appointing William W. Holden provisional governor of the State of North Carolina, and intrusting to him, with the co-operation of the const.i.tuency provided for in the first proclamation, the important work of reconstructing civil government in the State. The proclamation made it the duty of Governor Holden "at the earliest practicable period, to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for a.s.sembling a convention--composed of delegates who are loyal to the United States and no others--for the purpose of altering or amending the Const.i.tution thereof, and with authority to exercise, within the limit of said State, all the powers necessary and proper to enable the loyal people of the State of North Carolina to restore said State to its const.i.tutional relations to the Federal Government and to present such a Republican form of State Government as will ent.i.tle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor and its people against invasion, insurrections, and domestic violence."

It was especially provided in the proclamation that in "choosing delegates to any State Convention no person shall be qualified as an elector or eligible as a member unless he shall have previously taken the prescribed oath of allegiance, and unless he shall also possess the qualifications of a voter as defined under the Const.i.tution and Laws of North Carolina as they existed on the 20th of May, 1861, immediately prior to the so-called ordinance of secession." Mr. Lincoln had in mind, as was shown by his letter to Governor Hahn of Louisiana, to try the experiment of negro suffrage, beginning with those who had served in the Union Army, and who could read and write; but President Johnson's plan confined the suffrage to white men, by prescribing the same qualifications as were required in North Carolina before the war.

The convention that might be chosen by the voters whose qualifications were thus preliminarily defined, or the Legislature which the convention might order to meet, were empowered to prescribe the permanent qualifications of voters and the eligibility of persons to hold office under the Const.i.tution and Laws of the State--"a power,"

as the President was careful to declare, "which the people of the several States composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of the Government to the present time."

The military commander of the Department of North Carolina and all officers and persons in the military and naval service of the United States were directed to aid and a.s.sist in carrying the proclamation into effect, and they were specially ordered to "abstain from hindering, impeding, or discouraging the loyal people in any manner whatever from the organization of a State Government as herein authorized." The several heads of the Executive Departments were directed to re-establish the entire machinery of the National Government within the limits of North Carolina. The Secretary of the Treasury was directed to nominate for appointment, collectors of customs, a.s.sessors and collectors of internal revenue, and such other officers of the Treasury Department as were authorized by law. The Postmaster-General was directed to re-establish the post-offices and postmasters. The United-States district judge was directed to hold courts in North Carolina, and the Attorney-General was ordered to "enforce the administration and jurisdiction of the Federal courts."

In short, every power of the National Government in North Carolina was re-a.s.serted, every function re-established, every duty re-a.s.sumed.

In making appointments for office, it was ordered in the proclamation that "preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed.

But if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons residing in other States or districts shall be appointed."

A fortnight later, on the 13th of June, a proclamation was issued for the reconstruction of the civil government of Mississippi, and William L. Sharkey was appointed provisional governor. Four days later, on the 17th of June, a similar proclamation was issued for Georgia with James Johnson for provisional governor, and for Texas with Andrew J.

Hamilton for provisional governor. On the 21st of the same month Lewis E. Parsons was appointed provisional governor of Alabama, and on the 30th Benjamin F. Perry was appointed provisional governor of South Carolina. On the 13th of July the list was completed by the appointment of William Marvin as provisional governor of Florida. The precise text of the North-Carolina proclamation, _mutatis mutandis_, was repeated in each one of those relating to these six States. The process was designed to be exhaustive by fully restoring every connection existing under the Const.i.tution between the States and the National Government. Viewed merely as a theory it was perfect. The danger was that in the test of actual practice it might end like so many similar experiments in other countries. An opponent wittily characterized it as Government by _diagram_, accurately drawn on an Executive blackboard.

For the reconstruction of the other four States of the Confederacy different provisions were made. In Virginia Francis H. Pierpont had been made governor after the State had seceded and the State of West Virginia had been established. He was the head of the Loyal Government of Virginia, which gave its a.s.sent to the division of the State. His Government, the sh.e.l.l of which had been preserved after West Virginia's separate existence had been recognized by the National Government, with its temporary capital at Alexandria, was accepted by President Johnson's Administration as the legitimate Government of Virginia. All its archives, property, and effects, as was afterwards said by Thaddeus Stevens, were taken to Richmond in an ambulance. As early as the 9th of May President Johnson had issued a proclamation recognizing Mr. Pierpont as governor of the State, and a.s.suring him that he would be "aided by the Federal Government, so far as may be necessary, in the lawful measures he may take for the extension and administration of the State Government throughout the geographical limits of said State." The same proclamation declared that "All acts and proceedings of the political, military, and civil organizations which have been in a state of insurrection and rebellion within the State of Virginia against the laws and authority of the United States are declared null and void." The proclamation further declared that any person a.s.suming to exercise any authority in Virginia by virtue of a military of civil commission issued by Jefferson Davis, President of the so-called Confederate States, or by John Letcher, or William Smith, Governors of Virginia, "shall be deemed and taken as in rebellion against the United States, and dealt with accordingly."

A course not dissimilar to that adopted in Virginia was followed in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. In all of them the so-called "ten per cent" governments established under Mr. Lincoln's authority were now recognized. Governor Hahn was held to be the true executive of Louisiana,--a concession all the more readily made, because, under the revised const.i.tution of the State, the people would be called upon in the approaching autumn to choose his successor. In Arkansas also, the Government, with Isaac Murphy at its head, was now recognized; and in Tennessee the authority of William G. Brownlow as governor was promptly accepted as const.i.tutional and regular. This Government, as already narrated, had been brought into existence by the earnest effort of Mr.

Johnson in the period which had elapsed between his election and inauguration as Vice-President. The direct committal of the President to the legality of his own work was the controlling cause which led to the recognition of the Governments of the four States under consideration. But for the impossibility of disowning or in any way discrediting the existing Government of Tennessee, it is probably that the plan by which provisional governments were established in seven of the rebellious States would have been uniformly applied to the entire eleven which formed the Confederacy. The same executives would doubtless have been selected for provisional service, but there would have been evident advantage in treating all the States in precisely the same manner.

The scope and design of the President's reconstruction policy were thus made fully apparent. The work was committed to the white men of the several States, who, outside of the excepted cla.s.ses, were ready to take the oath of allegiance to the Government. They were empowered to form the Convention which should shape the organic law of the State, and in that law they were authorized to establish the basis of suffrage,--a right which the President held to belong to the State, to be, indeed, inalienable from the State. It was, therefore, evident that the white men who were allowed to regain all the rights of citizens.h.i.+p by a mere oath of fidelity would not, in framing an organic law for the State, exclude the cla.s.ses whom the President had excepted from pardon. The excluded cla.s.ses had been the leaders, the commanders, the men of position, the friends and the patrons of those who, only less guilty because less influential and powerful, were now intrusted with the initial work in the re-establishment of civil Government in their respective States.

It was not a possible supposition that these men, when they a.s.sembled in convention, would exclude the entire leading cla.s.s of the South, or even one member of it, from the full const.i.tutional privileges and benefits of the civil Government they were about to re-organize. The suffrage conferred on others would, in like manner, be conferred on them: the offices of rank and emolument in the new Government would likewise be open to them, and it would thus be made evident that the President's exclusion of these cla.s.ses was merely an inhibition from doing a preliminary work which others would do equally well for them.

Unless, therefore, some other form of denial or exclusion should be announced,--and none other apparently was intended,--the President's policy would end in promptly handing over to the authors and designers of the Rebellion the complete control of the States whose civil power they had willfully perverted and turned against the National authority.

Mr. Seward's magnanimity, his boundless confidence in human nature, had led him to believe that this was wise policy. He believed it so firmly that he had persuaded the President--against his own will and purpose --to adopt it, and to attempt its enforcement.

It soon became evident that President Johnson realized how completely he had excluded men of the colored race from any share of political power in the Southern States by his process of reconstruction. It is true that he stood loyally by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, which had been submitted to Congress before his accession to the Presidency but had not yet been ratified by the States. He used his influence, which was commanding, to induce the Southern States to accept it in good faith. But he saw, as others had seen before him, that this was not going far enough to satisfy the reasonable desire of many in the North whom he felt it necessary to conciliate. To emanc.i.p.ate the negro and conceded to him no possible power wherewith to protect his freedom would, in the judgment of many Northern philanthropists, prove the merest mockery of justice. This sentiment wrought on Mr. Johnson so powerfully that against his own wish he was compelled to address a circular to his provisional governors, suggesting that the elective franchise should be extended to all persons of color "who can read the Const.i.tution of the United States, and write their names, and also to those who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollar, and pay taxes thereon."

In writing to Governor Sharkey of Mississippi in relation to this subject the President argued that his recommendations touching colored suffrage could be adopted "with perfect safety," and that thereby "the Southern States would be placed, with reference to free persons of color, upon the same basis with the free States." That Mr. Johnson made this recommendation simply from policy and not from any proper conception of its inherent justice is indicated by the closing paragraph in his letter to Governor Sharkey. Indeed, by imprudent language the President made an unnecessary exposure of the character of his motives, and deprived himself of much of the credit which might otherwise have belonged to him. "I hope and trust," he wrote to his Mississippi governor, "that your convention will do this, and as a consequence the Radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be completely foiled in their attempt to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations to the Union by not accepting their senators and representatives."

At this period the President did not contemplate a break with the Republican party, much less a coalition with its opponents. He had the vanity to believe, or was at least under the delusion of believing that --with the exception of those whom he denominated Radicals--he could induce the party to follow him. Mr. Seward had undoubtedly influenced him to this conclusion, as the Secretary of State indulged the same hopeful antic.i.p.ation himself. The President seemed to have no comprehension of the fact that with inconsiderable exceptions the entire party was composed of Radicals, men who in aim and sympathy were hostile to the purposes indicated by his policy. His own radicalism, from which Mr. Seward had succeeded in turning him, was the radicalism of revenge upon the authors of the Rebellion. The radicalism to which he now contemptuously indicated his opposition was that which looked to the broadening of human rights, to philanthropy, to charity, and to good deeds. Every intelligent Republican saw that the attempt which the President was now making with his provisional governors to secure a partial franchise to the colored man, was really only a pet.i.tion to the States to act in a certain manner upon a subject over which, by his own proclamation, their power of control was declared to be absolute. With the prejudices which inspired the South,--prejudices made still more intense by the victory of the Union,--it was altogether certain that the Southern Conventions would not extend the elective franchise or civil right of any kind to the colored men of any cla.s.s. The Southern States would undoubtedly agree _pro forma_ to the Thirteenth Amendment as a means of regaining their representation in Congress. Beyond that, so long as the National Government conceded their right of control, it was probable that every step which did not conflict with the Const.i.tution and Laws of the United States would be taken by the Southern States to deprive the negro of all power or opportunity for advancement. Mr. Seward, by the generous instinct of his own philanthropy, believed all things for the Union, which had been regenerated by the emanc.i.p.ation of the slave, and hoped all things for the Southern people, who had been chastened by defeat. His philanthropy taught him a faith in others as strong as his own consciousness of right; and, by a.s.suming the full responsibility of the President's position, he brought to its support thousands of advocates who, but for his personal influence and persuasive power, would have opposed and spurned it.

The whole scheme of reconstruction, as originated by Mr. Seward and adopted by the President, was in operation by the middle of July, three months after the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Lincoln. Every step taken was watched with the deepest solicitude by the loyal people. The rapid and thorough change in the President's position was clearly discerned and fully appreciated. His course of procedure was dividing the Republican party, and already encouraging the hopes of those in the North who had been the steady opponents of Mr. Lincoln's war policy, and of those in the South who had sought for four years to destroy the Great Republic.

It soon became evident that the Northern Democrats who had been opposed to the war, and the Southern Democrats who had been defeated in the war, would unite in political action, and that the course of the National Administration would exercise a potential influence upon their success or failure. In turn, the course of the National Administration would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined, by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing unbounded trust. Public interest was therefore transferred for the time from the acts of the President at the National Capital to the acts of the Reconstruction conventions about to a.s.semble in the Southern States.

CHAPTER V.

A great opportunity was now given to the South. It was given especially to the leading men of the South. Only a few weeks before, they had all been expecting harsh treatment, many, indeed, antic.i.p.ated punishment, not a few were dejectedly looking forward to a life of exile and want. The President's policy, which had been framed for him by Mr. Seward, charged all this. Confidence took the place of apprehension, the fear of punishment was removed, those who conscious of guilt had been dreading expatriation were bidden by the supreme authority of the Nation to stay in their own homes, and to a.s.sist in building up the waste and desolate places.

Never in the history of the world had so mighty a rebellion been subdued. Never had any rebellion been followed by treatment so lenient, forgiving, and generous on the part of the triumphant Government. The great ma.s.s of those who had resisted the National authority were restored to all their rights of citizens.h.i.+p by the simple taking of an oath of future loyalty, and those excepted from immediate re-instatement were promised full forgiveness on the slightest exhibition of repentance and good works. Mr. Seward believed, and had induced the President to believe, that frank and open generosity on the part of the Government would be responded to in like spirit on the part of those who had just emerged from rebellion.

The Administration, therefore, waited with confidence for its justification, which could be made complete only by the display of a manly appreciation and n.o.ble course on the part of those who had partic.i.p.ated in the Rebellion.

The desire for a complete restoration of all the States to their normal position, as pictured so attractively by Mr. Seward, was general and deep throughout the North. The policy of the President was therefore essentially aided by the patriotic and ardent love for the Union,--a love always present with the loyal people of the free States, but developed in an extraordinary degree by the costly struggle which the slaveholders' rebellion had precipitated. If the Southern States should meet the overture of the Administration in the spirit in which it was made, the probability was decidedly in favor of their restoration to their old places without condition, without promise, without sacrifice. Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and a.s.suredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government. But they realized at the same time that the most important demands of far-seeing statesmans.h.i.+p and of true patriotism might be disregarded, and even contemned, by a wild, unreasoning wish of the people to see the old Government, in all its parts, promptly and fully re-established. The popular cry which demanded "the Union as it was, the Const.i.tution as it is," was echoed by many from emotional love of country, and by many more from a conviction that the financial interests of the Government and the commercial interest of the people called for the speediest settlement of all political questions. The Administration believed, and with good reason, that the combined influence of sentiment for the Union and the supposed necessities of trade would overcome all obstacles, and that the rebellious States would be so promptly and completely reconstructed that their senators and representatives would be admitted at the beginning of the next session of Congress.

In forming an estimate of the probably response of the South to the plan of reconstruction now submitted, the Administration was certainly justified in believing that its own spirit of liberality and good will would be met with like spirit by those who, having failed in war, were specially interested in promptly securing all the conditions of a magnanimous peace. It could not antic.i.p.ate that quibbles would be made by the defeated and lately suppliant parties, that captious objections would be interposed, that carping criticism would be indulged, that gross outrages would be perpetrated, that absurd conditions would be demanded, and that finally a postponement of the whole procedure would be hazarded, indeed its utter failure secured, by the lack of tact, by the willfulness, and by the apparent ignorance of the Southern men who were in control.

The kindness, consideration, gentleness of Mr. Seward's recommendations, instead of securing a return of like feeling, seemed rather to inflame the misjudging men of the South with a new sense of resentment. Instead of calling forth the natural and proper response, it appeared rather to impress them afresh with that vain imagination of Northern timidity which had always been the besetting weakness of the South. It seemed impossible at the time, it seems even more plainly impossible on a review of the facts after the lapse of years, that any body of reasonable men could behave with the ineffable folly that marked the proceedings of the Reconstruction Conventions in the South, and the still greater folly that governed the succeeding Legislatures of the lately rebellious States.

In the President's proclamation accompanying the appointment of provisional governors he had taken the ground that "the Rebellion, in its revolutionary progress, has deprived the people (of the revolting States) of all civil Government." It is evident, therefore, that the President--eager and even impatient as he was for the process of reconstruction to be completed--expected that a new Government would be built on the full recognition of the new order of things, casting behind all that pertained to the old, or had the spirit of the old.

"No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse." This Scripture was exactly applicable to the Southern Conventions which a.s.sembled for reconstruction. They could begin anew with organic laws adapted to the great revolution which had swept over them, or they could patch up the old const.i.tutions now become indissolubly a.s.sociated with a rebellion which had been fostered and protected under their provisions. In every State the Southern leaders chose the latter form of procedure. They a.s.sumed that the old const.i.tutions were still in full force and vigor, and they made only such amendments to them as would in their judgment promptly insure to their States the right of representation in Congress. They did not even stop to submit these changes to the popular vote, but a.s.sumed for their own a.s.semblages of oligarches the full power to modify the organic laws of their States--an a.s.sumption without precedent and without repet.i.tion in the history of State const.i.tutions in this country, and utterly subversive of the fundamental idea of Republican Government.

With these incomplete and ill-digested changes in the organic laws of their respective States, the Reconstruction conventions usurped legislative power, and hastily proceeded to order the election of representatives in Congress. The Congressional elections proved to be little else than partisan a.s.semblages under the dictatorial direction of rebel authorities--just as the Reconstruction Conventions were, in their members.h.i.+p and their organization, little else than consulting bodies of Confederate officers under the rank of brigadier-general, actually sitting throughout their deliberations in the uniform of the rebel service, and apparently dictating to the Government of the Union the grounds on which they would consent to resume representation in the National Congress. A joint committee of Congress subsequently commented with appropriate directness upon this offensive phase of the Southern Conventions. "Hardly is the war closed," said the committee, "before the people of the insurrectionary States come forward and haughtily claim, as a right, the privilege of partic.i.p.ating at once in that Government which they have for four years been fighting to overthrow. Allowed and encouraged by the Executive to organize State Governments, they at once placed in power leading rebels, unrepentant and unpardoned, excluding with contempt those who had manifested an attachment to the Union, and preferring in many instances those who had rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious. In the face of the law requiring an oath that would necessarily exclude all such men from Federal offices, they have elected, with very few exceptions, as senators and representatives in Congress, the very men who have actively partic.i.p.ated in the Rebellion, insultingly denouncing the law as unconst.i.tutional."

The oath referred to in the foregoing extract from the committee's report is that popularly known as the "Ironclad oath," prescribed by the Act of July 2, 1862, to be taken by every person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States, either in the civil, military, or naval departments of the public service, the President alone excepted. The officer, before entering upon his duties or receiving any emolument, was compelled to swear that he had "never voluntarily borne arms against the United States;" that he had "voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility to the National Government;" that he had "neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States;" that he had "never yielded a voluntary support to any pretended Government within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto." Of course the men who had been waging war against the Government could not take this oath except by committing perjury and risking its pains and penalties. But nothing daunted by the existence of this obstacle at the threshold of public service, the most notorious rebels sought election to the Senate and House, boasting that they would prove the unconst.i.tutionality of the Ironclad oath, and demand their seats.

Alexander H. Stephens "had the a.s.surance," as the committee already quoted declared, "with that oath staring him in the face, to lay his credentials on the table of the Senate as a senator-elect from Georgia." When Congress adjourned, March 3, 1865, Mr. Stephens was acting as the Vice-President of the rebel Confederacy. Six weeks later the Confederacy was destroyed, and with a political agility unparalleled, with a degree of presumption unprecedented, Mr. Stephens secured an election to the Senate, and was in Was.h.i.+ngton at the ensuing session of Congress, asking admission to a seat as cooly as if every living man had forgotten that for four years he had been exerting his utmost effort to destroy the Const.i.tution under which he now claimed the full rights of a citizen. In his astounding effrontery Mr.

Stephens even went so far as to insist on interpreting to those loyal men, who had been conducting the Government of the United States through all its perils, the Const.i.tution under which they had been acting, and to point out how they were depriving him of his rights by demanding an oath of loyalty and good faith as the condition on which he should be ent.i.tled to take part in legislating for the restored Union. The same committee, worthy at all times to be cited, declared further, that "Other rebels of scarcely less note and notoriety than Mr. Stephens were selected from other quarters. Professing no repentance, glorying apparently in the crime they had committed, avowing still, as the uncontradicted testimony of Mr. Stephens and many others proves, an adherence to the pernicious doctrine of secession, and declaring that they yielded only to necessity, they insist with unanimous voice upon their rights as States, and proclaim that they will submit to no conditions whatever as preliminary to their resumption of power under that Const.i.tution _which they still claim the right to repudiate_."

Not only were the official acts of the Southern Conventions inspired by a spirit of apparently irreconcilable hatred of the Union, but the popular manifestations in the South were for more decided in the same direction. A sense of official propriety, no doubt, in some degree governed the conduct and modified the language of the members of the conventions. It was left to the press and the stump-orators of the South to give full expression to what they knew to be the ruling sentiment of the people. The report of the Congressional Committee, whose members had closely investigated all the facts, stated that "the Southern press, with few exceptions, abounds with weekly and daily abuse of the inst.i.tutions and people of the loyal States; defends the men who led, and the principles which incited, the Rebellion; denounces and reviles Southern men who adhered to the Union; and strives constantly and unscrupulously, by every means in its power, to keep alive the fire and hate and discord between the sections; calling upon the President to violate his oath of office, overturn the Government by force of arms, and drive the representatives of the people from their seats in Congress. The National banner is openly insulted and the National airs scoffed at, not only by an ignorant populace, but at public meetings, and once, among other notorious instances, at a dinner given in honor of a notorious rebel, who had violated his oath and abandoned his flag. The same individual is elected to an important office in the leading city of his State, although an unpardoned rebel, and so offensive that the President refused to allow him to enter upon his official duties. In another State the leading general of the rebel armies in openly nominated for governor by the House of Delegates, and the nomination is hailed by the people with shouts of satisfaction and openly indorsed by the press."