Chapter XXVI: Section 13: provided that “if any person declared free by this or any law (9)

Sec. 2.... That any freedman, free negro or mulatto, committing
riots, routs, affrays, trespasses, malicious mischief and cruel
treatment to animals, seditious speeches, insulting gestures,
language or acts, or assaults on any person, disturbance of peace,
exercising the function of a minister of the Gospel without a
license from some regularly organized church, vending spirituous or
intoxicating liquors, or committing any other misdemeanor, the
punishment of which is not specifically provided for by law, shall,
upon conviction thereof, in the county court, be fined not less than
ten dollars and not more than one hundred dollars, and may be
imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty
days.

Sec. 3.... That if any white person shall sell, lend or give to any
freedman, free negro or mulatto, any fire-arms, dirk or bowie-knife,
or ammunition, or any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, such
person or persons so offending, upon conviction thereof, in the
county court of his or her county, shall be fined, not exceeding
fifty dollars, and may be imprisoned at the discretion of the court,
not exceeding thirty days....

Sec. 4.... That all the penal and criminal laws now in force in this
State, defining offences, and prescribing the mode of punishment for
crimes and misdemeanors committed by slaves, free negroes or
mulattoes, be and the same are hereby re-enacted, and declared to be
in full force and effect, against freedmen, free negroes and
mulattoes, except so far as the mode and manner of trial and
punishment have been changed or altered by law.

Sec. 5.... That if any freedman, free negro or mulatto, convicted of
any of the misdemeanors provided against in this act, shall fail or
refuse, for the space of five days after conviction, to pay the fine
and costs imposed, such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or
other officer, at public outcry, to any white person who will pay
said fine and all costs, and take such convict for the shortest
time.[485]

Though the General Government was solemnly pledged to guarantee the entire freedom of the negro, he was completely disarmed by these statutes, which were to be administered by men who had been but recently serving the Confederate cause. The purpose of the last measure is rendered clear by Section 4, which reënacted against freedmen all the penal and criminal laws that had applied to slaves. It revived, in short, the black code of _ante bellum_ times.

Persons convicted of vagrancy, under an amendatory act, approved November 24, 1865, were subject to a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars and costs, besides a maximum imprisonment of ten days. The first section, which defined who were vagrants, was general in its application. The provisions especially affecting freedmen were the following:

Sec. 2.... That all freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this
State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in
January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business,
or found unlawfully assembling themselves together either in the day
or night time, and all white persons so assembling with freedmen,
free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen,
free negroes or mulattoes on terms of equality, or living in
adultery or fornication with a freedwoman, free negro or mulatto,
shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined
in the sum of not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro
or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and
imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free negro not
exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months.

* * * * *

Sec. 5.... That all fines and forfeitures collected under the
provisions of this act shall be paid into the county treasury for
general county purposes, and in case any freedman, free negro or
mulatto, shall fail for five days after the imposition of any fine
or forfeiture upon him or her for violation of any of the provisions
of this act, to pay the same, that it shall be, and is hereby made
the duty of the sheriff of the proper county to hire out said
freedman, free negro or mulatto, to any persons who will, for the
shortest period of service, pay said fine or forfeiture and all
costs: Provided, a preference shall be given to the employer, if
there be one, in which case the employer shall be entitled to deduct
and retain the amount so paid from the wages of such freedman, free
negro or mulatto, then due or to become due; and in case such
freedman, free negro or mulatto cannot be hired out, he or she may
be dealt with as a pauper.[486]

* * * * *

No extended knowledge of human affairs is necessary to perceive that, by a rigorous enforcement of these laws, the great mass of freedmen could be easily restored to a state of practical servitude during the season when their labor was desirable, and that for the remainder of the year their condition would be little better than that of the pauper. That the two races were regarded as equal before the law will scarcely be contended. An act approved December 1 made it a misdemeanor in certain cases for either a white or a black man to hunt hogs or other stock upon any lands other than his own; the white man was liable, on conviction, to a fine of from $100 to $500, or imprisonment from one to three months in the county jail, or both, at the discretion of the court. For the same offence no imprisonment was provided in the case of freedmen, and the fine was fixed between $10 and $20. The latter, however, could be hired at public outcry to the lowest bidder who would pay the fine and cost. The employer, it was provided, was to have the preference in hiring.[487]

The Legislature first to meet under the reformed government not only expressed for the people of Mississippi no profound regret for resisting the Federal authority, but left no doubt in what estimation it held those who fought for Southern independence by releasing ex-Confederate soldiers from indictments for misdemeanors committed before the war.[488] In perfect harmony with the spirit of this act of oblivion was one which changed the name of Jones County to that of Davis, and the name of Ellisville in the same county to Leesburg.[489] This, it should be observed, was only three days before the meeting of Congress.

This legislation, by no means the most severe enacted under the new governments, marks in Southern sentiment a reaction no less unexpected than the complete and almost instantaneous submission following the surrender of Johnston. The sudden change in opinion has been ingeniously and even absurdly accounted for. In the latter class of explanations may be included the notion that the people of the South were exasperated by the interference of Congress, that body, as already mentioned, not having convened till after the passage of the obnoxious laws. On the other hand, it was not generally known, even in Mississippi, that the President in the work of reorganization had resolved to ignore the coördinate political branch of Government; he had, indeed, fairly signified to Governor Sharkey the position that he intended to assume, but his communication to that official, which was never designed for publication, was not immediately circulated through the State; the knowledge, therefore, that the Executive had concluded to oppose the policy of Congress could not have been a factor in disturbing the brief repose of the seceding States, and we must seek elsewhere for the cause.

In many of the insurgent commonwealths rebellion had involved almost every citizen in the guilt of treason, almost every estate in the liability to confiscation. The President and his advisers hoped by a generous distribution of pardons to win the esteem and confidence of this numerous and influential class, and to leave to “Radical” members of Congress the ungrateful office of punishment. This policy contributed to awaken the undaunted spirit of the South, and was, no doubt, an element in unsettling the conditions that prevailed after the surrender. Northern magnanimity, which was content to regard the defeat of secession as sufficient discipline for the rebellious States, and the attitude of the Democratic party were also important influences in misleading the South. More responsible for the reaction, however, than any of these was the unsatisfactory administration of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The testimony of General Grant can be cited to prove that, while accomplishing much that was desirable, this institution was retarding somewhat the progress of reconstruction. In a hurried tour of the late Confederate States he had observed that it was not conducted with good judgment or economy, and remarked in his report to the President that “the belief widely spread among the freedmen of the Southern States, that the lands of their former owners will, at least in part, be divided among them, has come from the agents of this bureau. This belief is seriously interfering with the willingness of the freedmen to make contracts for the coming year.... Many, perhaps the majority, of the agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau advise the freedmen that by their own industry they must expect to live. To this end they endeavor to secure employment for them, and to see that both contracting parties comply with their engagements. In some instances, I am sorry to say, the freedman’s mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future. The effect of the belief in division of lands is idleness and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities.”[490]

Though its management was open to criticism, the necessity for the existence of the bureau, to afford at least temporary protection to the newly enfranchised, was perceived and acknowledged by the General. It probably accorded well with the political aspirations of bureau agents to create in the minds of freedmen a belief that the Government would give to each of them “forty acres of land and a mule”; for this expectation would be a pledge of allegiance to the Federal representative, without the approval of whom no negro could seriously hope to secure so enviable a start in his career of freedom.

That confusion would follow the violent overthrow of a long-established industrial system was to be expected, and it was not unnatural for the South to ascribe to the influence of bureau agents much of the mischief inseparable from immediate emancipation. While the complaints of the late insurgents were commonly considered with deference, it was scarcely to be expected that they would not sometimes be despised, and it would be easy to impute to their discontent every outrage reported to the officers of the bureau or the commanders of the posts. Though Federal representatives as a rule labored faithfully to restore and preserve order, it would be singular if some of them, assuming the arrogant manner of conquerors, did not occasionally depart from that system of conciliation which the generous nature of Mr. Lincoln had adopted.

These were among the causes of the Southern reaction. It is no justification of these severe and even cruel enactments to show, as Mr. Herbert has done, that similar laws disgraced the statute books of many Northern States. In the settlement then in progress the Southern people conceded nothing of importance that was not won in the war, and if they were as sincere in their desire for reunion as some writers contend, they should not have feared the paradox of improving by their example the ancient legislation of the free States, or have been alarmed at the innovation of reducing to practice the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

It is not to be denied that there was considerable ground for complaint because of the influence of many employees of the bureau in demoralizing the Southern system of labor, but the further punishment of a race that had been trodden down by oppressive generations does not commend itself as either a humane or an enlightened remedy; besides, the South was greatly indebted to the fidelity of the negro, who during the war possessed, without abusing, the opportunity as well as the capacity for mischief. On the other hand, there was some obligation to Northern men for their magnanimity, and under wiser counsels their wishes, and even their prejudices, would have been respected. In the victorious section public opinion, then in the formative stage, was watching anxiously the progress and the proceedings of the new governments. Except a few extremists, the voters of the loyal States did not dream at that time, as was persistently asserted at the South, of forcing negro suffrage on the rebellious States. They did, however, desire to see embodied in the new State constitutions such provisions as would establish before the law the equality of all classes.

While the policy of President Johnson did not altogether escape criticism at the South, so general and so prompt was the acquiescence in his plan, that when Congress convened nearly all the States recently in rebellion had remodeled their governments and elected members of Congress who were at the national capital waiting to be admitted to seats. Without separately considering the new establishments, they may be described concisely and with sufficient accuracy as governments differing but little from those extinguished by the fall of the Confederacy. The members of the former, it is true, had taken an oath of allegiance, and the influence of that act upon their conduct will presently be noticed. Though it certainly was not the original intention, and appears never to have become the fixed purpose of Mr. Johnson to entrust to enemies of the Government the work of restoring the insurgent States, the result of his endeavors was that reconstruction was left almost exclusively in the hands of those who had attempted to destroy the Union. It was precisely such a contingency that Mr. Lincoln had in mind when he declared in his message of December 8, 1863, that, “An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State government, constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected, is simply absurd.”[491]

This deliberate statement, as well as the subsequent administrative acts of Mr. Lincoln, sufficiently disposes of the notion that he favored a rather loose system of reconstruction. Without attempting to distinguish between theories really identical, there was still a considerable difference in the reorganization effected under the two Executives. The conditions which confronted the President and Congress in December, 1865, could have arisen only from disregarding the principle laid down by Mr. Lincoln. From his solemn and reiterated declarations there can be little doubt that he would have rejected without hesitation any system of which the first fruits were little more than a nullification of his decree of emancipation.

Notwithstanding his tireless threats of severity, we can easily perceive in the reorganization directed by Mr. Johnson, a noticeable falling back from the Executive plan of December, 1863, as announced and enforced by his predecessor. Nor did this retrogression proceed from the greater humanity, but rather from the greater weakness of the new President. Even in the matter of fealty there was a difference; for while the conflict was still doubtful, the taking of an oath of allegiance to the General Government was a serious step for the Southern Unionist, because the record thereafter singled him out, if not for destruction, at least for annoyance, or for punishment by the friends of secession, and, perhaps, the oath then effected some such object as it was designed to accomplish. When war had ceased, however, there was no longer a choice of sides, and thenceforth universal swearing as an instrument of government became practically worthless. It was not regarded, at all events, as an efficient security for the future. Mr. Johnson probably continued to exact oaths of allegiance because they were formerly of value in distinguishing the friends from the enemies of the Government. Though professing the same general opinion on the subject of amnesty, the principles on which the two Presidents granted pardons were sufficiently distinct.

We have seen that President Johnson, who had once declared that “rebels” should take a back seat in the work of reconstruction, so far changed his opinion that he subsequently said the people must be trusted in the restoration of their governments; he likewise modified his early impressions as to the permanence of the establishments instituted under his predecessor, for it was his original opinion that those governments were merely provisional in their nature, and would require the confirmation or the approval of Congress. Ultimately, however, he came to regard himself as the judge of their sufficiency. The evidence of this is conclusive. In a telegram of July 14, 1865, to Governor Sharkey, Secretary Seward said:

“The government of the State [Mississippi] will be provisional only until the civil authorities shall be restored, with the approval of Congress. Meanwhile military authority cannot be withdrawn.”[492]

If it be contended that Mr. Seward made this important declaration upon his personal responsibility the argument fails, because in a dispatch to Governor Marvin, of Florida, dated September 12, 1865, nearly two months later, the Secretary of State repeated the substance of the message in language even more explicit. On that occasion he said: “It must, however, be distinctly understood that the restoration to which your proclamation refers will be subject to the decision of Congress.”[493]

The determination of President Johnson to retain the members of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet would indicate his original intention of applying to the subjugated States the system adopted by his predecessor. The influence which led to the modification of the method of enforcing without abandoning the principles underlying that plan it is not easy to discover. His change of attitude toward the South has been variously explained. By Mr. Blaine it has been ascribed to the flattery of Southern leaders, as well as to the personal influence of Secretary Seward, whose wide culture, and consequent humanity, would favor a policy of conciliation. Without intending to underestimate the insinuating address of the New York statesman it may be observed that his powers of persuasion appear to have exerted themselves with most success in the direction of the President’s inclination. The attention of Southern leaders, a class of men by whom the President had hitherto been ignored, deserves, however, to be noticed in any enumeration of even the probable cause of the change. Another theory has it that Mr. Johnson both feared and hated several of the leading Republicans, because of their connection with a movement to procure his resignation from the Vice-Presidency, a station which, they believed, he had disgraced by appearing in an intoxicated state to take the oath of office. His desire to punish those who had constituted themselves custodians of the national dignity, it is asserted, was a principal motive in his surrender to the South. A more reasonable explanation of the change which occurred in the President’s attitude toward his own section is that offered by Dr. Chadsey, who regards Mr. Johnson as an inconsistent advocate of State Sovereignty.[494] In this principle he believed as firmly as Jefferson Davis himself, though unlike the Confederate chieftain he refused, by stopping short of secession, to accept its logical results. Nearly all his administrative acts are those which might have been expected from a Democrat of the strict construction school, and Andrew Johnson never professed allegiance to any other political party.

The governments of which the reorganization has been described in the preceding pages continued in operation until suspended by the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867. Except Texas all these establishments, as previously observed, had sent members to the Thirty-ninth Congress. Their claims to seats, it is well known, were completely ignored, and a select body, consisting of nine members from the lower and six from the upper House, was appointed to investigate the condition of the late Confederate States, and to report whether any of them were entitled to representation in either branch of Congress. With the conclusions of the celebrated Joint Committee this essay is not concerned further than to observe that on the recommendation of the majority the Tennessee delegation was admitted on the 24th of July, 1866. Long before that event, however, the task of restoring the Union had been taken altogether out of Executive hands.

If we reflect how much swifter in a political organism is the progress of ruin than that of repair, and consider that four years had been abandoned to the destruction and disorders of civil war, we cannot but be surprised at the attempt of the President, single-handed, to adapt and execute in less than three months a series of measures designed to restore tranquillity and revive prosperity among the impoverished inhabitants of a wasted country. In this view his failure in the work of reconstruction can excite little astonishment. One reason for this precipitate action was a desire to reunite the sections before the meeting of Congress, and it was so far a praiseworthy if not a prudent course to adopt. But had he proceeded ever so leisurely there would still have existed undoubted obstacles to success. To say that he was lacking in the tact of his predecessor, that he was naturally of an obstinate and even of a combative disposition, and that he possessed defects, both of temper and judgment, would be merely to repeat a few trite observations.[495] Conditions were rapidly changing, but with Mr. Johnson, conditions passed for almost nothing, though in reality circumstances make legislative acts beneficial or otherwise. Like the measures of the Thirty-eighth Congress for restoring the Union, those of Mr. Johnson may be carefully examined without discovering any considerable traces of originality. Indeed, if we except President Lincoln, this entire period seems to have been somewhat lacking in constructive statesmanship, though no branch of the public service was without officials of integrity, judgment and ability.

In the course of the preceding pages the inaugurals, the messages, the letters and other communications of Mr. Lincoln have been freely quoted to show his opinions on all of the principal and most of the subordinate phases of reconstruction. To complete the design of this inquiry, there remains to be considered but a single topic related to the main theme, namely, the limitations of the Presidential plan for restoring the Union. Many of these defects having been incidentally noticed, a general recapitulation does not appear to be required, and the subject, it is believed, may be appropriately concluded by an examination of those features of the Executive system which the narrative has not hitherto sufficiently emphasized.

This summary disclaims, however, any intention of attempting the absurdity of testing the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln by contrasting a method of reconstruction proposed in 1863 with that deemed adequate by Congress to meet the changed conditions of 1867. We may, indeed, fairly and even profitably compare the sentiments of the two political departments in the summer of 1864, when, for the first time during the war, they were arrayed in opposition on a fundamental policy of civil administration. Because of its variance with received notions of representative government, the so-called “ten _per cent._ principle” will be first considered.

The proportion of the political people that Mr. Lincoln offered to recognize as constituting a State encountered, probably, more opposition than any single feature of his plan. While its merits and its defects were equally evident, the latter, as might be expected, were given by its adversaries the place of prominence in all their criticisms. Exception was taken as well to the legality as to the expediency of the principle. The former has been fully discussed, and on that subject all that need be observed is that President Lincoln believed it constitutional to preserve the Union, and every measure conducive to that end he regarded as lawful.

On the question of expediency, however, several considerations suggest themselves. Apart from its repugnance to the American idea of majority rule, its palpable weakness was that governments founded on the consent of a minimum proportion of the electors would require the support of Federal power. Here occurs the question, did the forces thus engaged so greatly impair the efficiency of the main armies as sensibly to retard the work of destroying the enemy? It cannot be denied that there were occasions when a few additional regiments could have been employed to advantage; but neither the reverses nor the disasters of the Union armies were caused by lack of numbers so much as by the need early in the war of commanders of military genius. On the other hand, the troops who sustained the new governments, besides weakening the Confederacy, were affording protection to organizations that otherwise could not have been recruited. There is record of not less than sixty-five regiments furnished by the States restored during the Presidency of Mr. Lincoln.[496] But even more important than this gratifying result was the influence which the reinstatement of four seceding commonwealths exerted on the attitude of those European powers which had proved early in the conflict their hostility to the United States. The “Johnson governments,” so-called, were never required to furnish any such unquestioned evidence of reviving loyalty, and that fact should not be overlooked in any comparison of the results accomplished by the two Executives.

Notwithstanding the general existence of a strong opposition to minority rule, the revolutionary proceedings in western Virginia were sanctioned by every department of Government. Members from the loyal eastern counties were at first admitted to seats in both branches of Congress; their successors, however, were in turn refused this indulgence until there was presented the novel spectacle of a single Senator representing the diminished glory of the Old Dominion. Louisiana, too, which for a few days was heard in the lower House, was subsequently excluded altogether by the changing views of Congress. The revived bill of Wade and Davis provided in one of its many forms for recognizing that State as well as Arkansas, and even when the extremists obtained control of Congress the loyal government organized in Tennessee was approved by avowed opponents of the Executive plan. Mr. Lincoln, indeed, clearly perceived the inherent weakness of his system, and no one could have been more anxious than he to secure a wider constituency. These facts seem to indicate that between him and Congress there was not then so wide a gulf as, for partisan purposes, is sometimes represented. It is true that there was a difference of principle between the two departments; that there was a powerful party in Congress who believed that reconstruction was essentially a work of peace and, therefore, pertained exclusively to the national Legislature. The holders of this view were, doubtless, confirmed in their opinion by a conviction that the Executive was encroaching on a coördinate branch of government.

The Presidential system as well as the contemporary theory of Congress restricted the suffrage of whites, by whom it was almost universally engrossed at the foundation of the Republic. On the ground of justice and to encourage the cultivation of civic virtues among the negroes, Mr. Lincoln would admit those qualified to exercise this important privilege. His successor acknowledged in a private communication that for party purposes he favored some extension of the elective franchise to freedmen. Though Congress advanced rapidly toward negro suffrage, the first essay of that body in the work of reconstruction included no provision for conferring on the colored race a right to participate in government. By Wade and Davis it was not then deemed necessary even as a defensive power. Only a few bold innovators, considered almost fanatic on the question, were in favor of bestowing the right to vote on the multitudes maintained by the Freedmen’s Bureau; it was not then deemed within the commission of the general Government, the teachings of political science were still respected by the majority in Congress, and the fruits of victory, it was hoped, could be secured without a resort to radical measures.

The form of an oath to support the proclamations and laws respecting slavery appeared in the Presidential plan as a condition indispensable to reinstatement. On this subject the difference between the Executive and Congress was merely one of degree; for the Wade-Davis bill, doubtless in imitation of the Presidential system, imposed terms precedent, and the new constitutions were to repudiate the rebel debt, abolish slavery and prohibit the higher insurgent officials, civil as well as military, from holding the office of governor, from serving in the State legislatures and even from voting.

By its adversaries the plan of Mr. Lincoln was condemned for its failure to exact any security for the future beyond the oath of allegiance, the telegraphic supervision by the President and the power of Congress over the admission of members. This defect the legislative theory endeavored to supply, but even the guardianship proposed by Wade and Davis could give no assurance that the rebellious communities would not, after reinstatement, eliminate by constitutional amendment the conditions imposed on their readmission.[497]

However crude we may now consider Mr. Lincoln’s system it should not be forgotten that with him the paramount consideration was the overthrow of the Confederacy. With that purpose all his measures harmonized, and it is scarcely critical to examine them from any other point of view. How far necessity, which had originally suggested, would subsequently have modified his plan it is now impossible to state. Without detracting a particle from his well-won fame it may be admitted that his method, which could not have foreseen the rapid succession of changes following his death, was but indifferently adapted to solve the problem with which Congress was compelled to deal in 1867; but the measure of permanent success which attended the deliberate legislation of that body by no means justifies the conclusion that some other system would have proved a total failure. With all its immaturity the plan of the President was not without its advantages. It aimed to restore with as little innovation as possible the Union of the Fathers; with some exceptions the natural leaders of Southern society were to participate in the work of reorganization, and the author of this simple plan approached his difficult task in a generous and enlightened spirit.

On the life and character of Abraham Lincoln an admiring generation has exhausted the language of panegyric; the terms of censure have been reserved almost exclusively for his method of restoring the Union; but neither the critic’s ken, nor the ambitious phrase of eulogy, nor all the thoughts that since his death have dropped from poets’ pens affords that clear insight into his nature which is unconsciously revealed in the simple and beautiful exhortation that concludes his last inaugural. The sentiments which immortalize that celebrated state paper could have proceeded only from the depths of a noble soul—a soul that would have imposed silence on the voice of vengeance and would never have consented to the revenge of section upon section. In this book an endeavor has been made fully to discuss his plan of reconstruction; the spirit in which he approached that difficult task is best stated in his own generous and patriotic words, with which may be fittingly closed this long though interesting inquiry: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”[498]

THE END.

-----

Footnote 435:

Why the Solid South? p. 1.

Footnote 436:

This recollection has been verified by correspondence with Col. A. K.
McClure, the gentleman referred to.—=Author.=

Footnote 437:

Ex. Doc. No. 70, H. of R., 1 Sess. 39th Cong., p. 78.

Footnote 438:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 28.

Footnote 439:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 28.

Footnote 440:

Acts of the State of Tennessee, 1865, p. 33.

Footnote 441:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 779.

Footnote 442:

Ibid.

Footnote 443:

This election resulted in the choice of Nathaniel G. Taylor, Horace
Maynard, Edmund Cooper, Isaac R. Hawkins, John W. Leftwich, William B.
Stokes, William B. Campbell and Dorsey B. Thomas. The last named,
however, was affected by the Governor’s recount, and Daniel W. Arnell,
who was declared the successful candidate, was admitted to Congress
with the other Tennessee Representatives on the 24th of July, 1866.
See Why the Solid South? pp. 182–183.

Footnote 444:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 780.

Footnote 445:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 781.

Footnote 446:

Ibid.

Footnote 447:

Having been elected United States Senator, Mr. Hahn resigned the
governorship on the 4th of March and was succeeded in office by
Lieutenant-Governor Wells.

Footnote 448:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 510.

Footnote 449:

Globe, Part I., 1 Sess. 39th Cong., p. 101.

Footnote 450:

Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 429; also Why the Solid
South? p. 397.

Footnote 451:

Poore’s Charters and Constitutions, Vol. II. p. 1938 _et seq._

Footnote 452:

Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 670.

Footnote 453:

Letter of Mrs. Anna Pierpont Siviter to the author.

Footnote 454:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 817.

Footnote 455:

Ibid.

Footnote 456:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 817.

Footnote 457:

McPherson’s Hand-Book of Politics, 1868, p. 46.

Footnote 458:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 800.

Footnote 459:

Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. pp. 9–11.

Footnote 460:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 800.

Footnote 461:

McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, pp. 45–46.

Footnote 462:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, pp. 801–802.

Footnote 463:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 802.

Footnote 464:

Letcher and Smith were Governors of Virginia during the war.

Footnote 465:

McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, p. 8.

Footnote 466:

Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II. p. 70.

Footnote 467:

McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, pp. 10–11.

Footnote 468:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 626.

Footnote 469:

This ordinance was ratified by a vote of 20,506 to 2,002; Poore’s
Charters and Constitutions, Vol. II. p. 1419n; also Three Decades of
Federal Legislation, p. 385.

Footnote 470:

Ratified by 19,039 to 3,970 votes. Poore’s Charters and Constitutions,
Vol. II. p. 1419n.

Footnote 471:

McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, p. 19.

Footnote 472:

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXXII., p. 127.

Footnote 473:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 628.

Footnote 474:

McClure’s Magazine, Dec., 1899, p. 174.

Footnote 475:

The Provisional appointments were made in the following order: June
13, 1865, William L. Sharkey, Mississippi; June 17, James Johnson,
Georgia, and Andrew J. Hamilton, Texas; June 21, Lewis E. Parsons,
Alabama; June 30, Benjamin F. Perry, South Carolina; July 13, William
Marvin, Florida.

Footnote 476:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 580.

Footnote 477:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 581.

Footnote 478:

Ann. Cycl., 1865, p. 583.

Footnote 479:

Constitution of the United States, by Francis N. Thorpe, p. 49.

Footnote 480:

See Why The Solid South? pp. 9–10, for an ingenious explanation of the
unanimity and promptness with which the Presidential policy of
reconstruction was accepted by the South.

Footnote 481:

Laws of Mississippi, pp. 86–88.

Footnote 482:

Ibid., pp. 89–90.

Footnote 483:

Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 82–86.

Footnote 484:

Ibid., p. 231.

Footnote 485:

Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 165–167.

Footnote 486:

Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 90–93.

Footnote 487:

Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 199–200.

Footnote 488:

Ibid., pp. 210–211.

Footnote 489:

Ibid., p. 240.

Footnote 490:

Ann. Cycl., 1866, p. 132.

Footnote 491:

Ann. Cycl., 1863, pp. 780–781.

Footnote 492:

Gorham’s Life of Stanton, Vol. II. p. 255.

Footnote 493:

McPherson’s Pol. Hand-Book, 1868, p. 25.

Footnote 494:

President Johnson and Reconstruction, pp. 33–34.

Footnote 495:

In this connection his repudiation of the Sherman-Johnston agreement
will occur to the reader.

Footnote 496:

Strait’s Roster of Regimental Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons, p. 314.
This estimate includes all the troops furnished by the new State of
West Virginia.

Footnote 497:

The author believes himself fortunate in being able to place before
his readers a letter from the pen of Hon. J. B. Henderson, the only
surviving Senator who participated in the debates summarized in
chapter X., and, so far as the writer is informed, the only living
member who served in the United States Senate during that eventful
period. Coming, as it does, from one who supported many of Mr.
Lincoln’s most cherished measures, the letter will be welcomed as a
valuable historical document. It contrasts forcibly the Presidential
plan with the theory of Senator Sumner, and though written on August
21, 1901, more than a generation after the occurrence of the principal
events discussed in this book, it is characterized by the clearness
and the energy of expression which marked even the unpremeditated
addresses of the Senator’s Congressional career. On the subject of
reunion he writes as follows:

“Time, in my judgment, has stamped its approval on Mr. Lincoln’s views
touching the questions of reconstruction during the Civil War. He was
always calm and judicial. He was philosophical in periods of the most
intense excitement. He never lost his head, but under all
circumstances preserved his temper and his judgment. He was not the
buffoon described by his enemies. On the contrary, he was a wise
statesman, a learned lawyer, and a conscientious patriot; and, better
than all, an honest man.

“The infirmity in Mr. Sumner’s theories of reconstruction came from
the great exuberance of his learning. He ransacked history, ancient
and modern, for precedents growing out of civil wars. But these
precedents all antedated the American Constitution. They grew out of
monarchical systems of government, and had no relation to the
republican forms created by our Constitution. Under our system there
can be no suicide of a State. Individual citizens by rebellion and
disloyalty may forfeit their political rights, but the State as an
entity commits no treason and forfeits no rights to existence. Under
our Constitution the State cannot die. It is the duty of the Federal
Government to see that it does not die—that it shall never cease to
exist. If the State be invaded from without, the duty of the General
Government is to protect and defend it. If domestic violence threatens
the subversion of the local government, the nation’s duty is to
intervene and uphold the hands of those who maintain the laws. The
trustee of an express trust cannot excuse himself to a minority of the
beneficiaries because the majority repudiate his agency.

“‘The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
republican form of government.’ No State government is republican in
form that does not acknowledge the supremacy of the Federal
Constitution. This is the essential test of republicanism. No State
can enter the Union without conforming its Constitution to this
supreme organic law. And whenever by force or violence, a majority of
its citizens undertake to withdraw the State from its obedience to
Federal law and to repudiate the sovereignty of the Federal
Government, it at once becomes the duty of Congress to act.

“This duty of Congress is not to destroy the State or to declare it a
suicide, and proceed to administer on its effects. On the contrary,
the duty clearly is to preserve the State, to restore it to its old
republican forms. Its duty is not to territorialize the State and
proceed to govern it as a conquered colony. The duty is not one of
demolition, but one of restoration. It is not to make a Constitution,
but to guarantee that the old Constitution or one equally republican
in form, and made by the loyal citizens of the State, shall be upheld
and sustained.

“If a majority of the people of a State conspire to subvert its
republican forms, that majority may be, and should be, put down by the
Federal power, while the minority, however few, sustaining republican
forms may be constitutionally installed as the political power of the
State.

“These, as I understand, were the views of Mr. Lincoln; and they were
not the views of Mr. Sumner, as enunciated in his resolutions of 1862
and advocated by him in his subsequent career in the Senate.

“A departure from these views gave us the carpet-bag governments of
the Southern States, and brought upon us divers other evils in our
ideas and theories of government, whose effects are yet visible.”

Footnote 498:

N. & H., Vol. X., p. 145.