Chapter X: Reconstruction Resumed

The McCardle Case--The Congressional Acts Admitting the Senators- and Representatives-elect from the Reconstructed "States" to Seats in Congress--The Veto of these Bills by the President--The Vetoes Overridden--Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the President's Proclamations Declaring Reconstruction Completed--Seward's Proclamation Declaring the Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Required Number of "States"--The Questions Suggested by Mr. Seward's First Proclamation--The Concurrent Resolution of Congress upon these Questions--The Correct Procedure--The National Conventions of 1868--Platform and Nominees of the Republican Party--Democratic Platform and Nominees--The Election and the Electoral Vote--The Conduct of the President during the Campaign--Congress and the President--The President's Last Annual Message--The President's Amnesty Proclamation of December 25th, 1868--The President's Veto of the Bill in Regard to the Colored Schools in the District of Columbia--The Fifteenth Amendment--Criticism of the Republican View--Johnson's Retirement from the Presidency--The President and the Republican Party.

[Sidenote: The McCardle case.]

During the period of the impeachment trial, a case was in progress before the Supreme Court of the United States, which in its final settlement was destined to deprive the President of any hope that a judicial decision in regard to the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts could ever be attained. We have seen that in the cases of Mississippi vs. Johnson and of Georgia vs. Stanton the President had resisted the jurisdiction of the Court when {196} aimed directly at the Executive and his immediate agents. This was his duty, and he performed it sincerely and successfully. But it is not to be inferred from this that he would not have welcomed a judicial decision from the Supreme Court of the United States pronouncing these Acts null and void, if it could have been reached through the forms of a proper case, one not involving the executive authority at all.

Such a case had appeared in this Court in the winter term of 1867-68, and the argument as to the jurisdiction of the Court, and the decision of this point in the affirmative, had both been made before the impeachment trial began. One William H. McCardle, arrested and held by the military authorities in Mississippi for trial before a military commission on charge of having published in a newspaper, of which he was editor, libellous and incendiary articles, petitioned the Circuit Court of the United States for a writ of Habeas Corpus. The writ was issued, and return was made by the military commander, General A. C. Gillem, admitting the arrest and detention of McCardle, but contending that these acts were lawful. The Circuit Court, on the 25th of November, 1867, remanded McCardle, who had been held in custody between the time of the return to the writ and this date by the United States marshal, to the custody of General Gillem. McCardle then appealed from this judgment of the Circuit Court to the Supreme Court of the United States. Upon a motion to dismiss the appeal, made by the counsel of the military authorities, this Court decided that under the statute of February 5th, 1867, the Supreme Court of the United States could hear the appeal, and denied the motion to dismiss it.

The question was now before the Supreme Court upon its merits, and it involved the constitutionality {197} of the Reconstruction Acts. It was argued very ably, and the part of the Reconstruction Acts putting the districts of the South under martial law two years after the Civil War had ended, and when the civil authority of the United States was everywhere recognized and enforced, was pretty clearly shown to have been a very serious stretching of its powers by Congress, if not a distinct usurpation. The Republicans in Congress were greatly frightened, and while the case was under advisement in the Court, they hastened to repeal the Act of February 5th, 1867, and to make the repeal apply to appeals already taken under that Act, as well as to such as might be attempted in the future. The repealing bill was vetoed by the President on the 25th of March, but it was immediately repassed by the majority necessary to override the veto, repassed without the slightest regard to the President's very sound and convincing objections. This Act of the 27th of March was intended to prevent any decision upon the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts, and did do so most effectively, but it was an abominable subterfuge on the part of Congress and a shameful abuse of its powers.

As will be remembered, seven of the ten Southern communities, viz., North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Arkansas, had already before the close of the impeachment trial ratified the "State" constitutions framed for them by the "carpet-bag, scalawag, negro conventions" held in each for them, had elected "State" officers and legislators, and the legislature of one of them, Arkansas, had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as the legislature of each of them was required to do before it could be admitted to representation in Congress.

{198} [Sidenote: The Congressional Acts admitting the Senators- and Representatives-elect from the reconstructed "States" to seats in Congress.]

Congress now looked upon the work of its hands and pronounced it good, and proceeded to pass the acts, necessary in its conceit, to admit these communities to representation in the legislative houses of the Nation. First came the Act in reference to Arkansas, of the 22d of June, 1868, since, as has been just said, the new legislature of Arkansas had already ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment. It provided "that the State of Arkansas is entitled and admitted to representation in Congress, as one of the States of the Union, on the following fundamental condition: 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: Provided that any alteration of said constitution prospective in its effect may be made in regard to the time and place of residence of voters."

Three days later, that is on the 25th, Congress provided in a single act for the admission of the Senators and Representatives from the other six reconstructed "States" to the national legislature in the following language: "_Be it enacted, &c._, That each of the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, shall be entitled and admitted to representation in Congress as a State of the Union when the legislature of such State shall have duly ratified the Amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as Article XIV., upon the following fundamental {199} conditions: That the constitution of neither of said States shall ever be so amended or changed as to deprive any citizen, or class of citizens, of the United States of the right to vote in said State who are entitled to vote by the constitution thereof, 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: _Provided_, that any alteration of said constitutions may be made with regard to the time and place of residence of voters." It was also further provided that the legislature of Georgia should, by solemn public act, declare its assent to the fundamental condition that the article of the new constitution of Georgia prohibiting the courts within the "State" from entertaining any suit against any resident of the "State" for any debt existing prior to June 1st, 1865, and prohibiting the judicial and ministerial officers of the "State" from executing any process in reference to such debts, should be considered and treated as null and void.

[Sidenote: The veto of these bills by the President.]

The President had placed his veto on both of these bills. The veto of the Arkansas bill bears the date of June 20th, and that of the other bill bears the date of June 25th. There are parts of the President's argument which are entirely convincing to any candid mind at the present day. He pointed out that the fundamental condition imposed by Congress, in all these cases, upon the admission of Senators and Representatives to Congress, viz., that no change should ever be made in the suffrage qualifications provided in these "State" constitutions whereby any citizen or class of citizens of the United States having the right to vote under these constitutions should be deprived of such right, was an assumption of power by Congress to regulate a subject, within the "States," which by the {200} existing Constitution of the United States belonged exclusively to the "States," to each "State" for itself.

There can be no question that the President was entirely correct in this contention. The Fifteenth Amendment was as yet no part of the Constitution. It had not even been proposed by Congress to the "States." It is very questionable whether a majority in Congress could have been found, at that time, in favor of making such a proposition, much less the required extraordinary majority of two-thirds. And until the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified as a part of the Constitution of the United States, Congress had no power to exact such a concession, or anything like it, from any "State" as the price of the admission of representatives from it to the Houses of the National Legislature. And even since the Fifteenth Amendment has become a part of the Constitution, the Government of the United States cannot prohibit such changes in a "State" constitution, unless the deprivation of suffrage is made on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The President also called attention to the fact that no way was provided in the bills whereby the "States" should signify their acceptance of this "fundamental condition" of admission to representation in Congress, and that no penalty was prescribed for a violation of the condition. Did Congress mean that, in case of any violation of its "fundamental condition," it would throw the "State" back under martial law, and proceed to reconstruct anew? That was a question which might well be asked in view of what Congress had already done; and it was a question which was not calculated to allay uneasiness in the minds of the people in the Southern communities.

{201} Finally, in the veto of the Arkansas bill, the President expressed his very serious doubts whether the new "State" constitution had been ratified by the electorate created by the Acts of Congress for that purpose, since a section in that constitution prescribed that no person would be allowed to vote upon the ratification of the constitution who had not previously taken an oath to the effect "that he accepted the doctrine of the civil and political equality of all men, and agreed not to attempt to deprive any person or persons, on account of race, color, or previous condition, of any political or civil right, privilege or immunity enjoyed by any other class of men," thus adding a new qualification for registration and voting to those prescribed in the Reconstruction Acts of Congress. There is no question that the President was right about this, too. And there is no question that this new qualification was entirely null and void, in so far as it applied to voting upon, and registering to vote upon, the ratification of the constitution itself, unless we ascribe constituent power to the convention which framed the constitution, instead of the power of initiation only. We know that no constitutional convention has, or then had, any such powers in our system. It was nothing more or less than a palpable usurpation of constituent power when the convention in Arkansas presumed to add this qualification to those prescribed by Congress for voting upon the ratification of the constitution itself. Of course it would have been lawful and regular for the "State" constitution to make this additional requirement for voting in all future elections, after the constitution prescribing it should have been adopted by the electorate created by the Congressional Acts, although the requirement itself would have been unreasonable and oppressive. But for the convention, a mere proposing {202} body, to ordain this new qualification for voting on the question of the adoption of the constitution itself was a political outrage of the first order.

[Sidenote: The vetoes overridden.]

Congress was not, however, in a state of mind to listen to any suggestions from the President, no matter how correct and important they might be. Both Houses promptly, almost mockingly, passed the two bills over the President's vetoes.

[Sidenote: Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the President's proclamations declaring Reconstruction completed.]

Such of the legislatures created under the new "State" constitutions as were not already in session were quickly summoned to assemble, and by July 21st all of them had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the legislature of Georgia had also pledged by solemn act that the repudiation article of the new constitution should never be enforced. By July 27th the President had issued his several proclamations, as required by the Act of June 25th, announcing the ratification of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment by these legislatures, and consequently the admission of these "States" to representation in Congress; and so far as the seven "States" of Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana were concerned the work of reconstruction was now completed. Virginia, Mississippi and Texas still remained under martial law.

[Sidenote: Seward's proclamation declaring the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by the required number of "States."]

On the 28th day of July, Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, issued his proclamation, declaring the ratification of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by the legislatures of thirty States of the Union, and its consequent validity as a part of the Constitution of the United States.

{203} [Sidenote: The questions suggested by Mr. Seward's first proclamation.]

Eight days before this proclamation, that is on the 20th, Mr. Seward had issued a proclamation declaring that the legislatures of twenty-three States, viz., of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Tennessee, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Iowa, had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, and that six "newly-constituted and newly-established bodies avowing themselves to be, and acting as, the legislatures, respectively, of the States of Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama" had also ratified it; that the legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey had subsequently passed resolutions withdrawing their ratification of the Amendment; and that, if these latter resolutions of the legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey should be disregarded, the proposed Fourteenth Amendment had been adopted by the legislatures of twenty-nine of the thirty-seven "States" of the Union and had thus become a valid part of the Constitution of the United States.

Besides the question expressed in this Proclamation, Mr. Seward indicates by his language a further question, viz., whether the six "newly-constituted and newly-established bodies, avowing themselves to be, and acting as, the legislatures, respectively, of the States of Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama" were genuine "State" legislatures. They were the legislatures established under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, but as Congress had refused to recognize the "States" for whom these bodies acted as entitled to representation in Congress, that is as "States" having the rights of "States" of the Union, until {204} after these bodies had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it was no wonder that so good a constitutional lawyer and so logical a thinker as Mr. Seward had his doubts as to whether these bodies were genuine "State" legislatures.

[Sidenote: The concurrent resolution of Congress upon these questions.]

In order to quiet these doubts, if possible, the two Houses of Congress passed on the following day, July 21st, the following concurrent resolution: "Whereas the legislatures of the States of Connecticut, Tennessee, _New Jersey_, Oregon, Vermont, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, _Ohio_, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Maine, Iowa, _Arkansas_, _Florida_, _North Carolina_, _Alabama_, _South Carolina_ and _Louisiana_, being three-fourths and more of the several States of the Union, have ratified the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, duly proposed by two-thirds of each House of the Thirty-ninth Congress; therefore, Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That said Fourteenth Article is hereby declared to be a part of the Constitution of the United States, and it shall be duly promulgated as such by the Secretary of State." Upon the basis of this resolution, which decided, in so far as Congress can decide, that the consent of the legislature of a "State" to a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States cannot be withdrawn when once given, and that the "newly-constituted and newly-established bodies, avowing themselves to be, and acting as, the legislatures, respectively, of the States of Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama" were genuine "State" legislatures qualified to {205} vote upon the ratification of a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Mr. Seward issued his proclamation of the 28th of July, above recited. As the Georgia Legislature ratified the proposed amendment on the 21st inst. and also gave its pledge not to allow the repudiation article in its constitution to be enforced, Mr. Seward included Georgia in this last proclamation.

It will be seen that both Mr. Seward and Congress counted all of the Southern communities which had ever been "States" as being "States," making the whole number of "States" thirty-seven, and the number necessary for ratification of the amendment twenty-eight. Upon this basis of calculation two more than the necessary number had ratified at the date of Mr. Seward's final proclamation. It will also be seen that both Mr. Seward and Congress, that is that both the legislative and executive departments of the Government, ignored the attempt of Ohio and New Jersey to withdraw their consent to the amendment, and fixed the precedent in the constitutional practice of the United States that a "State" legislature cannot reconsider its ratification of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States at any time. This means, when scientifically appreciated, that the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States is not an agreement between the "States," and therefore becomes valid as to each only after three-fourths of the "States," the constitutional number necessary to make the proposed amendment a valid part of the Constitution, shall have ratified it, but that ratification by a "State" legislature, and _a fortiori_ by a convention of the people within a "State," is only an indirect vote of a part of the people of the United States upon a question submitted to the suffrages of the whole people of the United States. When, {206} therefore, this affirmative vote has been once officially announced by the proper authorities within the "State" to the proper authorities of the United States there is no further control over it by the authorities within the "State."

[Sidenote: The correct procedure.]

If, however, the votes of Ohio and New Jersey had not been counted in the affirmative, there was still a three-fourths majority of thirty-seven "States" in favor of ratification. And if the ten Southern communities had been left out of the computation altogether, which would have made the Union to consist, so far as that part of it erected into "States" was concerned, of twenty-seven "States," there would still have been more than a three-fourths majority in favor of ratification, with or without Ohio and New Jersey. The correct procedure, from a scientific point of view, would undoubtedly have been to have computed the necessary majority upon the basis of twenty-seven "States," to have included Ohio and New Jersey among the "States" whose legislatures voted for ratification, and then to have admitted the ten Southern communities as "States" under the Constitution of the United States, _with the Fourteenth Amendment as an already established part of it_, concerning which they had no more to say than they had in regard to any other part of the Constitution. But, however that may be, no objection can be made to the validity of the Fourteenth Amendment on the ground of the majority by which it was ratified. In whatever way we may compute the whole number of "States" and the majority voting in the affirmative, the Amendment was lawfully ratified.

[Sidenote: The national conventions of 1868.]

During these movements in execution of the Reconstruction Acts, the national party conventions for the nomination of candidates for the presidency and for the formation of platforms were held. That of the {207} Republican party assembled first, on the twenty-first day of May in Chicago, at the moment when its radical elements were filled with rage and chagrin at the failure of the impeachment of the President.

[Sidenote: Platform and nominees of the Republican party.]

It made General Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut, its presiding officer; adopted a platform, a large part of which was devoted to denunciation of the President, to the promise of bountiful pensions, and to a twist of the British lion's tail on the subject of expatriation; the main principles of which, however, were good faith in the payment of the public debt with sound money, and equal suffrage by Congressional law in the Southern communities; and nominated Grant and Colfax for the presidency and the vice-presidency.

In pronouncing for the guaranty of negro suffrage at the South by Congressional law, the platform attempted to steer clear of the prejudices against negro suffrage at the North by a sort of proviso, which read, "While the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States." This was certainly inconsistent, not to say hypocritical. Negro suffrage at the North would have been a comparatively harmless thing on account of the fewness of the negroes as compared with the whites in that section, and on account of the superior average intelligence of the negroes of the North when compared with that of those of the South. There was no sound principle in this article of the platform. It was a mean, shuffling bit of partisan politics. The party itself felt it to be so in the course of the campaign, and came out finally for the settlement of the whole question of negro suffrage upon the same basis for the whole country and by means of a constitutional amendment.

{208} The nominees immediately accepted their nominations in characteristic letters, that of General Grant being short, crisp, modest and ending with the now famous sentence: "Let us have peace," and that of Colfax being more lengthy and wordy and containing a rhetorical defence of some of the more questionable parts of the platform.

[Sidenote: Democratic platform and nominees.]

The Democratic convention assembled in New York on the 4th day of July. It was confronted at the start with the Greenback heresy, and the candidacy of the Greenback champion for the presidency, Mr. George H. Pendleton of Ohio. This heresy was in a sentence the doctrine that all the public debt of the United States not made expressly payable in coin should be paid in United States paper, which Congress might order to be stamped, issued, and made legal tender, to any amount it might please. The shibboleth was, "the same currency for the bondholder and the plough-holder." It had taken firm hold in Ohio, and was rapidly spreading through the valley of the Mississippi. The Eastern Democrats, however, looked upon it with disfavor, and were determined to defeat the nomination of Mr. Pendleton. They were obliged, however, to accept the platform, in so far as it related to this subject, as dictated by their Western compatriots. The third plank in the platform read, "... and where the obligations of the Government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide, that they shall be paid in coin, they ought in right and in justice to be paid in the lawful money of the United States." The fifth plank also read, "one currency for the Government and the people, the laborer and the officeholder, the pensioner and the soldier, the producer and the bondholder." It is true that the {209} platform did not expressly pronounce in favor of an unlimited issue of paper money with which to pay the bonds, but it was generally understood that this was what was meant. The questions then of sound money and of the faithful discharge of the public obligations were thus put in issue. The Democrats also met squarely the Republican doctrine of Reconstruction. They demanded the "immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union under the Constitution, and of civil government to the American people," with "amnesty for all past political offences, and the regulation of the election franchise in the States by their citizens." And they denounced the Radical party, as they termed the Republicans, "for its disregard of right, and the unparalleled oppression and tyranny which have marked its career," declared the Reconstruction Acts to be unconstitutional, revolutionary and void, and lauded President Johnson for his unflinching resistance to "the aggressions of Congress upon the constitutional rights of the States and the people."

[Sidenote: Weakness of the platform.]

There is no question that the platform of the Democrats, with its paper money doctrine, and its hostility to Reconstruction and universal suffrage, was a shaky foundation for any party to attempt to stand upon at that juncture. Not much conscience and not much sentiment could be aroused with such tenets. Conscience and sentiment were much more amenable to the appeals of the Republican platform upon these points. Moreover, the tremendous popularity of the Republican candidates had to be reckoned with. Where could the Democrats find a candidate who would both match Grant in the popular affection and overbalance also the weakness of the platform? The New Yorkers in the convention, led by Seymour, Tilden, Schell and Kernan, {210} had their man for this emergency, but they dared not reveal at the outset their plan. They were resolved to nominate Chief Justice Chase. They thought that Chase's well-known devotion to the principles of universal suffrage and his career as Secretary of the Treasury would satisfy the Eastern men in regard to the platform, and that his attachment to the principles of civil government versus militarism would, in some degree at least, neutralize the popularity of the military hero. The delegates from Ohio, Mr. Chase's own "State," suspected the purpose of the New Yorkers, and were determined to foil it. If they could not get Pendleton, they were determined not to have Chase. After the first six ballots without result, Pendleton, however, leading, the New Yorkers brought forward Hendricks of Indiana, in order to break down Pendleton's vote. Having succeeded in this after some six more ballots, the name of Chase was brought before the convention by a half vote from California. The purpose was probably to feel of the convention. It was highly successful. The announcement of the half vote was received with enthusiastic applause. Masking themselves behind Hancock, who was at that juncture in the lead, and Hendricks, the New Yorkers now prepared to present Chase; but the Ohioans were too quick for them. They succeeded in withdrawing Pendleton and presenting Seymour himself as their candidate, before the New Yorkers knew what they were about. Seymour, who was occupying the presidency of the convention, declared from his seat that he could not accept, but the Ohioans stuck to their nomination, and the New Yorkers had to assent. They were fairly caught in their own net.

[Sidenote: The nominees.]

Seymour finally yielded, and the convention addressed itself to the nomination of its candidate for the vice-presidency. The ex-Confederate General William Preston of {211} Kentucky presented the name of the noted Union General Francis P. Blair of Missouri for the place. The nomination was seconded by the ex-Confederate General Wade Hampton of South Carolina, and was made by acclamation. While General Blair was a noted Union soldier of high ability and undoubted loyalty, he was a fierce enemy of the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, and was for this reason very popular with the ex-Confederates. In an open letter to Colonel J. O. Brodhead of St. Louis, written five days before the assembly of the Democratic convention, he not only denounced the Reconstruction Acts as unconstitutional, but advanced a method for getting rid of them and their effects in case a Democratic President should be elected. He proposed that the new President should "declare these Acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganize their own governments, and elect Senators and Representatives." He said, further, that the House of Representatives would contain a majority of Democrats from the North, who would admit the members elected to that body from the South to seats, and that the House with the President would exert such a pressure on the Senate as to cause the doors of that body to be opened to the members from the Southern "States." When General Blair wrote this letter he was being spoken of as a candidate for the presidency, and this letter was taken as the declaration of what he would do if elected to the position of Chief Magistrate of the nation. After his nomination for the vice-presidency, in his speech and letter of acceptance, he announced the chief issue in the contest to be the relief of the South from martial law and negro domination. The ex-Confederates represented it the same way at the South, and threw themselves into {212} the campaign with great enthusiasm for Seymour and Blair.

On the other hand, the bland, politic and persuasive Seymour pursued a much more moderate and conciliatory course, and when it became evident that General Blair's violent expressions and revolutionary purposes were ruining the Democratic prospects at the North, he went into the campaign personally, and by his diplomatic manners and fine oratory succeeded in stemming the tide which, running against the Democrats from the moment when their platform was proclaimed, had been driven on to a flood by General Blair's indiscretions, to put it very mildly, in speech and conduct. But while some lost ground was regained, it was evident that the hopes of the Democrats had been blasted.

[Sidenote: The election and the electoral vote.]

The electoral votes of thirty-four "States" were counted, Virginia, Mississippi and Texas being still regarded by Congress as unreconstructed. Of these thirty-four, eight cast their votes for Seymour and Blair. These were New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Oregon, Georgia and Louisiana. The rest went for Grant and Colfax. The electoral vote stood eighty for Seymour and Blair and two hundred and fourteen for Grant and Colfax. The popular vote stood two millions seven hundred and three thousand two hundred and forty-nine for Seymour and Blair, and three millions and twelve thousand eight hundred and thirty-three for Grant and Colfax. The exclusion of Virginia, Mississippi and Texas from the vote and the inclusion of the suffrages of the "carpet-baggers" and the negroes, under the protection of the military, in the reconstructed "States," had saved the day for Grant and Colfax. If the electorate of the South had been as in 1860, or probably as it was in the years of the Johnson governments, Seymour and Blair {213} would have triumphed. As it was, but for the Greenback plank in the Democratic platform and the indiscretions of General Blair, they might have triumphed. That is to say, if the Reconstruction policy of Congress had been the sole issue, it is quite possible that the Republicans would have lost the election, even with the most popular man in the North as their standard bearer.

[Sidenote: The conduct of the President during the campaign.]

Meanwhile the President had continued to ply the Congress with his vetoes and messages and to address the country with his proclamations. He had thought that he ought to be vindicated by being nominated by the Democrats for the presidency, and had actually received sixty-five votes on the first ballot. His failure before the convention ought to have taught him that he was no longer a factor to be reckoned with in the domain of politics, and that his proper course was to execute quietly the functions of his office to the end of his term, and then retire to private life. But he seemed to think that his political opinions were still of great value, and in a very few days after the adjournment of the Democratic convention he addressed a message to Congress advising a most radical change in the structure of the government by means of constitutional amendment. He therein recommended that Congress should propose to the "States" so to amend the Constitution as to provide for the election of the President and Vice-President by a direct vote of the people, for the ineligibility of these officers for a second term, for the designation of the members of the Cabinet in a certain order, beginning with the Secretary of State, as the persons to discharge the duties of the President in case of a vacancy in the presidential office by the death, resignation or removal of both the President and the Vice-President, for the election of the Senators by the direct vote of the people, {214} and for the limitation of the terms of the United States judges to a period of years. There was sound reason for the third of these suggestions, the designation by the Constitution of the Cabinet officers in a certain order as the successors to the powers and duties of the President, when the country might be without both a President and a Vice-President, and it has since then been made law under the form of a statute of Congress.

[Sidenote: Congress and the President.]

But the Congress was not then in a mood to hear anything from Mr. Johnson. Two days later, July 20th, the President vetoed the joint resolution passed by the two Houses, excluding from the electoral college in the coming presidential election the votes of "States" lately in rebellion which should not have been reorganized under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress. In this veto he went over his whole argument once more against the constitutionality of these Acts and in favor of his own method of Reconstruction. But the Congress treated the message with contempt and promptly repassed the resolution.

[Sidenote: The President's last annual Message.]

On the 9th of December President Johnson sent his last annual Message to Congress. It was a grave, dignified and statesmanlike document both in form and content. In it he told Congress plainly and respectfully that its Reconstruction policy had arrayed the races against each other at the South, had impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly relations that had previously existed between them, and had given mortal offence to the civilized race by placing the uncivilized race in domination over it; and he urged that legislation which had produced such baleful consequences ought to be abrogated. He also told Congress that it had seriously impaired the power of the President to exact the necessary accountability of the public officers by its Tenure-of-Office Act, and had embarrassed {215} the Executive in the exercise of his constitutional military functions by the Act of March 2d, 1867; and he urged the repeal of both of these measures. He also gave a most serious and startling account of the condition of the public finances, and of the consumption of the wealth of the Nation by the bondholders, officials and pensioners. He pointed out that the public debt, which in 1860 was 64,000,000 dollars, had become 2,527,129,552 dollars; that the annual expenditure, which was, in 1860, 63,000,000 dollars, had become 336,000,000 dollars and more, and that the expenditure per capita, which was two dollars in 1860, had become nearly ten dollars. And he suggested the ways in which this threatening condition might be relieved, viz., by a refunding of the bonds at a lower interest, by a speedy resumption of specie payment, by a reduction of the army and of the horde of Reconstruction officials in the South, and by a strict accountability of the revenue officials to their superiors and of these latter to the President. From the point of view of sound political science, good public policy and true patriotism all of these suggestions were at least worth consideration, but Congress took no more notice of them than it did of the distant murmurs of the waters of the Potomac.

[Sidenote: The President's amnesty proclamation of December 25th, 1868.]

Only once again did the Congress break over its apparent resolve to ignore the President, and that was upon the occasion of his issue of his universal and unconditional pardon and amnesty to all persons who had participated, either directly or indirectly, in the rebellion, with the restoration of all their rights, privileges and immunities under the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. The date of this document was December 25th, 1868. On the 5th of January, 1869, the Senate called him to account for this by a {216} resolution calling upon him "to transmit to the Senate a copy of any proclamation of amnesty made by him since the last adjournment of Congress, and also to communicate to the Senate by what authority of law the same was made." The President replied on the 18th, sending a copy of his proclamation of December 25th, 1868, and declaring that he issued it by authority of the second section of Article second of the Constitution, which vested in the President the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment, and in accordance with precedents established by his predecessors in office, Washington, Adams, Madison and Lincoln. The Senate did not say that he had no right to claim any constitutional prerogative, and that he was not worthy to act under precedents set by Washington, Adams, Madison, and Lincoln, but most of the Senators evidently so thought. The proclamation had no effect upon the qualifications for suffrage in the face of the Reconstruction Acts and the "State" constitutions framed and established in accordance with them. It was little more than the bull against the comet.

[Sidenote: The President's veto of the Bill in regard to the colored schools in the District of Columbia.]

As a sort of final stroke the President vetoed the bill concerning the transfer of the control of the colored schools in the District of Columbia, and the bill for raising the duties on imported copper and copper ores. He gave excellent reasons for both of these vetoes, but Congress had long ceased to be guided by reason in matters which related to the President.

[Sidenote: The Fifteenth Amendment.]

On its side it was busy with a project which, though not intended as a blow at him particularly, was not in accordance with his view that the regulation of the suffrage within the "States" was, and should be, left to the "States" respectively, and exclusively, viz., {217} the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Reference has already been made to the inconsistent doctrine, we might almost say the timorous subterfuge, of the Republican platform on the matter of negro suffrage, and to the growing conviction on the part of the Republicans during the campaign that this question must be settled for the entire country alike, and by a constitutional amendment. At the opening of Congress in December, and during the first days of the session, the proposition was presented which finally took on the form given it by the conference committee of the two Houses in the words: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." It was passed by both Houses with the requisite two-thirds majority on the 26th of February and sent to the legislatures of the "States" for ratification. The Republicans had at last come to the view that the emancipation of the freedmen involved their civil equality with the whites, and that such equality could not be maintained unless they possessed the elective franchise, and that it was cowardly for the "States" of the North to force negro suffrage on the South without accepting it for themselves.

[Sidenote: Criticism of the Republican view.]

It is certainly true that full freedom implies civil liberty and civil equality, but there was another way, and a better way, to have secured these than by the immediate and universal suffrage of the newly emancipated in all their ignorance, immorality and poverty, and that was by the nationalization of civil liberty, and its protection and enforcement by the United States courts. Most of the {218} Republicans believed, at that moment, that that had been secured by the Fourteenth Amendment; and there can be little question that a very important consideration with such was the fear that after Reconstruction should be accomplished, the Southern "States" might amend negro suffrage out of their "State" constitutions, and thus destroy the Republican party in these "States," unless the Constitution of the United States should be so amended as to prevent it. The most radical among them were no doubt moved chiefly by the extravagant humanitarianism of the period, which had developed in their minds to the point of justifying not only the political equality of the races, but the political superiority, at least in loyalty to the Union, the Constitution and republican government, of the uncivilized negroes over the whites of the South; but that this conviction was not very strong among the masses of them can be readily concluded from the fact that that party is to-day the party which is following the European idea of the duty of civilized races to impose their political sovereignty upon uncivilized, or half civilized, or not fully civilized, races anywhere and everywhere in the world. No party can, in so short a time, so completely change its fundamental principle of political ethics when it is really and conscientiously believed in by the masses of the party.

[Sidenote: Johnson's retirement from the presidency.]

This proposed Fifteenth Amendment was not sent to the President for his approval, but went, according to custom, to the Secretary of State, to be submitted to the "State" legislatures. The President was now within a very few days of the end of his term. His sun had fairly set, and the disrespect felt for him by the members of the dominant party in Congress and out of Congress was expressed in the rude and quite unprecedented refusal of General Grant to sit in the same carriage with him in the {219} procession from the White House to the Capitol, on the 4th of March, for the ceremonies of the inauguration of the new President. Discredited, despised, and scoffed at, as a traitor to his party, to his political creed, and to his country, Mr. Johnson stepped down from the high office which he had occupied during one of the two most critical periods in American history since the establishment of the present Constitution.

[Sidenote: The President and the Republican party.]

And yet it is certainly true that the Republican party had left him rather than that he had left the party. This party began simply as a Union party and an anti-slavery extension party. Mr. Johnson, an original Democrat, joined with the Republicans upon this basis, and he never left it. On the other hand, when the necessities of the war for the Union made it evident that the slaves within the Southern communities which had declared secession, and were engaged in rebellion, must be proclaimed free, Mr. Johnson still went with the Republicans in the justification of this measure. And when, finally, the war was ended and the Union was preserved, and the Republicans decided that the legitimate outcome of the victory was the prohibition of slavery everywhere within the United States by an amendment to the Constitution, Mr. Johnson still marched with them, at the head of the column. It was only when they became more and more radical in their policy, and insisted upon transforming rather than restoring the "States" of the South, by placing civil rights under national protection instead of "State" protection, disfranchising the whites of the South, and enfranchising the negroes, and upon overcoming the Executive's objections to these movements not simply by overriding the veto, but by generally subordinating the Executive to Congress--it was only then that he {220} separated from them and fell back naturally on such support as he could get, which was chiefly from the Democratic party.

No fair mind can claim that the Republicans in their quarrel with the President had not departed from their solemn declaration made in Congress assembled in those dark July days of 1861, just after the first great defeat of the Union arms, "That this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the Southern States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired." And it was upon the basis of this understanding that the Democrats in Congress, Mr. Johnson among them, stood with the Republicans in the prosecution of the war. It is indeed a serious question of political casuistry as to how far declarations of policy are binding upon a political party. They are certainly not like agreements entered into between sovereign states, and the law of development rather than the law of contract must be the constructive force in party creed. But this, at least, must be held, viz., that a man originally not of a given political party, but acting with it upon the basis of a given creed, cannot be accused of being an apostate from that party if he does not continue with it when it adopts a new creed in many respects the very opposite of that given creed, except in the most groveling sense of machine politics; and that when he and it do part company, more by its own departures from the given creed than by his, he is certainly not on that account to be necessarily considered as a traitor to his country. The truth is, that while all men who occupy high station are {221} peculiarly subject to wanton, as well as ignorant, assaults upon their purposes and their conduct, few men that have occupied so high a station have ever been so unreasonably slandered and vilified as Andrew Johnson. His own unfortunate and irritating manners and methods will account for a good deal of the misunderstanding of his character, but the violence of the times was the occasion of a great deal more of it. The true Union men of Tennessee will, however, never forget the hope, and encouragement, and support which he gave to them, when they were left in the lurch by their own natural leader, John Bell; and the Nation should for this, if nothing else, write his name in the book of its heroes.

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