Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet Part 32

"Yours, "Horace Greeley."

When Congress met on the 4th of December, 1865, it had before it two important problems which demanded immediate attention. One was a measure for the reconstruction of the states lately in rebellion and the other was a plan for refunding and paying the public debt. It was unfortunate that no measure had been provided before the close of the war defining the condition of the states lately in rebellion, securing the freedmen in their new-born rights, and restoring these states to their place in the Union. Therefore, during the long vacation, from April to December, the whole matter was left to executive authority. If Lincoln had lived, his action would have been acquiesced in. It would have been liberal, based upon universal emanc.i.p.ation of negroes, and pardon to rebels. It was supposed that President Johnson would err, if at all, in imposing too harsh terms upon these states. His violent speeches in the canva.s.s of 1864, and his fierce denunciation of the leaders in the Rebellion, led us all to suppose that he would insist upon a reconstruction by the loyal people of the south and that reasonable protection would be extended to the emanc.i.p.ated negroes. The necessity of legislation for the reconstruction of the Confederate states was foreseen and provision had been made by Congress, during the war, by what was known as the Wade-Davis bill, to provide for the reorganization of these states. During the 37th Congress, Henry Winter Davis, though not then a Member of the House of Representatives, prepared a bill to meet this exigency. It was a bill to guarantee to each state a republican form of government.

It embodied a plan by which these states, then declared by Congress to be in a state of insurrection, might, when that insurrection was subdued or abandoned, come back freely and voluntarily into the Union. It provided for representation, for the election of a convention and a legislature, and of Senators and Members of Congress. It was a complete guarantee to the people of the insurrectionary states that upon certain conditions these states might resume their place in the Union when the insurrection had ceased. This bill he handed to me. I introduced it at his request.

It was referred to the judiciary committee, but was not acted upon by it.

Afterwards Mr. Davis came into the 38th Congress as a Member of the House of Representatives. Among the first acts performed by him after taking his seat was the introduction of this same bill.

On the 15th of December, 1863, it was debated in the House of Representatives and pa.s.sed by a very decided vote, and was sent to the Senate. It was reported to the Senate favorably, but in place of it was subst.i.tuted a proposition offered by B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri. This subst.i.tute provided a mode by which the eleven Confederate states might, when the Rebellion was suppressed within their limits, be restored to their old places in the Union. The bill was sent back to the House with the proposed subst.i.tute. A committee of conference was appointed, and the House preferring the original bill, the Senate receded from its amendment, and what was known as the Wade-Davis bill pa.s.sed. It went to President Lincoln, who did not approve it, and it did not become a law, but on the 8th of July, 1864, after the close of the session, he issued the following proclamation:

"Whereas, at the late session Congress pa.s.sed a bill to guaranty to certain states, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government, a copy of which is hereunto annexed; and whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the _sine die_ adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him; and whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the states in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration:

"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known, that while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and while I am also unprepared to declare that the free state const.i.tutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a const.i.tutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in states, I am at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting that a const.i.tutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the nation may be adopted."

He added his reasons for not approving the Wade-Davis bill. He did not entirely disapprove of it, but said it was one of numerous plans which might be adopted. Mr. Sumner stated, on the floor of the Senate, that he had had an interview with President Lincoln immediately after the publication of that proclamation, and it was the subject of very minute and protracted conversation, in the course of which, after discussing the details, Mr. Lincoln expressed his regret that he had not approved the bill. I have always thought that Mr. Lincoln made a serious mistake in defeating a measure, which, if adopted, would have averted many if not all the difficulties that subsequently arose in the reconstruction of the rebel states.

The next and closing session of that Congress neglected to provide for the reorganization of these states, and, thus, when Mr. Johnson became President, there was no provision of law to guide him in the necessary process of reconstruction. Thus, by the disagreement between Congress and President Lincoln, which commenced two years before the close of the war, there was no law upon the statute book to guide either the President or the people of the southern states in their effort to get back into the Union. It became imperative during the long period before the meeting of Congress that President Johnson should, in the absence of legislation, formulate some plan for the reconstruction of these states. He did adopt substantially the plan proposed and acted upon by Mr. Lincoln. After this long lapse of time I am convinced that Mr. Johnson's scheme of reconstruction was wise and judicious. It was unfortunate that it had not the sanction of Congress and that events soon brought the President and Congress into hostility. Who doubts that if there had been a law upon the statute book by which the people of the southern states could have been guided in their effort to come back into the Union, they would have cheerfully followed it, although the conditions had been hard? In the absence of law both Lincoln and Johnson did substantially right when they adopted a plan of their own and endeavored to carry it into execution. Johnson, before he was elected and while acting as military governor of Tennessee, executed the plan of Lincoln in that state and subsequently adopted the same plan for the reorganization of the rebel states. In all these plans the central idea was that the states in insurrection were still states, ent.i.tled to be treated as such. They were described as "The eleven states which have been declared to be in insurrection."

There was an express provision that:

"No Senator or Representative shall be admitted into either branch of Congress from _any of said states_ until Congress shall have declared _such state_ ent.i.tled to such representation."

In all the plans proposed in Congress, as well as in the plan of Johnson, it was declared that states had no right while in insurrection to elect electors to the electoral college; they had no right to elect Senators and Representatives. In other words they could not resume the powers, rights and privileges conferred upon states by the Const.i.tution of the United States, except by the consent of Congress. Having taken up arms against the United States, they by that act lost their const.i.tutional powers within the United States to govern and control our councils. They could not engage in the election of a President, or of Senators or Members of Congress; but they were still states. The supreme power of Congress to change, alter or modify the acts of the President and to admit or reject these states and their Senators and Representatives at its will and pleasure, and the const.i.tutional right of the respective Houses to judge of the election, returns and qualifications of its own Members were recognized. When Mr. Johnson came into power he found the Rebellion substantially subdued. His first act was to retain in his confidence, and in his councils, every member of the cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, and, so far as we know, every measure adopted by him had the approval and sanction of that cabinet.

Every act pa.s.sed by Congress, with or without his a.s.sent, upon every subject whatever, connected with reconstruction, was fairly and fully executed. He adopted all the main features of the Wade- Davis bill--the only one pa.s.sed by Congress. In his proclamation of May 9, 1865, he provided:

"First, 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 authority and laws of the United States, and of which Jefferson Davis, John Letcher, and William Smith were late the respective chiefs, are declared null and void."

Thus, with a single stroke, he swept away the whole superstructure of the Rebellion. He extended the tax laws of the United States over the rebel territory. In his proclamation of May 29, he says:

"To the end, therefore, that the authority of the government of the United States may be restored, and that peace, order, and freedom may be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all persons who have directly or indirectly partic.i.p.ated in the existing Rebellion, _except as hereinafter excepted_, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all rights of property, _except as to slaves_, and except in cases where legal proceedings, under the laws of the United States providing for the confiscation of property of person engaged in rebellion, have been inst.i.tuted, &c."

He enforced in every case full and ample protection to the freedmen of the southern states. No complaint from them was ever brought to his knowledge in which he did not do full and substantial justice.

The princ.i.p.al objection to his policy was that he did not extend his proclamation to all the loyal men of the southern states, including the colored as well as the white people. It must be remembered in his justification that in every one of the eleven states before the Rebellion the negro was, by the laws, excluded from the right to vote. In Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York that right was limited. In a large majority of the states, including the most populous, negro suffrage was then prohibited. It would seem to be a great stretch of power on his part, by a simple mandatory proclamation or military order, to confer the franchise on a cla.s.s of people, who were then prohibited from voting not only in the eleven southern states, but in a majority of the northern states. Such a provision, if it had been inserted, could not have been enforced, and, in the condition in which slavery left the negro race, it could hardly be defended. I cannot see any reason why, because a man is black, he should not vote, and yet, in making laws, as the President was then doing, for the government of the community, he had to regard the prejudices, not only of the people among whom the laws were to be executed, but also of the army and the people who were to execute those laws, and no man can doubt but what at that time there was a strong and powerful prejudice in the army and among all cla.s.ses of citizens against extending the right of suffrage to negroes, especially down in the far south, where the great body of the slaves were in abject ignorance.

It must be also noted that in the Wade-Davis bill Congress did not and would not make negro suffrage a part of its plan. Even so radical an anti-slavery man as my colleague, Senator Wade, did not propose such a measure. The effort was made to give emanc.i.p.ated negroes the right to vote, and it was abandoned. By that bill the suffrage was conferred only upon _white_ male loyal citizens. And in the plan of the President, he adopted in this respect the very same conditions for suffrage as those proposed by Congress. I believe that all the acts and proclamations of President Johnson before the meeting of Congress were wise and expedient, and that there would have been no difficulty between Congress and the President but for his personal conduct, and, especially, his treatment of Congress and leading Congressmen. The unfortunate occurrence, already narrated, at his inauguration, was followed by violent and disrespectful language, unbecoming the President, especially, his foolish speech made on the 22nd of February, 1866, in which he selected particular persons as the objects of denunciation.

He said:

"I fought traitors and treason in the south. I opposed the Davises, the Toombses, the Slidells, and a long list of others, which you can readily fill without my repeating the names. Now, when I turn round, and at the other end of the line find men, I care not by what name you call them, who still stand opposed to the restoration of the Union of these states, I am free to say to you that I am still in the field."

And again he said:

"I am called upon to name three at the other end of the line; I am talking to my friends and fellow-citizens, who are interested with me in this government, and I presume I am free to mention to you the names of those whom I look upon as being opposed to the fundamental principles of this government, and who are laboring to pervert and destroy it."

Voices: "Name them!" "Who are they!"

He replied:

"You ask me who they are. I say Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, is one; I say Mr. Sumner, of the Senate, is another; and Wendell Phillips is another."

The violence of language, so unlike that of Abraham Lincoln, added to the hostility to Mr. Johnson in Congress, and, I think, more than any other cause, led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives.

In the beginning of the controversy between Congress and the President, I tried to act as a peacemaker. I knew Mr. Johnson personally, his good and his bad qualities. I sat by his side in the Senate chamber during the first two years of the war. I was with him in his canva.s.s in 1864. I sympathized with him in his struggles with the leaders of the Rebellion and admired his courage during the war, when, as Governor of Tennessee, he reorganized that state upon a loyal basis. The defect of his character was his unreasoning pugnacity. He early became involved in wordy warfare with Sumner, Wade, Stevens and others. In his high position he could have disregarded criticism, but this was not the habit of Johnson. When a.s.sailed he fought, and could be as violent and insulting in language and acts as anyone.

Under these circ.u.mstances I made a long and carefully considered speech in the Senate on the 26th of February, 1866, in which I stated the position of Congress on the reconstruction measures, and the policy adopted by Johnson from Lincoln. Either of these plans would have accomplished the provisional restoration of these states to the Union, while all agreed that, when admitted, they would be armed with all the powers of states, subject only to the const.i.tution of the United States. I believed then, and believe now, that the quarrel with Johnson did much to weaken the Republican party. In consequence of it several Republican Senators and Members severed their connection with that party and joined the Democratic party. Johnson, irritated by this antagonism, drifted away from the measures he had himself advocated and soon after was in open opposition to the party that elected him. I here insert pa.s.sages from my speech, which expressed my views at the time, and which I now feel were justified by the then existing opinions and conditions of political life:

"Sir, I can imagine no calamity more disgraceful than for us by our divisions to surrender, to men who to their country were enemies in war, any or all of the powers of this government. He, who contributes in any way to this result, deserves the execrations of his countrymen. This may be done by thrusting upon the President new issues on which the well-known principles of his life do not agree with the judgment of his political a.s.sociates. It may be done by irritating controversies of a personal character. It may be done by the President turning his back upon those who trusted him with high power, and thus linking his name with one of the most disgraceful in American history, that of John Tyler. I feel an abiding confidence that Andrew Johnson will not and cannot do this; and, sir, who will deny that the overbearing and intolerant will of Henry Clay contributed very much to the defection of John Tyler?

But the division of the Whig party was an event utterly insignificant in comparison with the evil results of a division in the Union party.

"Where will be the four million slaves whom by your policy you have emanc.i.p.ated? What would be their miserable fate if now surrendered to the custody of the rebels of the south? Will you, by your demand of universal suffrage, destroy the power of the Union party to protect them in their dearly purchased liberty? Will you, by new issues upon which you know you have not the voice of the people, jeopard these rights which you can by the aid of the Union party secure to these freedmen? We know that the President can not and will not unite with us upon the issues of universal suffrage and dead states, and he never agreed to. No such dogmas were contemplated, when, for his heroic services in the cause of the Union, we placed him, side by side, with Mr. Lincoln as our standard-bearer. Why, then, present these issues? Why decide upon them? Why not complete the work so gloriously done by our soldiers in securing union and liberty to all men without distinction of color, leaving to the states, as before, the question of suffrage.

"Sir, the curse of G.o.d, the maledictions of millions of our people, and the tears and blood of new-made freedmen will, in my judgment, rest upon those who now for any cause destroy the unity of the great party that has led us through the wilderness of war. We want now peace and repose. We must now look to our public credit. We have duties to perform to the business interests of the country, in which we need the a.s.sistance of the President. We have every motive for harmony with him and with each other, and for a generous and manly trust in his patriotism. If ever the time shall come when I can no longer confide in his devotion to the principles upon which he was elected, I will bid farewell to Andrew Johnson with unaffected sorrow. I will remember when he stood in this very spot, five years ago, repelling with unexampled courage the a.s.saults of traitors. He left in their hands wife, children, property, and home, and staked them all on the result. I will remember that when a retreating general would have left Nashville to its fate, that again, with heroic courage, he maintained his post. I will remember the fierce conflicts and trials through which he and his fellow- compatriots in east Tennessee maintained our cause in the heart of the Confederacy. I will remember the struggles he had with the aristocratic element of Tennessee, never ashamed of his origin and never far from the hearts of the people.

"Sir, you must not sever the great Union party from this loyal element of the southern states. No new theories of possible utopian good can compensate for the loss of such patriotism and devotion.

Time, as he tells you in his message, is a great element of reform, and time is on your side. I remember the homely and encouraging words of a pioneer in the anti-slavery cause, an expelled Methodist preacher from the south, who told those who were behind him in his strong anti-slavery opinions: 'Well, friends, I'll block up awhile; we must all travel together.' So I say to all who doubt Andrew Johnson, or who wish to move more rapidly than he can, to block up awhile, to consolidate their great victory with the certainty that reason and the Almighty will continue their work. All wisdom will not die with us. The highest human wisdom is to do all the good you can, but not to sacrifice a possible good to attempt the impracticable. G.o.d knows that I do not urge harmony and conciliation from any personal motive. The people of my native state have intrusted me with a position here extending four years beyond the termination of the President's term of office. He can grant me no favor.

"If I believed for a moment that he would seek an alliance with those who, by either arms or counsel or even apathy, were against their country in the recent war, and will turn over to them the high powers intrusted to him by the Union party, then, sir, he is dishonored, and will receive no a.s.sistance from me; but I will not force him into that att.i.tude. If he shall prove false to the declaration made by him in his veto message, that his strongest desire was to secure to the freedmen the full enjoyment of their freedom and property, then I will not quarrel with him as to the means used. And while, as he tells us in this same message, he only asks for states to be represented which are presented in an att.i.tude of loyalty and harmony and in the persons of representatives whose loyalty cannot be questioned under any const.i.tutional or legal test, surely we ought not to separate from him until, at least, we prescribe a test of their loyalty, upon which we are willing to stand. We have not done it yet. I will not try him by new creeds. I will not denounce him for hasty words uttered in repelling personal affronts.

"I see him yet surrounded by the cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, pursuing Lincoln's policy. No word from me shall drive him into political fellowship with those who, when he was one of the moral heroes of this war, denounced, spit upon him, and despitefully used him.

The a.s.sociation must be self-sought, and even then I will part with him in sorrow, but with the abiding hope that the same Almighty power that has guided us through the recent war will be with us still in our new difficulties until every state is restored to its full communion and fellowship, and until our nation, purified by war, will a.s.sume among the nations of the earth the grand position hoped for by Washington, Clay, Webster, Lincoln, and hundreds of thousands of unnamed heroes who gave up their lives for its glory."

I received many letters in commendation of this speech, among others the following from Thurlow Weed, who was in full sympathy with Secretary Seward:

"Albany, N. Y., February 28, 1866.

"Dear Sherman:--You have spoken words of wisdom and patriotism-- spoken them boldly at the right time. They will help save the Union--and they will save the Union particularly if fanatics and despots will allow it to be saved. Just such a speech at the moment it was made is worth more than all that has been said in Congress since the session commenced. I thank you gratefully for it.

"Yours truly, "Thurlow Weed."

I still hoped that the pending civil rights bill would be approved by the President, and that then the controversy would end. On the 17th of March, 1866, I made a speech at Bridgeport, Conn., in which I said:

"Now, I say, that upon all these various propositions, upon the necessity of a change in the basis of representation, upon the necessity for protecting the negroes, upon this question of suffrage --upon all these questions that have arisen in our politics of late, the differences between Andrew Johnson and Congress are not such as need excite the alarm of any patriotic citizen. No, my friends, we have a great duty to perform to our country. Every man in public life now has a heavy responsibility resting upon him, in the discharge of which he is bound to follow the dictates of his own conscience, given to him by Almighty G.o.d. There are, there must be, differences of opinion; G.o.d has so made us that we must differ; it is the established nature of the human mind to disagree.

It is only by discussion and comparison of views that the highest human wisdom is elicited. Therefore, I say again, that no Union man need feel anxious or uneasy because of the differences between the President and Congress. Let me tell you, as the solemn conviction with which I address you to-night, that Andrew Johnson never will throw the power we have given him into the hands of the Copperhead party of the United States.

"I have many reasons for this faith. One is that no nomination has ever been sent by Andrew Johnson to the Senate of the United States of any man of that stripe of politics. No flattery, no cajolery can draw him from that line. He is a man who fights his own battles, and whether they are old friends or foes that a.s.sail him he fights them with equal freedom and boldness, and sometimes, perhaps indiscreetly; but that is a fault of his character, which need excite no uneasiness in the minds of the people.

"On Thursday, the day that I left Washington, we sent to him a bill which secures to all the colored population of the southern states equal rights before the law, the civil rights bill. It declares that no state shall exclude any man on account of his color from any of the natural rights which, by the Declaration of Independence, are declared to be inalienable; it provides that every man may sue and be sued, may plead and be impleaded, may acquire and hold property, may purchase, contract, sell and convey; all those rights are secured to the negro population. That bill is now in the hands of the President. If he sign it, it will be a solemn pledge of the law-making power of the nation that the negroes shall have secured to them all these natural and inalienable rights. I believe the President will sign it."

Unfortunately at the end of ten days the President sent to the Senate the civil rights bill, referred to, with his message vetoing it. It pa.s.sed both Houses with the requisite two-thirds majority, and thus became a law. This veto was followed by other vetoes, and, practically, the President abandoned his party. From this time forth, I heartily joined with my political a.s.sociates in the measures adopted to secure a loyal reorganization of the southern states. I was largely influenced by the harsh treatment of the freedmen in the south under acts adopted by the reconstructed legislatures. The outrages of the Ku-Klux-Klan seemed to me to be so atrocious and wicked that the men who committed them were not only unworthy to govern, but unfit to live. The weakness of the position of Congress in the controversy with Mr. Johnson, was, that it had furnished no plan of reconstruction and he was compelled to act upon the urgency of events. Many efforts were made to provide legislation to take the place of the proclamations and acts of the President, but a wide divergence of opinion in the Republican party manifested itself, and no substantial progress was made until near the close of the second session of the 39th Congress. Several bills were then pending in each House to provide governments for the insurrectionary states. On the 13th of February, 1867, during the short session, a bill with that t.i.tle came from the House of Representatives. It was manifest unless this bill could be acted upon, that, in the then condition of Congress, all legislation would fail. It was kept before the Senate and thoroughly debated.

On the 16th of February, after consultation with my political colleagues, I moved a subst.i.tute for the House bill. The fifth section of this subst.i.tute embodied a comprehensive plan for the organization of the rebel states with provision for elections in said states, and the conditions required for their administration and restoration to the Union and the exercise by them of all the powers of states, and provided for the election of Senators and Members of Congress. In presenting this subst.i.tute, I briefly stated my reasons for it, as follows:

"The principle of this bill is contained in the first two lines of the preamble. It is founded upon the proclamation of the President and Secretary of State made just after the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Lincoln, in which they declared specifically that the Rebellion had overthrown all civil governments in the insurrectionary states, and they proceeded by an executive mandate to create governments.

They were provisional in their character, and dependent for their validity solely upon the action of Congress. These are propositions which it is not now necessary for me to demonstrate. These governments have never been sanctioned by Congress, nor by the people of the states where they exist. Taking that proclamation and the acknowledged fact that the people of the southern states, the loyal people, whites and blacks, are not protected in their rights, but that an unusual and extraordinary number of cases occur of violence, and murder, and wrong, I do think it is the duty of the United States to protect these people in the enjoyment of substantial rights.

"Now, the first four sections of this subst.i.tute contain nothing but what is the present law. There is not a single thing in the first four sections that does not now exist by law.

"The first section authorizes the division of the rebel states into military districts. That is being done daily.

"The second section acknowledges that the President is the commanding officer of the army, and it is made his duty to a.s.sign certain officers to those districts. That is clearly admitted to be right.

"The third section does no more than what the Supreme Court in their recent decision have decided could be done in a state in insurrection. The Supreme Court in their recent decisions, while denying that a military tribunal could be organized in Indiana because it never had been in a state of insurrection, expressly declared that these tribunals might have been, and might now be, organized in insurrectionary states. There is nothing in this third section, in my judgment, that is not now and has not been done every month within the last twelve months by the President of the United States. The orders of General Sickles, and many other orders I might quote, have gone further in punishment of crime than this section proposes.

"Now, in regard to the fourth section, that is a limitation upon the present law. Under the present law many executions of military tribunals are summarily carried out. This section requires all sentences of military tribunals which affect the liberty of the citizen to be sent to the commanding officer of the district. They must be approved by the commanding officer of the district; and so far as life is concerned the President may issue his order at any moment now, or after this bill pa.s.ses, directing that the military commander of the district shall not enforce a sentence of death until it is submitted to him, because the military officer is a mere subordinate of the President, remaining there at the pleasure of the President.