The Sequel of Appomattox Part 4

Northern observers who were friendly to the South or who disapproved of this radical reconstruction saw the danger more clearly than the Southerners themselves, who seemed not to appreciate the full implication of the situation. In this connection the New York "Herald" remarked:

"We may regard the entire ten unreconstructed Southern States, with possibly one or two exceptions, as forced by a secret and overwhelming revolutionary influence to a common and inevitable fate. They are all bound to be governed by blacks spurred on by worse than blacks-white wretches who dare not show their faces in respectable society anywhere. This is the most abominable phase barbarism has a.s.sumed since the dawn of civilization. It was all right and proper to put down the rebellion. It was all right perhaps to emanc.i.p.ate the slaves.... But it is not right to make slaves of white men even though they may have been former masters of blacks. This is but a change in a system of bondage that is rendered the more odious and intolerable because it has been inaugurated in an enlightened instead of a dark and uncivilized age."

The political parties rapidly grouped themselves for the coming struggle. The radical Republican party indeed was in process of organization in the South even before the pa.s.sage of the reconstruction acts. Its membership was made up of Negroes, carpetbaggers, or Northern men who had come in as speculators, officers of the Freedmen's Bureau and of the army, scalawags or Confederate renegades, "Peace Society" men,* and Unionists of Civil War times, with a few old Whigs who could not yet bring themselves to affiliate with the Democrats. At first it seemed that a respectable number of whites might be secured for the radical party, but the rapid organization of the Negroes checked the accession of whites. In the winter and spring of 1866-67, the Negroes near the towns were well organized by the Union League and the Freedmen's Bureau and then, after the pa.s.sage of the reconstruction acts, the organizing activities of the radical chieftains shifted to the rural districts. The Union League was greatly extended; Union League conventions were held to which local whites were not admitted; and the formation of a black man's party was well on the way before the registration of the voters was completed. Visiting statesmen from the North, among them Henry Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts and "Pig Iron" Kelley of Pennsylvania, toured the South in support of the radical program, and the registrars and all Federal officials aided in the work.

* See "The Day of the Confederacy", by Nathaniel W.

Stephenson (in "The Chronicles of America"), p. 121, footnote.

The whites, slow to comprehend the real extent of radicalism, were finally aroused to the necessity of organizing, if they were to influence the Negro and have a voice in the conventions. The old party divisions were still evident. With difficulty a portion of the Whigs was brought with the Democrats into one conservative party during the summer and fall of 1867, though many still held aloof. The lack of the old skilled leadership was severely felt. In places where the white man's party was given a name, it was called "Democratic and Conservative," to spare the feelings of former Whigs who were loath to bear the party name of their quondam opponents.

The first step in the military reconstruction was the registration of voters. In each State a central board of registrars was appointed by the district commander and a local board for every county and large town. Each board consisted of three members-all radicals-who were required to subscribe to the "ironclad" oath. In several states one Negro was appointed to each local board. The registrars listed Negro voters during the day, and at night worked at the organization of a radical Republican party. The prospective voters were required to take the oath prescribed in the Reconstruction Act, but the registrars were empowered to go behind the oath and investigate the Confederate record of each applicant. This authority was invoked to carry the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the whites far beyond the intention of the law in an attempt to destroy the leadership of the whites and to register enough Negroes to outvote them at the polls. For this purpose the registration was continued until October 1, 1867, and an active campaign of education and organization carried on.

At the close of the registration, 703,000 black voters were on the rolls and 627,000 whites. In Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi there were black majorities, and in the other States the blacks and the radical whites together formed majorities. The white minorities included several thousand who had been rejected by the registrars but restored by the military commanders. Though large numbers of blacks were dropped from the revised rolls as fraudulently registered, the registration statistics, nevertheless, bore clear witness to the political purpose of those who compiled them.

Next followed a vote on the question of holding a state convention and the election of delegates to such a convention if held-a double election. The whites, who had been hara.s.sed in the registration and who feared race conflicts at the elections, considered whether they ought not to abstain from voting. By staying away from the polls, they might bring the vote cast in each State below a majority and thus defeat the proposed conventions for, unless a majority of the registered voters actually cast ballots either for or against a convention, no convention could be held. Nowhere, however, was this plan of not voting fully carried out, for, though most whites abstained, enough of them voted (against the conventions, of course) to make the necessary majority in each State. The effect of the abstention policy upon the personnel of the conventions was unfortunate. In every convention there was a radical majority with a conservative and all but negligible minority. In South Carolina and Louisiana, there were Negro majorities. In every State except North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, the Negroes and the carpetbaggers together were in the majority over native whites.

The conservative whites were of fair ability; the carpetbaggers and scalawags produced in each convention a few able leaders, but most of them were conscienceless political soldiers of fortune; the Negro members were inexperienced, and most of them were quite ignorant, though a few leaders of ability did appear among them. In Alabama, for example, only two Negro members could write, though half had been taught to sign their names. They were barbers, field hands, hack drivers, and servants. A Negro chaplain was elected who invoked divine blessings on "unioners and cusses on rebels." It was a sign of the new era when the convention specially invited the "ladies of colored members" to seats in the gallery.

The work of the conventions was for the most part cut and dried, the abler members having reached a general agreement before they met. The const.i.tutions, mosaics of those of other states, were noteworthy only for the provisions made to keep the whites out of power and to regulate the relations of the races in social matters. The Texas const.i.tution alone contained no proscriptive clauses beyond those required by the Fourteenth Amendment. The most thoroughgoing proscription of Confederates was found in the const.i.tutions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia; and in these states the voter must also purge himself of guilt by agreeing to accept the "civil and political equality of all men" or by supporting reconstruction. Only in South Carolina and Louisiana were race lines abolished by law.

The legislative work of the conventions was more interesting than the const.i.tution making. By ordinance the legality of Negro marriages was dated from November 1867, or some date later than had been fixed by the white conventions of 1865. Mixed schools were provided in some States; militia for the black districts but not for the white was to be raised; while in South Carolina it was made a penal offense to call a person a "Yankee" or a "n.i.g.g.e.r." Few of the Negro delegates demanded proscription of whites or social equality; they wanted schools and the vote. The white radicals were more anxious to keep the former Confederates from holding office than from voting. The generals in command everywhere used their influence to secure moderate action by the conventions, and for this they were showered with abuse.

As provided by the reconstruction acts, the new const.i.tutions were submitted to the electorate created by those instruments. Unless a majority of the registered voters in a State should take part in the election, the reconstruction would fail and the State would remain under military rule. The whites now inaugurated a more systematic policy of abstention and in Alabama, on February 4, 1868, succeeded in holding the total vote below a majority. Congress then rushed to the rescue of radicalism with the act of the 11th of March, which provided that a mere majority of those voting in the State was sufficient to inaugurate reconstruction. Arkansas had followed the lead of Alabama, but too late; in Mississippi the const.i.tution was defeated by a majority vote; in Texas the convention had made no provision for a vote; and in Virginia the commanding general, disapproving of the work of the convention, refused to pay the expenses of an election. In the other six States the const.i.tutions were adopted.*

* Except in Texas, the work of const.i.tution making was completed between November 5, 1867, and May 18, 1868.

These elections gave rise to more violent contests than before. They also were double elections, as the voters cast ballots for state and local officials and at the same time for or against the const.i.tution. The radical nominations were made by the Union League and the Freedmen's Bureau, and nearly all radicals who had been members of conventions were nominated and elected to office. The Negroes, expecting now to reap some benefits of reconstruction, frequently brought sacks to the polls to "put the franchise in." The elections were all over by June 1868, and the newly elected legislatures promptly ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.

It now remained for Congress to approve the work done in the South and to readmit the reorganized states. The case of Alabama gave some trouble. Even Stevens, for a time, thought that this state should stay out; but there was danger in delay. The success of the abstention policy in Alabama and Arkansas and the reviving interest of the whites foreshadowed white majorities in some places; the scalawags began to forsake the radical party for the conservatives; and there were Democratic gains in the North in 1867. Only six states, New York and five New England States, allowed the Negro to vote, while four states, Minnesota, Michigan, Kansas, and Ohio, voted down Negro suffrage after the pa.s.sage of the reconstruction acts. The ascendancy of the radicals in Congress was menaced. The radicals needed the support of their radical brethren in Southern States and they could not afford to wait for the Fourteenth Amendment to become a part of the Const.i.tution or to tolerate other delay. On the 22d and the 25th of June, acts were therefore pa.s.sed admitting seven states, Alabama included, to representation in Congress upon the "fundamental condition" that "the const.i.tutions of neither of said States shall ever be so amended or changed as to deprive any citizens or cla.s.s of citizens of the United States of the right to vote in said State, who are ent.i.tled to vote by the const.i.tution thereof herein recognized."

The generals now turned over the government to the recently elected radical officials and retired into the background. Military reconstruction was thus accomplished in all the States except Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas.

CHAPTER VII. THE TRIAL OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON

While the radical program was being executed in the South, Congress was engaged not only in supervising reconstruction but in subduing the Supreme Court and in "conquering" President Johnson. One must admire the efficiency of the radical machine. When the Southerners showed that they preferred military rule as permitted by the Act of the 2nd of March, Congress pa.s.sed the Act of the 23d of March which forced the reconstruction. When the President ventured to a.s.sert his power in behalf of a considerate administration of the reconstruction acts, Congress took the power out of his hands by the law of the 19th of July. The Southern plan to defeat the new state const.i.tutions by abstention was no sooner made clear in the case of Alabama than Congress came to the rescue with the Act of March 11, 1868.

Had it seemed necessary, Congress would have handled the Supreme Court as it did the Southerners. The opponents of radical reconstruction were anxious to get the reconstruction laws of March 1867, before the Court. Chief Justice Chase was known to be opposed to military reconstruction, and four other justices were, it was believed, doubtful of the const.i.tutionality of the laws. A series of conservative decisions gave hope to those who looked to the Court for relief. The first decision, in the case of ex parte Milligan, declared unconst.i.tutional the trials of civilians by military commissions when civil courts were open. A few months later, in the cases of c.u.mmings vs. Missouri and ex parte Garland, the Court declared invalid, because ex post facto, the state laws designed to punish former Confederates.

But the first attempts to get the reconstruction acts before the Supreme Court failed. The State of Mississippi, in April 1867, brought suit to restrain the President from executing the reconstruction acts. The Court refused to interfere with the executive. A similar suit was then brought against Secretary Stanton by Georgia with a like result. But in 1868, in the case of ex parte McCardle, it appeared that the question of the const.i.tutionality of the reconstruction acts would be pa.s.sed upon. McCardle, a Mississippi editor arrested for opposition to reconstruction and convicted by military commission, appealed to the Supreme Court, which a.s.serted its jurisdiction. But the radicals in alarm rushed through Congress an act (March 27, 1868) which took away from the Court its jurisdiction in cases arising under the reconstruction acts. The highest court was thus silenced.

The attempt to remove the President from office was the only part of the radical program that failed, and this by the narrowest of margins. During the spring and summer of 1866, there was some talk among politicians of impeaching President Johnson, and in December a resolution was introduced by Representative Ashley of Ohio looking toward impeachment. Though the committee charged with the investigation of "the official conduct of Andrew Johnson" reported that enough testimony had been taken to justify further inquiry, the House took no action. There were no less than five attempts at impeachment during the next year. Stevens, Butler, and others were anxious to get the President out of the way, but the majority were as yet unwilling to impeach for merely political reasons. There were some who thought that the radicals had sufficient majorities to ensure all needed legislation and did not relish the thought of Ben Wade in the presidency.* Others considered that no just grounds for action had been found in the several investigations of Johnson's record. Besides, the President's authority and influence had been much curtailed by the legislation relating to the Freedmen's Bureau, tenure of office, reconstruction, and command of the army, and Congress had also refused to recognize his amnesty and pardoning powers.

* Senator Wade of Ohio was President pro tempore of the Senate and by the act of 1791 would succeed President Johnson if he were removed from office.

But the desire to impeach the President was increasing in power, and very little was needed to provoke a trial of strength between the radicals and the President. The drift toward impeachment was due in part to the legislative reaction against the executive, and in part to Johnson's own opposition to reconstruction and to his use of the patronage against the radicals. Specific grievances were found in his vetoes of the various reconstruction bills, in his criticisms of Congress and the radical leaders, and in the fact, as Stevens a.s.serted, that he was a "radical renegade." Johnson was a Southern man, an old-line State Rights Democrat, somewhat anti-Negro in feeling. He knew no book except the Const.i.tution, and that he loved with all his soul. Sure of the correctness of his position, he was too stubborn to change or to compromise. He was no more to be moved than Stevens or Sumner. To overcome Johnson's vetoes required two-thirds of each House of Congress; to impeach and remove him would require only a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate.

The desired occasion for impeachment was furnished by Johnson's attempt to get Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, out of the Cabinet. Stanton held radical views and was at no time sympathetic with or loyal to Johnson, but he loved office too well to resign along with those cabinet members who could not follow the President in his struggle with Congress. He was seldom frank and sincere in his dealings with the President, and kept up an underhand correspondence with the radical leaders, even a.s.sisting in framing some of the reconstruction legislation which was designed to render Johnson powerless. In him the radicals had a representative within the President's Cabinet.

Wearied of Stanton's disloyalty, Johnson asked him to resign and, upon a refusal, suspended him in August 1867, and placed General Grant in temporary charge of the War Department. General Grant, Chief Justice Chase, and Secretary McCulloch, though they all disliked Stanton, advised the President against suspending him. But Johnson was determined. About the same time he exercised his power in removing Sheridan and Sickles from their commands in the South and replaced them with Hanc.o.c.k and Canby. The radicals were furious, but Johnson had secured at least the support of a loyal Cabinet.

The suspension of Stanton was reported to the Senate in December 1867, and on January 13, 1868, the Senate voted not to concur in the President's action. Upon receiving notice of the vote in the Senate, Grant at once left the War Department and Stanton again took possession. Johnson now charged Grant with failing to keep a promise either to hold on himself or to make it possible to appoint some one else who would hold on until the matter might be brought into the courts. The President by this accusation angered Grant and threw him with his great influence into the arms of the radicals. Against the advice of his leading counselors, Johnson persisted in his intention to keep Stanton out of the Cabinet. Accordingly on the 21st of February he dismissed Stanton from office and appointed Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant General, as acting Secretary of War. Stanton, advised by the radicals in Congress to "stick," refused to yield possession to Thomas and had him arrested for violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The matter now was in the courts where Johnson wanted it, but the radical leaders, fearing that the courts would decide against Stanton and the reconstruction acts, had the charges against Thomas withdrawn. Thus failed the last attempt to get the reconstruction laws before the courts. On the 22nd of February, the President sent to the Senate the name of Thomas Ewing, General Sherman's father-in-law, as Secretary of War, but no attention was paid to the nomination.

On February 24, 1868, the House voted, 128 to 47, to impeach the President "of high crimes and misdemeanors in office." The Senate was formally notified the next day, and on the 4th of March the seven managers selected by the House appeared before the Senate with the eleven articles of impeachment. At first it seemed to the public that the impeachment proceedings were merely the culmination of a struggle for the control of the army. There were rumors that Johnson had plans to use the army against Congress and against reconstruction. General Grant, directed by Johnson to accept orders from Stanton only if he were satisfied that they came from the President, refused to follow these instructions. Stanton, professing to fear violence, barricaded himself in the War Department and was furnished with a guard of soldiers by General Grant, who from this time used his influence in favor of impeachment. Excited by the most sensational rumors, some people even believed a new rebellion to be imminent.

The impeachment was rushed to trial by the House managers and was not ended until the decision was taken by the votes of the 16th and 26th of May. The eleven articles of impeachment consisted of summaries of all that had been charged against Johnson, except the charge that he had been an accomplice in the murder of Lincoln. The only one which had any real basis was the first, which a.s.serted that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act in trying to remove Stanton. The other articles were merely expansions of the first or were based upon Johnson's opposition to reconstruction or upon his speeches in criticism of Congress. Nothing could be said about his control of the patronage, though this was one of the unwritten charges. J. W. Schuckers, in his life of Chase, says that the radical leaders "felt the vast importance of the presidential patronage; many of them felt, too, that, according to the maxim that to the victors belong the spoils, the Republican party was rightfully ent.i.tled to the Federal patronage, and they determined to get possession of it. There was but one method and that was by impeachment and removal of the President."

The leading House managers were Stevens, Butler, Bingham, and Boutwell, all better known as politicians than as lawyers. The President was represented by an abler legal array: Curtis, Evarts, Stanbery, Nelson, and Groesbeck. Jeremiah Black was at first one of the counsel for the President but withdrew under conditions not entirely creditable to himself.

The trial was a one-sided affair. The President's counsel were refused more than six days for the preparation of the case. Chief Justice Chase, who presided over the trial, insisted upon regarding the Senate as a judicial and not a political body, and he accordingly ruled that only legal evidence should be admitted; but the Senate majority preferred to a.s.sume that they were settling a political question. Much evidence favorable to the President was excluded, but everything else was admitted. As the trial went on, the country began to understand that the impeachment was a mistake. Few people wanted to see Senator Wade made President. The partisan att.i.tude of the Senate majority and the weakness of the case against Johnson had much to do in moderating public opinion, and the timely nomination of General Schofield as Secretary of War after Stanton's resignation rea.s.sured those who feared that the army might be placed under some extreme Democrat.

As the time drew near for the decision, every possible pressure was brought by the radicals to induce senators to vote for conviction. To convict the President, thirty-six votes were necessary. There were only twelve Democrats in the Senate, but all were known to be in favor of acquittal. When the test came on the 16th of May, seven Republicans voted with the Democrats for acquittal on the eleventh article. Another vote on the 26th of May, on the first and second articles, showed that conviction was not possible. The radical legislative reaction was thus checked at its highest point and the presidency as a part of the American governmental system was no longer in danger. The seven Republicans had, however, signed their own political death warrants; they were never forgiven by the party leaders.

The presidential campaign was beginning to take shape even before the impeachment trial began. Both the Democrats and the reorganized Republicans were turning with longing toward General Grant as a candidate. Though he had always been a Democrat, Nevertheless, when Johnson actually called him a liar and a promise breaker, Grant went over to the radicals and was nominated for President on May 20, 1868, by the National Union Republican party. Schuyler Colfax was the candidate for Vice President. The Democrats, who could have won with Grant and who under good leadership still had a bare chance to win, nominated Horatio Seymour of New York and Francis P. Blair of Missouri. The former had served as war governor of New York, while the latter was considered an extreme Democrat who believed that the radical reconstruction of the South should be stopped, the troops withdrawn, and the people left to form their own governments. The Democratic platform p.r.o.nounced itself opposed to the reconstruction policy, but Blair's opposition was too extreme for the North. Seymour, more moderate and a skillful campaigner, made headway in the rehabilitation of the Democratic party. The Republican party declared for radical reconstruction and Negro suffrage in the South but held that each Northern State should be allowed to settle the suffrage for itself. It was not a courageous platform, but Grant was popular and carried his party through to success.

The returns showed that in the election Grant had carried twenty-six States with 214 electoral votes, while Seymour had carried only eight States with 80 votes. But an examination of the popular vote, which was 3,000,000 for Grant and 2,700,000 for Seymour, gave the radicals cause for alarm, for it showed that the Democrats had more white votes than the Republicans, whose total included nearly 700,000 blacks. To insure the continuance of the radicals in power, the Fifteenth Amendment was framed and sent out to the States on February 26, 1869. This amendment appeared not only to make safe the Negro majorities in the South but also gave the ballot to the Negroes in a score of Northern States and thus a.s.sured, for a time at least, 900,000 Negro voters for the Republican party.

When Johnson's term ended and he gave place to President Grant, four states were still unreconstructed-Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi, in which the reconstruction had failed, and Georgia, which, after accomplishing reconstruction, had again been placed under military rule by Congress. In Virginia, which was too near the capital for such rough work as readmitted Arkansas and Alabama into the Union, the new const.i.tution was so severe in its provisions for disfranchis.e.m.e.nt that the disgusted district commander would not authorize the expenditure necessary to have it voted on. In Mississippi a similar const.i.tution had failed of adoption, and in Texas the strife of party factions, radical and moderate Republican, had so delayed the framing of the const.i.tution that it had not come to a vote.

The Republican politicians, however, wanted the offices in these States, and Congress by its resolution of February 18, 1869, directed the district commanders to remove all civil officers who could not take the "ironclad" oath and to appoint those who could subscribe to it. An exception, however, was made in favor of the scalawags who had supported reconstruction and whose disabilities had been removed by Congress.

President Grant was anxious to complete the reconstruction and recommended to Congress that the const.i.tutions of Virginia and Mississippi be re-submitted to the people with a separate vote on the disfranchising sections. Congress, now in harmony with the executive, responded by placing the reconstruction of the three states in the hands of the President, but with the proviso that each state must ratify the Fifteenth Amendment. Grant thereupon fixed a time for voting in each state and directed that in Virginia and Mississippi the disfranchising clauses be submitted separately. As a result, the const.i.tutions were ratified but proscription was voted down. The radicals secured control of Mississippi and Texas, but a conservative combination carried Virginia and thus came near keeping the state out of the Union. Finally, during the early months of 1870 the three states were readmitted.

With respect to Georgia a peculiar condition of affairs existed. In June 1868, Georgia had been readmitted with the first of the reconstructed States. The state legislature at once expelled the twenty-seven Negro members, on the ground that the recent legislation and the state const.i.tution gave the Negroes the right to vote but not to hold office. Congress, which had already admitted the Georgia representatives, refused to receive the senators and turned the state back to military control. In 1869-70, Georgia was again reconstructed after a drastic purging of the legislature by the military commander, the reseating of the Negro members, and the ratification of both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The state was readmitted to representation in July 1870, after the failure of a strong effort to extend for two years the carpetbag government of the state.

Upon the last states to pa.s.s under the radical yoke, heavier conditions were imposed than upon the earlier ones. Not only were they required to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, but the "fundamental conditions" embraced, in addition to the prohibition against future change of the suffrage, a requirement that the Negroes should never be deprived of school and office-holding rights.

The congressional plan of reconstruction had thus been carried through by able leaders in the face of the opposition of a united white South, nearly half the North, the President, the Supreme Court, and in the beginning a majority of Congress. This success was due to the poor leadership of the conservatives and to the ability and solidarity of the radicals led by Stevens and Sumner. The radicals had a definite program; the moderates had not. The object of the radicals was to secure the supremacy in the South by the aid of the Negroes and exclusion of whites. Was this policy politically wise? It was at least temporarily successful. The choice offered by the radicals seemed to lie between military rule for an indefinite period and Negro suffrage; and since most Americans found military rule distasteful, they preferred to try Negro suffrage. But, after all, Negro suffrage had to be supported by military rule, and in the end both failed completely.

CHAPTER VIII. THE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA

The elections of 1867-68 showed that the Negroes were well organized under the control of the radical Republican leaders and that their former masters had none of the influence over the blacks in political matters which had been feared by some Northern friends of the Negro and had been hoped for by such Southern leaders as Governor Patton and General Hampton. Before 1865 the discipline of slavery, the influence of the master's family, and of the Southern church had sufficed to control the blacks. But after emanc.i.p.ation they looked to the Federal soldiers and Union officials as the givers of freedom and the guardians of the future.

From the Union soldiers, especially the Negro troops, from the Northern teachers, the missionaries and the organizers of Negro churches, from the Northern officials and traveling politicians, the Negroes learned that their interests were not those of the whites. The att.i.tude of the average white in the South often confirmed this growing estrangement. It was difficult even for the white leaders to explain the riots at Memphis and New Orleans. And those who sincerely wished well for the Negro and who desired to control him for the good of both races could not possibly a.s.sure him that he was fit for the suffrage. For even Patton and Hampton must tell him that they knew better than he and that he should follow their advice.

The appeal made to freedmen by the Northern leaders was in every way more forceful, because it bad behind it the prestige of victory in war and for the future it could promise anything. Until 1867, the princ.i.p.al agency in bringing about the separation of the races had been the Freedmen's Bureau which, with its authority, its courts, its rations, clothes, and its "forty acres and a mule," did effective work in breaking down the influence of the master. But to understand fully the almost absolute control exercised over the blacks in 1867-68 by alien adventurers, one must examine the workings of an oath-bound society known as the Union or Loyal League. It was this order, dominated by a few radical whites, which organized, disciplined, and controlled the ignorant Negro ma.s.ses and paralyzed the influence of the conservative whites.

The Union League of America had its origin in Ohio in the fall of 1862, when the outlook for the Union cause was gloomy. The moderate policies of the Lincoln Administration had alienated those in favor of extreme measures; the Confederates had won military successes in the field; the Democrats had made some gains in the elections; the Copperheads* were actively opposed to the Washington Government; the Knights of the Golden Circle were organizing to resist the continuance of the war; and the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation had chilled the loyalty of many Union men, which was everywhere at a low ebb, especially in the Northern cities. It was to counteract these depressing influences that the Union League movement was begun among those who were a.s.sociated in the work of the United States Sanitary Commission. Observing the threatening state of public opinion, members of this organization proposed that "loyalty be organized, consolidated and made effective."

The first organization was made by eleven men in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 1862. The Philadelphia Union League was organized a month later, and in January 1863, the New York Union League followed. The members were pledged to uncompromising and unconditional loyalty to the Union, to complete subordination of political views to this loyalty, and to the repudiation of any belief in state rights. The other large cities followed the example of Philadelphia and New York, and soon Leagues, connected in a loose federation, were formed all through the North. They were social as well as political in their character and a.s.sumed as their task the stimulation and direction of loyal Union opinion.

As the Union armies proceeded to occupy the South, the Union League sent its agents among the disaffected Southern people. Its agents cared for Negro refugees in the contraband camps and in the North. In such work the League cooperated with the various Freedmen's Aid Societies, the Department of Negro Affairs, and later with the Freedmen's Bureau. Part of the work of the League was to distribute campaign literature, and many of the radical pamphlets on reconstruction and the Negro problem bore the Union League imprint. The New York League sent out about seventy thousand copies of various publications, while the Philadelphia League far surpa.s.sed this record, circulating within eight years four million five hundred thousand copies of 144 different pamphlets. The literature consisted largely of accounts of "Southern outrages" taken from the reports of Bureau agents and similar sources.