Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 2

Previous to this instruction to Governor Shepley, Mr. Lincoln had been in correspondence with Cuthbert Bullett, Esq., a Southern gentleman, who enjoyed his personal regard and confidence. In a letter to Mr.

Bullett of July 28, 1862, the President reviewed some of the impracticable methods of re-establishing civil authority desired by certain citizens of Louisiana who were very anxious to prevent any interference with property in slaves. Mr. Thomas Durant was the spokesman for this large cla.s.s of men who professed anxiety for the fate of the Union but were unwilling to do any thing to aid in saving it. Mr. Lincoln's letter is very characteristic. He says, "Mr. Durant speaks of no duty, apparently thinks of none resting upon Southern Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade and pa.s.sage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a pump, live merely as pa.s.sengers ('dead-heads' at that) to be carried snug and dry throughout the storm and safely landed right side up. Nay, more, even a mutineer is to go untouched, lest these sacred pa.s.sengers receive an accidental wound.

Of course the Rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it nor permit the Government to do it without their help. . . . What would _you_ do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute it in the future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water?

Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest leaving every available means unapplied? I am in no boastful mood: I shall not do more than I can, but I _shall_ do _all_ I can to save the Government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing."

The pressure of these political events in Louisiana had increased Mr.

Lincoln's desire to attempt some form of reconstruction, and the admission of Messrs. Flanders and Hahn to seats in the House of Representatives had to a certain degree misled him as to the temper and tendency of Congress on the whole subject of re-establishing civil government in the insurrectionary States. During the year 1862, when the original movements were made in Louisiana, the military situation grew so critical and so discouraging that the Administration had no time for the consideration of any other subject than the raising of men and money. But in 1863 the Government was incalculably strengthened by General Meade's victory at Gettysburg and by the opening of the Mississippi River to navigation in consequence of General Grant's capture of the rebel stronghold of Vicksburg. The latter event practically destroyed the military power of the Rebellion on the western side of the Mississippi, and opened, as Mr. Lincoln hoped, a great opportunity for the formation of State governments loyal to the Union and able to aid effectively in the overthrow of the Rebellion.

To this end the President proposed a definite plan of reconstruction in his message of December 8, 1863, sent to the Thirty-eighth Congress at its first session. He accompanied the message with a public proclamation which more fully embodied his conception of the necessities of the situation and the duties of the loyal people.

According to the message of the President "the const.i.tutional obligation to guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form of government and to protect the State in such cases is explicit and full. . . . This section of the Const.i.tution contemplates a case wherein the elements within a State favorable to Republican government in the Union may be too feeble for an opposite and hostile element external to or even within the State, and such are precisely the cases with which we now are dealing. An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State government constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected is simply absurd. There must be a test by which to separate the opposing elements so as to build only from the sound, and that test is a sufficiently liberal one which accepts as sound whoever will make a sworn recantation of his former unsoundness."

In his proclamation the President made known that "to all persons who have directly or by implication partic.i.p.ated in the existing rebellion except as herein after excepted, a full pardon is hereby granted with restoration of all rights of property except as to slaves, upon condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward maintain said oath inviolate," to the following effect: viz., to "henceforth faithfully support and defend the Const.i.tution and the Union of the States thereunder," and to abide by all laws and proclamations "made during the existing rebellion, having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court." Those excepted from the benefits of the pardon were first the civil and diplomatic officers of the Confederate Government; second, those who left judicial stations in the United-States Government to aid the rebellion; third, military officers of the Confederacy above the rank of colonel, and naval officers above the rank of lieutenant; fourth, all who left seats in the Congress of the United States to aid the rebellion; fifth, all who left the National Army or Navy to aid the rebellion; sixth, all who had treated colored persons found in the military or naval service of the United States otherwise than as prisoners of war.

The President was willing to intrust the task of establishing State governments to a population whose loyalty to the Union should be tested by taking the prescribed oath, _provided_ that the population should be sufficiently numerous to cast a vote one-tenth as large as that cast at the Presidential election of 1860. A government thus established, the President declared, "shall be recognized as the true government of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the const.i.tutional provision which declares that the United States shall guarantee to each State a Republican form of government." At the same time the President was careful to affirm that "whether members sent to Congress from any State shall be admitted to seats const.i.tutionally rests exclusively with the respective Houses, and not to any extent with the Executive."

The Union men in Louisiana had been so encouraged by the admission of Flanders and Hahn to seats in Congress, that they were active in the year 1863 in maturing schemes for re-establishing a loyal State government. But the decisive step was not taken until the opening of the ensuing hear. On the 8th of January, 1864, a large Free-State Convention was held in New Orleans, which proved to be in harmony with the National Administration at all points, accepting the emanc.i.p.ation policy of the President as the basis of all their action. General Banks, then in command of the military district, at once issued a proclamation as requested by the convention, appointing an election for State officers on the 22d of February--the officers chosen, to be installed on the 4th of March. Michael Hahn was elected governor as the especial representative of the President's firm yet cautious and moderate policy. B. F. Flanders and C. Roselius were the opposing candidates, the former representing a more radical the latter a more conservative policy than the President was willing to accept.

Mr. Hahn was duly installed in office on the 4th of March, and on the 15th the President issued an order declaring the new governor to be "invested until further orders with the powers exercised hitherto by the military governor of Louisiana." In a personal note to Governor Hahn at the same time the President said, "I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first Free-State Governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a convention which among other things will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as for instance the very intelligent and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help in some trying time in the future to keep the jewel of Liberty in the family of Freedom." The form of the closing expression, quite unusual in Mr. Lincoln's compact style, may have been pleonastic, but his meaning was one of deep and almost prophetic significance. It was perhaps the earliest proposition from any authentic source to endow the negro with the right of suffrage, and was an indirect but most effective answer to those who subsequently attempted to use Mr.

Lincoln's name in support of policies which his intimate friends instinctively knew would be abhorrent to his unerring sense of justice.

The scheme of reconstruction in Louisiana was completed by the a.s.sembling of a convention to form a const.i.tution for the State. The convention was organized early in April, and its most important act was the prompt incorporation of an anti-slavery clause in the organic law. By a vote of seventy to sixteen the convention declared slavery to be forever abolished in the State. The const.i.tution was adopted by the people on the fifth day of the ensuing September by a vote of 6,836 in its favor to 1,566 against it. As the total vote of Louisiana at the Presidential election of 1860 was 50,510, the new State government had obviously fulfilled the requirement of the President's proclamation in demonstrating that it was sustained by more than one-tenth of that number. The President's scheme had therefore so far succeeded that Louisiana was at least in form under a loyal government.

It was, however, a government that could not sustain itself for a day if the military support of the Nation should be withdrawn, and therein lay the weakness of the President's plan.

The action of Louisiana was accompanied, indeed in some parts preceded, by a similar action in Arkansas. A loyal governor (Isaac Murphy) was elected, an anti-slavery const.i.tution adopted, a government duly installed over the State, and senators and representatives in Congress were elected in due form. These successive steps were taken in the early spring of 1864. But when the senators, Messrs. Fishback and Baxter, presented themselves for admission to the body to which they were thus chosen, it was found that Congress was not in sympathy with what was derisively termed the "short-hand" method of reconstruction proposed in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. Mr. Sumner, when the credentials were presented, offered a resolution declaring that "a State pretending to secede from the Union, and battling against the General Government to maintain that position, must be regarded as a rebel State subject to military occupation and without representation on this floor until it has been re-admitted by a vote of both Houses of Congress; and the Senate will decline to entertain any such application from any such rebel State until after such a vote of both Houses."

Mr. Sumner's resolution embodied a radical and absolute dissent from the President's scheme of reconstruction. The Senate, however, was not quite ready for so emphatic a declaration, and the resolution was referred with the credentials to the Judiciary Committee. A few weeks alter, on the 27th June (1864), the committee made a report covering substantially the ground of Mr. Sumner's resolution. By a vote of twenty-seven to six the State declared that "the rebellion is not so far suppressed in Arkansas as to ent.i.tle that State to representation in Congress, and therefore Messrs. Fishback and Baxter are not ent.i.tled to admission as senators." Similar action was taken in the House--the representatives not being allowed to take seats.

The conflict between the President and Congress on the subject of reconstruction was made still more apparent by the further action of each. After the Arkansas case had been disposed of, Congress pa.s.sed a bill embodying its own views of the proper process of reconstruction.

By this measure it was directed that the President should appoint a provisional governor for each of the States declared to be in rebellion; that said governor should, as soon as military resistance to the United States ceased, make an enrolment of the white male citizens, submitting to each an oath to support the Const.i.tution. If a majority of the citizens should take and subscribe the oath, the governor was to order an election of delegates to a const.i.tutional convention.

It was made the duty of the convention as its initial proceeding to declare on behalf of the people of the State their submission to the Const.i.tution of the United States, and to incorporate in their own organic law three fundamental provisions: First, No one who has held any office under the Confederate Government except civil offices merely ministerial, or military office below the rank of colonel, shall vote for or be a member of the Legislature, or shall vote for or be elected governor. Second, Involuntary servitude shall be forever prohibited, and the freedom of all persons in the State guaranteed. Third, No debt, State or Confederate, created in aid of the rebellion shall ever be paid. In the event of a const.i.tution being framed with these provisions inserted, and then adopted by a majority of the popular vote as already enrolled, the governor shall certify that fact to the President, and thereupon the President, _after obtaining the a.s.sent of Congress_, shall recognize the State government so established as a legitimate and const.i.tutional government competent to elect senators and representatives in Congress and electors of President and Vice-President.

This bill was pa.s.sed on the last day of the session, July 4, 1864. It was commonly regarded as a rebuke to the course of the President in proceeding with the grave and momentous task of reconstruction without waiting the action or invoking the counsel of Congress. Some of the more radical members of both Houses considered the action of the President as beyond his const.i.tutional power, and they were very positive and peremptory in condemning it. But Mr. Lincoln, with his habitual caution and wise foresight, had specially avoided any form of guaranty, or even suggestion to the States whose reconstruction he was countenancing and aiding, that their senators and representatives would be admitted to seats in Congress. Admission to membership he took care to advise them was a discretion lodged solely in the respective Houses.

What he had done was in his own judgment clearly within his power as Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Union, and was thus obviously and solely an Executive act.

Mr. Lincoln was not therefore in the humor to be rebuked by Congress.

Though the least pretentious of men, he had an abounding self-respect and a full appreciation of the dignity and power of his office. He had given careful study to the duties, the responsibilities, and the limitations of the respective departments of the Government, and he was not willing that his judgment should be revised or his course censured, however indirectly, by a co-ordinate branch of the Government. He therefore declined to sign the bill. He did not veto it but let it quietly die. Four days after the session had closed, he issued a proclamation in which he treated the bill merely as the expression of an opinion by Congress as to the plan of Reconstruction--"which plan,"

he remarked, "it is thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration."

The President further stated in his proclamation that he had "already propounded one plan of restoration," and that he was "unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration," and also "unprepared to declare that the Free-State const.i.tutions and governments already adopted and installed in Louisiana and Arkansas 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;" and also "unprepared to declare a const.i.tutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in the States"--though "sincerely hoping at the same time that a const.i.tutional amendment abolishing slavery in all the States might be adopted." While with these objections Mr. Lincoln could not approve the bill, he concluded his proclamation in these words: "Nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the plan of restoration contained in this bill as one very proper for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and I am and at all times shall be prepared to give executive aid and a.s.sistance to any such people so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Const.i.tution and Laws of the United States--in which cases military governors will be appointed with directions to proceed according to the bill."

It must be frankly admitted that Mr. Lincoln's course was in some of its aspects extraordinary. It met with almost unanimous dissent on the part of Republican members of Congress, and violent opposition from the more radical members of both Houses. If Congress had been in session at the time, a very rancorous hostility would have been developed against the President. Fortunately the senators and representatives had returned to their States and districts before the proclamation was issued, and they found the people united and enthusiastic in Mr. Lincoln's support. No contest was raised, therefore, by the great majority of those who had sustained the bill which the President had refused to approve. The pending struggle for the Presidency demanded harmony, and by common consent agitation on the question was abandoned. Two of the ablest, most fearless, most resolute men then in public life--Senator Wade of Ohio, and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland--were exceptions to the general rule of acquiescence. They were respectively the chairmen in Senate and House of the "Committees on the Rebellious States," and were primarily and especially responsible for the bill which the President criticized in his proclamation. They united over their own signatures in a public "Protest" against the action of Mr. Lincoln. The paper was prepared by Mr. Davis, which of itself was guaranty that it would be able, caustic, and unqualified. Mr. Wade was known to be a man of extraordinary courage, both physical and moral. To these qualities Mr.

Davis added a highly cultivated mind and a style of writing which in political controversy has rarely been surpa.s.sed--a style at once severe, effective, and popular.

The "Protest" embodied a sharp contrast between the President's plan of Reconstruction in his proclamation of December 8 (1863), and that contained in the bill presented by Congress for his approval. "The bill," said Messrs. Wade and Davis, "requires a majority of the voters to establish a State government, the proclamation is satisfied with one-tenth; the bill requires one oath, the proclamation another; the bill ascertains voters by registering, the proclamation by guess; the bill exacts adherence to existing territorial limits, the proclamation admits of others; the bill governs the rebel States _by law_ equalizing all before it, the proclamation commits them to the lawless discretion of military governors and provost marshals; the bill forbids electors for President (in the rebel States), the proclamation with the defeat of the bill threatens us with civil war for the exclusion of such votes."

The criticisms of the President's course closed with the language of stern admonition if not indeed of absolute menace. The act of the President was denounced as "rash and fatal," and as "a blow at the friends of the Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of Republican government." The President was warned that the support of the Republican party was "of a cause and not of a man,"

that the "authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected,"

that the "whole body of Union men of Congress will not submit to be impeached by him or rash and unconst.i.tutional legislation," that he must "confine himself to his Executive duties--to obey and execute, not make the laws;" that he "must suppress armed rebellion by arms and leave political re-organization to Congress."

No political result followed the publication of this remarkable paper save that it probably defeated the renomination of Mr. Davis for Congress. The Democrats were of course hostile to it in spirit and in letter, and the leading Republicans saw in it the seeds of a controversy between the President and Congress which might rapidly grow into dangerous proportions. The very strength of the paper was, by one of the paradoxes that frequently recur in public affairs, its special weakness. It was so powerful an arraignment of the President that of necessity it rallied his friends to his support with that intense form of energy which springs from the instinct of self-preservation. It was at once seen and profoundly realized by the great majority of the loyal people that even if the President had fallen into an error, no result could possibly flow from adhering to it that would prove half so perilous to the Union cause as would dissension and division in the ranks of those who were relied upon to keep the Government in the control of an Administration, devoted heart and soul to the preservation of the Union. It was, they thought, safer to follow Mr. Lincoln who had all the power in his hands than to follow Messrs. Wade and Davis who had no power in their hands.

When Congress convened in December (1864), Mr. Lincoln, who had meanwhile been re-elected to the Presidency, studiously refrained from any reference in his annual message to the controversy over his proclamation. With the intuitive sagacity and caution which never failed him, he did not touch upon the question of reconstruction. He had foreseen that the unhappy differences with which the close of the previous session of Congress had been marked might be renewed, and thence lead the party into warring factions if he should again attempt to urge his own views. This was undoubtedly a disappointment to those who had regarded the controversy with the President as only postponed till the a.s.sembling of Congress, and who were impatiently awaiting its renewal. The a.s.sumed views of the President were antagonized later in the session by the pa.s.sage of a joint resolution "declaring certain States not ent.i.tled to representation in the electoral college." This was done to cut off the electoral votes (should any such votes be returned) of Louisiana and Arkansas, satirically referred to by the opponents of the Administration policy as Mr. Lincoln's "ten per cent States"--in allusion to the permission given to one-tenth of the population to organize a State government.

The pa.s.sage of this joint resolution, to which great importance was attached by the critics of the President, was met by Mr. Lincoln in a spirit and with a tact which deprived its authors of all sense of triumph. In a brief special message (February 8, 1865) the President declared that he had "signed the joint resolution in defence to the view of Congress implied in its pa.s.sage and presentation." In his own view, however, the two Houses of Congress, convened under the twelfth article of the Const.i.tution, "have complete power to exclude from counting all electoral votes deemed by them to be illegal, and it is not competent for the Executive to defeat or obstruct the power by a veto, as would be the case if his action were at all essential to the matter." The President further informed Congress that "he disclaims all right on the part of the Executive to interfere in any way in the matter of canva.s.sing or counting the electoral votes, and he also disclaims that by signing said resolution he has expressed any opinion of the recitals of the preamble or any judgement of his own upon the subject of the resolution."

The message was indeed throughout a sarcastic reflection upon the action of Congress. It was as if the President had said, "You have pa.s.sed a resolution making certain declarations which n.o.body controverts: you have claimed certain powers which n.o.body denies.

If I should sign your resolution without explanation, it might imply my right to veto it, and thereby take from you your undoubted Const.i.tutional power. You are really guilty of weakening your own prerogatives under the Const.i.tution by asking me to a.s.sent to their existence. If you intended your resolution as a reflection on my policy of reconstruction, you might have spared yourself the trouble, for that policy never contemplated the slightest violation of the rights and prerogatives of Congress." The message throughout was a singularly apt ill.u.s.tration of that keen perception and abounding common sense which made Mr. Lincoln so formidable an antagonist in every controversy political and official in which he became involved.

His triumph was complete both in the estimation of Congress and of the people.

Mr. Lincoln really adhered with unexpected tenacity to the plan of reconstruction which he had attempted, and which, putting aside the opprobrious names applied to it, was called by himself "The Louisiana Plan." He had stubbornly maintained his ground against the almost unanimous protest of Republican senators and representatives, and he justified himself by elaborate argument. He had been much influenced by the representations made by General Banks who was commander of the Military District, and much impressed by the perfect faith in its success entertained by leading men of the State. In the last speech he ever made (April 11, 1865), referring to the twelve thousand men who had organized the Louisiana Government, the President said, "If we now reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We say to the white man, you are worthless or worse. We will neither help you nor be helped by you. To the black man we say, this cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when and where and how. If this course, discouraging and paralyzing to both white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, they recognize and sustain the new government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of twelve thousand men to adhere to their work and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance and with energy and daring to the same end. Grant that he desired the elective franchise. He will yet attain it sooner by saving the already advanced steps towards it than by running backward over them. Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it."

Mr. Lincoln described also at some length the process by which he had been induced to try the Louisiana plan. Like all his conclusions it was reached after much consultation and serious reflection. He was conscientiously convinced that, all things considered, it was the promptest and most feasible process of re-establishing civil government in the insurrectionary States. Mr. Lincoln was especially anxious that neither the ruling power nor the conquered rebels should be needless procrastination become accustomed to military government--a form of administration which he regarded as very tempting, but very sure to undermine, and in time to destroy, the real spirit of independence and self-government. It was his belief, as he expressed it himself, that "We must begin with and mold from disorganized and discordant elements, nor is it a small additional embarra.s.sment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. As a general rule I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly make answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State Government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much and no more than the public knows." He then gave somewhat full details of the successive steps he had taken in his attempt at reconstruction,--steps already detailed with precision in this chapter. After completing his recital he stated with entire frankness that he had done nothing else. "Such,"

said he, "has been my only agency in setting up the Louisiana Government." He was thus explicit because certain members of Congress, in the excitement caused by the hostility to the President's plan, had been rash enough to insinuate that the President had a secret understanding with certain rebels, who, as soon as the President's hand was withdrawn, would turn the control of the State over to the unrepentant Democracy who had been so active in precipitating the war.

Concluding his remarks to an audience loath to leave and eager to hear every word from lips which seemed then to be those of an oracle, Mr.

Lincoln dwelt with great seriousness, even with solemnity, upon this subject which now wholly engrossed his mind. The contest of arms was over, but the President realized that the great pressure of duty which had been weighing him down was not removed by the coming of peace. Its character was changed, its exactions were perhaps less urgent, but withal he felt that the war would have been in vain unless, in exchange for all its agonies and all its burdens, there should come to the inst.i.tutions of the country some great reforms, and to the people a new baptism of patriotic interest and philanthropic duty. He dwelt with deep solicitude on the situation in the rebellious States, and, unable to speak as fully as he desired, and with evident emotion, "It may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper."

The "new announcement" to the South was never made. Three days after it was promised, Mr. Lincoln met his fate. What changes might have been wrought if he had lived to make the promised exposition can only be surmised. It may be well believed however that the confidence reposed in him universally in the North, and the respect he had as universally won in the South, would have given such commanding power to his counsel as would have seriously influenced, if not promptly directed, the mode of reconstruction. Mr. Lincoln's position when he spoke his closing words was very different from that which he held when Senator Wade and Henry Winter Davis ventured upon a controversy with him the preceding summer--boldly a.s.sailing his measures and challenging his judgment. He was at that time a candidate for re-election, undergoing harsh criticism and held rigidly accountable for the prolongation of the war. Now he stood triumphant in every public relation--chosen by an almost unprecedented vote to his second term, the rebellion conquered, the Union firmly re-established! Never since Washington's exalted position at the close of the Revolution, or his still more elevated station when he entered upon the Presidency, has there been a man in the United States of so great personal power and influence as Mr. Lincoln then wielded.

It was perhaps not unnatural that from the day of Mr. Lincoln's death, his views as to the proper mode of reconstruction should become a subject of warm dispute between the partisans of different theories; yet no controversy could be less profitable for the single reason that it was absolutely incapable of settlement. Beyond his experiment with the "Louisiana plan" Mr. Lincoln had never given the slightest indication either by word or deed as to the specific course he would adopt in the rehabilitation of the insurrectionary States. His characteristic anecdote of the young preacher who was exhorted "not to cross 'Big Muddy' until he reached it" was a perfect ill.u.s.tration of the painstaking, watchful habit in which he dealt with all public questions. He invariably declined to antic.i.p.ate an issue or settle a question before it came to him in its natural, logical order.

Louisiana was wholly in the possession of the Union troops in 1862-3, and presented a question that to his view had ripened for decision.

Hence his prompt and definite procedure in that State. Severely challenged for what his accusers deemed a blunder, Mr. Lincoln defended himself with fair and full statements of fact, and was apparently justified in adopting the policy he had chosen. He had fortified his own judgment, as he frankly declared, "by submitting the Louisiana plan in advance to every member of the Cabinet, and every member approved it." His "promise was out," he said, to sustain this policy, but "bad promises," he significantly added, "are better broken than kept, and I shall treat this as a bad promise and break it whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public interest."

It is apparent therefore that Mr. Lincoln had no fixed plan for the reconstruction of the States. Pertinently questioned on the subject by one whose personal relations ent.i.tled him to unreserved confidence, the President answered by one of his homely and apt ill.u.s.trations: "The pilots on our Western rivers steer from _point to point_ as they call it--setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see; and that is all I propose to myself in this great problem." This position was practically re-affirmed in the speech, already copiously quoted. "So great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and so unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed in details and collaterals.

Such exclusive and inflexible plan would only become a new entanglement." Such was the lat.i.tude of judgment which the President reserved to himself, such the liberty of action which he deemed essential to the complex problem, for whose solution there was no prescribed rule, no established precedent. On all questions of expediency the President maintained not only the right but the frequent necessity of change. "Principle alone," said he, "must be inflexible."

Encouraged by the result of the controversy, if it may be so termed, between the President and Congress as to the mode of reconstruction, Andrew Johnson determined to re-organize the government of his State.

Though Vice-President he was still discharging the functions of military governor of Tennessee. A popular convention, originating from his recommendation and a.s.sembling under his auspices, was organized at Nashville on the ninth day of January, 1865. Membership of the body was limited to those who "give an active support to the Union cause, who have never voluntarily borne arms against the Government, who have never voluntarily given aid and comfort to the enemy." The manifest purpose, indeed the proclaimed intention, was to re-organize the State, so as to bring all its powers distinctly and unreservedly under the control of that small minority of the population which had remained loyal to the Government of the Union. The preamble which prefaced their action cited the Declaration of Rights in the const.i.tution of Tennessee to the effect that "all power is inherent in the people, and the people have an inalienable right to alter, reform, to abolish the Government in such manner as they may think proper."

This was followed by a declaration which might well be viewed as a _non sequitur_. "Therefore," said the convention, "_a portion of the citizens_ of the State of Tennessee and of the United States of America in convention a.s.sembled do propound the following amendments to the Const.i.tution, which when ratified by the sovereign, loyal people shall be and const.i.tute a part of the permanent const.i.tution of the State of Tennessee."

It was very easy by strict logic to state grave objections to this mode of procedure. It was easy to say that "a portion of the people" did not const.i.tute "the people" in the sense in which the phrase was used in the const.i.tution of Tennessee. It was easy to charge that the proposed mode of proceeding embodied all the heresy of the Dorr Rebellion of Rhode Island in 1842-43, which had fallen under the animadversion of every department of the United States Government. But in answer to such objections, Governor Johnson, and those who co-operated with him, could urge that the objections and cavilings of all critics seemed to ignore the controlling fact that they were acting in a time of war, and were pursuing the only course by which the power of civil government in Tennessee could be brought to the aid of the military power of the National Government. Tennessee, as Johnson bluntly maintained, could only be organized and controlled as a State in the Union by that portion of her citizens who acknowledged their allegiance to the Government of the Union.

Under this theory of procedure the popular convention proposed an amendment to the State const.i.tution "forever abolishing and prohibiting slavery in the State," and further declaring that "the Legislature shall make no law recognizing the right of property in man." The convention took several other important steps, annulling in whole and in detail all the legislation which under Confederate rule had made the State a guilty partic.i.p.ant in the rebellion. Thus was swept away the ordinance of Secession, and the State debt created in aid of the war against the Union. All these proceedings were submitted to a popular vote on the 22d of February, and were ratified by an affirmative vote of 25,293 against a negative vote of 48. The total vote of the State at the Presidential election of 1860 was 145,333.

Mr. Lincoln's requirement of one-tenth of that number was abundantly complied with by the vote on the questions submitted to the popular decision. Small as was the ratio of avowed Union men at the time, Mr.

Johnson argued with much confidence that Tennessee, freed from coercion, would adhere to the Union by a large majority of her total vote. His faith was based on the fact that when the plain and direct question of Union or Disunion was submitted to the people in the winter of 1860-61, the vote for the former was 91,813, and for the latter only 24,749.

Under this new order of things, William G. Brownlow, better known to the world by his _soubriquet_ of "Parson" Brownlow, was chosen governor without opposition on the fourth day of March, 1865, the day of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration. The new Legislature met at Nashville a month later, on the 3d of April, and on the 5th ratified the Thirteenth Amendment; thus adding the abolition of slavery by National authority to that already decreed by the State. The Legislature completed its work by electing two consistent Union men, David T. Patterson and Joseph S. Fowler, to the United-States Senate.

The framework of the new Government was thus completed and in operation before the death of Mr. Lincoln. It had not received the recognition and approval of the National Government in any specific or direct manner. But Andrew Johnson was inaugurated as Vice-President on the 4th of March, and the only form of government left in Tennessee was that of which Brownlow was the acknowledged head. The crucial test would come when the senators and representatives, elected under the Brownlow government, should apply for their seats in Congress.

The course pursued in Tennessee afforded a significant index to Mr.

Johnson's conception of what was deemed necessary to prepare a State that had been in rebellion, for its full rehabilitation as a member of the Federal Union. His position was rendered still more p.r.o.nounced and positive by his declarations in the remarkable speech delivered by him when he took the oath of office as Vice-President: "Before I conclude this brief Inaugural address in the presence of this audience, . . . I desire to proclaim that Tennessee, whose representative I have been, is free. She has bent the tyrant's rod, she has broken the yoke of slavery, she stands to-day redeemed. She waited not for the exercise of power by Congress; it was her own act; and she is now as loyal, Mr. Attorney-General, as the State from which you come. It is the doctrine of the Federal Const.i.tution that no State can go out of this Union. Thank G.o.d, Tennessee has never been out of the Union!

It is true the operations of her government were for a time interrupted; there was an interregnum; but she is in the Union, and I am her representative. This day (March 4, 1865) she elects her Governor and her Legislature, which will be convened on the first Monday of April, and her senators and representatives will soon mingle with those of her sister States; and who shall gainsay it, for the Const.i.tution provides that to every State shall be guaranteed a Republican form of government."

The very positive declaration by Mr. Johnson that "Tennessee has never been out of the Union" indicated the side he would take in a pending controversy which was waxing warm between the disputants. Whether the act of Secession was void _ab initio_ and really left the State still a member of the Union, or whether it did, however wrongfully, carry the State out of the Union as claimed by those engaged in the Rebellion, was one of the purely abstract political questions concerning which men will argue without ceasing,--reaching no conclusion because there is no conclusion to be reached. Both propositions were at the time affirmed and denied with all the earnestness, indeed with all the temper, which distinguished the mediaeval theologians upon points of doctrine once regarded as essential to salvation, but the very meaning of which is scarcely comprehended by modern ecclesiastics. With his mental ac.u.men and with his never-failing common sense, Mr. Lincoln declined to take part in the discussion. In his last public speech he treated this question with admirable perspicuity, and with his wonted felicity of homely ill.u.s.tration: "I have been shown what is supposed to be an able letter," said he, "in which the writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely fixed upon the question whether the seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it.

. . . It would perhaps add astonishment to his regret to learn that as it appears to me, that question has not been and is not a practically material one, and that any discussion of it could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing friends. As yet, whatever it may become, the question is bad as the basis of a controversy--a merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the Government is to get them back into their proper practical relation. I believe it is easier to do this without deciding or even considering whether those States have ever been out of the Union. The States finding themselves once more at home, it would seem immaterial to me to inquire whether they had ever been abroad."

The essential difference between the upholders and the opponents of this theory was not shown in the practical treatment proposed for the States which had been in rebellion. It was in truth a difference only in degree. The stoutest defenders of the dogma that the States had not been out of the Union did not propose to permit the re-organization of their local governments except upon conditions prescribed by the National authority, and did not a.s.sert the rightfulness of their claims to representation in the Senate and House until the prescribed conditions were complied with. Those who protested against the dogma did not a.s.sert the right to keep the States out of the Union, but only claimed an unrestricted power to exact as the prerequisite of re-admission such conditions as might be deemed essential to the public safety--especially such as would most surely prevent another rebellion against National authority. The two schools in short marked the dividing line between the radical and the conservative. Perhaps another feature might still more clearly indicate the difference between the two. The conservatives thought the process of reconstruction could be accomplished under the sole authority and direction of the Executive Department of the Government, while the radicals held it to be a matter for the exclusive determination of Congress, affirming that the President's right of intervention was limited to approval or veto of the bills which Congress should send to him, and to the execution of all laws which should be const.i.tutionally enacted.

An extra session of Congress seemed specially desirable at the time, and had one been summoned by the President, many of the troubles which subsequently resulted might have been averted. The propriety of ordering an earlier a.s.semblage of the Thirty-ninth Congress than that already provided by the Const.i.tution had been discussed to a very considerable extent among the members of the Thirty-eighth, as its final adjournment (March 3, 1865) approached. The rebellion seemed tottering to its fall, and it was the belief of many of the leading men both of the Senate and the House, that it might be a special advantage if Congress should be in session when the final surrender of the Confederate forces should be made. But the prevailing opinion was in favor of leaving the matter to Mr. Lincoln's discretion. It was felt by the members that if the situation should demand the presence of Congress, Mr. Lincoln would promptly issue his proclamation, and if the situation should not demand it, the presence of Congress might prove hurtful, and would certainly not be helpful. The calamity of Mr.