Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 8

These evils, in the opinion of Mr. Schurz, "can be prevented only by continuing the control of the National Government in the States lately in rebellion, until free labor is fully developed and firmly established. This desirable result will be hastened by a firm declaration on the part of the Government that national control in the South will not cease until such results are secured." It was Mr.

Schurz's judgment that "it will hardly be possible to secure the freedman against oppressive legislation and private persecution unless he be endowed with a certain measure of political power." He felt sure of the fact that the "extension of the franchise to the colored people, upon the development of free labor and upon the security of human rights in the South, being the princ.i.p.al object in view, the objections raised upon the ground of the ignorance of the freedmen become unimportant."

Mr. Schurz made an intelligent argument in favor of negro suffrage. He was persuaded that the Southern people would never grant suffrage to the negro voluntarily, and that "the only manner in which the Southern people can be induced to grant to the freemen some measure of self-protecting power, in the form of suffrage, is to make it a condition precedent to re-admission." He remarked upon the extraordinary delusion then pervading a portion of the public mind regarding the deportation of the freedmen. "The South," he said, "stands in need of an increase and not a diminution of its laboring-force, to repair the losses and disasters of the last four years. Much is said of importing European laborers and Northern men. This is the favorite idea among planters, who want such emigrants to work on their plantations, but they forget that European and Northern men will not come to the South to serve as hired hands on the plantations, but to acquire property for themselves; and even if the whole European emigration, at the rate of two hundred thousand a year, were turned into the South, leaving not a single man for the North and West, it would require between fifteen and twenty years to fill the vacuum caused by the deportation of freedmen."

Mr. Schurz desired not to be understood as saying that "there are no well-meaning men among those who are compromised in the Rebellion.

There are many, but neither their number nor their influence is strong enough to control the manifest tendency of the popular spirit."

Apprehending that his report might be antagonized by evidence of a contrary spirit shown in the South by the action of their conventions, Mr. Schurz declared that it was "dangerous to be led by such evidence into any delusion." "As to the motives," said Mr. Schurz, "upon which the Southern people acted when abolishing slavery (in their conventions) and their understanding of the bearings of such acts, we may safely accept the standard they have set up for themselves." The only argument of justification was that "they found themselves in a situation where _they could do no better_." A prominent Mississippian (General W. L. Brandon) said in a public card, according to Mr. Schurz, "My honest conviction is that we must accept the situation until we can once more get control of our own State affairs. . . . I must submit for the time to evils I cannot remedy." Mr. Schurz expressed his conviction that General Brandon had "only put in print what a majority of the people say in more emphatic language."

The report of Mr. Schurz was quoted even more triumphantly by the opponents of the President's policy than was General Grant's by its friends. It was a somewhat singular train of circ.u.mstances that produced the two reports, while the sequel, so far as the authors were involved, was quite as remarkable as the contradictory character of the views set forth. In the early summer (1865) when Mr. Johnson had yielded many of his preconceived views of reconstruction to the persuasions of Mr. Seward, but was still adhering tenaciously to some exactions which the Secretary of State deemed unwise if not cruel, it had occurred to the President to procure an accurate and intelligent report of the Southern situation by a man of capacity. Mr. Johnson held at that particular time a middle ground, measuring from the original point of his extreme antagonism towards the Southern rebels to the subsequent point of his extreme antagonism towards the Northern Republicans. His selection of Mr. Schurz for the special duty was deemed significant, because at that period of a political career consistent only in the frequency and agility of its changes Mr. Schurz happened to take an extreme position on the Southern question--one that was in general harmony with the views entertained and avowed by Mr. Sumner. Mr. Schurz, according to his own declaration, had communicated his "views to the President in frequent letters and conversations," and added an a.s.surance, the truth of which all who know Mr. Schurz will readily concede--"I would not have accepted the mission had I not felt that whatever preconceived opinions I might carry with me to the South I should be ready to abandon or modify, as my perception of facts and circ.u.mstances might command their abandonment or modification."

Mr. Schurz started on his mission in the early part of July, and was engaged in traveling, observing and taking copious notes until the middle of the ensuing autumn. His report did not reach the President until the month of November. In the intervening months Mr. Johnson had been essentially and rapidly changing his views,--growing more and more favorable to the Southern leaders, less and less in harmony with the Republican leaders. He had gone far beyond the balancing-point of impartiality, where he stood when he was willing to intrust the task of Southern investigation to a man of the radical views which Mr.

Schurz then professed. He was now altogether unwilling to submit the report of Mr. Schurz to Congress as an _ex cathedra_ exposition. If not in some way counterbalanced it would necessarily be considered authoritative, and in a certain sense accredited by the Administration.

It was the President's desire to neutralize the effect of Mr. Schurz's representations, which led to the report of General Grant, the chief points of which have been already quoted. The Commander of the Army was necessarily in close relations with the Executive Department, and was recognized by the President as possessing an extraordinary popularity in the Northern States. During the months that had pa.s.sed since the war closed General Grant had been received, wherever he had been induced to visit, with a display of enthusiasm never surpa.s.sed in our country. The people looked upon him simply as the ill.u.s.trious soldier who had led the armies of the Union to victory. They attributed to him no political views except those of undying loyalty to his country, and they sought no party advantage from the use of his name. He had indeed made no partisan expressions, either during the war or since its close, on any subject whatever, except the necessity of maintaining the Union--and this was a partisan question only in consequence of the evil course pursued by the Democratic party during the closing years of the war.

On the civil and political aspects of the situation General Grant had not deemed it necessary to mature his views. He desired above all things the speedy restoration of the Southern States to the Union as the legitimate result of the victories in the field. But so far as action or even the exertion of any positive influence was involved, he confined himself strictly to his duties as Commander of the United-States Army. President Johnson saw an opportunity for turning the _prestige_ of General Grant to the benefit of his Administration.

Towards the close of November the general was starting South on a tour of military inspection "to see what changes were necessary in the disposition of the forces, and to ascertain how they could be reduced and expenses curtailed." The President requested him "to learn during his tour, as far as possible, the feelings and intentions of the citizens of the Southern States towards the National Government,"--a request with which the general complied in a perfunctory manner, giving merely the impressions formed in the rapid journey of a few days. He left Washington on the 27th of November and pa.s.sed through Virginia "without conversing or meeting with any of its citizens." He spent one day in North Carolina, one in South Carolina and two in Georgia. This was the whole extent of the observation upon which General Grant had innocently given his views, without the remotest suspicion that his brief report was to figure largely in the discussions of Congress upon the important and absorbing question of reconstruction.

The divergent conclusions which were thus made to appear between the authors of the conflicting reports did not cease with this single exhibition. It was soon perceived that in the President's anxiety to parry the effect of Mr. Schurz's report he had placed General Grant in a false position,--a position which no one realized more promptly than the General himself. Further investigation led him to a thorough understanding of the subject and to a fundamental change of opinion.

It led him to approve the reconstruction measures of the Republican party, and in a subsequent and more exalted sphere to continue the policy which these measures foreshadowed and implied. Mr. Schurz, on the other hand, received new light and conviction in the opposite direction, and from the point of extreme Republicanism he gradually changed his creed and became, first a distracting element in the ranks of the party, and afterwards one of its malignant opponents in a great national struggle in which General Grant was the leader,--the aim of which struggle was really to maintain the views which Mr. Schurz had, with apparent sincerity, endeavored to enforce in his report to President Johnson. These changes and alternations in the position of public men are by no means unknown to political life in the United States, but in the case under consideration the actors were conspicuous, and for that reason their reversal of position was the more marked.

An interesting and important case, relating to the mode of electing United-States senators, came up for decision at this session and led to a prolonged debate, which was accompanied with much personal feeling and no little acrimony.--In the winter and spring of 1865 the Legislature of New Jersey was engaged in the duty of choosing a senator of the United States to succeed John C. Ten Eyck, whose term was about to expire. After many efforts at election it had been found that no candidate was able to secure "a majority of the votes of all the members elected to both Houses of the Legislature," which was described in the rule adopted by the joint convention of the two Houses as the requisite to election. On the 15th of March the convention rescinded this stringent rule and declared that "any candidate receiving a plurality of votes of the members present shall be declared duly elected." The Legislature was composed of a Senate with twenty-one members and an a.s.sembly with sixty members. The resolution giving to a plurality the power to elect was carried in the joint convention by a majority of one--forty-one to forty. In this vote eleven senators were in the affirmative and ten in the negative, and of the members of the House thirty were in the affirmative and thirty in the negative.

It was therefore numerically demonstrated that the resolution could not have been carried with the two Houses acting separately. There would have been a majority of one in the Senate and a tie in the House.

Proceeding to vote under this new rule, John P. Stockton, the Democratic candidate, received forty votes, John C. Ten Eyck, the Republican candidate, thirty-seven votes, and four other candidates one vote each. Forty-one votes were thus cast against Mr. Stockton, but as he had secured a plurality he was duly elected according to the rule adopted by the joint convention.--Mr. Stockton was thirty-nine years of age at the time of his election. His family had been for several generations distinguished in the annals of New Jersey. His great-grandfather Richard Stockton was a member of the Continental Congress and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence; his grandfather Richard Stockton was a senator of the United States under the administrations of Washington and John Adams; his father was the well-known Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who was conspicuously effective as a naval officer in the conquest of California, and afterwards a senator of the United States. Mr. Stockton entered the Senate, therefore, with personal _prestige_ and a good share of popularity with his party.

On the 20th of March, five days after the alleged election of Mr.

Stockton, seven senators and thirty-one members of the a.s.sembly forwarded to the Senate of the United States a protest against his admission, for the reason that he was not elected by a majority of the votes of the joint meeting of the Legislature. The substantial ground on which the argument in the protest rested, was that a Legislature means at least a majority of what const.i.tutes the Legislature as convened at the moment of election. This had been, as they set forth at length, the undoubted law and the unbroken usage of New Jersey, and an election falling short of this primary requirement was necessarily invalid. "The Const.i.tution of the United States direct," said this memorial, "that a senator must be chosen by the Legislature, and a minority does not const.i.tute the Legislature." They ill.u.s.trated the wrongfulness of the position by the _reductio ad absurdum._ "The consequences which are possible," argued the protestants, "from admitting the right to elect by a plurality vote, furnish a conclusive argument against it. If two members vote for one person and every other member, by himself, for different individuals, the person having two votes would have a plurality. Can it be that in such a case he would be senator? This indeed is an extreme case, but such cases test the propriety of legal doctrine, and many equally unjust but less extreme may easily be offered."

Mr. Stockton took his seat on the first day of the ensuing session (December 4, 1865) and was regularly sworn in. At the same time the protest was presented by Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania and referred to the Judiciary Committee. That committee was composed of five Republicans and two Democrats, and was therefore politically biased, if at all, against Mr. Stockton. On the 30th of January, after a patient examination of nearly two months, the committee, greatly to the surprise of the Republican side of the chamber, reported that "Mr.

Stockton was duly elected and ent.i.tled to his seat." The report was said to have been approved by every member of the committee except Mr. Clark of New Hampshire. The validity or invalidity of the election hinged upon the ability of the joint convention of the two branches to declare a plurality sufficient to elect. The committee decided that the convention possessed that power, and the report, drawn by Mr.

Trumbull, argued the point with considerable ingenuity.

The subject came up for consideration in the Senate on the 22d of March (1866), Mr. Clark, the dissenting member of the committee, leading off in debate. He was ably sustained by Mr. Fessenden, who left little to be said, as was his habit in debating any question of const.i.tutional law. He maintained that "the Legislature, in the election of a United-States senator, is merely the agent of the Const.i.tution of the United States to perform a certain act. It is therefore under the control of no other power. No provision of the Const.i.tution of New Jersey, directing the mode in which a senator shall be elected, or the course that shall be taken, or the rules of the proceeding, would bind in any way the Legislature which is to perform the act. Nor would any law of a previous Legislature have binding force. The existing Legislature is independent of every thing except the Const.i.tution of the United States; but while it is thus independent and may disregard those provisions, being the mere agent of the Federal Const.i.tution, still it must necessarily act as a Legislature in the performance of that duty.

There must be a _legislative_ act. . . . Whatever is done in relation to the election of a senator, must be done as a consequence of legislative action, otherwise it is no election by the Legislature.

They vote to form a convention for the purpose of choosing a senator, and when they meet in convention that choice may be made. If there is legislative action previously that is sufficient. The convention can choose a senator because there has been legislative action which authorizes them to choose a senator in that form. The Legislature, when it votes to go into a convention of the two branches, may provide the mode of election. If it desires to change the ordinary and received law on the subject it may provide how the election shall be made. It may say that a plurality shall elect if it pleases. It may make any provision that it pleases, but it must be done by the Legislature. It must be the legislative body which gives the power that is to settle the mode of action. Now what are the facts in this case? There was no provision whatever made by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey as to the mode in which the senator should be chosen. The legislative action which authorized the convention was perfectly silent upon that subject. What then had the Legislature the right to conclude? Was it not this, and this only?--that when it authorized a body other than itself, though const.i.tuted of the same members, a convention to choose a senator, that body must proceed in the choice of a senator according to the universally received Parliamentary and common law upon the subject of elections. But this convention in New Jersey, without any legislative act, without any such authority conferred upon it, without any thing done on the subject by the Legislature which formed the body, undertook to say that they would change the received and acknowledged Parliamentary and common law in their mode of proceedings, and instead of acting according to that law, as the Legislature must have intended that it should do, would elect in a totally different manner from that prescribed by law, namely, by a plurality vote, for which they had no legislative sanction and for which there was no authority but their own will."

There was a long debate on the question, but the argument submitted by Mr. Fessenden was never refuted by his opponents, and it was practically repeated by every one who concurred in his general views.

Mr. Stockton made an able presentation of his own case, perhaps better than any made for him, but he was never able to evade the point of Mr. Fessenden's argument, or even to dull it. The case came to a vote on the 23d of March, the first test coming upon an amendment to the committee's report, which declared Mr. Stockton "not ent.i.tled to a seat." This amendment was defeated--_yeas_ 19, _nays_ 21. The vote was then taken on the direct question of declaring him ent.i.tled to his seat. At the conclusion of the roll-call the _yeas_ were 21, the _nays_ 20, when Mr. Morrill of Maine rose and asked to have his name called. He voted in the negative and produced a tie. Thereupon Mr. Stockton rose and asked to vote. No objection being interposed his vote was received. The result was then announced 22 _yeas_ to 21 _nays_, thereby confirming Mr. Stockton in his seat. Mr. Stockton, disclaiming any intention to reflect upon Mr. Morrill, intimated that he was under the obligation of a pair with Mr. William Wright (the absent colleague of Mr. Stockton) and therefore should not have voted.

The two had undoubtedly been _paired_, but Mr. Morrill considered that the time had expired and acted accordingly. He was not only a gentleman of scrupulous integrity, but in this particular case he had taken counsel with his colleague, Mr. Fessenden, and with Mr. Sumner, safe mentors, and was advised by both that he had a clear right to vote. It cannot be denied however that Mr. Morrill's action created much ill-feeling on the Democratic side of the Senate.

Mr. Stockton's determination to vote must have been taken very hastily, without due reflection on his own part and without the advice of his political a.s.sociates, who should have promptly counseled him against his unfortunate course. The Parliamentary position of the question, at the moment he committed the blunder of voting, was advantageous to him on the record. The Senate had defeated by a majority of two the declaration that he was not ent.i.tled to a seat, and the declaration in his favor, even after Mr. Morrill's negative vote, stood at a tie.

Nothing therefore had been done to unseat him, and if he had left it at that point he would still have remained a member by the _prima facie_ admission upon his regular credentials.

These proceedings took place on Friday and the Senate adjourned until Monday. Meanwhile the obvious impropriety of Mr. Stockton's vote upon his own case had deeply impressed many senators, and on Monday, directly after the Journal was read, Mr. Sumner raised a question of privilege and moved that the Journal of Friday be amended by striking out the vote of Mr. Stockton on the question of his seat in the Senate.

He did this because, being on the defeated side, he could not move a reconsideration; but Mr. Trumbull and Mr. Poland, who had sustained Mr. Stockton's right to a seat, both offered to move a reconsideration, because they believed that he had no right to vote on the question.

Mr. Poland made the motion and it was unanimously agreed to. Then, instead of urging the correction of the Journal of Friday, Mr. Sumner proposed a resolution declaring that "the vote of Mr. Stockton be not received in determining the question of his seat in the Senate," which was agreed to without a division. The original resolution being again before the Senate, Mr. Clark renewed his amendment declaring that John P. Stockton was not elected a senator from New Jersey, on which the _yeas_ were 22 and the _nays_ 21. As thus amended the resolution pa.s.sed by 23 _yeas_ to 20 _nays_. Mr. Riddle of Delaware voted with the majority for the purpose of moving a reconsideration on a succeeding day--a privilege from which he was excluded by the action of Mr. Clark of New Hampshire, who made the motion at once with the object of securing its defeat and thereby exhausting all power to renew the controversy. Mr. Clark of course voted against his own motion, and with its rejection Mr. Stockton ceased to be a member of the Senate.

More than half of those who sustained Mr. Stockton's right to his seat were Republicans, or had, until the current session of Congress, acted with the party. The majority of a single vote by which he was ejected would have been neutralized if Mr. Stockton's colleague could have been present. Mr. Wright was ill at his home in Newark and contradictory reports were made as to the time when he could probably be present. Some of the Republicans justified their urgent demand for a final vote on the belief entertained by them that Mr. Wright would never appear in the Senate again. As matter of fact he resumed his seat eight days after the decision of Mr. Stockton's case. His vote would have changed the result. The haste with which the question was brought to a decision can hardly be justified, and is a striking ill.u.s.tration of the intense party-feeling which had been engendered by the war. In a matter so directly affecting the interests and the feelings of the people of New Jersey it was certainly a hardship that the voice of the State was not heard. With one senator excluded from voting by parliamentary law and the other absent by reason of physical disability, Mr. Stockton had good ground for declaring that the Senate had not treated him with magnanimity or generosity. It is due to Mr.

Stockton to say that under very trying circ.u.mstances he bore himself with moderation and dignity.

In the decision itself, however, there has been general acquiescence, and it led to an important reform in the manner of choosing United-States senators. The well-known Act of July 26, 1866, "regulating the time and manner of holding elections for senators in Congress," was the direct fruit of the Stockton controversy. Though it may not be perfect in all its details that law has done much to insure the fair and regular choice of senators. It has certainly accomplished a great deal by preventing various objectionable devices, which prior to its enactment had marked the proceedings of every senatorial election where the Legislature was almost equally divided between political parties. The reluctance to interfere with the supposed or a.s.serted rights of States had too long delayed the needful exercise of National power. The Const.i.tution provides that "the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives in Congress shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; _but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators._"

There was a reluctance in the early administration of the Federal Government to a.s.sume any function which had been given alternatively to the States. It thus came to pa.s.s that many methods were developed in different States for choosing senators,--methods that widely differed in their essential characteristics. Hence there was variety, and even contrariety, where there should have been only unity and harmony. These divergent practices had been allowed to develop for seventy-seven years of the nation's life, when, admonished by the Stockton case of the lat.i.tudinary results to which loose methods might lead, Congress took jurisdiction of the whole subject. The exercise of this power was a natural result of the situation in which the nation was placed by the war. Previous to the civil conflict every power was withheld from the National Government which could by any possibility be exercised by the State Government. Another theory and another practice were now to prevail; for it had been demonstrated to the thoughtful statesmen who then controlled the Government, that every thing which may be done by either Nation or State may be better and more securely done by the Nation. The change of view was important and led to far-reaching consequences.

Alexander G. Cattell succeeded Mr. Stockton and served in the Senate with usefulness and high credit until March 4, 1871. He had been all his life engaged in commercial affairs, but had taken active part in politics and had held many positions of trust in his native State.

In 1844, at twenty-eight years of age, he was a member of the Const.i.tutional Convention of New Jersey and made his mark in its proceedings. His upright character, his recognized ability and his popular manners had given him a strong hold upon the people of his State.

William Wright, the colleague of Mr. Stockton, who was unable from illness to vote on his case, died the ensuing November (1866) at seventy-two years of age. He served two terms (1843-47) in the House of Representatives from the Newark district as a Whig, and was a zealous supporter of Mr. Clay in 1844. He was a wealthy manufacturer, largely engaged in trade with the South, and the agitation of the slavery question became distasteful to him. In 1850 he united with the Democratic party and was sent to the Senate in 1853.

Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen was chosen as Mr. Wright's successor.

He was in his fiftieth year when he entered the Senate, but was known as a distinguished member of the New-Jersey bar and had served as Attorney-General of his State. His grandfather, Frederick Frelinghuysen, was a senator during the first term of Jackson and ran for Vice-President on the ticket with Mr. Clay in 1844. The family came with the early emigration from Holland and soon acquired a hold upon the confidence of the people of New Jersey which has been long and steadily maintained.--Mr. Frelinghuysen soon attained prominence in the Senate, and grew in strength and usefulness throughout his service in that body.

CHAPTER VIII.

With the disposition manifested in both Houses of Congress it was feared that the conflict between the Legislative and Executive Departments of the Government would a.s.sume a virulent and vindictive spirit. It was known that President Johnson was deeply offended by the indirect refusal of the House to pa.s.s any resolution in the remotest degree approving his course. He had doubtless been led to believe that the influence of such eminent Republicans as Mr. Seward in his Cabinet, Mr. Cowan and Mr. Doolittle in the Senate and Mr. Raymond in the House, would bring about so considerable a division in the Republican ranks as to give the Administration, by uniting with the Democratic party, the control of Congress, or at least of one branch. The test vote of January 9th was an unwelcome demonstration of the degree to which the President had almost wilfully deceived himself and had been innocently deceived by others. He foresaw the struggle and with his combative nature prepared for it.

On the last day of the preceding Congress, March 3, 1865, an Act had been pa.s.sed to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees. It was among the very last Acts approved by Mr. Lincoln, and was primarily designed as a protection to the freedmen of the South and to the cla.s.s of white men known as "refugees,"--driven from their homes by the rebels on account of their loyalty to the Union.

Protection was needed by both cla.s.ses during the disorganization necessarily incident to so great and sudden a change in their condition and in their relations to society. The total destruction of the long-established labor system of the South--based as it had been on chattel-slavery--led inevitably to great confusion, indeed almost to social anarchy. The result was that many of the freedmen, removed from the protection of their old masters, were exposed to dest.i.tution and to many forms of suffering. But for the interposition of the National Government there was serious danger that thousands of them might be reduced to starvation. Having taken the responsibility of freeing them, first by Proclamation of the President and then by Amendment of the Const.i.tution, it would have been a lasting reproach to the Government not to extend protection and a.s.sistance to such of them as were thrown into dire extremity of want. They could not be left to the chance relief of the alms-giver, for their number was too large.

The white population of the South were themselves reduced almost to poverty by the long struggle; and even if they had been able they were in no mood to extend relief to negroes who, as they believed, had been wrongfully released from slavery.

The Act provided that the Bureau should have supervision and management of all abandoned lands and control of all subjects relating to freedmen and refugees from the Rebel States, under such regulations as might be prescribed by the Commissioner at the head of the Bureau and by the President. The Secretary of War was authorized "to direct such issues of provisions, clothing and fuel as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of dest.i.tute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he may approve." The Commissioner was authorized to lease, for a term of three years, to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, not more than forty acres of the lands which had been abandoned by their owners or confiscated to the United States, at a rental of six per cent on the last appraised value. At the end of three years the occupant was ent.i.tled to purchase and receive the land, with such t.i.tle as the United States could convey, at a price proportioned to the rental value. Very little permanent advantage came to the negro from this provision; for the abandoned lands were legally reclaimed by their owners and the confiscations, few in number, would, by the Const.i.tution, be only for the life of the owner. Temporary relief however was afforded; but much harm was done by creating in the minds of ignorant freedmen, just redeemed from slavery, the belief that the Government would give to each of them "forty acres of land and a mule."

The Commissioner selected was Major-General Oliver O. Howard, who had gone through the war with marked honor. He was a lieutenant of ordnance when Sumter was fired upon and a brigadier-general in the regular army three years later. He had discharged his military duties with steadiness, intelligence, earnestness and courage. He was a man of pure character, of deep religious faith, and was somewhat an exception to West-Point graduates in being from the outset thoroughly anti-slavery in his intellectual and moral convictions. It was the possession of these characteristics which led Secretary Stanton to select General Howard for the important trust. For his ease and his peace of mind he should have declined the place, as he might well have done, since it was not a military duty to accept. During his administration of the office he was subjected to unreasonable fault-finding, often to censure and obloquy; but throughout the whole he bore himself with the honor of a soldier and the purity of a Christian,--triumphantly sustaining himself throughout a Congressional investigation set on foot by political malice, and confronting with equal credit a military inquiry which had its origin in the jealousy that is often the bane of army service.

On the first attempt to enforce the provisions of the original Act, its advocates and sympathizers found that it did not go far enough, nor give power enough to its agents to effect the desired object. On the 12th of January, therefore, Mr. Trumbull introduced from the Judiciary Committee a supplementary Act to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau. By the new bill the President was authorized to "divide the section of country containing the refugees into districts, not exceeding twelve in number, each containing one or more States, and with the advice and consent of the Senate to appoint an a.s.sistant Commissioner for each district." The Bureau, at the discretion of the President, might be placed under a Commissioner and a.s.sistant Commissioners to be detailed from the Army. Sub-districts, not to exceed the number of counties or parishes in each State, were provided for; and to each sub-district an agent, either a citizen or officer of the Army, might be detailed for service. Each a.s.sistant Commissioner might employ not more than six clerks. The President of the United States, through the War Department and through the Commissioner, was authorized to extend military jurisdiction and protection over all employees, agents and officers of the Bureau; and the Secretary of War was authorized to issue such provisions, clothing, fuel and other supplies, including medical stores, and to afford such aid, as he might deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of dest.i.tute refugees and freedmen, their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he might direct. The President was also authorized to reserve from sale or settlement under the Homestead and Pre-emption Laws, public lands in Florida, Mississippi and Arkansas, not to exceed three millions of acres of good land in all, for the use of the freedmen, at a certain rental to be named in such manner as the Commissioner should be regulation prescribe; or the Commissioner could purchase or rent such tracts of land in the several districts as might be necessary to provide for the indigent refugees and freedmen depending upon the Government for support.

It was further provided that wherever in consequence of any State or local law any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons, such as the right to enforce contracts, to sue, to give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold or convey real and personal property, were refused or denied to freedmen on account of race or color or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, or whenever they were subjected to punishment for crime different from that provided for white persons, it was made the duty of the President, through the Commissioner, to extend military jurisdiction and protection over all cases affecting persons against whom such unjust discriminations were made. It was made the duty of the officers and agents of the Bureau to take jurisdiction of and to hear and determine all cases, in which by local law discrimination was made against the freedmen. This was to be done under such rules and regulations as the President, through the Commissioner, might prescribe. But the jurisdiction was to cease "whenever the discrimination on account of which it is conferred shall cease," and was in no event to be exercised in any State "in which the ordinary course of judicial proceeding has not been interrupted by the Rebellion, nor in those States after they shall have been fully restored to their const.i.tutional relations to the United States, and when the courts of the State and of the United States, within their limits, are not disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice."

In the time of peace, these provisions seemed extraordinary, but the condition of affairs, in the judgment of leading Republican statesmen, justified their enactment. The Thirteenth Amendment, about to be formally promulgated by the Executive Department of the Government, as incorporated in the Const.i.tution, had made every negro a free man.

The Southern States had responded to this Act of National authority by enacting a series of laws which really introduced, as has already been shown, a new, offensive and most oppressive form of servitude. Thus not only was rank injustice contemplated by the States lately in rebellion, but they conveyed also an insulting challenge to the authority of the Nation. It was as if they had said to the National Government: "In order to destroy the Confederacy and restore the Union you have manumitted these black men; but we will demonstrate to you, by our local legislation, that you are powerless to give them any further freedom than we are willing to concede, and we defy you to show by what means you can achieve it!"

The first answer of the National Government to this defiance was Mr.

Trumbull's bill conferring upon the Freedmen's Bureau a degree of power which combated and restrained the Southern authorities at every point where wrong was committed or menaced. It was designed for the purpose of extending to the freeman protection against all the wrongs of local legislation, and to make him feel that the Government which had freed him would not desert him and allow his release from slavery to be made null and void. Mr. Johnson's policy of declaring all the States at once restored to the Union and in full possession of their powers of local legislation, would carry with it necessarily the confirmation of the odious laws already enacted in those States, and also the power to make them as stringent and binding upon the freedmen as the discretion of Southern legislators might dictate. The war would thus have practically injured the negro, for after taking from him that form of protection which slavery afforded, it would have left him an object of still harsher oppression than slavery itself--an oppression that would be inspired and quickened by a spirit of vengeance.

The bill was debated at full length, nearly every prominent man in the Senate taking part. Mr. Hendricks of Indiana and Mr. Garrett Davis of Kentucky opposed it in speeches of excessive bitterness, and Mr.

Guthrie of Kentucky with equal earnestness but less pa.s.sion. It was sustained with great ability by all the leading Republican senators; and on the final pa.s.sage, in an unusually full Senate, the vote in its favor was 37; those opposed were 10. There were only three absentees.

Even those Republican senators who had given strong evidence of sympathy with the Administration did not unite with the Democrats on this issue. Mr. Cowan declined to vote, while Messrs. Dixon, Doolittle and Norton voted in the affirmative. The public opinion of the country unmistakably sustained this legislation--the purpose to extend protection to the freedmen being deep-set and all-pervading among the men of the North who had triumphed in the war. When the bill reached the House it was referred to the Select Committee on Freedmen's Affairs, of which Mr. Thomas D. Eliot of Ma.s.sachusetts was chairman. It was promptly reported and came to a final vote on the 6th of February, when it was pa.s.sed on a call of yeas and nays by 136 to 33. It was a clear division upon the line of party, the nays being composed entirely of Democrats, with the possible exception of Mr.

Rousseau of Kentucky, who had been elected with the aid of Republican votes.

One of the most striking speeches made in the House upon the subject was by Mr. Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota. He had carefully prepared for the debate and dwelt with great force upon the educational feature.

"Education," said he, "means the intelligent exercise of liberty; and surely without this liberty is a calamity, since it means simply the unlimited right to err. Who can doubt that if a man is to govern himself he should have the means to know what is best for himself, and what is injurious to himself, what agencies work against him and what for him? The avenue to all this is simply education. Suffrage without education is an edged tool in the hands of a child,--dangerous to others and destructive to himself. Now what is the condition of the South in reference to all this? I a.s.sert that it is such as would bring disgrace upon any despotism in Christendom. The great bulk of the people are rude, illiterate, semi-civilized: hence the Rebellion; hence all the atrocious barbarities that accompanied it. . . . I repeat, the condition of the South in this respect would be shameful to any semi-civilized people, and is such as to render a republican government, resting upon the intelligent judgment of the people, an impossibility."

It is worthy of remark that the question so cogently presented and enforced by Mr. Donnelly--that of the connection between education and suffrage--disclosed the general fact that even among Republicans there was no disposition at this period to confer upon the negro the right to vote. Even so radical a Republican as Mr. Fessenden, during the debate in the Senate on this question, said, "I take it that no one contends--I think the Honorable Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts himself (Mr.

Sumner), who is the great champion of universal suffrage, would hardly contend--that now, at this time, the whole of the population of the recent slave States is fit to be admitted to the exercise of the right of suffrage. I presume no man who looks at the question dispa.s.sionately and calmly could contend that the great ma.s.s of those who were recently slaves (undoubtedly there may be exceptions), and who have been kept in ignorance all their lives, oppressed and more or less forbidden to acquire information, are fitted at this stage to exercise the right of suffrage, or could be trusted to do it unless under such good advice as those better informed might be prepared to give them."

The bill, as finally pa.s.sed by both Houses, reached the President on the 10th of February. On the 19th he sent a message to Congress informing each House that, having with much regret come to the conclusion that it would not be consistent with the public welfare to give his approval to the measure, he returned the bill to the Senate, stating his objections to its becoming a law. The main argument of the President was based upon the principle that legislation such as that contained in the bill was not proper for States that were deprived of their right of representation in both branches of Congress. "The Const.i.tution," he said, "imperatively declares, in connection with taxation, that each State shall have at least one representative, and fixed the rule for the number to which in future times each State shall be ent.i.tled. It also provides that the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State, and adds with peculiar force that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. . . . Burdens have now to be borne by all the country, and we may best deem that they shall be borne without murmur when they are voted by a majority of the representatives of all the people. . . . At present all the representatives of eleven States are excluded, those who were the most faithful during the war not less than others. The State of Tennessee, for instance, whose authorities were engaged in rebellion, was restored to all her Const.i.tutional relations to the Union by the patriotism and energy of her patriot people. I know no reason why the State of Tennessee should not fully enjoy all her Const.i.tutional relations. . . . The bill under consideration refers to certain of the States as thought they had not been fully restored in all their Const.i.tutional relations to the United States. If they have not let us at once act together to secure that desirable end at the earliest possible moment. In my judgment most of these States, so far at least as depends upon their own acts, have already been fully restored and should be deemed as ent.i.tled to enjoy their Const.i.tutional rights as members of the Union."