Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 9

He reviewed at some length the minor provisions of the bill, objected to them as unwarrantably interfering with the local administration of justice, and declared that a system for the support of indigent persons in the United States was never contemplated by the authors of the Const.i.tution. "Nor can any good reason be advanced," said the President, "why as a permanent establishment it should be founded for one cla.s.s or color of our people more than another." He objected to it on the ground of its expense. "The appropriations asked for by the Freedmen's Bureau, as already established, for the current year, amount," he said, "to $11,745,000; and it may be safely estimated that the cost to be incurred under the pending bill will require double that amount,--more than any sum expended in any one year of the Administration of John Quincy Adams."

The argument of the message based on expense and extravagance was much applauded by the opponents of the Republican party, and there was a great expectation that it would create a strong re-action in favor of the President; but those who thus reckoned utterly failed to appreciate the temper of the public mind. The disburs.e.m.e.nt of vast sums in the war had accustomed the people to large appropriations of money, and the pecuniary aspect of the case, upon which the President had much relied, made far less impression than he antic.i.p.ated. The philanthropists did not deem the question at issue to be one of dollars and cents; and those less disposed to sympathize with the humanitarian aspects of the subject had not yet learned the lesson of economy which the adversity of after years taught them. The great expansion of our currency, the ease with which money had been obtained, and the extravagance with which it had been expended in all the walks of life, produced in the minds of the people an indifference to the question of economy. The President, in his own long career, had exercised a rigid watchfulness over the disburs.e.m.e.nts of public money, and he did not fully realize the great change which had been wrought in the people--a change sure to follow the condition of war if historic precedents may be trusted--a change in which economy gives way to lavishness and careful circ.u.mspection is followed by loose disregard of established rules. It is a condition not implying dishonesty or even recklessness, but one which follows from a positive inability in the public mind to estimate the expenditure of money by the standards which are applied in the era of peaceful industry, careful supervision and prudent restraint.

The Senate voted upon the veto the day after it was received. Greatly to the surprise of the public the dominant party was unable to pa.s.s the bill against the objections of the President. Messrs. Dixon, Doolittle, Morgan, Norton and Van Winkle had voted for it, but now changed their votes and thereby reversed the action of the Senate.

These senators, with the addition of Nesmith and Willey, who did not vote on the pa.s.sage of the bill, gave the final count of 30 in favor of the pa.s.sage to 18 against--lacking the two-thirds and therefore failing to pa.s.s the bill. The result was wholly unlooked for and the vote of Governor Morgan of New York gave great uneasiness to his political a.s.sociates. It was for a time believed that under the persuasive influence of Mr. Seward, with whom he had long been on terms of close intimacy, Mr. Morgan might be intending to join the Administration party. The same was thought possible with regard to Mr.

Van Winkle of West Virginia, his location suggesting the possibility of such a change. The excitement among Republicans was great for a time, because if they should so far lose control of either branch of Congress as to be unable to override the vetoes of the President, all attempts to enforce a more radical policy of Reconstruction than Mr.

Johnson could be induced to approve would necessarily be futile. It was soon ascertained however, that the apprehension of danger was unfounded and that Messrs. Morgan and Van Winkle did not design any change of political relations, but were only more cautious and perhaps wiser than the other Republican senators.

A few weeks later, the disaster of the veto--for such it was esteemed by Republicans--was repaired by the pa.s.sage of another bill, originating in the House. This was simply a bill to continue in force the original Freedmen's Bureau Act, with some enlarging provisions to make it more effective. The Act was so framed as to escape the objections which had controlled some of the Republican votes that sustained the President's veto. Among the most important of the changes were the limitation of the statute to the term of two years and a serious modification of the judicial powers accorded to the officers of the Bureau in the preceding bill. It was not so elaborately debated in either branch as was the original act, but its pa.s.sage was r.e.t.a.r.ded by the interposition of other measures and it did not reach the President until the first week in July.

The President promptly returned the bill to the House with his veto.

He found it to fall within the objections which he had a.s.signed in his message vetoing the Senate bill on the same subject. He believed that the only ground upon which this kind of legislation could be justified was that of the war-making power. He admitted therefore that the original Act organizing a Freedmen's Bureau, pa.s.sed during the existence of the war, was proper and Const.i.tutional. By its own terms it would end within one year from the cessation of hostilities and the declaration of peace. It would probably continue in force, he thought, as long as the freedmen might require the benefit of its provisions. "It will certainly," said he, "remain in operation as a law until some months subsequent to the meeting of the next session of Congress, when, if experience shall make evident the necessity of additional legislation, the two Houses will have ample time to mature and pa.s.s the requisite measures." The President renewed in varied forms the expression of his belief that all the States should be admitted to the privilege of legislation, especially in matters affecting their own welfare. The House proceeded at once to vote upon the reconsideration of the bill, and by 104 in the affirmative and 33 in the negative pa.s.sed it over the veto of the President. The Senate voted on the same day with the House, and pa.s.sed it against the President's objections by 33 in the affirmative and 12 in the negative.

A measure of very great importance to the colored race was thus completed, after serious agitation in both Houses and against two vetoes by the President. It required potent persuasion, re-enforced by the severest exercise of party discipline to prevent a serious break in both Houses against the bill. The measure had lost, under discussion, much of the popularity which attended its first introduction in Congress.

On the same day that Mr. Trumbull introduced his original bill to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, he introduced another bill, more important in its scope and more enduring in its character, --a bill "to protect all persons of the United States in their civil rights and furnish the means of their vindication." It was referred to the Judiciary Committee on the 5th day of January and was reported back on the 11th. The bill was one which exemplified in a most striking manner the revolution produced by the war. It declared that "there shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the inhabitants of any State or Territory of the United States on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude; but the inhabitants of every race and color shall have the same right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefits of all laws and provisions for the security of personal property; and shall be subject to like punishments, fines and penalties, and none other,--any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to the contrary notwithstanding."

Any person who under any law, statute or regulation of any kind should attempt to violate the provisions of the Act, would be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding one year. Very stringent provisions were made, and a whole framework of administration devised, by which the rights conferred under this enactment could be enforced through "the judicial power of the United States." The district attorneys, marshals, deputy marshals of the United States, the commissioners appointed by the Circuit and Territorial Courts of the United States, the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, and every other officer who was sufficiently empowered by the President of the United States, were, by the Act, specially authorized and required, at the expense of the United States, to inst.i.tute proceedings against every person who should violate its provisions, and "cause him or them to be arrested and imprisoned for trial at such court of the United States or Territorial court as, by this Act, has cognizance of the case." Any person who should obstruct or hinder an officer in the performance of his duty or any person lawfully a.s.sisting him in the arrest of an offender, or who should attempt to rescue any person from the custody of an officer, was in turn subjected to severe penalties.

The bill was designed, in short, to confer upon the manumitted negro of the South the same civil rights enjoyed by the white man, with the exception of the right of suffrage; to give him perfect equality in all things before the law, and to nullify every State law wherever existing, that should be in conflict with the enlarged provisions of the Federal statute. It left no loophole for escape on the question of the citizenship of the negro. As the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States then stood he was not a citizen of the United States; and to prevent this question being raised the word _inhabitant_ was used,--thus making the conferment of civil rights so broad that it was impossible to defeat the full intent of the law by any technical evasion. It was undoubtedly a very sweeping enactment, the operation of which was not confined to the States which had been slave-holding, but bore directly upon some of the free States where the negro had always been deprived of certain rights fully guaranteed to the white man.

Lest "inhabitant" might be held to mean "citizen" in the connection in which it was used Mr. Trumbull proposed, at the initial point of the discussion, to amend by inserting the declaration that "all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States without distinction of color." Mr. Guthrie of Kentucky and Mr. Howard of Michigan both asked whether that would naturalize all the Indians in the United States. Mr. Trumbull thought not, because "we deal with the Indians as foreigners--as separate nations;" but he was willing to change it so as specifically to exclude Indians. Mr. Cowan asked "whether the amendment would not have the effect of naturalizing children of Chinese and gypsies born in this country." Mr. Trumbull replied that it undoubtedly would. Mr. Cowan then thought it would be proper to hear the senators from California on that question, because "at the present rate of emigration the day may not be very distant when California, instead of belonging to the Indo-European race, may belong to the Mongolians, may belong to the Chinese." Mr. Trumbull inquired if the children of Chinese born in this country were not citizens? Mr. Cowan thought they were not.

Mr. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland pointed out a difficulty not antic.i.p.ated by Mr. Trumbull. By using the word _inhabitant_ in the bill he made it impossible for any State in the Union to "draw any distinction between citizens who have been there from birth, or have been residents for a long time, and him who comes into the State for the first time as a foreigner. He becomes at once an inhabitant.

If he comes from England or from any of the countries of the world he becomes that moment an inhabitant; and if this bill is to pa.s.s in the shape it stands he can buy, he can sell, he can hold, he can inherit and be inherited from and possess all the rights of a native-born citizen," without being naturalized. Mr. Johnson pointed out another difficulty which perhaps the senator from Illinois did not foresee.

Many of the States in the North as well as in the South forbade the marriage of a black man with a white woman or a white man with a black woman. This law would destroy all State power over the subject; and the man who offended in the matter of marriage between the races, so far from being punished himself, could bring the judge who attempted to enforce the law against him into punishment. The bill, after much elaboration of debate and many amendments offered and defeated, came to a vote on the 2d of February and was pa.s.sed by 33 _yeas_ to 12 _nays_. Mr. Dixon of Connecticut, one of the Administration Republicans, voted for the bill; Mr. Cowan and Mr. Norton against it; Mr. Doolittle did not vote.

The bill immediately went to the House, and on the 1st of March that body proceeded to consider it without its reference to the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Wilson of Iowa, chairman of that committee, said they had considered it informally, and in order to save time it was brought up for action at once. The first amendment offered was to strike out "inhabitants" and insert "citizens of the United States," and thus avoid the embarra.s.sments that might result from giving it so broad an extension. The amendment was promptly agreed to. Mr. Wilson, by another amendment, removed the difficulties suggested in the Senate by Reverdy Johnson, touching the question of marriage between the races.

He supported the bill in a speech of great strength and legal research.

He admitted at the outset that "some of the questions presented by the measure are not entirely free from defects. Precedents, both judicial and legislative, are found in sharp conflict concerning them. The line which divides these precedents is generally found to be the same which separates the early from the later days of the Republic. The farther the Republic drifted from the old moorings of the equality of human rights, the more numerous became the judicial and legislative utterances in conflict with some of the leading features sought to be re-established by this bill."

The debate was continued by Mr. Rogers of New Jersey, in the opposition, by Mr. Russell Thayer of Pennsylvania, who made an uncommonly able speech in its favor, and by Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin, who tersely presented the objections entertained by the Democratic party to such legislation. There were some apprehensions in the minds of the members on both sides of the House that the broad character of the bill might include the right of suffrage, but to prevent that result Mr. Wilson moved to add a new section declaring that "nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to affect the laws of any State concerning the right of suffrage." Mr. Wilson said that the amendment he proposed did not change his own construction of the bill; he did not believe the term "civil rights" included the right of suffrage; he offered it simply from excessive caution, because certain gentlemen feared trouble might arise from the language of the bill.

The amendment was unanimously agreed to, not one voice on either side of the House being raised against it. Mr. Bingham, Mr. Raymond and other prominent members of the House, to the number of forty in all, debated the bill exhaustively. It was pa.s.sed by 111 _yeas_ to 38 _nays_.

The bill reached the President on the 18th of March (1866), and on the 27th he sent to the Senate a message regretting that it contained provisions which he could not approve. "I am therefore constrained,"

he said, "to return it to the Senate, in which it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law." The President stated that by the first section the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as black,--people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood,--"are made citizens of the United States." The President did not believe that this cla.s.s possessed "the requisite qualifications to ent.i.tle them to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States." He sought to raise prejudice against the bill because it proposed "to discriminate against large number of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners, in favor of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have now suddenly been opened." "It is proposed," he said, "by a single legislative enactment to confer the rights of citizens upon all persons of African descent born within the extended limits of the United States, while persons of foreign birth who make our land their home must undergo a probation of five years, and can then only become citizens of the United States upon the proof that they are of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Const.i.tution of the United States, and well disposed towards the good order and happiness of the same."

The President sought to impress upon Congress, in strong language, the injustice of advancing four millions of colored persons to citizenship "while the States in which most of them reside are debarred from any partic.i.p.ancy in the legislation." He found many provisions of the bill in conflict with the Const.i.tution of the United States as it had been hitherto construed, and argued elaborately against its expediency or necessity in any form. "The white man and the black race," said the President, "have hitherto lived in the South in the relation of master and slave,--capital owning labor. Now suddenly the relation is changed and as to the ownership, capital and labor are divorced. In this new relation, one being necessary to the other, there will be a new adjustment, which both are deeply interested in making harmonious. . . .

This bill frustrates this adjustment. It intervenes between capital and labor and attempts to settle questions of political economy through the agency of numerous officials, whose interest it will be to foment discord between the two races, for as the breach widens their employment will continue and when the breach is closed their occupation will terminate."

"The details of this bill," continued the President, "establish for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race; in fact, the distinction between white and colored is by the provisions of this bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race." "The provisions of the bill," he maintained, "are an absorption and a.s.sumption of power by the General Government, which, being acquiesced in, must eventually destroy our federative system of limited power and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of States. It is another step, or rather stride, towards centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the General Government. The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate rebellion and to arrest the progress of those influences which are more closely thrown around the States--the bond of union and peace."

The debate upon the President's veto was not very prolonged but was marked by excitement approaching to anger. Mr. Trumbull, who had charge of the bill, a.n.a.lyzed the President's argument with consummate ability and readily answered him on every point of Const.i.tutional law which he had adduced. He did more than this. He pointed out with unflinching severity what he considered the demagogical features of the message. "The best answer," said Mr. Trumbull, "to the President's objection that the bill proposes to make citizens of Chinese and gypsies and his reference to the discrimination against foreigners, is to be found in a speech delivered in this body by the President himself, on the occasion of a message being sent to the Senate by Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, returning with his objections what was known as the Homestead Bill. On that occasion Senator Johnson of Tennessee said, 'This idea about poor foreigners somehow or other bewilders and haunts the imagination of a great many.

I am constrained to say that I look upon this objection to the bill as a mere quibble on the part of the President, as being hard pressed for some excuse in withholding his approval of the measure. His allusion to foreigners in this connection looks to me more like the _ad captandum_ of the mere politician or demagogue, than a grave and sound reason to be offered by the President of the United States in a veto message on so important a measure as the Homestead Bill.'"

In exposing the inconsistency between Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, and Andrew Johnson, Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Trumbull said that he would not use as harsh language as Mr. Johnson had used towards President Buchanan when he accused him of "quibbling and demagogery." Mr. Trumbull argued with great force that the citizen has a counter-claim upon the Government for the comprehensive claim which the Government has upon the citizen. "It cannot be that we have const.i.tuted a government," said Mr. Trumbull, "which is all-powerful to command the obedience of the citizen but has no power to afford him protection." "Tell it not, sir," said he, "to the father whose son was starved at Andersonville, or the widow whose husband was slain at Mission Ridge, or the little boy who leads his sightless father through the streets of your city, of the thousand other mangled heroes to be seen on every side of us to-day, that this Government, in defense of which the son and the husband fell, the father lost his sight and the others were maimed and crippled, had the right to call those persons to its defense, but now has no power to protect the survivors or their friends in any rights whatever in the States. Such, sir, is not the meaning of our Const.i.tution: such is not the meaning of American citizenship. Allegiance and protection are reciprocal rights."

During the progress of the debate a curious incident showed the temper engendered in the Senate. Mr. Trumbull, on the 5th of April, intimated his readiness to have the vote taken if the Senate was ready. It was late in the evening. Mr. Cowan interposed the suggestion that two senators detained at home by illness, Mr. Dixon of Connecticut and Mr.

Wright of New Jersey, could not with safety come out at night. The point of courtesy was strongly insisted upon by Mr. Guthrie, Mr.

Hendricks and other members. Mr. Wade spoke very excitedly in reply to it. "If the President of the United States," said he, "can impose his authority upon a question like this and can by a veto compel Congress to submit to his dictation, he is an emperor and a despot.

Because I believe the great question of Congressional power and authority is at stake here, I yield to no importunities on the other side. I feel myself justified in taking every advantage which the Almighty has put in my hands to defend the power and authority of this body. I will not yield to these appeals of comity on a question like this, but I will tell the President and everybody else that if G.o.d Almighty has stricken a member of this body so that he cannot be here to uphold the dictation of a despot, I thank him for it and I will take every advantage of it I can."

Mr. Wade was answered with great severity by Mr. McDougal of California. Mr. Guthrie spoke with much spirit, but not with the temper of Mr. McDougal. "I should not like it to go out from this body," said the senator from Kentucky, "that Mr. Stockton was removed to get rid of his vote. I do not want it to go out from this body that we would not extend a courtesy to sick senators because we could pa.s.s a bill without their votes when we might not pa.s.s it if they were here. The time will come when the people, being convinced of these things, will say that there is more to be feared from a combined Congress than from a President, in relation to the liberties of the people." The angry position of Mr. Wade was not sustained by the Senate and the motion to adjourn was carried by 33 to 12. The debate continued throughout the next day and disclosed during its progress that Senator Lane of Kansas had joined the small band of Administration Republicans. He attempted to take part in the debate but was unmercifully dealt with by Mr. Wade, Mr. Trumbull and others, and paid dearly for his personal defection. When the vote was taken upon pa.s.sing the bill over the President's veto the _ayes_ were 33 and the _noes_ 15. Every senator was present except Mr. Dixon of Connecticut, still detained from the Senate from illness. There was one vacancy, Mr. Stockton's seat not having yet been filled. Among the nays were Mr. Cowan, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Lane of Kansas, Mr. Norton and Mr. Van Winkle.

The bill went to the House and after a very brief debate came to a vote on the 9th of April--_yeas_ 122, _nays_ 41. Speaker Colfax directed that his name should be called in order that he might have the honor of recording himself for the bill. He then announced that having received the vote of two-thirds of each House the Civil Rights Bill had become a law, the President's objections to the contrary notwithstanding. The announcement was received with an outburst of applause, in which the members of the House as well as the throng of spectators heartily joined--the speaker being unable to restore order for several minutes.

It recalled the scene of a little more than a year before, when the rejoicing over the pa.s.sage of the Thirteenth Amendment was equally demonstrative.

To many persons of conservative mind the bill seemed too radical--to many it seemed positively rash. It was an ill.u.s.tration of how rapidly public opinion is changed, and with what force it may be brought to bear upon a given question in a period that is filled with the spirit of revolutionary excitement. If five years before the most p.r.o.nounced anti-slavery man in the country had been told that not only would slavery be abolished, not only would the slave be transformed into a citizen, but that the National Government would confer upon him all the civil rights pertaining to the white man and would stretch forth its arm to protect him in those rights throughout the limits of the Republic, it would have seemed to him as the wildest fancy of a distempered brain. But his had actually come to pa.s.s through the ordinary forms of legislation, and by such a preponderating display of senatorial and representative strength as had scarcely ever before controlled a public policy since the foundation of the Government.

It was not, of course, without some misgiving, without a certain timidity and distrust, that many Republicans were brought to the support of these measures. They did not object to their inherent and essential justice and rightfulness, but with instinctive caution they feared that an attempt to wipe away the prejudices of two centuries in a single day might lead to a dangerous re-action, and to a consequent change in the political control of the country. Many who were borne along in the irresistible current of aggressive reform dreaded all the more the effect of the votes which the moral and political pressure of their const.i.tuents compelled them to give. In the Const.i.tutional amendment abolishing slavery they went forward without distrust, with complete approbation of conscience, with undoubting belief in the expediency of the act. They knew that the great ma.s.s of the North was heartily opposed to slavery: they knew that its abolition was not merely right but was destined to be popular. It affected moreover only that great section of country which had engaged in the crime of rebellion; and if it were viewed only as a punishment of those who had sought the destruction of the Government, they felt more than justified in inflicting it.

But the legislation now accomplished was of a different type. In no State of the North had there ever been social equality between the negro and the white man. It had been most nearly approached in New England, but still there were points of prejudice which time had not effaced nor custom changed. In the Middle and Western States the feeling was much deeper. In many of their laws a discrimination was made against the negro, and a direct interference with the habits of loyal communities on this subject involved many considerations which did not in any degree attach to legislation affecting only the Southern States. There was among Democratic leaders a confidence as marked as the timidity on the part of the Republicans. They were sure of a re-action in their favor; they believed that the Republicans had taken the step which would prove fatal to them, and that with the prejudices of the people supplemented by the patronage of the President a serious division would ensue, which would prove fatal to Radical ascendency in a majority of the Northern states. Overcome in both chambers by the aggressive force of a majority which transcended the limit of two-thirds, they congratulated themselves that this very power, beyond the restraint of the Executive and exercised in defiance of his opinions, would prove the pitfall of Republicanism wherever race prejudice was kept alive.

The pa.s.sage of these bills by Congress, their persistent veto by the President and their re-enactment against his objections, produced, as had been antic.i.p.ated, not only an open political hostility, but one which rapidly advanced to a condition in which violent epithet and mutual denunciation indicated the deplorable relations of the two great departments of the Government. The veto of the Freedmen's-Bureau Bill, on the 19th of February, was followed by a large popular meeting in Washington, on the 22d, to approve the President's action. The meeting adjourned to the White House to congratulate the President, and he in turn made a long speech in which he broke through all restraint, and spoke his mind with exasperating frankness. "I have," said the President, "fought traitors and treason in the South.

I opposed Davis, Toombs, Slidell, and a long list of others whose names I need not repeat, and now, when I turn around at the other end of the line, I find men--I care not by what name you call them (a voice: 'Call them traitors')--who still stand opposed to the restoration to the Union of these States. (A voice: 'Give us their names.') A gentleman calls for their names. Well! suppose I should give them?

I look upon them, I repeat it as President or citizen, as being as much opposed to the fundamental principles of this Government, and believe they are as much laboring to pervert or destroy them, as were the men who fought against them in the Rebellion. (A voice: 'Give us the names.') I say Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. (Tremendous applause.) I say Charles Sumner. (Tremendous applause.) I say Wendell Phillips and others of the same stripe are among them. (A voice: 'Give it to Forney.') Some gentleman in the crowd says, 'Give it to Forney.' I have only to say that I do not waste my ammunition upon dead ducks." (Laughter and applause.) . . . "They may traduce me," continued the President, "they may slander me, they may vituperate, but let me say to you that it has no effect upon me; and let me say in addition that I do not intend to be bullied by my enemies. . . . There is an earthquake coming, gentlemen: there is a ground-swell coming of popular judgment and indignation. The American people will speak for their interests, and they will know who are their friends and who their enemies. What positions have I held under this Government?--beginning with an alderman and running through all the branches of the Legislature. (A voice: 'From a tailor up.') Some gentleman says I have been a tailor. (Tremendous applause.) Now that did not discomfit me in the least; for when I used to be a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one and of making close fits (great laughter); always punctual with my customers and always did good work.

(A voice: 'No patchwork.') No: I do not want any patchwork. I want a whole suit. But I will pa.s.s by this little facetiousness. . . . I was saying that I held nearly all positions, from alderman, through both branches of Congress, to that which I now occupy; and who is there that will say Andrew Johnson ever made a pledge that he did not redeem or made a promise that he did not fulfill?"

Some one had spoken in Congress about the Presidential obstacle to be gotten out of the way. Mr. Johnson interpreted this as meaning personal violence to himself. "I make use," said he, "of a very strong expression when I say that I have no doubt the intention was to incite a.s.sa.s.sination and so get out of the way the obstacle to place and power. Whether by a.s.sa.s.sination or not, there are individuals in this Government, I doubt not, who want to destroy our inst.i.tutions and change the character of the Government. Are they not satisfied with the blood which has been shed? Does not the murder of Lincoln appease the vengeance and wrath of the opponents of this Government? Are they still unslaked? Do they still want more blood? I am not afraid of the a.s.sa.s.sin attacking me where a brave and courageous man would attack another. I only dread him when he would go in disguise, his footsteps noiseless. If it is blood they want let them have courage enough to strike like men."

The speech produced a very unfavorable impression upon the country.

Its low tone, its vulgar abuse, recalled Mr. Johnson's unhappy words at the time of his inauguration as Vice-President, and produced throughout the country a feeling of humiliation. His effort to make it appear that his political opponents meditated a.s.sa.s.sination was regarded as a thoroughly unscrupulous declaration, as an unworthy attempt to place himself beside Lincoln in the martyrdom of duty--to suggest that as Lincoln had fallen, sacrificed to the spirit of hostility in the South, so he, in pursuing his line of duty, was in danger of being sacrificed to hostility in the North. The delivery of this speech was the formal forfeiture of the respect and confidence of the great majority of the people who had elected him to his place, and he failed to secure compensation by gaining the respect or confidence of those who had opposed him. A few Democrats who wished to worry and divide the Republican party, the place-hunters who craved the favor of the Executive, a few deserters from the Republican ranks unable to pursue the path of exacting duty, represented by their combination a specious support for the President. Natives of the border States, who had been unwilling to join in treasonable demonstrations against the Government but who had not been inspired with sufficient loyalty to join actively in its defense, now naturally rallied around Mr. Johnson. The residents of Washington, consisting at that time of Southern men and Southern sympathizers, now applauded the President because they saw an opportunity to distract and defeat the Republican party. But the entire ma.s.s of those who were now eager to sustain the President exhibited but a pitiable contrast with the magnificent party which he had voluntarily abandoned.

The increasing fierceness of the struggle between the President and Congress gave rise to every form of evil suspicion and evil imputation.

The close vote on the Civil Rights Bill admonished the Republicans of their danger. If Mr. Dixon had not been confined to his house by illness, if Mr. Stockton had not been a few days before deprived of his seat, the Administration would have been able to rally seventeen votes in the negative, leaving but thirty-three to the Republicans out of a Senate of fifty members. The exigencies of the situation presented the strongest possible temptation to take every fair advantage, and this naturally led to the imputation of unfair advantage. A large number of honest-minded opponents believed that a careful calculation had been made by the Republican leaders, and that they had found the margin so close as to be unsafe in a contest with the President. If the margin had been broader and the two-thirds vote a.s.sured past all reasonable danger, it was a.s.serted, and no doubt believed, that the Const.i.tution would not have been strained to exchange Mr. Stockton for a Republican senator, who was sure to succeed him. It was the first attempt in our history to establish the policy of the Government without regard to the President, and indeed against his power. In the case of President Tyler the reverse had been practically attempted. In his controversy with the Whigs his friends const.i.tuted more than a third in each House --thus making his veto effective and leading him to attempt the administration of the Government without regard to the opinions of Congress. Mr. Tyler had failed; but thus far in the controversy with Johnson, Congress had succeeded. It was said, however, with great pertinacity by the friends of the President, that Congress was enabled to do this only by the exclusion of eleven States of the Union from representation; and from this fact came the Democratic denunciation of the Republican party for administering the affairs of the Government in a revolutionary spirit.

The narrow escape of the measure again created great uneasiness, not only among the Republicans in Congress but throughout the country.

One or two more defections would imperil Republican control of the Senate. The loyalty of every member to his party was therefore scanned with closest observation. Rumors, gossip, inventions of all kinds were set afloat in the public press,--hinting first at one man and then at another among the Republican senators as likely to weaken, as about going over to the Administration, as having just had a confidential interview with Mr. Seward, as dining the evening before with the President, or as being concerned in some matter of even less consequence. When public interest is heightened the imagination of the people is stimulated, until trifles light as air have fatal significance in one direction or the other. Throughout the spring and early summer of 1866 (the tentative period, as it may be called, in fixing the relations of the President and Congress) this suggestion of doubt, this latent apprehension, continued, and was not indeed wholly removed until the political lines were definitely drawn by the elections for representatives to Congress in the ensuing autumn.

The situation in all its bearings was one of peculiar embarra.s.sment, beset with extraordinary difficulties to those who directed the proceedings of Congress. In reviewing the events of that day, whatever may be thought respecting their wisdom and expediency, candid men of all parties will concede that the Republican leaders exhibited great determination of purpose, remarkable steadiness of nerve and unflagging devotion to principle. They were absolutely without precedent to guide them in the exigencies and emergencies of the situation. It was well said at the time that the framers of the Const.i.tution in 1787 were not confronted with difficulties so grave or surrounded with problems so complex and unproved, as were the leaders of Congress during the period of Reconstruction. The framers of the Const.i.tution met for one purpose, upon which all were agreed. They had only to reconcile differences of detail and to adjust the jealousies of local interest; but in 1866 Congress was called upon to exclude the President practically from all share in the law-making power, and to charge him on his oath of duty to faithfully execute laws, against which he had constantly entered his solemn protest, not only as inexpedient but as unconst.i.tutional. Perhaps a man of more desperate resolution than Mr.

Johnson might have used his Executive power more effectively against Congress, but he must have done so at the expense of his fidelity to sworn obligations. The practical deduction as to the working of our Governmental machinery, from the whole experience of that troublous era, is that two-thirds of each House, united and stimulated to one end, can practically neutralize the Executive power of the Government and lay down its policy in defiance of the efforts and the opposition of the President.

The defection of Senator Lane of Kansas from the ranks of the most radical Republicans caused great surprise to the country. He had been so closely identified with all the tragic events in the prolonged struggle to keep slavery out of Kansas, that he was considered to be an irreconcilable foe to the party that tolerated or in any way apologized for its existence. The position he had taken in voting against the Civil Rights Bill worried and fretted him. He keenly felt his separation from the sympathy of such men as Sumner, Chandler, Wade, and the whole host who had n.o.bly fought the battle of Kansas in the halls of Congress. He felt still more keenly the general and somewhat indignant disapproval of his action, freely expressed by the great ma.s.s of his const.i.tuents. One of his intimate friends said that on the very day of his vote he received a telegram warning him that if he voted against the bill it would be the mistake of his life. The telegram reached him after the roll had been called. He said excitedly, "The mistake has been made. I would give all I possess if it were undone."

He was still further disturbed by imputations upon his integrity in connection with some transactions of the Indian Bureau--imputations which were p.r.o.nounced baseless by the two senators from Indiana (Thomas A. Hendricks and Henry S. Lane), one a political opponent and the other a political friend, who had impartially examined all the facts.

But under the mortification caused by parting with old political a.s.sociates, and the humiliation to which he was subjected by groundless imputations upon his character, his mind gave way and on the 11th of July, 1866 he committed suicide.

General Lane was a native of Indiana, son of a reputable lawyer, Amos Lane, who was a representative in Congress during the Administrations of Jackson and Van Buren. He thus inherited Democracy of the most aggressive type. He was a man of violent pa.s.sions and marked courage.

He commanded a regiment of Indiana volunteers at the battle of Buena Vista, and in 1852 was elected a member of the House of Representatives. He was a warm supporter of Douglas and voted for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He immediately afterwards emigrated to Kansas, as he said, "to see fair play under the doctrine of popular sovereignty." His career thenceforward formed a large part of the history of Kansas. He contributed perhaps as largely as any other one man to the victory of the Free-State policy, and became as violent in his hostility to the Democratic party as he had formerly been in its advocacy. When his State was admitted to the Union in 1861 he was rewarded with the honor of being one of her first senators in Congress.

His course in the Senate, until the time of his defection, had been specially marked for its aggressiveness in support of the war and the destruction of the inst.i.tution of slavery. He was profoundly attached to Mr. Lincoln and had received many marks of his friendship. The motive for his strange course under President Johnson was never clearly disclosed. He was in the full vigor of life when he closed it with his own hands, being a few weeks beyond his fifty-first birthday.

The Administration of Mr. Johnson had, before the death of Mr. Lane, been unhappily a.s.sociated in the popular mind with another suicide.

A few days before the a.s.sembling of Congress Mr. Preston King, collector of the port of New York, had drowned himself in the Hudson River by leaping from a ferry-boat. He had been for more than twenty years an intimate friend of Mr. Johnson and held, as already narrated, a confidential relation to him at the time of his accession to the Presidency. He had been especially influential in the National Republican Convention of 1864 in securing for Mr. Johnson the nomination for the Vice-Presidency. The original disagreement with Mr.

Seward was generally ascribed to the influence of Mr. King upon the President, but when, with Mr. Seward in the Cabinet, Mr. King was appointed collector of customs for the port of New York, it was understood to mean that a perfect reconciliation had taken place between all the Republican factions in his State. The change in the President's position was a complete surprise to Mr. King and left him in a peculiarly embarra.s.sing situation. He was essentially a radical man in all his political views, and the evident tendency of the President towards extreme conservatism on the question of reconstruction was a keen distress to him. He was at a loss to determine his course of action. If he should resign his position it would be the proclamation of hostility to one to whom he was deeply attached. If he should remain in office he feared it might be at the expense of forfeiting the good will of the tens of thousands of New-York Republicans who had always reposed the utmost confidence in his fidelity to principle, and who had rewarded him with the highest honors in their power to bestow. He had not desired the collectorship, and consented to accept it only from his sincere friendship for the President and from his earnest desire to harmonize the Republican party in New York and bring its full strength to the support of the Administration. The office had given him no pleasure. It had indeed brought him nothing but care and anxiety. The applications for place were numerous and perplexing, the daily routine of duty was onerous and exacting, and his pecuniary responsibility to the Government, much exaggerated by his worried mind, constantly alarmed him. Mr. King found himself therefore so situated that, whichever way he turned, he faced embarra.s.sment in his career, and as he imagined, disaster to his reputation. In the conflicting emotions incident to his entangled position, his brain was fevered, and his intellect became disordered.

From the anguish which his sensitive nature could not endure, he sought relief in the grave.

Mr. King was born in 1806 at Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence County, New York, which throughout his life continued to be his home. He became prominent in political affairs, while still a young man, as a zealous supporter of President Jackson in whose interest he edited a paper.

He attached himself to that strong school of New-York Democrats of whom Silas Wright was the acknowledged leader. After conspicuous service in the New-York Legislature, he entered Congress in 1845 and remained until 1851. When the South demanded the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise Mr. King followed his personal convictions, broke from his Democratic a.s.sociations and aided in the organization of the Republican party. He adhered steadily to the fortunes of the new party and brought with him a strong popular support--the large Republican majorities in Northern New York being originally due in no small degree to his personal influence and earnest efforts.