Reconstruction during the Civil War in the United States of America

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REFERENCE LIBRARY OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Preface

THE term “ reconstruction,” in American politics, applies more aptly to the revolted states than it does to the federal Union; for the mutilated form of the Union was restored by the mere ascendancy of the northern arms, but it was not until after this had occurred that the eleven states were reconstructed. The period during which the process of renewal was taking place is called, in popular speech, the Reconstruction Period, and it refers, somewhat indefinitely, to the time occupied by the single term of President Johnson and the succeeding two terms of President Grant, — the presidential terms during which the ancient governments of the subdued states were finally subverted, and new ones were erected in their places.

I intend to write the political history of the period of reconstruction, but, preliminary to doing so, I have set forth in this book certain things necessary to be known before taking up the subject and pursuing it in the sequence of time. It is a notable thing that, from the very beginning of the Civil War, the federal government never evinced a doubt of ultimate success, and it is significant that, even in moments of iv PREFACE.

disaster which seemed irretrievable, it was occupied with the question, “‘ What is to be done with the revolted states when the fortune of war shall have put their fate in our hands ?”

At first, the notion prevailed that the seceded states would retake their places in the Union merely, and that, this done, “the Union as it was” would be restored. It was not long, however, before the slavery question made itself felt by transmuting restoration into reconstruction, and the distractions of the times were augmented by the conflicting opinions on this subject which divided the people and gained head in Congress. Nothing could be implied from the Constitution but restoration ; yet restoration involved the continuance of slavery, and this was out of the question with the people, who were now demanding that no settlement should be made without the elimination of that which was certain to produce a recurrence of the intolerable evil under which they were laboring. President and Congress, accordingly, changed front, and the proclamations of one and the debates and legislation of the other showed how determinedly the North was bent upon a new order of things. —

Though the object sought was manifest, and the demand for change was peremptory, the means by which this change was to be effected and this object was to be attained were not clear. The Constitution gave no help to a procedure which was foreign to the system of which it was the expression. The contra-

_ PREFACE. : v riety among the people betrayed itself on the floor of Congress in the dissension of factions. The President took one view of the relations of a state to the Union, a faction of the Republicans took another, while the Democrats, reduced to a party of mere protest, still clung unavailingly to the doctrine of restoration. There was much groping, much fault-finding, and. much contention, but uppermost, out of the confusion, rose at length that which became known as the Presidential Plan of Reconstruction. This plan was actually in progress in several of the regained states when, by the assassination of President Lincoln, its furtherance devolved upon President Johnson. This plan had been prescribed by proclamation of the President.

It is to bring the genesis of “reconstruction” before the reader that this volume has been written. It is not a history of the contentions of parties and factions, but it is a presentation of the conception illustrated by the proclamations of the President, and by the debates (particularly those of the Senate) upon these proclamations, and upon matters which touched vitally the constitutional relations of the states to the federal Union: it shows, consequently, the great change of opinion and of sentiment which the people of the United States were then undergoing, and which at length found expression in three amendments of the Constitution.

vi PREFACE.

In a written constitution, the people of the United States have a standard whereby to determine their constitutional character; for no matter how contrary the modes of construing this instrument, the written words remain. The Constitution, therefore, preserves the character of a landmark by- which the fidelity or infidelity of the people to their ancient character can be judged. When the storm has cleared away, it reveals indubitably how far they have been swept from their moorings. It is absolutely essential to a people, the security of whose liberties is coincident with the preservation of their constitutional character, to ascertain if they have suffered this character to become impaired. Such an opportunity as that presented by the subsidence of the agitation which accompanied the most stormy days through which the United States have ever passed has not occurred before to the Americans, and the reader cannot close this painful chapter of our history without the question rising to his lips, Have we preserved the ancient character handed down to us along with the Constitution, or have we wandered from the faith of our fathers ?

WaAsHINGTON, D. C., March, 1895.

Chapter I Introductory

PAGE Withdrawal of southern senators from the Senate of the United

States. — Personality of the states ; the Senate. — Representation of the people; the House of Representatives. — Contrast between the northern and the southern peoples. — The compromise element in the Constitution. — Equality of the states . . 1

Chapter II. Federal Union; Representative Democracy

The Anglican Revolution; descent of power from ruler to people. — Aristotle’s “ constitution’? and “ government.” — Contributions of different colonies to the modern Union. — Contributions of the United States to the science of government. — Federal Union. — Representative Democracy. — Three great events in North American history. — The most striking physical characteristics of the British colonies in America. . . . 23

Chapter III. Political Separateness Of The British Colonies

Causes of segregation. — Lack of the sentiment of union. —What was a British colony ? — Political nature of a colony, and the relations of a colonist to the crown and*to his colony. — Politieal corporations. — Allegiance. — Social and economical effects of separateness ; its advantages and disadvantages. — Extremities to which spirit of exclusion reached. — Colonial individuality. — Colonial development due to self-government : colonies were creatures of growth and development. — Separateness due ROWS LurD) GAUSOR- “sh. s,. s, 6) t= Sen ex. ox) sk 49

Chapter IV. Separateness Of The British Colonies — Continued

Separateness during the Stamp Act period: during the Congressional period. — Congress of 1774 and 1775. — The Declaration of Independence. — Local self-government ...... . 64

Vili CONTENTS.

Chapter V. The Articles Of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation expressive of segregation, and also of union.— Old School and New School.— The government designedly a weak one; elimination of the “ruler’’ element. — Confederation suggested by the New England Confederation of 1643. — Slight effect of the Revolution upon the colonial governments. — Growth of union. — Defects of the Articles of Confederation as a governmental structure set forth by Hamilton .

Chapter VI. The Constitution

The Constitution a necessity. — It guarantees the integrity of the state governments. —Its inherent conservatism. —In it the sentiment of union has become a dominating political force. — The Constitution terminates the Revolution and hands down its gains. — Federation and popular representation. — Apportionment of taxation and representation ; a compromise between the North and South. — The guaranty of a republican form of POVEIMMOENt! .\. fk 6 ee ee ss se

Chapter VII. The Formation Of Parties

The evolution of parties in free governments. — The colonial epoch, the brooding epoch; fondness of colonists for politics, and practical part universally taken by them in governing. — No general parties during colonial period. — Parties generated during the revolutionary epoch. — Change of colonial character. — Constituents of the Federalists .

Chapter VIII. The Formation Of Parties — Continued

Constituents of the Democratic-Republican Party (Anti-Federalists). — Principles prevalent among the people, especially the agriculturists. — Errors of the Federalists. — Jefferson and Hamilton. — The Old School and the New School. . . . .

Chapter IX. The Formation Of Parties — Continued

Parties form on Hamilton’s measures. — Contrary constructions of the Constitution ; liberal and strict construction. — Madison

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CONTENTS. 1X leads the strict-constructionists in Congress. — Personal feeling. — Views of Hamilton’s financial policy entertained by the Jeffersonians. — Hamilton’s system favored a plutocracy rather RUAN REIELOCINCGTS © ep 4 1 tt Sees se LAL

Chapter X. Constitutional Legislation

The Ordinance of 1787. — The Kentucky and Nass: Resoluations. — The Missouri Compromise . . . we eae a as Leo

Chapter XI. Coercion, Or Non-coercion ?

Condition of affairs at the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. — Coercion, or non-coercion ? — Inaugural Address and answer to the Virginia Commissioners. — Coercion. — The President’s Message of July, 1861.—‘‘ No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union” . . . . . . . 228

Chapter XII. Development Of Principles Of Congressional Action Towards The South

The Crittenden Resolution of July 22, 1861.— Debate in the Senate upon the Resolution.—Sumner’s Resolutions. — Stevens’ vae victis policy — Hale on arbitrary arrests. — Claim of Congress to absolute power in reconstruction. . . . . . . 245

Chapter XIII. Plans Of Reconstruction

The Emancipation Proclamation. —'The Amnesty Proclamation and Presidential Plan of Reconstruction. —'The Congressional Plan of Reconstruction and debate thereon in the House of SEOUTOEONtALIVeST. o2 0s) ches fe) cl cose Poly cy cue etetad a a4 ¢. 200

Chapter XIV. The Congressional Plan Of Reconstruction

The Congressional Plan of Reconstruction. — Debate in the Senate. — Madison on the constitutional guarantee of a republican form of government. — Carlile’s remarks upon this guarantee. — The President withholds his assent to the Reconstruction Bill.— His proclamation thereon, and the Manifesto of Senator Wade and Representative Henry Winter Davis. . . 290 x CONTENTS.

Chapter XIX. What Constitutes A State Of The American Union ?

Debate in the Senate upon a resolution to reject from the Electoral College the states that had seceded. — The case of Louigiana discussed = =. % /ir ob ap dletcee ks eERneEEe tne eee eee CHAPTER XxX.

CONCLUSION {eta tree rae. * Appunprxe A i) d! 0g de). (28 SE SS Boe ae ee ee Aprpenprx B «. % 4s je ck te esl de ce Re ee ee Appenprx 0 2 kk eee ee ee

RECONSTRUCTION

DURING THE CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Chapter I. Introductory

Withdrawal of southern senators from the Senate of the United States — Personality of the states; the Senate — Representation of the people; the House of Representatives — Contrast between the northern and the southern peoples — The compromise element in the Constitution — Equality of the states.

On the twenty-first of January, 1861,! the most impressive and painful scene in the annals of the United States of America was witnessed in the Senate Chamber. The rumor had gone abroad that the senators of several of the states which had seceded were about to withdraw from the Senate. The chamber was filled with members and with those who had the privilege of the floor, and the galleries were crowded with spectators. Every state was present except South Carolina; her senators had not come to the capitol, but had sent in their resignations in writing before the session began, and when the time came the chairs of these senators were empty. The first state to turn its back upon the Union was Florida, one which had been among the latest to be wel-

1 Cong. Globe, 484 et seq.

comed with open arms by the sisterhood of states ; it was also one of the weakest. Rising in his place, Yulee set forth briefly the reasons which had led his state to secede, and then he bade adieu to the Senate. He was followed by the other senator from this state, Mallory, who alluded to the fidelity with which the South had clung to the Union throughout her patient endurance of insult and wrong, and in the same breath announced that Florida had come into the Union only fifteen years before, and that, from the Union as their fathers had made it, there breathed not a secessionist upon the soil of this state. In spite of the solemnity of the moment, the inquiry forced itself upon the mind of the onlooker: Why did Florida enter the Union, if merely to share the insult and wrong of the other southern states ? And, having accepted such a fate with her eyes open, with what consistency did she now turn her back upon a Constitution which she had been glad to accept, and which was the same at this moment as it had been when she had sought its protection? Censoriousness and argument were overwhelmed beneath the anguish which convulsed the breast of every listener, and which was augmented by the recital of each sister, who, through her representatives, uttered her sense of injury. Alabama followed Florida, and Mississippi, Alabama. The story of their griefs was told by these states in subdued and measured tones; the time for threat and defiance had gone by, the very parting itself had come, and the pain which wrung northerner and southerner alike was betrayed by twitching lips and by deep silence.

Every eye and every ear was intent upon Jefferson

SECESSION AND NULLIFICATION. 3

Davis when he rose. He was not in good health, but to this alone could be attributed any faltering or agitation. ‘There was none: this was the crowning hour of his existence, and he approached the culmination of his life-work with calmness and dignity. All his life long, he had maintained the right of a state to withdraw from the Union, and this as an attribute of sovereignty coequal with the right under which the state had entered into the Union. He was no nullifier; nullification implied union, and he was no unionist. To nullify was to parry, to palliate; it was to confess a right, yet to avoid its obligations. Nullification and secession were incompatible principles. Davis neither parried, nor compromised, nor sulked; he believed that the states were sovereign and unaccountable, and where there had been aggression he would not acknowledge superior power, but he was for meeting aggression on the threshold by denying the superiority ; therefore, to Union he opposed dis-Union ; to aggression, resistance. There was no middle course; so long as a state was a member of the Union, it was bound to obey the law that was common to all; if it would not obey, it must leave the Union, and of the necessity of such a course, there was no judge but the sovereign state. No one had the right to question, or to sit in judgment upon a sovereign, and unqualified obedience was the sole duty of the children of a state. This doctrine he had taught his people in season and out of season, and the hour had now come when he was reaping what he had sown. His eyes were beholding the success long striven for; the states were going out; he was seeing them take their departure ; he was hearing them saying good-by; and, above all, he was beholding the deep emotion of those who were left behind. His tone was not exultant, neither did his voice falter; his manner was gentle, firm, determined.

Heretofore Davis had been the teacher, the seer, the leader of his people; but when he was made king he ceased to be prophet and priest. As President of the Confederate States, he became merely the official head, a figure-head of a government; he played a part which other men could have filled with equal benefit to his cause; he was no longer the soul of the South. In passing from the legislature to the field, the work of maintaining secession fell into other hands: and true it is, that, when Jefferson Davis bade farewell to the United States, he bade farewell to the real work of his life. He found but a barren sceptre in his gripe, and when he left the Senate Chamber he took the course, which he pursued with heroic resolution and with Promethean defiance of his enemies, until, a fugitive, his flight was ended in the woods of Georgia by the hand of a common soldier. 3

But prominent as this man was, and impressive as might be the personality of one upon whom men looked as being the embodiment of a cause, the spectacle owed its significance and solemnity to something deeper than that with which it was invested by one man. The departures from the House of Representatives were mostly signified by written missives, but there departure did not convey the intense and deeply moving force that it did in the Senate. For in the House it was representatives merely who were turning their backs upon their fellows, but in the Senate it was sovereign states that were deserting the common -

DEPARTURE OF THE STATES. 5 hearth. The states were going out. All that ever had been feared, or derided as improbable, or defied as impossible, or talked against, written against, prayed against, all this had actually come to pass, and in the visible physical forms of the departing senators, the states were leaving, never to return. Impenetrable gloom, foreboding, and thick darkness settled upon the Senate Chamber, and the soul was troubled: each man searched his heart to find if it were he who had dishonored his fathers, and had shortened the days of the land which the Lord his God had given him. The onlookers thought of Webster and his prayer, that his dying eyes, as they sought the sun, might not behold it shining upon a torn and rent land, and they cursed the hour in which they themselves were witnessing the dissolution of the Union. Woe worth the day!

When the scene was over and the open air had been reached, those who had been looking on this spectacle heaved a long breath and betook themselves to their homes. As the crowds streamed along the Avenue, it was apparent that something great, something direful, had happened. The southerners walked with their heads in the air, and talked in excited and defiant tones; the northerners had their heads down, and spoke in fitful and bated breath; then they tried to shake off their forebodings, and to throw the burden of the day upon the seceders. They recalled the ungracious conduct of Florida, who, with scarcely time enough to warm herself by the council fire, had been the first to reproach her fellows with inhospitality : how wrong it had been in her to come into the Union, knowing the unhappy condition of feeling which existed, when her presence increased the number of the discontented ; for Florida had not added anything to the flag but her star; she had brought no increase of wealth or power; the sole dower it was possible for her to bring was fidelity, and this she had withheld ; and soon the reproach of Florida had grown into a sense of injury against the whole South, which unquestionably,.as far as material advantages were concerned, had gained from the Union more than she had contributed.

By the time that the people began to separate, and branch off into the different directions that led to their homes, the northerners had regained their voices, which, indeed, for some time had been pitched high in argument and in sharp retort, and when the doors closed upon them, the sense of the South’s wrong towards the North was uppermost, the sense of the North’s right controlled their minds, and the determination not to let the South go out, or, as it was expressed, the resolution to “maintain the Union,” had become fixed and unalterable. The crowds at the hotels were divided: the southerners exulting in high voice over the event of the day, and asserting the resolution of the South to achieve its independence, and its capacity to maintain it against any attempt at prevention by the North. They were greatly elated, and their predictions of the course of secession assumed that every state south of Mason and Dixon’s line, and of the Ohio and the Missouri rivers, would speedily follow, and that the year would not close without the South receiving applications from northern states for membership in the new confederation. The excited imagination of the southerner pictured the por-

RESOLUTION OF THE NORTHERNERS. T tions of Ohio, Indiana, and [linois which bordered on the beautiful river, breaking off from their old allegiance and turning their faces southward, instead of towards Washington; even the greatest city and port of the country, New York, refusing to have its communication cut off from the most productive soil of the land and the greatest extent of territory, would’ join her fortunes to those of the South. Then her state would follow, and New England, the detested New England, would be completely isolated, and the day might come when the whole Union would be reorganized, with New England and her western progeny left out. Thus, in the strife for supremacy between New England on one side and South Carolina on the other, South Carolina was to be uppermost, with the northern firebrand quenched and cast aside. In the babel of voices the accentuated tone of the northerner was little heard; the southerner ruled the hour and his peculiar accent filled the air.

The southerners unquestionably relied upon the sympathy of the democratic party at the North for staying the hand of coercion. Nevertheless, wherever the news of this day’s work reached in the North, it met but one reception. The northerner, Democrat though he might be, did not give way to his feelings : he brooded, and when he spoke, it was to tell his son that, come what may, the Union had to be preserved ; that for the southerner to say he was going “out” was one thing, but for him to do it was another; the North would have something to say about that, too ; never again should there be another such scene in the United States Senate. There was no mistaking the resolution of the northern people, and the South felt it.

That which took place in the Senate was something which never before had occurred in the recorded history of people, for the conditions under which it had taken place had never before existed. There had been confederations in plenty, and confederations which had broken up in dissension; but never before had there been a government delegated by sovereign states, which had been dissolved by the action of its individual constituents. Secession, as the American understood the term, was peculiar to the form of government known as the United States; for this was not a mere federation, it was a union, that is, a group of states consisting of a purely artificial central power, endued with attributes of sovereignty by the sovereign states, who delegated certain powers for the purpose of creating a qualified and limited sovereign. This artificial sovereign was stella nova in political history ; but, artificial as it was, it was, within the purposes of its being and the limitations which had been set upon it, sovereign.! It presented the anomaly of a being with certain attributes of sovereignty (among which was perpetuity), created by agreement, and with its sovereignty delegated, limited, and defined by a written instrument.

To effect such a strange creation, it is evident that the parties to it must have been equal and willing; and as it contemplated multiplication of parties, and erowth, or, rather, accretion of states from territory already possessed, but not contained within state lines, it is evident, too, that the new members of the family were also to be equal and willing. The result was a family of states, and the relations of members of a

1 See Iredell’s opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dallas, 435.

REPRESENTATION. 9 family, as well as the obligations of parties to a contract, implied equality and consent. There could not be, then, under the written instrument or Constitution, anything like inequality, and as the rule of the majority was inherent in the federal system, the consent of all was presumed when any act of the confederation had been ordained by a majority of voices. In order to effect this union, the two elements of people and states were represented in a House of two Chambers, in one of which sat the representatives of the states, and in the other those of the people. This frame of government constituted the Union. It is clear that it was neither a federation nor a confederation, merely, for then there would be no need of a representation of the people; a representation of states would be all that was required. Why was there a representation of the people? Because this government, created by the states, was intended to act, within its delegated powers, directly upon the citizens of a state, as well as upon a state. A chamber, then, in which would sit the representatives of the people, was as necessary as one in which would sit the representatives of the states. If the states alone met by their representatives, the body which these staterepresentatives composed would be a council, a collection of embassadors, for the states as sovereigns could be represented by plenipotentiaries only, and the form of government would be merely a federation. But, for the purposes of their being, the states which formed the new creature, considered it essential that, in their collective capacity, they should exercise power over the individuals who composed the citizens of the different states; they, therefore, ordained the representation of these individual citizens, but restricted its action to legislation strictly, and this legislation was to be shared by the states.

This qualified the pure and simple executive character of the Senate, and made it legislative, as well as executive: for the primary character of the Senate, being an assembly of plenipotentiaries, was executive. No embassador can legislate for his government, he can execute only. A collection of plenipotentiaries may counsel and advise, but this is not legislation ; and, even when it assents to an executive act, this is not pure legislation, but is confirmatory of executive action in the past, or, by anticipation, confirmatory of that in the future. This council of embassadors, therefore, would have remained a mere council, had not the Constitution gone farther, and ordained that the states, through their representatives, should take part in the legislation of the country, — a provision which modified the character of the council and invested it with a legislative character, and the Senate, consequently, was henceforth to be a legislature, as well as a council. Its character as an adviser was cut down to being adviser of the head of the executive branch of the government, who was to be styled President, and whose power was limited to executing the laws enacted by the legislature, except where special conditions and duties were laid down in the Constitution ; its character as an executive branch of the government was restricted to foreign relations and to giving its assent to certain functions of the President, and its character as a legislature was fixed by requiring its passage of the laws.

Power, as we see, is greatly restricted in the House of Representatives, which can legislate merely. The

REVERENCE FOR THE SENATE. iba power of the Senate to legislate is shared by the House and by the President, whose signature to an act cannot be supplied except under the limitations strictly prescribed by the Constitution ; and its power to execute is shared also with the President. As for the President, he was to execute, and this in part under the control of the Senate; his power to legislate was restricted to allowance or disallowance, and this could be overridden by a two thirds vote of the legislature.

Here we see fusion of powers in different branches, but so restricted, divided, and balanced among these branches, or departments, of government, that neither could act at the expense of the other —if the Constitution, to support which the most solemn oaths were taken, was regarded, and if the people, whose watchfulness was taken for granted by the founders, were worthy of their liberties, and were equal to the task of preserving them.

Nothing could exceed the reverence with which the Americans regarded their Senate, so long as their reverence for the states retained its original vigor. The House of Representatives was an assemblage of themselves; but when they approached the Senate Chamber, their feelings were far different from those they entertained when approaching the House. In the latter case, they came as citizens, as individuals of the people ; but, in the other, they came as sovereigns, and their hearts beat high with the pride of sovereignty. In that chamber sat their embassador in equality with other embassadors. In the House of Representatives they had little to call forth feelings other than those which accompanied them daily whereever they might be, in their down-sitting and their uprising ; but, in the Senate Chamber, — it was there that, above all places in the world, they felt their state-hood. _ Could they not see their state, the state itself, before their very eyes, and hear it in the voices of the two men who sat in plain view ?

Thus it was, that the American who looked upon the departure of the southern senators from the Senate Chamber was grieved and shocked beyond expression. To him the dissolution of the Union itself was going on before his eyes ; than which there could be no more distressing spectacle, unless it were the rupture of his own family and its dispersion from the ancient hearth.

The great civil war, which, in the seventh decade of the XIXth century, for four years rent the United States of America in twain, was the result of the incongruous junction, under one government, of two conflicting forms of society. From the time in which the British colonies on the Atlantic seaboard revolted, asserted their existence as states, and united under the Articles of Confederation, there had been two peoples in this land calling themselves one people, and two forms of society passing themselves off as a single form. ‘To all appearance, there was but one people, for they had had the same origin; they had, too, the same tongue and the same religion, but their localities were different, and so were their material interests and their habits. More significant than any other difference were the ways in which they viewed society, its foundation, its form, its spirit, and its end. Climate, topography, products of water and soil, tended to make the divergence between these elements wider,