THE PRESIDENT DISPLEASES THE REPUBLICANS.

34I overthrown these inchoate state governments, inasmuch as it prescribed conditions which had not been complied with. For these reasons the President withheld his signature from it, as stated in his proclamation. Congress adjourned within an hour after its passage. To this fact the President refers as an additional reason for the course he pursued. He thought that time should be given him to consider its important provisions. He declares, however, that he approves, in the main, the principles it contains, and that in conformity with its spirit, he would appoint provisional governors in the rebellious states whenever the people should indicate a wish to return to their allegiance.

The proclamations of President Lincoln with reference to reconstruction, and especially that of July 8, 1864, in which, while announcing his refusal to sign the Reconstruction bill, he proposes to carry out some of its provisions, gave rise to great dissatisfaction among some very earnest Republicans. It was in this connection that Senator Wade, of Ohio, and Representative Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, published a vigorous protest. It arraigned the conduct of the President. Disregarding the reason assigned by him for withholding his signature from this Reconstruction bill, namely, that it set aside what had already been done in Arkansas and Louisiana by the loyal people, Messrs. Wade and Davis charged him with having perpetrated "a studied outrage upon the legislative authority of the people." They said: "If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those states, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the President to hold for naught' the will of Congress, rather than his government in Louisiana and Arkansas." These suspicions of Mr. Lincoln's motives were without foundation, since it was manifestly impracticable for him to authorize the reconstructed states to cast electoral votes and give effect to them, without and against the consent of Congress.

Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Virginia had loyal governments set up within their limits during the war; but they were regarded as too feeble to be self-sustaining, even if Congress had reposed entire confidence in the men who had charge of them. When Mr. Sumner was appealed to, about this time, for his influence and vote in favor of the recognition of the improvised state government of Virginia, his reply was that it was too feeble to be self-sustaining, and that he regarded it as a "seven months' child." Only West Virginia, situated beyond the Alleghanies, and never having much liking for slavery, nor affinity with the old state of which it was an outlying territory, succeeded in being recognized by Congress during the existence of the Confederacy. The division of Virginia being accomplished without the consent of the major part of the people, who were in rebellion, must be regarded as among the extra constitutional measures which were inevitable during the period of civil war. It would have been violative of the constitutional rights of the loyal men of the western counties, to make their status

dependent on the will of the majority, who were at open war with the gov ernment of the United States; but the alternative to set them up as an independent state was not the only one.

In the House of Representatives, Dec. 20, 1864, Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, reported from the select committee a bill similar in its provisions to Mr. Brown's substitute for the original bill of the preceding session. It declared the slaves free, recognized the reconstructed state governments of Louisiana and Arkansas, and provided for the organization of governments in the other Southern states on the same conditions. It excluded from the right of suffrage and of office-holding, all the higher civil and military officials of the Confederacy. The voters were to be the loyal white male citizens of the United States. Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend by adding, "and all other male citizens of the United States who may be able to read the Constitution thereof." This direct proposition to declare a qualified suffrage by act of Congress failed to receive the sanction of that body. Other propositions were made in the form of substitutes not materially differing from the foregoing. Finally, on Feb. 21, 1865, the bill was, on motion of Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky, laid on the table. The next day the subject came up again on the report of a bill from the Judiciary Committee, by Mr. Wilson, of Iowa. But it, too, was laid on the table, fourteen Republicans voting with the Democrats.

A joint resolution was reported from the House Judiciary Committee by Mr. Wilson, Jan. 30, 1865, declaring that the states in rebellion were not entitled to be represented in the Electoral College, and that no electoral votes from them should be received or counted, in the choice of a President and Vice-President. It was adopted without a division; and after undergoing a slight verbal amendment, it was passed by the Senate. The House agreed to the Senate's amendment, and the President gave it his signature, while disclaiming, in a brief message, any right to control the two houses as to the admission of members and the counting of electoral votes. Mr. Trumbull, from the Judiciary Committee, Feb. 18, 1865, reported on the credentials of Charles Smith and R. King Cutter, as Senators from the State of Louisiana, with a joint resolution recognizing the state government adopted at New Orleans in April of the preceding year. Similar applications were made from Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansaş. But nothing came of them, and the matter was postponed until the next session of Congress.

On the subject of reconstruction, the last utterances of Mr. Lincoln, in his last public speech, will be read with interest. April 11, 1865, four days before his death by assassination, he addressed a number of citizens who had called to congratulate him on the fall of Richmond, and the surrender of. General Lee with the army of northern Virginia. After the expression of his joy at "the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army," he proceeds to say: "By these recent

MR. LINCOLN'S RESPONSE TO RADICAL DEFAMATION.

343

successes, the re-inauguration of the national authority, reconstruction, which has had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. Unlike the case of a war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with. No one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with and mould from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and means of reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured, from some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new state government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public knows."

The new government of Louisiana here referred to by Mr. Lincoln was adopted by a convention held in New Orleans in April, 1864, and the constitution on which it was founded was ratified by twelve thousand white voters. He regarded this government as the first fruit of his Amnesty proclamation, and was desirous of its recognition by Congress. The new constitution contained an article abolishing and forever excluding slavery, and the other provisions required by the proclamation; but it contained no provision for the enfranchisement of the colored race. This was now made a serious ground of objection by many. When the proclamation was issued, public opinion had not advanced far enough to sustain a measure so radical as negro suffrage; but, as the sectional struggle drew to a close, and after the colored men had borne their part in it, the sentiment in favor of their political equality with white men- or, at least, Southern white men grew stronger in the Republican party. Thus, while the people of the Northern states were not yet quite ready to grant political equality even to the best educated colored men within their own borders, the radical Representatives in Washington were intent on bestowing universal suffrage upon the utterly illiterate negroes of the South.

The suggestion of the President in his Amnesty proclamation, that, as a temporary arrangement for the preservation of order and the prevention of anarchy, the Southern legislatures might institute a sort of guardianship over the freedmen, now became a serious ground of complaint against him. But the proposed plan for new governments went not so far as this. On the contrary, it secured immediate and entire freedom to the negroes.

Another question on which Mr. Lincoln fell behind the current of party opinion, and upon which he was arraigned by men of extreme, or "advanced" views, was that in regard to the status of the lately insurgent states; in other words, on the question whether they were in the Union, or out of it. In the speech above quoted from, the President, alluding to

complaints that he had not defined his position on this subject, declared that he had "purposely forborne any public expression upon it." But, answering these complaints, he said: "As appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, a practically material one, and any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that question is bad, as the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at all-a merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded states, so-called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those states, is to again get them into that proper practical relation. I believe it is not only possible, but, in fact, easier to do this without deciding, or even considering, whether these states have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad.

. The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana government rests would be more satisfactory to all, if it contained fifty, thirty, or even twenty thousand, instead of only about twelve thousand, as it really does. It is also unsatisfactory, that the elective franchise is not given to the colored men. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is: Will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it? . . . Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining, or by discarding her new state government?"

Mr. Lincoln was not in harmony with the radical leaders in regard to reconstruction; and, contrary to their views, or rather schemes, he held that the ratification by three-fourths of all the states, including those then lately in rebellion, was necessary to make valid a constitutional amendment. On this subject, he said, in the same speech: "Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Constitution. To meet this proposition it has been argued that no more than three-fourths of those states which have not attempted secession are necessary to ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this, further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned; whilst a ratification by three-fourths of all the states would be unquestioned and unquestionable."

On the night of the 14th of April, three days after the delivery of this, his last public speech, its great and good author received the fatal shot from that infamous assassin which instantly deprived him of consciousness and terminated his life on the following morning. His death was a sad event to the people. It was the saddest event in our history and especially sad in