EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 205 his friend. The war began with a disclaimer of intent to free the slave, but as it went on, public sentiment began to demand a reversal of this declaration of purpose, and less tenderness in preserving his master's title to him. General Butler greatly gratified this sentiment by declaring the slave "contraband of war." This was grim humor, and the people enjoyed the joke and applauded its result. In September, 1862, the President gave notice that he would emancipate the slaves if the seceding states did not return to their allegiance by the first of January, 1863. He had little reason to expect their return, and he gave this notice in order to make the way a little easier for the proclamation of emancipation, and to prepare the public to expect and to accept it. The first of January, 1863, arrived, and the proclamation was issued. The North recognized its necessity and applauded its justice. Hundreds of thousands welcomed it as the declaration of the true object for which the war should be waged. Thus the hopes of the most radical were realized. The war wrought a great revolution in northern sentiment. The name "Abolitionist" ceased to be a term of reproach. After the Emancipation Proclamation, vast multitudes of Republicans and Democrats became Abolitionists in sentiment, and would have regarded the war a failure if peace had been declared with slavery reinstated. Slavery was hateful in itself; it was the cause of the war; it deserved to perish; now was a good time to end it; if permitted to survive, it might lead to war again. There were many who regarded this proclamation as a violation of the Constitution, but the loyal answer was that while the war lasted, it was disloyalty to stickle over the Constitution, since unless the war could be victoriously ended, the Constitution itself would be of no value. But the true answer is, that as commander-in-chief of the army and navy the President has the constitutional power to employ the means recognized by the laws of war as necessary to conquer the enemy. Congress can pass no law which can deprive the President of the powers which the Constitution confers, in creating him commander-in-chief, Congress repealed the Fugitive Slave Law in 1864. When the war was nearly ended doubts arose as to the scope of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was urged that as a war measure it had no effect except in the case of those combatants who were aiding the rebellion; since the prosecution of the war presented no necessity to use war measures against non-combatants, and the rules of war do not justify resort to any measures not apparently necessary or conducive to success. This construction would limit the scope of the emancipation, and leave great numbers in slavery. To make the emancipation complete, the Thirteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress and ratified by the requisite number of states. Slavery was constitutionally ended. The Dred Scott decision was superseded. The nation was led through war and blood that slavery might be abolished. Daniel Webster said: "There is not a monarch on earth whose throne is not liable to be shaken by the progress of opinion, and the sentiment of the just and intelligent part of the people." The progress of opinion shook the republic almost to its fall, in order to reestablish it upon the foundation of the Declaration of Independence. A word with respect to President Lincoln. Every one now knows that he had a rare combination of goodness and greatness, of common sense and of uncommon sagacity. Our people scarcely knew him when he became President, and they had a painful distrust of his fitness for his high place in the alarming emergency which ensued. But he soon began to disclose the great qualities which his modest career had hitherto concealed. Patient, cheerful, thoughtful, and deliberative, we knew him to be; but the war was to prove how energetic, capable, hopeful, courageous, firm, and just he was. He safely led our people through the great crisis and danger. He had courage amid peril, confidence among the doubting, firmness against opposition. His energy evoked and directed the mightiest resources; his moderation restrained the impetuous; his wisdom governed in the council and inspired in the field. His hope was a strength. His manner was mild and cheerful, and unchangeable by censure or injustice. He tempered the severities of war by his benevolence and fairness, and at last compelled the conquered enemies to expect more from his sense of justice than from any other resource. He was murdered as he sat in a chair; the nation now ranks him among her greatest men. LECTURE IX. THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD. THE NEGRO AS A CITIZEN AND VOTER. — INTERNATIONAL ARBITRA- GENERAL LEE surrendered to General Grant in April, 51868. The immediate question then was: What are the relations between the United States and the seceded states? That the latter should be restored as states of the Union was believed to be the object ultimately to be attained; but how to adjust the terms and conditions of their return, and what these should be, was a problem of the greatest difficulty. President Lincoln notified the generals of our armies that he reserved these questions to himself. In his last public address, made only four days before his death, he said: "It may be my duty to make some announcement to the people of the South. I am considering and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper;" but he was assassinated within a week after Lee's surrender, and Andrew Johnson became President. President Johnson was another remarkable product of American Democracy. Learning to read after he had nearly attained his majority, he supplied in some sort by his maturer diligence the lack of early advantages. By dint of native force he rose from poverty and obscurity to the foremost positions in his state and in the nation. He fought his way upwards, and his disposition and temper led him to hate the men and systems which opposed his rise. He hated slavery because the system accorded no place nor respect for the toiling white man. He hated treason because he knew so many whom he regarded as traitors who had been his personal enemies. He loved liberty and his country because but for them he had never risen from his low estate. He was honest, aggressive, and passionate, and took counsel largely of his feelings. Had he been a Frenchman of the era of the Revolution he probably would have been a Jacobin, foremost to strike for liberty, and foremost to be struck by its vengeance. Booth's pistol lifted him suddenly to the supreme place in the nation. The crisis in his country's destiny was momentous; his own power and influence commanding. The fate of the South seemed committed to his hands. The reconstruction problem was not in the minds of the framers of the Constitution. Ample power was given by the provision that "The United States shall guarantee to every state a republican form of government; "but how and by whom that power should be wielded was not defined. It is true that the Constitution gave to Congress the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry into effect the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States," but the laws remained to be passed, and Congress was not now in session. The Constitution was obviously made for states in the Union, and not for seceding states compelled to return theoretically in but practically out. The problem was, as Mr. Lincoln had expressed it, how to restore these states to their practical relations to the Union. Who should take charge of the business, the President or Congress? The war was over, but care was necessary lest the objects of the war should be lost. These objects had changed as the contest advanced. In 1861 Congress by a joint resolution declared the objects to be, "to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and all the laws passed in pursuance thereof, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease." But in 1865 slavery had been overthrown, and the national demand, after peace had been coerced, was very different from its demand. when peace was first disturbed. It was now April, and Congress would not meet until December. President Johnson resolved to attempt the solution of the difficulties which confronted him without aid from LINCOLN'S PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION. 209 Congress. In this he seemed to be justified by the action and declarations of President Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln had plainly indicated in dealing with the State of Louisiana, before his reëlection, a purpose to take charge of the reconstruction of the seceding states. With the triumph of our arms we had obtained possession of the Mississippi River, and military control of the State of Louisiana. Mr. Lincoln was anxious. to establish civil government in that state upon the suffrages of those who would resume their loyalty to the Union. Under the direction of the military governor two members of Congress were chosen, and in 1863 they were admitted to their seats. Mr. Lincoln conceived that under the constitutional obligation to guarantee to every state a republican form of government, it would be practicable to form such a government in Louisiana and uphold it by military power. His idea was to start with not less than one tenth of the electors. These should, upon taking the proper oath of loyalty and obedience, receive restoration to their civil rights and property, except as to slaves, and be permitted to establish the civil government. In 1864 steps were taken in that state to carry out the President's plan. State officers were chosen and an antislavery constitution adopted. A little more than one tenth of the electors participated in the elections. The State of Arkansas the same year took similar action. Of course neither of these governments could sustain itself without the military support of the nation. Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln's idea was, as he expressed it, that "they constituted the eggs from which a government could be hatched, and grow to be full fledged." Congress dissented sharply. It refused to admit the representatives sent by Arkansas, alleging that the rebellion was not yet suppressed there, but only held in check. It passed a bill for the establishment of governments in the rebellious states. This bill authorized the President to appoint a provisional governor for every one of these states. When armed resistance to the United States should cease in any state the governor should enroll the electors, and appoint an election for delegates to a constitutional convention; this convention should frame a constitution conforming to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery, disfranchising |