sumed that the conventions had the full power to make the changes, and acted accordingly.

The elections were held and Representatives in Congress were chosen. The elections proved to be nothing more than partisan assemblies under the direction of the old leaders, and very much as the reconstruction conventions were in their membership and organization. In some of the conventions members who had been in the service of the Rebellion under the rank of brigadiers were in the majority, and many of them wore the uniforms in which they had fought on the field. In an investigation of the matter, a joint committee of Congress commented rather severely upon this feature of the convention. "Hardly is the war closed," are the words of the committee, "before the people of the insurrectionary States come forward and haughtily claim, as a right, the privilege of participating at once in that government which they have for four years been fighting to overthrow. Allowed and encouraged by the Executive to organize State governments, they at once placed in power leading rebels, unrepentant and unpardoned, excluding with contempt those who had manifested an attachment to the Union and preferring, in many instances, those who had rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious. In the face of a law requiring an oath that would necessarily exclude all such men from a Federal Convention, they have elected, with very few exceptions, as Senators and Representatives in Congress, the very men who have actively participated in the Rebellion, insultingly denouncing the law as unconstitutional."

IX.

Progress of Reconstruction-Alarm of Loyal People of the North-Analysis of the action of the Legislatures in the Reconstructed States-Northern Democrats and their Sympathy with the Rebels-Anomalous Condition of the Negro-Varying Views as to his Status -Demand that he should have the Right of Suffrage-Legislation ignoring Rights of Colored Men-Laws passed in Alabama and Florida-Treatment of "Vagrants"-Poverty a Crime-Intent of the Southern Laws-Action in Congress-Message of President JohnsonJoint Committee on Reconstruction - Bill Establishing Civil Rights - The Freedmen's Bureau-Conflict between President and Congress-Tenure of Office Act-Impeachment Trial and its Result.

A

LL the Legislatures of the temporarily reconstructed States were in session before the end of the year 1865. Their proceedings were such as to alarm the thinking people of the country very much indeed. The action of the legislators, as soon as they assembled, seemed to be dictated by a belief that they were restored to their full rights and powers as before the war, and possibly were in possession of greater powers than they ever had before. They supposed from the tone of certain Democratic papers in the North that the Northern people would submit to anything, and all that was needed was for the South to go ahead and do just what it pleased. As they had the support of President Johnson, the leaders of the South believed that they could carry through any design, establish any policy, and have things entirely their own way. They did not hesitate in the least at insulting Northern sentiment, and in every course that they took no one seemed to care what was thought about it outside of their own States. Some of them went so far as to boast that whenever they could give special offense or bring special humiliation to the North, which had lately been triumphant in the field of battle, they would gladly do so. They were misled by the expressions of Democratic papers and Democratic politicians in the North, just as they had been misled in the period

preceding the war. The same newspapers and the same politicians during 1860 and the years immediately preceding had assured the Southern people that their efforts at secession would not be resisted by force. A great many Northern Democrats had said that they would themselves take up arms and

resist any Northern movement of a forcible character, and that if there should be any war at all it would be in the Northern States rather than in the South. It was a great astonishment to the Southern leaders, when the war did break out, that the Northern Democrats did not come to their relief. It is proper to

say that a very large number of the Democratic party of the North, as soon as war actually broke out, did not hesitate to enroll themselves on the side of the Union and become as zealous in defense of the country as the most earnest Republican could possible have been. These men became known as War Democrats, and many of them rendered most efficient service. They were roundly abused by the men of the South, and not a few of them were openly accused of being traitors to the Southern cause. At the beginning of the reconstruction period, when the Democratic papers and speakers gave this fresh assurance to the South-that they could do as they pleased-the Southern leaders seemed to forget how they had been deceived in the period just before the war. They were just as ready as ever to believe the assurances of their Northern allies, and to act accordingly.

A very awkward situation was presented by the condition of the Negro in the Southern States. The Republicans of the North were much divided as to the status he should have in the reconstruction. A minority of the Republicans demanded that suffrage should be given to the Negroes who had been lately emancipated. It was clear to be seen that they were hardly fitted, through the ignorance in which they had been brought up, to be intrusted with the right to vote. This minority was composed of very earnest men, of the same class as those who had originated the anti-slavery movement, and some of them were the same men whose names had been prominent as leading Abolitionists, or, where they were not outspoken Abolitionists, they were certainly in favor of the restriction of slavery to the States where it existed. These men believed that it would be impossible to preserve the rights of the emancipated Negroes unless they were invested with the power to vote, and they openly declared that only a very few years would elapse before the Negroes would be again in a state of slavery. Among the most earnest advocates of the right of suffrage for the Southern Negro were Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Joshua R. Giddings, and several others of the same type, who had been foremost in the anti-slavery movement. They were determined that the right of suffrage should be accorded to the Negro; that he should be made a citizen in every respect and a man equal to those about him; and they would listen to nothing less than this.

But the peculiarity of the situation was that in several of the Northern States the Negro was excluded from the suffrage. In fact, a majority of the

loyal States gave the suffrage only to white men.

It seemed therefore very

illogical to grant full suffrage in the States lately in rebellion, where the Negro was far more ignorant and unfitted for the exercise of the duties of a citizen than he would be in the Northern States, where he was generally in possession of a fair amount of education; most of the northern Negroes were able at least to read and write, which could be said of very few indeed of the Negroes of the South. Furthermore, in the Southern States the Negro had never had the protection of the law of marriage. Marriages among the Negroes had been little more than a farce, Negro weddings occurring on the plantations being accompanied with no ceremony whatever, or simply by the appearance of the two contracting parties before the overseer of the place, with the request that they should be allowed to get married. Marriage was always encouraged among the Negroes, as it was a direct means for an increase in the numbers, and, consequently, of the value of the colored property of the owner. Furthermore, it was necessary that the Negro should have the benefit of the laws that would protect him in his rights of labor, so that he could collect whatever debts might be due him, and purchase and hold real estate and other kinds of property in the same way as his white neighbor. Again, it was necessary that some arrangement should be made for the instruction of the colored people. Perhaps it would not be feasible to send the adults to school, but certainly it was necessary to provide for the education of colored children, so that the rising generation might possess the requisite intelligence for exercising the duties of citizenship. There were many other requirements in considering the interest of the black man of the South, but the three which have been mentioned were the most essential, and unless provision were made for them it was felt that the Negro would speedily be re-enslaved, or, if not so re-enslaved, he would be in a worse condition than when he was cared for by a master.

Consequently, the proceedings of the newly organized Legislatures in the South were regarded with a great deal of anxiety. It was possible for them to repair the blunders, at least in great degree, that had been committed by the reconstruction conventions in their hasty and unjustifiable action. A disheartening feature of the affair was that the membership of the Legislatures was composed almost entirely of men who had fought in the rebel armies and sought the destruction of the Union. It was felt that if these men should act in a spirit of moderation, and display a sentiment of justice toward the colored man, all would be well; but there was great fear that the spirit of the reconstruction conventions would be followed by the Legislatures. Had they taken the first