WHY THE SOLID SOUTH?

OR,

RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS RESULTS.

THE

CHAPTER I.

RECONSTRUCTION AT WASHINGTON.

UNDER ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

HE death of Abraham Lincoln was an appalling calamity-especially to the South. Had the crazy assassin withheld his hand, reconstruction could never have been formulated, as it was, into the Acts of March 2d and March 23d, 1867.

Mr. Lincoln's leading thought in the conduct of the war was the preservation of the Government of the fathers; and he took issue squarely with those who, like Mr. Sumner, were seeking to take advantage of the times and "change this Government from its original form and make it a strong centralized power. ""* He believed the Government to be, as Chief Justice Chase afterwards defined it, in Texas vs. White, "an indestructible union composed of indestructible states. Upon this idea of the constitution he based his theory of restoration,-a theory which, at the time of his death, was well known, though it appears to have since been industriously forgotten. This theory was, that the insurrectionary states, notwithstanding the war, still existed as states-that they were never out of the Union and were always subject to the constitution. Hence it

* Nicolay and Hay's "Lincoln."-Century, Oct., 1889.

followed that those people of these several states, who were entitled to vote by the laws existing at the date of the attempted acts of secession, had, when they returned to their allegiance and were pardoned, the power of reconstruction in their own hands. On this theory President Lincoln aided the people to set up state governments in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas-all without any aid from Congress.

But from the beginning there were eminent Republicans in Congress who denied the authority of the President to "intermeddle," as they called it, in this business. As early as 1861, Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, had announced the doctrine, that the constitution and laws were suspended where they could not be enforced; that those who had defied them could not invoke their protection, and that Congress could legislate for such rebellious territory outside of and without regard to the Constitution.

Mr. Sumner laid down the proposition, in resolutions introduced February 11th, 1862, that, by attempting to secede, a state had committed suicide, and its soil had become territory subject to the supreme control of Congress. Both of these theories, which did not differ in result, denied to the President any power whatever in the premises.

was

But Mr. Lincoln seems always to have stood on the declaration made by Congress in July, 1861: that the war being waged "to defend the Constitution and all laws 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 were accomplished, the war ought to cease," &c.

Pursuing steadily the spirit of these resolutions, even down to the day of his unhappy death, reconstruction as practiced by him was, simply, restoration of civil authority in the insurgent, but still existent states by the people thereof, aided by the military power of the United States.

More than two years after this question of power had begun to be mooted in Congress the President formulated and communicated to that body, in his message of December 8th, 1863, the plan he proposed thereafter to follow. In no material particular did it differ from the theory

upon which he had theretofore acted. He said: "Looking now to the present and future, and with reference to a resumption of the national authority within the states wherein that authority has been suspended, I have thought fit to issue a proclamation, a copy of which is herewith transmitted."

In the proclamation, embracing the plan, he offers pardon to all who will swear "henceforth to support the Constitution of the United States, &c., and proclaims that when those who, accepting this amnesty, shall have taken the oath of allegiance, each "being a qualified voter by the election laws of the state, existing immediately before the socalled act of secession, and excluding all others, shall re-establish a state government, which shall be republican and in no wise contravening said oath; such shall be recognized as the true government of the state," etc., etc.

This was President Lincoln's plan for restoring the insurgent states to the Union; it left the question of suffrage entirely in the hands of those who were qualified to vote under the laws existing at the date of secession. It was precisely this proposition-viz., that each insurgent state, at the time of rehabilitation, must decide for itself whether it would adopt negro suffrage-that angered the Republicans in Congress when acted on by Andrew Johnson; and culminated in the impeachment proceedings.

But Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson were two different persons. Johnson was pugnacious-seeking always to beat down his adversary and never to conciliate. Lincoln, on the other hand, never needlessly antagonized those who could be won to his views, though he was accustomed to adhere to his matured opinions with inflexible purpose; as we shall see he did in this case, in the face of the fiercest opposition.

When this message of December, 1863, went in, many of the Republican leaders were claiming for Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the question of reconstruction under the clause of the Constitution which declares that: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government. The counter-claim by the President, that he could aid the people to set up governments for themselves, seemed a challenge.

Congress debated the question at length, and finally, in July, 1864, passed, by a small majority in each House, a bill "to guarantee to certain states a republican form of government."

وو

This bill did not meet the wishes of extremists, because it did not give the ballot to the negro; but, if it became law, it would be a step gained for the extremists. It asserted the jurisdiction of Congress and provided expressly that the President should recognize by proclamation the state governments established under it, only "after obtaining the consent of Congress. The President refused to approve the bill and defeated it by a "pocket veto." July 9th he made a public statement, giving reasons for his course. The bill, he said, was received by him only one hour before the adjournment of Congress, and, among other things, he thought that the system of restoration it provided was "one very proper for the loyal people of any state choosing to adopt it. But he clearly was opposed to forcing it on any state by law, as he went on to say that he would at all times be "prepared to give the Executive aid and assistance to any such people;" that is, people who should "choose to adopt it," the Congressional plan, "when the insurrection should be suppressed," etc. Senator Wade and Representative Henry Winter Davis responded in an angry protest. To the admirers of Mr. Lincoln this document, dated in July, 1864, contains charges that are astounding. After stating that the signers had read the proclamation" without surprise, but not without indignation," the protest contends that want of time for examination was a false pretense. "Ignorance of its contents is out of the question," says the manifesto; and then argues that Mr. Lincoln was cognizant of a plan by which "the bill would be staved off in the Senate to a period too late in the session to require the President to veto it in order to defeat it, and that he," the President," would retain the bill if necessary, and thereby defeat it." ""

The protest further says: "The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of the rebel states at the dictation of his personal ambition," and complains that the will of Congress is to be "held for nought unless the loyal people of the rebel states choose to adopt it."

It also calls Mr. Lincoln's action "a studied outrage on the legislative rights of the people."

Here the issue was squarely made whether the President was to restore or the Congress to reconstruct the insurgent states. The President went on his way.

Long after his plan of restoration had been published to the world his party, in convention assembled, had approved his "practical wisdom," "unselfish patriotism" and "unswerving fidelity to the Constitution," and now, in November, 1864, on this platform, Mr. Lincoln received 212 electoral votes to 21 for George B. McClellan.

On the 5th of December, 1864, the President sent in his last annual message, which was without any allusion to the question of reconstruction, unless it was in his mind when, speaking of the insurgents, he said: "They can at any moment have peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national authority under the Constitution;" and its closing words possibly had reference to the same subject: "In stating a single condition of peace, I mean to say that the war will cease on the part of the Government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it."

It is very clear that up to this point Mr. Lincoln was determined never to become a party to any political war upon the Southern states waged for the purpose of compelling them to range under a political banner.

Congress, during the session that ended 1864-65, either did not care or did not dare to insist on any reassertion of its right to reconstruct. On the contrary, seeing, as it undoubtedly did, that the Confederacy was about to collapse, it adjourned on the 4th of March, leaving Mr. Lincoln an open field for his policy of restoration. Every member of that Congress knew what that policy was. It meant the promptest possible restoration of civil authority in the states by the aid of Executive power. And so, now, shortly before his death, the President went on to prepare, or cause to be prepared, the proclamation for the restoration of North Carolina, which was issued by his successor, Andrew Johnson, May 29th, 1865, and was the basis of all Mr. Johnson's subsequent work in that field.