194

NO ACTION ON THE AMENDMENT.

in rebellion or in revolution, the war was at an end; nothing was to be gained by distinctions in mere abstractions. Do by the secession ordinance as had been done with slavery,-act according to the facts. This would comply with the President's advice, and enable the State to resume its place in the Union. This opinion prevailed, and the ordinance of secession, passed by the State on the ninth of January, 1861, was declared "null and void.”

Governor Sharkey telegraphed the action of the convention to the President, who responded that he thought it would have a decided influence upon the public mind, and be an example to the other Southern States. The troops, who were the cause of so much irritation, would be withdrawn at the earliest practicable period.2 The convention, though it abolished slavery in the State, took no action on the proposed Thirteenth Amendment. While it was in session, the President telegraphed to the provisional governor that it could adopt the amendment itself or recommend its adoption by the legislature. September and October passed and the legislature took no action. On the first of November, the President expressed his fears to the governor, that the failure of the legislature to ratify the amendment would create the belief that the act of the convention in abolishing slavery would later be revoked by the legislature. "If the convention abolished slavery in good faith, why should the legislature hesitate to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States ?"4

1 By a vote of 81 to 14; August 22d. Journal, 221.

2 President Johnson to Governor Sharkey, August 25, 1865. Senate Executive Document, No. 26, 39th Congress, First Session, p. 231.

• The President to Governor Sharkey, August 21, 1865. Id., p. 230.

• The President to Governor Sharkey (telegram), November 1, 1865. Id., 233,

More than a month passed and the legislature then took action. It was in the form of a report from the joint Committee on State and Federal Relations. The first part of the proposed amendment, so the committee reported, had already been adopted by the convention. The condition of the negro was therefore fixed by a sovereign act, and the freedmen could not, by subsequent constitutional amendments, be again enslaved. The Federal Constitution and the laws of Congress prohibited the slave-trade, so that it would be impossible to re-establish slavery in Mississippi or elsewhere in the South. As the convention had adopted these in good faith, the adoption of the proposed Thirteenth Amendment could have no practical operation in the State of Mississippi.

The second section of the proposed amendment was subject to more grave objections; it conferred on Congress the power to enforce the article "by appropriate legislation." Slavery having been already abolished, there was no necessity for the section, nor could any possible good result from its adoption; on the contrary, it seemed fraught with evils, which the legislature and the people of the State were most anxious to guard against. Slavery might be regarded as extinct everywhere in the United States. It had legal existence nowhere, except in Kentucky and Delaware; it was there tottering to its fall, and must soon cease. Whatever the sentiments and preferences of those States, it was quite certain that liberation prevailed everywhere else and slavery could not be perpetuated in them. The proposed amendment was not needed, then, to coerce Kentucky and Delaware into emancipation. The people of Mississippi were anxious to withdraw the negro race from national and State politics and as far as possible to forestall and prevent the outbreak of agitation.

196

FEARS OF CONGRESS.

No one could tell what construction a future Congress might put on this section. It might be claimed that it would be appropriate for Congress to legislate respecting freedmen in Mississippi. No more dangerous grant of power could be conceived than one which by construction might permit Federal legislation respecting persons, denizens and inhabitants of a State. Even if there was no present danger, the time might come when the public mind might be influenced on this subject to a degree dangerous to the reserved rights of the States. It was not an appropriate time to enlarge the powers of the Federal Government. The tendency was already too strong in the direction of consolidation. "The liberties of the people and the preservation of the complex federation system would be better insured by confining the Federal and State Governments in their respective spheres already defined for them." The section might be interpreted to refer to Congress the power to judge what legislation was appropriate.

It was uncertain and indefinite, for it could not be conjectured what Congressional action might be deemed appropriate in the extremes to which parties had gone, and might go hereafter. It was the common interest of the people in all quarters of the Union, now that the vexed questions connected with the negro race were all merged and settled in liberation, that the public mind should be withdrawn from anything unpleasant and irritating in the past, and the door be effectually closed, as far as human wisdom could devise, against future agitation and disturbances from these causes. If this second section was incorporated in the Constitution, radicals and extremists would further vex and harass the country on the pretension that the freedom of the colored race was not perfect and complete until it was elevated to social

and political equality with the white. The tendency of the section was "to absorb in the Federal Government the reserved rights of the States and people; to unsettle the equilibrium of the States in the Union, and to break down the efficient authority and sovereignty of the State over its internal and domestic affairs." For these reasons the legislature of Mississippi refused to ratify the amendment.1 This refusal found precedent in the action of the General Assembly of Delaware, which on the eighth of February, by joint resolution, had pronounced the proposed amendment "a violation of the reserved rights of the several States, contrary to the principle upon which the government was formed, and if adopted a part of the Constitution was an insuperable barrier to the restoration of the seceded States to the Federal Union."2

Mississippi was the twenty-ninth State to abolish slavery, but the refusal of its legislature to ratify the amendment seriously interrupted the process of restoring the State to constitutional relations with the national government. rule.3

It therefore continued under Federal military

In the demoralized condition of society at the South, it was the dictate of wisdom to amend the civil system, so as to adapt it to the new order of things, and produce the

1 December 4, 1865; Journal of the House of Representatives (Mississippi), November 27, 1865; Journal of the Senate, December 2, 1865. The Resolution as given in Senate Executive Document, No. 26, 39th Congress, First Session, pp. 79-80.

2 The Senate and House of Delaware not only refused to ratify the amendment, but declared their unqualified disapproval of it. Journal of the General Assembly, Dover, February 8, 1865. In the Senate the amendment was rejected by a vote of 6 to 2. Journal, p. 128.

8 The President to Governor Sharkey, November 17, 1865. Ex. Doc. No. 26, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 234.

198

NATIONAL CLEMENCY.

best possible results for both races.1 The thirteen exceptions to the oath of amnesty made it practically impossible to elect fit delegates to conventions; for the exceptions excluded nearly every intelligent man in the Gulf States. In consequence, President Johnson was early called upon, by Governor Parsons of Alabama to issue pardons to seven candidates, who, he was told, if elected, would be good members.2 The President quickly complied, and ninety-two delegates assembled in convention at Montgomery, and took the required oath with reference to the emancipation of slaves. The attitude of the delegates toward the great issues of the hour was unmistakable. They quickly introduced an ordinance which declared that the act of secession was unconstitutional and consequently illegal and void, and that a union of the States under one federal head was essential to the existence of the United States as an independent power, without which, credit with the nations of the world could not be supported, nor treaties with them have validity. But though the code and slavery were dead, what was to be done with the negro? The first thing in order was to adopt more stringent laws against vagrancy, and to determine the lawful domestic relations between the blacks.6 Something must be done to support the old and infirm, the young and helpless negroes." The first step was for

5

1 Message of July 20, 1865, Convention Journal, 9.

2 Governor Parsons to the President, September 11, 1865, Senate Executive Document No. 26, 39th Congress, First Session, 45. 3 Journal, 13.

4 Journal, 17-23. Adopted September 25, yeas 92; Journal, p. 59, and Constitution and Ordinances, 48.

5 Journal, 40.

• September 29. See the ordinance in "Constitution and Ordinances," p. 63.

7 Journal, 42.