Admission of Arkansas.
On the 10th of June, 1864, introduced a joint resolution for the recognition of the free State government of Arkansas. A new State government had then been organized, with Isaac Murphy, Governor, who was reported to have received nearly 16,000 votes at a called election. The other State officers are:
Lieutenant-Governor, C. C. Bliss; Secretary of State, R. J. T. White; Auditor, J. B. Berry; Treasurer, E. D. Ayers; Attorney General, C. T. Jordan; Judges of the Supreme Court, T. D. W. Yowley, C. A. Harper, E. Baker.
The Legislature also elected Senators, but neither Senators nor Representatives obtained their seats. Trumbull, from the Senate Judiciary Committee, made a long report touching the admission of the Senators, which closed as follows:
“When the rebellion in Arkansas shall have been so far suppressed that the loyal inhabitants thereof shall be free to re-establish their State government upon a republican foundation, or to recognize the one already set up, and by the aid and not in subordination to the military to maintain the same, they will then, and not before, in the opinion of your committee, be entitled to a representation in Congress, and to participate in the administration of the Federal Government. Believing that such a state of things did not at the time the claimants were elected, and does not now, exist in the State of Arkansas, the committee recommend for adoption the following resolution:
“Resolved, That William M. Fishback and Elisha Baxter are not entitled to seats as Senators from the State of Arkansas.”
1864, June 29—The resolution of the Committee on the Judiciary was adopted—yeas 27, nays 6.
President Lincoln was known to favor the immediate admission of Arkansas and Louisiana, but the refusal of the Senate to admit the Arkansas Senators raised an issue which partially divided the Republicans in both Houses, some of whom favored forcible reconstruction through the aid of Military Governors and the machinery of new State governments, while others opposed. The views of those opposed to the President’s policy are well stated in a paper signed by Benjamin F. Wade and Henry Winter Davis, published in the New York Tribune, August 5th, 1864. From this we take the more pithy extracts:
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.
If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be supposed that his competitor, defeated by such means, will acquiesce?
If the rebel majority assert their supremacy in those States, and send votes which elect an enemy of the Government, will we not repel his claims?
And is not civil war for the Presidency inaugurated by the votes of rebel States?
Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, “the proper constitutional authority,” formally declared that there are no State governments in the rebel States, and provided for their erection at a proper time; and both the Senate and the House of Representatives rejected the Senators and Representatives chosen under the authority of what the President calls the free constitution and government of Arkansas.
The President’s proclamation “holds for naught” this judgment, and discards the authority of the Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward the anarchy his proclamation of the 8th of December inaugurated.
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.
That judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution to determine what is the established government in a State, and in its own nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other departments of the Government. * * *
A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated.
Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it, and then by proclamation puts as much of it in force as he sees fit, and proposes to execute those parts by officers unknown to the laws of the United States and not subject to the confirmation of the Senate!
The bill directed the appointment of Provisional Governors by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The President, after defeating the law, proposes to appoint without law, and without the advice and consent of the Senate, Military Governors for the rebel States!
He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana, and he defeated the bill to prevent its limitation. * * *
The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his Administration have so long practiced, in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents.
But he must understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishes our support, he must confine himself to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make the laws—to suppress by arms armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress.
If the supporters of the Government fail to insist on this, they become responsible for the usurpations which they fail to rebuke, and are justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and security, committed to their keeping, they sacrifice.
Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and, having found it, fearlessly execute it.
The question, as presented in 1864, now passed temporarily from public consideration because of greater interest in the closing events of the war and the Presidential succession. The passage of the 14th or anti-slavery amendment by the States also intervened. This was officially announced on the 18th of December 1865, by Mr. Seward, 27 of the then 36 States having ratified, as follows: Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia.