The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction

by Charles E. Chadsey

The objections of those who supported this bill to the Presidential plan, are clearly expressed in the speech of H. Winter Davis, in support of his measure. He says[28] that it (the Presidential plan), “proposed no guardianship of the United States over the reorganization of the governments, no law to prescribe who shall vote, no civil functionaries to see that the law is faithfully executed, no supervising authority to control and judge of the elections. But if, in any manner, by the toleration of martial law lately proclaimed the fundamental law, under the dictation of any military authority, or under the prescriptions of a provost marshal, something in the form of a government shall be presented, represented to rest on the votes of one-tenth of the population, the President will recognize that, provided it does not contravene the proclamation of freedom and the laws of Congress; and to secure that, an oath is exacted.” This government “may be recognized by the military power and may not be recognized by the civil power, so that it would have a doubtful existence, half civil and half military, neither a temporary government by law of Congress, nor a state government, something as unknown to the Constitution as the rebel government that refuses to recognize it.”

In place of this method of organization, which Mr. Davis justly thought so wretchedly loose, he proposed that the President should appoint provisional governors over these States, whose first duty should be to enroll the white citizens, through duly appointed United States marshals. Then when a majority of these citizens should have taken the oath of allegiance, they should be permitted to hold a State convention for the purpose of forming a constitution under which the government might be re-established. But all Confederate office-holders and those voluntarily bearing arms against the United States were to be ineligible as delegates to the convention. The bill further provided that the constitution should “repudiate the rebel debt, abolish slavery, and prohibit the higher military and civil officers from voting for or serving as governors or members of the legislature.” When these conditions should have been fulfilled, and the assent of Congress to the recognition of the new government obtained, the President should be notified, and should then officially recognize the government by proclamation, after which senators and representatives would be admitted to Congress.[29]

In the speech mentioned above, Mr. Davis claimed that “the bill challenges the support of all who consider slavery the cause of the rebellion, and that in it the embers of rebellion will always smoulder; of those who think that freedom and permanent peace are inseparable, and who are determined, so far as their constitutional authority will allow them, to secure these fruits by adequate legislation.”

But in this plan there was no attempt to introduce negro suffrage. The only question of importance seemed to be: “How can we ensure the subservience of these States to the federal constitution?” The supporters of the Davis plan insisted that “the rebel States must be governed by Congress till they submit and form a state government under the Constitution”; otherwise “Congress must recognize state governments which do not recognize either Congress or the Constitution of the United States; or there must be an entire absence of all government in the rebel States; and that is anarchy.” It was absurd, the argument continued, to recognize a government which did not recognize the Constitution; and “to accept the alternative of anarchy as the constitutional condition of a State is to assert the failure of the Constitution and the end of republican government. Until, therefore, Congress recognize a state government, organized under its auspices, there is no government in the rebel States except the authority of Congress.” From this it logically followed that in the absence of all State government it was the duty of Congress to “administer civil government until the people shall, under its guidance, submit to the Constitution of the United States,” and reorganize government under whatever conditions Congress might require.

These arguments appealed to sentiments which were becoming very popular in Congress. The theory that a State by seceding ceased to exist as a State was gradually gaining ground, and the Davis plan, by which the central government was to control the State as a territory, though for so limited a time, rapidly gained supporters.

Mr. Fernando Beaman, of Michigan, who also considered that the seceded States had ceased to exist, said in an extended speech favoring the adoption of this bill:[30] “As a people without government or organization are in a state of anarchy, their efforts to establish law and order must be more or less impeded by caprice, by divided counsels, and by the want of forms, regulations, and methods. The passage of this bill is the establishment of incipient civil government, and provides at once rules, regulations and system, with the proper officials to carry them into execution.”

Although the bill was avowedly drawn up to provide what the presidential plan failed to provide, a method of reconstruction so thorough that those elements which had produced the discord could no longer influence the state governments, it itself furnished no means to prevent any of these States from so amending their constitutions, after their senators and representatives had received recognition, that the very conditions of readmittance might be rendered nugatory.

But the bill seemed to the majority in Congress to offer a more practical plan than any yet proposed, and it passed the House May 4, by a vote of 73 to 59; the Senate, two months later, adopted it by a majority of four. But it failed to become a law by the adjournment of Congress before it received the President’s signature.[31]

The President, in justification of his neglect to sign the bill, issued a proclamation on July 8.[32] This stated that while he was unprepared “to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration,” and also “unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana, shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort,” nevertheless he was “fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill, as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it,” and that in such case when the people “shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States,” military governors would be appointed, “with directions to proceed according to the bill.”

This attempt to modify the presidential plan virtually ended for the time the efforts of Congress towards the development of a distinctive theory, and the war thus closed with no well defined plan in operation, except that of President Lincoln, which was not well sustained by Congress. Only one thing seemed to be definitely decided. That was, that the seceded States, in whatever light they might be considered, were incapacitated from participating in presidential elections. A joint resolution to this effect was passed in 1865,[33] and in accordance with its provisions the electoral vote of Louisiana was ruled out.