Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

The objects of the conquest being as stated above, such forcible occupation was, he continued, in its very nature temporary and ought to cease the moment those objects were attained. This could not be done without establishing a government to preserve order, life and property—a provisional government, for that is the true historic name to be applied in all cases where an old government has been overthrown; a provisional government instituted by the conqueror, and to be continued just so long as Congress deemed it necessary to continue it for the attainment, and while attaining, those high objects. The occupancy, that is, the possession of all the reins of local government by the Federal authorities would be but temporary, provisional, fiduciary. It should necessarily last until the Federal Government had done its duty in the reëstablishment of order and the revival of loyalty. Until then it was, and should continue, the omnipotent sovereign of the State, holding actually by right of conquest, though for a particular purpose, and being itself necessarily the final judge to determine when its tutelary mission had been accomplished.

He avoided, he said, a discussion of the question whether a State can commit suicide, that is, extinguish its own being by waging a rebellious war against the Federal Government; instead of presenting any such abstract question of political dialectics, the case, he declared, merely presented the usual question which arose whenever and wherever there had been a forcible revolution. What, he inquired, was the duty of the paramount and lawful government in its treatment of insurgent communities? And was not the Government doing its whole duty in punishing the ringleaders in the revolt and restoring the old and constitutional Government over those districts?

The Government, Mr. Howard proceeded, must be the final judge of the duration of this military occupation. It was bound by the plain terms of the Constitution not only to suppress the insurrection, which was done the moment it had obtained firm possession of the whole of the hostile territory, but to guarantee to the conquered State a republican form of government. To perform this high and sacred trust, time of course was necessary; likewise a great variety of means and instrumentalities, “of all which the Government of the United States must, because it has no superior, no equal in the matter, be the sole and final judge. These means may embrace acts of provisional legislation, creating private rights and duties not previously in existence, but existing by law and of a permanent nature, paramount to all subsequent State legislation because arising under the supreme authority of the nation, as, for instance, the giving freedom to slaves; or they may undoubtedly embrace conditions to be performed by the subdued States on taking their places again in the Union, such as would be an ordinance forever abolishing slavery in the State....

“Yet while thus in our military power, awaiting our action, looking to their restoration, nothing is clearer than that the citizens of the rebel States, though owing obedience to all the laws of the United States, possess no political rights under the Constitution except protection. They are not free to act, because their freedom to act would, if indulged, lead them again to draw the sword against the United States.... They have no right to send members to this body or to the House of Representatives, much less to participate in the election of President and Vice-President. They are the ward-provinces of the United States, progressing toward the maturity of revived loyalty, but not yet entitled to exercise the elective franchise or to participate in the enactment of laws.

“If I am asked what I mean by the Government of the United States, and whether I mean that the President as Commander-in-Chief has the exclusive power to establish these provisional governments, I answer, I do not. He has the right to regulate military occupation until Congress has acted upon the subject; ... but the establishment of provisional governments, the quieting of the rebellious province and the reëstablishment of legitimate authority over it, pertains to the sovereign power, that is, the law-giving power of the nation. With us that power is lodged in Congress and not in the President; and in my opinion it is the business of Congress, and Congress alone, to establish and uphold these provisional governments.... We need not doubt that whatever we see fit to enact will be approved and carried out by the President. We cannot be more truly anxious than he to fix upon a stable, firm policy for restoring peace and union; but we ought not to shut our eyes to the necessities he will continually be under, to the almost irresistible importunities he will encounter, to provide some sort of civil government for the subdued States or districts; or to the consequences of leaving such mighty questions for him to decide. It is our plain duty to establish a uniform rule on the subject, so that all may be treated alike and the same remedy be applied with a paternal but firm and resolute hand to each delinquent State.”

He opposed for two reasons the “scheme” of allowing one tenth or any other minor part of the male citizens of a commonwealth to organize a government and assume to act as a State: first, “because as against the will of an actual majority the government of such a minority must necessarily come to a speedy end and thus invite a renewal of the civil war, in that locality at least; and second, because government by a minority is of evil example and inconsistent with the genius of American liberty.... As a Republican I would sooner hazard ten slaveholders’ rebellions than risk liberty in a government by a minority.” In this connection he assigned an additional motive for his attitude toward the resolution. The will of the friendly element, he said, could prevail only by military support, and such an organization, if intended as a civil government, was not republican in the sense of the Constitution. When such aid was withdrawn the majority, he asserted, would wreak vengeance on the weakened minority.

Concluding this part of his argument, he added: “The measure now before you proposes to acknowledge eight thousand citizens of Louisiana as a State, and to give them the rights and privileges exercised by a voting population of more than fifty thousand in 1860. Eight thousand are thus to give the law or assume to give it to forty-two thousand—to more than five times their number. This they may do so long as their decrees are sustained by the presence and consent of a competent military force; but we all know, both parties there know, the world knows, and, sir, posterity will know, that it is not the eight thousand who govern the State, but the fear of the bayonet, and the fear is inspired solely by the President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy! Disguise it, or attempt to disguise it, as we may, to this complexion doth it come at last. Yes, sir, both the eight thousand and the forty-two thousand voters are governed not by themselves, but by the bayonet! And this is at present the only government in Louisiana. The object of the present measure is to continue this hybrid, unnatural government there. It allows the meager and almost contemptible proportion of less than one sixth of the voting population to govern the whole State, and to have the influence of the whole State in our legislation here, while we know that if the military forces were withdrawn that privileged one sixth part would be swept away like chaff before the hurricane breath of the enraged majority. Sir, such a government is the merest bubble, especially if unsustained by military power. This is too obvious to need further comment.”

“All this we might possibly endure,” continued Senator Howard, “were it not that the measure before us clothes this mockery of a government, this king of shreds and patches, this mistletoe State régime that falls to the earth the moment it ceases to cling around the flag-staff of the national forces, with the high attribute of voting upon and determining questions of legislation, questions of war or peace, questions of prosecuting or ceasing to prosecute the present war, in this Hall and in the Hall of the House of Representatives. This measure introduces here Senators and Representatives whose immediate friends and relatives at home have deliberately aided and assisted to put to death myriads of Union soldiers from the North, and in swelling up that vast debt of more than two thousand million dollars which now rests upon the country. Think you that such Senators and Representatives, whose constituents have already been stripped of their property by the rebel government, and brought down to the depths of poverty; a community without the habits of labor among the intelligent classes; naked, hungry, despondent and sullen; think you that their Representatives would at the present time be safe depositories of the power to tax their constituents to pay this debt? Is it not, on the other hand, the part of prudence to guard against the contingency of having that debt repudiated by such legislators and the still more disgraceful contingency of being, by their votes, aided by a Northern party, finally compelled to pay the rebel debt of $4,000,000,000? And tell me, what right has Louisiana, the majority of whose population is to-day, wherever they are, hostile to this Government and anxious for its overthrow; what right has she, upon any recognized principle of public law or justice, to be represented in Congress?”

The treatment accorded Louisiana would, he feared, be a precedent for the ten remaining States. There would be the expense of holding each for a time in military occupation to bolster up their State governments. He preferred for Louisiana and the other insurgent States a provisional establishment for regulating domestic affairs, but without representation in Congress until the mass of their people plainly perceived their error in attempting to overthrow the General Government.

Congress should, he thought, take the subject of readmission into their own hands. It was for them and not for the President to execute the important guaranty to each State of a republican form of government, and that duty became more and more urgent as the Federal armies swept on from victory to victory. In making good that guaranty the great indispensable necessity, he declared, was loyalty.[^[410]]