Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

Mr. Howard was followed immediately by Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, who to the great surprise of his fellow-Democrats argued in favor of the resolution. His remarks were introduced by a concise statement of the chief political events occurring in Louisiana between the capture of New Orleans and the ratification, in September, 1864, of the new constitution. Concluding this part of his speech he said:

“These, sir, are the facts. The Committee on the Judiciary—and in the conclusion to which they came I concurred—were of opinion that under the circumstances in which the State was at the period when these proceedings were had, she could not be recognized as a State of the United States under that constitution adopted in 1864, except by an act of Congress. The committee were of opinion that it was not in the power of the Executive under the circumstances to bring the State back under that constitution. They were of opinion, however, that it was competent for Congress to do so, and the only question before the Committee was, whether, under the circumstances under which the State was at the time, it was not the duty of Congress to bring the State back so as to have her represented in the Union.”

His objection to the conclusion of the committee was that the proceedings which led to the adoption of the constitution were instituted at the instance and under the power of the Federal military authorities. The precedent, he admitted, was really a bad one, and the proposition upon which the committee were called to decide was whether, if they were satisfied that the number of votes said to have been cast were in fact cast, and the persons voting were loyal citizens, they should be denied the privilege of being represented in the councils of the nation and subjected to a continuance of military power. Mr. Johnson added: “My impression is that, no matter how the proceedings were instituted, whether it was by the military authority, or by the coming together of the people of the State, if in point of fact the people of the State did act voluntarily and were competent to act under the original constitution, and were authorized to act by being loyal at the time they did act, it is the duty of the government of the United States to receive them back.

“Another objection was that, however true it might be that it would be in the power of all the voters of the State to adopt a constitution for themselves, or to claim the right of coming back to the Union under the constitution existing at the time of the rebellion, it was not true that it was in the power of fourteen [eleven] thousand, four hundred and fourteen voters, when the entire voting population of the State was fifty-one thousand, to take that course. As it seemed to me then, and seems now, there is no evidence to show that a single citizen of Louisiana was excluded from the right of voting.”

It was not so certain, he argued further, that the eleven thousand voters who participated were not a large majority of the actual electors in Louisiana, for the war engaged the greater part of the voting population, and nine tenths of those who entered the Confederate service had forfeited their lives upon the battlefield; of those above or below the military age many had gone elsewhere, or if they remained in the State it was as disloyal citizens.

It was not pretended, he said, in discussing the relation of the loyal minority to the General Government, that by the act of secession they ceased to be citizens of the United States. Their fidelity to the Union entitled them to Federal protection. If loyal, they had forfeited no rights belonging to them before the commencement of the rebellion. No Federal law had been violated, no constitutional obligation evaded by them. They could not ask admission into the Union, because to speak such a desire was to subject themselves to punishment; when the protection of the United States was afforded them and they could once more declare their sentiments without hazard they met at their several election polls, organized their government under existing law, and then, wishing to change it, met in convention and adopted the constitution which had been submitted to the Senate. “Why,” inquired Mr. Johnson, “should we not receive it?” The right of eleven thousand citizens to change their constitution was not denied, but their action was questioned because there were others, then in arms against the Government of the United States, who did not join them in asserting it. In examining the question who were to exercise the authority of the State, he argued: “Now, if it be true that the secession ordinance had no operation to carry the State out, and that I understand even the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner] admitted last night; if it be true that the State is in the Union notwithstanding the ordinance, then the only question to be considered is, who are the people of Louisiana that are to exercise the sovereign authority belonging to the State of Louisiana? Are they the loyal or the disloyal? There can be but one answer to that inquiry. It must only be the loyal.”

Senator Howard admitted, continued Mr. Johnson, that it is not in the power of the United States to change the territorial limits of the States that had gone out, because the Constitution prohibits it. If he had thought for a moment he would have seen that the Constitution equally prohibits any interference on the part of the General Government with the exercise of the right of suffrage in a State. He then combated at some length the intimation of Senators Howard and Sumner that any power without a State had a right to prescribe qualifications for the exercise of the suffrage.

Mr. Powell, too, concurred in this view and asked by what authority General Banks and the President undertook to prescribe the qualifications of voters in Louisiana. The Maryland Senator replied that this question had been anticipated. The eleven thousand four hundred and fourteen voters, according to the proof before the Senate, were all loyal men and entitled to vote by the original constitution of Louisiana, no matter how they were brought together. If, coming together, they did an act which they would have been authorized to do if they had come together voluntarily they ought to be received.

Powell then inquired, what right had the Senate to presume that there may not have been twelve thousand loyal voters in Louisiana who were deprived of the right of suffrage because of this order of General Banks? As the Kentucky Senator understood it, no man could vote “unless he would go forward and take the oath prescribed by the President and swear to support and sustain all proclamations in regard to African slavery already issued and all that might afterward be issued.” Mr. Johnson acknowledged this difficulty and admitted that he had always felt it; but they had the same difficulty, he asserted, in his own State, and a much greater one; he would be sorry to think Maryland was not in the Union. “Maryland is in the Union,” said Senator Powell. “The constitution,” observed Johnson in reply, “which now makes her a State in the Union was adopted the other day. I mean the one which governs her. She has manumitted her slaves by force of that constitution. No man in Maryland seriously contests the obligation of that constitution in that particular or in any other. But it was adopted, in fact, by the exclusion of a good many men who were entitled to vote.”

Mr. Johnson at this point became engaged in an argument, not wholly relevant, with Sumner in which he gained some advantage over the Massachusetts Senator. As a specimen of the latter’s parliamentary tactics at this time it may not be irrelevant to reproduce a passage from the Congressional Globe.