Of course, in the condition of things at New Orleans, the military must not be thwarted by the civil authority; but when the constitutional Convention, for what it deems a breach of privilege, arrests an editor in no way connected with the military, the military necessity for insulting the Convention and forcibly discharging the editor is difficult to perceive. Neither is the military necessity for protecting the people against paying large salaries fixed by a legislature of their own choosing very apparent. Equally difficult to perceive is the military necessity for forcibly interposing to prevent a bank from loaning its own money to the State. These things, if they have occurred, are, at the best, no better than gratuitous hostility. I wish I could hope that they may be shown to not have occurred. To make assurance against misunderstanding, I repeat that in the existing condition of things in Louisiana, the military must not be thwarted by the civil authority; and I add that on points of difference the commanding general must be judge and master. But I also add that in the exercise of this judgment and control, a purpose, obvious and scarcely unavowed, to transcend all military necessity, in order to crush out the civil government, will not be overlooked.[[433]]
A similar communication, though less peremptory in tone, he felt constrained to send to General E. R. S. Canby, who had been assigned to command in the military division of West Mississippi. Under date of December 12, 1864, he wrote that officer:
I think it is probable that you are laboring under some misapprehension as to the purpose, or rather the motive, of the Government on two points—cotton and the new Louisiana State government.
It is conceded that military operations are the first in importance; and as to what is indispensable to these operations, the department commander must be judge and master.
But the other matters mentioned I suppose to be of public importance also; and what I have attempted in regard to them is not merely a concession to private interest and pecuniary greed.
As to the new State government of Louisiana. Most certainly there is no worthy object in getting up a piece of machinery merely to pay salaries and give political consideration to certain men. But it is a worthy object to again get Louisiana into proper practical relations with the nation, and we can never finish this if we never begin it. Much good work is already done, and surely nothing can be gained by throwing it away.
I do not wish either cotton or the new State government to take precedence of the military while the necessity for the military remains; but there is a strong public reason for treating each with so much favor as may not be substantially detrimental to the military.[[434]]
That Mr. Lincoln never modified these opinions is conclusively proved by the last public utterance of his life. In addressing the citizens of Washington, who were holding a demonstration in consequence of Lee’s surrender, the President on the evening of April 11 said:
By these recent successes the reinauguration of the national authority—reconstruction—which has had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with—no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with and mold from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State government of Louisiana.