Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

The convention assembled at Milledgeville on October 25, was called to order by the Provisional Governor, and elected Herschel V. Johnson as its president. Instead of declaring the nullity of the secession and kindred ordinances the convention “repealed” them. On the question of repudiating the war debt the vote stood 133 to 117 in favor of the proposition. This resolution, however, was not carried until November 7, and appears even then to have been passed only after considerable pressure from Washington, whence the President directed or assisted by telegraph the proceedings in all the reconstruction conventions. The war debt thus declared void amounted to $18,135,775. The necessity for this action is evident; the hardships occasioned thereby can be easily imagined.

The State constitution, which was thoroughly revised, recognized the changes that had occurred in civil and social affairs. In that instrument the freedom of slaves was expressly declared, and the Legislature was required to make regulations respecting the altered relations of this class of persons. The constitution as thus amended was unanimously adopted by the convention.

Though Georgia was not the most loyal supporter of Jefferson Davis in the time of his prosperity, now that adversity had overtaken him, the convention, in a memorial to President Johnson, invoked the Executive clemency in behalf of their late chief. The convention assumed for the people their share in the crime for which Mr. Davis and a few others were undergoing punishment.

As in the case of Mississippi, the President approved the organization of “a police force” in the several counties, for the purpose of arresting marauders, suppressing crime and enforcing authority.

The Legislature, which was elected November 15, assembled at Milledgeville on the 4th of December following. With its proceedings we are not now concerned more than to observe that the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted by that body five days subsequently.[^[479]] The measures of the Georgia Assembly were not before Congress when it convened.

Like the chief magistrates in several other Southern States, the Confederate Governor of Texas, when convinced after the surrender of General Kirby Smith that the war had ceased, took steps toward bringing his commonwealth into its old practical relations with the Union. He accordingly ordered an election of delegates to a convention to be held on June 19, but was anticipated by President Johnson, who two days earlier had appointed Andrew J. Hamilton Provisional Governor. Though the latter did not promptly appoint a day for holding the election, he announced his intention of doing so at an early date. There was probably in the minds of the less intelligent Texans a notion that emancipation was to be gradual, or that it was not yet an accomplished fact. To dispel any such idea the new Executive circulated an address which informed the public that if, “in the action of the proposed convention, the negro is characterized or treated as less than a freeman,” Senators and Representatives from Texas would vainly seek admission to the halls of Congress. The choice of delegates having been fixed for January 8, 1866, an account of the convention or of the proceedings in the Assembly subsequently organized in that State does not fall within the scope of this work. In the interval justice was administered by officers temporarily commissioned for that purpose.

The negro population, which, because of the influx from other Southern States, had doubled since 1860, presented a difficult problem in the reorganization of Texas. They knew little of the uses of freedom and were kept systematically at work only by the candid admonitions of General Granger and the Governor. Toward the close of December, however, a better feeling prevailed among them; but it appears to have been a serious problem to have kept the freedmen of Texas steadily at work. Planters throughout the State lost heavily by their inability to engage or to retain in their service laborers enough to gather the standing cotton crop. The full consideration of this subject is inseparable from an analysis of Texan legislation relative to freedmen. Though well advanced, the reconstruction of Texas under the Executive plan was not completed before the meeting of the Thirty-ninth Congress.

Nothing in the reorganization of Alabama or of South Carolina calls for especial mention. The same is true of Florida. Both the spirit and tendency of Southern legislation, however, require to be noticed, and with that examination a brief recapitulation will complete this investigation.

Before concluding this inquiry two related topics require briefly to be noticed, namely, the character of the reconstruction conventions, and the personnel as well as the spirit of the legislatures organized under their authority. As to the former it may be observed that there were several modes in which constitutional conventions could have been assembled; all, however, were objectionable because of an element of irregularity. Considering them chronologically, rather than logically, the first was the method employed by the Union men of western Virginia. The Wheeling convention of June, 1861, was composed of delegates chosen at elections called, not by the constituted authorities, for they were already committed to a policy of rebellion, but by a spontaneous popular movement inaugurated by loyal and influential leaders. The work of this body, even though revolutionary, or at least irregular in its origin, was acquiesced in by the people affected and subsequently approved by the General Government. So few, however, were the loyalists of the insurgent States generally, that it was not practicable elsewhere in the South to reorganize governments in a similar manner.

A second mode was that adopted by Mr. Lincoln. Under this method, the President, as Commander-in-Chief, protected Union minorities in their efforts to reëstablish local governments in harmony with the Federal Constitution. This plan, it is evident, could be justified merely as a military measure, and, therefore, was lawful only during the continuance of the Rebellion. On the return of peace all such provisional schemes would disappear unless tolerated by the neglect or confirmed by the legislation of Congress. The conventions held under this theory rested on the authority of the commanding officer, who was himself acting by Executive direction. In reorganizing the government of Louisiana, General Banks, it will be remembered, declared that the fundamental law of that commonwealth was martial law, which was no more than his arbitrary will. In purging the electoral people and amending the constitution of that State he acted in strict conformity with that assumption. If in the preceding pages the reconstruction measures of Mr. Lincoln have been characterized as legitimate, it must not be supposed that it was intended to assert that they would have been lawful in time of peace, for under the American system it has never been deemed competent for the national Executive to call a convention. Though the establishments instituted under his authority, except in the case of Tennessee, never received the permanent sanction of Congress, the conventions which organized these governments stand on a foundation somewhat different from those assembled by the appointees of President Johnson, for in the summer of 1865 the plea of military necessity could no longer be urged. If, therefore, the conventions held in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee were tainted with irregularity, those assembled in the remaining States were undoubtedly revolutionary. Technically, however, the conventions of both classes stand on the same footing. Governor Perry, of South Carolina, regarded as revolutionary the body which he convoked to reorganize his commonwealth, and for that reason, as he alleged, dissolved the convention before it had taken final action on the important question of the Southern debt.