Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

The course of the Confederate governors of Mississippi, Georgia and Texas, who summoned the insurgent legislatures of their respective States for the purpose of calling conventions, suggests a third mode in which the machinery of government could have been set in motion. This plan, however, presented an evident difficulty, inasmuch as these assemblies could not have been recognized without admitting in some sort the validity of the secession and kindred ordinances. Mr. Lincoln, it is true, intended, before hostilities had ceased, to permit the members of the Virginia Legislature to meet as influential individuals for the purpose of recalling their State troops from the Confederate army. The surrender of Lee occurring soon after, and the President’s action having been misunderstood, he withdrew this permission, and did it the more readily as the necessity which suggested it had passed completely away. The department commanders prevented any response to the proclamations of the Executives in the three States named above, and President Johnson by his prompt appointment of provisional governors ignored or anticipated their action. To say nothing of the revolutionary course contemplated by the ex-Confederate governors, the success of their plan required the approval or at least the connivance of Federal authorities.

Still another manner of proceeding was for Congress, by calling or authorizing conventions, to inaugurate the movement for reconstruction; but the power of the national Legislature extends only to the passage of enabling acts for Territories, and these commonwealths appear to have been neither constitutional Territories nor constitutional States. However, as some irregularity was inseparable from any system of reorganization, the Legislative branch of Government was the authority least objectionable for controlling informal changes in the nature of the Union. If powers not conferred by the Constitution must be assumed, it is better in the interests of civil liberty for the representatives of the people to transcend the organic law.

The second mode, it need scarcely be observed, was that embodied in the Executive plan. The conventions which assembled under encouragement and direction of President Johnson had an opportunity unequaled since the formation of the Constitution of winning the gratitude of the nation. By adopting an enlightened and humane policy they could have furnished an example of patriotism that would serve to influence the deliberations not only of the first assemblies to meet under the new order, but of all future legislatures in those States. It is well known that they did not prove equal to this emergency; the concessions to Northern opinion were not gracefully yielded, and lost much of their merit by having been extorted from the fears of the delegates. In some instances the conventions, by assuming functions of the ordinary legislative character, transcended their powers, and many of them “repealed” the ordinances without condemning the principle of secession. They amended and even adopted constitutions that were never submitted to the people. The civil rights of the negro were abandoned to the mercy of those who had fought to perpetuate human servitude. No provision was made for freedmen in the fundamental law, it having been assumed that the new legislatures could be trusted to extend justice equally to all classes in the community. In a word, those were disappointed who had expected from the conventions a display of civic virtues commensurate to the occasion.

The remaining topic, that is, the character of the reconstructed governments as well as the spirit and tendency of their legislation, may in this place be briefly dismissed. Not, indeed, that the subject is unimportant, for it was mainly upon this question that the Thirty-ninth Congress justified its refusal to admit members from the South, and vindicated its rigorous treatment of the subjugated States. While an investigation of public opinion in that section is essential to a correct understanding of legislative action, the full consideration of the subject belongs properly to a treatise on Congressional reconstruction, a theme to which this essay is only introductory. For the present purpose, therefore, a brief outline must suffice.

Though the reconstruction conventions were correctly regarded as revolutionary, that character would not affect the legislatures instituted by their authority if the people concerned acquiesced in their proceedings. Americans of that day were not altogether indifferent to the sacred right of revolution, even if the principle was not so highly esteemed as formerly. An objection far more serious than the irregular origin of these conventions was the spirit which animated Southern legislators.

When the Thirty-ninth Congress convened at its first session members had before them only the merest fragments of the mass of testimony subsequently reported by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, though even then they possessed evidence of the temper of the Southern mind sufficient, they believed, to recommend the most deliberate procedure. It would not be difficult to collect from contemporary literature proofs of hostility to the General Government sufficient to justify the attitude of Congress when it assembled on the 4th of December, 1865. From various sources the Northern people had caught glimpses of the actual condition of affairs within the late Confederacy. These manifestations of unfriendliness to the Union were enough to excite suspicion, and, in a matter affecting the future welfare of a great and powerful nation, suspicion is a just ground for inquiry.

The alacrity with which the Southern people rushed to battle, as well as the vigor with which they prosecuted the war, was a phenomenon not more remarkable than the unanimity and promptness with which they apparently acquiesced in the result. It was long before the people of the North could believe that the rebellion was anything more than a leaders’ insurrection, and they could not easily be persuaded after its close that those who had fought so desperately to destroy, were sincere in their professions of loyalty to, the Union. It was not unnatural, therefore, that the late adversaries of the South would look with suspicion on her instant submission. With few exceptions Southern statesmen seemed desirous of effecting an early reunion. While various reasons might be assigned to explain this dutiful and almost unlimited obedience, it is certain that the argument chiefly relied upon by the provisional governors was that it was only by such a course that they could hope soon to be relieved of the presence among them of Yankee soldiers. Apprehension that more burdensome conditions might be imposed by Stevens and other radical leaders in Congress was, perhaps, not altogether without influence in producing this general acquiescence in the policy of the President.[^[480]] As every citizen who engaged in rebellion had forfeited both his life and his estate, it would be prudent temporarily to conceal any feeling of resentment, or any desire of revenge. These considerations were not without influence on the conduct of both the leaders and the people. With the quick upgrowth, however, of a feeling of personal safety, encouraged, no doubt, by a lavish distribution of pardons, and with an expectation, not unfounded, that reconciliation would speedily be followed by either a restoration of, or indemnity for, confiscated property, this policy of conformity would vanish. Thus under exterior tranquillity rankled bitter memories of disaster and defeat nourishing a state of unrest which even the unquestioned influence of their late commanders could not always keep from expressing itself in acts of violence. However, as Henry Winter Davis had foretold, the Southern population generally put on the seemly garb of peace and observed the form of holding elections.

Notwithstanding that many of their most enlightened citizens recommended, and that their most trusted leaders enjoined, submission to the new order, the transition from a state of hostility was marked even at the outset by acts of the highest indiscretion. Nor were these confined to irresponsible individuals whose utterances might have been justly regarded as the momentary inspiration of passion. Some of the acts referred to were the deliberate convictions of legislative bodies, and, as these measures appear to have escaped criticism, they may fairly be supposed to reflect the sentiments of the South. In the circumstances this was especially unfortunate, postponing as it did the day of peace and reconciliation; it afforded also a decent pretext to the “Radicals,” if they desired one, for excluding the Southern delegations from Congress. It justified inquiry, and investigation was fatal to Southern claims of universal submission.

Though the exclusion of representatives undoubtedly intensified, it did not occasion the change in Southern feeling, for the Mississippi measures, presently to be noticed, were passed before the meeting of Congress. Acts of frequent occurrence tended to confirm the worst fears of that body, and long before the Joint Committee had completed their labors they were supplied with new species of violence if any description of outrage was lacking to crown their indictment. With due allowance for the fact that during many years preceding the war outrages were much more numerous in the slave than in the free States, it soon became apparent that it was unsafe to leave to the justice of Southern courts either the few Unionists who had remained faithful in that section or the recently enfranchised slaves. The estimation in which the former were held appears in the fact that in competition for office they were uniformly defeated by ex-Confederate candidates, sometimes by unpardoned, and even unrepentant ones. The feeling toward freedmen was one of extreme bitterness. Overlooking scattered acts of violence and outrage of which negroes were generally, though not always, the victims, Southern hostility toward them found unmistakable expression in the November legislation of Mississippi. On the 22d of that month was enacted a law regulating the relation of master and apprentice in the case of “freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes.” Among other things this statute provided:

That it shall be the duty of all ... civil officers ... in this State to report to the probate courts of their respective counties, semiannually, ... all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, under the age of eighteen, within their respective counties, beats or districts, who are orphans, or whose parent or parents have not the means, or who refuse to provide for and support said minors, and thereupon it shall be the duty of said probate court to order the clerk of said court to apprentice said minors to some competent and suitable person, on such terms as the court may direct, having a particular care to the interest of said minors: Provided, That the former owner of said minors shall have the preference, when in the opinion of the court, he or she shall be a suitable person for that purpose.