Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

For the selection, arrangement, and treatment of topics the author alone is responsible; he desires, however, to take this opportunity of acknowledging generous assistance received from three intimate friends: his colleague, Dr. Charles P. Henry, found time in the midst of arduous literary engagements to read the whole of the manuscript and to make many valuable suggestions, especially in matters of style and diction; the book is not less fortunate in having been critically read by Thomas J. Meagher, Esq., whose extensive and accurate knowledge of public as well as private law contributed to a more clear and scientific statement of many of the constitutional questions discussed; the technical skill and the superior intelligence of Mr. George M. Schell were of considerable assistance to the author in correcting the proofs of the entire book. Nor must he omit to record his appreciation of the courtesy of Mr. L. E. Hewitt, the efficient librarian of the Philadelphia Law Association. Finally the writer gratefully acknowledges his chief obligation to the scholarship of his former teacher, Dr. John Bach McMaster, who kindly interrupted the progress of his great historical work long enough to read a considerable portion of this essay. Indeed, it was the encouragement of that eminent author which first suggested the publication of these pages.

Before concluding his remarks the writer wishes to disclaim any sympathy with the progressive school of historical criticism, which derides the Constitution as a thing of the past and learnedly characterizes all veneration for its authority as the worship of a fetich. This book will have attained one of its principal purposes if, in the language of a distinguished surviving statesman of the war period, it will teach “the constant and ever-important lesson that the Constitution is always a more reliable guide for the legislator than those fierce passions which war never fails to excite.”

Philadelphia, September 14, 1901.

INTRODUCTION

So closely blended with the essential principles of our federal system of government were the causes of the Civil War that a clear understanding of its results appears to require some account of the origin, the independence and the permanent union of these States. Upon the eventful years between the Treaty of Paris and the Declaration of Independence, crowded as they are with work of note, one could linger with pleasure; this epoch, however, has already engaged the pens of so many writers, eminent as well as obscure, that a re-study of the blunders of England’s ministers and the revolt of her distant colonies might justly be regarded as a piece of presumption.

Nor does it seem necessary to recite the familiar achievements of the succeeding period; for, perhaps, the portion of American history most attractive to the general reader is included between the 4th of July, 1776, and the 4th of March, 1789. To these years belong the most conspicuous services of that giant race of leaders whose swords relieved a gallant people from oppression and whose wisdom established a form of government not, indeed, in universal harmony with popular prejudice, but admirably designed for the popular welfare.

It was at the outset of what may properly be styled the national era that there appeared the remarkable group of statesmen who guided the infant Republic on its dim and perilous way. On their broad experience gleamed a vision of the future touching all their work with elements of immortality. By them was skillfully established a system of revenue and of finance adequate to all the exigencies of the time, and a foreign policy inaugurated which for generations together preserved unbroken harmony with the world outside. They doubled by wise and peaceful acquisition the area of that Union whose independence had been wrested from George the Third, and with no less wisdom prescribed the procedure and defined the jurisdiction of Federal courts.

The forty years following March 4, 1789, form an epoch with characteristics of its own. This was the period of Virginian ascendency, the Adamses alone breaking the line of illustrious Presidents furnished by the Old Dominion. Introduced by an experiment in government which aroused the slumbering energies of the nation, its conclusion was marked by the disappearance from political life of the splendid ideals and rich traditions of the Fathers.

The election of General Jackson coincides with the beginning of a new phase in American political and industrial development. It was not that the fame of a splendid military record had raised its possessor to an office for which long experience in governmental affairs had hitherto been thought indispensable, or that the selection of Presidents had passed from an intellectual few to the control of a much more numerous class who were willing to bestow on politics the attention and energy requisite for success in trade; but it was about this time that the imperious power of slavery entered upon its career of aggression. Philosophic statesmen of a previous epoch had ardently hoped that the institution would be permitted quietly to disappear; indeed, the greatest among them, though divided upon a multitude of political and economic questions, agreed in encouraging every movement designed for its extinction. These humane efforts, however, were not destined to win immediate success, and even with the coöperation of the General Government served only to demonstrate the difficulty of such an undertaking.

After 1820 all the dangers which menaced the integrity of the Union were, with one notable exception, traceable to this cause. When Mr. Lincoln in his discussions with Senator Douglas declared that it was the sole cause of all the troubles which had disturbed the nation, he meant, probably, to assert no more than that in his own time it had been the most conspicuous one.