Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

The skill and industry of a multitude of laborers have gathered from the field of conflict a harvest as bountiful as the result was satisfactory. We have general histories and bird’s-eye views, military accounts and naval accounts of the Civil War; memoirs and diaries, by actors more or less prominent in the events which they describe, and narratives of battles and of sieges. In this varied and ample field even a belated worker might hope to glean something of value; but this study, whatever it may discuss incidentally, will be chiefly concerned with the subject of Reconstruction, a phase of our political and constitutional development which, though beginning during the progress, lies mainly beyond the close of the Rebellion.

The organization into a separate government of the late Confederate States, with their resolute struggle for independence, is the chief event in the extraordinary career of this favored nation. The story of their submission to Federal power and the return to their former places in the Union is not inferior either in interest or instruction to any political event recorded in history. This return is what is commonly known as Reconstruction. Though the term on its introduction into political discussion was frequently objected to as inaccurate, it has been generally adopted in the writings of publicists as well as in popular speech. The word “restoration,” which was at first preferred, was soon found to be inexact; for while former relations were resumed by the erring States, they came back, one with diminished territorial extent and all with domestic rights greatly abridged. They had, in fact, been reconstructed. It is true that even the loyal States did not emerge unscathed from this political revolution. In the South, however, the established industrial system had been swept completely away.

The theme falls naturally under two heads, Presidential Reconstruction and Congressional Reconstruction. An account of the former, which extended from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1865, occupies the whole of this volume. Any adequate treatment of the latter, including as it does the eventful period from the meeting of Congress in December, 1865, to the withdrawal of Federal forces from the South in 1877, will require a narrative somewhat more ample.

The conspicuous landmarks of Reconstruction require no extraordinary talent to recognize and locate. It is the unfamiliar region between that is difficult accurately to map out. The failure hitherto to present in a single view the striking features of these neglected parts is chiefly responsible for the fact that Reconstruction remains one of the most obscure parts of our history. A candid and comprehensive account of the political events of the time appears to divest the subject of much of the difficulty commonly supposed to attend its investigation. From a sufficient body of essential facts the step to an understanding and exposition of every principle of moment is comparatively easy.

Though the general design of this volume will be suggested to the student of American history by an inspection of its principal subdivisions, it may not be unnecessary for the benefit of the general reader to add a brief outline of the plan that has been adopted.

Chapter I. relates the most important political events in the history of Tennessee from its attempted secession to the restoration, in March, 1865, of a civil government loyal to the United States. Military movements in that Commonwealth have been noticed only so far as to render intelligible the successive steps by which that reorganization was accomplished.

Chapters II. and III. bring the affairs of Louisiana and Arkansas, respectively, down to about the same time. Events in those States have been treated, so far as conditions permitted, in the same manner as in the case of Tennessee.

Chapter IV. is concerned with the secession, restoration and dismemberment of Virginia. The formation out of a portion of that Commonwealth of the new State of West Virginia, both because of the grave constitutional question which arose on a division of the parent State and the intrinsic interest of the subject, has been considered with some degree of minuteness.

In Chapter V., which discusses anti-slavery legislation, it will appear how Mr. Lincoln, though never an Abolitionist or even a radical Republican, became by pressure of military necessity an instrument in the hands of God to destroy an institution opposed by a long line of American statesmen and condemned by the light of the nineteenth century.

The succeeding chapter considers the various theories and plans of restoration presented during the progress of the war. The rise of the Congressional plan, which ultimately prevailed, is treated separately in Chapter VII. Only the first stage of its development, however, falls within the limits of this inquiry, which ends with the meeting of the Thirty-ninth Congress in December, 1865.