Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

Similarity of ideas he characterized as the bond of nationality, and named Ireland, Hungary and Poland to show the opposite. In the United States slavery was the one subject of estrangement. Could North and South be brought to think alike on that subject? The theory that each side could hold its own opinions on slavery and no evil consequences follow was somewhat to blame. That theory failed in practice and for that failure each side blamed the other.

The fathers, he said, lived under that theory, that slavery and freedom could coexist, but they expected that the institution would soon become extinct. Hence they only tolerated it. Slavery was to recede slowly and freedom to follow steadily. Upon that basis they got along very well and so could their descendants. Instead of consenting to go, slavery demanded expansion and perpetuity. This was reversing the compromise of the fathers; this change had to be discussed, the slave power took umbrage and secession followed. If one sentiment must prevail, then slavery, which could not stand discussion, must yield if there was to be a reunion. To live in peace together the North must embrace slavery or the South must abandon it.

To adopt slavery would mean the adoption by 20,000,000 people of sentiments favorable thereto, whereas the institution never had any friends in the North. Those in that section so considered were only its apologists. If, three years ago, slavery had no real friends in the North, who would advocate it when it had attempted to destroy the most beneficent of governments? To reconcile the free States would necessitate a change of opinion—to adopt freedom as the dominant idea would require simply a change of investment in the sections. For the present extinguish the conflagration, for the future remove the inflammable material from which it was kindled. For the present seize the mad revolutionists of the South, for the future destroy the virus that poisoned their blood.

All who favored emancipation he favored as co-workers for a voluntary and peaceful reunion of the States; slavery was presented merely as an element of discord and disunion and as such he asked for its removal.[^[313]]

Mr. Williams said that the war was inaugurated on the theory that the States were in, whereas the great fact of war was a proclamation that they were out. Northern Democrats were willing to accept the fact that they were out, without war—to adopt the principle of the laissez nous faire of the rebel authorities and to treat with them upon the idea of a reconstruction; peaceful secession with reconstruction by treaty. The severance of the States was complete, though the hope of recovery remained. By releasing the crews of their privateers, by blockading their ports the Federal authorities had recognized them as a de facto government; Federal legislation had put them under the ban as alien enemies. In the minds of the framers of the Constitution the theory of an indissoluble Union referred to the right, to its organic law. They did not mean that it could not be ruptured by violence. If the governments of the States were dissolved “they must, of course, be reconstructed under the auspices of the conquering power, and that not by the Executive, but by the Legislature of the Union, whose sword he bears, and which only, consistently with the genius of our institutions, the past practice of the Government, and the letter as well as spirit of the Constitution, can venture to determine what use shall be made of the territories conquered by it, and when and upon what terms they shall be readmitted into full communion as members of this Government.... To permit any executive officer to declare its law, and set it in motion, and place it under the control of a minority—a mere tithe of its citizens—with power to send delegates to Congress with representation unimpaired and unaffected—even though he should reenact a part of its abrogated Constitution—would be, as I think, a monstrous anomaly, a violation of fundamental principles, and a precedent fraught with great danger to republican liberty.... To come back into the Union, it must either be born anew or come back with all its rights unimpaired, except those material ones which have been destroyed in the progress of the war. There is, I think, no middle ground, as there is no power either here or elsewhere to prescribe terms which shall abridge the rights or privileges of a State that has not been out of the Union, or returns to it in virtue of its original title.” The rebellious States, he declared, “are in the Union for correction, not for heirship.” In point of fact they were out.

Replying to an observation of Fernando Wood, Mr. Williams said: “We are in favor, at all events, of preserving all that is left of it [the Union], and intend, with the blessing of God, to win back the residue, and pass it through the fire until it shall come out purged of the malignant element that has unfitted it for freedom.

“... Say that they [the rebellious States] are in the Union as before, and all your sacrifices have been idle, and all the blood spilled by you has sunk into the earth in vain.”

The confiscation and distribution of the great baronial possessions of rebel leaders were in his judgment an essential element in any feasible plan of reconstruction. He deduced from passages in Bynkershoek and Barbeyrac that “everything belonging to the offending party is confiscated.... Indemnity, security, and punishment are all, therefore, means of self-defense which may be legitimately used.”

Is the forfeiture, he asked, of the estates and property of traitors, whether they consist of lands or slaves, required for these purposes? “Vae Victis” is not the maxim of a humane conqueror. Though he would not exclude the idea of mercy, he was not clear as to “the wisdom of a proclamation of amnesty in advance as a measure of pacification, without limits as to time, and where submission after conquest, and when it is no longer a virtue but a necessity, is to be rewarded with the same impunity as a voluntary return to duty before that time.”

Speaking of the nature, cause and fury of the war, he continued: “Its suppression has become impossible without removing the cause of the strife, and disabling our enemy by liberating his slaves, and arming them against him.”