President Johnson termed his plan "my policy," and briefly it was: To appoint provisional or temporary governors for each of the States lately in rebellion. These governors called conventions of delegates, who were elected by the former white voters of the respective States. When the conventions met they declared all the ordinances of secession void, pledged themselves never to pay any debt of the Southern Confederacy, and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, as proposed by Congress early in 1865, and which abolished slavery. Before the close of the year named, each of the excluded States had been reorganized in accordance with this plan. Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas took the step while Lincoln was President.
The vexatious question was as to the treatment of the freedmen. The South had no faith that they would work, except when compelled to do so by slave-overseers. The new governments passed laws, therefore, to compel them to work, under the penalty of being declared vagrants and sent to jail, where they would be forced to hard labor. This method was denounced in the North as a re-establishment of slavery under a new name. The Republican majority in December, 1865, refused for a time to admit any members from the States that had been in rebellion.
QUARREL BETWEEN CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT.
Thus a quarrel arose between the President and Congress. The latter proposed to keep the States on probation for a time, before giving them their full rights, while the President strenuously insisted that they should be admitted at once on the same status as those that had not been engaged in secession. To keep out the eighty-five members who had been refused admission, Congress imposed a test oath, which excluded all who had been connected in any way with the Confederate government. The Republicans had a two-thirds vote in Congress which enabled them to pass any bill they chose over the President's veto. While they had not formulated any clear policy, they were resolved to protect the freedmen in all their rights. The reorganization of Tennessee being satisfactory, her members were received by Congress in 1866.
The congressional elections of this year intrenched the Republicans in Congress, and they were sure of the power for the next two years to carry through any policy upon which they might agree. By that time, too, they had fixed upon their plan of reconstruction and prepared to enforce it.
This policy was to allow the freedmen to vote and to deprive the Confederate leaders of the right to do so. To accomplish this, the plan was to place all the seceding States under military governors, who should call new conventions to form State governments. The negroes and not the leading Confederates had the power to vote for these delegates. Provided the new governments allowed the freedmen the right of suffrage, and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment (which excluded the leading Confederates from office), then the Southern senators and representatives would be admitted to Congress.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.
The "civil rights" bill, which placed the blacks and whites on the same footing, was vetoed by the President, March 27th. He pointed out the danger of giving suffrage to 4,000,000 ignorant people, lately slaves, and said unscrupulous men in the North would hasten South and take advantage of their ignorance. This was precisely what took place. The South was overrun by a set of scoundrels known as "carpet-baggers" (because they were supposed to carry all their worldly possessions when they reached the South in a carpet bag; in many instances a score of trunks would not have sufficed to hold what they took back), whose rule was worse than a pestilence, and forms one of the most shameful episodes in our history. According to the old system, the negroes were counted in making up the congressional representation of the South, and the Republicans insisted that they were, therefore, entitled to vote. The bill was passed April 9th, over the President's veto.
