If, however, there were to be terms of adjustment, then those terms must have a "continental basis founded upon the principles of mutual convenience and reciprocal advantage, and the recognition of the separate sovereignty of the States." He was ready for a conference or convention of all the States, but he did not admit the right of the successful party to dictate terms to the States that had been in rebellion. He expressed the personal, individual opinion, that tax laws passed in the absence of representatives from the seceded States would be unconstitutional. It was the opinion of Mr. Stephens that the people of Georgia by a large majority thought that the State was entitled to representation in the national Congress and without any conditions.
When he was invited to consider the alternative of universal suffrage or a loss of representation as a condition precedent to the restoration of the State, he said with confidence that neither branch of the alternative would be accepted. "If Georgia is a State in the Union her people feel that she is entitled to representation without conditions imposed by Congress; and if she is not a State in the Union then she could not be admitted as an equal with the others if her admission were trammeled with conditions that did not apply to all the rest alike."
It had been his expectation, and in his opinion such had been the expectation of the people generally that the State would assume its place in the Union whenever the cause of the Confederacy should be abandoned.
Such were the results of the State-Rights doctrines as announced by the most intellectual of the Southern leaders in the war of the Rebellion. In the opinion of Mr. Stephens a State could retire from the Union either for purposes of peace or of war and return at will, and all without loss of place or power.
At the close of his examination he made this declaration: "My convictions on the original abstract question have undergone no change."
As a sequel to the doctrines of Mr. Stephens, I mention the history of Andrew J. Lewis. When the Legislature of Massachusetts assembled in January, 1851, Lewis took a seat in the House as the Democratic member from the town of Sandisfield. He acted with the Coalitionists, and he voted for Mr. Sumner as United States Senator. Lewis was returned for the year 1852, and in General Pierce's administration he held an office in the Boston Customs House.
Upon the fall of Port Hudson I received a letter from General Banks. In that letter he mentioned the fact that Lewis was among the prisoners, holding the office of captain in a South Carolina regiment. His account of himself was this: "I was born in South Carolina. When my State seceded I thought I must go too, and so I left Massachusetts and returned to South Carolina."
GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT
General Grant's examination during the investigation embraced a variety of topics and the report is a volume of not less than twenty thousand words. His testimony is marked by the qualities for which he was known both on the civil and military side of his career. These qualities were clearness of thought, accuracy and readiness of memory, directness of expression and the absence of remarks in the nature of exaggeration or embellishment. The character of the man and the history of events may gain something from an examination of his testimony upon three important points to which it related: the opinion of President Lincoln in regard to the reconstruction of the government; the opinion of President Johnson upon the same subject, and his own view of the rights of General Lee and of the army under his command that had surrendered at Appomattox.
When President Johnson entered upon the work of reconstructing the government of North Carolina it was claimed that he was giving form and effect to the plan which President Lincoln had accepted as a wise policy.