The Life of Lyman Trumbull

by Horace White

Montgomery Blair apprehended another revolution or rebellion and said that there might be two opposing governments organized in Washington. Maynard, of Tennessee, a stanch loyalist, believed that Senators and Representatives from all the states would soon make their appearance at the national capital and that those from the rebel states would join with the Democratic members from the loyal states, constitute a majority, organize, repeal the test oath, and have things their own way. Welles, while recording these opinions, held the sounder one that the South was too exhausted and the Northern Democrats too timid for such a step.[102]

The Reconstruction Bill passed both houses on the 20th day of February, 1867, was vetoed by the President on the 2d of March, and was repassed on the same day by more than two-thirds majority in each house, Trumbull voting in the affirmative.

It was followed by a supplementary bill even more drastic, providing for a registration of voters, and requiring each person, before he could be registered, to take an oath that he had not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion, or civil war, against the United States, and had never held any legislative, executive, or judicial office and afterwards engaged in rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. The President was not slow to perceive the monstrosity of these provisions. In his veto message he dwelt on the absurdity of expecting every man to know whether he had been disfranchised or not, and what acts amounted to "participation" or fell short of it, and what constituted the giving of aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. With genuine pathos he added:

When I contemplate the millions of our fellow citizens of the South with no alternative left but to impose upon themselves this fearful and untried experiment of complete negro enfranchisement, and white disfranchisement (it may be) almost as complete, or submit indefinitely to the rigor of martial law without a single attribute of freemen, deprived of all the sacred guaranties of our Federal Constitution, and threatened with even worse wrongs, if any worse are possible, it seems to me their condition is the most deplorable to which any people can be reduced.

This bill was passed over the veto on the 23d of March, Trumbull voting in the affirmative. These votes, however, did not prevent him from publishing in the Chicago Advance of September 5, the same year, a carefully written article denying the power of Congress to regulate the suffrage in the states, concluding with the following paragraphs:

If the views expressed are correct, it follows that there are but two ways of securing impartial suffrage throughout the Union. One is, for the states themselves to adopt it, which is being done by some already; and now that the subject is being agitated and its justice being made apparent, it is to be hoped it will soon commend itself to all: the other is, by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, adopting impartial suffrage throughout the Union, which to become effective must be ratified by three fourths of the States.

Amendments of the constitutions of Ohio, Kansas, and Minnesota for that purpose were then pending, but they were all voted down by the people in October and November, 1867.

Congress continued to pass supplementary Reconstruction measures at short intervals. One such authorized the commanders of the military districts to suspend or remove any persons holding any office, civil or military, in their districts and appoint other persons to fill their places and exercise their functions subject to the disapproval of the General of the Army of the United States. It was declared to be the duty of the commanders aforesaid to remove from office all persons disloyal to the United States and all who should seek to hinder, delay, or obstruct the administration of the Reconstruction Acts. Section eight of this act made members of boards of registration removable in like manner. Section eleven provided that "all the provisions of this act, and of the acts to which it is supplementary, should be construed liberally." This bill was vetoed by the President July 19, 1867, and was passed over the veto by both houses the same day. Still another supplementary act was passed on the 11th of March, 1868, relating to the election of members of Congress in the rebel states.

Under this harness of militarism constitutional conventions were held and constitutions adopted by all of said states, except Texas and Mississippi, during the year 1868, and all the rest of them were admitted to the Union except Virginia, subject, however, to the condition that their constitutions should never be amended, or changed, so as to deprive any citizen, or class of citizens, of the right to vote, except as a punishment for crimes of the grade of felonies at common law.