The Life of Lyman Trumbull

by Horace White

The next event of world-wide concern was the assassination of President Lincoln, which took place April 14, 1865. It does not come within the scope of this work, except as it finds expression or comment in the Trumbull papers. One such, found in a letter of Norman B. Judd, Minister to Prussia, dated Berlin, May 7, ought to be preserved.

At the present moment he [Lincoln] is deified in Europe. History shows no similar outburst of grief and indignation. Crowned heads and statesmen, parliaments and corporate bodies, literary institutions and the people, all vie in pronouncing the eulogy. The entire press of Europe has for the last ten days been filled with nothing else. We have had a very impressive and imposing funeral service. Kings, Representatives, Ministers, and the Diplomatic Corps were amongst the number present. The people assembled to three times the capacity of the church. I told my colleagues to come without uniform.—Something new under the sun at this Court of Uniforms.

When the work of Reconstruction began, two opposing ideas came in conflict with each other respecting the status of the seceding states. One was that the act of secession annihilated the State Governments and put the inhabitants and their belongings in the condition of newly acquired territories, subject in all things to the conquering power. This opinion was held by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens. The other view was that every act of secession was null and void; that state sovereignty was suspended but not extinguished in the Confederacy; and that when the rebellion was crushed, it became the duty of the General Government to recognize the loyal men in each state, as the rightful nucleus of sovereignty, to assist them to set the state Governments going again; in harmony, however, with accomplished facts, including the abolishment of slavery.

The latter view had been adopted by President Lincoln in a proclamation issued simultaneously with his annual message to Congress December 8, 1863. This proclamation declared that whenever the voters of any seceding state, not less in number than one tenth of those who had voted in the presidential election of 1860, should reëstablish a loyal State Government, it should be recognized as the true Government of the state. The qualifications of voters should be those existing in the state immediately before secession, "excluding all others," but it was provided that all previous proclamations of the President and all acts of Congress in reference to slavery should be held inviolable. It was explained that the question of admitting to seats in Congress any persons who might be elected by such states as members would rest with the respective houses exclusively. It was added that while this plan of Reconstruction was favored by the President he did not mean that no other would be acceptable.

In pursuance of the proclamation an election was held in February, 1864, in that portion of Louisiana controlled by the Union army under command of General Banks, at which election 11,411 votes were cast—the whole vote of the state had usually been about 40,000. At this election, Michael Hahn had been chosen governor and he was inaugurated as such on the 4th of March, with impressive ceremonies, "in the presence of more than 50,000 people," as General Banks announced. Writing to Governor Hahn under date, March 13, 1864, Lincoln said:

Now you are about to have a convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as, for instance, the very intelligent and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They will probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public but to you alone.

A constitutional convention of Louisiana was elected March 28, 1864; it assembled April 6; adopted a free state constitution July 22, which was ratified by popular vote September 5. Under this constitution a legislature was elected by which two Senators were chosen to represent the state at Washington. Their credentials were referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and on the 8th of January, 1865, Trumbull called at the White House to consult with Lincoln respecting their admission. One of the consequences of the interview was the unanimous agreement of the Judiciary Committee in favor of a joint resolution recognizing the Government of which Michael Hahn was the head. This resolution was reported by Trumbull on the 23d of February. Sumner objected to it because the constitution did not grant negro suffrage, and he avowed the intention of using all parliamentary means to defeat it. In this endeavor he had the coöperation of Senators Chandler and Wade and of most of the Democrats. The latter opposed the resolution because the constitution was not the work of the majority of the white people of the state. On the 24th, there was a debate of some bitterness between Sumner and Doolittle. The latter contended that the vote of Louisiana was needed to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. To this Sumner replied that the so-called state of Louisiana was a shadow, that no such state existed, and that its ratification would be worthless if obtained. In this contention he was sustained by Garrett Davis, of Kentucky.

There were only seven working days remaining of the Thirty-eighth Congress, and Sumner managed to stave off the vote, although there was a large majority in favor of the resolution, as was shown by roll-calls on various motions. There was a sharp passage-at-arms between Trumbull and Sumner, which made a breach between them for a considerable time.

On the 11th of April, five days before his assassination, Lincoln delivered a carefully prepared address from the balcony of the White House in response to a greeting of citizens who had assembled to welcome him on his return from Richmond after the surrender of that city. He embraced the occasion to call attention again to the question of Reconstruction which was now becoming momentous. He referred to the plan which he had recommended in his annual message of December, 1863, and said that it had received the approval of every member of his Cabinet (which then included Chase and Blair). It had not been objected to by any professed emancipationist until after the news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana were about to take action in accordance with it. Then the question had been raised whether the seceded states were in the Union or out of it. He did not consider that question a material one, but rather a pernicious abstraction, having only the mischievous effect of dividing loyal men. The question now uppermost was how to get the seceded states again into their proper practical relations with the Union. "Let us all join," he said, "in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these states and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether, in doing the acts, he brought the states from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out." The question was not whether the Louisiana Government as reconstructed was quite all that was desirable, but whether it was wiser to take it and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it. "Concede that the new Government of Louisiana is only, to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." He concluded by saying that his remarks would apply generally to other states, but that there were peculiarities pertaining to each state, and important and sudden changes occurring in the same state, so that no exclusive and inflexible plan could safely be prescribed as to details. Therefore, he held himself free to make some new announcement to the people of the South when satisfied that such action would be proper.

This was, in a political sense, his last will and testament. No other communication from him to his countrymen was more fraught with wisdom and patriotism. It received the prompt endorsement of William Lloyd Garrison, who defended it when attacked by Professor Newman, of London University.[76] Garrison held not only that Lincoln had no right to interfere with the voting laws of the states, but that it would be bad policy to do so; for if negro suffrage were imposed upon the South against the will of the people, then, "as soon as the State was organized and left to manage its own affairs, the white population, with their superior intelligence, wealth, and power, would unquestionably alter the franchise in accordance with their prejudices and exclude those thus summarily brought to the polls."