At the close of the war, the South was ready to accept any terms which the victorious government might have seen fit to enforce. The ground was thoroughly broken; it was fresh from the harrow; and then was the time for the sowing of the new seed, before delay had given encouragement and opportunity to the old rank weeds. The States had practically dissolved their relations to the general government. Their chief men were traitors, their governors and legislators were entitled to no recognition, and a new class of free citizens, composing near half the population, had been created. If, in these changed circumstances, all the people of those States had been called upon to unite in restoring their respective governments, and their relations to the general government, we should have had a simple and easy solution of the main question at issue. Our allies on the battle-field would have become our allies at the ballot-box, and by doing justice to them we should have gained security for ourselves.
But are the lately emancipated blacks prepared for the franchise? They are, by all moral and intellectual qualifications, as well prepared for it as the mass of poor whites in the South. Although ignorant, they possess, as has been said, a strong instinct which stands them in the place of actual knowledge. That instinct inspires them with loyalty to the government, and it will never permit them to vote so unwisely and mischievously as the white people of the South voted in the days of secession. Moreover, there are among them men of fine intelligence and leading influence, by whom, and not by their old masters, as has been claimed, they will be instructed in their duty at the polls. And this fact is most certain,—that they are far better prepared to have a hand in making the laws by which they are to be governed, than the whites are to make those laws for them.
How this step is now to be brought about, is not easy to determine; and it may not be brought about for some time to come. In the mean while it is neither wise nor just to allow the representation of the Southern States in Congress to be increased by the emancipation of a race that has no voice in that representation; and some constitutional remedy against this evil is required. And in the mean while the protection of the government must be continued to the race to which its faith is pledged. Let us hope not long.
The present high price of cotton, and the extraordinary demand for labor, seem providential circumstances, designed to teach both races a great lesson. The freedmen are fast learning the responsibilities of their new situation, and gaining a position from which they cannot easily be displaced. Their eagerness to acquire knowledge is a bright sign of hope for their future. By degrees the dominant class must learn to respect those who, as chattels, could only be despised. Respect for labor rises with the condition of the laborer. The whites of the South are not by choice ignorant or unjust, but circumstances have made them so. Teach them that the laborer is a man, and that labor is manly,—a truth that is now dawning upon them,—and the necessity of mediation between the two races will no longer exist.
Then the institutions of the South will spontaneously assimilate to our own. Then we shall have a Union of States, not in form only, but in spirit also. Then shall we see established the reality of the cause that has cost so many priceless lives and such lavish outpouring of treasure. Then will disloyalty die of inanition, and its deeds live only in legend and in story. Then breaks upon America the morning glory of that future which shall behold it the Home of Man, and the Lawgiver among the nations.
CHAPTER LXXXII.[[24]]
THE WORK OF RESTORATION.
A Year later.—Hopes disappointed.—Position of the Whites of the South.—Treatment of Southern Unionists, Black and White.—Sections where the Hostility was most intense.—Honorable and Noble Exceptions to this State of Feeling.—The most Noisy Supporters of the Lost Cause.—The Effect of President Johnson’s Course in stimulating this Hostility.—Review of his Course so far as it relates to Reconstruction.—Interviews with Southern Men.—Organization of Provisional Governments.—Specimens of the Men appointed by him as Governors.—Defiance of Congress in Advance.—Assurances to South Carolina.—Democratic Conventions indorsing the President’s Policy.—The Message of December, 1865.—Opposition to Congress.—His “White-washing Message.”—Veto of the First Freedmen’s Bureau Bill.—The 22d of February Speech.—Veto of the Civil Rights Bill.—Its Passage over the Veto.—Provisions of the Bill.—The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.—What it was.—Veto of the Second Freedmen’s Bureau Bill.—Passage over the Veto.—Its Provisions.—Admission of Tennessee.—Mr. Johnson signs the Resolution, but protests.—The Memphis Riot.—The New Orleans Massacre.—Mr. Johnson responsible for them.—General Sheridan’s Account of it.—The Philadelphia Convention.—Its Tears.—It proves a Failure.—Mr. Johnson weeps.—Mr. Johnson’s Speeches.—Reply to the Philadelphia Committee.—“Congress hanging on the Verge of the Government.”—“Swinging round the Circle.”—Disgraceful Conduct of Mr. Johnson.—Billingsgate in his Speeches.—Wearisome Platitudes.—The Effect they had on the Elections of 1866.
The hopes expressed by the writer in the preceding chapter were not destined to realize a speedy fruition. The uncertainties arising from the somewhat sudden change in President Johnson’s policy, and the hesitancy manifested by Congress in the adoption of a fixed policy of reconstruction, were already, when that chapter was written, beginning to bear their legitimate fruit. The Southern whites who had participated actively or passively in the Rebellion, and who, when the war closed, were ready to submit without murmuring to such terms as the conquering party saw fit to prescribe, had already begun to put on the airs of equals or superiors, and to dictate the terms on which they would come back into the Union. They scouted the idea that negroes had any rights which whites were bound to respect, or that they themselves had by their rebellion forfeited any rights or powers which they had formerly enjoyed. In short, they insisted upon the statu quo ante bellum as their rightful position. While maintaining that it was their right and privilege to honor the graves and memories of the rebel leaders and soldiers who had fallen during the war, and to glorify the living generals and other officers, who had fought for what they fondly called the Lost Cause, they were intolerant of any honors being paid to the Union dead in the South, or any mention of living Union generals, unless accompanied with some scurrilous epithet. A Southern man or woman who had been loyal to the Union during the war, was an object of bitterest hate. If colored, he was shot down, hung, or beaten to death at the first opportunity, and there were always enough “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” ready for this work. If a white man, his cattle were killed, his horses stolen, his poultry carried off, his barns were burned, and jokes, about their being struck by lightning on a clear night, were whispered; his crops were destroyed, and he was warned to leave the neighborhood. These were common occurrences in the country. In the towns, it was not quite so bad, except when the mob element was roused to activity, because the number of loyal Union men there was larger, and they were able to protect each other, to some extent.
In some sections this bitterness toward Union men was much more intense than in others. In the interior of Louisiana, in Texas, in Southern Alabama, in considerable sections of Mississippi, in Southern Georgia, and along the coast in the vicinity of Charleston, S. C., and in the neighborhood of Richmond, Petersburg, and Norfolk, Virginia, it was specially rife. West Tennessee too had its full share of it, and Kentucky was the most rebellious State in or out of the Union.
It should be remarked, too, that this bitterness did not pervade all classes, even among those who had formerly participated in the Rebellion. The men who had fought most bravely for the South were, very generally, disposed to accept reasonable terms from the victors. They had fought well, but they had been whipped, and there was nothing left but submission, and the endeavor to restore to the South its lost prosperity. In this view of the case, Lieutenant-Generals Longstreet and Johnston, and Major-Generals Forrest, Jeff. Thompson, and many others, coincided; and they, as well as some thousands of the former rebel soldiers, went to work manfully to aid in reconstruction on a fair and liberal basis.