“Section 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each house, remove such disability.
“Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.
“Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
On the 2d of July, 1866, the Senate, and on the 3d of July, the House, passed a second Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, continuing in force the original bill of March 3, 1865, for two years from the passage of this act, and providing more definitely for its administration, and the bestowment of its aid upon the freedmen and loyal refugees (the first bill having been somewhat loose in these particulars). It also prescribed in certain emergencies for the exercise of military protection, and jurisdiction to the freedmen, as the wards of the nation, by the commissioner and his assistants.
This bill Mr. Johnson, after repeated pledges that he would not do so, vetoed, on the 16th of July, 1866, and it was passed over the veto in both houses of Congress the same day: in the House by 103 yeas to 33 nays; and in the Senate by 33 yeas to 12 nays. On the 23d of July, Congress passed the following joint resolution to restore Tennessee to the Union:—
“Whereas, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one, the government of the State of Tennessee was seized upon and taken possession of by persons in hostility to the United States, and the inhabitants of said State, in pursuance of an act of Congress, were declared to be in a state of insurrection against the United States; and whereas said State government can only be restored to its former political relations in the Union by the consent of the lawmaking power of the United States; and whereas the people of said State did, on the twenty-second day of February, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, by a large popular vote, adopt and ratify a constitution of government whereby slavery was abolished, and all ordinances and laws of secession, and debts contracted under the same, were declared void; and whereas a State government has been organized under said constitution which has ratified the amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolishing slavery, also the amendment proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and has done other acts proclaiming and denoting loyalty; Therefore,
“Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the State of Tennessee is hereby restored to her former proper, practical relations to the Union, and is again entitled to be represented by senators and representatives in Congress.”
This joint resolution passed the Senate, 28 yeas to 4 nays; and the House, 93 yeas to 26 nays. As a joint resolution it did not require the President’s signature to make it valid, but he addressed a message to Congress stating that he had signed it, but protesting against what he professed to regard as its anomalous features. With this act, the reconstruction measures of the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress concluded. They were a good beginning in the work, but were not, and their authors did not regard them as, a complete system of reconstruction. The work was to be perfected in subsequent sessions.
Occurrences were transpiring, meanwhile, which were destined to have an influence on this subject. In May, 1866, a collision took place between some discharged negro soldiers, and the police of Memphis, Tennessee (which was composed to a large extent of rebel soldiers and officers, and of Irishmen, whose hatred of the negro was intense); and this culminated in a riot which lasted two or three days, and resulted in the murder of twenty-four negroes, the serious wounding of more than one hundred, many of whom subsequently died of their wounds, and the destruction of property to the amount of about $120,000, mostly negro dwellings, churches, and school-houses. On the side of the police one white man was wounded, it was alleged by the negroes, but, as was afterward ascertained, by another policeman. The real question at issue here was, the right of the freedman to the same privileges and immunities as the white. For this atrocious massacre of the nation’s wards, Mr. Johnson had no word of censure. On the 30th of July, at New Orleans, the Constitutional Convention of 1864, being revived and reconvened by Governor Wells, commenced its session at the Mechanics’ Institute, when they were set upon by the police (nine tenths of them unrepentant rebels), under the prompting of Mayor Monroe, the same man who was mayor in 1862, when New Orleans was captured, and Attorney-General Herron, another rebel officer. The police first assaulted a procession of colored men, who were marching to the Institute, and by firing upon them, compelled them to attempt their own defence (though not one in ten had any weapons). The police murdered a number, and drove the rest before them into the Institute, when they commenced an indiscriminate firing upon the members of the Convention, who were unarmed, though they raised at once a white flag. Several of these were killed, and others mortally wounded, among the number, Rev. J. W. Horton, who had acted as chaplain of the Convention, and Dr. A. P. Dostie, a prominent Union man. In all, 27 were killed outright, and over eighty wounded, many of them mortally. Of the policemen, and their abettors, forty-two were either killed or wounded. General Sheridan, the commander of the Fifth Military District, was at this time absent in Texas, having been assured beforehand by Monroe and Herron that there would be no disturbance and no violence. General Baird, who was in command at the time, seemed irresolute, and did not attempt any movement until too late to do any good. General Sheridan, on his return, examined into the affair, and on the 2d of August reported to General Grant, that “it was an absolute massacre by the police, which was not excelled in murderous cruelty by that of Fort Pillow. It was a murder which the mayor and police of the city perpetrated without the shadow of a necessity; furthermore, I believe it was premeditated, and every indication points to this. I recommend the removing of this bad man.”
Monroe and Herron, and their party, insisted that they had the sanction of the President in all their conduct; and the telegraphic despatches of the President to Herron, and to General Baird; his permitting, if he did not direct, the garbling of Sheridan’s despatches; his attempted justification of Monroe and Herron, and his effort to throw the blame on Congress, at St. Louis, and subsequently on Secretary Stanton, gave good reason to believe their statement true.