Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

A great opportunity was now given to the South. It was given especially to the leading men of the South. Only a few weeks before, they had all been expecting harsh treatment, many, indeed, anticipated punishment, not a few were dejectedly looking forward to a life of exile and want. The President's policy, which had been framed for him by Mr. Seward, charged all this. Confidence took the place of apprehension, the fear of punishment was removed, those who conscious of guilt had been dreading expatriation were bidden by the supreme authority of the Nation to stay in their own homes, and to assist in building up the waste and desolate places.

Never in the history of the world had so mighty a rebellion been subdued. Never had any rebellion been followed by treatment so lenient, forgiving, and generous on the part of the triumphant Government. The great mass of those who had resisted the National authority were restored to all their rights of citizenship by the simple taking of an oath of future loyalty, and those excepted from immediate re-instatement were promised full forgiveness on the slightest exhibition of repentance and good works. Mr. Seward believed, and had induced the President to believe, that frank and open generosity on the part of the Government would be responded to in like spirit on the part of those who had just emerged from rebellion. The Administration, therefore, waited with confidence for its justification, which could be made complete only by the display of a manly appreciation and noble course on the part of those who had participated in the Rebellion.

The desire for a complete restoration of all the States to their normal position, as pictured so attractively by Mr. Seward, was general and deep throughout the North. The policy of the President was therefore essentially aided by the patriotic and ardent love for the Union,—a love always present with the loyal people of the free States, but developed in an extraordinary degree by the costly struggle which the slaveholders' rebellion had precipitated. If the Southern States should meet the overture of the Administration in the spirit in which it was made, the probability was decidedly in favor of their restoration to their old places without condition, without promise, without sacrifice. Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and assuredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government. But they realized at the same time that the most important demands of far-seeing statesmanship and of true patriotism might be disregarded, and even contemned, by a wild, unreasoning wish of the people to see the old Government, in all its parts, promptly and fully re-established. The popular cry which demanded "the Union as it was, the Constitution as it is," was echoed by many from emotional love of country, and by many more from a conviction that the financial interests of the Government and the commercial interest of the people called for the speediest settlement of all political questions. The Administration believed, and with good reason, that the combined influence of sentiment for the Union and the supposed necessities of trade would overcome all obstacles, and that the rebellious States would be so promptly and completely reconstructed that their senators and representatives would be admitted at the beginning of the next session of Congress.

In forming an estimate of the probably response of the South to the plan of reconstruction now submitted, the Administration was certainly justified in believing that its own spirit of liberality and good will would be met with like spirit by those who, having failed in war, were specially interested in promptly securing all the conditions of a magnanimous peace. It could not anticipate that quibbles would be made by the defeated and lately suppliant parties, that captious objections would be interposed, that carping criticism would be indulged, that gross outrages would be perpetrated, that absurd conditions would be demanded, and that finally a postponement of the whole procedure would be hazarded, indeed its utter failure secured, by the lack of tact, by the willfulness, and by the apparent ignorance of the Southern men who were in control.

The kindness, consideration, gentleness of Mr. Seward's recommendations, instead of securing a return of like feeling, seemed rather to inflame the misjudging men of the South with a new sense of resentment. Instead of calling forth the natural and proper response, it appeared rather to impress them afresh with that vain imagination of Northern timidity which had always been the besetting weakness of the South. It seemed impossible at the time, it seems even more plainly impossible on a review of the facts after the lapse of years, that any body of reasonable men could behave with the ineffable folly that marked the proceedings of the Reconstruction Conventions in the South, and the still greater folly that governed the succeeding Legislatures of the lately rebellious States.

In the President's proclamation accompanying the appointment of provisional governors he had taken the ground that "the Rebellion, in its revolutionary progress, has deprived the people (of the revolting States) of all civil Government." It is evident, therefore, that the President—eager and even impatient as he was for the process of reconstruction to be completed—expected that a new Government would be built on the full recognition of the new order of things, casting behind all that pertained to the old, or had the spirit of the old. "No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse." This Scripture was exactly applicable to the Southern Conventions which assembled for reconstruction. They could begin anew with organic laws adapted to the great revolution which had swept over them, or they could patch up the old constitutions now become indissolubly associated with a rebellion which had been fostered and protected under their provisions. In every State the Southern leaders chose the latter form of procedure. They assumed that the old constitutions were still in full force and vigor, and they made only such amendments to them as would in their judgment promptly insure to their States the right of representation in Congress. They did not even stop to submit these changes to the popular vote, but assumed for their own assemblages of oligarches the full power to modify the organic laws of their States—an assumption without precedent and without repetition in the history of State constitutions in this country, and utterly subversive of the fundamental idea of Republican Government.

With these incomplete and ill-digested changes in the organic laws of their respective States, the Reconstruction conventions usurped legislative power, and hastily proceeded to order the election of representatives in Congress. The Congressional elections proved to be little else than partisan assemblages under the dictatorial direction of rebel authorities—just as the Reconstruction Conventions were, in their membership and their organization, little else than consulting bodies of Confederate officers under the rank of brigadier-general, actually sitting throughout their deliberations in the uniform of the rebel service, and apparently dictating to the Government of the Union the grounds on which they would consent to resume representation in the National Congress. A joint committee of Congress subsequently commented with appropriate directness upon this offensive phase of the Southern Conventions. "Hardly is the war closed," said the committee, "before the people of the insurrectionary States come forward and haughtily claim, as a right, the privilege of participating at once in that Government which they have for four years been fighting to overthrow. Allowed and encouraged by the Executive to organize State Governments, they at once placed in power leading rebels, unrepentant and unpardoned, excluding with contempt those who had manifested an attachment to the Union, and preferring in many instances those who had rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious. In the face of the law requiring an oath that would necessarily exclude all such men from Federal offices, they have elected, with very few exceptions, as senators and representatives in Congress, the very men who have actively participated in the Rebellion, insultingly denouncing the law as unconstitutional."

The oath referred to in the foregoing extract from the committee's report is that popularly known as the "Ironclad oath," prescribed by the Act of July 2, 1862, to be taken by every person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States, either in the civil, military, or naval departments of the public service, the President alone excepted. The officer, before entering upon his duties or receiving any emolument, was compelled to swear that he had "never voluntarily borne arms against the United States;" that he had "voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility to the National Government;" that he had "neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States;" that he had "never yielded a voluntary support to any pretended Government within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto." Of course the men who had been waging war against the Government could not take this oath except by committing perjury and risking its pains and penalties. But nothing daunted by the existence of this obstacle at the threshold of public service, the most notorious rebels sought election to the Senate and House, boasting that they would prove the unconstitutionality of the Ironclad oath, and demand their seats.

Alexander H. Stephens "had the assurance," as the committee already quoted declared, "with that oath staring him in the face, to lay his credentials on the table of the Senate as a senator-elect from Georgia." When Congress adjourned, March 3, 1865, Mr. Stephens was acting as the Vice-President of the rebel Confederacy. Six weeks later the Confederacy was destroyed, and with a political agility unparalleled, with a degree of presumption unprecedented, Mr. Stephens secured an election to the Senate, and was in Washington at the ensuing session of Congress, asking admission to a seat as cooly as if every living man had forgotten that for four years he had been exerting his utmost effort to destroy the Constitution under which he now claimed the full rights of a citizen. In his astounding effrontery Mr. Stephens even went so far as to insist on interpreting to those loyal men, who had been conducting the Government of the United States through all its perils, the Constitution under which they had been acting, and to point out how they were depriving him of his rights by demanding an oath of loyalty and good faith as the condition on which he should be entitled to take part in legislating for the restored Union. The same committee, worthy at all times to be cited, declared further, that "Other rebels of scarcely less note and notoriety than Mr. Stephens were selected from other quarters. Professing no repentance, glorying apparently in the crime they had committed, avowing still, as the uncontradicted testimony of Mr. Stephens and many others proves, an adherence to the pernicious doctrine of secession, and declaring that they yielded only to necessity, they insist with unanimous voice upon their rights as States, and proclaim that they will submit to no conditions whatever as preliminary to their resumption of power under that Constitution which they still claim the right to repudiate."

Not only were the official acts of the Southern Conventions inspired by a spirit of apparently irreconcilable hatred of the Union, but the popular manifestations in the South were for more decided in the same direction. A sense of official propriety, no doubt, in some degree governed the conduct and modified the language of the members of the conventions. It was left to the press and the stump-orators of the South to give full expression to what they knew to be the ruling sentiment of the people. The report of the Congressional Committee, whose members had closely investigated all the facts, stated that "the Southern press, with few exceptions, abounds with weekly and daily abuse of the institutions and people of the loyal States; defends the men who led, and the principles which incited, the Rebellion; denounces and reviles Southern men who adhered to the Union; and strives constantly and unscrupulously, by every means in its power, to keep alive the fire and hate and discord between the sections; calling upon the President to violate his oath of office, overturn the Government by force of arms, and drive the representatives of the people from their seats in Congress. The National banner is openly insulted and the National airs scoffed at, not only by an ignorant populace, but at public meetings, and once, among other notorious instances, at a dinner given in honor of a notorious rebel, who had violated his oath and abandoned his flag. The same individual is elected to an important office in the leading city of his State, although an unpardoned rebel, and so offensive that the President refused to allow him to enter upon his official duties. In another State the leading general of the rebel armies in openly nominated for governor by the House of Delegates, and the nomination is hailed by the people with shouts of satisfaction and openly indorsed by the press."