They were embarrassed, however, in this step by the constantly recurring obstacle presented by the constitutions of a majority of the loyal States. In five New-England States suffrage to the colored man was conceded, but in Connecticut only those negroes were allowed to vote who were admitted freedmen prior to 1818. New York permitted a negro to vote after he had been three years a citizen of the State and had been for one year the owner of a freehold worth two hundred and fifty dollars, free of all incumbrances. In every other Northern State none but "white men" were permitted to vote. Even Kansas, which entered the Union under the shadow of the civil war, after a prolonged and terrible struggle with the spirit of slavery, at once restricted suffrage to the white man; while Nevada, whose admission to the Union was after the Thirteenth Amendment had been passed by Congress, denied suffrage to "any negro, Chinaman or mulatto." A still more recent test was applied. The question of admitting the negro to suffrage was submitted to popular vote in Connecticut, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the autumn of 1865, and at the same time in Colorado, when she was forming her constitution preparatory to seeking admission to the Union. In all four, under the control of the Republican party at the time, the proposition was defeated.
With these indisputable evidences of the unpopularity of negro suffrage in the great majority of the Northern States, there was ample excuse for the reluctance of leading statesmen to adopt it as a condition of reconstruction, and force it upon the South by law before it had been adopted by the moral sense of the North. The period, however, was one calculated to bring about very rapid changes in public opinion; and there had undoubtedly been great advance in the popular judgment concerning this question since the elections of the preceding year. The question was really in the position where it would be materially influenced by the course of events in the South. The violence and murder at New Orleans in July had changed the views of many men; and, while the more considerate and conservative tried to regard that outbreak as an exceptional occurrence, the mass of the Northern people feared that it indicated a dangerous sentiment among a people not yet fitted to be entrusted with the administration of a State Government.
While these views were rapidly taking form throughout the North, they were strongly tempered and restrained by the better hope that the people of the South would be able to restore such a feeling of confidence as would prevent the exaction of other conditions of reconstruction and the consequent postponement of the re-admission of the Southern States to representation. The average Republican sentiment of the North was well expressed by the Republican State Convention of New York, which, after reciting the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, and declaring that "That amendment commends itself, by its justice, humanity, and moderation, to every patriotic heart," made this important declaration: "That when any of the late insurgent States shall adopt that amendment, such State shall, at once, by its loyal representatives, be permitted to resume its place in Congress." This view was generally concurred in by the Western States; and, if the Southern States had accepted the broad invitation thus given, there is little doubt that before the close of the year they might have been restored to the enjoyment of every power and privilege under the National Constitution. There would have been opposition to it, but the weight of public influence, and the majority in both branches of Congress, would have been sure to secure this result.
[(1) Petroleum V. Nasby.]
CHAPTER XI.
The rejoicing over the result of the elections throughout the free States had scarcely died away when the Thirty-ninth Congress met in its second session (December 3, 1866). There was no little curiosity to hear what the President would say in his message, in regard to the issue upon which he had sustained so conclusive a defeat. He was known to be in a state of great indignation, and as he had broken forth during the campaign in expressions altogether unbecoming his place, there was some apprehension that he might be guilty of the same indiscretion in his official communication to Congress. But he was saved from such humiliation by the evident interposition of a judicious adviser. The message was strikingly moderate and even conciliatory in tone. The President re-argued his case with apparent calmness and impartiality, repeating and enforcing his position with entire disregard of the popular result which had so significantly condemned him. After rehearsing all that had been done in the direction of reconstruction, so far as his power could reach it, and so far as the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution was an essential part of it, the President expressed his regret that Congress had failed to do its duty by re-admitting the Southern States to representation.
"It was not," said he, "until the close of the eighth month of the session that an exception was made in favor of Tennessee by the admission of her senators and representatives." "I deem it," he continued, "a subject of profound regret that Congress has thus far failed to admit to seats loyal senators and representatives from the other States, whose inhabitants with those of Tennessee had engaged in the Rebellion. Ten States, more than one-fourth of the whole number, remain without representation. The seats of fifty members in the House and twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant, not by their own consent, nor by a failure of election, but by the refusal of Congress to accept their credentials. Their admission, it is believed, would have accomplished much towards the renewal and strengthening of our relations as one people, and would have removed serious cause for discontent upon the part of the inhabitants of those States." The President did not discuss the ground of difference between his policy and that of Congress, simply contenting himself with a restatement of the case, in declaratory rather than in argumentative form. He did not at all seem to realize, or even to recognize, the vantage ground which Congress had obtained by the popular decision in the recent elections. He apparently did not understand that every issue dividing the Executive and Legislative Departments of the Government had been decided in favor of the latter by the masters of both—decided by those who select and control Presidents and Congresses.
The President's position in pursuing a policy which had been so pointedly condemned, excited derision and contempt in the North, but it led to mischievous results in the South. The ten Confederate States which stood knocking at the door of Congress for the right of representation, were fully aware, as was well stated by a leading Republican, that the key to unlock the door had been placed in their own hands. They knew that the political canvass in the North had proceeded upon the basis, and upon the practical assurance (given through the press, and more authoritatively in political platforms), that whenever any other Confederate State should follow the example of Tennessee, it should at once be treated as Tennessee had been treated. Yet, when this position had been confirmed by the elections in all the loyal States, and was, by the special warrant of popular power, made the basis of future admission, these ten States, voting upon the Fourteenth Amendment at different dates through the winter of 1866-67, contemptuously rejected it. In the Virginia Legislature only one vote could be found for the Amendment. In the North-Carolina Legislature only eleven votes out of one hundred and forty-eight were in favor of the Amendment. In the South-Carolina Legislature there was only one vote for the Amendment. In Georgia only two votes out of one hundred and sixty-nine in the Legislature were in the affirmative. Florida unanimously rejected the Amendment. Out of one hundred and six votes in the Alabama Legislature only ten could be found in favor of it. Mississippi and Louisiana both rejected it unanimously. Texas, out of her entire Legislature, gave only five votes for it, and the Arkansas Legislature, which had really taken its action in the preceding October, gave only three votes for the Amendment.
This course on the part of the Southern States was simply a declaration of defiance to Congress. It was as if they had said in so many words: "We are entitled to representation in Congress, and we propose to resume it on our own terms; and therefore we reject your conditions with scorn. We will not consent to your Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. We will not consent that the freedom of the negro shall be made secure by endowing him with citizenship. We demand that without giving negroes the right to vote, they shall yet be counted in the basis of representation, thus increasing our political power when we re-enter Congress beyond that which we enjoyed before we rebelled, and beyond that which white men in the North shall ever enjoy. We decline to give any guarantee for the validity of the public debt. We decline to guarantee the sacredness of pensions to soldiers disabled in the War for the Union. We decline to pledge ourselves that the debts incurred in aid of the Rebellion shall not in the future be paid by our States. We decline, in brief, to assent to any of the conditions or provisions of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, and we deny your right to amend it without our consent."
The madness of this course on the part of the Southern leaders was scarcely less than the madness of original secession; and it is difficult, in deliberately weighing all the pertinent incidents and circumstances, to discover any motive which could, even to their own distorted view, justify the position they had so rashly taken. Strong as the Republican party had shown itself in the elections, it grew still stronger in all the free States, as each of the Confederate States proclaimed its refusal to accept the Fourteenth Amendment as the basis of their return to representation. The response throughout the North, in the mouths of the loyal people, was in effect: "If these rebel States are not willing now to resume representation on the terms offered, let them stay out until their anger ceases and their reason returns. If they are not willing to concede the guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment, and to give that pledge to the country of their future loyalty and their common sense of justice, they shall find that we can be as resolute as they, and we shall insist on the right as stubbornly as they persist in the wrong." These were not merely the declamations of statesmen, or of the press, or of the popular speakers of the Republican party. They came spontaneously, as if by inspiration, from the mass of the people, and were based on that instinctive sense of justice which the multitude rarely fails to exhibit.