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

The consequences that flowed from this radical change in the basis of citizenship were numerous and weighty. Nor were those consequences left subject to construction or speculation. They were incorporated in the same section of the Amendment. The abuses which were formerly heaped on the citizens of one State by the legislative and judicial authority of another State were rendered thenceforth impossible. The language of the Fourteenth Amendment is authoritative and mandatory: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Under the force of these weighty inhibitions, the citizen of foreign birth cannot be persecuted by discriminating statutes, nor can the citizen of dark complexion be deprived of a single privilege or immunity which belong to the white man. Nor can the Catholic, or the Protestant, or the Jew be placed under ban or subjected to any deprivation of personal or religious right. The provision is comprehensive and absolute, and sweeps away at once every form of oppression and every denial of justice. It abolishes caste and enlarges the scope of human freedom. It increases the power of the Republic to do equal and exact justice to all its citizens, and curtails the power of the States to shelter the wrong-doer or to authorize crime by a statute. To Congress is committed the authority to enforce every provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the humblest man who is denied the equal protection of the laws of a State can have his wrongs redressed before the Supreme Judiciary of the Nation.

It is perhaps not strange that the Democrats of the South were hostile to the great results wrought for freedom, for justice, and for popular rights by the Fourteenth Amendment. Their education, their prejudices, their personal interests had all been in the opposite direction, and it was doubtless too much to hope that all these would be overcome by a victory for the Union—a victory which carried to their minds a sense of personal humiliation and of remediless ruin. If their course was unwise it is not altogether unintelligible. But the action of the Northern Democrats cannot be accounted for and cannot be excused. They stood stubbornly, solidly, without reason, without justification, against a great enlargement of popular rights. It is a matter of wonder that a political organization which claims Jefferson for its founder and Jackson for its exemplar, should have surrendered to its rival the sole glory of an achievement which may well be compared with that increase of liberty attained by our ancestors, when the dependence of Colonies was exchanged for the independence of States.

Two eminent judges of the Supreme Court who died after the close of the war are entitled to the admiration and gratitude of the loyal citizens of the United States. When Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated there were three judges on the Supreme Bench from the States which afterwards formed the Confederacy,—James M. Wayne of Georgia, John Catron of Tennessee, and John A. Campbell of Alabama. The last-named was placed upon the bench in 1853, and was undoubtedly the choice of Jefferson Davis, who as the leading Southern member of President Pierce's Cabinet exerted large influence, if not absolute control, over appointments from the slave-holding States. The personal and political associations of Judge Campbell led him to resign his position on the Supreme Bench, and to give the weight of his name and his learning to the Confederate cause.

Judge Wayne was appointed by President Jackson in 1835, and Judge Catron by President Van Buren immediately after his inauguration in 1837, under a bill enlarging the Court, which had been approved by General Jackson. Judge Catron had long been a favorite of General Jackson in Tennessee, and it was understood that in appointing him to the Bench Mr. Van Buren was carrying out the expressed wishes of his predecessor. Both judges came from that earlier and better school of Southern Democracy which resisted the injurious heresies of State-rights and Nullification, sustained the Force Bill under President Jackson, and stood loyally by the Union of the States. They were allied to the South by birth, by education, and by the associations of a lifetime. Their friends, their kindred, even members of their own families, joined in the Rebellion. But these patriotic men, one of whom was born during the Revolutionary war and the other during the first term of Washington's Presidency, maintained their judicial positions and were unshaken in their loyalty to the Union. Their example was followed by few officials from the states that seceded, but the steadfastness of their faith was a striking illustration of the difference between the South of Jefferson and Jackson and the South of Calhoun and Davis. They sat on the Bench throughout the entire civil struggle,—Judge Catron dying in May, 1865, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, and Judge Wayne in July, 1867, in his seventy-eighth year.

The conduct of these venerable judges is all the more to be praised because they did not personally sympathize in any degree with the Republican leaders. They did not believe in the creed or the policies of the party, and feared the result of its administration of the National Government. Their views in regard to the Constitutional rights of the slave-holders were the same as those held by the Confederate chieftains. They had both concurred with Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision. But it was enough for them now to know that Mr. Lincoln had been Constitutionally chosen President of the United States, and had been Constitutionally installed in his great office. It was not for them as Justices of the Supreme Court to know any thing of his Executive acts, except as they might properly come for review before their high tribunal. They illustrated the honorable line of duty for a Judge under the Government of the United States. Off the Bench, his right to political opinions is no more to be questioned than that of any other citizen. On the Bench, he falls short of the full measure of his exalted duty if by any way or any expression he discloses his sympathy with one political party or his prejudice against another.

It is a tribute of honor to the Supreme Court that through all the mutations of its existence only a single Justice has proved unfaithful to the Union of the States; and prior to the war three-fifths of all the Justices were appointed from the South. Southern men in all other departments of the Public Service—those eminent in our Congressional annals, in the Army, in the Navy, in the field of Diplomacy, and even one who had occupied the Presidential chair—followed the lead of their States in rebellion against the Union; or rather it may with truth be said, they led their States into rebellion against the Union. Judge Campbell, in furnishing the sole exception to the record of judicial loyalty, did not yield without a struggle. He was surrounded with peculiar embarrassments, and was not strong enough to overcome them. He realized his position, and did what he could to avert war; but when war was inevitable, he upheld the Confederate cause and became one of its directing minds. In contrast with the fall from his high estate and over against all the evil influences which forced Judge Campbell to his fate, the names of Catron and Wayne will shine in history as examples of the just judge and the incorruptible patriot.

[(1) The President's personal hostility to some of the officers thus assigned was well known, and surprise was expressed that he did not countermand or qualify the order of General Grant when first issued. He was especially unfriendly to General Sheridan, and late in the summer of 1867 relieved him from his command. General Hancock was gazetted as Sheridan's successor, but he did not reach his post until late in November, the district meanwhile being under the command, first, of General Charles Griffin, and, second, of General Joseph A. Mower. General Hancock's order assuming command, issued on the 29th of November, had a certain political significance. He expressed gratification "that peace and quiet reign in the Department," and that in his purpose to preserve this condition of things, he regarded "the maintenance of the civil authorities in the faithful execution of the laws as the most efficient under existing circumstances." He said that when insurrectionary force had been overthrown and peace established, "the military power should cease to lead, and the civil administration resume its natural and rightful dominion." "Solemnly impressed with these views," the General announced that "the great principles of American liberty are still the lawful inheritance of the people and ever should be. The right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the press, the freedom of speech, the natural rights of persons, and the rights of property, must be preserved."

General Sheridan had issued an order defining the qualifications of those who might sit on juries during the period of Reconstruction. One of the first acts of General Hancock was to annul this order. He declared "that the determination of who shall and who shall not be jurors appertains to the legislative power," and he indicated his intention of carrying out the existing law of Louisiana in regard to the selection of juries. General Sheridan had distributed certain memoranda of disqualification, together with questions to be proposed, for the registrars. Their effect in substance was to disqualify all persons who, having acted, prior to January 26, 1861, as United-States senators and representatives, electors, officers of the Army and Navy, civil officers of the United States, and State officers provided for by the Constitution of the State, had afterwards engaged in the Rebellion; and also all those who in 1862 and 1864 claimed the protection of foreign powers. General Hancock set aside this action, declaring that he dissented from the construction given to the Reconstruction laws therein, and ordered the registrars to be guided by their own interpretation of the laws and of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was the popular understanding that General Hancock, in these successive steps, was acting in full sympathy with the wishes and designs of the Administration, in all of which he readily concurred as a Democrat.

The appointment of General Pope for the District of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, had not been agreeable to the President. General Pope's political convictions were of a very positive character, and they were not at all in sympathy with the National Administration. He administered the Reconstruction laws, therefore, in their full spirit and with an entire belief in their justice and equity. He insisted on fair dealing, and suppressed all interference with voters by violence or threats of violence on the part of the late rebels. He would not permit the menace of military organizations, and expressly refused to allow any parading of armed men, except of United-States troops. It was General Pope's opinion that the South had seen quite enough of men in arms within the past four years, and he believed that safety and order would be best maintained by having no uniform worn except that of the Army of the United States, and no other flag shown than the flag of the Union. Holding these pronounced views, aggressively loyal in every thought and action, General Pope was naturally in antagonism with the policy of the President. Towards the close of the year he was relieved of his command and General Meade ordered to take his place.

General Sickles, of the District of North Carolina and South Carolina, was relieved of his command early in September (1867), and General E. R. S. Canby appointed as his successor. General Sickles had been very energetic in the administration of affairs in his department, and had shown remarkable aptitude and efficiency in the discharge of his peculiar duties,—exhibiting in his administration the very qualities most likely to prove offensive to the President. He had perhaps the most difficult command of any of the generals on duty in the South, as the State of South Carolina had from the beginning of the Rebellion presented certain phases of disobedience to Federal authority peculiar to her population and naturally arising from her antecedent history. General Sickles had some trouble with Attorney-General Stanbery, and asked for a court of inquiry, that he might vindicate himself from the accusations of that official.