The great body of the volunteer forces was disbanded, the officers and soldiers were returning to their homes. To most of them the war was a valuable lesson. It gave them a start in life and a knowledge and experience that opened to door to all employment, especially to official positions in state and nation. In all popular elections the soldier was generally preferred. This was a just recognition for his sacrifices and services. I hope and trust that while a single survivor of the War of the Rebellion is left among us, he will everywhere be received with honor and share all the respect which the boys of my generation were so eager to grant and extend to the heroes of the Revolutionary War. The service of one was as valuable as the other, rendered on a broader field, in greater numbers, with greater sacrifices, and with the same glorious results of securing the continuance of an experiment of free government, the most successful in the history of mankind and which is now, I profoundly trust, so well secured by the heroism and valor of our soldiers, that for generations and centuries yet to come no enemy will dare to aim a blow at the life of the republic. For the wounded and disabled soldiers and the widows and orphans of those who fell, a larger provision of pensions was freely granted than ever before by any nation in ancient or modern times. Provision was made by the general government, and by most of the loyal states, for hospitals and homes for the wounded. The bodies of those who died in the service have been carefully collected into cemeteries in all parts of the United States. If there has been any neglect or delay in granting pensions, it has been caused by the vast number of applications—more than a million—and the difficulty as time passes in securing the necessary proof. The pension list now, thirty years after the war, requires annually the sum of more than $150,000,000, or three times the amount of all the expenses of the national government before the war. No complaint is made of this, but Congress readily grants any increase demanded by the feebleness of age or the decay of strength. I trust, and believe, that this policy will be continued until the last surviving soldier of the war meets the common fate of all.
I participated in the canvass of 1865, when General Jacob D. Cox, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, and a Republican legislature were elected with but little opposition. The first duty of this legislature was to elect a Senator. There was a friendly contest between General Robert C. Schenck, Hon. John A. Bingham and myself, but I was nominated on the first ballot and duly elected.
I received many letters from Horace Greeley, in the following one of which he showed great interest in my re-election to the Senate:
"New York, February 7, 1865.
"Hon. John Sherman:
"My Dear Sir:—Yours of the 5th inst. at hand. I can assure you that the combination to supplant you in the Senate is quite strong and confident of success. I did not mean to allude to the controversy, but was compelled to by the dispatch which got into our columns. I observe J. W. wrote 'locality' as he says, but the change to 'loyalty' was a very awkward one in these days; so I felt compelled to correct it.
"I fear more the raids of Thad. Stevens on the treasury than those of Mosby on our lines.
"Yours,
"Horace Greeley."
When Congress met on the 4th of December, 1865, it had before it two important problems which demanded immediate attention. One was a measure for the reconstruction of the states lately in rebellion and the other was a plan for refunding and paying the public debt. It was unfortunate that no measure had been provided before the close of the war defining the condition of the states lately in rebellion, securing the freedmen in their new-born rights, and restoring these states to their place in the Union. Therefore, during the long vacation, from April to December, the whole matter was left to executive authority. If Lincoln had lived, his action would have been acquiesced in. It would have been liberal, based upon universal emancipation of negroes, and pardon to rebels. It was supposed that President Johnson would err, if at all, in imposing too harsh terms upon these states. His violent speeches in the canvass of 1864, and his fierce denunciation of the leaders in the Rebellion, led us all to suppose that he would insist upon a reconstruction by the loyal people of the south and that reasonable protection would be extended to the emancipated negroes. The necessity of legislation for the reconstruction of the Confederate states was foreseen and provision had been made by Congress, during the war, by what was known as the Wade-Davis bill, to provide for the reorganization of these states. During the 37th Congress, Henry Winter Davis, though not then a Member of the House of Representatives, prepared a bill to meet this exigency. It was a bill to guarantee to each state a republican form of government. It embodied a plan by which these states, then declared by Congress to be in a state of insurrection, might, when that insurrection was subdued or abandoned, come back freely and voluntarily into the Union. It provided for representation, for the election of a convention and a legislature, and of Senators and Members of Congress. It was a complete guarantee to the people of the insurrectionary states that upon certain conditions these states might resume their place in the Union when the insurrection had ceased. This bill he handed to me. I introduced it at his request. It was referred to the judiciary committee, but was not acted upon by it.
Afterwards Mr. Davis came into the 38th Congress as a Member of the House of Representatives. Among the first acts performed by him after taking his seat was the introduction of this same bill. On the 15th of December, 1863, it was debated in the House of Representatives and passed by a very decided vote, and was sent to the Senate. It was reported to the Senate favorably, but in place of it was substituted a proposition offered by B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri. This substitute provided a mode by which the eleven Confederate states might, when the Rebellion was suppressed within their limits, be restored to their old places in the Union. The bill was sent back to the House with the proposed substitute. A committee of conference was appointed, and the House preferring the original bill, the Senate receded from its amendment, and what was known as the Wade-Davis bill passed. It went to President Lincoln, who did not approve it, and it did not become a law, but on the 8th of July, 1864, after the close of the session, he issued the following proclamation:
"Whereas, at the late session Congress passed a bill to guaranty to certain states, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government, a copy of which is hereunto annexed; and whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him; and whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the states in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration: