Slavery and four years of war

by Joseph Warren Keifer

Thus situated and occupied, I was, after Sumter was fired on, and although wholly unprepared by previous inclination, education, or training, quickly metamorphosed into a soldier in actual war.

Five days after President Lincoln's first call for volunteers I was in Camp Jackson, Columbus, Ohio (now Goodale Park), a private soldier, and April 27, 1861, I was commissioned and mustered as Major of the 3d Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and with the regiment went forthwith to Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, for drill and equipment. Here real preparations for war, its duties, responsibilities, and hardships, began. Without the hiatus of a day I was in the volunteer service four years and two months, being mustered out, at Washington, D. C., June 27, 1865, on which date I settled all my ordnance and other accounts with the departments of the government, though they covered several hundred thousand dollars.

I served and fought in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, and Maryland, and campaigned in other States. I was thrice slightly wounded, twice in different years, near Winchester, Virginia, and severely wounded in the left forearm at the battle of the Wilderness, May 5, 1864. I was off duty on account of wounds for a short time only, though I carried my arm in a sling, unhealed, until after the close of the war.

The story of my service in the Civil War is told elsewhere.

II PUBLIC SERVICES SINCE THE CIVIL WAR

On my return from the war I resumed, in Springfield, Ohio, the practice of law, and have since pursued it, broken a little by some official life.( 8) I took a deep interest in the political questions growing out of the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion, and especially in the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The first of these abolished slavery in the United States; the second (1) secured to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, citizenship therein and in the State wherein they resided; prohibited a State from making any law that would abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens, and from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and from denying to any person the equal protection of the laws; (2) required Representatives to be apportioned among the States according to number, excluding Indians not taxed, but provided that when the right of male citizens over twenty-one years to vote for electors and Federal and State executive, judicial or legislative officers, was denied or abridged by any State, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein should be reduced proportionately; (3) excluded any person who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or of a State Legislature, or as an officer of the United States or of a State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged or aided in rebellion, from holding any office under the United States or any State, leaving Congress the right by a two-thirds vote of each House to remove such disability, and (4) prohibited the validity of the public debt, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties, from being questioned, and prevented the United States or any State from paying any obligation incurred in aid of the Rebellion, or any claim for the emancipation of any slave, and the third provided that citizens shall not be denied the right to vote "By any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."( 9) Those amendments completed the cycle of fundamental changes of the Constitution, and were necessary results of the war.

Ohio ratified each of them through her Legislature, but, in January, 1868, rescinded her previous ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. I voted and spoke in the Ohio Senate against this recession.

The Constitution of Ohio gave the elective franchise only to "white" persons. In 1867 the people of the State voted against striking the word "white" from the Constitution. In that year I was elected to the Ohio Senate, and participated in the political discussion of those times, both on the stump and in the General Assembly, and favored universal suffrage and the political equality of all persons. The wisdom of such suffrage will hardly be settled so long as there exists a great disparity of learning and moral, public and private, among the people, race not regarded.

I originated some laws, still on the statute books of Ohio, one or two of which have been copied in other States. An amendment to the replevin laws, so as to prevent the plaintiff from acquiring, regardless of right, heirlooms, keepsakes, etc., is an example of this. I served on the Judiciary and other committees of the Ohio Senate in the sessions of 1868-69.

I supported my old war chief for President in 1868 and 1872. I was Commander of the Department of the Ohio, Grand Army of the Republic, for the years 1868, 1869, and 1870, during which time, under its auspices, the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home was established at Xenia, through a board of trustees appointed by me. The G. A. R. secured the land, erected some cottages and other buildings thereon, and carried on the institution, paying the expense for nearly two years before the State accepted the property as a donation and assumed the management of the Home. I was Junior Vice- Commander-in-Chief of the G. A. R., 1871-72; was trustee of the Orphans' Home from April, 1871, date when the State took charge of it, to March, 1878; have been a trustee of Antioch College since June, 1873; was the first President of the Lagonda National Bank, Springfield, Ohio, (April, 1873), a position I still hold; was a delegate-at-large from Ohio to the National Republican Convention in Cincinnati, in June, 1876, when General Hayes was nominated for President; was thereafter, serving in the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, and Forty-eighth Congresses, ending March 4, 1885, covering the administrations of Presidents Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur. I served in the Forty-fifth on the Committee on War Claims, and in the Forty-sixth on Elections, and on other less important committees.