There were two striking points in Johnson's character, and I knew him well: First, his loyalty to the Union; and, second, his utter fearlessness of character. He could not be cowed; old Ben Wade, Sumner, Stevens, all the great leaders of that day could not, through fear, influence him one particle.
In 1861, when he was being made the target of all sorts of threats on account of his solitary stand against secession in the Senate, he let fall this characteristic utterance:
"I want to say, not boastingly, with no anger in my bosom, that these two eyes of mine have never looked upon anything in the shape of mortal man that this heart has feared."
This utterance probably illustrates Johnson's character more clearly than anything that I could say. He sought rather than avoided a fight. Headstrong, domineering, having fought his way in a State filled with aristocratic Southerners, from the class of so-called "low whites" to the highest position in the United States, he did not readily yield to the dictates of the dominating forces in Congress.
Lincoln had a well-defined policy of reconstruction. Indeed, so liberal was he disposed to be in his treatment of the Southern States, that immediately after the surrender of Richmond he would have recognized the old State Government of Virginia had it not been for the peremptory veto of Stanton. Congress was not in session when Johnson came to the Presidency in April, 1865. To do him no more than simple justice, I firmly believe that he wanted to follow out, in reconstruction, what he thought was the policy of Mr. Lincoln, and in this he was guided largely by the advice of Mr. Seward.
But there was this difference. Johnson was, probably in good faith, pursuing the Lincoln policy of reconstruction; but when the Legislatures and Executives of the Southern States began openly passing laws and executing them so that the negro was substantially placed back into slavery, practically nullifying the results of the awful struggle, the untold loss of life and treasure, Mr. Lincoln certainly would have receded and would have dealt with the South with an iron hand, as Congress had determined to do, and as General Grant was compelled to do when he assumed the Presidency.
From April to the reassembling of Congress in December, Johnson had a free hand in dealing with the seceded States, and he was not slow to take advantage of it. He seemed disposed to recognize the old State Governments; to restrict the suffrage to the whites; to exercise freely the pardoning power in the way of extending executive clemency not only to almost all classes, but to every individual who would apply for it. The result was, it seemed to be certain that if the Johnson policy were carried out to the fullest extent, the supremacy of the Republican party in the councils of the Nation would be at stake.
To express it in a word, the motive of the opposition to the Johnson plan of reconstruction was the firm conviction that its success would wreck the Republican party, and by restoring the Democrats to power bring back Southern supremacy and Northern vassalage. The impeachment, in a word, was the culmination of the struggle between the legislative and the executive departments of the Government over the problem of reconstruction. The legislative department claimed exclusive jurisdiction over reconstruction; the executive claimed that it alone was competent to deal with the subject.
This is a very brief summary of the conditions which confronted us when I entered the Thirty-ninth Congress. Representatives of the eleven seceding States were there to claim their seats in Congress. The Republican members met in caucus the Saturday evening preceding the meeting of Congress on Monday. I, as a member-elect, was present, and I remember how old Thaddeus Stevens at once assumed the dominating control in opposition to the President's plan. Stevens was a most remarkable character,—one of the most remarkable in the legislative history of the United States. He believed firmly in negro equality and negro suffrage. As one writer eloquently expresses it:
"According to his creed, the insurgent States were conquered provinces to be shaped into a paradise for the freedman and a hell for the rebel. His eye shot over the blackened southern land; he saw the carnage, the desolation, the starvation, and the shame; and like a battered old warhorse, he flung up his frontlet, sniffed the tainted breeze, and snorted 'Ha, Ha!'"