On February 22, 1866, a public meeting was held in Washington for the purpose of expressing popular approval of the President's reconstruction policy. The crowd marched from the meeting-place to the White House to congratulate the President upon his successful veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill. The President, called upon to make a speech in response, could not resist the temptation. He then dealt a blow to himself from which he never recovered. He spoke, in the egotistic strain usual with him, of the righteousness of his own course, and then began to inveigh in the most violent terms against those who opposed him. He denounced the joint Committee on Reconstruction, the committee headed by Fessenden, as "an irresponsible central directory" that had assumed the powers of Congress, described how he had fought the leaders of the rebellion, and added that there were men on the other side of the line who also worked for the dissolution of the Union. By this time some of the uproarious crowd felt that he had descended to their level, and called for names. He mentioned Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips as men who worked against the fundamental principles of the government, and excited the boisterous merriment of the audience by calling John W. Forney, the Secretary of the Senate and a prominent journalist, "a dead duck" upon whom "he would not waste his ammunition." Again he spoke of his rise from humble origin,—a tailor who "always made a close fit,"—and broadly insinuated that there were men in high places who were not satisfied with Lincoln's blood, but, wanting more, thought of getting rid of him, too, in the same way.
I remember well the impression made by this speech as it came out in the newspapers. Many if not most of the public men I saw in Washington, remembering the disgraceful appearance of Andrew Johnson in a drunken state at the inauguration, at once expressed a belief that he must have been in the same condition when delivering that speech. Most of the newspapers favoring the President's policy were struck dumb. Of those opposing him, most of them spoke of it in grave but evidently restrained language. The general feeling was one of profound shame and humiliation in behalf of the country.
In Congress, where Mr. Stevens, with his characteristic sarcasm, described the whole story of the President's speech as a malignant invention of Mr. Johnson's enemies, the hope of preventing a permanent breach between him and the Republican majority was even then not entirely extinct. On the 26th of February, Sherman made a long and carefully prepared speech in the Senate, advocating harmony. He recounted all the virtues Andrew Johnson professed and all the services he had rendered, and solemnly affirmed his belief that he had always acted upon patriotic motives and in good faith. But he could not refrain from "deeply regretting his speech of the 22d of February," He added that it was "impossible to conceive a more humiliating spectacle than the President of the United States invoking the wild passions of a mob around him with the utterance of such sentiments as he uttered on that day." Still, Mr. Sherman thought that "this was no time to quarrel with the Chief Magistrate." Other prominent Republicans, such as General J. D. Cox of Ohio—one of the noblest men I have ever known,—called upon him to expostulate with him in a friendly spirit, and he gave them amiable assurances, which, however, subsequently turned out to have been without meaning. Then something happened which cut off the last chance of mutual approach.
On March 13th the House passed the Civil Rights Bill, which the Senate had already passed on the 2d of February. Its main provision was that all persons born in the United States, excepting Indians, not taxed, were declared to be citizens of the United States, and such citizens of every race and color should have the same right in every State and Territory of the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to have the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as was enjoyed by white citizens. The bill had nothing to do with "social equity," and did not in any way interfere with Mr. Johnson's scheme of reconstruction. In fact, it was asserted, no doubt truthfully, that Mr. Johnson himself had at various times shown himself, by word and act, favorable to its provisions. It appeared, indeed, in every one of its features so reasonable and so necessary for the enforcement of the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery, that disapproval of it by the President was regarded as almost impossible. Aside from the merits of the bill, there was another reason,
a reason of policy, for the President to sign it. Had he done so, he would have greatly encouraged the conciliatory spirit which, in spite of all that had happened, was still flickering in many Republican bosoms, and he might thus, even at this late hour, have secured an effective following among the Republicans in Congress. But he did not. He returned the bill to Congress with a veto message so weak in argument that it appeared as if he had been laboriously groping for pretexts to kill the bill. One of the principal reasons he gave was again the sinister one that Congress had passed the bill while eleven States were unrepresented, thus repeating the threatening hint that the validity of the laws made by such a Congress might be questioned.
False Encouragement to the South
Congress promptly passed the bill over the President's veto by a two-thirds majority in each House, and thus the Civil Rights Bill became a law. President Johnson's defeat was more fatal than appeared on the surface. The prestige he had won by the success of his veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill was lost again. The Republicans, whom in some way he had led to expect that he would sign the Civil Rights Bill, now believed him to be an insincere man capable of any treachery. The last chance of an accommodation with the Republican party was now utterly gone. But, worse than all, the reactionists in the South, who were bent upon curtailing the freedom of the emancipated negroes as much as possible, received his veto of the Civil Rights Bill with shouts of delight. Believing him now unalterably opposed to the bestowal, upon the freedmen, of equal civil rights such as were specified in the bill, they hailed President Johnson as their champion more loudly than ever. Undisturbed by the defeat of the veto, which they looked upon as a mere temporary accident, they easily persuaded themselves that the President, aided by the Administration Republicans and the Democratic party at the North, would at last surely prevail, and that now they might safely deal with the negro and the labor question in the South as they pleased. The reactionary element felt itself encouraged to the point of foolhardiness by the President's attitude. Legislative enactments and municipal ordinances and regulations tending to reduce the colored people to a state of semi-slavery multiplied at a lively rate. Measures taken for the protection of the emancipated slaves were indiscriminately denounced in the name of the Constitution of the United States as acts of insufferable tyranny. The instant admission to seats in the national Congress of senators and representatives from the "States lately in rebellion" was loudly demanded as a constitutional right, and for these seats men were presented who but yesterday had stood in arms against the national government, or who had held high place in the insurrectionary Confederacy. And the highest authority cited for all these denunciations and demands was Andrew Johnson, President of the United States.
The impression made by these things upon the minds of the Northern people can easily be imagined. Men of sober ways of thinking, not accessible to sensational appeals, asked themselves quite seriously whether there was not real danger that the legitimate results of the war, for the achievement of which they had sacrificed uncounted thousands of lives and the fruits of many, many years of labor, were in grave jeopardy again. Their alarm was not artificially produced by political agitation; it was sincere and profound, and began to grow angry. The gradual softening of the passions and resentments of the war was checked. The feeling that the Union had to be saved once more from the rule of the "rebels with the President at their head" spread with fearful rapidity, and well-meaning people looking to Congress to come to the rescue were becoming less and less squeamish as to the character of the means to be used to that end.
This popular temper could not fail to exercise its influence upon Congress and to stimulate the radical tendencies among its members. Even men of a comparatively conservative and cautious disposition admitted that strong remedies were necessary to avert the threatening danger, and they soon turned to the most drastic as the best. Moreover, the partizan motive pressed to the front to reinforce the patriotic purpose. It had gradually become evident that President Johnson, whether such had been his original design or not,—probably not,—would by his political course be led into the Democratic party. The Democrats, delighted, of course, with the prospect of capturing a President elected by the Republicans, zealously supported his measures and flattered his vanity without stint. The old alliance between the pro-slavery sentiment in the South and the Democratic party in the North was thus revived—that alliance which had already cost the South so dearly in the recent past by making Southern people believe that if they revolted against the Federal Government the Northern Democracy would stand by them and help them to victory.
THE JULY INSTALMENT OF CARL SCHURZ' MEMOIRS WILL CONCLUDE THE STORY OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S STRUGGLE WITH CONGRESS