This book, according to the author, is an attempt to "trace the personality of Andrew Johnson through the years 1862-1865 when the burden of military government and reconstruction in Tennessee rested principally upon his shoulders." The author has intentionally neglected to give detailed treatment of the military administration in West Tennessee by the generals of the regular army and also of the Federal trade regulations in the State. No effort is here made to trace the career of Johnson after the close of his services in Tennessee. The account is largely based on the papers of Johnson found in the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and on the newspapers of that period, especially the Nashville Union. The author is conscious of his failure adequately to present the "Confederate side of many controverted points," because of "a most regrettable dearth of material for this purpose."
Dr. Hall aims to answer certain charges, among which are such as the assertion that Johnson purposely delayed the work of reconstruction and that he by rather harsh treatment excluded many unquestionably loyal men from the work of reconstruction. The purpose of the work is to show how the lesson learned by Johnson in reconstructing his own State constituted a training for the higher work to which he was so suddenly and unexpectedly called. With this end in view the writer considers first secession, and then gives a sketch of Andrew Johnson leading up to his inauguration as Military Governor. Then follow such topics as the defense of Nashville, repression under Rosecrans, military and political reverses, the progress of reorganization and the presidential campaign of 1864. Throughout the treatise an effort is made to show the arduousness of the task of the Governor-of-all-work had to do and how he summoned to his aid the constructive element and reestablished order. There is given also an account not only of the opposition of those who looked upon the Governor as a traitor but of that of the militant factions that divided on the question as to how the State should be reconstructed. Lincoln's plan of reconstruction is presented as a factor which figured largely in the problems the Governor had to solve.
How the question of slavery was then treated by the men solving the problem of maintaining the Union is not neglected. Andrew Johnson is referred to as product of the poor white stock that hoped to see the evil of slavery exterminated because it was at variance with the principles of democracy, but on the other hand believed that it was so deeply rooted in the life of the nation that it should not be molested so long as it "remained in strict subordination to and in harmony with the government." The writer shows also how Johnson felt that in case of secession the Federal Government could not coerce a State, yet believing that this government, the best and freest on earth, should be preserved, he undermined his own anti-coercion doctrine by denouncing the right of secession and urging that although the Federal Government could not coerce a State, it had a right to guarantee the loyal citizens representing it a constitutional form of government. Some space is given to the discussion of the exception of Tennessee from the Emancipation Proclamation, the growing tendency of Johnson to ignore slavery to preserve the Union, how the opponents sought to weaken him by saying that he was opposed to the institution and finally how he suffered it to be sacrificed to save the Union. Passing mention is given the working out of the problem of abolition and the proposition as to what relief and what privileges should be given the emancipated Negroes.
J. O. Burke
The New Negro. By William Pickens, Dean of Morgan College, Baltimore. Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 239.
"The New Negro" is a collection of speeches and essays through which this well known orator has endeavored to present his views on the race problem in the United States. Primarily polemic and ex-parte, this work will hardly attract the attention of the investigator. But when an author like this one, a man of reputation and influence among his people, writes on such subjects as the "renaissance" of the Negro, his constitutional status, and discusses Alexander Hamilton, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, the serious reader might well pause to give this work more than ordinary consideration.
The book does not bear the stamp of research; the aim of the work is to defend the Negro and laud those who have championed his cause. The bold claims which Negroes have been making from time immemorial are set forth in brilliant and forceful style. In this respect the book is a success. It goes over old ground, but it does its work well. Although not historical, some valuable facts of Negro history are given from page to page. It contains, however, a few statements which are not essential to the establishment of the Negro's claim to great achievement. It is very difficult to demonstrate to a thinking man the advantage to the Negro of such a contention as the much mooted connection of Alexander Hamilton and Robert Browning with the black race when those men spent their lives and passed into history as white men. Such argument has just about as much bearing on the present as the efforts now being made by certain enthusiastic race leaders to prove that Christ was a black man rather than a Jew. Fraught then with opinions rather than with organized facts adequate to the development of the subject constituting its title, the book must be classed as controversial literature.
It may be well to note here, however, exactly what the author means by the "new Negro." The "new Negro," says he, "is not really new; he is the same Negro under new conditions. Those who regret the passing of the 'old Negro' and picture the new as something very different must remember that there is no sharp line of demarcation between the old and the new in any growing organism like a germ, a plant or a race." The "new Negro" then is simply the Negro differently circumstanced. He is ignored by the white man and, therefore, misunderstood. The "new Negro" is living under the handicap of isolation by white men who differ from their former masters who lived in close contact with them. The result is that the white man of today, choosing not to become acquainted with the Negro, has constructed within his mind a person entirely different from what the Negro actually is. The "new Negro" is not treacherous, indolent and criminal as suspected. He "is a sober, sensible creature, conscious of his environment, knowing that not all is right, but trying hard to become adjusted to this civilization in which he finds himself by no will or choice of his own. He is not the shallow, vain, showy creature which he is sometimes advertised to be. He still hopes that the unreasonable opposition to his forward and upward progress will relent. But, at any rate, he is resolved to fight, and live or die, on the side of God and the Eternal Verities."