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The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction

By

CHARLES H. McCARTHY

Ph.D. (Pa.)

New York

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

MCMI

Copyright, 1901 by

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1901

CONTENTS

Preface

Much of the material included in this volume was collected several years ago while the author was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. The researches then commenced probably first suggested to him the lack in our political literature of an ample and interesting account of the return of the States. Students, librarians, and even professors of history knew no adequate treatise on the era of reconstruction, and their testimony was confirmed by the authority of Mr. Bryce, who happily describes the succession of events in those crowded times as forming one of the most intricate chapters of American history. No apology is offered, therefore, for considering in this essay so important and so long-neglected a theme as the rise of the political revolution that occurred before reunion was finally accomplished.

On the general subject several excellent monographs have recently appeared; these, however, are nearly all employed in discussing the second stage in the process of restoration, and, except incidentally, anticipate scarcely anything of value in the present work, which, so far at least as concerns any logical exposition, conducts the reader over untraveled ground. As the introduction indicates with sufficient accuracy both the scope and method of this study, nothing is required here beyond a concise statement of the author’s obligations.

Like many other students of American institutions, the writer cheerfully acknowledges his indebtedness to the works of Brownson, Hurd and Jameson, and, by transferring some of their opinions to his book, has shown a practical appreciation of their researches. In addition to these obligations, in which the author is not singular, he profited for four years by the lectures of Dr. Francis N. Thorpe, his professor in constitutional history. Except in a very few instances, where the name of an author was forgotten, credit for both suggestions and material is uniformly given in the references and footnotes.

For the selection, arrangement, and treatment of topics the author alone is responsible; he desires, however, to take this opportunity of acknowledging generous assistance received from three intimate friends: his colleague, Dr. Charles P. Henry, found time in the midst of arduous literary engagements to read the whole of the manuscript and to make many valuable suggestions, especially in matters of style and diction; the book is not less fortunate in having been critically read by Thomas J. Meagher, Esq., whose extensive and accurate knowledge of public as well as private law contributed to a more clear and scientific statement of many of the constitutional questions discussed; the technical skill and the superior intelligence of Mr. George M. Schell were of considerable assistance to the author in correcting the proofs of the entire book. Nor must he omit to record his appreciation of the courtesy of Mr. L. E. Hewitt, the efficient librarian of the Philadelphia Law Association. Finally the writer gratefully acknowledges his chief obligation to the scholarship of his former teacher, Dr. John Bach McMaster, who kindly interrupted the progress of his great historical work long enough to read a considerable portion of this essay. Indeed, it was the encouragement of that eminent author which first suggested the publication of these pages.

Before concluding his remarks the writer wishes to disclaim any sympathy with the progressive school of historical criticism, which derides the Constitution as a thing of the past and learnedly characterizes all veneration for its authority as the worship of a fetich. This book will have attained one of its principal purposes if, in the language of a distinguished surviving statesman of the war period, it will teach “the constant and ever-important lesson that the Constitution is always a more reliable guide for the legislator than those fierce passions which war never fails to excite.”

Philadelphia, September 14, 1901.

INTRODUCTION

So closely blended with the essential principles of our federal system of government were the causes of the Civil War that a clear understanding of its results appears to require some account of the origin, the independence and the permanent union of these States. Upon the eventful years between the Treaty of Paris and the Declaration of Independence, crowded as they are with work of note, one could linger with pleasure; this epoch, however, has already engaged the pens of so many writers, eminent as well as obscure, that a re-study of the blunders of England’s ministers and the revolt of her distant colonies might justly be regarded as a piece of presumption.

Nor does it seem necessary to recite the familiar achievements of the succeeding period; for, perhaps, the portion of American history most attractive to the general reader is included between the 4th of July, 1776, and the 4th of March, 1789. To these years belong the most conspicuous services of that giant race of leaders whose swords relieved a gallant people from oppression and whose wisdom established a form of government not, indeed, in universal harmony with popular prejudice, but admirably designed for the popular welfare.

It was at the outset of what may properly be styled the national era that there appeared the remarkable group of statesmen who guided the infant Republic on its dim and perilous way. On their broad experience gleamed a vision of the future touching all their work with elements of immortality. By them was skillfully established a system of revenue and of finance adequate to all the exigencies of the time, and a foreign policy inaugurated which for generations together preserved unbroken harmony with the world outside. They doubled by wise and peaceful acquisition the area of that Union whose independence had been wrested from George the Third, and with no less wisdom prescribed the procedure and defined the jurisdiction of Federal courts.

The forty years following March 4, 1789, form an epoch with characteristics of its own. This was the period of Virginian ascendency, the Adamses alone breaking the line of illustrious Presidents furnished by the Old Dominion. Introduced by an experiment in government which aroused the slumbering energies of the nation, its conclusion was marked by the disappearance from political life of the splendid ideals and rich traditions of the Fathers.

The election of General Jackson coincides with the beginning of a new phase in American political and industrial development. It was not that the fame of a splendid military record had raised its possessor to an office for which long experience in governmental affairs had hitherto been thought indispensable, or that the selection of Presidents had passed from an intellectual few to the control of a much more numerous class who were willing to bestow on politics the attention and energy requisite for success in trade; but it was about this time that the imperious power of slavery entered upon its career of aggression. Philosophic statesmen of a previous epoch had ardently hoped that the institution would be permitted quietly to disappear; indeed, the greatest among them, though divided upon a multitude of political and economic questions, agreed in encouraging every movement designed for its extinction. These humane efforts, however, were not destined to win immediate success, and even with the coöperation of the General Government served only to demonstrate the difficulty of such an undertaking.

After 1820 all the dangers which menaced the integrity of the Union were, with one notable exception, traceable to this cause. When Mr. Lincoln in his discussions with Senator Douglas declared that it was the sole cause of all the troubles which had disturbed the nation, he meant, probably, to assert no more than that in his own time it had been the most conspicuous one.

Long before slavery became a subject of embittered controversy the doctrine of State Rights had agitated the country. As early as the summer of 1793 it had found in Justice Iredell an able advocate on the bench of the United States Supreme Court. For party purposes it was adopted five years later by Madison and Jefferson in the celebrated Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and during the second war with Great Britain these statesmen were startled to find New England Federalism vindicating its unpatriotic, if not treacherous, conduct in the exact language which they had invented to embarrass a former administration. With this instrument, too, Calhoun in 1832 shook the foundations of the Union. Both Northern and Southern statesmen of that generation, however, pushed the principle of State sovereignty as far only as their immediate object seemed to require.

It is a popular mistake to suppose that beyond the limits of the South this erroneous doctrine found little favor in the minds of men; for on the eve of the War of 1812 a Governor of conservative Pennsylvania had armed her citizen-soldiers against Federal power.

The illustrious Marshall could relate how, before the highest tribunal in the land, its champions with unwearied zeal renewed the battle for a hopeless cause. The eloquent voice of Webster hushed for a time the fretful agitation of South Carolina statesmen, and his genius fixed in imperishable literary form that interpretation of the Constitution which called forth the abundant resources of both the Nation and the States. In his conquering words lived those elevated thoughts that in future years sustained the defenders of the Republic.

President Jackson, for the energy and promptness by which he defeated the projects of the Nullifiers, has been justly eulogized; but, when the excitement of the hour had passed away, the calmer judgment of even his admirers perceived that victory inclined rather to the side of Calhoun.

Discussion of the abstract question of State sovereignty might, probably, have long continued without endangering the Union had the principle not been invoked to defend the institution of human servitude; yoked to that powerful interest it was inevitable that both should go down together in undistinguishable ruin.

From the Protean fount of slavery flowed an hundred various streams coloring almost every important question in the tide of events. In the generation between the election of General Jackson and the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln its defeats were few, its triumphs numerous and important. Prosperity revealed its weaknesses and encouraged its experiments. The fruits of its greatest victory, the dismemberment of Mexico, revived those stormy scenes which thirty years before had for the first time been witnessed in an American legislative hall. Dissolution of the Union was once more threatened, and again averted by the genius and patriotism of the venerable triumvirate, who scarce outlived their noble work; but the compromise from which Clay, Calhoun and Webster expected a restoration of former tranquillity contained within itself the very seed-plot of even graver troubles.

After 1850 the attachment of Southern men to their industrial system was played upon by ambitious politicians more and more, until the final overthrow of themselves and the government which they sought to establish for its preservation. It could be shown how before that time one war was prolonged for the protection, and another undertaken chiefly for the extension, of that aggressive institution; how its existence was supposed to require Federal interference with the mails and an abridgment of even the ancient right of petition. Every power of the national Government and all the resources of the cotton States had been employed for its advantage.

The United States Supreme Court was the last agent within the Union by which its advocates sought to dignify and perpetuate human servitude, and so successful were their efforts that an enlightened and humane Chief Justice was but little misrepresented in language or in sentiment when political opponents ascribed to him the doctrine that “the negro has no rights which the white man is bound to respect.”

The moral progress of the United States during the last forty years finds, probably, in no single event a better illustration than the change in public opinion upon the interesting question of human rights. When the majority opinion was delivered in the Dred Scott case it excited among members of the dominant political party but little surprise. The shock which a judicial utterance of such sentiments would give in our time to the ethical notions of the American people affords at once both a measure of the advance that has been made in the interval and an undoubted proof that progress has not been, as is commonly supposed, exclusively or even mainly along material lines. It is singular, too, that the first serious attempt of the Federal Supreme Court to set at rest a dangerous political question should have been followed by effects of so alarming a tendency.

It is not intended to relate in these pages the origin or the fate of those compromises designed to avoid the inevitable conflict already in the closing months of President Buchanan’s administration casting ominous shadows in the pathway of the nation, nor to describe the uncertain policy of the General Government or attempt to determine the measure of its responsibility for the fearful rebellion which that hesitation encouraged.

The skill and industry of a multitude of laborers have gathered from the field of conflict a harvest as bountiful as the result was satisfactory. We have general histories and bird’s-eye views, military accounts and naval accounts of the Civil War; memoirs and diaries, by actors more or less prominent in the events which they describe, and narratives of battles and of sieges. In this varied and ample field even a belated worker might hope to glean something of value; but this study, whatever it may discuss incidentally, will be chiefly concerned with the subject of Reconstruction, a phase of our political and constitutional development which, though beginning during the progress, lies mainly beyond the close of the Rebellion.

The organization into a separate government of the late Confederate States, with their resolute struggle for independence, is the chief event in the extraordinary career of this favored nation. The story of their submission to Federal power and the return to their former places in the Union is not inferior either in interest or instruction to any political event recorded in history. This return is what is commonly known as Reconstruction. Though the term on its introduction into political discussion was frequently objected to as inaccurate, it has been generally adopted in the writings of publicists as well as in popular speech. The word “restoration,” which was at first preferred, was soon found to be inexact; for while former relations were resumed by the erring States, they came back, one with diminished territorial extent and all with domestic rights greatly abridged. They had, in fact, been reconstructed. It is true that even the loyal States did not emerge unscathed from this political revolution. In the South, however, the established industrial system had been swept completely away.

The theme falls naturally under two heads, Presidential Reconstruction and Congressional Reconstruction. An account of the former, which extended from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1865, occupies the whole of this volume. Any adequate treatment of the latter, including as it does the eventful period from the meeting of Congress in December, 1865, to the withdrawal of Federal forces from the South in 1877, will require a narrative somewhat more ample.

The conspicuous landmarks of Reconstruction require no extraordinary talent to recognize and locate. It is the unfamiliar region between that is difficult accurately to map out. The failure hitherto to present in a single view the striking features of these neglected parts is chiefly responsible for the fact that Reconstruction remains one of the most obscure parts of our history. A candid and comprehensive account of the political events of the time appears to divest the subject of much of the difficulty commonly supposed to attend its investigation. From a sufficient body of essential facts the step to an understanding and exposition of every principle of moment is comparatively easy.

Though the general design of this volume will be suggested to the student of American history by an inspection of its principal subdivisions, it may not be unnecessary for the benefit of the general reader to add a brief outline of the plan that has been adopted.

Chapter I. relates the most important political events in the history of Tennessee from its attempted secession to the restoration, in March, 1865, of a civil government loyal to the United States. Military movements in that Commonwealth have been noticed only so far as to render intelligible the successive steps by which that reorganization was accomplished.

Chapters II. and III. bring the affairs of Louisiana and Arkansas, respectively, down to about the same time. Events in those States have been treated, so far as conditions permitted, in the same manner as in the case of Tennessee.

Chapter IV. is concerned with the secession, restoration and dismemberment of Virginia. The formation out of a portion of that Commonwealth of the new State of West Virginia, both because of the grave constitutional question which arose on a division of the parent State and the intrinsic interest of the subject, has been considered with some degree of minuteness.

In Chapter V., which discusses anti-slavery legislation, it will appear how Mr. Lincoln, though never an Abolitionist or even a radical Republican, became by pressure of military necessity an instrument in the hands of God to destroy an institution opposed by a long line of American statesmen and condemned by the light of the nineteenth century.

The succeeding chapter considers the various theories and plans of restoration presented during the progress of the war. The rise of the Congressional plan, which ultimately prevailed, is treated separately in Chapter VII. Only the first stage of its development, however, falls within the limits of this inquiry, which ends with the meeting of the Thirty-ninth Congress in December, 1865.

Chapters VIII., IX. and X. trace the progress of the controversy between the Legislative and the Executive branches of Government. The culmination of this difference, however, in the impeachment and trial of President Johnson is a phase of Congressional Reconstruction.

The topics treated in the eleventh chapter, having frequently employed the pens of able and popular writers on the Rebellion, are considered in this study merely for the purpose of making it complete in itself; hence that section is little more than an epitome of what has already been said on those subjects.

The twelfth and last chapter brings every part of the narrative up to December 4, 1865. To clearly comprehend the arduous task that confronted President Johnson this section includes a rapid survey of the wreck of the Confederate States. The principal part, however, is reserved for an account of the conventions assembled under his authority, the method of instituting loyal governments and the spirit and tendency of Southern legislation relative to freedmen. An examination of the Presidential plan of Reconstruction completes the volume.

Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction

I
TENNESSEE

While the celebrated joint debates with Senator Douglas in 1858, the Cooper Union and other addresses, marked Mr. Lincoln, in the new political party just rising to power, as the intellectual peer of able and trusted leaders like Sumner, Chase and Seward, his conservative opinions on the subject of slavery made his nomination by the Chicago Convention more acceptable to delegates from the border States. Though his competitors received, in the memorable contest which followed, almost a million votes in excess of the number cast for Mr. Lincoln and his associate, the fierce conflict among fragments of the Democratic party resulted, as is well known, in the choice of a decided majority of Republican electors.[^[1]] This rather unexpected defeat of a political organization that had lost but two Presidential contests since its first success under Jefferson afforded Southern leaders a pretext for urging a dismemberment of the Union. Indeed, there is evidence that the more impetuous among them had, four years earlier, seriously determined, in case of Fremont’s election, upon a similar course.[^[2]] Thus the present event, so far from being an universal disappointment to members of the defeated party, had been ardently hoped for by many.

The choice of a minority party, and not at first possessing the entire confidence of even that minority, Mr. Lincoln, unable to divine the future, was compelled in dealing with the insurrection to proceed with the utmost caution. Washington himself, in organizing the Federal Government, had a task of less magnitude, and the renown of his military achievements silenced for a time even the boldest in opposition. President Lincoln’s victories, gained on a different field, gave no such unquestioned authority to his name. This peculiar situation forced him to adopt for the guidance of his administration a policy not altogether free from embarrassment to both himself and his successor. His purpose at that time appears to have been to meet the demands of the moment by the contrivances of the moment. Whether a different course would have been rewarded by earlier or by more complete success is a hazardous subject for speculation. If his theory of our national existence be liable to the multitude of objections which have grown up in these fruitful times of peace, no other has been suggested that is free from criticism. His political doctrine, too, had the advantage of always recommending measures scarcely less distinguished for enlarged views than those enlightened convictions which characterize his first inaugural address. Whatever may be concluded of its merits, the theory embraced at the outset exerted on many administrative acts of President Lincoln an influence that continued to be felt during his entire executive career; and without remembering this fact we shall not easily comprehend either the extent of his “Border Policy,” as the plan of compensated emancipation is often called, or his undoubted concern for persecuted Union men in the seceded States.

The sufferings of loyal citizens in East Tennessee had early enlisted the President’s sympathies, and almost from the commencement of hostilities measures for their relief formed in his mind part of the plan of operations by the army under General Buell. Writing, January 6, 1862, to that commander he gives reasons for suggesting the occupation of some point there rather than Nashville, and adds: “But my distress is that our friends in East Tennessee are being hanged and driven to despair, and even now, I fear, are thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of personal protection. In this we lose the most valuable stake we have in the South.”[^[3]] The cause of these outrages may be briefly explained in a digression.

In no part of the late Confederate States was the slave interest more feeble than in the thirty counties comprising East Tennessee.[^[4]] That portion of the State contained in 1860 slightly over 300,000 inhabitants,[^[5]] of whom only about one tenth were slaves, while in many counties they formed no more than one in seventeen of the population. Here and there, indeed, were persons of wealth some of whom owned a few negroes. But though a majority of the people looked upon domestic slavery as something foreign to their social life, they had no strong philanthropic impulse to oppose it. While quite willing to allow their countrymen elsewhere to keep bondmen at pleasure, they did not regard it any concern of theirs to assist either in extending or perpetuating human servitude. If the existence of the Union or of slavery was the issue, they would have hesitated little in deciding which should perish. Though, as we shall presently see, they were as intolerant of the Republican party as any community in the South, they were devotedly attached to the Union. The fact is partly explained by the industrial basis of society in this favored region.

Cut off from Middle Tennessee by lofty ranges of the Cumberland, and from North Carolina by the Great Smoky, the Black and the Stone mountains, this extensive district is traversed in its entire length by the Tennessee and its chief tributaries, the Clinch and the Holston; as the great river flows down to Alabama it receives, before turning west and north to join the Ohio, the waters of many important and beautiful streams, some of which, as the French Broad and Nolachucky, are associated with deeds of note in the War for Independence; indeed, one of its crowning victories was chiefly won by settlers from the banks of the Watauga. Other names, like Hiwassee, are familiar to readers of later events in Tennessee history, and Chickamauga Creek was destined shortly to become more famous than any.

Knoxville, in early times a capital of the State, was, in 1860, the metropolis of East Tennessee; Chattanooga, at the southern extremity of the valley, is separated from Bristol, on the Virginia line, by a distance of more than two hundred and forty miles; Cleveland and Greenville were towns of less importance. The absence of large cities makes it evident that manufacturing had not yet begun to attract serious attention. Like early settlers everywhere in America, the pioneers of Tennessee sought the most immediate returns from the products of the forests and fields around them. The rich mineral deposits, then either unknown or almost untouched, had not given rise to those great extractive operations which in our time have so stimulated the commercial life of East Tennessee. Vast cotton plantations, worked by multitudes of slaves, like those in the western portion of the State, had no existence in these mountain valleys, though occasionally small “patches” were cultivated for domestic use.

Citizens of West Tennessee would naturally place upon the Federal Constitution an interested construction; their industries, they believed, required such an interpretation of that instrument as would place the institution of slavery beyond the reach of Congressional interference. While the people of East Tennessee, too, believed in the several sovereignty of the States, the question of slavery did not touch them so nearly. Indifferent to the subject themselves, they had little sympathy with those who had determined to break up the Union from a mere suspicion that their interests were menaced by the success of a new political party. But to ascribe to the want of interested motives their indifference to the great disturbing question of the time would be to assign but one and that, perhaps, not the chief cause.

Except on its northern and southern boundaries this delightful region is practically isolated from several adjacent States as well as from the remainder of Tennessee. It was in this by-place of nature and amidst such a population that The Manumission Intelligencer, a weekly newspaper, made its appearance in 1819.[^[6]] It was followed the next year by The Emancipator of Elijah Embree, a Pennsylvania Quaker; this in turn was soon succeeded by a more celebrated publication, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, conducted by Benjamin Lundy. While these publications served to perpetuate and to extend, they did not create the sentiment of which they became exponents, for, several years before their appearance, an anti-slavery society flourished in Jefferson County. Its existence is noticed as early as 1814.[^[7]] This anti-slavery feeling was part of the philosophic movement encouraged by nearly all Southern as well as Northern statesmen before the inauguration of General Jackson. A new industrial era, beginning about that time, put an end to the abolition societies in the South; and though Lundy’s paper was discontinued in Tennessee after 1824, events of frequent occurrence sustained the anti-slavery sentiments of the people.

The Tennessee valley was a natural thoroughfare from Virginia to the south-west, and when slaves were purchased on the Potomac they were chained together, to prevent escape, and in that condition driven to the homes of their new masters.[^[8]] The plaintive songs of captives as they were marched in lines along the valley highways often caused the free mountaineer to pause in his labors and reflect on what was passing before his eyes. He “saw slavery in its bitterness and without disguise.” The remembrance of such spectacles was apt to strengthen in him anti-slavery feelings that had come down from Revolutionary times. But whether Southern leaders ascribed the sentiment to an inherited tendency or regarded it as a consequence of this odious phase of the domestic slave-trade, they did not think it beneath the dignity of attention; for it was, doubtless, to create a sympathy for their institution that a “Southern Commercial Convention” was held at Knoxville in 1857. It was too late, however, to root out the convictions of two generations; the counsels of the wise were soon to be confounded and the fretful agitation of leaders soon to be hushed in the tempest of war.

No Republican electoral ticket was presented in the great political battle of 1860 for the suffrage of Tennessee voters, and had any citizen openly advocated the election of Mr. Lincoln he would have had to endure insult or injury, or to abandon his home. This explains why the successful candidates received no vote in all the State. As “Parson” Brownlow, selecting extreme abolition and secession types, characteristically expressed it, his people were equally opposed to the William L. Garrisons and the William L. Yanceys of politics.[^[9]] In this situation the supporters of Bell, Breckenridge and Douglas were left to contend for victory among themselves. Addresses of the time reveal not only the emotions of individual speakers, but the excited state of public opinion. The attitude of Constitutional Union men was vigorously stated in a debate at Knoxville by Nathaniel G. Taylor, an elector on the Bell and Everett ticket. “The people of East Tennessee,” said the orator, “are determined to maintain the Union by force of arms against any movement from the South throughout their region of country to assail the government at Washington with violence, and that the secessionists of the cotton States in attempting to carry out their nefarious design to destroy the Republic would have to march over his dead body and the dead bodies of thousands of East Tennessee mountaineers slain in battle.”[^[10]]

When Yancey came up from Alabama to “precipitate” this section into rebellion the intrepid Brownlow made a similar reply.[^[11]] The energy or the elegance of such utterances may be questioned, but the deeds of loyal Tennesseeans during eventful years to follow are evidence alike of the sincerity of the speakers and their insight into the temper of the times.

Except Tennessee, all the States that attempted secession did so by means of revolutionary bodies styled conventions; this description of them is justified both by the general powers of administration and government which they assumed and by the fact that the legislatures in convoking them transcended their authority, the members of every State legislature being “bound by oath or affirmation to support” the Federal Constitution, which forms a part of the fundamental law of each commonwealth. Though the Legislature of Tennessee, following the example of law-making bodies in other disloyal States, passed a “Convention Bill,” it was promptly defeated by a majority of 13,204 in a total vote of more than 120,000. Notwithstanding the constitutional prohibition that “no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation,”[^[12]] the Legislature on May 1 authorized Governor Harris to appoint commissioners to form a military league with the Confederate States. Six days later the relations entered into by these agents were ratified in a secret session, the State government thereby turning over temporarily to the President of the Confederacy its entire military force. These matters disposed of, the plans of disunionists were completed by the passage on the same day of a declaration of independence and an ordinance dissolving all Federal relations between Tennessee and the United States. Though this measure was to be voted upon a month later, the Legislature, as if anticipating the result, adopted and ratified the Confederate constitution. What was so ardently desired by secessionists was finally accomplished, and on June 24 the Governor declared his State out of the Union, the vote being 104,019 for, and 47,238 against, separation.[^[13]] The Tennessee Legislature did not assume the functions of a secession convention till after the commencement of hostilities; but from that date the forms of law ceased to be seriously regarded. While the disunion party scored a present triumph, loyalist leaders like Horace Maynard, Thomas A. R. Nelson and Andrew Johnson, at the imminent risk of injury or even of death, were speaking and working actively against the spirit of secession. The strong Union feeling thus excited resulted ultimately in local insurrections and in the meeting, June 17, of a convention at Greeneville in which a remonstrance was adopted and a committee appointed to petition the Legislature for the separation of East Tennessee and such counties of Middle Tennessee as were willing to coöperate in the formation of a new commonwealth. But the presence there during the following years of veteran Confederate armies prevented Union men from organizing a separate government, and saved the State from the fate of Virginia. All who were known to have had a connection, or who were suspected of sympathy, with this movement were especially obnoxious to the secession party, and at the hands of soldiers were subjected to many indignities. In various ways the feeling of opposition to the Confederacy was intensified, and it was not long before measures of retaliation were considered. Union people were quick to perceive the advantage which the South derived from the use of railways within the State, and, in expectation of assistance from Federal forces in Kentucky, five railroad bridges were burned. East Tennesseeans, however, were destined to be sorely disappointed in the matter of aid from the Union army; and, without effective organization or arms, were easily captured or dispersed. Of the former, many were sent as prisoners of war to Alabama, hundreds were crowded into loathsome jails in the State and others hanged, with circumstances of deliberate cruelty, near the scenes of their alleged crimes.

These were among the outrages to which Mr. Lincoln referred in his letter to the Federal commander. By Horace Maynard a Representative, and Andrew Johnson a Senator, in Congress the President was kept very accurately informed of events in the State and often importuned to relieve their constituents. This he constantly endeavored to do, but his intentions were effectually defeated by the inactivity of General Buell, who cherished other plans for destroying his antagonist. More than two years were to elapse, from the time President Lincoln urged his policy, before Tennesseeans received any aid from Federal armies; long before that time they had been ruthlessly punished for their patriotism, and then their oppressors were chastised by the hand of an abler warrior than General Buell.

Within a month from the date of President Lincoln’s letter of January 6 General Grant had possession of Fort Henry and, ten days later, February 16, received the surrender of Fort Donelson. Nashville, becoming unsafe, was evacuated on February 23, 1862; the State appeared for the first time to be slipping from the grasp of the Confederacy, and a question, hitherto more or less academic, presented itself for practical settlement. In the territory from which hostile armies were reluctantly retiring there would be involved a great derangement in the administration of local civil law from the necessary displacement there of all officials heretofore acting in obedience to the Confederate States.

By other Union victories in the Spring of 1862 the same situation confronted the Federal Government in Arkansas, in North Carolina and in Louisiana. Indeed, this identical question arose as early as 1861 in Virginia and Missouri, but in the former the rebel government was abrogated by a delegate convention that restored a loyal government from which in due time sprang the separate State of West Virginia. In Missouri a lawfully chosen convention appointed a provisional government in sympathy with the Union. This subject, however, will be more conveniently discussed elsewhere.

When General Johnston received tidings of the disaster at Donelson he retired with his army to Murfreesboro, leaving Nashville, which he was unable to protect, a scene of panic and dismay, first advising Governor Harris to secure the public archives and convoke the Legislature elsewhere. It was in these circumstances that President Lincoln, on the same day, February 23, nominated, and the Senate, March 5, 1862, confirmed, Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee with the rank of brigadier-general. As the commission antedates the action of the Senate by two days the President, no doubt, consulted the leaders of that body relative to the contemplated nomination, and received assurance of its favorable consideration.

Nothing in any way connected with the appointment of Senator Johnson, who was destined to act so conspicuous a part in the important and difficult work of reconstruction, can fail to be of interest, and any account of the execution of his office would be incomplete without some observations on the nature of his commission of which the following is a copy:

War Department, March 3, 1862.

To the Hon. Andrew Johnson:

Sir: You are hereby appointed military governor of the State of Tennessee, with authority to exercise and perform, within the limits of that State, all and singular the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor, including the power to establish all necessary offices, tribunals, etc.

Edwin M. Stanton,

Secretary of War.[^[14]]

Quoting the essential part of this document a recent coöperative work has this comment: “The office [that of military governor] was new to the laws and history of the State and country. Its powers and duties were limited only by the will of one man, the occupant.”[^[15]] From the commission itself we derive our prime conception of both the nature of the office and the functions which it comprehended. The authority of the incumbent extended to the exercise, within the limits of Tennessee, of all “the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor.” Nothing in this language implies that the office was of recent creation. Nor is its nature to be discovered by a perusal of the supplemental authority contained in the President’s letter of September 19, 1863, to Governor Johnson, for the official conduct of the latter on his arrival in Nashville can not be seriously thought to have been influenced by instructions received nineteen months later. It is perfectly true, as Mr. Ira P. Jones, author of the chapter on Reconstruction in Tennessee, asserts, that the office of military governor had never been exercised within that State; but it is not a fact that it was new to the laws and history of the “country,” if by this indefinite expression he means the United States. During the war with Mexico the American people had been made familiar with military commissions and with military governors. Secretary Marcy prepared, June 3, 1846, for General Stephen W. Kearny the following instructions: “Should you conquer and take possession of New Mexico and Upper California, or considerable places in either, you will establish temporary civil governments therein.”[^[16]] To this direction general rules of conduct were added, and the letter authorized the assurance that “It is the wish and design of the United States to provide for them [the people of New Mexico] a free government with the least possible delay, similar to that which exists in our Territories.” By virtue of this authority General Kearny appointed Charles Bent governor of New Mexico. Mr. Polk in his Message of July 6, 1848, to Congress maintained that with the termination of war his power to establish temporary civil governments over New Mexico and California had ceased; the legality of their previous existence he justified by the law of nations. By cession to the United States, the government of Mexico no longer pretended to any control over them.[^[17]] President Polk, differing from other leaders of his party, held that “until Congress shall act, the inhabitants will be without any organized government.”[^[18]] But Congress, notwithstanding urgent appeals of the Executive, moved very deliberately in the matter of abolishing the office of military governor. In May, 1847, Colonel Richard B. Mason assumed the office of Governor and commander-in-chief of the United States forces in California. Two months after ratification of the treaty with Mexico he received notice of the fact, but no intimation that the civil government instituted by the President was discontinued. Without other instructions than an order to extend over California “the revenue laws and tariff of the United States” he, as well as his successor, General Riley, continued the existing government.

After affirming the legality of its institution the United States Supreme Court (Cross vs. Harrison, p. 193, 16 Howard) says that the existing government did not cease as a consequence of the restoration of peace; the President might have dissolved it, but he did not do so. Congress could have put an end to it, but that was not done. “The right inference from the inaction of both is, that it was meant to be continued until it had been legislatively changed.” In fact it was so continued until the people in convention formed a government, subsequently recognized by Congress, when California was admitted during the autumn of 1850 as a State.

The authority, then, of both political departments, as well as the more deliberate opinion of the judicial branch, of the General Government had established a precedent with which Mr. Lincoln was thoroughly familiar; for, by a singular coincidence, both he and Mr. Johnson were serving together in the Thirtieth Congress, which began its first session in December, 1847. They participated in, or were interested spectators of, all those stirring scenes that marked the beginning of one of the last legislative victories of slavery; so that this portion at least of American history was not strange to either the President or the Senator from Tennessee.

The question whether Tennessee was within or without the Union will be reserved for more ample discussion farther on; it is sufficient to observe here that its territory was held by an adverse party and its government hostile to the national authority. If the administration of Colonel Mason and his successor in California was not regarded by President Lincoln as a sufficient basis for his action there was still left an undoubted foundation. The appointment was deemed an element of strength to the Union forces operating in Tennessee, and, in this view, the act was entirely within the power of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States. Though its wisdom may be questioned and its results dismissed with a sneer, it was not a novelty nor can his admirers claim for Mr. Lincoln the merit of its invention; and if in its origin the office had a bearing on the extension, its present application was not wholly unconnected with the abolition of slavery. The remaining pages of this chapter and the two succeeding ones will be employed in tracing rapidly the operation of the system of military governors in those States in which it was seriously attempted to be enforced.

The movements of contending armies had already obliterated in many districts of Tennessee almost every trace of civil government, and when State officials hurried away to Memphis, where Governor Harris had reassembled the Legislature, they left behind them an uncontrolled mob which General Forrest found it necessary to charge with his cavalry to remove a portion of Confederate military stores that had not been distributed among the poor or perished in the prevailing anarchy.[^[19]] General Grant had already, on February 22, from Fort Donelson, issued an order that “no courts will be allowed to act under State authority, but all cases coming within reach of the military arm will be adjudicated by the authorities the Government has established within the State. Martial law is therefore declared to extend over West Tennessee.” The order added, “whenever a sufficient number of citizens return to their allegiance to maintain law and order over the territory, the military restriction here indicated will be removed.”[^[20]] Union troops under General Nelson having occupied the city on the 25th, Governor Johnson on his arrival, March 12, 1862, from his seat in the United States Senate was not under the necessity of employing the harsh discipline of General Forrest to restore order in the deserted capital. For this part of his career he was, however, severely censured by political adversaries in Tennessee. Detached from their historical settings, indeed, his acts could justly be described as tyrannical. But it is precisely these figures in the back-ground that are necessary to harmonize the whole and set before us in its proper light a truthful picture of the times. As his professions preceded his administrative acts it is proper to introduce this portion of the subject by quoting from a speech which he delivered in Nashville the evening after his arrival. Five days later, March 18, it was printed under the style of “An Appeal to the People” of Tennessee. After some general observations on the tranquil and prosperous existence of the State in the Union, and on the honors by which many of her sons had been distinguished, he noticed the fact that the very leaders of secession themselves had been the recipients of Federal bounty and patronage; had taken oaths to support the Constitution and yet labored to overturn Federal authority. Entering fairly upon his theme, he continued:

Meanwhile the State Government has disappeared. The Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is in abeyance. The great ship of State ... has been suddenly abandoned by its officers and mutinous crew, and left to float at the mercy of the winds, and to be plundered by every rover upon the deep.

Pausing to enumerate many acts of spoliation, he resumes:

In such a lamentable crisis the Government of the United States could not be unmindful of its high constitutional obligation to guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, an obligation which every State has a direct and immediate interest in having observed towards every other State.... This obligation the national Government is now attempting to discharge. I have been appointed, in the absence of the regular and established State authorities, as Military Governor for the time being, to preserve the public property of the State, to give the protection of law actively enforced to her citizens, and, as speedily as may be, to restore her government to the same condition as before the existing rebellion.

The “regular and established State authorities,” to whom Governor Johnson refers, were, of course, none other than those officials who administered affairs in Tennessee before the 6th of May. Of these some had actually abandoned their offices, while others had subordinated their functions to a power hostile to the constitution of the State. He proceeded:

These offices must be filled temporarily, until the State shall be restored so far to its accustomed quiet, that the people can peaceably assemble at the ballot-box and select agents of their own choice....

I shall, therefore, as early as practicable, designate for various positions under the State and county governments, from among my fellow-citizens, persons of probity and intelligence, and bearing true allegiance to the Constitution and Government of the United States, who will execute the functions of their respective offices until their places can be filled by the action of the people. Their authority, when their appointment shall have been made, will be accordingly respected and observed.... Those who through the dark and weary night of rebellion have maintained their allegiance to the Federal Government will be honored. The erring and misguided will be welcomed on their return. And while it may become necessary, in vindicating the violated majesty of the law, and in reasserting its imperial sway, to punish intelligent and conscious treason in high places, no merely retaliatory or vindictive policy will be adopted.[^[21]]

To all who in private and unofficial capacity had assumed an attitude of hostility to the Government amnesty was offered for all past acts and declarations upon condition of yielding obedience to the supremacy of the laws. This the Governor advised them to do. Though the “Appeal,” brief, clear and characterized by the best temper, is a state paper of decided merit, there were many classes still residing at the capital upon whom it made little impression. The mayor and the city council were ordered to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and on their refusal were imprisoned. Of the harshness of this measure it need only be observed that the essence of government is to govern, and had the new executive failed on this occasion to assert authority his administration would have been wrecked at the outset. For printing seditious matter the press was placed under restraint, and within a few months it was found necessary to punish with unusual severity, even ministers of the gospel. Clergymen, with a few exceptions, were not only hostile to the Union but actually encouraged treason from their pulpits. These offenders Governor Johnson summoned to take the oath of allegiance or to depart from the State. They appeared before him, as commanded to, refused compliance, but asked time for deliberation; this being granted, to the full extent desired, and still persisting in their refusal they were placed in confinement. That they were not proceeded against with undue haste appears from an entry in a diary kept by one of Governor Johnson’s biographers which fixes the date as June 28.[^[22]] Three months had fully elapsed since the arrival of Mr. Johnson before the ministers were punished for their seditious utterances. To prevent interference with his executive functions he sometimes imprisoned judges. Other measures no less arbitrary have been the subject of much criticism. He declared that whenever a loyal citizen was maltreated five or more sympathizers with the Rebellion should be arrested and dealt with as the nature of the case appeared to require. When the property of Union men was destroyed remuneration should be made them from the property of the disloyal. The President seems to have approved of these reprisals. Nothing more clearly shows the demoralized condition of society in Tennessee than the necessity of adopting measures similar to those employed eight centuries before by the Danish and Norman conquerors of England to protect their followers from private assassination by the natives. With the natural leaders of the people, including bankers, physicians and clergymen, encouraging treason, men of inferior intelligence and station could not be expected to remain peaceful and contented citizens, and as preachers of sedition seldom lack numerous and sympathetic audiences the spirit of lawlessness increased. The Governor himself was threatened with assassination in the public streets and in public meetings, but he set such menaces at defiance and on at least one occasion addressed an assembly with his pistol on a desk before him.

But the repression of the disloyal and the restoration of order by no means included the whole of his duties. Functions not less important remain to be noticed. To the duties of governor and general he added those of quartermaster and judge. Though thousands of loyal people flocked to him for arms and supplies, he proved equal to every demand, and from their number raised an army that did gallant service in the field. He fed, clothed and sheltered the poor without regard to the army in which their natural protectors were serving. Thus redressing grievances, relieving want and reinstating courts he worked with an intelligent and tireless energy, and when the timid prudence of General Buell would have allowed Nashville to fall into the hands of the enemy “the courage of Governor Johnson,” said a panegyrist, “stood a bulwark for its defence.”[^[23]] He had been scarcely three months in office when President Lincoln described him as “a true and valuable man, indispensable to us in Tennessee.” His zeal, his intense fidelity to the Union, his tremendous energy and undoubted courage peculiarly fitted him to rule in turbulent times. At the outset the only agencies left for the protection of life, liberty and property were force and arbitrary will; these he did not hesitate to employ.

The foregoing account does not notice his activity in another field. His ultimate object, the establishment of civil authority throughout Tennessee, was kept constantly in view. To prepare for this event he addressed in May, 1862, large assemblies at Nashville and Murfreesboro, and in June at Columbia and Shelbyville.[^[24]] This work, however, was brought suddenly to an end later in the summer by General Bragg’s raid into Kentucky.

From what has been related it appears, and the opinion will grow stronger with the progress of this narrative, that in appointing a military governor of Tennessee President Lincoln intended no more than to revive an office already known to the people of the United States; and though Mr. Johnson was expected ultimately to reinaugurate a loyal government throughout the State, his office was regarded primarily as an inexpensive means of holding territory wrested from, and assisting in military operations against, an enemy. Indeed, it is only in this view that his administration of the office can be regarded as a success, and that it was so considered in the North his nomination on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln is undoubted proof.

Besides several colored regiments, the records for 1863 show that 25,000 Tennesseeans were then serving in the Union army, and every succeeding month increased their number.[^[25]] That the political advantage to be gained by restoring a loyal government was not the only or even the principal purpose of the President may be fairly inferred from the following letter:

I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro military force. In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some man of your ability and position to go to this work. When I speak of your position, I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave state and himself a slaveholder. The colored population is the great available and yet un-availed of force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once; and who doubts that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? If you have been thinking of it, please do not dismiss the thought.[^[26]]

Besides supporting the view of the military governors taken above, this letter also makes it evident that the pressure of events had already convinced Mr. Lincoln that to save the Union it was necessary to possess the untrammeled use of every national resource.

As early as June 8, 1862, the State was included in the department of General Halleck, who ten days later was requested by Mr. Lincoln to report any information of value relative thereto. The thought of a movement into East Tennessee was in the mind of the President again on June 30, when he informed the commander that he regarded the possession of the railroad near Cleveland fully as important as the taking of Richmond. Halleck, concurring in this opinion, telegraphed Buell that “the capture of East Tennessee should be the main object of the campaign,” the department commander believing its occupation would put an end to guerrilla warfare both in that region and Kentucky.

The inactivity of General Rosecrans for six months after the battle of Murfreesboro left in the interior of the State a strong Confederate force whose presence discouraged all but the most pronounced loyalists; these, by means of meetings and speeches, kept a latent Union feeling alive. A convention, called by Brownlow, Maynard and others, was held at Nashville, July 1, 1863. Delegates were in attendance from forty counties; they took an oath of allegiance to the United States, and in a set of resolutions pronounced the various secession laws and ordinances void. Deeming it vitally important to choose a legislature, they invited Governor Johnson to issue writs of election as soon as expedient; with this request, however, he did not then think it prudent to comply.

Other eyes were observing with interest the progress of events within the State. General Hurlbut, writing from Memphis, August 11, 1863, relative to the political situation in Arkansas, said he was satisfied that Tennessee was “ready, by overwhelming majorities, to repeal the act of secession, establish a fair system of gradual emancipation, and tender herself back to the Union. I have discouraged [he said] any action on this subject here until East Tennessee is delivered. When that is done, so that her powerful voice may be heard, let Governor Johnson call an election for members of the Legislature, and that Legislature call a Convention, and in sixty days the work will be done.”[^[27]]

This desirable event was not long delayed, for by brilliant though bloodless victories both Knoxville and Chattanooga early in the following month were in possession of Federal armies. Then President Lincoln wrote his letter of September 11, which, because of its great importance, deserves to be reproduced in full:

All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need not to be reminded that it is the nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal State government. Not a moment should be lost. You and the coöperating friends there can better judge of the ways and means than can be judged by any here. I only offer a few suggestions. The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its friends there into political exile. The whole struggle for Tennessee will have been profitless to both State and nation if it so ends that Governor Johnson is put down and Governor Harris is put up. It must not be so. You must have it otherwise. Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for the Union. Exclude all others, and trust that your government so organized will be recognized here as being the one of republican form to be guaranteed to the State, and to be protected against invasion and domestic violence. It is something on the question of time to remember that it cannot be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do. I see that you have declared in favor of emancipation in Tennessee, for which may God bless you. Get emancipation into your new State Government—Constitution—and there will be no such word as fail for your case. The raising of colored troops, I think, will greatly help every way.[^[28]]

The reference in this communication to emancipation is explained by the fact that, in deference to the wishes of Andrew Johnson and other Tennessee loyalists, the President in his proclamation of January 1, 1863, had not mentioned that State.[^[29]]

Believing that his commission as military governor did not confer upon him powers adequate to every emergency that might arise in the important work of restoring a loyal government Mr. Johnson, to supply this deficiency, prepared a letter which he submitted for the approval of President Lincoln, who amended or modified it to read as follows:

In addition to the matters contained in the orders and instructions given you by the Secretary of War, you are hereby authorized to exercise such powers as may be necessary and proper to enable the loyal people of Tennessee to present such a republican form of State government as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor, and to be protected under such State government by the United States against invasion and domestic violence, all according to the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States.[^[30]]

This supplemental authority is dated September 19, and the private letter enclosing it informs Governor Johnson why his draft was altered.

It was about this time, while the President was thus urging Governor Johnson, that General Rosecrans, surrounded by a victorious enemy, inquired of Mr. Lincoln whether it would not be well “to offer a general amnesty to all officers and soldiers in the Rebellion?” In his reply next day the President, referring first, as was his wont, to the military situation, added, “I intend doing something like what you suggest whenever the case shall appear ripe enough to have it accepted in the true understanding rather than as a confession of weakness and fear.”[^[31]] The removal soon after of General Rosecrans from his command and the fortunate appearance at Chattanooga of those great soldiers of the first rank, Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, made at Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge the occasion which the President so much desired, and on December 8, 1863, he issued his famous Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, a copy of which was transmitted with his third annual message to Congress. The impression which its candid tone produces on the mind of a student to-day was the impression made at the time of its appearance upon thoughtful and enlightened men everywhere. Nicolay and Hay in an interesting chapter of their valuable history describe the satisfaction, and even enthusiasm, with which it was received by the adherents of all parties in Congress. This proclamation, around which the later controversy raged, was authorized by act of Congress approved July 17, 1862, which, among other provisions, empowered the President “at any time” thereafter “to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing Rebellion in any State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such time and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare.” The time for the exercise of this discretion Mr. Lincoln believed had now arrived. Like every measure conceived in his fruitful mind it had been maturely considered and was especially fortunate in being introduced by the concluding paragraphs of the message. The very note of sincerity itself rings in these weighty lines. Perhaps it was the suggestion of unuttered arguments that gave a temporary adherence to the Executive plan, which, we are told, was put forth because “It is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal State governments within and for their respective States.” The proclamation informed “all persons who have, directly or by implication, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in property cases where rights of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation.” This oath bound the subscriber thenceforth to “faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the union of the States thereunder”; to “abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves” unless repealed, modified or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court; to support “all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court.”

The classes excepted from the benefits of the amnesty were all persons “who are, or shall have been, civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called Confederate Government; all who have left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; all who are, or shall have been, military or naval officers of said so-called Confederate Government above the rank of colonel in the army or lieutenant in the navy; all who left seats in the United States Congress to aid the rebellion; all who resigned commissions in the Army or Navy of the United States and afterward aided the rebellion; and all who have engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which persons may have been found in the United States service, as soldiers, seamen, or in any other capacity.”[^[32]]

The proclamation provided further that whenever, in any of the States in rebellion, “a number of persons, not less than one tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the presidential election” of 1860, “each having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall reëstablish a State government which shall be republican, and in nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the Constitutional provision which declares that ‘The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.’”

Any provision adopted by such State relative to its freed people “which shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not be objected to by the national executive.” In constructing a loyal government in any State, it was thought not improper to suggest that “the name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those framing the new State government.”

To avoid every occasion of misunderstanding it was expressly stated that the proclamation “has no reference to States wherein loyal State governments have all the while been maintained.” The President disclaimed any authority to admit members to seats in Congress, each House being “the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members.”[^[33]]

In conclusion it was observed that “while the mode presented is the best the executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable.”[^[34]]

To get an enrollment of those willing to take the oath prescribed in the amnesty proclamation the President, about the middle of January, 1864, sent an agent to Tennessee, as he had already sent one to Louisiana and to Arkansas. About the same time Governor Johnson himself was considering the subject of reconstruction; and on the 21st, to begin proceedings, called a public meeting at Nashville. It was on this occasion that he said: “Treason must be made odious, traitors must be punished and impoverished;” slavery he pronounced dead and declared that reconstruction must leave it out of view. The meeting, which was largely attended, adopted resolutions recommending a constitutional convention and pledged support of only those candidates who favored immediate and universal emancipation. The Governor, however, was cautious, and, January 26, 1864, issued a call for an election, on the first Saturday of March following, for the choice of only county officers.

The ex-Confederate and the loyalist having been placed by the amnesty proclamation on an equal footing, some dissatisfaction was aroused among unconditional Union men. To retain the confidence of this class and to set at rest the hostile feeling thus excited in the State, Governor Johnson framed the oath of allegiance more stringently than Mr. Lincoln had done. This variance occasioned discussion and delay and brought inquiries and protests to the President, who, to prevent confusion, telegraphed, February 20, 1864, Warren Jordan, of Nashville, as follows:

In county elections you had better stand by Governor Johnson’s plan; otherwise you will have conflict and confusion. I have seen his plan.[^[35]]

A week later he assured the Hon. E. H. East, Secretary of State for Tennessee, that

There is no conflict between the oath of amnesty in my proclamation of eighth December, 1863, and that prescribed by Governor Johnson in his proclamation of the twenty-sixth ultimo.[^[36]]

While it is perfectly true that no discrepancy existed between the proclamation of the President and that of the military governor, the latter required an additional test. This the communication to Mr. East does not discuss.

To avoid, however, any possible mischief from this source Mr. Lincoln, March 26, issued a supplemental proclamation which explained that the amnesty applied only to “persons who being yet at large and free from any arrest, confinement, or duress, shall voluntarily come forward and take the said oath, with the purpose of restoring peace and establishing the national authority.”[^[37]] Prisoners excluded from the amnesty offered in the proclamation of December 8, like all other offenders, might apply to the executive for clemency and have their applications receive due consideration. This oath, it was made known, could be taken before any commissioned officer of the United States, civil, military or naval, or before any officer authorized to administer oaths, in a State or Territory not in insurrection. Such officers were empowered to give certificates thereon to persons by whom the oath was taken and subscribed. The original records, after transmission to the Department of State, were to be there deposited and to remain in the Government archives. The Secretary of State was required to keep a register of such oaths and upon application to issue certificates in proper cases in the customary form.

Meanwhile an election, the returns of which are extremely meagre, had been held on March 5 for the choice of county officers. Though the event was not without influence in confirming the faith of Unionists, it was chiefly of value in attracting the attention of the disloyal to the chances afforded by the proclamation of rehabilitating themselves in their former political rights. The result, however, was not so favorable as was expected by Governor Johnson or the President, and reconstruction in Tennessee once more sank to rest. From this condition it was again revived by the irrepressible Union men of the State. The East Tennessee convention of 1861, by appointing a permanent committee, had kept its organization alive. In April or May, 1864, this body called a convention at Knoxville to discuss reconstruction. Of this gathering one element favored the Crittenden Resolutions; the other, immediate emancipation. Probably it was this antagonism that prevented further action. The next we hear is that Brownlow and others signed a call for a second convention, which was held at Nashville on September 5. In this body forty or fifty counties were represented, some of them irregularly; that is, by volunteer delegates. This assembly recommended the election of a constitutional convention, the abolition of slavery in the State, and provided for taking part in the approaching Presidential election. The programme, however, was only partially carried out. On September 30, Governor Johnson issued a proclamation for holding the election, at which Union voters, so far as the unsettled condition of military operations permitted, cast their ballots for electors of President and Vice-President. It does not appear that in this election any attempt was made to choose a governor, a legislature or a constitutional convention; but that which met in July, 1863, constituted an executive committee, composed of five members from each division of the State, which after the Presidential election issued calls for a State convention at Nashville, December 19, 1864. “The people meet,” said the call, “to take such steps as wisdom may direct to restore the State of Tennessee to its once honored status in the great national Union.

“If you cannot meet in your counties, come upon your own personal responsibility. It is the assembling of Union men for the restoration of their own commonwealth to life and a career of success.”[^[38]]

Hood’s advance upon Nashville preventing a response to this address, the convention did not meet till January 9, 1865. The enemy had then been dispersed. The State being free from further alarms of war, the convention met and proposed important alterations in the State constitution.

The first article provided: “That slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are hereby forever abolished and prohibited throughout the State”; also that “The legislature shall make no law recognizing the right of property in man.” The old constitution of Tennessee prohibited the assembly from passing laws to emancipate slaves without the consent of the owner; that prohibition was now removed. “The declaration of independence and ordinance dissolving the federal relations between the State of Tennessee and the United States of America,” passed by the Legislature, May 6, 1861, was abrogated and declared “an act of treason and usurpation, unconstitutional, null and void.” All laws, ordinances, and resolutions of the usurped State government passed on and after the 6th day of May, 1861, providing for the issuance of State bonds; also all notes of the Bank of Tennessee or any of its branches issued on or after May 6, 1861, and all debts created in the name of the State by said authority were declared unconstitutional, null and void. Future legislatures were restrained from the redemption of said bonds. It was further provided that “The qualification of voters and the limitation of the elective franchise may be determined by the general assembly, which shall first assemble under the amended constitution.”

The convention completed its labors on January 26, 1865. The amendatory articles were submitted, February 22, to the people, and ratified by a vote of 21,104 to 40. The schedule provided in the event of ratification that the loyal people of the State should, on the 4th of March next thereafter, proceed by general ticket to elect a governor and members to the general assembly to meet in the capitol at Nashville on the first Monday of April, 1865.

A proclamation of Governor Johnson, issued on January 26, referred to the respectable character of the convention and commended its wisdom in submitting for the approval of the electors the result of its deliberations. His executive powers had been employed to enable the people freely to express their judgment on the grave question before them. Provision, he declared, would be made to collect the sentiments of loyal Tennesseeans in the army. The paper concludes with this vigorous exhortation: “Strike down at one blow the institution of slavery, remove the disturbing element from your midst, and by united action restore the State to its ancient moorings again, and you may confidently expect the speedy return of peace, happiness, and prosperity.”[^[39]]

About a month later, February 25, he had the happiness to congratulate the people of Tennessee on the favorable result of the election. By their solemn act at the ballot-box the shackles had been stricken from the limbs of more than 275,000 bondmen.

The convention which proposed the constitutional amendments had, in anticipation of its ratification, nominated William G. [“Parson”] Brownlow for Governor, and recommended a full legislative ticket. The nominee of the convention was chosen March 4, almost without opposition, receiving 23,352 votes against 35 scattering. Having been elected on a general ticket the members of both the Senate and House of Representatives received the same support as the Governor. The Legislature met at Nashville, and in a few days thereafter Mr. Brownlow was inaugurated. Civil administration was thus formally begun.

That the successive steps to restoration in Tennessee may be easily traced, the narrative has not been interrupted to relate even matters of undoubted importance. Almost a year before the occurrences described, the Republican national convention had assembled in the city of Baltimore, and on June 6, 1864, unanimously nominated Andrew Johnson for Vice-President on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln. Tidings of the fact aroused great enthusiasm when it became known in Nashville. In addressing an immense meeting called for that occasion Governor Johnson, among other things, said: “While society is in this disordered state, and we are seeking security, let us fix the foundations of our government on principles of eternal justice, which will endure for all time. There are those in our midst who are for perpetuating the institution of slavery. Let me say to you, Tennesseeans, and men from the Northern States, that slavery is dead. It was not murdered by me. I told you long ago what the result would be if you endeavored to go out of the Union to save slavery; and that the result would be bloodshed, rapine, devastated fields, plundered villages and cities; and therefore I urged you to remain in the Union. In trying to save slavery you killed it, and lost your own freedom.”[^[40]]

In his letter to Hon. William Dennison, accepting the nomination, he wrote:

The authority of the Government is supreme, and will admit of no rivalry. No institution can rise above it whether it be slavery or any organized power. In our happy form of government all must be subordinate to the will of the people, when reflected through the Constitution and the laws made pursuant thereto—State or Federal. This great principle lies at the foundation of every government, and cannot be disregarded without the destruction of the government itself.

In accepting the nomination I might here close, but I cannot forego the opportunity of saying to my old friends of the Democratic party proper, with whom I have so long and pleasantly been associated, that the hour has now come when that great party can justly vindicate its devotion to true democratic policy and measures of expediency. The war is a war of great principles. It involves the supremacy and life of the Government itself. If the rebellion triumphs, free government—North and South—fails. If, on the other hand, the Government is successful, as I do not doubt, its destiny is fixed, its basis permanent and enduring, and its career of honor and glory just begun. In a great contest like this, for the existence of free government, the path of duty is patriotism and principle. Minor considerations and questions of administrative policy should give way to the higher duty of first preserving the Government, and then there will be time enough to wrangle over the men and measures pertaining to its administration.[^[41]]

For reasons at which Mr. Lincoln hinted in his letter of March 26, 1863, few men in Congress exerted in the beginning of the war so decided an influence upon public opinion in the North as did Mr. Johnson. His conduct as military governor in no way diminished this popularity. His courage in that trying position no less than his devotion to the interests of the Union won him ardent admirers in every loyal State.

Vice-President Hamlin appears to have been the victim of an intrigue which represented him as being no material source of strength to the government and as scarcely loyal to the administration. This injurious suspicion, which seems to have had no substantial basis in truth, happened to coincide with a growing conviction that the Republican party should strengthen itself by placing on the ticket with Lincoln some prominent leader of the opposition. In this connection the names of General Butler, John A. Dix, Daniel S. Dickinson and Andrew Johnson were mentioned. The last named was charged in his administration of the office of military governor with harshness and even with oppression. Investigation proved these rumors to be without foundation, and Mr. Lincoln was not displeased to find them groundless. It does not appear that he was especially favorable to Johnson, but he regarded him as indispensable to the Union cause in Tennessee; Johnson was a slave-holder, was somewhat more outspoken than Butler or Dix, and a more conspicuous representative of the large class known as War Democrats; above all he was an able exponent of Southern Union sentiment and he came from the very heart of the Confederacy. Perhaps no single element of strength made him more acceptable to the majority of the convention than this last consideration. Even these qualifications might not have singled him out for the distinction conferred were it not for the enthusiasm created by a remarkable speech of Horace Maynard, which mentioned Mr. Johnson as a man who “stood in the furnace of treason.” His administration as military governor had been distinguished for vigor and ability, and it does not appear that the radical Republicans then regarded his State without the Union. Some of his measures were undoubtedly severe, but the peculiar situation in Tennessee required the employment of methods not adapted to times of peace. Mr. Lincoln could not, of course, show his hand in the Baltimore convention. In fact he repeatedly declined to interfere.[^[42]]

On October 15, 1864, the ten electors on the McClellan ticket presented through Mr. John Lellyett, one of their number, a protest to the President against the proclamation published by Governor Johnson relative to the pending election. His paper, they asserted, contained provisions for holding elections which differed materially from the mode prescribed by the laws of Tennessee. The proclamation, it was alleged, would admit persons to vote who were not entitled by the State constitution to participate in the election; by another provision which authorized the opening of but one polling-place in each county, many legal voters would be unable to exercise the franchise. The unusual and impracticable test oath proposed, was stated as a further grievance, and they complained generally of military interference with the freedom of elections. To their representations Mr. Lincoln replied orally that General McClellan and his friends could manage their side of the contest in their own way. He could manage his side of it in his way.[^[43]] In a written reply of the 22d, however, the President said that he perceived no military reason for interfering in the matter, and on the same occasion reminded the protestants that the conducting of a Presidential election in Tennessee under the old code had become an impossibility.[^[44]]

In their reply to the written communication of the President, they asserted that an orderly meeting of General McClellan’s friends had been broken up by Union soldiers, and a reign of terror inaugurated in Nashville. These acts having been countenanced by Governor Johnson, they announced the withdrawal of the McClellan electoral ticket in Tennessee.[^[45]]

In these circumstances the Union electors were, of course, chosen; but their votes, though offered, were not counted by Congress in the joint convention of February 8, 1865, for the reason that Tennessee was on November 8 preceding in such a state that no free election was held.[^[46]]

II
LOUISIANA

The first movement toward reconstruction in Louisiana, as in the case of Tennessee, was bound up with the war powers of the President, and, no doubt, was made with some expectation of aiding his military plans. The thought of restoring a loyal government there proceeded quite naturally from the peculiar situation in the State. Though not so nearly unanimous for secession as South Carolina, her people acted with energy and promptness when they received tidings of “this last insult and outrage,” as the election of Mr. Lincoln was sensationally styled.[^[47]] Three days were deemed sufficient for deliberation, and the convention, January 25, 1861, passed an ordinance of secession. Two weeks before this assembly met at Baton Rouge, the arsenal and the forts, a public building and a revenue cutter had been seized by State troops from New Orleans. In the mint and the custom house of that city more than half a million dollars was secured for the Confederate States, and in accepting these funds the Montgomery Congress expressed its “high sense of the patriotic liberality” of Louisiana.[^[48]] This act of generosity, however, loses much of its merit when it is remembered that both the coin and bullion in the mint, as well as the customs, belonged to the Federal government. Besides, there was then no scarcity of money in the State, for Northern enterprise had found for her cotton and her sugar profitable markets both at home and abroad. It was benefits of this sort, enjoyed in the Union, that enabled Governor Moore in January, 1861, to report to his Legislature an overflowing treasury.[^[49]] This undoubted prosperity served only to aggravate the war fever. Enthusiasm in New Orleans was only less ardent and general than in Charleston. Business was almost suspended, and by the first of June no less than 16,000 residents of Louisiana were serving in the Confederate army.[^[50]]

President Lincoln’s proclamation of April 19 preceding had inaugurated a blockade of every port within the State. The early days of July witnessed the disappearance of Governor Moore’s boasted surplus, and during the summer New Orleans became bankrupt;[^[51]] her foreign commerce was destroyed by the blockade, her credit had vanished. Though enlistments continued without interruption, signs of financial distress multiplied with the approach of winter. Rebellion, it was soon discovered, was not attended with unmixed blessings; bad government had produced its usual consequences, and when Governor Taylor, late in the summer of 1862, undertook to raise an army for the defence of his State he was surprised at the universal apathy; neglect and disaster had brought disunionists to a condition little short of hostility to the Richmond government.[^[52]]

Union men in southern Louisiana had not been unobservant of these signs; permanent residents of this portion of the State had, for the most part, maintained their loyalty to the General Government. Indeed, a decided majority of them in the election of 1860 had voted for Bell and Douglas, and though here, as elsewhere in the South, ardent secessionists were found, the proceedings in the convention took the Union men by surprise.[^[53]] In the interval they had refrained from violence, but had not become reconciled to oppression.

The importance of New Orleans to their cause had not been overlooked by Confederate authorities, and that city was held firmly in their grasp until the fleet of Captain Farragut, toward the close of April, 1862, steamed up in hostile array before its defences. The occupation by General Butler’s army of this strategic position ended in southern Louisiana the activity of the more extreme secessionists, and though some restlessness at the presence of Federal forces was pretended by even Union men, they had not until the surrender made any serious effort to help themselves. Under protection of the army, however, they commenced immediately to form Union associations for the purpose of developing the loyal sentiment in this part of the State. Resolutions recommending an election were passed by these organizations; newspapers discussed the question, and in various ways it was forced upon the attention of the President.[^[54]] The more prudent and intelligent among them began under encouragement of Federal troops to consider measures for relief; the less practical commenced writing complaints to friends in the North.

In a private letter of July 26, 1862, to Hon. Reverdy Johnson, then in New Orleans investigating General Butler’s relations with foreign consuls, Mr. Lincoln, noticing a reference to the restlessness of the people under the rule of General Phelps, asks the Maryland Senator to pardon him for believing the complaint “a false pretense.” A way to avert the inconveniences arising from military occupation was for the people of Louisiana “simply to take their place in the Union upon the old terms.”[^[55]] Writing two days later to Cuthbert Bullett, a Southern gentleman who appears to have enjoyed his personal esteem and confidence, the President, after mentioning difficulties in the way of establishing civil authority in the State, suggested a method of avoiding them: “The people of Louisiana who wish protection to person and property,” he wrote, “have but to reach forth their hands and take it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate the national authority, and set up a State government conforming thereto under the Constitution. They know how to do it, and can have the protection of the army while doing it. The army will be withdrawn so soon as such State government can dispense with its presence; and the people of the State can then, upon the old constitutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking.”[^[56]] If, however, Union men exerted themselves no further than criticism of the Federal Government, it was more than intimated that there were to be expected greater injuries than military necessity had yet inflicted.

The pressure of events appears even then to have been forcing the President in the direction of emancipation. To August Belmont, of New York, who enclosed the complaints of a New Orleans correspondent, Mr. Lincoln, July 31, 1862, repeated in substance what had already been written to Mr. Bullett, and added: “Those enemies must understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy the government, and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt. If they expect in any contingency to ever have the Union as it was, I join with the writer [Mr. Belmont’s correspondent] in saying, ‘Now is the time.’”[^[57]]

The appointment in August, 1862, of General George F. Shepley as military governor may be regarded as the first act in the restoration of a loyal government for Louisiana. His selection, though probably intended as a private commendation of the judgment of General Butler, who had already designated him as Mayor of New Orleans, was never considered by that officer adequate atonement for the public censure implied in his removal, December, 1862, from command of the Department of the Gulf.

Upon the Federal occupation of New Orleans and adjacent territory all functions of the disloyal government therein immediately ceased. As controversies were constantly arising the establishment of courts had become a necessity. At first these questions were for the most part adjudicated by General Butler himself, but the pressure of military and other affairs compelled him soon to refer their settlement to civilians or to army officers especially chosen for the purpose. This uncertain system of justice, though immeasurably better than none, led to the institution of courts each of which was known by the name of the officer holding it. Accused persons were brought to trial, and judgments executed by soldiers detailed for such duty. No formal record of proceedings in these tribunals appears to have been kept, though memoranda of judgments rendered were, no doubt, made by an officer who came eventually to be designated as clerk.

For the decision of questions relating exclusively to the force under his command General Butler some time in June, 1862, organized a tribunal known as the Provost Court of the Army of the United States, over which Major Joseph M. Bell presided. Questions in no way connected with the military, especially matters of police and the punishment of crimes, were often submitted for its determination. Aggrieved persons, without reflecting upon the consequence of their acts, naturally appealed for redress to the holder of power. Thus the authority of this institution silently extended, and by the autumn of 1862 it exercised unquestioned jurisdiction over all criminal cases arising in the city of New Orleans.[^[58]] In the absence of courts for adjudicating civil questions they, too, were referred to its consideration. All functions of government having been suspended by the capture of the city, it became the duty of the Federal commander, and his right by the laws of war, to provide, among other things, for the administration of justice.

One of the early acts of General Shepley after his appointment as Military Governor was to establish a system of courts for the State. Most of the former officials having fled after the surrender, he was compelled practically to create new tribunals, and this task he greatly simplified by reviving those institutions of justice with which the people of Louisiana were already familiar. John S. Whittaker was accordingly appointed Judge of the Second District Court of the parish of Orleans. Besides possessing in civil matters the ordinary powers of a local court the old tribunal of that name had been a court of probates and successions. The new exercised all the powers of the old court. It should be remembered, however, that the latter derived its authority from the laws of Louisiana, while the former owed its existence to the war powers of the Federal Executive. Its jurisdiction extended to civil cases generally where the defendant resided in the parish of Orleans or was a non-resident of the State.[^[59]]

Judge Hiestand was appointed to the bench of the Fourth District Court of the parish of Orleans. Besides possessing the general authority of other district courts in that parish it entertained appeals from justices’ courts; indeed, these constituted a large part of its business.[^[60]]

The Sixth District Court of the parish of Orleans, revived soon after the capture of the city, is, because of the incumbent of that bench, Judge Rufus K. Howell, of greater interest than either of the preceding. Under a commission received from the State of Louisiana before its attempted secession he continued to preside over that tribunal while the disunion party ruled New Orleans, and performed his functions up to the very hour of its surrender to the Federal authorities. Having early taken the oath of allegiance to the national Government he was permitted to resume his functions.[^[61]] Like the tribunals mentioned, this court retained and exercised all the powers that it possessed as originally constituted.

These courts, instituted during September and October, 1862, entered upon the discharge of their duties about the 1st of November following. They were the only tribunals of civil jurisdiction in Louisiana, and that jurisdiction was limited, as against defendants resident of the State, to citizens of the parish of Orleans. As to inhabitants beyond the limits of that parish there was no court in which they could be sued. Though the Federal forces held several counties in this condition, their tenure fluctuated with the fortunes of war. A court was therefore needed whose jurisdiction would expand with the advance, and contract with the retreat, of the Union armies. The Provost Court was not deemed adequate, and indeed was never designed to meet such contingencies. To supply this deficiency a tribunal of very extensive powers, designated as “a court of record for the State of Louisiana,” was constituted by Executive order on October 20. Of this flexible institution Charles A. Peabody, of New York, a friend of Secretary Seward, was made provisional judge. Besides being empowered to select a prosecuting attorney, a marshal and a clerk, and to make rules for the exercise of his jurisdiction, he was authorized “to hear, try and determine all causes, civil and criminal, including causes in law, equity, revenue and admiralty, and particularly all such powers and jurisdiction as belong to the District and Circuit Courts of the United States, conforming his proceedings, so far as possible, to the course of proceedings and practice which has been customary in the Courts of the United States and Louisiana—his judgment to be final and conclusive.” These officers were to be paid out of the contingent fund of the War Department, and a copy of the Executive order, certified by the Secretary of War, was “held to be a sufficient commission” for the Judge.

This institution, made up as to its personnel in the North, was sent from New York with the great expedition of General Banks constituted and organized for immediate business to Louisiana. Though Judge Peabody, accompanied by Augustus de B. Hughes, Isaac Edward Clarke and George D. Lamont, who had been chosen, respectively, clerk, marshal and prosecuting attorney, arrived in New Orleans December 15, 1862, the opening of court was delayed till the 29th of that month by a change of administration in that Department.[^[62]]

In addition to the tribunals described many other courts were established about this time; of these the Supreme Court of Louisiana is the only one which appears to require especial mention. In former times under the State judicial system appeals had lain to this institution, and it was accordingly held that decisions of the courts now created were subject to its revision. In this manner many of their judgments were stayed and in suspense, so that the new district courts were of little practical benefit. The necessity of a tribunal to remedy this deficiency and adjudicate the accumulated cases of former years soon became apparent, and in April, 1863, Mr. Peabody was appointed Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court; associated with him on this bench were judges chosen from among the people of Louisiana.

Nearly a week before his appointment of Judge Peabody, Mr. Lincoln, by the hand of Hon. John E. Bouligny, who had not left his seat in the House of Representatives when Southern delegations withdrew from Congress, sent to General Butler, Governor Shepley and other Federal officers having authority under the United States in Louisiana a communication requesting each of them to assist Mr. Bouligny in his effort to secure “peace again upon the old terms under the Constitution of the United States.”[^[63]] This desirable end was to be attained by the election of “members to the Congress of the United States particularly, and perhaps a legislature, State officers, and United States senators friendly to their object.” Federal officers were instructed to give the people a chance to express their wishes at these elections. “Follow forms of law,” wrote the President, “as far as convenient, but at all events get the expression of the largest number of the people possible. All see how such action will connect with and affect the proclamation of September 22. Of course the men elected should be gentlemen of character, willing to swear support to the Constitution, as of old, and known to be above reasonable suspicion of duplicity.”[^[64]]

Loyal leaders, believing that Northern men holding office under the General Government in Louisiana would be set up as candidates, communicated their fears to the President, who sent to Governor Shepley a fortnight before the election a letter of which the essential portion is as follows:

We do not particularly need members of Congress from there to enable us to get along with legislation here. What we do want is the conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are willing to be members of Congress and to swear support to the Constitution and that other respectable citizens there are willing to vote for them and send them. To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really so), at the point of the bayonet, would be disgusting and outrageous; and were I a member of Congress here, I would vote against admitting any such man to a seat.[^[65]]

The note of sincerity is unmistakable throughout, and in those Representatives and Senators opposed to Executive policy the concluding sentences especially must have excited strange emotions when they re-read in after years their impassioned attacks in Congress upon that dark spirit who, it was gravely alleged, labored with might unquestioned to subordinate the Legislative branch of Government.

The Union associations referred to appointed committees who waited upon General Shepley and demanded an election. This he hesitated to call until considerable pressure had first been exerted. The sentiments of the President concurring with the local feeling in New Orleans, Shepley finally yielded, and on November 14, 1862, issued a proclamation for an election to be held December 3d following. This election, in the language of his proclamation, was ordered “for the purpose of securing to the loyal electors” of both the First and Second Congressional Districts “their appropriate and lawful representation in the House of Representatives of the United States of America, and of enabling them to avail themselves of the benefits secured by the proclamation of the President of the United States to the people of any State, or part of a State, who shall on the first day of January next be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State have participated.”[^[66]]

In addition to the qualifications prescribed by the laws of Louisiana, General Shepley required each elector to take an oath of allegiance to the United States, and from among the old and respected citizens of the State appointed sheriffs and commissioners of election, who performed their duties to the entire satisfaction of both candidates and voters. The army, for reasons given above, refrained from all manner of interference, and no Federal office-holder was a nominee.

For the first time in many years, it was admitted, every qualified elector might freely cast his ballot without fear of intimidation or violence. In a total of 2,643 votes Benjamin F. Flanders was chosen, with little opposition, for the First, and Michael Hahn, by a safe majority, for the Second Congressional District. A larger vote was actually cast for Flanders than had been received by his predecessor, and in both districts 7,760 citizens, or about half the usual number, appeared at the polls. When it is remembered that four thousand soldiers who enlisted in Butler’s army from this part of the State did not participate in the contest, that many citizens from this section were serving in the Confederate army and that not a few Union men were exiles in the North or in Europe the vote in this election was by no means light.

With credentials signed by Governor Shepley, Messrs. Hahn and Flanders appeared in Washington as claimants for seats in Congress. After a thorough investigation of the election and several ingenious arguments in opposition both were admitted, February 17, 1863, though not without considerable misgiving, as Representatives for the remainder of the term, which expired March 3 following. For their exclusion the opposition relied mainly upon these grounds:

First. The election, it was asserted, was brought about by a threat of interference with slave property if the State was not represented in Congress by January 1, 1863; this was a measure of coercion, and the compliance of citizens in appearing at the polls was ascribed to selfish motives rather than to loyal and patriotic sentiments.

Second. The existence of any vacancy in a constitutional sense was at least doubtful; and even if vacancies existed in these districts the authority of a military governor to call an election was denied.

Third. It was objected that Governor Shepley had dispensed with the registry required by law and had empowered commissioners of election to decide upon the qualifications of voters; finally, by requiring an oath of allegiance to the United States, he had imposed upon electors a test unknown to the laws of Louisiana.[^[67]]

While the cases of Messrs. Hahn and Flanders were pending the edict of freedom had gone forth, for the President, as announced in his preliminary proclamation of September 22, had declared, January 1, 1863, “as a fit and necessary war measure,” that “all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States, are and henceforward shall be free.”[^[68]] Louisiana was named as one of the States in rebellion. From the operation of this measure, however, the city of New Orleans and thirteen parishes of the State were excepted.

The admission, February 17, of Hahn and Flanders gave new life to the political reorganization of the State.[^[69]] But with this revival of interest there was discovered among the supporters of the Federal Government a difference of opinion as to the best course to be pursued in the circumstances. This division of sentiment arose concerning the wisdom of retaining slavery in those parishes not included in the President’s proclamation. The Union associations, each appointing five delegates, organized what they termed a Free State General Committee with Thomas J. Durant as president. This body, holding anti-slavery views and assuming that rebellion had destroyed the fundamental law, took measures to elect delegates to a general convention for the purpose of framing a new constitution prohibiting slavery. Their plan was approved by General Shepley, who, June 12, 1863, appointed Mr. Durant Attorney-General for the State, with power to act as commissioner of registration.[^[70]] He was ordered on the same day to make an enrollment of all free white male citizens of the United States having resided six months in the State and one month in the parish, who should each take the oath of allegiance and register “as a voter freely and voluntarily for the purpose of organizing a State government in Louisiana, loyal to the Government of the United States.”[^[71]]

The conservative element, though less active, was by no means indifferent to these measures, and sent to Washington a committee of planters to consult the President. They represented in a communication to him that they had “been delegated to seek of the General Government a full recognition of all the rights of the State as they existed previous to the passage of an act of secession, upon the principle of the existence of the State constitution unimpaired, and no legal act having transpired that could in any way deprive them of the advantages conferred by that constitution.” They further requested him to direct the Military Governor to order an election on the first Monday of November following for all State and Federal officers.[^[72]] To this committee, composed of E. E. Malhiot, Bradish Johnson and Thomas Cottman, Mr. Lincoln, under date of June 19, 1863, replied “that a respectable portion of the Louisiana people desired to amend their State constitution, and contemplated holding a State convention for that object. This fact alone, as it seems to me, is a sufficient reason why the General Government should not give the committal you seek to the existing State constitution. I may add that while I do not perceive how such committal could facilitate our military operations in Louisiana, I really apprehend it might be so used as to embarrass them.”[^[73]]

It is evident, when we recall the letter of July 26, 1862, to Reverdy Johnson, that the President, then only contemplating emancipation, had, since his proclamation had gone forth, taken much more advanced ground.[^[74]] The army was still his main reliance, and the wisdom of restoring a loyal government as well as the method of that restoration was regarded favorably or otherwise as it appeared to facilitate or embarrass military operations.

Relative to an election in November he said, “There is abundant time without any order or proclamation from me just now.” Though their request was courteously denied, he assured the committee that the people of Louisiana should not lack an opportunity for a fair election for both Federal and State officers by want of anything within his power to give them.[^[75]]

The political reorganization of the State was at this point interrupted by the absence at Port Hudson of General N. P. Banks, then in command of the Department of the Gulf. So energetic and successful was the Confederate General Taylor that by July 10, when he received intelligence of the fall of Port Hudson and the surrender of Vicksburg, his mounted scouts had been pushed to within sixteen miles of New Orleans.[^[76]] The surrender in these strongholds of more than 40,000 men was a crushing blow to the Richmond Government; enough troops were disengaged by these victories to overwhelm the enemy that menaced New Orleans, and General Taylor hurriedly concentrated his army in the valley of the Red River to observe the movements of the Federal commander. The Union picket line marked at this time the bounds of Governor Shepley’s civil jurisdiction; indeed, it was not greatly extended until the surrender of General E. Kirby Smith late in May, 1865, after the engagement at Brazos. Eastern Louisiana, with Alabama and Mississippi, had passed a few weeks earlier under Federal control.

The great numbers withdrawn from production in the South combined with a rigorous enforcement of the blockade had occasioned a cotton famine in the markets of the world. To relieve this condition an outlet was sought for the abundant crops of the Red River country; and this fact was probably, not without considerable influence, in determining the course of the expedition into Texas, which was intended to accomplish a very different though scarcely less important purpose.

Though the vigilance of Mr. Adams, United States Minister to England, was rewarded by the abandonment in that country of any further attempt to build cruisers of the Alabama type, the Confederate naval agent by no means despaired of dealing still severer blows to the commerce of the North, and, attracted by promises which appear to have been authorized by the ruler of France, changed his field of activity from Liverpool to Bordeaux, where a ship-builder was engaged to construct two formidable rams. With the attempts to get these under the Confederate flag this essay is not concerned.[^[77]] French interests in Mexico appeared at that time to require the cultivation of friendly relations with what some European States believed was destined to become a new power among the nations of the world; hence Napoleon’s encouragement to the Confederate representatives abroad. This situation was so seriously regarded by the Government at Washington that even at considerable sacrifice it was determined to plant the Union flag somewhere in Texas. To effect this object General Banks had considered and submitted to the War Department plans of his own; these, however, appear to have been reluctantly abandoned because of repeated instructions from General Halleck, and the movement toward Shreveport in the spring and early summer of 1864 was begun. From the protracted and envenomed controversy to which it gave rise among the officers on both sides its disastrous ending is familiar to all.[^[78]]

While this joint land and naval expedition was yet in contemplation Mr. Lincoln found time to inform the Federal commander of his opinions respecting the establishment of a civil government in Louisiana. In his letter of August 5, 1863, to General Banks he wrote:

While I very well know what I would be glad for Louisiana to do, it is quite a different thing for me to assume direction of the matter. I would be glad for her to make a new constitution recognizing the emancipation proclamation, and adopting emancipation in those parts of the State to which the proclamation does not apply. And while she is at it, I think it would not be objectionable for her to adopt some practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of the old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new. Education for young blacks should be included in the plan. After all, the power or element of “contract” may be sufficient for this probationary period; and, by its simplicity and flexibility, may be the better.

As an anti-slavery man, I have a motive to desire emancipation which pro-slavery men do not have; but even they have strong enough reason to thus place themselves again under the shield of the Union; and to thus perpetually hedge against the recurrence of the scenes through which we are now passing.

He expressed his approval of the registry which he supposed Mr. Durant was making with a view to an election for a constitutional convention, the work of which, he hoped, would reach Washington by the meeting of Congress in December. Before concluding this letter he added: “For my own part, I think I shall not, in any event, retract the emancipation proclamation; nor, as executive, ever return to slavery any person who is freed by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress.”[^[79]]

He again invites attention to the fact that if Louisiana should send members to Congress their admission would depend upon the respective Houses and not to any extent upon the wishes of the Executive.

Copies of this communication he intended to send to Hahn, Flanders and Durant. Three months later, when the gentleman last named informed him that nothing had yet been done toward the enrollment, Mr. Lincoln wrote immediately to General Banks a letter which at once reveals both the extent of his interest in this subject and his extreme disappointment on learning that his wishes had been but little regarded. Flanders, then in Washington, confirmed the account of Durant. “This disappoints me bitterly,” said the letter of November 5, 1863, and though the President did not blame either General Banks or the Louisiana leaders for this apparent neglect he urged them “to lose no more time.” “I wish him [General Shepley], ...” continued the letter, “without waiting for more territory, to go to work and give me a tangible nucleus which the remainder of the State may rally around as fast as it can, and which I can at once recognize and sustain as the true State government. And in that work I wish you and all under your command to give them a hearty sympathy and support.

“The instruction to Governor Shepley bases the movement (and rightfully, too) upon the loyal element. Time is important. There is danger, even now, that the adverse element seeks insidiously to preoccupy the ground. If a few professedly loyal men shall draw the disloyal about them, and colorably set up a State government, repudiating the Emancipation Proclamation and reëstablishing slavery, I cannot recognize or sustain their work. I should fall powerless in the attempt. This Government in such an attitude would be a house divided against itself.

“I have said, and say again, that if a new State government, acting in harmony with this government, and consistently with general freedom, shall think best to adopt a reasonable temporary arrangement in relation to the landless and homeless freed people, I do not object; but my word is out to be for and not against them on any question of their permanent freedom. I do not insist upon such temporary arrangement, but only say such would not be objectionable to me.”[^[80]]

It should be remembered that Thomas J. Durant, who was authorized to make the enrollment as well as to appoint “registers” to assist him, was spokesman of the wealthy and influential class of planters, or the conservative element whose interests opposed any disturbance of existing conditions. He appears to have drawn for the President a somewhat gloomy picture of the political situation in Louisiana, and finally to have protested against the government organized by the adverse party. The outlook there, however, was not so discouraging as represented; for as early as October 9 Governor Shepley had renewed his order for the registration, modifying the former one so far as to include “all loyal citizens.”

Interest was somewhat quickened by the announcement of certain conservative leaders of an intention to hold a voluntary election in conformity with the old constitution and laws of the State. On October 27, 1863, an address signed by the president and vice-president of the Central Executive Committee was published in the papers of New Orleans. This appeal, directed to the loyal citizens of Louisiana, begins:

The want of civil government in our State can, by a proper effort on your part, soon be supplied, under laws and a constitution formed and adopted by yourselves in a time of profound peace. It is made your duty, as well as your right, to meet at the usual places, and cast your votes for State and parish officers, members of Congress, and of the State Legislature.

The day, as fixed by our laws, is Monday, the 2d day of November next, 1863. There is nothing [proceeds the address] to prevent your meeting on the day fixed by law, and selecting your agents to carry on the affairs of government in our own State. The military will not interfere with you in the exercise of your civil rights and duties, and we think we can assure you that your action in this respect will meet the approval of the National Government.

The failure of those citizens addressed to exercise their rights, it was asserted, would subject “the country” to the danger of being thrown as “vacated” territory into the hands of Congress.[^[81]]

The Free State Committee having been invited to coöperate, a correspondence ensued between the rival organizations; but, on the ground that this movement was both illegal and unjust, the Free State men declined to participate in the election. In their reply the latter assert that “There is no law in existence, as stated by you [The Executive Central Committee], directing elections to be held on the first Monday of November.

“The constitution of 1852, as amended by the convention of 1861, was overthrown and destroyed by the rebellion of the people of Louisiana, and the subsequent conquest by the arms of the United States does not restore your political institutions.”[^[82]]

The reply then proceeds to discuss the injustice of the movement, and upon this subject its reasoning is entitled to more respect. As to the status of the constitution of 1852, it is not easy to comprehend how the secession convention, a body universally regarded as revolutionary, could amend, in the manner attempted, the fundamental law, seeing that this revolution was not yet crowned with success.

Though no general election was held in response to this address, voting took place in two parishes, and certain persons were chosen as Representatives in Congress. Before giving an account of this election of November 2, 1863, it may be proper to notice a petition submitted by the free colored people of New Orleans to Governor Shepley praying to be registered as voters so that they could “assist in establishing in the new Convention a Civil Government” for their “beloved State of Louisiana.” This address, prepared at a meeting on November 5, and not without ability, recites in appropriate language the services rendered by free colored men to both the Nation and the State. It is sufficient to observe here that their prayer was not granted. The paper itself will be considered in discussing the successive steps which led to the complete enfranchisement of the race.[^[83]]

The preceding chapter has noticed President Lincoln’s Amnesty Proclamation of December 8 as well as that part of the accompanying message to Congress discussing his plan for restoring Union governments in the insurgent States. The House had not completed its organization for the Thirty-eighth Congress when Thaddeus Stevens, a Representative from Pennsylvania, either from curiosity or an anxiety to oppose, as he conceived, the policy of the President, inquired what names had been omitted in the call of members. At a later stage of its first meeting, December 7, 1863, he again referred to this subject by asking to have read the credentials of persons claiming to be Representatives “from the so-called State of Louisiana.” The acting clerk facetiously promised compliance, and read a certificate signed by Mr. John Leonard Riddell naming A. P. Field, Thomas Cottman and Joshua Baker as persons elected to represent respectively the First, Second and Fifth Congressional Districts of the State.[^[84]]

On a resolution “That A. P. Field is not entitled to a seat in this House from the State of Louisiana,” reported January 29, 1864, from the Committee of Elections, his right to admission was fully discussed.

Under the apportionment of 1850 that State sent four, and by the census of 1860 became entitled to five, Representatives. By an act of Congress approved July 14, 1862, each State entitled to more than one member in the lower House was to be divided into as many districts as it had been allotted Representatives.

But, said Chairman Dawes, as Louisiana had never been so divided no person in that State had been chosen according to Federal law. The election under which Mr. Field claimed a seat occurred in the old First Congressional District, which, with a great portion of the city of New Orleans, included two adjacent parishes, Placquemines and St. Bernard. On November 1, General Shepley issued a military order forbidding the election, and none was held in New Orleans. In the two outlying parishes, however, under the auspices of a citizens’ committee, to which returns were made, a few voters appeared at the polls. In the parish of St. Bernard, the only locality in which the House had any proof that electors participated, Mr. Field received one hundred and fifty-six votes, and though no evidence in support of his statement had been offered, about the same number, he alleged, had been cast for him in Placquemines.

The question was, proceeded Mr. Dawes, whether a gentleman with this constituency could be in any sense considered as having been elected. There were in his district over 10,000 qualified voters, and of these the claimant received the support of only one hundred and fifty-six; hence nearly ten thousand electors expressed no opinion, armed interference having prevented 9,844 of them from indicating a preference. There was no evidence that this majority acquiesced in what was done by one hundred and fifty-six men in a corner of St. Bernard parish where an election was permitted. If no other objection existed, the State had not been districted as required by the Act of July, 1862; this consideration of itself appeared to the Committee a reason sufficient for his exclusion. Further, his certificate was signed by one John Leonard Riddell, himself chosen Governor at the same time and in the same parishes. His term, according to the laws of Louisiana, did not commence till January 1, 1864, and it was not easy to comprehend how he came to regard himself as Executive of the State on November 20, 1863, when he signed the certificate presented by the claimant. Mr. Riddell, indeed, had not then been inaugurated.

Had not Congress failed to divide the State, the suppression of this election would have been without justification and have deserved the condemnation of the House. It, however, did not conform to the laws of Louisiana, for the votes were not cast nor were they counted or canvassed as prescribed thereby. This, in substance, was the argument of Mr. Dawes.

By other members attention was invited to the fact that under the same laws and conditions an election had been held in Louisiana a year before, and in consequence two Representatives admitted. To this observation Mr. Stevens replied that Hahn and Flanders, the members referred to, had been seated by the power of the House without, as he then supposed, any law or right. Henry Winter Davis alone among all who spoke on the question approved the action of the Military Governor on the ground that there was no legal right to hold an election, and the attempt of any number of persons to do so was an usurpation of sovereign authority which was properly prevented. Other Representatives, however, strongly condemned this act of Governor Shepley and at least one desired the House to express as an amendment to the resolution its disapproval of his conduct. Though not the question in debate, there could be no mistaking upon this point the sentiments of a majority of the members.

Mr. Field, permitted to address the House, observed that it was the fault of the General Government that Union men in Louisiana had not been aided by the previous administration. If they had been, the blood of Illinois and Massachusetts patriots would not have sprinkled the soil of his State.

To show that some sort of government existed there he caused the clerk to read a list of one hundred and twenty-five officers acting in those parishes included within Federal military lines, and added that though New Orleans since its capture paid annually in taxes, collected through Governor Shepley, two and a half million dollars, besides a considerable sum in internal revenue, her people were represented neither in the local nor the national Government.

The constitution of Louisiana, he said, required that qualified electors should be white males who had attained the age of twenty-one years, and been residents of the State for twelve months immediately preceding the election. The provision was so modified by Governor Shepley that persons of this description were allowed to vote after a residence of six months. Mr. Field did not know whence was derived the authority to amend constitutions.

To secure his coöperation in establishing a loyal government Union men met as early as September 19 in convention at New Orleans, and appointed a committee of nine to present an address to the Military Governor inviting his assistance. He declined, however, after a lengthy interview to order an election for Representatives until the State had first been divided. In fact, until instructions which he had requested, were received from Washington he refused to order any election whatever, though he volunteered to forward to Mr. Lincoln any communication which they desired to address him on that subject. Besides its correspondence with Governor Shepley, the New Orleans convention on September 21 had sent a letter to General Banks, the Department commander, to secure if possible his approval of their movement.

Notice, dated October 20, was given that an election would be held, November 2, at the usual places in the parish of St. Bernard, and the State and Federal offices to be filled, as well as the precise places at which voters could cast their ballots, were mentioned. Since the military authorities had refused to assist them, and had then issued no order against an election, loyal men thought it not improper to express their opinions at the polls. As the Free State people considered Louisiana out of the Union they declined to participate, and though General Banks in obedience to instructions from the President had subsequently ordered an election they maintained the same attitude. The claimant’s party did not oppose this order; for if unable to restore their State in the manner most acceptable they were willing to coöperate in any method likely to accomplish that object.

Precisely what number of voters would be called a constituency Mr. Field had not been informed. In the portion of his Congressional District included in St. Bernard and Placquemines parishes there were only 2,400 electors, and the President’s plan required only one tenth of the number of votes cast in 1860. Though the election of November 2 preceded the Executive proclamation, that fact should not make it void. The electors in New Orleans were not free to express a choice, and even if it had been otherwise the vote in the First District must have been greatly diminished since 1860, for he was assured by two paymasters that 7,000 men had been recruited there for the Union army.

Some members admitted that the national Government had not given sufficient protection to Union men in Louisiana, and therefore should not now take advantage of that neglect to also deprive them of representation in Congress. These believed that if Mr. Field had received a majority of the votes in his district any informality in the election should be overlooked, for the right to representation in Congress grows out of the Constitution, and regulations governing such elections are matters of mere convenience. The fact that no State organization existed there did not create a legal impediment, and it was no objection that Louisiana had not been redistricted, for the additional member was not imposed as a burden but as a right which she was free to exercise or not; besides, the greater representation includes the less.

Notwithstanding these considerations, and strong, though not universal, testimony to the claimant’s loyalty, he was denied admission, February 9, 1864, by a vote of 85 to 48.[^[85]] His case, however, was not exactly similar to that of Messrs. Hahn and Flanders, as stated by one Representative, for they had received, in the circumstances, a comparatively large vote.

To this end came the movement of the planters designed primarily to counteract that inaugurated by the Free State Committee, which also, as we shall see, was soon at variance with the military authorities. Important changes had occurred in the shifting politics of his State before the House had taken final action in the case of Mr. Field; these will be briefly related.

Military necessity had led the President to issue, December 8, 1863, his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction proposing, though not rigidly insisting upon, a plan for reinaugurating State governments wherever there existed such a loyal nucleus as could effectively assist in overthrowing the rebellion. In discussing the affairs of Tennessee that plan has been quoted at such length as to require no further mention in this place.[^[86]]

General Banks on January 8, 1864, announced his intention of ordering an election of State officers. He was urged at this point by the Free State Committee to allow their election to go on, but he refused to yield even under pressure of an immense public meeting favorable to their object.[^[87]] Without his coöperation their plan was doomed to failure, and when entreaties did not avail to move him they promptly inveighed against his methods and his motives in the columns of The National Intelligencer at Washington. In a letter dated New Orleans, January 9, 1864, a correspondent writes:

President Lincoln has started a Missouri case in Louisiana, and has made Banks our master; and Banks is another Schofield, only worse than he. Our mass meeting last evening was a complete success; but its object will be defeated by Banks, who, under orders direct from the President, declares his purpose to order an election for a convention; thus playing into the hands of Cottman, Riddle, and Fields, and their crew. The Union men—the true Union men—are thunderstruck by the course of the President in this matter.

We were not informed of the President’s orders to General Banks until the hour of the meeting last night, and the meeting was not informed at all. General Shepley, who is generally liked, and who has done all he could to promote the free State cause, and to organize a free State government, will resign, and the election ordered by Banks will be purely at military dictation, and will be so regarded.

The correspondent does not know the secret springs of all these acts of the President, but thinks he has probably been deceived by base and interested men. “Banks,” he believes, “has the unchanged confidence of Mr. Lincoln.” The writer concludes by asking whether it is not possible to get the President to countermand his orders to Banks immediately, “and let the people manage matters as they have begun to do?”[^[88]] To prove that no line of policy would be acceptable to the Free State Committee Mr. Field, in his remarks before the House, read in full the communication from which these excerpts are taken.

To comprehend clearly the nature of the controversy which so suddenly arose between the Free State General Committee and the Federal commander in Louisiana it may be necessary to explain with some detail the precise attitude of that organization relative to the question at issue between the adverse parties. In discussing the respective merits of the State constitutions of 1852 and 1861 the organ of the Free State men says:

The question is altogether immaterial; for, in the conflict of arms incident to this rebellion, the predominant ideas of the good people of Louisiana have far preceded either constitution; and to reorganize now the State on the slave basis, which both constitutions and the laws passed under them recognized, has become an utter impossibility. Free soil and free speech have grown up into absolute necessities, directly resulting from the war, which has converted into dust and ashes all the constitutions which Louisiana has ever made, embodying the ideas of property in our fellow-man, and all the baneful results of this system of African slavery. The present war is nothing but the conflict of the ideas of slavery and liberty.... We cannot have peace until public opinion is brought quite up to this point. We cannot reorganize the civil government of our city, and still less that of our State, and get rid of the fearful incubus of martial law now pressing down our energies by its arbitrary influence, unless we believe, give utterance to and establish the fundamental principle of our national government: “all men are created free and equal.” We know of no better way to effect this than by calling a convention as soon as possible, to declare the simple fact that Louisiana now is and will forever be a free State.[^[89]]

The party favoring this method insisted that in August, 1863, when General Shepley was in Washington, their plan in all its parts was adopted in a Cabinet meeting, and that a special order issued from the War Department directing the Military Governor to carry it into execution. The movement for reorganizing the State would thus be placed under control of the steadfast opponents of slavery. They further claimed that Mr. Lincoln then preferred the calling of a convention to an election of State officers under the old constitution. His letter of August 5, 1863, to General Banks certainly leaves no doubt as to his sentiments at that time, for he expressed his approval of the enrollment being taken by Durant with a view to an election for a constitutional convention, the mature work of which, he thought, should reach Washington by the meeting of Congress. The impossibility of so expediting registration outside of New Orleans as to be ready for an election at that early date was explained to the President by the Free State Committee.

Mr. B. F. Flanders returning from Washington in October, 1863, reported the President as saying, in reply to an objection that enough territory and population were not under protection of the Union army to justify an election, that so great was the necessity for immediate action that he would recognize and sustain a State government organized by any part of the population of which the National forces then had control, and that he wished Flanders on his return to Louisiana to say so.[^[90]]

The registration under Governor Shepley, though frequently interrupted, had proceeded, and the Free State Committee, to insure the success of their object, conferred with him for the purpose of holding, about January 25, 1864, an election for delegates to a State convention which, as already observed, intended to frame a new constitution abolishing slavery everywhere throughout the State. The announcement, then, on January 8, 1864, by General Banks of his intention to order an election of State officers under the old constitution was regarded by them as a decision for their adversaries. Their objections to the proclamation itself will be noticed in the proper place. It provided not only for an election of State officers on February 22 following, but also for the choice of delegates to a convention to be held in April for a revision of the constitution. The paramount objection of the Free State men was that the election of State officers would, under the course of General Banks, precede that for delegates to the convention, the point at which they desired to begin the work of reëstablishing a civil government for the State.

To Thomas Cottman, who accompanied Mr. Field to Washington claiming a seat in Congress as Representative from the Second Louisiana District, Mr. Lincoln, on December 15, wrote:

You were so kind as to say this morning that you desire to return to Louisiana, and to be guided by my wishes, to some extent, in the part you may take in bringing that State to resume her rightful relation to the General Government.

My wishes are in a general way expressed, as well as I can express them, in the proclamation issued on the eighth of the present month, and in that part of the annual message which relates to that proclamation. It there appears that I deem the sustaining of the Emancipation Proclamation, where it applies, as indispensable; and I add here that I would esteem it fortunate if the people of Louisiana should themselves place the remainder of the State upon the same footing.[^[91]]

Though this letter expressed as one of Mr. Lincoln’s strongest wishes a hope that all Union men in Louisiana would “eschew cliquism,” he was destined to be disappointed, for at this very time letters from General Banks, dated December 6 and 16, informed him that Governor Shepley, Mr. Durant and others had given him to understand that they were charged exclusively with the work of reconstruction in Louisiana and hence he had not felt authorized to interfere. Other officers had set up claims to jurisdiction conflicting and interfering with his own powers of military administration. Annoyed that a misunderstanding was delaying work which he had been urging for a year, the President, on the 24th of December, wrote General Banks as follows:

I have all the while intended you to be master, as well in regard to reorganizing a State government for Louisiana, as in regard to the military matters of the department; and hence my letters on reconstruction have nearly, if not quite, all been addressed to you. My error has been that it did not occur to me that Governor Shepley or any one else would set up a claim to act independently of you; and hence I said nothing expressly upon the point.

Language has not been guarded at a point where no danger was thought of. I now tell you that in every dispute with whomsoever, you are master.

Governor Shepley was appointed to assist the commander of the department, and not to thwart him or act independently of him. Instructions have been given directly to him, merely to spare you detail labor, and not to supersede your authority. This, in its liability to be misconstrued, it now seems was an error in us. But it is past. I now distinctly tell you that you are master of all, and that I wish you to take the case as you find it, and give us a free State reorganization of Louisiana in the shortest possible time. What I say here is to have a reasonable construction. I do not mean that you are to withdraw from Texas, or abandon any other military measure which you may deem important. Nor do I mean that you are to throw away available work already done for reconstruction; nor that war is to be made upon Governor Shepley, or upon any one else, unless it be found that they will not coöperate with you, in which case, and in all cases, you are master while you remain in command of the department.[^[92]]

This letter making General Banks “master” of the situation in Louisiana the President concluded by thanking him for his successful and valuable operations in Texas. But before receiving this extensive authority and the undoubted assurance of Mr. Lincoln’s confidence the commander, on December 30, submitted to the President a plan of reconstruction based upon the Proclamation and the Message of the 8th of that month. For evident reasons this communication deserves to be reproduced almost entire:

I would suggest [says General Banks], as the only speedy and certain method of accomplishing your object, that an election be ordered, of a State government, under the constitution and laws of Louisiana, except so much thereof as recognizes and relates to slavery, which should be declared by the authority calling the election, and in the order authorizing it, inoperative and void. The registration of voters to be made in conformity with your Proclamation, and all measures hitherto taken with reference to State organization, not inconsistent with the Proclamation, may be made available. A convention of the people for the revision of the constitution may be ordered as soon as the government is organized, and the election of members might take place on the same or a subsequent day with the general election. The people of Louisiana will accept such a proposition with favor. They will prefer it to any arrangement which leaves the subject to them for an affirmative or negative vote. Strange as this may appear, it is the fact. Of course a government organized upon the basis of immediate and universal freedom, with the general consent of the people, followed by the adaptation of commercial and industrial interests to this order of things, and supported by the army and navy, the influence of the civil officers of the Government, and the Administration at Washington, could not fail by any possible chance to obtain an absolute and permanent recognition of the principle of freedom upon which it would be based. Any other result would be impossible. The same influence would secure with the same certainty the selection of proper men in the election of officers.

Let me assure you that this course will be far more acceptable to the citizens of Louisiana than the submission of the question of slavery to the chances of an election. Their self-respect, their amour propre will be appeased if they are not required to vote for or against it. Offer them a government without slavery and they will gladly accept it as a necessity resulting from the war. On all other points, sufficient guarantees of right results can be secured; but the great question, that of immediate emancipation, will be covered ab initio, by a conceded and absolute prohibition of slavery.

Upon this plan a government can be established whenever you wish—in thirty or sixty days; a government that will be satisfactory to the South and the North; to the South, because it relieves them from any action in regard to an institution which cannot be restored, and which they cannot condemn; and to the North, because it places the interests of liberty beyond all possible accident or chance of failure. The result is certain.[^[93]]

Upon receiving this communication the President, who cherished no plan of restoration to which exact conformity was indispensable, expressed, January 13, 1864, in a letter to General Banks his gratitude for the zeal and confidence manifested by him on the question of reinaugurating a free State government in Louisiana. He hoped, because of the authority contained in the letter of December 24, that the Department Commander had already commenced work. “Whether you shall have done so or not,” continues the letter, “please, on receiving this, proceed with all possible despatch, using your own absolute discretion in all matters which may not carry you away from the conditions stated in your letters to me, nor from those of the message and proclamation of December 8. Frame orders, and fix times and places for this and that, according to your own judgment.”[^[94]]

This letter repeats the idea of subordination to General Banks of all officials in his department holding authority from the President, and stated that the bearer of the communication, Collector Dennison, of New Orleans, understood the views of the commander and was willing to assist in carrying them out. Before Mr. Dennison arrived in New Orleans, however, General Banks had already, in his proclamation of January 11, 1864, fixed a date for the election. This action was determined, said the Department Commander, upon ample assurance “that more than a tenth of the population desire the earliest possible restoration of Louisiana to the Union”; hence he invited “the loyal citizens of the State qualified to vote in public affairs ... to assemble in the election precincts designated by law, ... on the 22d of February, 1864, to cast their votes for the election of State officers herein named, viz. Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Attorney-General, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Auditor of Public Accounts—who shall, when elected, for the time being, and until others are appointed by competent authority, constitute the civil government of the State, under the constitution and laws of Louisiana, except so much of said constitution and laws as recognize, regulate or relate to slavery, which being inconsistent with the present condition of public affairs, and plainly inapplicable to any class of persons now existing within its limits, must be suspended, and they are therefore and hereby declared to be inoperative and void. This proceeding is not intended to ignore the right of property existing prior to the rebellion, nor to preclude the claim for compensation of loyal citizens for losses sustained by enlistment or other authorized acts of Government.”[^[95]]

The qualifications of voters in this election were to be determined by the oath of allegiance prescribed by the President’s proclamation together with the condition annexed to the elective franchise by the constitution of Louisiana. Officers elected were to be duly installed on the 4th of March.

So much of the registration effected under direction of Governor Shepley and the several Union Associations as was not inconsistent with the proclamation and other orders of the President was approved. The proclamation further announced that arrangements would be made for the early election of members of Congress for the State, and, that the organic law might be made to conform to the will of the people and harmonize with the spirit of the age, an election of delegates to a convention for the revision of the constitution would be held on the first Monday of April following.

This proclamation declared, among other things, that

The fundamental law of the State is martial law.... The Government is subject to the law of necessity, and must consult the condition of things, rather than the preferences of men, and if so be that its purposes are just and its measures wise, it has the right to demand that questions of personal interest and opinion shall be subordinate to the public good. When the national existence is at stake, and the liberties of the people in peril, faction is treason.

The methods herein proposed submit the whole question of government directly to the people—first, by the election of executive officers, faithful to the Union, to be followed by a loyal representation in both Houses of Congress; and then by a convention which will confirm the action of the people, and recognize the principles of freedom in the organic law. This is the wish of the President.[^[96]]

On February 13, nine days before the election, General Banks issued an order relative to the qualifications of electors. It provided, in addition to the declarations on that subject in his proclamation, that Union voters expelled from their homes by the public enemy might cast their ballots for State officers in the precincts where they temporarily resided and that qualified electors enlisted in the army or navy could vote in those precincts in which they might be found on election day. If without the State, then commissioners would be appointed to receive their ballots wherever stationed, returns to be made to General Shepley.[^[97]]

For governor three candidates were nominated—B. F. Flanders, a representative of the Free State Committee; Michael Hahn, the choice of those who approved the measures of General Banks, and J. Q. A. Fellows, a pro-slavery conservative who favored “the Constitution and the Union with the preservation of the rights of all inviolate.” The friends of Hahn would deny to persons of African descent the privileges of citizenship, whereas the supporters of Flanders generally would extend to them such rights and immunities.[^[98]]

On Washington’s birthday, as announced in the proclamation of General Banks, an election was held in seventeen parishes, Hahn receiving 6,183, Fellows 2,996 and Flanders 2,232 votes, a total of 11,411, of which 107 were cast by Louisiana soldiers stationed at Pensacola, Florida.[^[99]]

Writing February 25 to the President General Banks says:

The election of the 22d of February was conducted with great spirit and propriety. No complaint is heard from any quarter, so far as I know, of unfairness or undue influence on the part of the officers of the Government. At some of the strictly military posts the entire vote of the Louisiana men was for Mr. Flanders, at others for Mr. Hahn, according to the inclination of the voters. Every voter accepted the oath prescribed by your proclamation of the 8th of December.... The ordinary vote of the State has been less than forty thousand. The proportion given on the 22d of February is nearly equal to the territory covered by our arms.[^[100]]

The friends of the Free State General Committee in a protest pronounced the result of the election “the registration of a military edict,” and “worthy of no respect from the representatives and Executive of the nation.” To the question whether this election had in the meaning of the President reëstablished a State government they promptly answered in the negative, for the commanding general recognized the Louisiana constitution of 1852 and ordered an election under it in which the votes of the people had nothing to do with reëstablishing government; his proclamation, by recognizing the existence of the old constitution, made the reëstablishment beforehand for them. The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, together with the other executive officers chosen, did not, they argued, constitute a State government; for all the constitutions of Louisiana, including that of 1852, described the government as consisting of three departments: executive, legislative and judicial.

Though not avowed, the reason of Banks’ failure to order an election for members of the Legislature was plain, for there was not, they claimed, within the Union lines a sufficient number of parishes to elect a majority of that body, and less than a majority was, by the constitution, not a quorum to do business; so that no officer elected could be legally paid, for that could be done by only a legal appropriation. The same constitution, they said further, provided that Justices of the Supreme and District Courts, as well as justices of the peace, should be elected by the people. The present incumbents had been simply appointed by General Shepley. Should Mr. Hahn under pretence of being civil governor undertake to appoint judicial officers, the act would be a mere usurpation.

Not only, they declared, had no State government been established by this election, but still further, the proclamation of the President had not in the matter of electors been complied with; for Article XII. of the constitution of 1852 says: “No soldier, seaman, or marine in the army or navy of the United States ... shall be entitled to vote at any election in this State.” Yet, continued the protestants, it was a notorious fact that the general commanding permitted soldiers recruited in Louisiana, and otherwise qualified, to vote, and that many availed themselves of the privilege. Again, they went on to say, the Legislature by act of March 20, 1856, provided for the appointment in New Orleans of a register of voters whose office should be closed three days before an election, and no one registered during that period. Now prior to the late election, the register having closed his office according to law, orders were at once given to two other officers, recorders of the city, who had no such powers or functions by law, to register voters, which they did night and day, and persons so registered were allowed to vote.

Referring to the declared intention of General Banks to order an election of delegates to a constitutional convention, and by a subsequent order fix the basis of representation, the number of delegates and the details of the election, they said: “This will put the whole matter under military control, and the experience of the last election shows that only such a convention can be had as the overshadowing influence of the military authority will permit. Under an election thus ordered, and a constitution thus established, a republican form of government cannot be formed. It is simply a fraud to call it the reëstablishment of a State government. In these circumstances, the only course left to the truly loyal citizens of Louisiana is, to protest against the recognition of this pretended Government, and to appeal to the calm judgment of the nation to procure such action from Congress as will forbid military commanders to usurp the powers which belong to Congress alone, or to the loyal people of Louisiana.”[^[101]]

But neither the protest nor the criticism of Free State men availed to arrest the march of events, and in the presence of a vast multitude Michael Hahn, who had received a majority of all the votes cast, was inaugurated Governor amidst great enthusiasm on March 4. To the oath prescribed in the amnesty and reconstruction proclamation of December 8, 1863, given above, was added the following:

And I do further solemnly swear, that I am qualified according to the constitution of the State to hold the office to which I have been elected, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me as Governor of the State of Louisiana, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution and Laws of the United States, and in support of and according to the constitution and laws of this State, so far as they are consistent with the necessary military occupation of the State by the troops of the United States for the suppression of the rebellion, and the full restoration of the authority of the United States.[^[102]]

This language clearly indicates the legal theory upon which General Banks was proceeding, and citizens understood that Mr. Hahn represented a popular power entirely subordinate to the armed occupation of the State.

On March 13, 1864, the President wrote the following private letter to Governor Hahn:

I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first free-state governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a convention, which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in—as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.[^[103]]

Speaking of this personal note Mr. Blaine says: “It was perhaps the earliest proposition from any authentic source to endow the negro with the right of suffrage, and was an indirect but most effective answer to those who subsequently attempted to use Mr. Lincoln’s name in support of policies which his intimate friends instinctively knew would be abhorrent to his unerring sense of justice.”[^[104]]

At the suggestion of General Banks, the President two days later invested Mr. Hahn until further order “with the powers exercised hitherto by the military governor of Louisiana.”[^[105]]

From the sentiments of the Free State party it requires little insight into human affairs to foretell that in some manner they would soon be found in opposition. Their candidate, Mr. B. F. Flanders, who received fewer votes than either of his competitors, was a prominent official in the Treasury Department, and from this vantage ground, without, so far as appears, rebuke from Secretary Chase, began to stir up in Congress a feeling of hostility to the new government in Louisiana. Precisely why Mr. Lincoln decided to take into his own hands the entire subject of reconstruction may be collected without difficulty from what has already been said; but that this determination was confirmed by his knowledge of an alliance between the Free State leaders and the “Radicals” in Congress there can be little doubt.

The Department Commander in a general order gave notice on March 11 that an election would be held on the 28th of that month for the choice of delegates to a State convention to meet in New Orleans “for the revision and amendment of the constitution of Louisiana.”[^[106]] Five days later, March 16, Governor Hahn, in a proclamation to the sheriffs and other officers concerned, authorized the election and commanded them to give due notice thereof to the qualified voters of the State and to make prompt returns to the Secretary of State in New Orleans.[^[107]]

Pursuant to these notices the election was held on the 28th, and resulted in the choice of ninety-seven members, two of whom were rejected because of irregular returns. The entire State was entitled to 150 delegates. The parish of Orleans was represented by sixty-three members, leaving to the country parishes but thirty-two. Of the vote, which was exceedingly light, no return appears to have been published. Because of their recent defeat no nominations were made by the Radicals, and this fact, together with heavy rains on election day, was assigned by Governor Hahn in a letter to the President as an explanation of the meagre vote. The Parish of Ascension, which in 1860 had a population of 3,940 whites, elected her delegates by 61 votes; Placquemines, which by the same census had 2,529 white inhabitants, cast 246, while the single delegate from Madison was chosen by only twenty-eight electors.[^[108]]

General Banks informed a committee of Congress that all that section of the State as far up as Point Coupée voted; some men from the Red River cast their ballots at Vidalia. In his statement he declared that “The city of New Orleans is really the State of Louisiana”; yet at that time it contained less than half the population of the State.[^[109]]

The constitutional convention, which assembled April 6, 1864, was organized on the 7th with E. H. Durell as president, and after a session of more than two and a half months adjourned July 25. A proclamation of the Governor appointed the 5th of September as the time for taking a vote on the work of the convention. The result was 6,836 for the adoption, and 1,556 for the rejection of the constitution. Besides these there were a number of electors who did not vote on either side of the question.[^[110]]

Of the work of the convention General Banks spoke as follows:

In a State which held 331,726 slaves, one half of its entire population in 1860, more than three fourths of whom had been specially excepted from the Proclamation of Emancipation, and were still held de jure in bondage, the convention declared by a majority of all the votes to which the State would have been entitled if every delegate had been present from every district in the State:—

Instantaneous, universal, uncompensated, unconditional emancipation of slaves!

It prohibited forever the recognition of property in man!

It decreed the education of all the children, without distinction of race or color!

It directs all men, white or black, to be enrolled as soldiers for the public defence!

It makes all men equal before the law!

It compels, by its regenerating spirit, the ultimate recognition of all the rights which national authority can confer upon an oppressed race!

It wisely recognizes for the first time in constitutional history, the interest of daily labor as an element of power entitled to the protection of the State.[^[111]]

At the same election, that of September 5, the following persons were chosen Representatives in Congress: M. F. Bonzano, A. P. Field, W. D. Mann, T. M. Wells and R. W. Taliaferro. A Legislature was elected at the same time, the members of which were almost entirely in favor of a free State, and by this body seven electors of President and Vice-President were appointed. On October 10th two United States Senators were elected—R. King Cutler for the unexpired term ending March 4, 1867, and Charles Smith for the vacancy created by the resignation of Judah P. Benjamin, and ending March 4, 1865.[^[112]]

It is matter of familiar history that the State government thus organized was never recognized by Congress. The question was presented to that body December 5, 1864, at the opening of the second session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, when the claimants above named appeared in Washington applying for admission to seats, and again in January and February, 1865, upon consideration of a joint resolution declaring certain States not entitled to representation in the Electoral College. As in the case of Tennessee, however, the vote offered by Louisiana was not counted.

The agency of the President in setting up this civil government, and the successive steps in its accomplishment have been related with some degree of minuteness, so that the nature of the controversy between the Executive and the Legislative branches of the Government may be better understood. Whether Mr. Lincoln exceeded his constitutional authority will be considered when an account has been presented of the result of his efforts to restore civil government in the States where Federal authority had been overthrown.

III
ARKANSAS

The people of northern Arkansas were strongly attached to the Union, and until December 20, 1860, when a commissioner from Alabama addressed its Legislature, no secession movement took place within the State. Her geographical position classed her with the Western, her productions bound up her interests with the Southern, States.[^[113]] As late as January 5, 1861, resolutions opposing separate action were adopted almost unanimously by the largest meeting ever held at Van Buren. Mr. Lincoln’s election was not then deemed a sufficient cause to dissolve the Union. Citizens of every party favored all honorable efforts for its preservation, and demonstrations to the contrary were regarded as the work of only an extreme and inconsiderable faction.[^[114]] So rapid, however, was the succession of events that scarcely two weeks had elapsed when she exhibited signs of resting uneasily in the Union; for on January 16 a bill submitting to popular vote the question of holding a convention passed the Legislature.[^[115]] At the election of delegates to this assembly 23,626 votes were cast for the Union, against 17,927 for the secession, candidates. Though this convention, which assembled March 4, was organized by the choice of Union officers, the proposal to hold it had been carried by a majority of 11,586 in the election of February 18. While secession was strongly urged, a conditional ordinance was defeated by a vote of 39 to 35.[^[116]] At Van Buren and Fort Smith salutes of thirty-nine guns were fired in honor of the loyal members. The inaugural of President Lincoln, received two days after organizing, produced a somewhat unfavorable impression. On the 17th an ordinance, reported by a self-constituted committee of seven secessionists and seven coöperationists, was unanimously adopted.[^[117]] This provided for an election on the first Monday of August, when the qualified voters in the State could cast their ballots either for “secession” or “coöperation.” The result, though not wholly satisfactory to either party, afforded time for deliberation.

Tidings of the fall of Sumter, together with the President’s proclamation and a requisition for troops from the Secretary of War, interrupted the brief interval of repose following the adjournment of the convention. In these circumstances the State was compelled to make a choice of sides. Governor Rector’s reply, April 22, to this requisition shows him to have been ardently in favor of disunion; the president of the convention, concurring in this sentiment, issued a call for that body to reassemble May 6, when an ordinance of secession was promptly passed with but one dissenting vote.[^[118]] By a resolution the convention authorized the Governor to call out, if necessary, 60,000 men, and ordered the issue of $2,000,000 in bonds. Another ordinance confiscated debts due to persons in non-slaveholding States.[^[119]]

The first military movement, after the ordinance of secession had been carried, aimed to secure Federal property within the State, and their value to the South singled out for seizure the arsenals at Fort Smith and Little Rock. The latter city on February 5 was thrown into a great turmoil of confusion and excitement by the unexpected arrival of a body of troops from Helena with the avowed purpose of taking the arsenal; more soldiers arrived during that and the succeeding day until about 400 had assembled. Though the Governor, in response to their inquiry, informed the city council that this force was not there by his order, the troops believed they were acting under his command; at any rate they came to take the arsenal and were not to be diverted from their object. To prevent a collision, which must have followed a refusal of the commanding officer to surrender to a body of men disavowed by their Governor, the latter was easily persuaded to assume the responsibility of the movement and he consented to demand its surrender in the name of the State. This demand Captain Totten asked until three o’clock the next day to consider; then he made known his readiness to evacuate the arsenal, which about noon of the following day was delivered to the State authorities.[^[120]]

The delegates of Arkansas on May 18 took their seats in the Confederate Congress.[^[121]] The convention, it will be observed, assumed at the outset the functions of a law-making body, and, because of further extending its authority by the appointment of a Military Board, soon came into conflict with both the Governor and the Legislature. When the convention empowered the former to call out, if necessary, 60,000 men it divided the State into two districts, an eastern and a western. General Bradley was elected to the command of the former and General Pearce, late of the United States Army, to that of the latter division. Before General McCulloch, stationed in the Indian Territory, could assume any offensive operations the Federal General, Lyon, in pursuit of Jackson, approached the southern boundary of Missouri; upon this the Military Board called out ten regiments for defence. On June 21 it despatched to Richmond a messenger who proposed to transfer to the Confederate Government all the State troops with their arms making, however, a condition precedent: they were to be employed for the protection of Arkansas; but as the Secretary of State could make no promise as to their future disposition the transfer was not then effected.[^[122]] On July 4 a second effort was made by a member of the Military Board who visited General Hardee, with whom an arrangement was completed by which a vote should be taken among the troops. If a majority of each company consented, those so consenting were to be turned over as a company. If a majority declined, the company was to be disbanded altogether. One entire company was thus mustered out, and from various motives two or three hundred soldiers returned home. This was from the eastern division. The western was not so easily disposed of. The Military Board after the battle of Springfield directed General Pearce to turn over his force to Hardee, who became angry when the agent proposed to submit the question of transfer, and refused to allow it to be done; this insubordinate conduct he followed up by writing an abusive letter to the Board. Pearce then separated his troops from McCulloch’s command and marched them back to Arkansas, where they were informally disbanded and sent home. Fearing such a result, the Board had ordered General Pearce to do nothing further in the matter, but their despatches arrived too late.[^[123]]

Governor Rector’s account shows Arkansas troops, claimed to be 22,000 in number, to have been at that time in a state of complete demoralization.[^[124]] The Germans and the Irish, as well as their descendants, showing little inclination to enlist, the Governor ascribed their indifference to a want of opportunity for promotion in the service. If this was not the cause, then, he thought, authority should be given to draft a regiment of each race.[^[125]]

More than a third of the voting population was in the field, and as late as October they had received no pay except Arkansas war bonds, the worthlessness of which occasioned much murmuring. This discontent was heightened somewhat by the poor equipment of the regiments, many soldiers being without blankets or shoes.[^[126]] There were other symptoms of unrest within the State. On the charge of attempted insurrection two negro men and a girl were hanged in Monroe County.

All this occasioned much uneasiness, but the chief cause of alarm was the Union sentiment known to exist in the State. In October twenty-seven persons were brought to Little Rock as members of a secret Union organization in Van Buren County and placed in jail to await a civil trial. Many others also were taken about this time, and it was estimated that the “Peace and Constitutional Society” numbered 1,700 members in Arkansas.[^[127]]

The activity of Federal armies in the West excited so much apprehension that Governor Rector on the 18th of February, by proclamation, called into immediate service every man in the State subject to military duty.[^[128]] A Confederate force under Price was driven into Arkansas by General Curtis on the same day, and within a week the commandant at Pocahontas issued an appeal to every man “to turn out promptly, shoulder his musket, and drive the vandals from the State.” The Richmond Government being unable to assist Arkansas, she was forced to rely upon her own resources and such aid as might be obtained from Missouri, the Indian Territory and Texas.[^[129]]

Disaster and a conviction of neglect led the Governor in May, in an address to the people, to express his indignation and threaten to secede from secession. He said:

If the arteries of the Confederate heart do not permeate beyond the east bank of the Mississippi, let southern Missourians, Arkansians, Texans and the great West know it and prepare for the future. Arkansas lost, abandoned, subjugated is not Arkansas as she entered the Confederate Government. Nor will she remain Arkansas, a Confederate State, desolated as a wilderness. Her children, fleeing from the wrath to come, will build them a new ark, and launch it on new waters, seeking a haven somewhere of equality, safety and rest.[^[130]]

After the battle of Pea Ridge General Curtis moved to White River, and on May 1 occupied Batesville, where he witnessed many demonstrations of attachment to the Union. Judges of courts, clergymen and other leading citizens came forward and voluntarily took the oath of allegiance to the United States. A threatened advance of the Union forces upon Little Rock created the greatest excitement there, and the Governor by proclamation ordered the militia to repair immediately to its defence; but not finding himself sufficiently supported he fled.[^[131]] The concentration at Corinth of all available Confederate strength was the cause of the weakness of Arkansas at this time. Ten regiments had also been withdrawn from the army of General Curtis to reënforce the Federal troops in Mississippi. This left him in no condition to march upon the State capital, and for the time it was saved. Twelve thousand poorly equipped men had assembled there in response to the appeal of Governor Rector.

After the occupation of Helena by Federal troops Mr. Lincoln appointed John S. Phelps, of Missouri, military governor.[^[132]] On August 19, 1862, he left St. Louis for Helena; but as the contemplated movement was not then made his office was of little importance. From the Union refugees at that point two regiments of Arkansas men were organized. The fall of Vicksburg in July, 1863, however, enabled the Union army to assume offensive operations, and the summer had not greatly advanced before a strong column was moving on Little Rock, the capture of which, September 10, 1863, was a fatal blow to Confederate authority throughout the State.

Amidst all its distresses the northern section of Arkansas had maintained its loyalty. Recent reverses to Confederate arms encouraged desertion from their ranks, Union sympathizers became active, and movements begun by them were joined by numbers who now regarded the Confederate cause as lost. Many, however, fearing a restoration of that authority, hesitated to identify themselves with the more pronounced loyalists. A newspaper favorable to the General Government was established at the capital. Meetings were held, and resolutions pledging unconditional support of the Union cause adopted. Citizens, both white and black, were organized, and by December, 1863, eight regiments of Arkansas troops had enlisted in the Federal service.[^[133]]

A still more encouraging symptom was the return of eminent persons who now came forward to advocate the Union cause. Prominent among these was Brigadier-General E. W. Gantt, of the Confederate army, recently a prisoner of war and pardoned under the Amnesty Proclamation of the President. Toward the close of 1863 he thus describes the feeling of the people:

The Union sentiment is manifesting itself on all sides and by every indication—in Union meetings—in desertions from the Confederate army—in taking the oath of allegiance unsolicited—in organizing for home defence, and enlisting in the Federal army. Old flags that have been hid in the crevices of rocks, and been worshipped by our mountain people as holy relics, are flung to the breeze, and followed to the Union army with an enthusiasm that beggars all description. The little county of Perry, that votes only about 600, and which has been turned wrong side out in search of conscripts by Hindman and his fellow-murderers and oppressors, with their retinue of salaried gentlemen and negro boys, sent down a company of ninety-four men. Where they came from, and how they kept their old flag during these three years of terror, persecution and plunder, I can’t tell. But they were the proudest-looking set of men I ever saw, and full of fight.[^[134]]

The retreat of General Banks from the Red River country changed greatly the aspect of Federal affairs in Arkansas, for it allowed all the Confederate forces in the vicinity to concentrate against the small army of General Steele, compelling him to act on the defensive at Little Rock. The State coming once more to a considerable extent under Confederate control, loyalists became scarce and gradually lost energy and hope.

Local reverses, however, were not allowed to interrupt the comprehensive policy of the President, and early in 1864 preparations were made to reorganize the State government. This movement, like those in Tennessee and Louisiana, was based upon the Amnesty and Reconstruction Proclamation of December 8, 1863. Even before this step had been taken the President was already moulding the diverse elements into a power that would ultimately undermine Confederate influence in the State. In the preceding summer, July 31, 1863, he had written General S. A. Hurlbut:

I understand that Senator Sebastian, of Arkansas, thinks of offering to resume his place in the Senate. Of course the Senate, and not I, would decide whether to admit or reject him. Still I should feel great interest in the question. It may be so presented as to be one of the very greatest national importance; and it may be otherwise so presented as to be of no more than temporary personal consequence to him.

The emancipation proclamation applies to Arkansas.... I think I shall not retract or repudiate it. Those who shall have tasted actual freedom I believe can never be slaves or quasi-slaves again. For the rest, I believe some plan substantially being gradual emancipation would be better for both white and black. The Missouri plan, recently adopted, I do not object to on account of the time for ending the institution; but I am sorry the beginning should have been postponed for seven years, leaving all that time to agitate for the repeal of the whole thing. It should begin at once, giving at least the new-born a vested interest in freedom which could not be taken away. If Senator Sebastian could come with something of this sort from Arkansas, I, at least, should take great interest in his case; and I believe a single individual will have scarcely done the world so great a service. See him, if you can, and read this to him; but charge him to not make it public for the present.[^[135]]

Union officers in the West were urged by Mr. Lincoln in October, 1862, to assist and encourage repentant rebel communities to elect both State officers and members of Congress.[^[136]] As this involved a recognition of existing governments it need scarcely be observed that the march of events forced the President later to occupy somewhat different ground; nor is it more necessary to add, that to his main purpose, to undermine secession and restore the Union, he adhered inflexibly. With this fundamental object all his acts harmonize.

At the time of her secession, W. K. Sebastian represented Arkansas in the United States Senate and abandoned his seat; he was now ready to assist in restoring his State to her old status. Of these evidences of disintegration in Confederate interests within the State the President was very exactly informed, and it was because of his conviction that many persons hitherto supporting that cause were either wavering in their allegiance or had become hostile to secession that he wrote, January 5, 1864, to General Steele:

I wish to afford the people of Arkansas an opportunity of taking the oath prescribed in the proclamation of December 8, 1863, preparatory to reorganizing a State Government there. Accordingly I send you by General Kimball some blank books and other blanks, the manner of using which will, in the main, be suggested by an inspection of them; and General Kimball will add some verbal explanations.

Please make a trial of the matter immediately at such points as you may think likely to give success. I suppose Helena and Little Rock are two of them. Detail any officer you may see fit to take charge of the subject at each point; and which officer, it may be assumed, will have authority to administer the oath. These books, of course, are intended to be permanent records. Report to me on the subject.[^[137]]

A week had scarcely elapsed when Mr. Lincoln approved the suggestions of General Banks relative to reinaugurating a civil government for Louisiana, and, doubtless, he knew no reason why similar work might not be going on simultaneously in Arkansas; therefore he repeated to General Steele what in substance he had already communicated to the Federal commander of the Department of the Gulf. His instructions, dated January 20, 1864, and quoted below, are self-explanatory, and in no important particular differ from the Louisiana Plan:

Sundry citizens of the State of Arkansas petition me that an election may be held in that State, at which to elect a governor thereof; ... that it be assumed at said election and thenceforward that the constitution and laws of the State, as before the rebellion, are in full force, except that the constitution is so modified as to declare that “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in the punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; but the General Assembly may make such provision for the free people as shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent, as a temporary arrangement, with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class;” and also except that all now existing laws in relation to slaves are inoperative and void; that said election to be held on the twenty-eighth day of March next at all the usual voting places of the State, or all such as voters may attend for that purpose; that the voters attending at each place at 8 o’clock in the morning of said day, may choose judges and clerks of election for that place; that all persons qualified by said constitution and laws, and taking the oath prescribed in the President’s proclamation of December the 8th, 1863, either before or at the election, and none others, may be voters, provided that persons having the qualifications aforesaid, and being in the volunteer military service of the United States, may vote once wherever they may be at voting places; that each set of judges and clerks may make return directly to you on or before the eleventh day of April next; that in all other respects said election may be conducted according to said modified constitution and laws; that on receipt of said returns, you count said votes, and that if the number shall reach or exceed five thousand four hundred and six, you canvass said votes and ascertain who shall thereby appear to have been elected governor; and that on the eighteenth day of April next, the person so appearing to have been elected, and appearing before you at Little Rock to have, by you, administered to him an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and said modified constitution of the State of Arkansas, and actually taking said oath, be, by you, declared qualified, and be enjoined to immediately enter upon the duties of the office of governor of said State; and that you thereupon declare the constitution of the State of Arkansas to have been modified and amended as aforesaid by the action of the people as aforesaid.

You will please order an election immediately, and perform the other parts assigned you, with necessary incidentals, all according to the foregoing.[^[138]]

By discussion and organization the elements opposed to the Richmond Government aroused so much enthusiasm that Unionists anticipated the wishes of the President by meeting, January 8, 1864, in convention at Little Rock. This assembly, composed of forty-four delegates representing, as they claimed, twenty-two of the fifty-four counties in the State, was made up of members elected at various mass meetings by very meagre votes. This at least was an objection then urged by those who were adverse to the purposes of the convention. They further stated that many of the counties represented were without the Federal military lines. It was admitted that if these counties lay beyond Union lines neither were they occupied by Confederate forces, and that generally the delegates were gentlemen of character and patriotism.[^[139]]

In a published address the convention stated frankly:

We found after remaining at Little Rock about a week, under a temporary organization, that delegates were present from twenty-two counties, elected by the people, and that six other counties had held elections, and that their representatives were looked for daily. We then organized the Convention permanently, and determined that while we could not properly claim to be the people of Arkansas in Convention assembled, with full and final authority to adopt a constitution, yet, being the representatives, by election, of a considerable portion of the State, and understanding, as we believed, the sentiment of nearly all our citizens who desire the immediate benefits of a government under the authority of the United States, we also determined to present a constitution and plan of organization, which, if adopted by them, becomes at once their act as effectually as if every county in the State had been represented in the Convention.[^[140]]

An amended constitution was adopted by this convention on January 22. By it the act of secession was declared null and void; slavery was abolished immediately and unconditionally, and the Confederate debt wholly repudiated.[^[141]] These important changes in the fundamental law of the State indicate the sentiments of the delegates. Isaac Murphy was appointed Provisional Governor; C. C. Bliss, Lieutenant-Governor and R. T. J. White, Secretary of State. These officers were inaugurated on the same day that the convention adopted the constitution; this by its schedule was to be submitted to a popular vote at an election to be held March 14, when State officers and Representatives in Congress would also be chosen.[^[142]]

Ignorant that the movement to restore a civil government had proceeded so far, Mr. Lincoln had sent his instructions to General Steele. As these had been carefully considered it was feared the work of the convention would differ in some essential particular from the plan outlined for the Federal commander. To prevent such a consequence the President wrote General Steele again on January 27 as follows:

I have addressed a letter to you and put it in the hands of Mr. Gantt and other Arkansas gentlemen, containing a program for an election in that State. This letter will be handed you by some of these gentlemen. Since writing it, I see that a Convention in Arkansas having the same general object, has taken some action, which I am afraid may clash somewhat with my program. I therefore can do no better than to ask you to see Mr. Gantt immediately on his return, and with him do what you and he may deem necessary to harmonize the two plans into one, and then put it through with all possible vigor. Be sure to retain the free-State Constitutional provision in some unquestionable form and you and he can fix the rest. The points I have made in the program have been well considered. Take hold with an honest heart and a strong hand. Do not let any questionable man control or influence you.[^[143]]

The President’s interest in the proceedings of the convention and his anxiety about the outcome of its deliberations appear in a letter to General Steele written three days after the above.[^[144]] So favorable were his impressions of the progress reported that he believed the best his subordinate could do “would be to help them on their own plan”; of this, however, General Steele, who was on the ground, was to be the judge. To Governor Murphy he telegraphed, February 6, that his order concerning an election was made in ignorance of any action which the convention might take; also that his subsequent communication to General Steele directed that officer to assist, not to hinder, the delegates.[^[145]] General Thayer also was informed that the apparent conflict between the President and the convention was altogether accidental.[^[146]] On February 17, Mr. Lincoln explained the situation more fully to William M. Fishback:

When I fixed a plan for an election in Arkansas I did it in ignorance that your convention was doing the same work. Since I learned the latter fact I have been constantly trying to yield my plan to them. I have sent two letters to General Steele, and three or four despatches to you and others, saying that he, General Steele, must be master, but that it will probably be best for him to merely help the convention on its own plan. Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything, and General Steele, commanding the military and being on the ground, is the best man to be that master. Even now citizens are telegraphing me to postpone the election to a later day than either that fixed by the convention or by me. This discord must be silenced.[^[147]]