Reverdy Johnson: Conservative Unionist

Acknowledgments, ix

Introduction, 1 part i. reverdy johnson: conservative unionist

1 Defender of the Republic and the Constitution, 9

2 Johnson and Lincoln: A Fragile Collaboration, 30

3 Civil War Senator and Lincoln Nemesis, 58

4 After the War: Republican Adversary, 83 part ii. horatio seymour: democratic party leader

5 Seymour and Lincoln: The Early Sparring, 115

6 A Thorn in Lincoln’s Side, 1863, 137

7 Democratic Champion, 1864, 169

8 Reconstruction Dissident and Presidential Candidate, 187

Conclusions, 210

Notes, 217

Essay on Sources, 241

Index, 247 © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. acknowledgments

During my many years of research and writing on Abraham Lin- coln and other Civil War–era subjects, many people have aided me. Some have simply shown an interest in my study and asked important questions that prompted my careful consideration. Others have given material assistance and read drafts of the manuscripts. During the last two decades, my dining partners and senior colleagues Alex De Grand, John Riddle, Jim Banker, Joe Mobley, and the late Joe Hobbs learned to tolerate my near obsession with Lincoln. They have provided encouragement and good hu- mor for my research and writing. I owe a special word of thanks to John David Smith, a former colleague and now a distinguished member of the Department of History, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, for his generous help in all of my scholarly activities. I also would be remiss if I did not recognize the interest and support of the Department of History at North Carolina State University during my thirty-five years as a member of its faculty. Many library staffs and curators of manuscripts and illustrations have been helpful, none more so than that of the D. H. Hill Library at North Carolina State University. In addition, I have received marvelous assistance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University libraries. Both the Manuscript and the Prints and Photographic divisions of the Library of Congress have often rendered important aid for my publi- cations. In numerous ways, the North Carolina State Division of Archives and History, Raleigh, has provided generous assistance for my research and writing on national as well as Old North State subjects. Finally, my wife of many years, Betty Glenn Harris, has been an indis- pensable pillar of support for all of my research and writing. I continue to owe her a great deal.

[ ix ] © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press.

Introduction

In writing about the Northern opposition to Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans during the Civil War, historians have usually focused on the Copperheads or antiwar wing of the Democratic Party. They have debated the question of the loyalty of the Cop- perheads and their importance. Reflecting the need to defend democracy and political dissent during the Cold War, several historians at that time refuted the traditional view that the Copper- heads were conspirators against the Lincoln government and the state Republican governments in the West (today’s Midwest). The most important of these revisionist scholars was Frank L. Klement whose Copperheads in the Middle West, published in 1960, became the standard account of the interpretation that the Copperheads were mainly the product of Republican propaganda. According to Klement, they were loyal dissenters who felt threatened by Re- publican economic policies and by violations of civil liberties and states’ rights during the Civil War.1 In 2006, Professor Jennifer L. Weber in a splendid book, the Cop- perheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, seri- ously challenged the Klement interpretation. She revealed that the antiwar Democrats were, as President Abraham Lincoln character- ized them, “a fire in the rear” and a threat to the Union cause in the war.2 Other historians have contrasted these peace Democrats and obstructionists with the War Democrats who patriotically affiliated with the Republicans in the Union Party, as the coalition was called. The War Democrats, despite their traditional adherence to a strict construction of the Constitution, usually supported Presi- dent Lincoln and Republican policies. Although some might have

[ 1 ] © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. had misgivings, Democrats in the Union Party backed Lincoln’s Emanci- pation Proclamation, the suppression of antiwar dissent, confiscation of rebel property, federal military conscription, and the recruitment of black troops. War Democrats like Governor Oliver Perry Morton of Indiana and General Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts ultimately cast their lot with the radical wing of the Republican Party. A few prominent War Democrats, for example John A. Dix of New York, a political general, returned to the Democratic Party after the war. Frequently neglected in the accounts of the Civil War have been those Democrats who remained faithful to the old party of Andrew Jackson, to its constitutional tenets, and also to the original Union purpose in the war, but opposed Lincoln, the Republicans, and the Union Party coalition. Horatio Seymour, who served as governor of New York from January 1863 to Janu- ary 1865, emerged as the leader of these loyal Democrats. Reverdy John- son of Maryland, an old-line Whig conservative, often cooperated with the Democrats in supporting the war and opposing Lincoln and Republican policies. Johnson, reputedly America’s pre-eminent lawyer, not only helped to save his state for the Union, he also articulated valuable constitutional and political principles and arguments for conservatives and Democrats. Although they might not have met or corresponded, Seymour and John- son in speeches, pamphlets, and letters provided the loyal opposition with its most penetrating critique and political challenge to Lincoln and his party during the war. With remarkable consistency and often similarity in their views, the vigorous efforts of Seymour and Johnson against the Republi- cans continued after Lincoln’s death. Both men came to the conclusion that the Republicans represented a serious threat to civil liberties (for whites) and to the federal system of government created by the Founders. Further- more, Seymour and Johnson increasingly doubted that the war could be won under Lincoln’s leadership and the “hard war” policies of the Republi- cans, including federal emancipation. Plainly, these two loyal opponents of Lincoln and the Republicans have not received the attention from scholars and students that they deserve in the history of the Civil War era. In opposing Lincoln’s policies and his assumed leadership failings, Hora- tio Seymour especially placed himself on the wrong side of history. When historians have referred to Seymour, they have faulted him for his opposition to Republican or radical efforts in Congress to reconstruct the defeated South. More often, historians have condemned Seymour for his reportedly provocative actions as governor during the New York Draft Riot of mid-July 1863. They have cited his Fourth of July, 1863, “rabble-rousing speech” in New York City for creating the mood for mob violence, which occurred less

[ 2 ] introduction © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. than two weeks later.3 Some have linked Seymour with peace Democrats like Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio and Fernando Wood of New York.4 They have uncritically accepted the contemporary Republican charge that at best the New York governor obstructed Lincoln’s policies and the Union cause; at worst he was a Copperhead who advocated peace at any price with the rebels. William B. Hesseltine in Lincoln and the War Governors (1948) maintained that the president only tolerated Seymour, believing that the New York Democratic leader’s real objective in opposing the administra- tion was to win the presidency in 1864. (Seymour refused to become a candidate at that time.) According to Hesseltine, the governor “could not stand against Lincoln’s Union-saving sentiments” or the president’s superior ability to express his views.5 Associates of Seymour and even some contemporary opponents, however, uncritically proclaimed him a man of erudition and considerable political ability. After Seymour’s nomination for president in 1868 by the Democratic Party, in which he proved a stronger challenger to U. S. Grant and the Republicans than has been realized, the Philadelphia Evening Tele- graph commented, “He bears the reputation of being one of the most scholarly and polished men who have ever been in public life in the country.”6 His political friends praised him for his defense of civil liberties during and after the war. Seymour’s biographer, Stewart Mitchell, writing during the Great Depression of the 1930s when it was fashionable to be critical of Civil War Republicans, agreed with Seymour’s friends regarding his outstanding political and intellectual qualities. Mitchell also defended Seymour’s role in the New York rioting in July 1863 and his opposition to the radicals during Reconstruction.7 Still, Seymour deserved some if not much of the criticism hurled at him by critics, especially for his dogged opposition to emancipation as a purpose of the war and his racism, which, however, was relatively mild compared to that of many, if not most Democrats and many other contemporary Americans. At the same time, his contribution to the Union war effort in raising New York troops, his important role in Northern party politics during the Civil War era, and his loyal opposition to questionable Lincoln and Republican policies and actions should not be overlooked. Reverdy Johnson provided a less confrontational and partisan challenge to Lincoln and the Republicans than Seymour. However, along with the New York Democratic leader, Johnson was willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt in the beginning of the war. Johnson, a Maryland attorney, was more at home in the courtroom and in writing political and constitutional treatises than Seymour who, though also trained as a lawyer, rarely practiced his craft. With cordial manners (he considered himself a

Southern gentleman), Johnson, although half-blind for much of his career, had a remarkable memory of history and the law. His writings and speeches clearly reflected, often in a tedious and skewed fashion, his interest in constitutional history to validate his conservative opposition not only against Lincoln and the Republicans but also against the Southern secessionists. Johnson reportedly had no peer as a defender of constitutional rights for individuals and the states against unwarranted and illegal federal violations. However, in 1861 he defended President Lincoln’s limited suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Although the suspension was condemned by Dem- ocrats and advocates of civil liberties, Johnson justified it at this time on valid constitutional grounds because of the national emergency and the immediate rebel threat to the government in Washington. Johnson has the distinction of being only one of three men who served in the US Senate during both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, as a Whig in the first war then as a conservative Unionist in the second. (The other senators were John P. Hale of New Hampshire and James Pearce of Maryland.) After the rise of the antislavery Republican Party and the col- lapse of the Whig Party during the mid-1850s, Johnson usually cooperated with the Democrats in national elections as the only alternative to the Re- publicans. In 1860, he campaigned for Stephen A. Douglas against Lincoln for president. Historians have misleadingly identified him as a Democrat; Johnson, however, always denied that he had ever affiliated with the Dem- ocratic Party. Unlike Seymour, he had a personal relationship with Lincoln. He often visited the White House on behalf of Maryland and his clients who had been arrested and incarcerated by military authorities. Although Johnson was politically opposed to the president, Lincoln early in the war received his support to save Maryland for the Union. Later, in 1862, Lin- coln sent him on an important mission to Union-occupied New Orleans to resolve a dispute between the irascible General Benjamin F. Butler and foreign consuls and businessmen, a mission he successfully accomplished. Johnson, however, raised the president’s ire by lecturing him against his and the army’s interference with slavery in Louisiana. The president’s meetings with Johnson became increasingly testy, par- ticularly over the Emancipation Proclamation, black troops, and military interference in state elections, all of which, like Seymour, he opposed. Even though Johnson initially supported a limited suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, he soon denounced the military arrests of suspected “traitors.” After Johnson returned to the Senate in December 1863 as an opponent of the president and the Republicans, Lincoln sought to avoid him. The Mary- land conservative surprised political observers, probably including Lincoln,

[ 4 ] introduction © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. when in April 1864 he announced his support for the Republican-proposed constitutional amendment to end slavery. He justified his decision on the grounds that the amendment—not the arbitrary action of the president or Congress, which he had consistently opposed—met the test of constitu- tionality for abolishing slavery. After the war, Senator Johnson, like Seymour, threw his support behind President Andrew Johnson’s lenient plan of reconstruction for the former rebel states. He briefly represented the imprisoned Jefferson Davis, through Davis’s wife, Varina, and also Robert E. Lee as the former Confederate general sought the restoration of his wife’s property in Virginia. In 1866, Reverdy Johnson was one of the leaders in the failed National Union Party movement to prevent the Republicans from seizing control of Reconstruc- tion. In early 1867, fearful that radicals like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens would gain control of Congress and impose a “revolutionary” set- tlement upon the South, Johnson again surprised observers by supporting Senator John Sherman’s military reconstruction bill, a compromise mea- sure that Congress soon enacted. He argued that the Sherman bill was necessary to prevent a harsher congressional plan of reconstruction. None- theless, the Maryland senator opposed the Republicans’ impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, and he played an important role in the Senate’s acquittal of his namesake. For his efforts, the president sent him to England in an attempt to settle American Civil War claims against the British. The unpopular treaty that he signed was overwhelmingly rejected by the Sen- ate. Johnson’s last important act was to go to South Carolina and defend in federal court Ku Klux Klansmen, terrorists whom he quickly learned to despise.

By focusing on Horatio Seymour and Reverdy Johnson, this book seeks to provide the reader with a better understanding of the loyal opposition to Lincoln and the Republicans and also the political alignments and conflict in the Union states during the Civil War era. It attempts to shed light on the political and constitutional issues over slavery, secession, and war. The book examines the conservative opposition of Seymour and Johnson, as distinct from the Copperheads, to Lincoln’s policies, his conduct of the war, emancipation, and civil liberties. Finally, the book provides the reader with an account of Seymour and Johnson’s persistent but futile efforts to secure an immediate Southern restoration to the Union after the war, and against dominant Republicans whom they denounced as radicals and rev-

introduction [ 5 ] © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. olutionaries. Seymour and Johnson claimed that, if the radicals succeeded in their designs for the South, the American system of governance would be irrevocably changed, an eventuality, however, that never occurred. The book seeks to demonstrate the internal difficulties and political conflict that Lincoln and the Union faced in suppressing the Southern insurrection, achieving emancipation, and developing a reconstruction policy to protect the fruits of the Union victory in the war, which included bona fide free- dom for the former slaves.

part i

Reverdy Johnson, prominent Maryland lawyer, Whig senator during the Mexican-American War, attorney general in President Zachary Taylor’s cabinet, conservative Unionist senator, and Republican opponent during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Courtesy of the Brady-Handy Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.