US HISTORY 2

SUMMER ASSIGNMENT

Objective: The year is 1863. An incredibly tumultuous time in American history, the country is facing an uncertain future. Even though the battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg have turned the tide for the Union and victory seems near, any hope and optimism for the war’s end is dampened by the fear of what is to come after the war is over. has proposed his “ten-percent plan” and members of Congress have been crafting proposals for “reconstructing” the nation once Union victory can be assured. If no plan can be agreed upon, the political fight to come could be even more devastating to the US government than the war itself. Your task, as a Republican congressman from a northern state, is to develop a Reconstruction proposal that would be so effective and so widely-supported that it would answer the country’s problems and do so in a way that would allow the Union to be preserved. Use the primary source texts provided and relevant additional research to get a sense of Lincoln’s plan as well as the opposing plans that will eventually come after the war. Write a 3-5 page speech that answers five questions facing the American government and its people, describing each problem fully and developing solutions to the problems that area appropriate for the time.

Summary: Write a speech that defines an original Reconstruction plan to solve the nation’s potential post-war problems and to prevent the major political fight that would occur following the Civil War. Answer THREE of the FIVE questions in the speech fully and follow the included rubric for grading information.

Questions to Answer:

• How do you re-admit states into the Union? How should they be governed? • How do you deal with Confederate politicians, military officers, soldiers? • How do you integrate freed slaves into society? • Should land be confiscated/ re-distributed? • Should the North help re-build the South?

Readings

• The Beginning of Reconstruction (by , 1863) • A Program for Reconstruction (by Abraham Lincoln, 1863) • The Rights of the Conqueror (by , 1865) • Opposing Views on Restoration of the Union (by , 1866) Grading Rubric 1 4 7 10 Accuracy of Effects Most of the Half of the Most of the All effects of of the Civil War effects effects effects of the the war are included are included are war are accurate and inaccurate or inaccurate or accurate and appropriate for inappropriate inappropriate appropriate for the time for the time for the time the time period. period. period. period.

Comprehensiveness None of the Only one of Only two of All three three questions the three the three questions are are addressed questions are questions are addressed fully, addressed addressed fully, describing the fully, fully, describing the effects of the describing the describing the effects of the war and a effects of the effects of the war and a complete war and a war and a complete solution. complete complete solution. solution. solution. Structure and The speech The speech The speech The speech is Length neither meets does not meet meets the page 3-5 pages and the page the page requirement is written as a requirement requirement but does not speech with a nor does it but does follow the proper follow proper follow the proper introduction structure and proper structure or and may not use structure and does not use concluding first-person may use first- first-person paragraph and perspective. person perspective. a first-person perspective. perspective. Quality of None of the Only one of Two of the All proposed Reconstruction three proposed the two three proposed solutions are Proposals solutions are proposed solutions are well thought- well thought- solutions are well thought- out and out and well thought- out and appropriate for appropriate for out and appropriate for the time the time appropriate for the time period. period. the time period. period.

The Beginning of Reconstruction by Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Introduction

By the middle of 1863 the had occupied several seceded states, among them Tennessee. The following letter, written by President Abraham Lincoln on September 11, 1863, to Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee, is significant in that it provides an early hint of the President's thoughts about postwar Reconstruction of the South. Under Johnson, Tennessee became a laboratory for Reconstruction experiments, and Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln as President in 1865, adhered to the basic guidelines laid down in this and other early Lincoln statements.

Source: Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds., New York, 1905, Vol. IX, pp. 116–117.

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 cooperating 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.

I would be very happy to oblige you, if my passes were respected. But the fact is, sir, I have, within the last two years, given passes to two hundred and fifty thousand men to go to Richmond, and not one has got there yet.Abraham Lincoln, reply to a man who asked for a “safe conduct” to Richmond1863

A Program for Reconstruction by Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Introduction

In his third annual message to Congress on December 8, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln for the first time presented a program for Reconstruction, a plan marked by considerable leniency to former Confederates. The message was preceded on the same day by a presidential proclamation that laid down the conditions for Reconstruction. Lincoln's plan was based on three assumptions: that the Southern states had never legally been out of the Union; that they could be restored as soon as their political institutions were properly reordered; and that Reconstruction was largely an executive function. The plan aroused bitter resentment among the . Lincoln's plan was carried out during his lifetime in the restored states, but Congress never recognized “Lincoln governments” in the South. The Proclamation and portions of Lincoln's message are reprinted below.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789–1897, James D. Richardson, ed., Washington, 1896–1899, Vol. VI, pp. 179–191, 213–215.

I. Proclamation of Amnesty

Whereas in and by the Constitution of the it is provided that the President “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”; and

Whereas a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal state governments of several states have for a long time been subverted, and many persons have committed and are now guilty of treason against the United States; and

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and treason, laws have been enacted by Congress declaring forfeitures and confiscation of property and liberation of slaves, all upon terms and conditions therein stated, and also declaring that the President was thereby authorized at any time thereafter, by proclamation, 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 times and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare; and

Whereas the congressional declaration for limited and conditional pardon accords with well-established judicial exposition of the pardoning power; and Whereas, with reference to said rebellion, the President of the United States has issued several proclamations with provisions in regard to the liberation of slaves; and

Whereas 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:

Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known to 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 and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:

I, ———, do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the states thereunder; and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by Congress or by decision of the Supreme Court; and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully 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. So help me God.

The persons excepted from the benefits of the foregoing provisions are all 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 of 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.

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that whenever, in any of the states of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such state at the presidential election of the year a.d. 1860, each having taken 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 reestablish 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 guarantee 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 the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.”

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that any provision which may be adopted by such state government in relation to the freed people of such state 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.

And it is suggested as not improper that in constructing a loyal state government in any state 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 misunderstanding, it may be proper to say that this proclamation, so far as it relates to state governments, has no reference to states wherein loyal state governments have all the while been maintained. And for the same reason it may be proper to further say that whether members sent to Congress from any state shall be admitted to seats constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective houses and not to any extent with the executive. And, still further, that this proclamation is intended to present the people of the states wherein the national authority has been suspended and loyal state governments have been subverted a mode in and by which the national authority and loyal state governments may be reestablished within said states or in any of them; and 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.

II. Annual Message to Congress

When Congress assembled a year ago, the war had already lasted nearly twenty months, and there had been many conflicts on both land and sea, with varying results. The rebellion had been pressed back into reduced limits; yet the tone of public feeling and opinion, at home and abroad, was not satisfactory.

With other signs, the popular elections, then just past, indicated uneasiness among ourselves, while, amid much that was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were uttered in accents of pity, that we were too blind to surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by a few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores, and we were threatened with such additions from the same quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea and raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from European governments anything hopeful upon this subject. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued in September, was running its assigned period to the beginning of the new year. A month later the final proclamation came, including the announcement that colored men of suitable condition would be received into the war service. The policy of emancipation and of employing black soldiers gave to the future a new aspect, about which hope, and fear, and doubt contended in uncertain conflict. According to our political system, as a matter of civil administration, the general government had no lawful power to effect emancipation in any state, and for a long time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as a military measure. It was all the while deemed possible that the necessity for it might come, and that if it should, the crisis of the contest would then be presented. It came, and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and doubtful days.

Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take another review. The Rebel borders are pressed still farther back, and by the complete opening of the Mississippi the country dominated by the rebellion is divided into distinct parts, with no practical communication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and influential citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation in their respective states. Of those states not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which three years ago would tolerate any restraint upon the extension of slavery into new territories, only dispute now as to the best mode of removing it within their own limits.

Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the rebellion, full 100,000 are now in the United States military service, about one-half of which number actually bear arms in the ranks; thus giving the double advantage of taking so much labor from the insurgent cause and supplying the places which otherwise must be filled with so many white men. So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any. No servile insurrection or tendency to violence or cruelty has marked the measures of emancipation and arming the blacks. These measures have been much discussed in foreign countries, and, contemporary with such discussion, the tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At home the same measures have been fully discussed, supported, criticized, and denounced, and the annual elections following are highly encouraging to those whose official duty it is to bear the country through this great trial. Thus we have the new reckoning. The crisis which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is past.

Looking now to the present and future, and with reference to a resumption of the national authority within the states wherein that authority has been suspended, I have thought fit to issue a proclamation, a copy of which is herewith transmitted. On examination of this proclamation it will appear, as is believed, that nothing will be attempted beyond what is amply justified by the Constitution. True, the form of an oath is given, but no man is coerced to take it. The man is only promised a pardon in case he voluntarily takes the oath. The Constitution authorizes the executive to grant or withhold the pardon at his own absolute discretion; and this includes the power to grant on terms, as is fully established by judicial and other authorities. It is also profferred that if, in any of the states named, a state government shall be, in the mode prescribed, set up, such government shall be recognized and guaranteed by the United States, and that under it the state shall, on the constitutional conditions, be protected against invasion and domestic violence. The constitutional obligation of the United States to guarantee to every state in the Union a republican form of government and to protect the state in the cases stated is explicit and full. But why tender the benefits of this provision only to a state government set up in this particular way? This section of the Constitution contemplates a case wherein the element within a state favorable to republican government in the Union may be too feeble for an opposite and hostile element external to, or even within, the state; and such are precisely the cases with which we are now dealing.

An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived state government constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected is simply absurd. There must be a test by which to separate the opposing elements, so as to build only from the sound; and that test is a sufficiently liberal one which accepts as sound whoever will make a sworn recantation of his former unsoundness.

But if it be proper to require as a test of admission to the political body an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and to the Union under it, why also to the laws and proclamations in regard to slavery? Those laws and proclamations were enacted and put forth for the purpose of aiding in the suppression of the rebellion. To give them their fullest effect, there had to be a pledge for their maintenance. In my judgment they have aided and will further aid the cause for which they were intended. To now abandon them would be not only to relinquish a lever of power but would also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith.

I may add at this point, that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation; nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress. For these and other reasons it is thought best that support of these measures shall be included in the oath; and it is believed the executive may lawfully claim it in return for pardon and restoration of forfeited rights, which he has clear constitutional power to withhold altogether, or grant upon the terms which he shall deem wisest for the public interest. It should be observed, also, that this part of the oath is subject to the modifying and abrogating power of legislation and supreme judicial decision.

The proposed acquiescence of the national executive in any reasonable temporary state arrangement for the freed people is made with the view of possibly modifying the confusion and destitution which must, at best, attend all classes by a total revolution of labor throughout whole states. It is hoped that the already deeply afflicted people in those states may be somewhat more ready to give up the cause of their affliction, if to this extent this vital matter be left to themselves; while no power of the national executive to prevent an abuse is abridged by the proposition. The suggestion in the proclamation as to maintaining the political framework of the states on what is called reconstruction is made in the hope that it may do good without danger of harm. It will save labor and avoid great confusion.

But why any proclamation now upon this subject? This question is beset with the conflicting views that the step might be delayed too long or be taken too soon. In some states the elements for resumption seem ready for action, but remain inactive, apparently for want of a rallying point — a plan of action. Why shall A adopt the plan of B, rather than B that of A? And if A and B should agree, how can they know but that the general government here will reject their plan? By the proclamation a plan is presented which may be accepted by them as a rallying point, and which they are assured in advance will not be rejected here. This may bring them to act sooner than they otherwise would.

The objections to a premature presentation of a plan by the national executive consist in the danger of committals on points which could be more safely left to further developments. Care has been taken to so shape the document as to avoid embarrassments from this source. Saying that on certain terms certain classes will be pardoned, with rights restored, it is not said that other classes, or other terms, will never be included. Saying that reconstruction will be accepted if presented in a specified way, it is not said it will never be accepted in any other way.

The movements, by state action, for emancipation in several of the states not included in the Emancipation Proclamation are matters of profound gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have heretofore so earnestly urged upon this subject, my general views and feelings remain unchanged; and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity of aiding these important steps to a great consummation.

In the midst of other cares, however important, we must not lose sight of the fact that the war power is still our main reliance. To that power alone can we look yet for a time to give confidence to the people in the contested regions, that the insurgent power will not again overrun them. Until that confidence shall be established, little can be done anywhere for what is called reconstruction. Hence our chiefest care must still be directed to the Army and Navy, who have thus far borne their harder part so nobly and well. And it may be esteemed fortunate that in giving the greatest efficiency to these indispensable arms, we do also honorably recognize the gallant men, from commander to sentinel, who compose them, and to whom, more than to others, the world must stand indebted for the home of freedom disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, and perpetuated.

The Rights of the Conqueror by Thaddeus Stevens, 1865

Introduction

Congressman Thaddeus Stevens' bitter hatred for slavery and Southern institutions in general motivated him to press for a harsh Reconstruction policy. As the leader Republican Party of Pennsylvania and the dominant member of the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction, Stevens urged Congress to enact a policy of military rule in the South. Calling the South the “conquered province,” he advocated the immediate arming of African Americans, confiscation of Confederate property, and severe punishment of Confederate leaders. In the following address of September 6, 1865, delivered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Stevens summarized his Reconstruction program. The decisive Radical Republican victory in the congressional elections of 1866 gave Stevens the means to carry out his policies.

Source: New York Herald, Supplement, December 13, 1865.

Four years of bloody and expensive war waged against the United States by eleven states, under a government called the “Confederate States of America” to which they acknowledged allegiance, have overthrown all governments within those states which could be acknowledged as legitimate by the Union. The armies of the Confederate States having been conquered and subdued, and their territory possessed by the United States, it becomes necessary to establish governments therein which shall be republican in form and principles, and form a “more perfect union” with the parent government. It is desirable that such a course should be pursued as to exclude from those governments every vestige of human bondage and render the same forever impossible in this nation, and to take care that no principles of self-destruction shall be incorporated therein.

In effecting this, it is to be hoped that no provision of the Constitution will be infringed and no principle of the law of nations disregarded. Especially must we take care that in rebuking this unjust and treasonable war, the authorities of the Union shall indulge in no acts of usurpation which may tend to impair the stability and permanency of the nation. Within these limitations we hold it to be the duty of the government to inflict condign punishment on the Rebel belligerents, and so weaken their hands that they can never again endanger the Union; and so reform their municipal institutions as to make them republican in spirit as well as in name. We especially insist that the property of the chief Rebels should be seized and appropriated to the payment of the national debt caused by the unjust and wicked war which they instigated.

How can such punishments be inflicted and such forfeitures produced without doing violence to established principles? Two positions have been suggested:

First, to treat those states as never having been out of the Union, because the Constitution forbids secession, and, therefore, a fact forbidden by law could not exist.

Second, to accept the position in which they placed themselves as severed from the Union — an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war.

The crime of treason can be committed only where the person is actually or potentially present. Jefferson Davis sitting in Richmond, counseling or advising or commanding an inroad into Pennsylvania, has committed no overt act in this state, and can be tried, if anywhere, only in the Richmond district. The doctrine of constructive presence and constructive treason will never, I hope, pollute our statutes or judicial decisions. Select an impartial jury from Virginia and it is obvious no conviction could ever be had. Possibly a jury might be packed to convict; but that would not be an “impartial” jury. It would be judicial murder. …

What right has anyone to direct a convention to be held in a sovereign state of this Union to amend its constitution and prescribe the qualifications of voters? The sovereign power of the nation is lodged in Congress. Yet where is the warrant in the Constitution for such sovereign power, much less the executive, to intermeddle with the domestic institutions of a state, mold its laws, and regulate the elective franchise? It would be rank, dangerous, and deplorable usurpation. In reconstruction, therefore, no reform can be effected in the Southern states if they have never left the Union.

But reformation must be effected; the foundation of their institutions — political, municipal, and social — must be broken up and relaid, or all our blood and treasure have been spent in vain. This can only be done by treating and holding them as a conquered people. Then all things which we can desire to do follow with logical and legitimate authority. As conquered territory, Congress would have full power to legislate for them; for the territories are not under the Constitution except so far as the express power to govern them is given to Congress. They would be held in a territorial condition until they are fit to form state constitutions, republican in fact, not in form only, and ask admission into the Union as new states.

If Congress approve of their constitutions and think they have done works meet for repentance, they would be admitted as new states. If their constitutions are not approved of, they would be sent back until they had become wise enough so to purge their old laws as to eradicate every despotic and revolutionary principle — until they shall have learned to venerate the Declaration of Independence. I do not touch on the question of Negro suffrage. If in the Union, the states have long ago regulated that, and for the central government to interfere with it would be mischievous impertinence. If they are to be admitted as new states, they must form their own constitution, and no enabling act could dictate its terms. Congress could prescribe the qualifications of voters while a territory or when proceeding to call a convention to form a state government. This is the extent of the power of Congress over the elective franchise, whether in a territorial or state condition.

The President has not even this or any other power to meddle in the subject except by advice to Congress — and they on territories. Congress, to be sure, has some sort of compulsory power by refusing the states admission until they shall have complied with its wishes upon this subject. Whether those who have fought our battles should all be allowed to vote, or only those of a paler hue, I leave to be discussed in the future when Congress can take legitimate cognizance of it. …

There are about 6 million freemen in the South. The number of acres of land is 465 million. Of this, those who own above 200 acres each number about 70,000 persons, holding in the aggregate — together with the states — about 394 million acres, leaving for all the others, below 200 each, about 71 million acres. By thus forfeiting the estates of the leading Rebels, the government would have 394 million acres besides their town property, and yet nine-tenths of the people would remain untouched. Divide this land into convenient farms. Give, if you please, 40 acres to each adult male freedman. Suppose there are 1 million of them. That would require 40 million acres, which deducted from 394 million leaves 354 million acres for sale. Divide it into suitable farms and sell it to the highest bidders. I think it, including town property, would average at least $10 per acre. That would produce $3,540,000,000.

Let that be applied as follows, to wit:

• Invest $300 million in 6 percent government bonds, and add the interest semiannually to the pensions of those who have become entitled by this villainous war.

• Appropriate $200 million to pay the damage done to loyal men, North and South, by the rebellion.

• Pay the residue, being $3,040,000,000, toward the payment of the national debt.

Our war debt is estimated at from $3 billion to $4 billion … $470 million to be raised by taxation! Our present heavy taxes will in ordinary years produce but little more than half that sum. Can our people bear double their present taxation? He who unnecessarily causes it will be accursed from generation to generation. It is fashionable to belittle our public debt lest the people should become alarmed and political parties should suffer. I have never found it wise to deceive the people. They can always be trusted with the truth. Capitalists will not be affected for they cannot be deceived. Confide in the people and you will avoid repudiation. Deceive them, and lead them into false measures, and you may produce it. … The plan we have proposed would pay at least three-fourths of our debt. The balance could be managed with our present taxation.

While I hear it said everywhere that slavery is dead, I cannot learn who killed it. No thoughtful man has pretended that Lincoln's proclamation, so noble in sentiment, liberated a single slave. It expressly excluded from its operation all those within our lines. No slave within any part of the Rebel states in our possession or in Tennessee, but only those beyond our limits and beyond our power, were declared free. … The President did not pretend to abrogate the slave laws of any of the states. “Restoration,” therefore, will leave “the Union as it was” a hideous idea. …

The President says to the Rebel states, “Before you can participate in the government you must abolish slavery and reform your election laws.” That is the command of a conqueror. That is reconstruction, not restoration — reconstruction, too, by assuming the powers of Congress. This theory will lead to melancholy results. Nor can the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery ever be ratified by three-fourths of the states, if they are states to be counted. Bogus conventions of those states may vote for it; but no convention honestly and fairly elected will ever do it. The frauds will not permanently avail. The cause of liberty must rest on a firmer basis. Counterfeit governments, like the Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas pretenses, will be disregarded by the sober sense of the people, by future law, and by the courts. “Restoration” is replanting the seeds of rebellion, which within the next quarter of a century will germinate and produce the same bloody strife which has just ended.

If the South is ever to be made a safe republic, let her lands be cultivated by the toil of the owners or the free labor of intelligent citizens. This must be done even though it drive her nobility into exile. If they go, all the better.

It will be hard to persuade the owner of 10,000 acres of land, who drives a coach and four, that he is not degraded by sitting at the same table, or in the same pew, with the embrowned and hard-handed farmer who has himself cultivated his own thriving homestead of 150 acres. This subdivision of the lands will yield ten bales of cotton to one that is made now, and he who produced it will own it and feel himself a man.

It is far easier and more beneficial to exile 70,000 proud, bloated, and defiant Rebels than to expatriate 4 million laborers, natives to the soil and loyal to the government. This latter scheme was a favorite plan of the Blairs, with which they had for a while inoculated our late sainted President. But a single experiment made him discard it and his advisers.

Since I have mentioned the Blairs, I may say a word more of these persistent apologists of the South; for, when the virus of slavery has once entered the veins of the slaveholder, no subsequent effort seems capable of wholly eradicating it. They are a family of considerable power, some merit, of admirable audacity and execrable selfishness. With impetuous alacrity they seize the White House and hold possession of it, as in the late administration, until shaken off by the overpowering force of public indignation. Their pernicious counsel had wellnigh defeated the reelection of Abraham Lincoln; and if it should prevail with the present administration, pure and patriotic as President Johnson is admitted to be, it will render him the most unpopular executive — save one — that ever occupied the presidential chair. But there is no fear of that. He will soon say, as Mr. Lincoln did, “Your time has come.”

Is this great conquest to be in vain? That will depend upon the virtue and intelligence of the next Congress. To Congress alone belongs the power of reconstruction — of giving law to the vanquished. … But we know how difficult it is for a majority of Congress to overcome preconceived opinions. Besides, before Congress meets, things will be so inaugurated — precipitated — it will still be more difficult to correct. If a majority of Congress can be found wise and firm enough to declare the Confederate States a conquered enemy, reconstruction will be easy and legitimate; and the friends of freedom will long rule in the councils of the nation.

If restoration prevails, the prospect is gloomy, and “new lords will make new laws.” The Union Party will be overwhelmed. The “Copperhead” Party has become extinct with secession. But with secession it will revive. Under “restoration” every Rebel state will send Rebels to Congress; and they, with their allies in the North, will control Congress and will occupy the White House. Then restoration of laws and ancient constitutions will be sure to follow; our public debt will be repudiated or the Rebel national debt will be added to ours; and the people be crushed beneath heavy burdens.

Let us forget all parties and build on the broad platform of “reconstructing” the government out of the conquered territory converted into new and free states and admitted into the Union by the sovereign power of Congress, with another plank — “The property of the Rebels shall pay our national debt, and indemnify freedmen and loyal sufferers; and that under no circumstances will we suffer the national debt to be repudiated or the interest scaled below the contract rates; nor permit any part of the Rebel debt to be assumed by the nation.”

Let all who approve of these principles rally with us. Let all others go with “Copperheads” and Rebels. Those will be the opposing parties. Young men, this duty devolves on you. Would to God, if only for that, that I were still in the prime of life that I might aid you to fight through this last, greatest battle of freedom.

Opposing Views on the Restoration of the Union 1865

Introduction

President Andrew Johnson issued the first of his Reconstruction orders, the North Carolina Proclamation, on May 29, 1865; additional ones for other states followed during the summer and fall. Republicans and Democrats interpreted them differently, according to their own wishes. The Republicans viewed the President's plan as an experiment in reorganizing a Confederate state that would yield evidence upon the basis of which Congress, when it met that winter, could fashion a Reconstruction policy. The Democrats, on the other hand, regarded the moderate proclamations as the final word on Reconstruction. Thus both parties supported the President's program during this period, though for different reasons. The following editorials, the first published in the Republican Harper's Weekly and the second in the Democratic Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, reflected the views of both parties.

Source: Harper's Weekly, September 30, 1865. Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, October 6, 1865.

I. A Republican Editorial

We elsewhere call attention to a remarkable speech of General John A. Logan's in Jacksonville, Illinois. The general says that the policy of reconstruction adopted by the administration is an experiment, and that it is the duty of all good citizens to stand heartily by the President until it is proved a failure.

That is precisely the ground which a true conservatism now occupies. The Democratic convention, in breathless haste to eat their own words of the last few years, vociferate their adherence to the President's policy, and amiable poets of the morning press behold vast hosts of Jacobins marshaling under blood-red banners to oppose it. But as the President is merely trying an experiment, it is rather premature vehemently to support or rancorously to oppose his policy; nor is any country in a very “parlous state” when its Jacobins are the most intelligent, conservative, and substantial part of its population.

The President, acting from the necessity of the case and for the public safety, has set aside the civil officers elected in various states under their constitutions and has appointed provisional governors of his own. He has further prohibited thirteen certain classes of voters under the constitutions of those states from exercising the right of suffrage, and has authorized a certain number, who are also qualified by the state constitutions, to vote for members of a convention. This convention is to remodel the existing state constitutions and to proceed, under them, to elect state officers and representatives in Congress. The constitutions and, by consequence, the validity of the officers elected, are to be submitted to the government for approval. In the President's words, the convention is “to present such a republican form of state government as will entitle the state to the guaranty of the United States therefor and the people to protection by the United States against invasion, insurrection, and domestic violence.”

This is all that the President has done. This is his whole policy thus far. It is, as General Logan says, “an experiment.” The President virtually says to certain persons in the states, “See what you can do. Suggest your plan.” But he does not say that the plan shall be adopted. He does not promise that the constitution shall be approved and the elections under it legitimated. The very object he has in view is to try the temper of the class of the population which he selects to prove whether the local political power of the states may be safely confided to them. Nor does he assume finally to decide so vital a question. He leaves it where it belongs — to the nation itself, to the representatives of the people.

The Democratic resolutions and the amiable chatter about opposition assume that it is not an experiment; that the President has declared the constitution framed by the voters he has selected, and the elections held under it, to be the law without further process or approval. This is exactly what he has not done and could have no pretense of authority for doing. If he had done it, if he had said that a certain class of persons in the states named by him should elect a convention, that that convention should frame a constitution, that the elections should be held under the constitution, and that thereupon the state should be recognized as having resumed all its relations in the Union, and its representatives and senators should be admitted to Congress as a matter of course, then, indeed, he would have laid down a policy, and the whole country would have crackled in opposition to it. …

Thus far, the President is merely trying an experiment, and whether we think the principles upon which it proceeds promise success or failure, we ought loyally and patiently to await the event. So says General Logan; so says Maine; so says Vermont; so says California; so say we all.

II. A Democratic Editorial

The Abolition press are consoling themselves and their leaders with the idea that the restoration policy of President Johnson is only an experiment. There is no foundation for such a representation of his views. Neither is it in character with his whole course in life. Firmness even to obstinacy has marked his career. And more than this, he has repeatedly stated that his plan of restoration was the policy of his administration, and upon it he would stand or fall. Certainly such expressions give no color to the contrary representations of the Abolition papers. Governor Morton endeavors to show, in his Richmond [Ind.] speech, that the policy of the late and the present presidents are identical. This view only accumulates the evidence that the President's policy of restoration is fixed, not an experiment liable to change as the listless wind.

There is no doubt that if Mr. Lincoln had lived that his terms of amnesty to the Southern people would have been far more liberal than any his successor has yet proposed. Even Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the rebellion who are now incarcerated would have been permitted to escape the country. “With malice toward none and charity for all” was the spirit which would have animated Mr. Lincoln in his treatment of the rebellion after its military power had been crushed and the whole people subjugated.

If, then, President Johnson intends to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, as Governor Morton insists that he does, there is nothing whatever upon which to base the statement that his plan of restoration is only an experiment. Upon all questions of political economy, President Johnson avows himself to be as thorough a Democrat now as he ever was. Slavery is no longer an issue, and Governor Morton declares that all fear of secession or resistance to the national authority is forever extinguished, hence there is no reason why the President should not guide the policy of his administration by the old Democratic landmarks. This he avows he intends to do; and the declaration is having a marked effect all over the country.

Everywhere we find men who left the Democratic Party on account of their opposition to African slavery returning to the old banner; and conservative Republicans are rallying under the same standard. President Johnson looks to this class for his support and not to the men who, with honeyed words, endorse his administration but still adhere to the political organization which is guided by radical Abolitionists. In language unmistakable, the President declares that this is a white man's government, and such he intends it shall be so far as his influence can maintain it. And this is the growing sentiment of the country.

From Idaho the voice first came for a white man's government, and old Connecticut, at her recent election, took position in the same line. Nothing but fraud, corruption, and prejudice will prevent New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even Iowa swelling the column for a white man's government. Never was there a greater delusion than that President Johnson looks upon his restoration policy as an experiment.