HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN LOYALISTS’ CONVENTION By KAREN MICHELLE MALLOY A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2006 Copyright 2006 by Karen Michelle Malloy This document is dedicated to my parents for all their love and support. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I want to thank Dr. J. Matthew Gallman for introducing me to the relevancy of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention to the era of Reconstruction. I am also indebted to Dr. Elizabeth Dale for her steady guidance, suggestions, criticism, and encouragement in developing the body of this work. Dr. Harland-Jacobs’ editorial skills and insights were invaluable to me as well. I appreciate the patience and commitment afforded me by each of the above and am eternally grateful. Lastly, I would like to thank my family for their support and advice and gentle pushes to finish what I start. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1 A CALL FOR CONVENTION....................................................................................1 2 A GAP IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY ......................................................................15 3 THE SOUTHERN LOYALISTS’ CONVENTION...................................................34 4 AFTERMATH AND CONCLUSIONS .....................................................................73 LIST OF REFERENCES...................................................................................................91 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .............................................................................................95 v Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN LOYALISTS’ CONVENTION By Karen Michelle Malloy May 2006 Chair: Elizabeth Dale Major Department: History The History of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention is a study of an event that has been neglected by historians of the Reconstruction era. This neglect does not do justice to the significance that the Convention had. At a time when most of the nation was satisfied with the course of Reconstruction, a group of Southern loyalists decided to take matters into their own hands and tell the nation what was needed for the nation to be completely and satisfactorily reconstructed. This included a change from President Johnson’s Reconstruction plan to Congressional Reconstruction. Support for the Fourteenth Amendment, granting citizenship rights to African Americans, was unanimous. A number of the delegates were also in support of enfranchising the African American population, an issue that was so controversial that it split the Convention before the final day. vi CHAPTER 1 A CALL FOR CONVENTION Shall loyalty or disloyalty have the keeping of the destinies of the nation?1 On 3 September 1866, an oft-neglected event in the history of Reconstruction convened amid tremendous controversy, and for one week some of the most pressing issues of the day were discussed and debated. The Southern Loyalists’ Convention, as it was officially dubbed, proved to be a foreshadowing of much of the conversation that would occur during the course of Reconstruction. Despite its significance to the era, the Convention has received very little attention from historians as they began interpreting the events surrounding Reconstruction. The call for the Southern Loyalists’ Convention, set to meet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was issued on 4 July 1866 from Washington, D.C. by a group of Southern loyalists who were unsatisfied with the results of Reconstruction up to this point. A patriotic day for the Union, the Fourth of July held a rather negative connotation for the former Confederate States of America. July 4, 1863 not only marked the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi after a three and a half month long siege by the Union forces, but it was also the date that the Confederate forces retreated from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, an event which, for some, marked the turning point in the 1 The Reporter: A Periodical Devoted to Religion, Law, and Public Events, 17 September 1866. 1 2 Civil War leading to the eventual Union victory. Because of the Confederate defeats on that day it was years before the fourth of July was celebrated in the South.2 Hoping to help initiate some changes, the authors of the call urged loyalists from across the South and the Border States to meet for the purpose of “demanding protection to every citizen of the great Republic on the basis of equality before the law.” Furthermore, they declared that no state should be readmitted into the Union without offering “impartial protection.” They also hoped to recommend “measures for the establishment of such government in the South as accords with and protects the rights of citizens.”3 In order to understand why this group of Southern loyalists decided that the Convention was necessary and what they hoped to accomplish, it is necessary to consider the events leading up to the call. This will also help introduce the significance the Convention had for the era. Southern loyalists were not the only group discontented with Reconstruction. They were joined in their displeasure by the radical Republicans in Congress. Of course, 1866 was not the beginning of the troubles. From the moment President Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in December 1863, Reconstruction was hotly contested. Lincoln’s Proclamation offered a full pardon to anyone who had participated in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy if they were willing to take an oath of future loyalty to the Union and had not been civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the Confederacy. Furthermore, it provided for the restoration of the seceded 2 Geoffrey C. Ward with Ric Burns and Ken Burns, The Civil War: An Illustrated History, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 240-242. 3 The Reporter, 17 September 1866. 3 states when ten percent of a state’s antebellum electorate had pledged loyalty to the Union. This Proclamation, the “ten percent plan,” met with the immediate opposition of radical senators in Congress who proposed a different plan for Reconstruction drafted by Senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry Winter Davis. Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction was quite moderate; the one proposed by Wade and Davis was radical in its requirements. The Wade-Davis Bill provided that each of the States of the Confederacy would be temporarily ruled by a military governor and required fifty percent, rather than Lincoln’s ten percent, of a state’s white male citizens to take a loyalty oath. When this happened, delegates would be elected to a state convention that would be required to repudiate secession and abolish slavery. Delegates to the convention had to take an “iron-clad oath,” in which they asserted that they had never voluntarily supported the Confederacy. Only after all of the requirements had been met would the State be readmitted to the Union. The Wade-Davis Bill passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but Lincoln refused to sign the bill into law.4 These opposing plans did not mark the beginning of Reconstruction, which actually began the moment the Civil War commenced. But it was not until the Emancipation Proclamation, issued in its final form on 1 January 1863, that the nation first began to realize the dramatic changes Reconstruction would bring, although in a limited form. For all its significance, without a Union victory in the Civil War the Proclamation would have been nothing more than scrap paper because it only freed the slaves in those states that were rebelling against the Union. The Proclamation was only a war measure that, according to Lincoln, would have ceased the moment the war ended. It required a 4 Kenneth M. Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), 39-40. 4 constitutional amendment to make this measure permanent, and the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States, was ratified in 1865.5 The abolition of slavery drastically altered southern society, but it was a change that many southern whites were not willing to accept. To keep a semblance of slavery and the life that they had grown accustomed to, Southern States implemented a series of laws shortly after the close of the Civil War. The “black codes,” as they came to be known, were intended to control former slaves’ everyday life.6 Changing a slave society to one based on the free labor ideology of the Republican Party was not an easy transition. According to this ideology, anyone, through his or her own volition, could better his or her position in life. Southern whites of all classes, intent on keeping African Americans in a position of subordination, sought various means to prevent them from obtaining the advantages of free labor and used the black codes to this end. During the Civil War, Lincoln had not sought civil or political rights for African Americans. His plan for reunion emphasized a speedy restoration, not a long drawn out process of reconstruction, and consistent with this, his administration had helped loyal governments form in Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee even before the end of the War. Lincoln