HISTORY of the SOUTHERN LOYALISTS' CONVENTION By

Home , Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Claude Bowers, James Speed, Radical Republicans, Reconstruction era

HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN LOYALISTS’ CONVENTION

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 recognized the state governments, but as his proclamation claimed,

it was up to Congress to seat the newly elected members.7 Congress refused.8

5 ibid. 14.

6 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: HarperCollins. 1988), 199.

7 The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916. Abraham Lincoln, Tuesday, December 08, 1863 (Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction).

8 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 40.

Congress was not the only one dissatisfied with Reconstruction at this point; even

Lincoln was having second thoughts about the plan he tried to implement. On 11 April

1865, he addressed a crowd outside the White House following the Confederate surrender

at Appomattox Court House. In what proved to be his last public address before his

assassination, Lincoln expressed a change in policy. He was moving toward a more

radical approach to Reconstruction. This change of mind was based on his experience of

having implemented his original policy in the South.9

According to Peyton McCrary, one problem was that his “ten percent plan,” was

flawed because it was based on an assumption that a small group of Southern loyalists

would be able to gain the support of a majority of southern whites. By the end of the

Civil War, it was obvious this would not happen. With the reconstructed governments in

the South only supported by a relatively small minority of loyal whites, and nothing

preventing the former rebels from reorganizing, Lincoln made a move toward endorsing

African-American enfranchisement,10 a significant change for a man who once favored

removing blacks from American soil as a solution for the abolition of slavery. He also

asked Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to draft an executive order setting up military

governments in the former Confederate States. Stanton, more radical than Lincoln in his

views, hurried to the White House the day after Lincoln’s address and invited a fellow

radical and supporter of African-American enfranchisement, Attorney General James

9 Peyton McCrary, Abraham Lincoln and Reconstruction: The Louisiana Experiment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 4.

10 ibid. 8-9.

Speed, to join him. After a long discussion with Lincoln, the two men left, certain that the president favored a more radical Reconstruction policy.11

The policy outlined in Stanton’s draft was discussed at a cabinet meeting on 14

April. According to the new policy, a military governor would be responsible for

supervising the southern states until conditions had stabilized enough for elections to take

place and the state governments could be reorganized. While the document left the issue

of African-American enfranchisement open for further debate, it was generally

understood that Lincoln was “never so near” to the views of the radicals.12 But this

policy did not articulate his changing views on the issue of African-American

enfranchisement, and Lincoln was unable to participate in further discussion of this new

policy because he was assassinated that evening.

Lincoln’s assassination elevated Andrew Johnson into the presidency. While

Johnson was a Democrat, radical Republicans viewed his presidency favorably at first

believing that Johnson would allow for the implementation of a Reconstruction policy

that would meet with their approval. Radicals were led to believe that Johnson would do

this for a number of reasons. First, despite his southern roots, Johnson was a loyalist.

When Tennessee seceded from the Union, he did not follow, and when federal troops

occupied the state in 1862, Johnson was named military governor. But what was most

responsible for making Johnson appear radical were his words before the War. When the

southern states were seceding from the Union, Johnson was the only southern senator

who remained in Congress. “I say the traitor has ceased to be a citizen,” he said, “and in

11 ibid. 10.

12 ibid. 11.

joining the rebellion has become a public enemy.”13 Speeches that he made as vice-

president were just as caustic; Johnson often proclaimed that “treason must be made

odious and traitors must be punished and impoverished.”14 Based on this language,

radicals feared that Johnson’s policy toward southern rebels would be too harsh, not too

lenient.15

But Johnson was not a radical, and shortly after he became president this fact

became painfully clear. Johnson’s Reconstruction policy, referred to at the time as “my

policy,” was formalized on 29 May 1865 in two proclamations. The first provided that

the mass of white southerners could take an oath of loyalty and have all of their rights

restored, except for their rights to slave property. Only fourteen classes of people would

be unable to gain amnesty in this way; most of the excluded were Confederate civil and

military officers and those people who had supported the Confederacy and whose

property was valued at $20,000 or more. Individuals within these excluded groups were eligible to apply for special pardons directly to the president. The second proclamation

outlined the steps necessary for the formation of the new state governments. Johnson

would appoint a provisional governor for each state who would call a state convention. It

would be the conventions’ responsibility to proclaim secession illegal, repudiate the

Confederate debt, and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. Johnson issued these

proclamations while Congress was not in session, believing, like Lincoln, that he had the

13 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 51.

14 ibid. 51.

15 ibid. 50-52.

authority to oversee Reconstruction. When Congress convened in December, Johnson

presented what he believed to be a completed plan of Reconstruction of the nation.16

The situation was not resolved so easily. Johnson’s policy not only failed to allow for African-American participation in the new governments, but it also failed to reconstruct the South. Groups excluded from his general amnesty, those people he had hoped to exclude from post-War politics, were soon elected to political office, and rather than admit that “my policy” failed, Johnson decided to issue wholesale pardons to these elected men. He also supported them in their quest to gain readmission to Congress.

With each step, radicals became more disappointed by Johnson’s plan of

Reconstruction.17

The stage was thus set for a battle over who would control Reconstruction.

Congress convened in December and wasted no time. A Civil Rights Bill, granting

citizenship rights to African Americans, was passed by Congress over a presidential veto.

This was the first time in history that Congress passed a major bill despite presidential disapproval.18 The Bill was eventually incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment that was ratified by Congress in June 1866 to protect African American rights and restrict the political rights of former Confederates. Johnson not only denounced this Amendment, but also urged the southern states not to ratify it.19

16 ibid. 62-64.

17 Michael Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction: 1862-1879 (Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1987), 32.

18 ibid. 43.

19 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 113.

Congress had established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned

Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau in March 1865. The Bureau was

designed as a relief agency for needy refugees both black and white. Its primary services,

however, were for African Americans. It established schools, supervised labor relations,

and worked to protect African Americans from violence and intimidation. The

Freedmen’s Bureau was set to expire, and when Congress worked to extend the

Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, the effort was met with another presidential veto.20 Once again,

Congress was able to override the veto, and the Bureau continued to work in the South

until its termination in 1869.21

By mid-1866 the battle over Reconstruction was raging. Johnson and his

supporters favored a lenient policy that would restore the nation quickly with little

change to the states of the former Confederacy. Radical Republicans favored a policy

that more closely resembled Johnson’s initial remarks regarding Reconstruction; they

wanted treason to be made odious and traitors punished for rebelling against the Union.

Southern loyalists and radical Republicans would not always be in agreement on all of

the issues that would arise during Reconstruction, but for their disdain of Johnson’s

policy, at this point, Southern loyalists agreed with the radicals. They wanted to see the

nation reconstructed, they wanted assurance that another Civil War would not occur, and

they wanted assurance of their own safety in their own homes. The southern state governments needed to be reorganized, but loyalists believed that Johnson’s policy was

preventing this from happening. Because of their loyalty to the Union throughout the

20 Perman, Emanicpation and Reconstruction, 22-25, 43.

21 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 135.

Civil War loyalists were subjected to threats on their lives and the lives of their family

members, their property was destroyed, and many were forced to flee their homes for safe

haven until after the war was over. As a result of Johnson’s policy, many were unable to

find solace in their homes after the War.

These conditions in the South led a group of Southern loyalists to believe the time

had come for the Southern Loyalists’ Convention. A foreshadowing of the conversations

that would arise during Reconstruction, this Convention helped nationalize the

Republican Party and led to the emergence of the Southern voice within the Party. It also

revealed evident regional tensions among Republicans, and exposed the extent to which

political allies were at odds over various issues that arose during the course of

Reconstruction. These tensions became clearer during the Convention with the

delegates’ discussion of African-American enfranchisement.

In addition, the Convention anticipated the shift from Johnson’s policy to that of

Congressional Reconstruction. At the time of the Convention, President Johnson’s policy

was still acceptable to a majority of northerners, not to mention the former rebels.

Johnson was only on the verge of having to defend his policy, as the real split between

the President and the Republicans was yet to happen. The delegates to the Southern

Loyalists’ Convention supported Congressional Reconstruction and the Fourteenth

Amendment, both measures that the President and his supporters criticized. The

delegates to the Convention also agreed on a denunciation of President Johnson. They

knew that a Reconstruction plan like the one President Johnson had implemented was not going to be an adequate security from the possibility of another Civil War. They

supported Congressional Reconstruction because the spirit that had led to the rebellion

was still well alive in the South, and it was going to take more than a simple “welcome

back to the Union” for the country to be set right again. The delegates were in the unique

position of having witnessed the move for secession. Many had been at the conventions

that, to their dismay, had decided in favor of secession. They heard the arguments and

saw the determination of the rebels to leave the Union. They saw the destruction of the

Civil War firsthand, and they saw how Johnson’s lenient policy was doing nothing to

reunite the country on stable ground. The old power structure had to be obliterated, and a

new system put in its place for Reconstruction to be effective. Before the end of

Reconstruction, President Johnson’s policy would be replaced by Congressional

Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth Amendment would be ratified and added to the

Constitution.

Finally, one of the most controversial issues to arise during the Southern Loyalists’

Convention was the issue of African-American enfranchisement. The Convention

foreshadowed much of the conversation regarding race and black suffrage that would plague the nation for years to come. Many delegates would show support for African-

American enfranchisement before the Fifteenth Amendment had even been drafted. They were among a select group of Americans that were pressing for impartial suffrage at this time. What the country would eventually come to see as necessity, Southern loyalists had known all along. The Convention anticipated the fact that black suffrage was not just a moral issue but also a political issue. Like it or not, having the black vote on your side was power.

Choosing a site for the Southern Loyalists’ Convention was not a random process.

Philadelphia had a very strong pro-Southern atmosphere in the antebellum years and

during the Civil War. Many Philadelphians, especially among the elite population, had

family, friendship, and commercial ties to the South.22 Despite the pro-Southern

atmosphere, Philadelphia also had a strong abolitionist movement. There also were some logical reasons for choosing the city as the site of the Convention. First, as “the place where the Union was formed,”23 the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence and

the Constitution, Philadelphia was associated with their ideas of liberty, justice, and

equality. This sentiment was reiterated many times by the delegates throughout the

Convention as they showed their appreciation and gratitude for the warm welcome that

they received. Andrew Jackson Hamilton of Texas declared that, of all the places in

America, Philadelphia “seemed to be the most appropriate meeting-place.”24 Second, less

than one month prior to the July 4th call, President Johnson’s supporters issued a call for a

National Union Convention to meet in the same city on 14 August.25 The Southern

Loyalists’ Convention was a way to counter the previous convention and show the nation

another point of view.

Even before the National Union Convention convened in August 1866, it was well

understood that its resolutions would be in favor of Presidential Reconstruction. By the

time the Southern Loyalists’ Convention convened in September, the resolutions of the

National Union Convention had been published. They recognized, among other things, that slavery was abolished and prohibited, that the Union was preserved with the rights of

22 Daniel Kilbride, “Southern Medical Students in Philadelphia, 1800-1861: Science and Sociability in the ‘Republic of Medicine’” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 65, No. 4 (November 1999), 709-710.

23 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

24 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

25 Harper’s Weekly, 22 September 1866.

the states intact, that Congress did not have the authority to deny the rights of any State or

the power to enforce African-American enfranchisement, and that the national debt was

sacred and the Confederate debt invalid. Delegates to the Convention also passed a

resolution supporting President Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction. While southern

members of the National Union Convention were not completely satisfied with every

resolution adopted, they did support Johnson’s Reconstruction policy.26

For obvious reasons, Johnson supported the National Union Convention. The delegates to this Convention endorsed his policy even as it unfolded and proved to be

lacking in the reconstruction department. Even as his policy failed and he continued to

stand by it, some hoped that Johnson was in favor of a Reconstruction policy that resembled his early remarks. In a letter to the President, a man expressed these concerns.27 Although he clung to the idea that the President was radical in his views

regarding Reconstruction, all this man had to do to see the futility of his belief was read an article from the Richmond Times where Johnson was quoted as having said that the

National Union Convention “was composed of the most intelligent, able and patriotic

body of men that has assembled since the declaration of independence.”28

The final reason for choosing Philadelphia as the location for the convention was

the fact that it was in the North and offered a level of safety and security that a southern

location could not. Being loyal to the Union in one way or another throughout the Civil

War put loyalists in an awkward position. They were not exactly welcome members in

26 Richmond Times, 17 August 1866.

27 Andrew Johnson Papers, Library of Congress, letter from Cornel Jewett (?) to Andrew Johnson, 2 July 1866.

28 Richmond Times, 20 August 1866.

14 most regions of the South, and this, along with the proposed agenda made a northern site much more preferable to a southern location.29

29 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

CHAPTER 2 A GAP IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY

For all that it stood for, the Southern Loyalists’ Convention has been surprisingly

neglected in the historiography of the era. While it has not been completely ignored, it

has yet to receive the full attention that it deserves. The years leading up to the

Convention have been debated in the historiography beginning with the Dunningites, so

called because the majority of these historians were students of William Archibald

Dunning, who dominated early Reconstruction historiography from just before the turn of

the century until 1947. These scholars argued that the South had accepted defeat in the

Civil War and was willing to return to the Union and proceed from there,1 but impediments prevented this from actually happening. The radical Republicans in the

North overturned President Johnson’s policy of leniency and reconciliation and implemented a plan for Reconstruction that humiliated the South and prolonged the agony of Reconstruction well beyond what was necessary. The radical governments were corrupt and the men involved were evil. To make matters worse, the radicals tried to grant African Americans political rights, of course this was not because of a desire to do right by the freedmen. According to the Dunningites, African Americans were little more than ignorant pawns in the radicals attempt to gain control over southern governments and put the natural leaders out of power. Redemption came when the

1 E. Merton Coulter, The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1947), 22.

15 16

natural leaders of the South expelled the carpetbaggers, scalawags, and African

2 Americans from political power and reclaimed control of their state governments.

The Dunningites cast the white South into the role of victim and the radical

Republicans, including carpetbaggers, Southern loyalists, and African Americans, into the role of the villain. The ending of the Civil War, according to Dunning meant that the

South was “subjugated by an alien power” who emancipated the slaves, removed the leaders from political power, and allowed “sectional passion and partisan political emotion” to control “the spirit which attended the proceedings in Congress.”3 This

interpretation was reiterated by other Dunningites. Claude Bowers in The Tragic Era

claimed that the radicals were “brutal, hypocritical, and corrupt,” and they treated the

Constitution as a “doormat” to wipe their feet on.4

According to this view, radicals were responsible for maladministration of the

government during this time. J.G. Randall in “Reconstruction Débâcle” claimed that the

radical Republicans “supported by the Grant administration and fortified by military

power…plunged the Southern commonwealths into an abyss of misgovernment.”5

Although Randall described the final years of Reconstruction, his comments are still relevant to the overall understanding that the Dunningites portray of the era. According to Dunning, “bribery became the indispensable adjunct of legislation, and fraud a

2 Claude Bowers, The Tragic Era: the Revolution After Lincoln (New York: Halcyon House, 1929), 538.

3 William Archibald Dunning, Reconstruction: Political and Economic, 1865-1877 (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1907), 3-4, 50.

4 Bowers, The Tragic Era, v.

5 Edwin Charles Rozwenc, Reconstruction in the South, (Boston: Heath, 1952), 13.

common feature in the execution of the laws.”6 The radical Republicans, as Bowers

described them, were “daring and unscrupulous men,” and “the evil that they did lives

after them.”7

The Dunningites’ portrayal of Reconstruction was skewed, as was their depiction

of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention. Not surprisingly, the Dunningites dismissed the

Convention as a gathering of “a nondescript crowd of men,” and “a small and unimpressive element of Southern people” who needed the help of northern and border state delegates to amount to anything. Its meeting was also written off as one more stop on the campaign trail for the 1866 Congressional elections.8

The Dunningites dominated the historiography for more than half a century and

their influence reached well beyond the academia with novels and films like Gone With

the Wind and Birth of a Nation. Their portrayal of radical Republicans as vengeful,

African Americans as child-like, and Southern Redeemers and the Ku Klux Klan as

heroic had an enormous effect on the nation’s understanding of Reconstruction.9

According to Pamela Brandwein in Reconstructing Reconstruction, the Dunningite interpretation of Reconstruction even affected the United States Supreme Court. This interpretation became so embedded in the nation’s understanding of the era that it became like a “ship in a bottle, so firmly established that it looked as though it always must have

6 Dunning, Reconstruction, 209.

7 Bowers, The Tragic Era, vii.

8 Dunning, Reconstruction, 77; Bowers, The Tragic Era, 125; Coulter, The South During Reconstruction, 45-56.

9 Pamela Brandwein, Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1999), 13

18 been just as it was” and looked as if it could “never get out.”10 Even after the

Dunningites lost legitimacy in the academic field, their influence remained. Many people educated during the Dunningites’ heyday found it difficult to reject the interpretation. As

Brandwein notes, W.E.B. Du Bois published Black Reconstruction in America in 1935, but his work did not receive the institutional endorsement that the Dunningites writings had.11 While the Dunningite interpretation has now been discredited its hold on the nation’s understanding remained long after its de-legitimization in the academic arena.

Black Reconstruction in America marked a change in the historiography, but it was several more years before that change was accepted. While the revisionists following Du

Bois did not turn the Dunningite interpretation of the era completely on its head, these historians did tweak some of the excesses of that interpretation to portray Reconstruction history in a much more optimistic way. To the revisionist historians, whose influence spanned the 1940s through the 1960s, Reconstruction was a time of great change and progress. Revisionists also were discontented by the Dunningite portrayal of

Reconstruction as black and white. They did not deny that there were scandals and corruption in the radical governments, but the revisionists chose to focus on the accomplishments of the era.12 Beyond this, they began to show that the radicals were not the villains, President Johnson was not quite the hero that the Dunningites portrayed him to be, and African Americans, rather than being ignorant pawns, deserved a chance at

10 ibid. 3, 11, 13, 15.

11 ibid. 14, 106, 115.

12 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 9.

equality and self-government. What the revisionist historians did was accept the failures of the era while focusing on the accomplishments.

While the revisionists were able to rework the Dunningites’ interpretation of

Reconstruction, their portrayal of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention was not much better than that of the preceding historiographical tradition. In a work focused on the role and accomplishments of the African American in Reconstruction, Du Bois’ description of the Convention proved to be disappointing. Throughout the work, Du Bois claimed that blacks were, through their own volition, able to change the way other Americans thought of them. Prior to the War, they were believed to be ignorant and lazy, but by proving that they could, and would, fight in the Civil War for their freedom this belief came under scrutiny.13 A convention comprised entirely of white men pushing for African-American rights might not have been high on Du Bois list of priorities, but a political convention that accepted an African American into its ranks should have been.

The publication of the call for the Southern Loyalists’ Convention asked the North and South to join together, and the North obliged by sending a great number of delegates to the Convention, not as official members but to honor, cheer, and show support for the southern delegates.14 Frederick Douglass, former slave turned abolitionist and advocate

of black rights, was an elected delegate from New York but not an official member of the

Southern Loyalists’ Convention. One half of Du Bois’ discussion of the Convention

13 W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 (New York: Russell and Russell, 1935), 191.

14 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

focused on Douglass—not the importance that his presence had to the Convention but the

controversy that it caused.15

While Douglass was the only African American delegate from the North, he was

not the only African American delegate at the Convention. Paschal Beverly Randolph, a

delegate from Louisiana, also attended. While he remained silent throughout the

Convention until the fifth and final day because he was not recognized as an official

delegate,16 his remarks regarding African-American enfranchisement were to the point.

African Americans would follow the political party that granted them the right to vote.17

In a work attempting to reinterpret Reconstruction “with especial reference to the efforts and experiences of the Negroes themselves,” Du Bois should have at least mentioned

Randolph’s presence and the contributions that both he and Douglass had for the

Convention.18 Randolph was an abolitionist, a radical Reconstructionist, a black

nationalist (for a time), and an advocate of women’s rights.19

Like Du Bois, Kenneth Stampp spent very little time discussing the Southern

Loyalists’ Convention. Although he also engaged in a discussion of the controversy

caused by Frederick Douglass’s attendance after the brief mention, he quickly moved

through a discussion of the headlines the Convention received in the Democratic press.

He noted that the press referred to this Convention as the “First Grand National

15 W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 315-316.

16 John P. Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician, e-book (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 169.

17 The Reporter, 29 October 1866.

18 Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1.

19 Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, xiv-xv.

Convention of Negro Worshipers, Free Lovers, Spiritualists, and Negro Equality Men,”

and the “Black and White Convention,” but he did not discuss the actual debates and

issues that were addressed during the Convention.20

While their treatment of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention was inadequate, many

aspects of the revisionists’ work deserved applause. One of these areas was their

treatment with the issue of African-American enfranchisement. While Dunningite

historians had portrayed radical Republicans as simply using African Americans as a

means to gain political control of the South, the revisionists began to show that the

radical’s attempts to provide African Americans with political rights was not always for

self-serving reasons. Emancipation had increased the population of the South and would

have increased their representation in Congress. Revisionists did not deny the political

benefits that extending the franchise would have on the Republican Party, but they also

revealed the political damage that this change in the franchise threatened.

According to Kenneth Stampp, the radicals’ solution to increased southern

representation in Congress “was the enfranchisement of the Negroes and a vigorous

campaign to win their votes for the Republicans.”21 But, he emphasized that the political

benefits did not negate the good that the radicals did for the African Americans, or the

risks that they took. These historians began to show that the radical Republicans had a genuine desire to aid the freedmen; they were continuing “the idealism of the abolitionist crusade and of the Civil War.”22 By the end of Reconstruction, the radical Republicans

20 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 116.

21 ibid. 93.

22 ibid. 9, 11-12, 16.

had worked hard to give African Americans equality before the law, citizenship, the right

to vote, and had attempted to get them land; these were not mere carrots that were held before the freedmen to get them to join the Republican Party. Likewise, as LaWanda and

John H. Cox claim, expanding the franchise was not always an enticing issue to ‘shrewd politicians;’ supporting this issue, radicals risked losing the support of their white supporters in the North. As the Coxes put it, they maintained control “not because of

Negro enfranchisement, but despite it.” The Coxes also claimed that the lack of political profit associated with supporting the African American vote “warrants a re-examination of motive.”23

The Southern Loyalists’ Convention would have been an excellent site for their re-

examination. The fear of the potentially damaging effects of being associated with the

Party that gave African Americans the right to vote divided the delegates to the

Convention. For some, risks were too great and they left before the proceedings had concluded. Other delegates held a more optimistic view of things and were willing to

grant African-American enfranchisement immediately. The majority of these delegates

came from the Deep South where loyalists were a distinct minority. They did not have

the numbers on their side to afford the luxury of leaving their political future to chance

like a delegate from the Upper South or the North had. These regional variations would

come into play during the convention. Delegates from the Deep South were, in general,

much more radical when discussing the issue of African-American enfranchisement than

their counterparts in the Upper South and Border States were. Having extended a

courtesy invitation to delegates from the Border States, loyalists from the Deep South

23 Kenneth M. Stampp and Leon F. Litwack editors, Reconstruction: An Anthology of Revisionist Writings (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969), 159-160, 166, 169.

23 were dismayed by the attempts to squelch any discussion of the franchise when they felt that it was necessary. But the revisionists ignored these aspects of the Convention.

Another aspect of the Dunningites’ portrayal of Reconstruction that was adjusted throughout the historiography was the portrayal of President Johnson. The Dunningites believed that Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction was working and would have been successful had the radical Republicans not ruined it. The tragedy of Reconstruction could have been avoided, and Reconstruction could be considered a triumphant success. The revisionists countered this argument, showing that Johnson, in a series of speeches he made prior to actually implementing his plan of Reconstruction, had discussed a plan similar to what the radical Republicans implemented. In them, he considered punishing the southern leaders, enabling African Americans to vote, and some form of land redistribution. Once his plan was actually implemented, and proved to be deficient, his tone changed. Kenneth Stampp claimed that Johnson’s plan actually failed, and it failed

“in part” because “the planter politicians proved to be more skillful than he, finding his weakness, they exploited his vanity and thus defeated him with remarkable ease.”24

Once again, a closer look at the Southern Loyalists’ Convention would have strengthened this analysis. The delegates to the Convention unanimously agreed about the negative effects of President Johnson's plan. Right from the beginning, Johnson's policy was attacked for what it did not do. Johnson talked of punishing rebels, of rewarding loyalty, and led many to believe that he was the friend of African Americans, but he was not. For the delegates, Johnson's policy did just the opposite; it punished loyalty and rewarded rebels by allowing the old power structure to reorganize and gain

24 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 72.

control of the South. As for African Americans, they were left in the hands of their

former owners. Delegates to the Southern Loyalists’ Convention supported

Congressional Reconstruction in place of Presidential Reconstruction. They believed it would be a much better plan and would help reunite the nation on stable ground.

Exploring these views would have added depth to the revisionist argument.

The revisionists viewed Reconstruction optimistically despite its shortcomings,

because it had allowed for the implementation of many reforms that could not have

occurred without Reconstruction including the first Civil Rights Act which was

incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment.25 While

much of what was implemented during Reconstruction was negated following the North's

retreat in 1877, revisionist historian Kenneth Stampp believed that the Fourteenth and

Fifteenth Amendments “make the blunders of that era, tragic though they were, dwindle

into insignificance”; no matter what happened, these Amendments were on the books.26

The Southern Loyalists’ Convention supported both of these measures. But Stampp and other revisionists ignored the contributions that the delegates to the Convention made in regard to these Amendments.

The post-revisionists began writing their interpretation of the era following the

1960s. This new version of history was much less optimistic than the preceding one; in their view, everything positive that was implemented during Reconstruction was negated by a lack of enforcement or by something that was not implemented. Thus, William

Gillette, in Retreat from Reconstruction, argued that not much changed following the

25 ibid. 12-13.

26 ibid. 215.

Civil War. For Gillette, emancipation was just a war aim. The North was fighting to

save the union, “not to save souls.” Ransom and Sutch, in One Kind of Freedom, a

controversial work on the economic consequences of Reconstruction, argued that

emancipation did not prepare African Americans for freedom. They were illiterate,

unskilled, and at the mercy of their former masters who worked hard to keep their former

slaves in a position of subordination. In these attempts, according to Ransom and Sutch, the masters succeeded.27

Like the historians before them, the post-revisionists discussed the issue of African-

American enfranchisement. They concluded that it was unpopular among many northerners and many whites in the former Confederate states, with the result that

moderate Republicans were willing either to abandon or weaken the idea. When the

Fifteenth Amendment was finally added to the Constitution, it failed to outlaw property

qualifications or literacy tests as prerequisites for voting. Enfranchisement suffered from

a lack of support.28 According to Gillette, enfranchisement was not the exception; most

measures passed during Reconstruction were not enforced. “There was brave talk but

timid action. Enfranchisement had thus generated the highest hopes, the deepest hates,

and the bitterest disappointments.”29

In the late 1980s, Reconstruction historiography again faced a changing of the

guard, but these studies lacked the cohesiveness of the previous traditions. One

commonality in these recent works was the shift away from strictly political histories, in

27 Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: the Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 3-4, 14-15.

28 Gillette, Retreat From Reconstruction, xiv, 2, 4-5, 18.

29 ibid. 10-11, 55.

favor of more social, or cultural, perspectives. This move has led many recent historians

down a path that neglected the Southern Loyalists’ Convention and its political agenda.

As a result, works that could have incorporated one aspect or another of the Convention

fail to even mention it.

Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution placed the African

American in a central role not seen in the historiography of Reconstruction since W.E.B.

Du Bois, but his discussion of the Convention was just as disappointing. First, he stayed away from a real discussion of the Convention’s proceedings; second, he claimed that the delegates were unable to agree upon anything other than the Fourteenth Amendment; and, finally, he found fault with the fact that only two of the delegates in attendance were

African American and only one of them was from the South. While this was an

unfortunate fact, it was not proof that “brotherly love (was) absent from the city that

week,” as Foner claimed. Likewise, his statement that Douglass was asked not to attend

the Convention out of fear that his attendance would “embarrass the gathering”30 was not exactly accurate. Douglass was approached while on a train headed for Philadelphia and asked not to attend the Convention, not out of fear that his attendance would “embarrass” the delegates, but out of fear that his attendance would have a negative effect on the

Republican Party. The delegates feared that his attendance would cost them the support of some of their northern constituencies who were not yet willing to endorse African-

American enfranchisement. Not everyone who attended the Convention was willing to

30 Foner, Reconstruction, 270-271.

throw their support behind the franchise, and this fact came into play with Douglass’s

election as a delegate.31

Foner did note that the report of the non-Reconstructed states issued on the fifth

and final day of the Convention asserting that African-American enfranchisement was the

one all sufficient remedy for the current conditions in the South combined with other

efforts by “Radical Republicans, Southern Unionists, and the freedmen themselves” was

enough to get the issue of black suffrage on Congress’s political agenda once again.32

Yet, overall his discussion of the Convention, like most histories of the era, left much to be desired.

Other recent histories, while they do not neglect to mention the Southern Loyalists'

Convention, follow a similar pattern and discuss the Convention in limited terms.

Richard Nelson Current in Those Terrible Carpetbaggers offered a relatively positive description of the Convention and the delegates involved. However, because his focus was on carpetbaggers he elevated their role at the Convention treating them as the most influential delegates.33 While we should not downplay the influence that these men had

on the Convention, a careful history of the Convention needs to consider the equally

important role of native southerners.

Southern delegates to the Convention included a former Attorney-General under

Lincoln and Johnson, James Speed, loyal governors Andrew Jackson Hamilton of Texas

and William G. Brownlow of Tennessee who once referred to President Johnson as “the

31 Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History (New York: Bonanza Books, 1892), 388-389.

32 Foner, Reconstruction, 271.

33 Richard Nelson Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 54-59.

28 dead dog in the White House.”34 Brownlow said that “he would not have come, and nothing could have induced him to have attended the convention in his present physical condition, but the deep binding interest he felt in the cause of his country, and the fierce and terrible conflict now going on between the executive and legislative departments of the Federal Government.”35 Newspaper editors like A. Griffin of Alabama, lawyers, and judges from Southern States were all members of the Convention. Of the Southern delegates, some had been Confederate soldiers, not out of a desire to aid the Confederacy but due to the fear of death if their loyalty to the Union was known.36

Another recent study, David Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in

American Memory, dealt with how Americans chose to remember or forget the Civil War and how that affected Reconstruction and race relations in the nation. In an attempt at reconciliation, the nation healed but not with racial justice in mind. Instead, Blight argued that reconciliation occurred within the white nation with the cost of leading the entire nation into an era of segregation. The friction among the delegates to the Southern

Loyalists’ Convention begins to show us why this happened. Black political participation was a contentious issue in 1866 and it did not grow less controversial as the years progressed. There was no consensus even among Southern loyalists as to how the issue should be handled. When the rest of the nation was thrown into the mix, arguments for or against black participation became even more complex. While other issues were easier

34 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 40, 114.

35 New Orleans Picayune, 3 September 1866.

36 Harper’s Weekly, 22 September 1866.

to resolve, it became less problematic for the nation to drop this issue rather risk the

consequences of forcing African-American enfranchisement on an unwilling South.37

Moving from white America to black America, Steven Hahn discusses the political mobilizations of African Americans after the abolition of slavery. Often based on kinship relations, these movements had roots in slavery. His book, A Nation Under Our Feet, described the way that the African Americans in the rural South “conducted politics and engaged in political struggles as slaves, and as freed people.” For Hahn, the former slaves were “political actors in a society that tried to refuse them that part”; they were an important part of Reconstruction and the move for reunion.38 Like Du Bois, Hahn

focused on the achievements of African Americans, yet he too ignored the Southern

Loyalists’ Convention despite the presence of Frederick Douglass and P.B. Randolph.

Heather Cox Richardson’s The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics

in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901 looked to the North for the causes of the retreat

from Reconstruction. “Despite their initial postwar support for freedpeople, Northerners

had turned against African-Americans by the turn of the century,” and she wondered why

they abandoned their efforts to remake former slaves into free laborers.39 According to

Richardson, the fight for Reconstruction began to take its toll on Northern Republicans.

By 1870, following the “forced” ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, Northern

37 David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 3-5.

38 Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge, Massacusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003), 1.

39 Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901 (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001), ix-x.

Republicans simply refused to support the protection needed to enforce the amendment.

Universal suffrage no longer appeared to be the answer to the South’s problem.40

Richardson could have used the Southern Loyalists’ Convention to explore the rest

of this problem. The Convention was widely attended by northern delegates, including

some fairly influential members of Congress. New Jersey alone sent nearly 200 men to

Philadelphia. Some of the northern delegates included Senators like Henry Wilson of

Massachusetts who would become vice-president under Ulysses S. Grant, Anna

Dickinson, a staunch abolitionist and advocate of black and women’s rights, Benjamin F.

Butler, previous commander of Union occupied New Orleans and present candidate for

Congress from Massachusetts,41 the mayor of Philadelphia Morton McMichael, and

Frederick Douglass. Despite attempts to keep him away due to fears that his presence

would prevent the delegates from achieving their intended goals, Douglass, unwilling to

miss out on this historic event, claimed that those delegates who asked him not to attend

the Convention “might as well ask me to put a loaded pistol to my head and blow my brains out, as to ask me to keep out of this convention.”42 Yet at the Convention these

Northern delegates had to confront opposition to their ideas. The debates and

disagreements during the Convention were the first sign of the struggle Richardson views as central to Reconstruction’s failure.

Biographies of Frederick Douglass, while they mention the controversy his attendance caused, are more likely to discuss other aspects of the Convention than other

40 ibid. 82.

41 Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers, 55.

42 Douglass, Life and Times, 388-389; Foner, Reconstruction, 270.

works. David W. Blight for example considered the issue of African-American

enfranchisement, a subject that came up several times during the Convention beginning

on the second day. While a majority of the delegates from the Deep South supported the

resolutions that were offered in favor of the franchise, delegates from the Upper South

along with border state delegates were unwilling to support such a resolution and left the

Convention after the forth day.43 Along with the controversy regarding Frederick

Douglass’s election and attendance, both Blight and William McFeely discussed, although with great brevity, the significance of Anna Dickinson’s presence at the

Convention. Then a twenty four year old woman, Dickinson supported African-

American enfranchisement despite the fact that women had yet to receive the vote. As for the significance of the Convention, while McFeely did not believe that the

Convention was a sign of things to come, Blight accurately stated that “although the

Fifteenth Amendment was still two years away, its momentum swung into motion at

Philadelphia in 1866.”44

Richard H. Abbott’s The Republican Party and the South, 1855-1877 (1986) and

James Alex Baggett’s The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and

Reconstruction (2003) offer the most complete treatment of the Southern Loyalists’

Convention to date. While both discussions were brief, they went beyond the passing

mention. Abbott emphasized the importance that the Convention had on the

nationalization of the Republican Party as well as the roadblocks that stood in its way.

43 David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 193-195.

44 ibid. 192-194; William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 250-251.

Many Southern loyalists had been refugees during the Civil War because conditions became too unstable for them to remain in their homes. Even the end of the

War did not bring safety for loyalists, and this kept many elected delegates from attending the Convention. It was difficult enough to get the call for the Convention published in local Southern newspapers; attending the Convention could have put loyalists’ lives in further danger. These safety concerns led to regional variations in the representation, far more delegates from the Upper South attended the Convention than delegates from the Deep South.45 Baggett expanded on this point, noting that the decision to invite Border State delegates to the Convention had a conservative impact, and, along with the presence of northern delegates, caused the Convention to stop short of endorsing impartial suffrage until a majority of those delegates had left. Assessing the significance of the Convention, Baggett claimed that it “awakened the loyalist element in the South,” showed loyalists that they had counterparts throughout the nation, and were welcome in the Republican Party.46 The Convention did more than this. Called by Southerners, it showed the North that they had counterparts in the South who were willing and able to form an alliance and possibly shape the course that Reconstruction would take.

Many histories of the era did not even mention the Convention. While the shift away from political histories to more social and cultural histories has had a negative effect on the attention paid to the Southern Loyalists’ Convention, the Convention suffered from a lack of interest long before this shift occurred. Most likely, the

45 Richard H. Abbott, The Republican Party and the South, 1855-1877: The First Southern Strategy (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 66-71.

46 James Alex Baggett, The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003), 137-140.

Convention’s absence from the historiography rests on the fact that the proposal supporting African-American enfranchisement was not endorsed by the entire

Convention. The franchise issue caused many of the Upper South and Border State delegates to walk out of the Convention, and before they left they tried to squelch a discussion of it every time it came up. But the franchise was not the only issue discussed during the weeklong Convention, and the mere fact that the delegates supported

Congressional Reconstruction and the Constitutional Amendments before a majority of the nation saw the need to abandon President Johnson’s policy should have been enough to elevate the Convention beyond just a passing mention in the histories of the time. Nor should the importance of the Convention’s struggles with the franchise issue be understated. The Convention should be given its due credit for letting it be known that there were elements of the southern population who were willing to support the radical

Republicans in their move to reconstruct the South and enfranchise the African American population.

CHAPTER 3 THE SOUTHERN LOYALISTS’ CONVENTION

And let us go home having accomplished a great good.1

For one week in 1866, from 3 September through 7 September, the Southern

Loyalists’ Convention was held at National Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.2 The delegates to this Convention were there to discuss the “threatening aspect of national affairs” including the damaging effects of Presidential Reconstruction.3 They believed

that the nation was suffering because of Johnson’s policy of Reconstruction, and the ill-

effect it was having on their lives was becoming intolerable. At this Convention, loyalists showed their support for Congressional Reconstruction in place of President

Johnson’s policy of leniency. Along with this came their support for the proposed

Constitutional Amendment granting citizenship rights to African Americans.4 Some of

the more radical delegates also wanted to bring up the issue of African-American

enfranchisement and the disfranchisement of rebels; however, a majority of the delegates from the Upper South and Border States left the Convention before the fifth and final day because of this debate.

1 The Reporter, 1 October 1866. This quotation came from C. E. Moss, a delegate from Missouri.

2 The Convention was originally scheduled to meet at Independence Hall. The Hall turned out to be too small for the Convention so it was moved to National Hall. The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

3 The Reporter, 17 September 1866,

4 The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified by Congress in June 1866 to protect African American rights and restrict the political rights of former Confederates. By the time of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention convened it had not yet been ratified by the requisite number of states.

34 35

At the end of August 1866, delegates began arriving in Philadelphia for the

Convention. Controversy followed the delegates’ every move. We might understand that

the major issues the delegates were intending to discuss—Johnson’s Reconstruction

policy, the Fourteenth Amendment, and African-American equality and

enfranchisement—would be contentious; these issues caused controversy on a daily basis

in American society at the time. But the critics did not stop there; everything from the

character of the delegates down to the welcome they received from the city of

Philadelphia to what gavel was used during their proceedings was attacked.

One Southern paper referred to the Convention as a “Convention of Revolutionary

Yahoos and Gorrillas,” as the “Mean White Men’s Convention,” and the “Philadelphia

Mongrel Convention.”5 Other Southern papers attacked the delegates’ loyalty. One

declared that a delegate from New Orleans had been a member of the Secession

Vigilance Committee—a committee formed to rid the city of Union men during the War

and asserted that the “loyal” members of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention were only loyal to “office and its spoils.”6 This same paper went so far as to compare the men at the

Southern Loyalists’ Convention to those responsible for the terror and atrocities of the

French Revolution.7 Even before the Convention had really done any business, The

Richmond Times was predicting that it would be a failure.8

5 Richmond Times, 3, 4, and 5 September 1866.

6 Louisville Daily Journal, 7 September 1866.

7 Louisville Daily Journal, 7 September 1866.

8 Richmond Times, 4 September 1866.

Although critics called the delegates from the South “a most lamentable failure”

and “a motley crew of odds and ends,”9 not all of the delegates from the South were

native Southerners. The Convention also allowed carpetbaggers (Northerners who had

traveled south after the Civil War) to attend as delegates. Some carpetbaggers, like H.C.

Warmoth and A.W. Tourgée, played a prominent role in the Convention’s proceedings.

Other delegates hailed from the Border States. These delegates had been invited to

participate in the proceedings as a courtesy. Later in the Convention, delegates from the

Deep South would regret having extended the invitation to the Border State delegates

because of the conservative nature they would try to bring to the Convention. While the

critics claimed the delegates from those states that had not seceded from the Union did

not have anything to “explain in behalf of the ex-Confederate States,” they did add that

their presence added an air of respectability that the Convention would not have had if it

were left completely in the hands of the Southern members.10 Southern loyalists also

invited Northern delegates to come to Philadelphia, not as official members of the

Convention like the Border State delegates, but to cheer and honor the efforts.

Northerners turned out in great numbers, although, according to one paper, “many of the

more respectable Northern delegates (declined) to attend or to have anything to do with

the Convention.”11 It is difficult to understand this comment given the fact that many prominent northerners attended, including a future vice-president of the United States.

9 Richmond Times, 4 September 1866.

10 New Orleans Picayune, 9 September 1866.

11 New Orleans Picayune, 4 September 1866.

One Southern paper proclaimed that “no Southern men, except bogus ones or

renegades, (were) present, and hence no constituency at the South (was) represented.12 In a way, this report was correct. The Southern delegates to the Southern Loyalists’

Convention did not represent a majority opinion in the South since loyalists made up only a small minority of the Southern population. If the delegates to this Convention had represented the South, one Northern paper noted, the nation would safely assume that the

South was “loyal and peaceable, and all our present troubles would cease.”13

When the delegates arrived in Philadelphia, the Union League and the citizens of

the city greeted them. One paper reported that the delegates received a warm welcome

and this was a showing of “how strong a hold at the popular heart the question of a fair

restoration has,”14 another that the city streets were “liberally decorated with bunting, and

the sidewalks were densely packed with spectators” lined up to see the delegates; many

single buildings were more decorated for the Southern Loyalists’ Convention than the

whole city had been for the National Union Convention.15 Others were not as convinced

that the welcome was warm. The New Orleans Daily Picayune declared that the

“prominent hotels have taken up their velvet carpets and removed their fine furniture, for fear of bad usage or destruction.”16

12 New Orleans Picayune, 4 September 1866.

13 The Nation, 13 September 1866.

14 Harper’s Weekly, 22 September 1866.

15 Newark Daily Advertiser, 3-4 September 1866.

16 New Orleans Picayune, 4 September 1866.

A society formed in 1862 to disseminate pro-Union sentiments and foster support

for the Lincoln administration,17 the Union League resolved to hold a meeting to

welcome the Southern loyalists and to cooperate with them in the common goal of

perpetuating the Union. Like the Southern loyalists at the Convention, the Union League

opposed Johnson and his policies, and so the members of the League were happy to

associate with the Convention and believed that the delegates’ meeting proved to the

nation that there was “a genuine Union sentiment in the South.”18 Members of the

League also believed that the close of the Civil War would bring Southern loyalists their just reward: a release from persecution and “the moulding into one glorious nationality

the hitherto jarring sections of our country.”19 Borrowing Johnson’s phrase, the League wished to see treason made odious and saw the Southern Loyalists’ Convention as an attempt to set things right with the nation.20

Crowds gathered around the League House on a nightly basis leading up to the

opening day, and the delegates to the Convention were pressed to give speeches to these

gatherings regarding the conditions in the South and what should be done to remedy the

situation. Among the delegates to address the crowds were Thomas J. Durant of

Louisiana and Governor Brownlow of Tennessee.21 Durant had been a resident of New

Orleans since he moved there in 1831 as a teenager from Pennsylvania. He had been a

Democrat and a slaveholder until a trip east in 1862 led to a change of heart regarding the

17 Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet, 177.

18 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

19 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

20 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

21 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

institution. Upon his return home, he became more heavily involved in Unionist

activities in the New Orleans area, and in 1863, he emancipated his slaves.22 At the time

of the Convention, it was a known fact that he was residing in Philadelphia.23 He was a

Southerner, but obviously not a native. His presence caused one paper to declare,

“Philadelphians and other bogus delegates (were) used to represent Southerners.”24

On 3 September 1866, the first day of the Convention, delegates from both the

North and the South gathered at the National Union Club at 9:30 in the morning. A grand procession, with one thousand local Union League members, followed by the delegates and hundreds of Union veterans with music playing, banners waving, and fire-engine bells ringing, led the delegates from the National Union Club to Independence Hall.25 In a manner reminiscent of the National Union Convention, the delegates marched two by two into Independence Hall. In a great symbolic gesture, and an exceedingly controversial one, Theodore Tilton took the arm of Frederick Douglass, and they marched into the Hall together.26 Of course, not everyone approved. The New York Times declared that it was “not much of a feature,” and would not be unless the delegates to the

Convention chose to “‘March arm in arm’ with the colored people of their own states.”

22 Joseph G. Tregle, Jr, “Thomas J. Durant, Utopian Socialism, and the Failure of Presidential Reconstruction in Louisiana,” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Nov. 1979), 485, 498-499.

23 The Henry Clay Warmoth papers in the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina Library, letter from John F. Dems (?) to Henry Clay Warmoth, 19 August 1866.

24 New Orleans Picayune, 5 September 1866.

25 Baggett, The Scalawags, 138; Harper’s Weekly, 22 September 1866.

26 Several historians chose to focus on this aspect of the Convention in their analysis to the detriment of the other issues raised by the Convention. One half of W.E.B. Du Bois comments surrounding the Southern Loyalists’ Convention revolved around the controversy that this move created. This event was also the cause of so many derogatory newspaper headlines at the time.

Failing that, the paper charged that the entrance by Theodore Tilton and Frederick

Douglass was nothing more than a theatrical display.27

Until the moment that Tilton took Douglass’ arm, no one at the Convention quite knew how to handle Douglass’ presence. As was noted above, some suggested that

Douglass not attend the Convention. Others proposed he should not take part in the

procession. Douglass rejected both suggestions. He had been an elected member of the

Convention from his state and was going to participate fully.28 When Tilton took his arm,

the situation was resolved. Nevertheless, everyone had their own view, and The

Richmond Times responded to this move by claiming that “poor Tilton held on nervously

to the arm of Fred. Douglass, as if he had lost every other friend on earth.”29

When the delegates reached Independence Hall, Charles Gibbons, the Chairman of

the Committee of Reception, addressed them.30 He proclaimed that “there (was) no stain of loyal blood” on the hands of the delegates” and their souls were “free from the guilt of treason.”31 However, not everyone in the nation believed that the delegates to this

Convention were as idealistic as Gibbons made them seem. The Richmond Times

published an article claiming that not a single man attending the Southern Loyalists’

Convention held an ounce of “sincere, honest convictions, or one particle of regard either

27 New York Times, 5 September 1866.

28 Douglass, Life and Times, 389.

29 Richmond Times, 4 September 1866.

30 Harper’s Weekly, 22 September 1866.

31 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

41 for the negro or the Union.”32 Another claimed that some of the so-called southern loyalists “could hardly bear to have their antecedents inquired into.”33

There were various levels of loyalty. Not everyone claiming to be a Southern loyalist had been loyal to the Union for the entire duration of the Civil War. Some refused to support the Confederacy from the beginning and actually worked to undermine it; others initially resisted the efforts to draw them into service or support of the

Confederacy but joined later out of fear that not doing so would endanger their lives.

Finally, there were those who initially supported the Confederacy only later to join the fight on the side of the Union.34 Regardless of how they reached this point, the delegates were all loyal to the Union, on some level, and sought to do some good with this

Convention.

When Andrew Jackson Hamilton,35 former Reconstruction governor of Texas responded to the welcome by Gibbons, he said that the close of the Civil War brought neither indemnity nor security to Southern loyalists because the spirit that fueled the rebellion was still alive in the South. He noted that the loyalists at the Convention were disappointed by the way Johnson was handling Reconstruction and felt it was up to them to meet with northerners and restore faith in the government and the principle of equal rights for all.36

32 Richmond Times, 3 September 1866.

33 Louisville Daily Journal, 7 September 1866.

34 John C. Inscoe and Robert C. Kenzer, Enemies of the Country: New Perspectives on Unionists in the Civil War South (Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2001), 4.

35 He was referred to by the Southern press as a “thoroughly debased and infamous white man.” Richmond Times, 3 September 1866.

36 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

Following Hamilton’s remarks, the procession resumed from Independence Hall to

National Hall. This time, only Southern delegates entered the Hall because the northern and southern delegations were set to meet independently of one another. Upon arriving at National Hall, Gibbons once again addressed the delegates to present the Hall for their use during the Convention.

National Hall had been aptly decorated for the occasion with the national colors adorning the room. A life-sized portrait of Lincoln was on the wall behind the stage, and a selection from the Gettysburg address was among the many placards of quotations and mottoes adorning the walls that addressed many of the issues to come under debate:

We here rightly resolve that these honored dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.— Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.

Treason defeated in battle shall not rule by ballot.

I say that the traitor has ceased to be a citizen, and in joining the rebellion has become a public enemy.—Andrew Johnson Then why not enforce it?

Treason must be made odious, and traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized and divided into small farms, and sold to honest, industrious men.—Andrew Johnson. And yet you pardon, honor, and reward them!37

Note the emphasis and focus on treason in these placards.

The gavel used by the South Carolina delegation in 1860 to vote in favor of secession was presented to the delegates of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention. That gavel, the first of many to fall in favor of secession, was now going to be used to help bring the country back together in a manner that the loyalists, in conjunction with radical

37 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

Republicans, approved. Upon the gavel was inscribed the following: “This gavel was

used by the first Convention of Southern Independence, at the Charleston Theatre, in

1860, by old BYARD, of Delaware. E.P. Cuyler, of Charleston, S.C.”38 Critics of the

Southern Loyalists’ Convention viewed the use of this gavel very differently than the

delegates did. According to The Louisville Daily Journal it “was eminently fit and

proper that a gavel used at one Disunion Convention should be made to do the duty at another Disunion Convention.” Of course, the paper questioned why the delegates to the

Southern loyalists would use a gavel that had the consequence of leading to the Civil

War, perhaps implying that the delegates were trying to start another.39 The Richmond

Times questioned the gavel in another way, claiming that the gavel used by the South

Carolina delegation was in Richmond and simply inscribed with the word “secession.”40

After the pomp and circumstance of the morning, the Southern Loyalists’

Convention convened at 1:00 followed immediately by prayer. After that, each day’s meeting began with a prayer, and even this practice was criticized. The Louisville Daily

Journal caustically remarked that the Convention needed to start with a prayer because never had there been people who had “sinned more or need praying for worse” than the delegates to the Convention.41

While the order of business on the first day was mostly organizational, some time was spent reiterating the principles that brought the delegates together in the first place.

William B. Stokes of Tennessee was among the group of delegates who sent out the

38 Harper’s Weekly, 22 September 1866.

39 Louisville Daily Journal, September 7, 1866.

40 Richmond Times, 4 September 1866.

41 Louisville Daily Journal, September 7, 1866.

original call for the Convention. He read that call to the Convention, interrupted several

times by applause and cheering, and then told the delegates that the time had come for them to take a stand, to face their enemies, and not back down. Echoing Lincoln’s words, he told them they needed to decide finally who should rule the nation, the loyal or the disloyal. Then an invocation was offered declaring that the governments could “only be secured by equal and exact justice.”42 After the members of the Committee on Permanent

Organization, charged with naming the Convention’s officers were selected, the

Convention adjourned until Tuesday morning.

When the Convention convened on Tuesday, the Committee on Permanent

Organization named James Speed Chairman of the Convention. Many had predicted the

choice from the beginning, and naming Speed president made sense in a number of

ways.43 He was a born and bred Kentuckian. He was also a former Whig turned

Republican, with close ties to Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln was reelected for a

second term in 1864, he asked Speed to be his Attorney-General. Upon his nomination

as Attorney-General, Speed declared in a letter to his mother that he would “work hard

and honestly for the good and glory of my country, and leave the consequences to God.”

When Lincoln’s assassination placed Johnson in the President’s seat, James Speed found

himself in an awkward position. He did not believe that Johnson was working for the

good of the country and wanted to resign early in Johnson’s term. But his brother Joshua

urged him not to do so because “it would gladden the hearts of (his) enemies.”44 Taking

42 The Reporter, 17 September 1866.

43 The New Orleans Daily Picayune published an article before the Convention began claiming that “James Speed will probably be president.” 2 September 1866.

44 James Speed, James Speed, A Personality, (Kentucky: Press of John P. Morton & Company, Inc., 1914), 49-50, 52, 59, 88-89.

his brother’s advice to heart, Speed held the position of Attorney-General until political

disagreements with Johnson became too much to bear. He resigned just two months prior

to the Southern Loyalists’ Convention. Explaining the political schism to his mother,

Speed pointed out that Johnson did not support the Constitutional Amendments, while he

did. Johnson favored the National Union Convention held in August, while Speed did

not.45 Before his resignation, Speed had been invited to join the delegates of the National

Union Convention but declined the offer.46

Upon taking the position of Chairman of the Convention, Speed addressed the

delegates regarding some of what he felt to be the most important issues that should come

under discussion during the Convention. According to the instructions of Reconstruction

set out by Johnson, the Southern states were required to rewrite their constitutions. The

states did this, but the wording that had been used in the new constitutions caused Speed

some concern. They did not recognize the abolition of slavery as a fact; they simply

recognized that the United States military power had abolished slavery and the institution

should not be reestablished. Speed feared that the State constitutions could easily be

rewritten allowing former slave owners to demand compensation for their ex-slaves. He

wanted the United States Constitution amended to prevent this from happening, and he

also wanted the Constitution amended so that it would never allow for the payment of the

Confederate debt.47 Speed also addressed the delegates on the issue of disfranchising the

45 ibid. 94-95. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to James Speed, December 1, 1864; Robert D. Sobel, ed, “Speed, James,” Biographical Directory of the United States Executive Branch, 1774-1989, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1990), 337.

46 The New York Times, 17 July 1866.

47 The Reporter, 24 September 1866. This fact was also brought up by Henry S. Lane, a Senator from Indiana in a speech given later in the week. Both of these goals were achieved with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment claiming that “neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt

rebels and enfranchising the African Americans, a discussion that he knew would come

before the Convention. He urged them to “do nothing in anger, do nothing from hatred,

do nothing from ill-will or from revenge, but do that which justice and right, mercy and

love, dictate, for their work and their work only endureth forever.”48 Speed reserved his

most stinging remarks for the National Union Convention; according to Speed’s grandson, these comments caused a stir North and South because he had been a part of the President’s cabinet just a short while before this. While he declared that the National

Union Convention was not entirely void of good, Speed remarked:

But why was that body here? It was here, in part, because the great cry came up from the white man of the South—“my constitutional rights and my natural rights are denied me.” The great cry also comes up from the black man of the South— “my constitutional rights and my natural rights are denied me.” This is a great complaint, earnestly made—sincerely made—on both sides, directly antagonistic, the one with the other. Which is right? The convention of the 14th of August came up here because of this great cry; this convention, to-day, is here because of that great cry. Which is right? That is for this convention to say.49

Following these opening remarks, the delegates got down to business. They began proposing resolutions for the delegates to take under consideration. One of the first resolutions dealt with extending invitations to allow for some of the northern delegates, present in the city, to attend the proceedings. The Southern Loyalists’ Convention was not intended to be a national convention, but many people from the north had come to

Philadelphia because of the Convention. But since they were not official members of the

Southern Loyalists’ Convention, these Northerners were holding separate meetings. The

possibility of opening the Convention to the Northern delegates caused some concern

or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”

48 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

49 James Speed, James Speed: A Personality, 102-103.

47 among many of the southern delegates. They feared that the presence of so many northern delegates would unduly influence the result of the Convention’s resolutions.50

No one wanted to admit they were afraid that the Northern presence would muzzle the

Convention, but many realized it was a possibility.

The issue of extending the welcome was brought up several times throughout the day, and each time the resolutions were met with opposition. Surprisingly, the strongest objections came from the delegates from the Upper South and Border States of Maryland,

Tennessee, and West Virginia. Of the three, Tennessee was the only state that officially joined the Confederacy. Maryland could easily have joined the Confederacy if Lincoln had not been so intent on keeping it in the Union, and West Virginia seceded from

Virginia to become its own Union state in 1863. The objections these delegates had to the invitations ranged from wanting to get down to some real business, to believing that the invitations were getting out of hand (a delegate from West Virginia sarcastically proposed to add “and the rest of mankind” to one of the resolutions), to not wanting anything official agreed to at this time. A delegate from Tennessee, while not opposed to the presence of so many northern delegates, noted that he believed that this was supposed to be a southern Convention, and wanted to keep it that way.51 Perhaps the real reason these delegates did not want to open the Convention up to the Northern delegates was out of fear that doing so would have opened it up to a discussion of African-American enfranchisement resulting in a resolution endorsing it. The Upper South was

50 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

51 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

48 disproportionately represented in the Convention creating a conservative environment, but opening it up to northerners could have had the effect of weakening their influence.

To try to clarify the role that the Northern delegates would have in the Convention,

Stokes said that they were only being invited to come and watch the deliberations, not to take part. But delegates continued to propose resolutions to invite others; so, to settle the issue once and for all, it was decided that a committee of five would be appointed to confer with the northern delegates and invite them to join the southern delegates after the business of the Convention had been completed, to “have a glorious time.”52

Once that issue was settled, a Committee on Resolutions and a Committee on

Address, each consisting of one delegate from each state, were established. The

Convention decided that all resolutions offered during the Convention would be submitted to the Committee on Resolutions, and members of this Committee would be responsible for compiling the official list of the Convention’s resolutions. Initially it was proposed that all resolutions should be referred to the committee “without debate,” but this requirement was eliminated because of the concern that it caused among the delegates. Andrew Jackson Hamilton and a fellow Texan did not want the Convention to feel muzzled; they wanted the delegates to be able to debate different points of issue that were going to come under discussion. Another delegate reminded his colleagues of the haste with which Andrew Johnson was named to take the seat of vice-president by the

1864 Convention in Baltimore. He noted that because of the wonderful way that turned out for Southern loyalists, he was reluctant to support the resolution unless the words

52 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

“without debate” were struck from it.53 In addition to the creation of those two

committees, H. C. Warmoth of Louisiana proposed a resolution that called for the

creation of a committee composed of one member from each of the non-Reconstructed

states to be appointed to report on the conditions in the South and the effects of Johnson’s

policy. This Committee was to prepare a report and present their findings to the

Convention before it adjourned.54 However, because of the controversy surrounding the

issue of African-American enfranchisement and the very likely possibility that the Report

of the non-Reconstructed States would propose enfranchisement, this report became the

cause of enormous controversy that would adversely affect the Southern Loyalists’

Convention.

As that suggests, the two main issues that continually came before the Convention

were President Johnson’s Reconstruction policy and African-American enfranchisement.

In a way, the two were linked. Andrew Johnson had, on various occasions proclaimed

that treason should be made odious and traitors punished, but that was not happening.

Instead, he was pardoning traitors almost wholesale and allowing many to resume their

pre-War political power. As a result, many loyalists were pushed out of office.55

Southern loyalists did not want to see traitors rewarded while they were forced to suffer the consequences. Their political concerns also led a majority of the delegates to support

African-American enfranchisement. They believed that enfranchisement could have the effect of countering the failures of Johnson’s policy because the black vote added to the

53 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

54 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

55 Foner, Reconstruction, 190-191.

loyalists’ vote would enable the two to outnumber the former rebels. But as this matter

was discussed it became clear not every delegate to the Convention favored extending the franchise.

In general, delegates from the Deep South were willing to allow for immediate enfranchisement of African Americans, while Upper South and Border State delegates were much more conservative. Delegates from these states were not as convinced that

enfranchisement was a wise policy. This argument against the franchise emphasized the

damage supporting the franchise would have on them politically. These delegates did not

necessarily need African-American enfranchisement in order to gain and keep political

offices because the Upper South and Border States had a greater proportion of loyalists

who could serve as a buffer against the former rebels.

Along with considering the issue of extending the suffrage, many of the delegates

proposed the disfranchisement of former rebels. They felt the former rebels would not

change their ways unless forced to do so; Johnson’s policy was not forcing them to

change. They feared that so long as the situation in the South continued like it was

loyalists would remain in the minority. Because of the conditions in the South and

Johnson’s failure to fulfill the promise of Reconstruction some delegates called for his

impeachment at this time. Despite the shortcomings of Congressional Reconstruction,

which did not require impartial suffrage at this time, every delegate to the Convention

believed that it was a better plan than Johnson’s policy.56

Once a resolution favoring African-American enfranchisement was proposed, the

issue could not be silenced despite several attempts. The first resolution favoring

56 The Reporter, 15 October 1866; Abbott, The Republican Party and the South, 69; Foner, Reconstruction, 270-271.

impartial suffrage came on the second day of the Convention from a delegate from

Maryland. His resolution immediately caused a commotion among the delegates.

Resolved, That the convention urge the loyal men of the North to support the Congress of the United States in demanding of the southern States the wise guarantees of the constitutional amendments passed by Congress, and call upon the patriotic men of the loyal States to use every exertion to secure the ratification of the amendments by the States, and that, as we believe the justice we mete shall be the measure of our safety, in our opinion there can be no permanent peace or security for loyal men at the South without a return to negro suffrage.57

While Warmoth immediately called for and received three cheers for the resolution,

not all of the delegates were willing to endorse it. The first part of the resolution

supporting Congress and the Amendments was universally accepted. The second part of the resolution calling for “negro suffrage” caused some concern. The objections ranged

from a semantics issue, proposing the phrase “negro suffrage” be changed to “equal

suffrage,”58 to a belief that now was not the time for loyalists’ to seek African-American enfranchisement. One delegate from Maryland opposed the resolution saying that he did not want the Republican Party of the country and the state to be “damned by such fire- brands as this.” He asked that the resolution not be sent to the committee until the delegates could engage in further discussion. A delegate from West Virginia opposed the resolution feeling that its adoption would be like committing suicide, and it would destroy the Union party.59

57 The Reporter, 24 September 1866. Here, H.L. Bond was referring to the Thirteenth Amendment, despite the fact that it had already been ratified, and the Fourteenth Amendment, already proposed but not yet ratified. The Fifteenth Amendment had yet to be proposed by Congress.

58 This resolution change was proposed by A. Griffin of Alabama. His support for impartial suffrage came from a belief that it was necessary for the support of loyalists. Michael W. Fitzgerald, Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile, 1860-1890 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 82.

59 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

The Southern press suggested that the issue of the black vote was brought before

the Convention “to excite negro insurrections and another civil war, and a full

indorsement (sic) of the rabid Radical policy of Congress.”60 Within the Convention the

debates surrounding the issue of African-American enfranchisement split the delegates

along regional lines, with some exceptions. As previously mentioned, a delegate from

Maryland offered the first resolution supporting enfranchisement. A delegate from

Missouri indicated that he was willing to listen to the argument and support the measures the Southern delegates said they needed even if it included African-American enfranchisement. In contrast, an Arkansas delegate left the Convention before the end of the week feeling that the Convention had done all that it should knowing full well that the issue of African-American enfranchisement would be fully discussed and demanded by the delegates responsible for writing the report on the non-Reconstructed states.61

Some delegates tried to stifle the discussion of African-American enfranchisement before it had a chance to surface again. W. S. Pope of Missouri offered resolutions asserting that the only issues before the Convention should be the endorsement of

Congress and the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the delegates to the Convention should do everything in their power to help with its ratification.62 He was unwilling to

support African-American enfranchisement, and this was his way of trying to end the

discussion, but not all attempts to keep the issue of African-American enfranchisement out of the Convention’s agenda were necessarily a sign of the delegates’ opposition to it.

60 New Orleans Picayune, September 5, 1866.

61 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

62 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

Pope’s objections to the discussion focused on his perception of what the chief object of the Convention was: to assure the North that Congressional Reconstruction had support in the South and Border States. While he seemed to have misunderstood the reasons why the Convention was called, he was not the only one who felt that the issue would be better left alone. Parson William G. Brownlow, who was not opposed to the idea of

African-American enfranchisement, also felt that proposing African-American enfranchisement at this time would do more harm than good.63 John Minor Botts, while an uncompromising Unionist, opposed the idea of African-American enfranchisement, and he tried to stop the discussion surrounding the issue at various times during the

Convention.64 His objections revolved around his conviction that the nation was unable to enforce such a measure at that time. A Kentuckian offered a resolution claiming that pushing the issue of African-American enfranchisement would be “eminently injudicious” because the first order of business was to stop President Johnson and his

Reconstruction policy.65

Southern Loyalists were at odds with President Johnson because of the course that

Reconstruction took under his guidance. At a time when presidents were not involved in their campaigning, Johnson embarked on his “swing around the circle” leading up to the

1866 Congressional elections. His campaign lasted from August to mid-September with

63 The Reporter, 22 October 1866. Brownlow made the proposal that pushing for African-American enfranchisement would do more harm than good during an evening session held on September 6th. Prior to making this statement he had proposed that the Convention adjourn sine die. When the adjournment met with objections from delegates from the non-reconstructed states still waiting to make their report, he withdrew the adjournment proposal but clarified why he had proposed it by saying that the Convention had done much good and proposing African-American enfranchisement would take away from that.

64 A.A. Taylor, “Freedom in a Struggle with Slavery,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 11, No. 2 (April 1926), 250-272.

65 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

Johnson making speeches at various stops along the way. During his speeches, he

denounced Congress and responded to a suggestion to hang Jefferson Davis by saying

“Why don’t you hang Thad Stevens and Wendell Phillips?”66 When an announcement was made during the Southern Loyalists’ Convention that Grant and Farragut had left

Johnson’s tour, enormous applause broke out among the delegation and it was proposed that an invitation should be extended to them if the reports were indeed true.67

While they all opposed Johnson’s policy, delegates held different goals for the

Convention. Some felt that supporting Congressional Reconstruction over Johnson’s

policy was enough; others saw the Convention as a way to “to hear and meet the demands

of our loyal brethren of the South and to assist them in their present almost helpless

condition.”68 A Missourian declared that if the Southern loyalists said they needed

impartial suffrage the other delegates should support that. He therefore offered a

resolution that supported Congressional Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment, and proposed political equality as well. A Virginian who supported African-American enfranchisement proclaimed a “firm conviction that the tyranny and oppression which we now endure will never cease until our colored friends are allowed to vote.”69

Another delegate said that if African Americans were enfranchised, and rebels were

disfranchised, loyal representatives from the South would be elected to Congress. He

added that it would be a foul injustice not to grant African Americans the right to vote

after they had fought in the Civil War on the side of the Union. While this delegate still

66 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 114-115.

67 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

68 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

69 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

believed that African Americans were an inferior race, he noted that he could think of no

greater punishment for Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy than the enfranchisement of

their former slaves. He urged the southern delegates to be bold and brave and assured

them that if they called for enfranchisement, the North would stand in support, and reminded his colleagues that the call for the Convention said they were here to look for

political equality. He suggested that if they adjourned without offering support for it,

Johnson would have the upper hand because they did not hold true to the reasons for calling the Convention.70 Another delegate felt the same way and offered a resolution

claiming that impartial suffrage for all loyal men and the disfranchisement of rebels was

the only hope of safety for the Union. Other delegates asserted that they would not

support any resolution endorsing African-American enfranchisement unless it

inexplicably stated that the former rebels should be disfranchised.71

As this suggests, the debate on the issue of African-American enfranchisement was

brought before the Convention on several occasions, but it never stayed on the floor for

long. Each time the issue was discussed, at least one delegate would propose to “get rid

of debate here.” Other delegates always agreed.72 The issue of African-American

enfranchisement was not that easy to “get rid of.” Following Wednesday’s session, the

Northern and Southern delegations came together for the mass meetings proposed on

Tuesday. This was the first time the two delegations came together since the opening

procession and the issue of the black vote arose once again.

70 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

71 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

72 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

Northern delegates had come from as far away as California for this historic event

to show their support for the Southern loyalists. They met in Convention separate from

the Southern Loyalists’ Convention for the first two days before adjourning to wait to see

what the southerners did. During those two days that the Northern delegation met, the

discussion focused on the exact meaning of their meeting. The first order of business

revolved around the debate over whether to form committees and offer resolutions in

conjunction with, but separate from, the Southern Loyalists’ Convention’s resolutions. In

the end, those not wanting to form committees, headed by Republican Congressman

William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania, won. They feared that forming committees and

organizing their delegation into a formal convention would cause the southern delegates

to feel muzzled. Henry Wilson, a Senator from Massachusetts and future vice-president under Ulysses S. Grant who was allied with Judge Kelley, argued that organizing committees would unduly influence the Southern delegates.73 Wilson proposed the

Northerners meet with the Southern men and allow them to state what they desired

without feeling muzzled. Other Northern delegates feared that allowing the Southern

delegates to say what they wanted and needed would hurt in future elections; Wilson did

not believe this would occur.74

Other Northern delegates wanted to organize into a formal convention. According

to General Benjamin Butler, committees were the eyes and ears of a convention, and they

would enable the Northern delegation to confer with the Southern delegation when the

time came for them to come together as had been the plan. Also, the organization of

73 Anna E, Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereafter AEDP), letter from Henry Wilson to Anna E. Dickinson, September 8, 1866.

74 AEDP, letter from Henry Wilson to Anna E. Dickinson, September 8, 1866.

committees would curb northern fears. There were fears, like those expressed by Butler, that the Southern delegates would propose resolutions that were incompatible with

Northern views. While he had every intention of endorsing all of the resolutions, he, like many others, wanted to be prepared in case any of those resolutions conflicted with his own principles.75 To these fears, Kelley responded by asking the northern delegates to

ease the fears of the southern delegates by letting them submit the resolutions they

needed to submit, to let them speak their minds openly. This, and only this, would

prevent public opinion from saying that the southern delegates submitted their resolutions

in “obedience to northern dictates.”76 Going along with this sentiment, Henry Wilson

invited the southern men to “speak what they meant.”77 In the end, the Northern

delegates did little more than name a president and other officers before adjourning.

However, this did not prevent many of the delegates from staying in Philadelphia either

to give a speech or to listen to the various speakers.

During the mass meetings, many of the delegates broke off into smaller gatherings

to listen to various speeches throughout the night. The issues that had been brought

before the Convention were again reiterated at these meetings, including the issue of

African-American enfranchisement. The delegates’ speeches dealt with the various

reasons why they supported or opposed the idea. A few of the Northern delegates favored suffrage for blacks because they saw it as a means of punishing rebels and protecting loyalists, others saw African Americans as a means of getting more votes and

75 The Reporter, 24 September 1866.

76 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

77 AEDP, letter from Henry Wilson to Anna E. Dickinson, September 8, 1866.

58 strengthening the Republican Party. Senator Richard Yates of Illinois argued that it would strengthen the Republican Party, which was the only party to represent the ideas proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. He felt that African-American enfranchisement was the banner under which Republicans could triumph.78 Still others favored the black vote because they felt that it was the right thing to do, and some opposed the issue believing either this was not the time to push for such a measure or it would mean the end of the Republican Party. The Northerners’ speeches continued until well after midnight.

The next day, Thursday, the Convention’s session was split into two meetings. The first began at 10:30 in the morning and adjourned at 2:30; the second reconvened at 6:00 that evening. During the morning session, the Committees on Address and Resolutions presented their findings to the delegates. The Committee’s Address began by asking the

North to protect loyalists against the reorganization of the South’s old power structure.

This alliance between Northerners and Southern loyalists, the Address proclaimed, was the last hope for peace because a reign of terror existed in the South while the ‘black codes’ allowed for the continuation of slavery which had only been abolished in name.79

The rest of the Address denounced Andrew Johnson’s policy, and, while it did not actually propose to extend the franchise, the Address did declare that doing so would send a message that the old power structure was out.80

78 The Reporter, 8 October 1866.

79 The Reporter; 15 October 1866; Ransom and Sutch make a similar statement in One Kind of Freedom that slavery continued following the War under the guise of a different name.

80 The Reporter, 15 October 1866.

The Address was eventually adopted by the Convention, but not without some

debate. A delegate from Texas, L. Sherwood, felt the Southern Loyalists’ Convention had come to Philadelphia to do more than just denounce Andrew Johnson. He argued that it was common knowledge that Johnson’s policy was bad, and so, while he approved of everything in the Address, he offered a longer version for the Convention to take under consideration. In it, he declared that the reconstructed governments of the Southern states failed to provide true republican governments. He noted that the Constitution provided Congress with the power to ensure that states provided republican forms of government, and argued that the provision gave Congress the power to take over

Reconstruction.81

Sherwood asserted that when secession was carried out in the South it did not have

the support of the mass of people. The majority simply acquiesced because of “unarmed

helplessness.” He insisted that the rebels should have to pay for what they did and should

not be allowed to rule because their political ideas were incompatible with democracy.

He repeated the refrain that treason needed to be made odious, and argued that Johnson’s

policy encouraged the continued violence and atrocities in the South, keeping the spirit of

the rebellion alive. He predicted that if Johnson would fall in line behind Congress, the

majority of the people would follow. He also declared that the loyalists had come to

Philadelphia, a place sacred to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the

Constitution, to seek a return to the Union on the grounds of republican principles.82

81 Southern Loyalists’ Convention, Call for Convention of Southern Unionists, 3-7 September 1866, 22-23

82 ibid. 22-23.

Despite Sherwood’s attempts to add to the Address, the one read by the Committee

was adopted. Governor Brownlow of Tennessee proposed that ten million copies be

printed in type large enough for President Johnson to read “whether drunk or sober.”83

Next, the Committee on Resolutions submitted a number of resolutions for the

approval of the Convention. Several reflected the delegates’ gratitude that the Civil War

had ended, appreciation for the soldiers who fought for the principles of the Union, and

thanks for the welcome they received in Pennsylvania. In another resolution, the

Committee expressed the hope that the Union would be restored easily, but they added the caveat that the restoration had to provide loyalists some assurance of protection.

Another resolution resolved to support Congressional Reconstruction because of the

failures of Presidential Reconstruction. Notably, despite the various resolutions

proposing universal suffrage submitted throughout the Convention, and notwithstanding

the fact, the Committee on Address declared that extending the franchise would be a step

in the right direction, the Committee on Resolutions said nothing about African-

American enfranchisement. Each resolution the Committee offered was read individually, and each was adopted unanimously. When a resolution honoring the memory of Lincoln was read, the delegates showed their support by standing in silence.84

The National Union Convention that met in August presented their findings to

President Johnson. The delegates to the Southern Loyalists’ Convention proposed to present their finding to Congress through a committee consisting of one delegate from

83 The Reporter, 15 October 1866.

84 The Reporter, 8 October 1866.

each of the states represented.85 Following this decision, the Convention adjourned until

6:00 that evening.

In the time between the two sessions, the Convention invited Anna Dickinson,

Frederick Douglass, and Theodore Tilton to address the Southern loyalists. Anna

Dickinson, a twenty four year old woman of Quaker ancestry from Philadelphia, had a

long history of anti-slavery sentiments. As a child, her family home was purportedly a

stop on the Underground Railroad. At thirteen, she had an article published in William

Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, and was named the “juvenile Joan of Arc.” By

the time of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention she was a well-known orator, much

sought after as a speaker about the wrongs of slavery and the rights of African Americans

and women.86

In her comments, Dickinson addressed the schism between the southern delegates

and the Border State delegates that had begun to form during the morning session. Then it became clear that the Border State delegates were unwilling to support any resolution or address that favored African-American enfranchisement. The Newark Daily

Advertiser claimed that the reason the Border States did not want enfranchisement was because “the popular prejudice against impartial suffrage, though rapidly disappearing,

(was) yet too strong to be met at such a short notice. Plus they claim it to be a State

Right.”87 Anna Dickinson fiercely declared that delegates from the Border States had no

more of a right to be present at the Convention than the delegates from the North. This

85 The Reporter, 15 October 1866.

86 Anna E. Dickinson, What Answer? With an Introduction by J. Matthew Gallman (New York: Humanity Books, 2003), 5, 9.

87 Newark Daily Advertiser, September 5, 1866.

was a southern convention, she noted, and the responsibility of the Northern and Border

State delegates was to support the Southern delegates in their endeavor. Let us have impartial suffrage, she begged; if the African Americans could vote there would be an enormous constituency backing the Republican Party. Beyond that, it would offer protection for Southern loyalists; it would make the Constitutional Amendments more than just “waste paper” in the South. She added that nothing was more profitable than justice, and a proposal like this would put the old rulers out of power in the South.88

Frederick Douglass, who also spoke at the afternoon recess, had addressed the delegates on several occasions throughout the Convention. On every occasion he asked the Southern delegates to come right out and say that they favored African-American enfranchisement rather than skirt around the issue. During one of his speeches, he said one of the “great evils of the country has been the limiting of eternal and universal principles that, by their very nature, are illimitable.”89 That Thursday, he noted that the

resolution proposed and adopted by the Convention said they favored ‘universal liberty’

but did not offer a resolution that said they favored extending the franchise. In his

comments during the recess, Douglass offered a new reason to extend the franchise. He

urged the delegates to do it because it was the right thing to do.

Douglass also tried to calm some of the fears that extending the franchise would

have negative effects on the nation. He assured the delegates that African Americans

were not seeking social equality like many white people feared. Rather, they only wanted

their rights before the law. He also challenged a belief that the United States government

88 The Reporter, 15 October 1866.

89 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

was a white man’s government, pointing to the fact that the first sentence in the

Constitution declared “we the people…”90 Douglass likewise challenged the common

belief that African Americans were an inferior race. He did not believe in racial

inferiority, and rejected President Johnson’s idea that African-American enfranchisement

would lead to race riots. Instead, Douglass argued, the franchise would give African

Americans friends among the white race.91 Douglass and Johnson had disagreed on this

point before. During an interview with the President as a delegate to a black national

convention in February 1866, Douglass asked Johnson to place “in our hands the ballot

with which to save ourselves,” just as Abraham Lincoln had placed in the hands of

African Americans “the sword to assist in saving the nation.” Up to this point, President

Johnson had been silent regarding the issue of extending the franchise to African

Americans. To Douglass’s inquiries, Johnson’s response was less than pleasant. “I

would be his Moses to lead him from bondage to freedom; that I would pass him from a

land where he had lived in slavery to a land (if it were in our reach) of freedom. Yes, I

would be willing to pass with him through the Red sea to the Land of Promise,” he

declared, “but I am not willing, under either circumstances, to adopt a policy which I

believe will only result in the sacrifice of his life and the shedding of his blood.”92

As for the belief that African Americans did not know enough to vote and would only vote as they were told to do, Douglass told the delegates that white men do the same thing. If African Americans knew enough to fight for their country and pay taxes, they

90 The Reporter, 22 October 1866.

91 Philip S. Foner and George E. Walker, ed. Proceedings of the Black National and State Conventions, 1865-1900, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 210-211, 217.

92 ibid. 214-215.

knew enough to vote. In conclusion, Douglass advised the Convention that anything less than African American incorporation into the political machinations of the Union would be an “utter failure.” As citizens of the United States, and because it was right, African

Americans deserved the right to vote.93

Theodore Tilton, a journalist from New York City and chief editor of the

Independent, was another speaker to address the Southern loyalists during the break between the two sessions. Tilton proclaimed that he, and the state of New York, favored

African-American enfranchisement. He said men who claimed that pushing for impartial suffrage would hurt the Republican Party, like the delegates from Kentucky and

Maryland have slandered the north. He added that he would be willing to grant African-

American enfranchisement and help the South even if it meant that elections in the North would be disastrous for Republicans. He urged the Southern delegates to push the issue of enfranchisement because it would silence all those who claimed that impartial suffrage was being forced upon an unwilling South.94

One other Northern delegate, Henry S. Lane from Indiana, was entrusted with

making a speech during the recess. He stated that the Northern delegates were “here in

defence of free speech, free principles, and free institution; to enunciate to the world the grand platform of equal suffrage and the rights of mankind upon which we stand.” Like

93 The Reporter, 22 October 1866.

94 The Reporter, 22 October 1866; a northern paper declared that they did not have a problem with the delegates endorsing African-American enfranchisement because they could fall behind the platform of States’ Rights and avoid having to install impartial suffrage in their own state. Newark Daily Advertiser, 4 September, 1866.

many of the Southern delegates, Lane was willing to go beyond this and also call for the

disfranchisement of the rebels.95

When the second session convened that evening, Governor Brownlow immediately

put a motion of adjournment on the table. This resolution met with many objections

mostly surrounding the fact that there was still a committee that had yet to report their

findings to the Convention. The delegates from the non-Reconstructed states suspected

that the proposed adjournment was an attempt to keep the Convention from having to

support African-American enfranchisement. Having put the issue of African-American

enfranchisement on the back burner throughout the preceding days with the implicit

understanding that it would be brought up at a later time, many Deep South delegates

feared that they would be unable to openly discuss an issue that they felt was necessary

for the nation.96 And of course the issue of African-American enfranchisement was

highly contested within and outside of this Convention. As The Nation reported, it would

have been a wonder if all of the delegates had agreed to support the issue,97 especially

given the fact that the issue was not even agreed upon by Northerners. Always there to

add a negative slant on the Convention’s proceedings, the Louisville Daily Journal

claimed that the real reason the delegates wanted to extend the franchise was “because

they believed they could fool the blacks into voting them into office.”98

In the second Thursday session, the Deep South delegates reminded the men present that the Convention had been called in the first place to bring the attention of the

95 The Reporter, 1 October 1866.

96 The Reporter, 22 October 1866.

97 The Nation, 13 September 1866.

98 Louisville Daily Journal, September 7, 1866.

66 nation to the true conditions in the South. What better way to do this than to hear from the delegates who lived in the South? One of the delegates wanting to continue the

Convention until the Committee on non-Reconstructed States had a chance to be heard was Warmoth. He believed that those delegates proposing adjournment should stay and hear what this Committee had to say because whether they supported African-American enfranchisement or not, they had already associated themselves with the issue by attending the Convention. If there was something that the delegates did not like in the report, they could return to their respective states and say resolutions were proposed that they did not endorse.99

As a compromise, one delegate proposed that only those delegates from the non-

Reconstructed states would be held responsible for the content of the Committee’s report, but that left the delegates from the other states wondering why they should stay if they would not have a say in what would be adopted by the Convention. They felt that the

Convention should adjourn with the understanding that the delegates from the non-

Reconstructed states would still meet and discuss the issues. One of the delegates from

Tennessee, being among those who called the Convention, said the Convention was called because too few people knew the actual conditions in the South. He noted that more delegates had been elected members of the Convention than actually showed up because they had been warned that attending the Convention would have a negative effect on their lives. He was willing to stay another day to hear what the delegates had to

99 The Reporter, 22 October 1866.

say and urged others to do the same thing. With the understanding that staying did not

commit the delegates to anything, he claimed it would be “but a small sacrifice.”100

Seeing the negative response to the proposed adjournment, Brownlow tried to clarify exactly why he called for it. Despite the fact that he favored African-American enfranchisement, Brownlow explained that he believed that staying longer would only do more harm than good. The Convention had done good work, but delegates were already leaving and more were ready to go home. In light of the response his resolution received, he withdrew the motion to adjourn sine die, and a motion to adjourn until Friday at 10:00 was agreed to instead.

When news of the schism among the delegates reached the Southern newspapers, they were less than favorable in their reports. The New Orleans Daily Picayune proclaimed, “the Radical Convention has adjourned. Its proceedings are ridiculed and the

Convention pronounced a failure by all sensible men…so disgraceful and wicked an assemblage never before met in this country.”101 While the paper had the main fact

wrong—the Convention met again on Friday September 7—it captured the Convention’s

problem. By Friday, most of the seats belonging to the delegates from Maryland, West

Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee were empty. The delegates who remained followed a similar belief that a delegate from Arkansas proclaimed. He said he would not

demand rights for himself that he was unwilling to grant to everyone. He did not have

100 The Reporter, 22 October 1866.

101 New Orleans Picayune, September 7, 1866.

the same misgivings toward bringing the issue of African-American enfranchisement

before his state as some of the other delegates had had.102

When the report of the non-reconstructed states was not immediately presented to

the Convention, many of the delegates demanded that it be read because that was the sole purpose of their meeting this day. Before the report was read, James Speed resigned the post of Chairman and left the Convention to attend to other duties. John Minor Botts became chairman in his place. Upon leaving, Speed remarked that the delegates’ “labors have been well done. I trust and believe, from the lightning flashes that have come from

California, Kansas, Chicago, and other portions of the country, that we have not assembled in vain.”103 Upon hearing that Speed left, The Richmond Times reported that

“the ‘Convention’ became so intolerably disgusting that the President, Speed, fled from

the den of unclean beasts.”104 Perhaps his reasons for leaving were just an excuse to

avoid having to support African-American enfranchisement, but just a short time ago, as

Attorney-General Speed had favored the franchise.

The report, read by Warmoth, was a report of the social and political status of the loyalists and their proposed needs. According to the report, the initial post-War period allotted the loyalists a measure of protection because rebels were still concerned as to

what the consequences of their actions would be. However, Johnson’s policy, with its

leniency toward rebels, soon began to ease the fears of the rebels and collapse the protection that loyalists’ had known. Former rebels began to speculate about what they

102 The Reporter, 22 October 1866.

103 Louisville Daily Journal, 8 September 1866.

104 Richmond Times, 10 September 1866.

could do with the state governments. Rather than being banned from participating in the

governmental affairs of the state, they found themselves in charge while the loyalists

were put out. Violence was on the rise, and Johnson’s policy was to blame for this. So

long as his policy was allowed to continue, the report warned, the situation in the South

would only deteriorate. Intolerance and persecution on the part of the rebels towards the

loyalists kept the spirit of the rebellion alive. The report recounted that the delegates to

the Convention received threats on their lives when news of their election as delegates to

this Convention reached the people, and that some had received threats since arriving in

Philadelphia causing them to fear returning home. The report added that rebels were not

giving up on attaining their goals. They “(would) seek to gain by the ballot what it failed

to achieve by the sword.”105 There could be no middle ground on the issue of who should

rule, and the loyalists looked to Congress for support. Finally, the Report concluded that

the only remedy for the condition of the south was impartial suffrage.

While the delegates agreed that the conditions of the South were honestly portrayed

in the report, not all were willing to endorse the entire report. When the call came for the

adoption of the report, some of the delegates wanted to divide the report into two sections

and vote on the conditions of the South and the proposed remedy of extending the

franchise separately. A North Carolinian felt that the time was not right to demand the

franchise because, as long as Johnson was president, it would only make things worse for

African Americans. A delegate from Alabama felt the same way. He did not feel that the

nation could “bear another plank in the platform.”106 While granting universal suffrage

105 The Reporter, 29 October 1866.

106 The Reporter, 29 October 1866.

would do much good, loyalists could not afford to make a mistake regarding this issue, or the government would fall into the hands of their enemies.107

Other delegates felt that impartial suffrage was the “only hope and salvation” for

loyalists of both races. A. W. Tourgée wondered how the conditions could be worse for

African Americans. He was sent to the Convention by the people of North Carolina who

urged him to leave if the Convention was not pressing for all that the people needed. He

urged the delegates to do more than “political fooling.” The people were looking for

justice, liberty, protection, and salvation for both African Americans and whites.

“Gentlemen may squirm and wriggle and kick as much as they please,” but according to

Tourgée, the time had come when African Americans must be given the right to vote.108

P. B. Randolph, the only African American delegate present at the Convention,

rose to speak for the first time. He declared that the time had passed when the

Republican Party could sacrifice principle for expediency. The time would come when

African Americans would be allowed to vote, and when that time came, they would

support the Party that fought on their behalf. If Republicans left the issue for their

enemies to decide, they risked losing a powerful constituency. A delegate from Virginia,

J.W. Hunnicutt, believed that African Americans should be given the right to vote now.

“Live or die, sink or swim, I go for the equal rights of all men before the law.” A.J.

Hamilton of Texas favored giving the vote to all who had fought on behalf of the Union

during the Civil War regardless of color.109

107 The Reporter, 29 October 1866.

108 The Reporter, 29 October 1866.

109 The Reporter, 29 October 1866.

John Minor Botts approved the first part of the report but was among the group of

delegates who did not support the call for African-American enfranchisement. He

believed that this was an issue that Congress could not demand or enforce on the states; rather the individual states had the power to decide who could or could not vote. Botts favored securing the rights of white loyalists before trying to secure rights for African

Americans. With a President hostile to African-American enfranchisement and a strong

southern population backing him, the franchise could not be secured for the African

American population at this time. Pushing for it now, without the ability to protect

African Americans would only cause the violence against them to continue. In concluding, Botts offered twenty resolutions that he hoped the Convention would adopt

and print with the proceedings. Most of the resolutions held true to the principles of the

Convention, but two of his resolutions met with objection.110

Those two resolutions claimed Congress did not have the power to enforce suffrage

on the states or the power to interfere for the protection of the citizens in the South. A

majority of the delegates believed Congress did have those powers and should take

control of the course of Reconstruction. Having been rebuffed by the delegates, Botts

withdrew his resolutions and decided to have them printed on his own. Following this,

one Southern paper reported that Botts “(shaking his fist angrily) exclaimed in a loud

voice: I ask no favor of this Convention; I’ll have them printed myself.” He then “turned tail, and stampeded with a valedictory bellow.”111

110 The Reporter, 29 October 1866.

111 Richmond Times, 10 September 1866. There is no evidence of John Minor Botts angrily addressing the delegates or leaving the Convention in the official proceedings of the Convention.

In the end, the delegates decided that the report of the non-reconstructed states

should not be divided into two sections but should be voted on as a whole. It was

adopted as presented to the Convention, and many of the delegates from the states not

represented in the report were allowed to sign the document to show their support for it.

A committee of one member from each of the non-reconstructed states was appointed to

present the report to Congress. Following the closing prayer, the Convention adjourned.

A Southern paper declared that the “‘Jack Hamilton’ Convention broke up on Friday, in a

confusion approaching to a row. The materials of which it was composed were so

incongruous that nothing less was expected.”112

112 New Orleans Picayune, 9 September 1866.

CHAPTER 4 AFTERMATH AND CONCLUSIONS

This is to be the final battle of the war. Let it be the greatest victory of right and justice.1

The Southern Loyalists’ Convention adjourned on Friday 7 September 1866, but

that did not mark the end of the southern loyalists’ attempts to change the course of

Reconstruction, nor were they alone in their efforts. For one thing, many delegates

remained in Philadelphia on Saturday to partake in a steamboat excursion and listen to

some final closing remarks from Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Carl Schurz, and the city’s

mayor, Morton McMichael, who had taken a leave of absence from the city during the

National Union Convention.2 The remarks of this day reiterated many of the issues that

were raised during the Convention and urged the delegates not to lose sight of the fact

that much work remained to be done. In addition, many delegates joined a tour of the

country following in the path of President Johnson’s infamous “swing around the circle”

ending with a pilgrimage to the tomb of President Lincoln.3

The continued zeal of the loyalists was necessary because the Convention did not

produce an instantaneous change from Johnson’s policy to the policy of Congress, it did

not result in the immediate ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it certainly did

not allow for the immediate enfranchisement of African Americans. In their efforts to set

1 The Reporter, 5 November 1866. This quotation is from a speech Carl Schurz gave to the delegates on Saturday September 8, 1866.

2 The Reporter, 5 November 1866.

3 The Reporter, 1 October 1866; Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, 170.

73 74

Reconstruction down a different path than the one outlined by President Johnson, loyalists were joined by radical Republicans who had desired, and consciously tried, to implement a plan for Reconstruction in place of the Presidents’ plans since 1863. Fierce opposition from Johnson and his supporters met the loyalists and radicals every attempt to change the course of Reconstruction.

While the Southern Loyalists’ Convention was full of promise for what could be, it was also a prelude of what was to come during Reconstruction. This went beyond the simple passage of a couple of constitutional amendments; it also included the conversations that arose during Reconstruction and the anxiety that accompanied every act. The concern many delegates felt during the Convention at the thought of providing equal rights for African Americans continued to be a burden to great for many to overcome. Their opposition to equal rights became an obstacle even during the tour following the Convention.

According to John P. Deveney, the tour and pilgrimage that the Southern loyalists embarked on was a “tour de force” of public oratory.4 Rallies, parades, and speeches accompanied every rail stop along the way. Delegates participating in the tour included

Andrew Jackson Hamilton and Parson Brownlow who was physically weak and nearly unable to speak during the Convention or the pilgrimage.5 At a stop in Cleveland, Ohio,

Hamilton “adjured the people to see to it that the settlement between the disloyal States and the General Government should be of the nature to secure lasting peace.”6 P.B.

4 Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, 170.

5 Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig, 12 September 1866.

6 New York Times, 22 September 1866.

Randolph was also among the delegates participating in this tour. As an African

American, Randolph received poor treatment. In an attempt to prevent him from

speaking, organizers scheduled him to give his speech alone on the platform during a

storm in Syracuse, and at one point R. H. Branscomb of Missouri, the chairman of the

pilgrimage, accused Randolph of stealing because he kept some of the money he earned

from his speeches. Following the poor treatment, Randolph left the pilgrimage only to

return and give an extraordinary speech at Lincoln’s tomb.7 Randolph’s treatment

illustrates what would eventually occur within the nation during the course of

Reconstruction. The fight for equality was an uphill battle that even one-time supporters

of African American rights would abandon in exchange for an end to the era.

Reconstruction witnessed several changes in ideologies before its conclusion.

Lincoln’s initial plan would have restored the former Confederacy to the Union with

minimal changes to the status quo. His original plan met with opposition and an

opposing plan from Congress, but before his assassination Lincoln began to see the need for a more thorough Reconstruction and the inclusion of African Americans into the political body of the nation. President Johnson spoke firmly about his requirements for

Reconstruction before retreating to a much too lenient plan that proved disastrous for

African Americans and the nation as a whole. Shortly after the Southern Loyalists’

Convention adjourned, Congressional Republicans implemented their second plan for

Reconstruction. The Republican Party found an additional support base to help execute this plan after the Civil War as loyalists from the South helped to nationalize this once

7 Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, 170-171.

regional party. Prior to this point, the Southern Republican voice did not exist in

numbers significant enough to make a difference.

The Republican Party had formed in the 1850s on a platform that called for the

“abolition of the ‘twin relics of barbarism’ (polygamy and slavery) in the territories,” 8

but it failed to incorporate Southerners in significant numbers.9 The Republican Party

formed on the ruins of the Whig Party, but many Southern members of the defunct party,

rather than joining the Republicans, either experimented with the Know-Nothing Party

before joining the ranks of the Democrats or went straight to the Democratic Party.10

Despite the limited political options, for a majority of southerners, the Republican Party

was not a viable option at the time regardless of where their loyalties lay during the crisis

leading to the Civil War.

From the beginning, the Republican Party received most of its support from the

North. In fact, it had gained enough of a northern support base to elect President Lincoln

in 1860 without his name appearing on ballots in the Lower South.11 While some

southern converts had joined the ranks of the Republican Party during the Civil War, the

numbers were not large enough to make the Republican Party anything more than

regional. The post-War years witnessed a change in this. Loyalists throughout the South

were more disgusted than ever with the Democratic Party and the rebels’ attempts to win

in Reconstruction what they had lost in the Civil War. Delegates to the Southern

8 Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 55.

9 Abbott, 6.

10 James Alan Marten, Texas Divided: Loyalty and Dissent in the Lone Star State, 1856-1874 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990), 23.

11 Abbott, The Republican Party and the South, 10, 16-17.

Loyalists’ Convention supported the Republican members of Congress and their plan for

Reconstruction, effectively joining the Party in opposition to Johnson and his supporters.

One-time Democrats were now calling themselves Republicans. A.J. Hamilton, for example, had been a lifelong Democrat. As an Independent Democrat, he served a stint

in Congress before the War. When Texas seceded from the Union, Hamilton, who opposed secession, remained in Washington to try to find a compromise for the nation.

When his hope proved futile, he returned to Texas and put his life in danger by administering loyalty oaths to other loyalists. In 1862, rebels put a reward out for his capture. Following a botched kidnapping attempt he fled to Mexico and then to New

Orleans (under Union control). Over the course of a few years, Hamilton evolved from a slave owner and Jacksonian Democrat to an advocate of emancipation and a post-War

Republican.12 Other loyalists, either in attendance at the Southern Loyalists’ Convention

or not, had made similar transformations in their own lives.

Although hardships followed the loyalists’ every move because of their continued

support for the Union throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction, the work they did

was more than worthwhile. While the delegates came from different backgrounds, one

thing tied them together—their unanimous support for Congressional Reconstruction.

Their efforts to see Reconstruction placed under Congressional control rather than

Presidential control was unending, but unlike the nationalization of the Republican Party,

it took more time for Congress to gain control of Reconstruction. The congressional

elections of 1866 (held shortly after the Southern Loyalists’ Convention) saw a huge

Republican victory, but it was not necessarily a radical victory. The nation, seemingly

12 Marten, Texas Divided, 66-68.

wanting a speedy end to Reconstruction, replaced radicals with conservative or moderate

Republicans; those radicals who were lucky enough to maintain their seats only did so

with a slight margin. This change from radical to moderate Republicans did not end

Reconstruction.13

While many moderates had been initially opposed to causing an irrevocable split

with President Johnson, by the end of 1866, a serious divide existed between the two.

The moderates had not been out to challenge presidential authority over Reconstruction

from the start; what they were seeking was a Reconstruction plan that would cause some

real changes to the power structure of the South. Had Presidential Reconstruction provided for this change, moderates would have been content. The failure of Johnson’s plan left many moderates siding with the radicals and the southern loyalists, so that by the

end of 1866, the serious divide that they had hoped to prevent, was quite noticeable.14

The conflict between the President and Congress continued to escalate in the years

following the Southern Loyalists’ Convention, and the divide between the two sides

continued to grow. This was due, in part, to the fact that Johnson’s policy did nothing to

actually reconstruct the South or even calm the nation’s fears that another Civil War

would be the inevitable consequence of “my policy.”15 Johnson’s policy actually helped

ease many moderate Republicans to the radical camp, so that by the end of 1866

Johnson’s support came largely from two groups. First, he had the support of the former

rebels who remained unrepresented in Congress and therefore were inconsequential in

13 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 117-118.

14 Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 38-39.

15 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 118.

matters regarding policy; second, he had the support of the Democrats who constituted

only a small minority in Congress by this time. Despite this shift in balance, Johnson had

one formidable weapon.16 Congress could pass all of the laws they wanted to, but it was

dependent on Johnson to enforce them.

Republican Congressmen began to test their newfound power shortly after the elections. They had two options, according to historian Michael Perman. They could either scratch Johnson’s plan and start fresh or supplement Johnson’s plan with

cooperative measures.17 For the most part, Congress chose to start fresh. In 1867, they implemented their second plan for Reconstruction in opposition to the President. The era of Congressional Reconstruction had begun, and it came in the guise of the Military

Reconstruction Act. The Act divided the former Confederate States into five military

districts and placed them under the direction of military officers with federal troops

supporting the efforts. The government’s use of African American troops caused a stir

among southerners. A provision of this Act barred high-ranking Confederate officials from political offices while each state rewrote their constitutions. The new constitutions had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and allow for African-American enfranchisement.18 At this time, Congress was attempting to get African-American

enfranchisement passed at the state level by making it a requirement for readmission to

the Union. Not surprisingly, Johnson did not support this Act. He tried to veto it, but

Congress passed it over the presidential veto.

16 ibid. 119-120.

17 Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 39.

18 Foner, Reconstruction, 276-277.

Former Confederates did not support this Act. In many cases, they chose not to

follow its stipulations. The Southern States elected ineligible men to political office and

tried to send them to Congress. Following the South’s hostile response to the First

Reconstruction Act, Congress passed several more Acts to try to make Reconstruction work. These Acts gave the military district commanders more authority, making them responsible for holding state constitutional conventions and removing state officials from

office if necessary. The final Reconstruction Act stipulated that a simple majority was sufficient to ratify the state constitutions. Under Congressional supervision, biracial governments formed throughout the South; however, opposition met the new governments at every turn.19

Everything at the federal level was written in a round-about way. The Fourteenth

Amendment claimed that a state’s representation in Congress would be based on the

number of qualified voters and if individuals were excluded from voting for any reason

other than fighting in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy the states

representation would be restricted. It never required African-American enfranchisement;

it merely suggested that a state might want to allow this. This clause of the Amendment

could have acted as a catalyst for the Southern states to allow for the black vote, but it did

not have that effect. For one thing, most Southern states chose not to ratify the

Amendment. For another, violence and racial tensions were rampant in the South. The

Ku Klux Klan had recently formed, and riots in Memphis and New Orleans in May and

19 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 144-145.

July 1866 resulted in the deaths of a number of blacks trying to participate in political affairs.20

Notwithstanding the hostile reaction of the President and the Southern states to this

Amendment, Republicans in Congress were eventually able to get this Amendment

ratified. Incorporating the Civil Rights Act of 1866, basing a state’s representation on the number of qualified voters, barring officials of the former Confederate states or federal officials from political office, providing for the invalidation of the Confederate debt, denying compensation for the former slaves, and granting Congress the power to enforce the provisions, the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was a powerful blow to

President Johnson.

In 1866, when Congress ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, Johnson urged the southern states not to ratify it. All but Tennessee, ironically Johnson’s home state, initially obliged their president.21 When Tennessee ratified the Amendment, their elected

Congressmen were admitted to their seats in both the House of Representatives and the

Senate. By the time the Southern Loyalists’ Convention met in September 1866,

Tennessee was back in the Union. Despite the fierce opposition to the Amendment

among the majority of southerners and the President, the support of the Southern loyalists

for this Amendment, like that they showed for Congress, was unanimous. By July 9,

1868, enough states had ratified this Amendment. The passage of the Fourteenth

Amendment was a scored victory for the delegates of the Southern Loyalists’

Convention.

20 Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 50.

21 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 113.

As Congress increasingly thwarted Johnson, the President began to look for support

wherever he could find it and his cabinet seemed to be a logical place to turn. The

problem, however, was that many of the cabinet members were hold-overs from

Lincoln’s cabinet, so Johnson decided to make his cabinet friendlier. To do this, he tried

to replace Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Stanton was not only a radical Republican

but also the man whom Lincoln turned to in 1865 when he wanted a more radical plan for

Reconstruction. To prevent Johnson from removing an ally of the radical Republicans

from office, in February 1867 Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act prohibiting the

President from dismissing any officer confirmed by the Senate without their approval.22

Johnson, ignoring this new Act, replaced Stanton with General Ulysses S. Grant.

However, Grant did not hold the position for long. After Congress refused to accept this change, Grant relinquished the position and Stanton was reinstated.

Congress began measures to impeach the President based on his violation of the

Tenure of Office Act in March 1868.23 Southern loyalists, calling for his impeachment in

1866, would have been pleased with this move.24 However, they would not have been

pleased with the results. While the House of Representatives impeached Johnson for

violation of the Act, the Senate fell one vote shy of impeachment. The fact that Benjamin

Wade (one-half of the Wade-Davis two-some of 1863-1864) would have replaced

Johnson as President kept many Senators from voting in favor of impeachment.25 While

22 Foner, Reconstruction, 333

23 ibid. 333-334.

24 The Reporter, 8 October 1866.

25 Foner, Reconstruction, 335

efforts to impeach President Johnson had failed and he served the rest of his term, he did

so mainly as a lame duck president.26

Although the impeachment trial ended in failure, the Presidential Election of 1868 gave the Republicans an opportunity to replace Johnson with a candidate better suited to their desires for Reconstruction. While General Grant had been a Democrat before the

War, afterwards, he renounced his allegiance to that Party and became a Republican.

What was more, he was a Republican who had split with Johnson.27 When the

impeachment trial of Johnson failed, Grant was disappointed. He had told a friend that

Johnson’s impeachment would have brought “peace to the country.”28

Regardless of Grant’s opinions about Johnson, nominating him as the Republican candidate for President in 1868 was a gamble because no one knew exactly what type of

Republican he was. He would not give any indication, and this frustrated Republican

Congressmen as they attempted to figure out the man who might become their president.

Radical Republicans were not thrilled with the nomination of Grant as the Republican’s

Presidential candidate because they had doubts about his true political leanings. But radical or not, Grant was the only Republican candidate that was capable of leading the entire Party.29

Grant did not necessarily want to be President, but he easily won the Presidential

Election over the Democratic candidate, Horatio Seymour, by a margin of victory due

26 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 153-154.

27 Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 60.

28 Geoffrey Perret, Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier and President (New York: Random House, Inc.), 374.

29 ibid. 376-377.

84 largely to the black vote.30 Because of the Reconstruction Acts requiring the Southern states to allow for African-American enfranchisement, and with the help of Union troops ensuring their ability to vote despite southern white intransigence, African Americans throughout the South were able to cast ballots for the Presidential Election. What made

Grant finally accept the Presidential nomination was his belief that a Democratic

President would follow in the path of Johnson and hurt the country more than help. The last thing Grant wanted to see was the victories of the War negated in Reconstruction.

He wanted peace, but not at any cost.31

As the years trudged by, it became clear to the Republicans in Congress that they would only be able to maintain control of the southern states so long as they had a support base in the South. Loyalists made up only a minority of the population. This fact had hurt Lincoln’s initial plan for Reconstruction, and it was becoming increasingly clear to Republicans that they needed to find and keep a much larger support base than they already had. What was to prevent Reconstruction from collapsing after the federal troops were removed? To try to keep their power in the South, Republicans began to call for the enfranchisement of the African American population. While Congress had skirted around the issues in the preceding years, it became increasingly clear that, from a political stance, the black vote was necessary.32 The transformations in this fact are astounding. With the black vote, the arguments initially were based around what was

30 ibid. 380.

31 ibid. 378-379.

32 Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 65-67.

moral and right. Now, the issue surrounding the black vote was becoming increasingly

political.

By the time of Grant’s election, the issues that the delegates to the Southern

Loyalists’ Convention agreed upon unanimously had come to fruition. Congressional

Reconstruction replaced Johnson’s policy. Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was completed. This one Amendment covered a number of concerns of the Southern loyalists—slave compensation, the Confederate debt, and the disqualification of former

rebels. The only issue brought before the Southern Loyalists’ Convention that remained

to be resolved was the issue of African-American enfranchisement.

President Grant initially opposed enfranchisement until African Americans were

educated, but as the years progressed, Grant changed his position on this issue. He began

to see enfranchisement as the only way to save Reconstruction from failure.33 President

Grant, radical Republicans, and Southern loyalists from the Deep South were not the only

ones in favor of African-American enfranchisement by this time. According to Robert

M. Goldman, the Southern refusal to ratify or support the Fourteenth Amendment proved

beneficial in the movement for enfranchisement because moderate Republicans began to

see the need to enfranchise African Americans if they wanted Reconstruction to succeed

and the violence and terror in the South to cease.34 The future success of the Republican

Party also depended on African-American enfranchisement. It became increasingly clear

that the Southern states were not going to send members to Congress that would support

Reconstruction despite the disqualification clause in the Fourteenth Amendment

33 Perret, Ulysses S. Grant, 412.

34 Robert M. Goldman, Reconstruction and Black Suffrage: Losing the Vote in Reese and Cruikshank (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 11-13.

preventing former rebels from holding political office. This provision was insufficient.35

By February 1869, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment following only a month of debate on the various proposals. A year later, the Amendment received the requisite approval of three-fourths of the states necessary for ratification.36 The Amendment

stated:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any Stat on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.37

Beginning with the Reconstruction Acts, Congress had begun to pass a series of

measures that led to the Fifteenth Amendment. The difference in these initial measures

and the Fifteenth Amendment was the authority that the Amendment gave to the federal

government. Until the Fifteenth Amendment, the federal government did not have the

authority to enforce the franchise.38

With the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, every goal urged by the

Southern Loyalists’ Convention had come to pass. Frederick Douglass believed this

Amendment was the beginning of true equality for African Americans.39 However, not everybody who had supported African-American enfranchisement in 1866 continued to support the move by the end of Reconstruction. Carl Schurz, who addressed the

35 Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 51-52.

36 Goldman, Reconstruction and Black Suffrage, 15.

37 ibid. 15.

38 Goldman, Reconstruction and Black Suffrage, 13.

39 ibid. 16.

delegates of the Southern Loyalists’ Convention, had supported African-American

enfranchisement after a tour of the South in 1865 assured him that it was necessary to

improve the conditions there. Of all the political demonstrations that he had participated

in, Carl Schurz believe that the Southern Loyalists’ Convention was “the most

magnificent.”40 However, his views regarding African-American enfranchisement did

not remain constant. In September 1871, Schurz gave a speech that called for the repeal

of the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution and a return to “local self-

government.” While he might have believed that the removal of martial law would

alleviate some of the obstacles in the way of guaranteeing African American rights in the

South, such a program, with its provision for political amnesty, would have meant a

return to white supremacy, not an end to the discrimination.41

Andrew Jackson Hamilton was a man who quickly went from thanking “God that this (was) a White man’s Government” before the Civil War to believing that African

Americans had earned the right to vote.42 At the Southern Loyalists’ Convention, he was

a prominent supporter of extending the franchise. As quickly as he supported impartial

suffrage so to did he change his mind. Hamilton was a Republican, but he was not a

radical. He was a moderate who wanted to see Texas fully restored to the Union. He

believed that only the truly loyal could accomplish this so he favored rebel

disfranchisement. However, his views toward African-American enfranchisement and rebel disfranchisement changed along with many other loyalists. By 1868, he had

40 “Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz,” The Library of Congress American Memory, Carl Schurz to his wife, September 5, 1866.

41 Foner, Reconstruction, 500.

42 Marten, Texas Divided, 139.

rejected the radical Republican’s plan for Texas and successfully led a fight to reject

rebel disfranchisement.43

Another delegate to the Convention, Henry Clay Warmoth, a carpetbagger from

Louisiana, became increasingly moderate and courted Democratic support by seeking to

limit African American political influence.44 But, not everyone associated with the

Southern Loyalists’ Convention abandoned the ideal of African American rights. Albion

W. Tourgée, a North Carolina carpetbagger, became a judge and eventually left the

South. He formed the National Citizens’ Rights Association, a short-lived predecessor of

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and once claimed that

there was no “Negro problem” but rather a “white” one, since the hatred and the injustice

was all on the side of the whites.45 Tourgée became “one of the most consistent and

outspoken white champions of African American rights in the late nineteenth century.”46

He also became a writer. His novels of the Reconstruction era provided readers with a clearer picture of the Reconstruction South. At the end of the nineteenth century, he was one of the lawyers who fought Louisiana’s railroad segregation policy in the landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).47

While it is true that many of the delegates to the Southern Loyalists’ Convention

and radical Republicans experienced a change of opinion in regards to African American

rights, this should not negate the significance of the Convention. It may have taken four

43 Marten, Texas Divided, 139-141.

44 Foner, Reconstruction, 605.

45 ibid. 606.

46 Goldman, Reconstruction and Black Suffrage, 143.

47 ibid. 143.

years, but by 1870, every goal of the Southern loyalists had been realized. Congress had

replaced Johnson’s policy, the states had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, and the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment granted African Americans the franchise. It was

a long hard battle that not everyone continued to fight, but the Southern Loyalists’

Convention was significant, not so much for the continued efforts of its delegates, but for

the prefiguring nature it had for the rest of the nation. Enough Americans had come to

the realization that this was what the nation needed.

It is interesting to note that one effort of radical Republicans in general that the

Southern loyalists did not even discuss in Convention was the proposed land

redistribution for African Americans. It had been an issue in Congress from 1865 until

1867. Radicals in Congress supported proposals to confiscate rebel land and redistribute

it to African Americans. It was eventually defeated in Congress by moderates and some

radicals who would not support such a measure. It never became law, and unfortunately, according to Kenneth Stampp, may have played a role in the defeat of the radical program altogether. The failure to back up the political rights with economic rights meant that the political rights would be unsecured following the removal of federal troops.48

With the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and the reality of African-American

enfranchisement knocking on the door, Southern whites began courting the African

American vote in an effort to increase their power. Had Southern whites been able to

convince African Americans to vote in their favor, it could have led to a reinstatement of

48 Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction, 126-129.

90 the old power structure.49 The great majority of African Americans, however, did not join the ranks of the Democrats; they chose to join the ‘Party of Lincoln.’ As Perman stated, Reconstruction only lasted as long as Republicans were able to maintain control of the Southern State governments. By 1874, the majority of the Southern States had been

“redeemed” as power was returned to the Democrats. With the nomination of Rutherford

B. Hayes as President in 1877, and the removal of the military presence in the South,

Reconstruction came to an official end.

The end of Reconstruction marked the beginning of a new era in the American

South. By the end of the Nineteenth Century, the era of Jim Crow had begun. The gains of Reconstruction were lost as African Americans were relegated to the status of second- class citizens. Racial segregation, racial inequality, and African-American disfranchisement were established. What should have been the beginning of racial equality turned into a century-long battle to gain what was lost following the end of

Reconstruction.

49 Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet, 198.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Newspapers

Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig

Harper’s Weekly

Louisville Daily Journal

The Nation

New Orleans Picayune

New York Times

Newark Daily Advertiser

The Reporter: A Periodical Devoted to Religion, Law, and Public Events

Richmond Times

Primary Documents

The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916.

Andrew Johnson Papers at the Library of Congress.

Anna E, Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Dickinson, Anna E. What Answer? With an Introduction by J. Matthew Gallman. New York: Humanity Books, 2003.

Douglass, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History. New York: Bonanza Books, 1892.

The Henry Clay Warmoth papers in the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina Library.Lincoln, Abraham. Letter to James Speed, December 1, 1864.

91 92

Schurz, Carl. “Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz,” The Library of Congress American Memory.

Southern Loyalists’ Convention, Call for Convention of Southern Unionists, 3-7 September 1866.

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Blight, David W. Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.

Bowers, Claude. The Tragic Era: The Revolution After Lincoln. New York: Halcyon House, 1929.

Brandwein, Pamela. Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth. North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1999.

Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1947.

Current, Richard Nelson. Those Terrible Carpetbaggers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Deveney, John P. Deveney. Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician, e-book. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Du Bois, W.E.B. Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880. New York: Russell and Russell, 1935.

Dunning, William Archibald. Reconstruction: Political and Economic, 1865-1877. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1907.

Fitzgeral, Michael W. Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile, 1860-1890. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: HarperCollins. 1988.

Foner, Philip S., and George E. Walker, ed. Proceedings of the Black National and State Conventions, 1865-1900, Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986.

Goldman, Robert M. Reconstruction and Black Suffrage: Losing the Vote in Reese and Cruikshank. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001.

Gordon, Sarah Barringer. The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Hahn, Steven. A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.

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Kilbride, Daniel. “Southern Medical Students in Philadelphia, 1800-1861: Science and Sociability in the ‘Republic of Medicine’” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 65, No. 4 (November 1999).

Marten, James Alan. Texas Divided: Loyalty and Dissent in the Lone Star State, 1856- 1874. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Karen Michelle Malloy is a graduate student at the University of Florida concurrently seeking a Master of Arts in history and a Master of Education in secondary social studies education. This thesis is being submitted in partial completion of the degree of Master of Arts in history. Ms. Malloy also has a bachelor’s degree from the

University of Florida in history.