THE AMERICAN NATION
A HISTORY
FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES BY ASSOCIATED SCHOLARS
EDITED BY
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ADVISED BY
VAR lOUS HISTORICAL SOCIETIES
THE AMERICAN NATION
A HISTORY
LIST OF AUTHORS AND TITLES
GROUP I.
FOUNDATIONS OF THE NATION
Vol. i European Background of American
History, by Edward Potts Chey-
ney, A.M., Prof. Hist. Univ. of Pa.
" 2 Basis of American History, by
Livingston Farrand, M.D., Prof.
Anthropology Columbia Univ.
" 3 Spain in Ameri ca, by Edward Gay-
lord Bourne, Ph.D., Prof. Hist.
Yale Univ.
" 4 England in America, by Lyon Gar
diner Tyler, LL.D., President
William and Mary College.
" 5 Colonial Self -Government, by
Charles McLean Andrews, Ph.D.,
Prof. Hist. Johns Hopkins Univ.
GROUP II.
TRANSFORMATION INTO A NATION
Vol. 6 Provincial America, by Evarts
Boutell Greene, Ph.D., Prof. Hist,
and Dean of College, Univ. of 111.
" 7 France in America, by Reuben
Gold Thwaites, LL.D., Sec. Wis
consin State Hist. Soc.
Vol. 8 Preliminaries of the Revolution,
by George Elliott Howard, Ph.D.,
Prof. Hist. Univ. of Nebraska.
9 The American Revolution, by
Claude Halstead VanTyne.Ph.D.,
Prof. Hist. Univ. of Michigan.
10 The Confederation and the Consti
tution, by Andrew Cunningham
McLaughlin, A.M., Head Prof.
Hist. Univ. of Chicago.
GROUP III.
DEVELOPMENT OP THE NATION
VoLn The Federalist System, by John
Spencer Bassett, Ph.D., Prof.
Am. Hist. Smith College.
" 12 The Jeffersonian System, by Ed
ward Channing, Ph.D., Prof. Hist.
Harvard Univ.
** 13 Rise of American Nationality, by
Kendric Charles Babcock, Ph.D.,
Pres. Univ. of Arizona.
1 14 Rise of the New West, by Freder
ick Jackson Turner, Ph.D., Prof.
Am. Hist. Univ. of Wisconsin.
* 1$ Jacksonian Democracy, by Will
iam MacDonald, LL.D., Prof.
Hist. Brown Univ.
GROUP IV.
TRIAL OF NATIONALITY
VoL 16 Slavery and Abolition, by Albert
Bushnell Hart, LL.D., Prof. Hist.
Harvard Univ.
Vol.i; Westward Extension, by George
Pierce Garrison, Ph.D., Prof.
Hist. Univ. of Texas.
" 1 8 Parties and Slavery, by Theodore
Clarke Smith, Ph.D., Prof. Am.
Hist. Williams College.
" 19 Causes of the Civil War, by Admiral
French Eiisor Chadwick, U.S.N.,
recent Pres. of Naval War Col.
" 20 The Appeal to Arms, by James
Kendall Hosiner, LL.D., recent
Librarian Minneapolis Pub. Lib.
" 21 Outcome of the Civil War, by
James Kendall Hosmer,LL.D., re
cent Lib. Minneapolis Pub. Lib.
GROUP V.
NATIONAL EXPANSION
Vol. 22 Reconstruct! on, Political and Eco
nomic, by William Archibald Dun
ning, Ph.D., Prof. Hist, and Politi
cal Philosophy Columbia Univ.
11 23 National Development, by Edwin
Erie Sparks, Ph.D., Prof. Hist.
Univ. of Chicago.
24 National Problems, by Davis R.
Dewey, Ph.D., Professor of Eco
nomics, Mass. Inst. of Technology.
41 25 America the World Power, by
John H. Latane, Ph.D., Prof.
Hist. Washington and Lee Univ.
" 26 Ideals of American Government,
by Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D.,
Prof. Hist. Harvard Univ.
COMMITTEES APPOINTED TO ADVISE AND
CONSULT WITH THE EDITOR
THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Charles Francis Adams, LL.D., President
Samuel A. Green, M.D., Vice- President
James Ford Rhodes, LL.D., ad Vice-President
Edward Channing, Ph.D., Prof. History Harvard
Univ.
Worthington C. Ford, Chief of Division of MSS.
Library of Congress
THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Reuben G. Thwaites, LL.D., Secretary and Super
intendent
Frederick J. Turner, Ph.D., Prof, of American His
tory Wisconsin University
James D. Butler, LL.D., formerly Prof. Wisconsin
University
William W. Wight, President
Henry E. Legler, Curator
THE VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
William Gordon McCabe, Litt.D., President
Lyon G. Tyler, LL.D., Pres. of William and Mary
College
Judge David C. Richardson
J. A. C. Chandler, Professor Richmond College
Edward Wilson James
THE TEXAS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Judge John Henninger Reagan, President
George P. Garrison, Ph.D., Prof, of History Uni
versity of Texas
Judge C. W. Raines
Judge Zachary T. Fullmore
THADUEUS STEVENS
THE AMERICAN NATION : A HISTORY
VOLUME 22
RECONSTRUCTION
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
1865-1877
BY
WILLIAM ARCHIBALD DUNNING, PH.D., LL.D.
LIEEER PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL FHtLOSOPHY
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER <3* BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
rux^iA^MT
A
V
Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
BY WHOM I WAS FIRST INSPIRED WITH INTEREST
IN THE PROBLEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION
CONTENTS
CHAP. PACK
EDITOR S INTRODUCTION xiii
AUTHOR S PREFACE xv
i. PROBLEMS OF THE RESTORED UNION (1865) . 3
ii. WORKING TOWARDS A PEACE BASIS (1865) . 18
in. THE POLICY AND AMBITION OF PRESIDENT
JOHNSON (1865) 35
iv. THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL POLICY OF RECON
STRUCTION (1865-1866) 51
v. THE JUDGMENT OF NORTH AND SOUTH ON
RECONSTRUCTION (1866-1867). .... 71
vi. RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WASHINGTON
(1866-1868) 85
vn. RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH
(1867-1868) ^ ... 109
vin. THE ELECTION OF GRANT (1868)
ix. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STATE OF THE NATION
(1865-11869) 136
x. A CRITICAL PERIOD IN FOREIGN RELATIONS
(1865-1873) 151
xi. THE CLIMAX OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION
(1869-1872) 174
xn. THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT AND ITS
FAILURE (1870-1872) 190
xii CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
xiii. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEMORALIZATION IN
THE SOUTH (1870-1873) 203
xiv. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL DEMORALIZA
TION IN THE NORTH (1869-1873) . . . 220
xv. THE " TIDAL WAVE" OF 1874 238
xvi. THE SUPREME COURT AND RECONSTRUCTION
(1865-1875) 252
xvii. THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS WHITE SUPREMACY
IN THE SOUTH (1874-1875) 266
xvin. THE NADIR OF NATIONAL DISGRACE (1875-
1876) 281
xix. THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN (1876) . . . 294
xx. THE DISPUTED COUNT (1876) 309
xxi. THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION (1877) .... 323
xxn. CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES .... 342
EDITOR S INTRODUCTION
MR. GLADSTONE once let fall an expression
about the difference between "war and a state
of war." The phrase might almost be applied to
the condition of the United States before and after
the surrender of the southern armies described in
the previous volume of this series (Hosmer, Out
come of the Civil War)] for from 1865 to 1877, the
field of the present volume, Federal troops remained
in the South, almost as garrisons in a hostile coun
try. Yet it must never be forgotten that when
the guns were once silenced no person was deprived
of life or property because of his connection with
the Confederacy. The North also had its recon
struction, and in the process suffered terribly from
unfit officials, the plundering of public treasuries,
and the degradation of civic standards.
To the mind of Professor Dunning, reconstruction
appears, therefore, not to be simply a process ap
plied by the victorious section to the defeated; but
a realignment of national powers, a readjustment
of political forces, a slow recovery from the wounds
inflicted on the body politic by four years of civil
war. In chapters i. and ii., he points out the three
xiv EDITOR S INTRODUCTION
elements in the South which had to be reckoned
with the whites, the negroes, and the state govern
ments. In chapters iii. to v., he sketches the rival
policies of president and Congress. The process of
reconstruction is the subject of chapters vi. and vii.
The author then turns (chapters ix. and x.) to the
domestic and international conditions of the country
from the Civil War to 1873. In chapter xi. he de
scribes the climax of Reconstruction in negro suffrage.
Here the volume enters on the period of awakening,
both North and South, first dealing with the bad po
litical, economic, and social condition (chapters xii.
to xiv. and xviii.) Then, in three chapters, xv. to
xvii. , he accounts for the upheaval in the South and
the destruction of negro suffrage. The last three
chapters of text, xix. to xxi. , are devoted to the pres
idential struggle of 1876, culminating in the Electoral
Commission of 1877. The Critical Essay reveals a
wealth of hitherto undigested material.
The purpose of the volume is to show that Recon
struction, with all its hardships and inequities, was
not deliberately planned as a punishment and hu
miliation for those formerly in rebellion, though the
spirit of retribution had its part. It was an effort,
clumsy and partisan, yet in the main honestly meant
to make provision for the inevitable consequences
of the Civil War; though it failed it left a state of
things out of which has slowly grown the conscious
ness of a national harmony far stronger and more
lasting than that before the war.
AUTHOR S PREFACE
TN a short history of the period covered by this
I volume the chief problem is that of just propor
tion as to affairs in the two lately warring sections.
Many things contributed to keep conditions in the
South in the forefront of contemporaneous interest;
and the historian cannot but feel the influence of
this fact. Moreover, few episodes of recorded his
tory more urgently invite thorough analysis and ex
tended reflection than the struggle through which
the southern whites, subjugated by adversaries of
their own race, thwarted the scheme which threat
ened permanent subjection to another race. From
the point of view of social and political science in
general, the South bulks largest in the history of
reconstruction. But our point of view in the
present volume is different. We must regard the
period as a step in the progress of the American
nation. In this aspect the North claims our
principal attention. The social, economic, and po
litical forces that wrought positively for progress
are to be found in the record, not of the vanquished,
but of the victorious section. In this record there
is less that is spectacular, less that is pathetic, and
xvi AUTHOR S PREFACE
more that seems inexcusably sordid than in the
record of the South ; but moral and dramatic values
must not have greater weight in the writing than
they have had in the making of history. Our
narrative, therefore, while it may seem to slight the
picturesque details of Ku-Klux operations and car
pet-bag legislation and fraud, will be found, I trust,
to present in something like their true relations the
facts and forces which, manifested chiefly in the
politics of the North and West, transformed the
nation from what it was in 1865 to what it was in
1877.
The appearance of Dr. James Ford Rhodes s last
two volumes, covering the years 1866-1877, i* 1 time
to be used in the final revision of my manuscript, is
a mercy the greatness of which cannot in a preface
be adequately expressed. To Dr. Paul Leland Ha-
worth, sometime lecturer in history at Columbia
University, I am under deep obligation for assist
ance in the preparation of the maps and for sug
gestions on the later chapters of the text. Mr.
William Watson Davis, University Fellow in History
at Columbia, has rendered invaluable service in
reading all the proof and verifying the references.
Finally, it is due in large measure to the diplomacy,
resourcefulness, and tact of the editor, Professor
Hart, if the volume has assumed in any degree the
special character suited to the requirements of the
series.
WILLIAM ARCHIBALD DUNNING.
RECONSTRUCTION,
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
/
RECONSTRUCTION,
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
CHAPTER I
PROBLEMS OF THE RESTORED UNION
(1865)
WITH the capitulation of Johnston s army to
General Sherman on April 26, 1865, the last
possibility of successful organized resistance by the
South to the United States government disappeared.
The scattered remnants of the Confederate military
power had little inclination and less ability to check
the flood of Federal invasion that was spreading
over all the regions hitherto untouched by the de
vastation of war. One after another the southern
commanders made their submission to the con
querors, and by the end of May the authority of
the United States met no shadow of opposition
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. To the peo
ple of the North this meant that their passionate
demand of 1861 had been realized the Union was
preserved ; to the people of the South it meant that
their bitterest forebodings of that year had come
4 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
true they were subjugated by an alien power.
Thus no more in the return of peace than in the in
ception and progress of hostilities was there any
harmony between the sections, or probability of
harmony, as to the meaning of the situation. In
such ineradicable divergence of opinion and feeling
is to be found the key not only to the genesis of the
Civil War, but also to the problems of reconstruction.
If the northern point of view be taken, and the
assumption be made that the Union had been pre
served, the most casual survey of the country in
April and May of 1865 reveals conditions, social, ec
onomic, and political, which are as different as the
liveliest fancy could well imagine from those which
characterized the Union of 1860. Four years of
desperate warfare had left a deep impress upon both
the general structure and the particular institutions
of the people s life. The questions which engaged
the attention of both central and state governments
when Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency were
widely different from those which were the core of
discussion in the last peaceful days under James
Buchanan. North of Mason and Dixon s line and
the Ohio River the transformations wrought by the
war were not always immediately present to the eye,
for they were veiled by an external conformity to
old customs and ideals ; but in the border states, and
in the ravaged territory of the Confederacy, the
ancient social structure lay in obvious and irre
mediable ruin.
i86s] PROBLEMS OF RESTORATION 5
Only in a very narrow sense, then, was it true that
the Union had been preserved. The territorial in
tegrity of the nation had been maintained, but this
was practically all. In the four years of convulsion
through which this end was attained forces had been
generated which rendered impossible a recurrence
to ante-bellum conditions. The initial steps in the
readjustment after the termination of hostilities were
guided by the wide-spread northern belief that the
old Union had been maintained; the final steps in
reconstruction revealed with unmistakable clearness
the truth of the southern view that a new Union had .- -
been created.
The problems which demanded solution from
those in authority in May of 1865 centred about
the conditions which the war left in the three
strongly differentiated sections of the country: (i)
the free states of the North, including the Pacific
slope; (2) the border slave states; (3) the conquered
region of the South. For the northern states the
first requirement was to get rid as rapidly as pos
sible of the military regime which the exigencies of
the war had developed. Nearly a million men of
the volunteer army were to be restored to civil life;
the elaborate organization of the provost-marshal-
general s bureau, which had brought the operations
of recruiting and conscription into every congres
sional district of the North, must be dissolved; the
multifarious activities of the war department through
which the armies and navies were supplied with
6 RECONSTRUCTION [1861
food, clothing, and equipment must be curtailed;
and the administration of justice must be restored
to those channels from which it had been diverted
by the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and (
the practical if not technical substitution of martial*
for civil law. 1 Further, as the excessive demands
upon the treasury diminished a reduction and read
justment of taxation must be entered upon, with
all the far-reaching economic and social consequences
which comprehensive operations of this kind involve.
The North enjoyed on the whole a considerable
degree of industrial and commercial prosperity dur
ing the war. By the end of the four years of con
flict the effects of the violent displacement of capital
and labor at the outbreak of hostilities had dis
appeared, and the productive forces of the land
were entirely adjusted to the new conditions. For
the industries wrecked by the war, such as cotton
manufacture and the merchant marine, compensa
tion had been found in the demands created by the
needs of warfare, and also in the opening up of the
oil- fields of Pennsylvania and the mines ^of Nevada
and Colorado.
This last - mentioned development had a potent
influence on what was perhaps the greatest of the
non-political problems with which thoughtful men
were occupied in 1865 that of establishing railway
1 Cf. Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War (Am. Nation, XXI.),
chap. i. ; Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction,
37 et seq.
1865] PROBLEMS OF RESTORATION 7
connection ^between the Mississippi Valley and the
Pacific coast. When secession became an accom
plished fact in 1 86 1, it was apparent to every one
that a transcontinental railway was indispensable to
the maintenance of the national unity. 1 By the
end of the war, lines were pushing westward over
the Indian-ravaged plains of Kansas and eastward
through the gigantic mountain barriers of Califor
nia. But progress was slow: private capital and
energy were fearful of the future where more than
a thousand miles of uninhabited territory had to
be crossed; and the form and amount of aid which
the government should give to the great enterprise
had not been fixed in a form which the promoters
regarded as definitive. The construction of the
Pacific Railway was destined to be the core of some
of the most intricate entanglements of both politics
and administration throughout the period of recon
struction.
When we turn to the border slave states, we find
at the close of the war, as during its continuance, a
situation peculiar to those regions. In each of these
states a very considerable minority of the people had
favored secession, and each had contributed thou
sands of soldiers to the ranks of the Confederate army.
Each had also been the theatre of military opera
tions carried on by the regular armies, and had suf
fered the inevitable consequences of that fact; but
1 Cf. Hosmer, Appeal to Arms, 174; Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil
War, 1.33 (Am. Nation, XX., XXL).
8 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
much more disastrous and demoralizing had been
the incidents, especially in Missouri and Kentucky,
of the irregular warfare of raiders and guerilla bands
which continued till the last flicker of life in the
Confederate cause. In these border states, where
sentiment was so much divided in respect to the
war, the conflict assumed a fratricidal character;
neighborhoods and families fell asunder and fur
nished armed supporters to both sides. The bitter
ness and hatred engendered by the loss of life and
property affected the schools, the churches, and the
commonest relations of business. Moreover, in ad
dition to the feeling which separated Union from
Confederate sympathizers, a serious divergence of
sentiment divided the Unionist majority itself into
two intensely hostile factions over the abolition of
slavery; and on this issue the radicals triumphed
before the end of the war in Missouri and Maryland,
the conservatives in Kentucky. 1 But the party
strife was continued on the question of the treat
ment of southern sympathizers. Disfranchisement
of this class was provided for by more or less rigor
ous measures in all the border states; and Missouri
ratified, in June, 1865, a new constitution which,
through an exceedingly stringent test-oath, denied
to such persons not only the right to vote and hold
office, but also the right to act as trustee, to practise
law, and "to teach or preach or solemnize marriages. " 2
1 Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War (Am. Nation, XXL), 223.
2 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1865, art. Missouri.
1865] PROBLEMS OF RESTORATION 9
A final element in the complex of animosities,
faction, and dissension which distracted the border
states was the presence of the United States mili
tary authority. For months after the collapse of
the Confederacy the Federal commanders continued
to supplement, assist, or override at discretion the
administrative and judicial procedure of the state
government. The most serious effects of this ele
ment of confusion were manifested in Kentucky,
where martial law, proclaimed by President Lincoln,
July 5, 1864, was not withdrawn till October 12,
1865. As the conservatives of this state success
fully resisted to the end every effort to abolish sla
very, and as the commander of the military depart
ment, General Palmer, was an energetic promoter
of emancipation, the status of the blacks was a
source of grave conflict between the state and the
Federal authority. 1
As we cross the line into the territory of the de
funct Confederacy, we find at first conditions like
those in the border states, with the evils greatly
aggravated. In Tennessee, in particular, the fierce
animosities of fratricidal strife formed the greatest
obstacle to the restoration of peace and order. As
compared with this social factor, the more distinc
tively economic and political elements in the situa
tion were of secondary importance. But when we
reach the heart of the Confederacy, the cotton states
1 For the chief documents in this controversy, see Am. Annual
Gyclop., 1865, art. Kentucky.
io RECONSTRUCTION [1861
proper, it is hard to say that any one feature was
more significant than the rest , where jdiaos was
universal. Save in those districts where the Union
arms established themselves long before the .termina
tion of hostilities principally New Orleans and its
vicinity there was no disharmony among the white
population: all had committed themselves, actively
or passively, to a cause that was lost, and all awaited
in uniform humiliation and dejection the fate that
should come to them from he will of the conqueror.
The problem of reconstruction in these states in
volved on the one hand the question of mere exist
ence, how to provide the necessities of life for the
population, and on the other hand the vital question
of civilized existence, how to constitute governments
adequate to the social needs. For in none of the
rebel states did the war leave either an economic or
ganization that could carry on the ordinary opera
tions of production, or a political organization that
could hold society together. 1
During the continuance of hostilities the military
and naval operations of the Union forces almost
destroyed the commercial system of the South, and
thus reduced the life of even the well-to-do classes
to a pitifully primitive almost barbarous level.
Of mere food there was produced an abundance in
all the regions in which the slaves remained at work.
But along the lines of Federal invasion, and about
the points of permanent occupation by Union gar-
1 Cf. Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., u.
1865] PROBLEMS OF RESTORATION n
risons, the policy of emancipation was systemati
cally carried out, with the result that great masses
of blacks, withdrawn from their wonted routine,
wasted away in idleness, want, and disease within
the Union lines; 1 while their former masters eked
out a precarious existence from the wreck of their
farms and plantations, or betook themselves as refu
gees to the still uninvaded parts of the South. With
the collapse of the Confederacy all the slaves be
came free, and the strange and unsettling tidings of
emancipation Were carried to the remotest corners
of the land. As the full meaning of this news was
grasped by the freedmen, great numbers of them
abandoned their old homes, and, regardless of crops
to be cultivated, stock to be cared for, or food to
be provided, gave themselves up to testing their
freedom. They wandered aimjess but happy through
the country, found endless delight in hanging about
the towns and Union camps, and were fascinated
by the pursuit of the white man s culture in the
schools which optimistic northern philanthropy was
establishing wherever it was possible^ 2
While the negro population, whose labor was so
indispensable a factor in the productive system, was
thus occupied, the returning Confederate soldiers
and the rest of the white population devoted them
selves with desperate energy to the procurement of
1 Cf. Peirce, Freedmen s Bureau (Univ. of Iowa, Studies, III.),
chap. i.
8 Cf. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Ala., 269.
12 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
what must sustain the life of both themselves and
their former slaves. From many a family that had
lived in luxury came pitiful cries for the humblest
food ; and in many regions where nature would have
responded bounteously to slight human effort, the
only thing that interposed between the population
and famine was the commissary department of the
Union army. 1
While the disorganization of the labor system was
the fundamental factor in the economic and social
situation in the South, all the other familiar effects
of protracted war contributed to the total of misery.
Railways and bridges were destroyed ; the many fac
tories which had been developed, on however primi
tive a scale, to supply the needs of the Confederate
armies, were reduced to wreckage or ashes ; the Con
federate and state securities and currency which rep
resented so considerable a share of Southern capital
had only the usefulness and value of souvenirs in
a glutted market. Yet with all these drawbacks
there would have been a way clear to prompt re
covery if the whole population, black as well as
white, could have resumed at once the familiar
methods of production. The price of cotton was
fabulously high, and the South might have entered
with happy prospects into the business of meeting
the world s demand for this commodity. But be
fore such economic results were to be attained the
South was destined to pass through a social and
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1865, p. 393.
1 86 s] PROBLEMS OF RESTORATION 13
political struggle of such intensity as only race an
tagonism can produce.
If the problem of adjusting the blacks to a useful
place and function in the southern economy was the
first that demanded solution, the problem of civil
government in each state was not far behind in im
portance. Indeed, it seemed to many men of the
time, in both North and South, that the lack of state
governments was responsible for much that was
most distressful in the situation/ For when the din
of arms finally ceased, there was no civil authority
claiming to be the state in either North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Missis
sippi, or Texas; and in the other four states of the
Confederacy, except Tennessee, the organizations
which, by grace of the president of the United States,
claimed to represent the respective commonwealths
could only by an excess of courtesy be recognized as
worthy of the dignity to which they made pre
tension.
President Lincoln had taken up the subject of
restoring civil government in the seceded states with
his characteristic conservatism and caution. The
basis of his policy was the belief that there existed
in every one of those states an element among the
people which was still loyal in feeling to the Union.
This element, he expected, would rise to the sur
face as the military power of the Confederacy was
overcome, and might then be utilized to organize a
civil government which the government at Wash-
i 4 RECONSTRUCTION [1862
ington could properly recognize.^ During 1862, as
the Union forces gained footholds in Tennessee,
North Carolina, and Louisiana, the president ap
pointed military governors in each of those states,
whose express duty it was to stimulate the reappear
ance of the loyal element of the population. 1 The
experiment came to naught in North Carolina, 2 but
in Tennessee, largely through the courage and tenac
ity of Andrew Johnson, and in Louisiana, through
.the ruthless rigor with which Butler and Banks
maintained the Federal grip on New Orleans, a
body of inhabitants, more respectable perhaps in
numbers tlfan in social or intellectual position, were
firmly attached to the Union cause. In Arkansas
during 1863 a like situation was created, in conse
quence of the fall of Vicksburg and the general
weakness of the Confederate military power in the
West.
By December of this year Mr. Lincoln became
convinced that the existing loyal population re
quired considerable accessions from the rebel ranks
in order to assume the character of a political people
for the respective states. /^Accordingly he issued his
proclamation of- December 8, 1863, offering pardon
and the restoration of property to all who would
take a prescribed oath y/ and announcing that he
would recognize as the true government of any of
the seceded states, except Virginia, such organiza-
1 Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War (Am. Nation, XXL), 134.
2 Hamilton, Reconstruction in N. C., 89.
1 864] PROBLEMS OF RESTORATION 15
tions as might be effected by the citizens taking the
oath, if they should be equal in number to one-
tenth of the voting population of the state in i860. 1
Under the plan of reorganization thus presented,
constitutional conventions were held and govern
ments set up, during 1864, in Tennessee, Louisiana,
and Arkansas. These were duly recognized by the
president as the true governments of their respective
states: but the actual authority which they exer
cised was of course strictly limited to the regions
that were within the Union military lines; and in
Congress itself neither Senate nor House admitted
to their seats the members chosen under the auspices
of the new governments. In Virginia the frag
mentary organization which remained when West
Virginia was formed by the Unionists of the Old
Dominion 2 was still going through the motions of
state government at Alexandria, snubbed by Con
gress, flouted by the redoubtable Butler in the ad
ministration of his military authority, and admitted
to be farcical" by President Lincoln himself, who
nevertheless unflinchingly sustained it as the only
logical nucleus for ultimate development into real
power and efficiency. 3
These four states, then, differed from the other
seven that had seceded in possessing, when hos-
1 The particular exceptions and qualification embodied in the
proclamation are here omitted : text in Richardson, Messages and
Papers, VI., 213.
2 Hosmer, Appeal to Arms (Am. Nation, XX.), 50.
3 McCarthy, Lincoln s Plan of Reconstruction, 129 et seq.
VOL. XXII. 2
16 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
tilities ceased, the semblance at least of governments
loyal to the Union. That this fact simplified on the
whole the problem of reconstruction is more than
doubtful. In Tennessee, indeed, where the Unionist
element had always been numerically very strong,
the new government had a substantial popular basis,
and the situation was much like that in the border
states; in a less degree this was true in Arkansas;
but in Virginia and Louisiana the governments which
Lincoln had recognized were destitute of respect or
influence among the great mass of the people which
they claimed to govern, and the task of extending
their authority over their states promised to be
even more difficult than that of organizing entirely
new systems in the other members of the Confed
eracy.
To recapitulate, the progress of the American
nation in the decade succeeding the Civil War was
to be involved in the solution of as complex prob
lems as ever taxed the capacity of government. In
the North the dangerous encroachments of militar
ism on the domain of civil polity were to be ter
minated, and the tremendous financial burdens left
by the war were to be diminished and readjusted so
as to be bearable. In the border states the passions
and feuds of a divided society were to be curbed
till time could bring tolerance and reunion. In the
South a wholly new social and political structure
was to be built out of the wreckage of that which
conquest had destroyed, and the foundation must
1865] PROBLEMS OF RESTORATION 17
be laid by some distinct determination of the rights
and duties of the freedmen and by the construction
of state governments.
Finally, by the side of these problems of internal
policy, and somewhat in the background, lay cer
tain questions of foreign relations, which now and
then were forced ominously to the front in the
surgings of public opinion. Great Britain had won
no high favpr in either North or South by her policy
during the war, and the French forces in Mexico
were an incontrovertible expression of Napoleon s
malevolent disposition. With the fall of the Con
federacy it became a seriously debated question in
all the political circles of the North whether it would
not be well, before reducing the military and naval
establishment, to have a settlement of the grievances
which the European powers had so recklessly heaped
up against themselves. Only the imperative and
absorbing demands of the home situation prevented
a crisis in foreign relations ; and at each particularly
troublesome period in the process of reconstruction
there was an access of urging by influential men that
the president should find a way out through an ag
gressive movement against Great Britain or against
the French in Mexico.
CHAPTER II
WORKING TOWARDS A PEACE BASIS
(1865)
FLAGRANT war ended, as it had begun, when
Congress was not in session, and when the ex
ecutive department of the government, therefore,
must assume all the responsibility of dealing with
the new situation. The man who took up the exer
cise of the chief executive power on April 15, 1865,
was not the man whom any important element of
the people in either North or South would have
deliberately chosen for the task. Andrew Johnson
had been nominated for the vice-presidency at Balti
more, in 1864, under the influence of two ideas which
pervaded the convention namely, that the Repub
lican party had given up its identity and become
merged in the Union party; and that the Union
party was not sectional, but included South as well
as North in its membership. Born in North Caro
lina, a resident during all his mature life of Tennessee,
and an unfaltering supporter throughout his public
career of the ante-bellum Democracy, Mr. Johnson,
on the ticket with Lincoln, served excellently as a
symbol of the party transformation which the war
1 86 5] WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 19
had effected; but few of -the party which elected
him vice-president would have judged it wise to in
trust the difficult task of reconstruction to a man
whose antecedents were southern, slave-holding, and
ultra - state - rights Democratic ; while the northern
Copperheads and the -southern secessionists alike re
garded him with all the scorn which is excited by
an apostate.
The new president was not, however, of a tem
perament to be affected by, even if conscious of,
the consternation which his accession to power pro
duced. I The same integrity of purpose, force of
will, and rude intellectual force, which had raised
him from the tailor s bench in a mountain hamlet
to leadership in Tennessee, sustained him when he
confronted the problems of the national adminis
tration. He felt in reference to the future just as
he had felt as to the past when, at the simple cere
mony of his induction into the presidency, he had
said : * The duties have been mine, the consequences
are God s." l The complacent self-sufficiency which
was manifest in this, as in very many other of his
public addresses, was, however, a quality of speech
rather than of character in the new president. Posi
tive, aggressive, and violent in controversy, fond of
the fighting by which his convictions must be
maintained, he nevertheless, in the formation of
his opinions on great questions of public policy,
was as diligent as any man in seeking and weigh-
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1865, p. 800.
20 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
ing the views of all who were competent to aid
him.
The first six weeks of Johnson s administration
were dominated by the emotions which the assassina
tion of his predecessor excited in all parts of the land.
At Washington affairs fell largely tinder the direc
tion of the secretary of war, whose total loss of self-
control in the crisis contributed to intensify the
panicky and vindictive feeling that prevailed. The
idea that leading Confederates were concerned in
Booth s plot not only led to the offer of large re
wards for the capture of Jefferson Davis, Jacob
Thompson, Clement C. Clay, and others, 1 but also
strengthened the hands of those who were de
manding that the conquered people as a whole
should receive harsh treatment. Mr. Johnson him
self had, in the fierce days of his struggle for the
Union cause in Tennessee, repeatedly proclaimed
his belief that the leaders of secession should receive
severe punishment. In the first weeks of his presi
dency this policy was emphasized by the iteration
and reiteration, as was his habit, of the pregnant
phrases: "Treason is a crime and must be made
odious"; " Traitors must be punished." As the hot
pursuit of the scattered and fleeing Confederate
leaders brought more and more of them into the
hands of the troops, it seemed as if the great drama
of secession was about to end in a series of execu
tions for treason. Even the surrendered and paroled
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 307.
1865] WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 21
generals were marked for exemplary punishment,
especially Robert E. Lee, lawyers advising the presi
dent that the immunity guaranteed by the terms of
surrender ceased with the end of the war. 1
When, however, the excitement caused by the
assassination of Mr. Lincoln subsided, and the sus
picions that Davis and his associates had been con
cerned in the deed were seen by sane minds to be
unfounded, conservative northern sentiment began
to show alarm at the vindictive course to which the
president seemed tending. General Grant met the
suggestion of Lee s arrest with so peremptory a
negative as to render impossible further proceed
ings on that line. 2 Moreover, the general atmos
phere of the White House at Washington was quite
different from that of the state-house at Nashville,
and the advice which was given to Mr. Johnson by
most of his constitutional advisers was of another
quality than that which he had been wont to receive
from the embittered and revengeful Unionists of
Tennessee. He had gladly retained all the mem
bers of Mr. Lincoln s cabinet, and in them he found
persisting that distaste for proscription which Booth s
victim had made no attempt to conceal. 3 Especial
ly was this feeling manifest after the return of Sew-
ard to duty in May; 4 for the secretary of state har-
1 Opinion of Benjamin F. Butler, dated April 25, 1865, in MS.,
Johnson Papers. * Badeau, Grant in Peace, 26.
3 Welles s account of Lincoln s last cabinet meeting, in Galaxy,
April, 1872; cf. Rhodes, United States, V., 138.
4 Bancroft, Seward, II., 446.
22 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
bored no resentments in politics, and the weight of
his influence could not have failed, under the cir
cumstances, to be very great. Acoordingly, though
many prominent Confederates were kept in strict
confinement, and were treated in some cases with
much more rigor and harshness than was necessary,
the policy of bringing them to trial and punishment
gradually was abandoned.
That Mr. Johnson willingly gave up this policy in
the case of Jefferson Davis is more than doubtful. 1
But the obstacles in the way of any procedure that
offered the slightest hope of conviction assumed a
formidable character from the outset. From every
influential quarter in the North came, as soon as
hostilities had ceased, urgent demands that military
tribunals should be suppressed and that the admin
istration of justice should be left to the ordinary
courts. 2 Nevertheless, the conspirators associated
with John Wilkes Booth were tried and convicted in
June by a military commission. 3 Public opinion,
under the tension of the great tragedy, condoned
this proceeding, though there was some criticism of
it. Wirz, the Confederate commander at Ander-
sonville, charged with the abuse and murder of
Union prisoners, was brought to the gallows No
vember 10 by the same sort of tribunal; 4 in this case
1 Cf. McCulloch, Men and Measures, 410.
* See MS. letters from Henry Winter Davis (May 13), David
Dudley Field (June 8), Thomas Ewing (July 4), and others, in
Johnson Papers. Rhodes, United States, V., 156.
4 Report of the trial in House Exec. Docs., 40 Cong., 2 Sess., VIII.
i86s] WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 23
the procedure was questioned, if not strongly con
demned, by all conservative men. That such a
method should be employed in the case of Davis or
other distinguished prisoners, civilian or military,
became impossible as soon as public opinion assumed
its normal calmness. On the other hand, every
project that was suggested for securing a convic
tion of these men before a civil court was rejected
as either unconstitutional or impracticable by the
best legal advice that the administration could
procure. 1
The prisoners of state who were put in rigorous
confinement under the influence of the demand for
harsh treatment included Jefferson Davis and Alex
ander H. Stephens, president and vice-president of
the defunct Confederacy, Reagan, Seddon, Camp
bell, and Mallory, of the late Confederate cabinet,
half a dozen of the state governors under the Con
federacy, and a number of other prominent men.
While these political leaders were being made to
feel the bad, and expect the worst, consequences
of failure in civil war, the military forces of both
conquered and conquering sections were being dis
solved and blended in the general population. Within
four days after the surrender of Lee s army recruit
ing was suspended in the North. As the other Con
federate organizations successively made their sub
mission, and it became clear that no prolongation of
1 Cf. DeWitt, "Vice-President Andrew Johnson," in Southern
Hist. Assoc., Publications, July, 1905.
24 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
the struggle was to be feared, plans for the reduction
of the military establishment were put in operation
in every direction.
The efficiency of the machinery of the war depart
ment under Secretary Stanton was as well exhibited
in this process as it had been in the progress of hos
tilities. First in importance of the tasks undertaken
was the mustering out of the great volunteer army,
amounting in April to about one million men. Of
these over eight hundred thousand had, by Novem
ber 15, been transported to their homes, paid off, and
returned to civil life. 1 At the same time the pro
duction and purchase of supplies were stopped, and
vast stocks of material were disposed of. Between
April 20 and November 8, 1865, the quartermas
ter-general s bureau sold property amounting to
$ T 3357345- From 128,840 horses and mules was
realized $7,500,000; 83 locomotives and 1009 cars
brought $1,500,000; 2500 buildings were vacated
and ordered sold; and 83,887 wage-earners were dis
charged by that bureau alone. 2
Throughout the summer and autumn of 1865 the
railway and steamboat lines were full of returning
soldiers. Into every hamlet, however remote, came
sooner or later some bearer of personal experience
in the great conflict, now seeking to assume or resume
the vocation of civil life. The " old soldier " became
a significant social type, and left a clear impress on
the popular life and character of the time. It is
1 Sec. of War, Report, 1865, p. 28. Ibid., 40.
i86sl WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 25
difficult to detect, however, any economic influence
of the great and sudden change in the North during
the mi4dle of 1865. The abrupt transfer of nearly
a million able-bodied men from destructive to pro
ductive occupation, with the simultaneous curtail
ment and extinction of many large industries, might
have been expected to make itself conspicuously felt
in business and finance. But hardly a ripple was
manifest on the placid surface of economic life. The
readjustment of forces proceeded so peacefully as
to leave no sign.
Doubtless no small influence in the placidity of
the North was attributable to the absence of any
thing like such a condition in the South. Nothing
could be more striking than the difference between
the prosperous and cheerful milieu to which the
northern soldier returned and the hopeless condi
tions which greeted his late antagonist of the South.
While the veterans of Grant s and Sherman s armies
were being transported to their homes with every
provision for their comfort that forethought could
suggest, those who had followed Lee and Johnston
were slowly and painfully making their way, chief
ly on foot, through ravaged and poverty-stricken
regions that offered them little cheer save the bene
dictions of the inhabitants. Some one hundred and
seventy-four thousand surrendered Confederate sol
diers were paroled by the Union authorities, 1 and
1 War Records, Serial No. xai, p. 832; Sec. of War, Report, 1865,
pt. i., p. 45-
26 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
over sixty thousand were discharged from northern
prison camps during the summer. These men
represented in a great measure the most useful
elements of the population, but the situation which
they found when they reached their homes was, as
a rule, destitute of all opportunity for usefulness.
Capital, labor, currency all were either lacking
or so transformed as to require unfamiliar meth
ods of employment. Many an officer whose word
had in March been law for a thousand men was
in May toiling at the humblest manual labor, in
order to procure the little United States currency
that would command the necessities of life for his
family.
In those regions where any cotton had escaped
the ravages of war the high price of this commodity
offered an attractive promise of financial salvation
to the lucky owners. But marketing the cotton
was difficult and often impossible in the disorganized
condition of the country ; and, moreover, the title to
much of it was, under the now rigorously applied
war legislation of Congress, subject to dispute.
Treasury agents and army officers were very active
in seizing all that could in any way be made to bear
the taint of service, either actual or promised, to the
Confederate cause. Extensive fraudulent opera
tions of corrupt officials and rapacious speculators
wrested from the owners much that was free from
such taint. And, finally, the tax of three cents per
pound, which confronted any one who got his cotton
i865l WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 27
safely through these other perils, cut down materi
ally his much-needed proceeds. 1
It was felt on all hands that the most effective
means of promoting the revival of the South, and
putting it in the way of sustaining its population,
would be the prompt removal of the restrictions on
trade which the war had involved. Accordingly
the president began this process immediately on the
cessation of hostilities, and continued it as rapidly
as conditions seemed to warrant. As early as April
29, 1865, he ordered the discontinuance of restric
tions on domestic trade in all parts of the rebel
territory east of the Mississippi River, so far as that
territory was within the Union military lines. 2 By
proclamations of May 22 and June 13 this removal
of restrictions was made general east of the Missis
sippi save as to contraband of war; and on June
24 the trans-Mississippi region was put on the same
footing. As to foreign commerce, the blockade estab
lished by President Lincoln was rescinded by procla
mation of June 23, and on July i all the ports of the
South were thrown open to trade, except in contra
band , which remained under prohibition till August 29.
When the barriers were thus thrown down which
had made intercourse between the two sections for
four years illegal, there was a wide-spread resump-
1 On the whole matter of the trade in cotton, see Fleming,
Reconstruction in Ala., 284 et seq.; Fleming, Documentary Hist,
of Reconstruction, I., 25-33 ; Rhodes, United States, V., 281 et seq.
2 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 333.
28 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
tion of both social and business relations between
the people who had so recently been enemies. Not
without hesitation, suspicion, awkwardness, and des
perate efforts to avoid those dangerous topics which
were uppermost in all men s minds, old friendships
were renewed, old connections were looked up with
a view to re-establishment. Not a few southerners
came promptly North to find opportunities which
they despaired of ever seeing in their own section,
and which well-disposed northern acquaintances
were not slow to put in their way. The most pro
nounced movement, however, was from North to
South, under the operation of the commercial in
stinct. A host of traders kept up with, or far pre
ceded, the opening of railways and steamer lines
into the long-closed regions. Many capitalists also
sought in the conquered and stricken country profit
able investment for their wealth. 1 Especially in
viting seemed the cotton plantations which could
now be bought at ridiculously low prices from their
resourceless owners. Sharp-witted officers and even
privates in the Union armies, having noted the op
portunities in neighborhoods which their duties made
familiar, sent their friends or returned themselves
to take advantage of their observations. The ex
perience of this first body of northern immigrants
proved almost uniformly unfortunate, despite the
exceptionally low prices which they paid for their
1 Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 135 et seq.; Fleming, Re
construction in Ala., 321.
i86s] WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 29
land. Their failure was largely due to unfamiliarity
with the peculiarities of the crop which they sought
to raise. Other causes contributed greatly, how
ever, to render their success impossible, and among
these were the social and political conditions under
which they were obliged to live.
The disbandment of the great armies, and the
restoration of intercourse between the sections, was
only a little step towards a general peace basis. Civil
government had yet to be instituted in the conquered
region, and the status of the freedmen had to be fixed
on some clear foundation of law. Pending the es
tablishment of civil government under some plan of
reconstruction, the preservation of order and the
supervision of such fragments of local administra
tive machinery as still existed were entirely in the
hands of the United States army. Each of the late
ly hostile states constituted a military department,
whose commander, with headquarters at the capital
or chief town, controlled affairs through garrisons
and properly distributed posts. During the sum
mer of 1865 the need of considerable bodies of troops
everywhere disappeared. Isolated crimes, such as
inevitably accompany war and social disorganization,
were often reported, and in some regions bands of
outlaws operating on a large scale required sup
pression ; but in general that part of the people
who had sustained the Confederacy fully acknowl
edged their subjugation, and made no sign of op
position to the power which was over them.
30 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
Nevertheless, in one important respect resent
ment did take on a serious aspect among the
whites. As the withdrawal of troops to be mus
tered out proceeded, the forces remaining in the
South showed an ever - increasing proportion of
negro regiments. The use of these troops was due
in part to the fact that their desire to leave the
service was, to say the least, not urgent, while the
opposite was generally the case with the white vol
unteers; and in part to a deliberate purpose to em
phasize the completeness of the catastrophe which
the war had brought upon the South. Protests
against the presence of the black troops began very
early from the southern whites, and the demoraliz
ing effects of such garrisons, and especially of small
posts in rural districts, where discipline was not the
most rigorous, became more and more evident as
time went on. 1
Side by side with the general authority exercised
by the department commanders, and gradually sup
planting it in importance, was the jurisdiction and
far -reaching control assumed by the Freedmen s
Bureau. This institution was created by an act of
March 3, 1865, to give unity and central organiza
tion to the various conflicting systems which had
grown up for the care of the freedmen during the
war. 2 Under the provisions of the act the bureau
1 Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 47.
2 Peirceg Freedmen s Bureau (Univ. of Iowa, Studies, III.)
chaps, i., ti.
1865] WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 31
was to have charge of all matters pertaining to
refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands in states
which had been the theatre of war,. Through a
commissioner, assistant commissioners, superintend
ents, and local agents, the interests of the former
slaves (for it was this class that the act was chiefly
intended to provide for) were to be looked after
wherever the power of the United States extend
ed. When the Confederacy collapsed practically the
whole territory in which slavery had existed became
thus the field for the operations of the bureau.
During the summer of 1865 ^s organization was
completed 1 and its influence became promptly mani
fest both in the South, where its agents assumed a
conspicuous place in the work of social readjustment,
and in the North, where the reports of its activities
contributed much to shape public opinion on the
serious political issues which were impending.
The most general summary of the functions as
sumed by the bureau shows how intimate its con
nection was with the movement towards social re
organization. It assigned abandoned land to the
freedmen and promoted the acquisition of other
lands by lease or purchase ; it supervised the chari
table relief and educational enterprises which were
being carried on among the blacks; it exercised
jurisdiction over controversies in which freedmen
1 All the official papers concerning the organization and early
work are in House Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., i Sess., No. 70; see also
Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., chap. v.
VOL. XXII. 3
32 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
were involved, either with one another or with the
whites ; it took charge of family relations among the
blacks, and strove to create a sense of the sanctity
of marriage where such an idea had but a shadowy,
if any, existence; finally, and most important of all,
it took cognizance of all arrangements through
which the whites sought to secure the labor of the
freedmen, guaranteed the latter against any sug
gestion of slavery, and saw to it that the laborer
should not be the victim of oppression, either as to
the kind and duration of his labor or as to the
amount of his wages. The bureau assumed, in short,
a general guardianship of the emancipated race,
and, backed by the paramount military force of the
"United States, undertook to play a determining r61e
in the process of reorganizing southern society.
The orders and instructions issued by General
Howard, the head of the bureau, for carrying out
this comprehensive programme, were characterized
almost uniformly by moderation and good judg
ment. Much the same may be said of the directions
that emanated from the assistant commissioners for
their respective states, though here in some cases a
tendency appeared to lecture the southern whites
on the sinfulness of slavery and on their general
depravity, and to address to the freedmen pious
homilies and moral platitudes obviously above their
intelligence, and designed for the latitude of New
England and the Western Reserve. Assistant Com
missioner Whittlesey, of North Carolina, for ex-
1865] WORKING TOWARDS PEACE 33
ample, solemnly informed the white men of that
state that "the school house, the spelling book and
the Bible will be found better preservers of peace
and good order than the revolver and the bowie
knife"; 1 and General Saxton assured the freedmen
of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida that "labor
is ennobling to the character and, if rightly directed,
brings to the k, borer all the comforts and luxuries of
life " ; that " falsehood and theft should not be found
in freedom they are the vices of slavery"; and
that "cotton is a regal plant and the more carefully
it is cultivated, the greater will be the crop." 2
While such vagaries were rare among the higher
officials, the local agents, whose function it was to
apply the general policy of the bureau to concrete
cases, displayed, of course, the greatest diversity of
spirit and ability. It was from these lower officials
that the southern whites formed their general esti
mate of the character and value of the institution,
while the people of the North were guided more by
the just and practical policy outlined in the orders
from headquarters. However much tact and prac
tical good sense the local agent was able to bring
to the performance of his delicate duties, he in most
cases, being a northern man, was wholly unable to
take a view of the situation that could make him
agreeable to the whites of the neighborhood. He
saw in both freedman and former master qualities
1 House Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., i Sess., No. 70, p. 2.
*lbid., p. 92.
34 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
which the latter could never admit. Hence the
working of the bureau, with its intrusion into the
fundamental relationships of social life, engendered
violent hostility from the outset on the part of the
whites. The feeling was enhanced by the conduct of
the ignorant, unscrupulous, and deliberately oppres
sive agents who were not rare. As soon, therefore,
as it became established, the burear# took the form,
to the southern mind, of a diabolical device for the
perpetuation of the national government s control
over the South, and for the humiliation of the
whites before their former slaves.
The bureau, however, was by the terms of the law
but a transitional institution, limited in its exist
ence to one year after the end of the war. Its
functions were not well correlated by the law with
those of the regular military authority, and at first
the two species of armed rule caused some confusion
in the process of social rehabilitation. Before this
situation was cleared up a third species of authority
was installed in every state by the president s policy
of restoring civil government. This policy, which
was to become the centre of so terrible a political
storm, must now be examined in detail.
CHAPTER III
THE POLICY AND AMBITION OF PRESIDENT
JOHNSON
(1865)
TN confronting the problem of restoring civil gov-
lernments in the South, President Johnson was
under no necessity of devising a solution. That al
ready applied by Lincoln in three of the states was
ready to the hand of his successor. 1 Indeed, the
draught of a proclamation for instituting the proc
ess of restoration in the other states had been sub
mitted by Secretary Stanton to the cabinet, and
was discussed in the last meeting before the assassi
nation. 2 Accordingly, Johnson took up the work at
the precise point where Lincoln had left it. First,
in order to dispose of the idea that the state gov
ernments which had exercised authority under the
Confederacy might be permitted to continue their
functions, the military commanders were ordered to
prevent any attempt of the old legislatures to meet,
and such of the governors as could be caught, in
cluding Brown, of Georgia, Clark, of Mississippi,
Magrath, of South Carolina, Vance, of North Caro-
1 See above, p. 15. * Gorham, Stanton, II., 241.
36 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
lina, and Watts, of Alabama, were consigned to
prison. This left only military government in seven
of the rebel states. As to Virginia, an executive
order of President Johnson, dated May 9, 1865,
formally recognized Francis H. Peirpoint as gov
ernor of the state; 1 and without formal declarations
governors Brownlow, of Tennessee, Wells, of Louis
iana, and Murphy, of Arkansas, the official heads of
the organizations created under Lincoln s adminis
tration and with his aid, were assumed to be the
chiefs of legitimate governments, and were encour
aged to extend their authority throughout the terri
tory included within their respective state limits.
Having thus provided for the four common
wealths which were far advanced on the road to res
toration, Johnson proceeded to carry out Lincoln s
project for the remaining seven. The new condi
tions produced by the end of hostilities gave occa
sion for some slight modifications of the amnesty pro
gramme. Attorney-General Speed having furnished
an opinion that a new proclamation was necessary
to supersede those of Mr. Lincoln, 2 Johnson s sub
stitute was issued on May 29, 1865.* The oath
which it prescribed as a condition of pardon differed
from Lincoln s in requiring an unqualified instead
of a qualified pledge to support all laws and decrees
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 337; cf. above, p. 15.
*For Speed s opinion, see War Records, Serial No. 126, p. 5.
Text in Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 310; also
Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, 1., 168.
1865] JOHNSON S POLICY 37
touching slavery ; and it excepted from the privilege
of the amnesty six classes of persons in addition to
those excepted by Lincoln, the most significant of
the new classes being that of persons worth twenty
thousand dollars or more.
On the same day the reorganization of North Car
olina was begun by a proclamation J appointing W.
W. Holden provisional governor, and directing him
to assemble a constitutional convention of delegates
chosen by the loyal part of the people of the state,
and to exercise all powers necessary to enable that
part of the people to organize a republican form of
government such as the United States might con
stitutionally guarantee. The test of loyalty pre
scribed was the taking of the oath embodied in the
amnesty proclamation. Only such persons as should
have taken that oath might participate, either as
electors or as elected, in the process of reorganiza
tion, and, moreover, only such as were qualified
voters under the laws of the state that had been
in force immediately before the pretended seces
sion.
The only feature of this project which excited
much discussion among the advisers of the president,
official and other, was that fixing the qualifications
for voting. Radical senators and representatives
insistently urged the importance of including the
freedmen in the reorganizing electorates, and the
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 312; Fleming, Docu
mentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 171.
38 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
cabinet was evenly divided on this question. 1 Chief-
Justice Chase, who travelled during May along the
whole Atlantic coast from Washington to Key West,
sent back a stream of letters representing that both
the conditions and the opinions that obtained in the
South favored reorganization through negro suf
frage. 2 But Johnson had none of the brilliant illu
sions that beset the chief - justice and the other
radicals as to the political capacity of the blacks,
and he lacked, moreover, the audacity of conception
which found constitutional warrant for a determina
tion of suffrage qualifications by executive decree.
His decision, therefore, was for leaving the reor
ganization to the old white electorate. The pos
sibility and the desirability of a later extension of
the suffrage by degrees to the freedmen, through
action of the new state governments themselves, he
did not question. 3
The North Carolina proclamation, in addition to
its directions for the organization of a state govern
ment, embodied formal commands to the Federal
heads of departments to resume the performance of
their duties within the limits of the state: the treas
ury was to begin the collection of taxes; the post-
office was to renew its service ; and the district courts
and marshals were to take up the administration
1 Cf. Rhodes, United States, V., 524, and his authorities.
1 These letters of Chase are in the MS., Johnson Papers ; cf . also
Schuckers, Chase, 520.
Despatch to Governor Sharkey, Garner, Reconstruction in
Miss., 84.
i866] JOHNSON S POLICY 39
of justice. Side by side, thus, with the military
authority of the United States was to be put in op
eration, as fast as the offices could be manned, the
regular processes of civil government so far as these
fell within the Federal sphere.
At intervals from June 13 to July 13 proclamations
identical in tenor with that affecting North Caro
lina named provisional governors and re-established
the Federal administration in the remaining six
states of the Confederacy. The provisional gov
ernors, as soon as they were installed in power,
proceeded first to revive the local administrative
authorities, which had been dormant since the sup
pression of the old state governments. County and
municipal officials who had ceased to act when the
United States troops took possession of a state
were ordered to resume their functions, taking the
amnesty oath as a part of their qualification. Next
the provisional governor took the necessary steps
for the election and assembling of a constitutional
convention. The first of these bodies to complete
its work was that of Mississippi, which adjourned
August 24, and the last to finish was that of Texas,
on April 6, 1866; all the other conventions held their
sessions during September and October, 1865.
The first function of these conventions was to
signify by formal public acts the acceptance by the
respective states of the results of the war. Through
the provisional governors it was ascertained what
the president would regard as an adequate expres-
40 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
sion of such acceptance. Following the suggestions
thus procured, the conventions first declared the
invalidity of the ordinances of secession, South
Carolina and Georgia by repealing, Florida by an
nulling, and the rest by proclaiming null and void
the obnoxious acts. 1 Next slavery was declared
abolished forever. Finally, the state debts con
tracted in aid of the war against the United States
government were repudiated, except in South Caro-
lina. 2 Having performed these essential duties, the
conventions made such modifications in the old state
constitutions as the new situation required, and
then adjourned sine die, leaving to the legislatures,
for which provision was duly made, the task of
further promoting the social reorganization. Dur
ing October and November elections were held in
most of the states, and governors and legislatures
under the new constitutions were chosen. The legis
latures, when they met as they did very prompt
ly in most cases were confronted with the sugges
tion, scarcely less imperative than a command,
that they ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. This
requirement also was satisfied by all except Miss
issippi. 3 By the end of the year the provisional
governors had been relieved of their offices in all the
states but Texas, and the civil governments that had
1 On the import of these various forms, see Garner, Recon
struction in Miss., 91.
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1865, p. 761 et seq.
1 Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 120.
i866] JOHNSON S POLICY 41
been organized under their direction were in the full
exercise of their functions.
This restoration of self-government was not, how
ever, accompanied as yet by the withdrawal of mili
tary authority. December i the president revoked
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus for all the
United States except the states of the former Confed
eracy, Kentucky, the District of Columbia, and the
territories of Arizona and New Mexico. 1 On April 2,
1866, he formally declared the rebellion at an end in
all the seceded states except Texas. 2 When the proc
ess of reorganization had at last been completed in
that state, the president proclaimed, August 20, 1866,
the complete restoration of peace, order, tranquillity,
and civil authority throughout the United States. 3
At the date of this official announcement that
peace and tranquillity had been restored, the coun
try was in fact convulsed with a political conflict
only less demoralizing than the conflict of arms
which it followed. The causes of this situation are
to be found in currents of public and party feeling
that were set in motion by the progress of the ad
ministration s policy in the South. President John
son, at his accession to power, manifested, as we
have seen, no little sympathy with some beliefs which
were characteristic of the radical wing of the Union
party. 4 As his policy was developed by the ap-
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 333.
* Ibid., 429. * Ibid., 434.
4 See above, p. 20; cf. Rhodes, United States. V., 521 et seq.
42 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
pointment of the provisional governors, his radical
leanings became continually less conspicuous; till
by midsummer those politicians who had had the
brightest hopes were in despair of any settlement
that would realize their chief aims. These aims in
cluded the proscription of the Confederate leaders,
extensive confiscation of plantations in the South,
the enfranchisement of the freedmen and the post
ponement of political reorganization in the states
till the continued ascendency of the Union party
could be insured. 1 As the administration s policy
was unfolded, it was obviously incompatible with
every item of this programme. What hope of pro
scription was held out by the numerous exceptions
from the privilege of amnesty, was extinguished by
the liberal issue of special pardons to individuals
who applied. 2 Confiscation was stopped short by
the attorney-general s opinion that property which
had been seized by the Federal authorities under
the confiscation acts must be restored to the par
doned owners. 3 Negro suffrage was doomed by the
franchise provisions of Johnson s proclamations; and
the haste with which reorganization was pressed to
completion in state after state filled the radicals,
and not a few others as well, with gloomy forebod
ings of a reunited Democracy sweeping the Union
men out of their control of the national government.
1 Cf. Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 137-153.
2 Cf. Elaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 76; Bancroft,
Seivard, II., 448. 3 McPherson, Hist, of the Rebellion, 148.
1865] JOHNSON S POLICY 43
The president, when once his purpose of mak
ing examples of certain leaders had been forced into
the background, pushed energetically the policy of
mercy, conciliation, and an immediate restoration
of the old Union and the old constitutional relations.
Involved in the policy was a clear and promising
scheme of party readjustment. The radicals of the
Union party he had no hope of pleasing, or desire
to please, and these he could dispense with. But the
great mass of conservative men in that party he and
his advisers believed they could hold by the policy
they had adopted ; and the loss of support from the
radicals could be compensated by the adhesion of
Democrats, who, very early in Johnson s adminis
tration, began to manifest approval of his views. 1
In the South, when party life should be renewed, it
could be anticipated that gratitude would bring a
large following to the president s support. Thus
there was fair promise of an administration party
which, strong in both sections of the reunited nation,
would be opposed only by impotent sectional fac
tions the radicals and remnants of the Copper
head Democracy in the North, and in the South the
fragments of irreconcilable secessionism.
That there was good ground for the president s hope
in this matter seemed demonstrated by the approv
ing interest with which the progress of reorganiza
tion in the South was followed in the North. The
1 Letters of Senator Dixon, of Conn. (May 5), and Montgomery
Blair (June 16), in MS.i Johnson Papers.
44 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
general tone of public opinion was clearly favorable. 1
Yet every manifestation of the social and political
feeling that prevailed among the conquered people
was closely watched by both official and unofficial
agencies of northern opinion; and when it became
evident that some of the restored states would be
ready for admission to the national councils as soon
as Congress should assemble in December, 1865, the
bearing of the situation on party politics stimulated the
most careful scrutiny of the conditions in the South.
The men whom Mr. Johnson appointed to super
vise reorganization, the provisional governors, were
all chosen because of their record as opponents of
secession either before or during the war. They
were mostly former Whigs, and they represented a
discredited minority in the population of every
southern state. The same was true of the con
trolling element in the various state conventions.
While amnesty and pardon and a returning interest
in politics enabled considerable numbers of active
secessionists to serve as delegates, they in no state
took the lead in the actual work of the convention.
But each further step in the process of reorganiza
tion brought, to the front an increasing proportion
of those who had been conspicuous in the military
or civil service of the Confederacy. Thus the new
ly chosen governor of South Carolina had been a
Confederate senator ; the governor of Mississippi had
been a brigadier-general in the Confederate army;
1 Rhodes, United States, V., 533.
i86s] JOHNSON S POLICY 45
a late major-general in that army was elected a
congressman in Alabama; and the legislature of
Georgia elected as United States senator no less dis
tinguished a personage than Stephens, late vice-
president of the Confederacy. Such facts had a
very disquieting effect in the North. Yet they were
to the South normal and inevitable; for the sup
porters of the Confederate cause embraced not only
the great majority numerically of the population,
but also the best that it could offer in the way of
political experience and ability. The opponents of
secession embodied none of the qualities which could
enable them long to possess the confidence of the
electorate. But in the North the reappearance of
the ex-Confederates in politics was widely proclaimed
and felt to be a mere gratuitous exhibition of con
tumacy and impenitence by those in whom quite
the opposite spirit would be decent and appropriate.
The other feature of the southern situation in
respect to which the interest and scrutiny of the
North were most keen, was the attitude of the new
governments and the white population in general \
towards the freedmen. Through the summer of
1865 many sporadic instances of friction between
blacks and whites were reported, mostly from the
towns, where the idle and vicious of both races were
numerous, or from the rural regions where the class
of poor whites predominated, with their ingrained
antipathy to the negroes. Northern newspaper cor
respondents of radical leanings dwelt at length
46 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
upon the tone of contempt for the blacks, and of in
difference towards their fate, which pervaded the
conversation of even the more intelligent classes of
the southern whites. 1 This signified to the bearers
of the anti-slavery tradition that while emancipa
tion might be recognized by the whites as an im
mutable fact, liberty in all its fulness would not be
conceded to the freedmen.
During the autumn the. demoralization of the
blacks resulting from their sudden freedom reached
its maximum. From every part of the South came
complaints that the negroes were refusing to make
contracts for labor in the next planting season, and
were manifesting a hope and a purpose of appropri
ating the land of their former masters. There was
revealed a wide-spread belief among the blacks that
at New Years the United States government would
endow every former slave with a farming outfit, the
normal measure of which was to be "forty acres
and a mule." The obvious source of this idea was
the activity of the Freedmen s Bureau, that mysteri
ous Providence which had inspired its wards with an
unbounded confidence in the wonder-working capac
ity of the power which it represented. Though the
officials of the bureau strove energetically to destroy
the misleading belief of the freedmen and to counter
act its baneful influence, 2 it long persisted in one
1 Andrews, South since the War, 25, 87, 100 et passim.
* See circular letter of Commissioner Howard, November 1 1,
1865, House Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., i Sess., No. 70, p. 198.
1865] JOHNSON S POLICY 47
form or another and played its part in forcing the
races asunder.
The uneasiness among the blacks during the
autumn gave rise to corresponding uneasiness and
fear among the whites, and in a number of states,
where Federal troops were too few to provide ade
quate protection, local militia companies were formed
by the whites for the purpose. This caused bad feel
ing at the North, being represented as a movement to
reconstitute Confederate army organizations for the
purpose of oppressing the negroes and Union men. 1
But in spite of all the difficulties which his policy
involved, and all the evidence which appeared that
it would meet with strong opposition in Congress
when that body assembled, the president pursued
unflinchingly the line which he conceived had been
marked out for him by the Constitution. He took
great pains to keep himself informed as to the trend
of conditions and sentiment among the whites of
the jSouth. Besides the unsolicited information with
he was deluged, he received extended re-
certain persons whom he had designated
specifically to travel through the southern states,
investigate the situation, and keep him informed in
regard to it.
Such reports were furnished by Henry M. Watter-
son, a Kentucky journalist, by General Carl Schurz,
a well-known Republican politician and army officer,
and by Benjamin C. Truman, a New York journal-
1 Cf. Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 99 et seq.
VOL. XXII. 4
48 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
ist. Watterson and Truman found conditions gen
erally to be such as to justify the policy which the
president was carrying out: the influential classes of
whites had accepted in good faith their defeat, and
could be depended upon to maintain loyal state
governments; the freedmen, while greatly demoral
ized and subject to abuse at the hands of vicious and
low-class whites, would receive substantial justice
through the better classes, and in time would settle
quietly into that position in southern society to
which their usefulness and ability entitled them;
and finally, enfranchisement of the blacks was so
bitterly opposed by all classes of whites that it would,
if insisted upon, lead to far worse evils than could
ever exist without it. General Schurz, on the other
hand, found no influential class in the South whose
loyalty was more than reluctant submission to
overwhelming force, or who could be depended upon
to conduct state governments in accordance with
the dictates of a national spirit; found the freedmen
and Unionist whites the victims of a brutal ferocity
which only the display of national force could re
strain; was convinced that the whites would retain,
through some system of peonage, all the incidents of
servitude save the chattel ownership; and, finally,,
declared that negro suffrage was the only means
through which a degree of order could be secured
which would permit the withdrawal of the national
authority and the assumption of full control by the
state governments.
1866] JOHNSON S POLICY 49
President Johnson does not seem to have contem
plated any more formal report from these various
agents than the despatches and letters which they
sent from different points when on their travels. 1
But Schurz was so impressed with the importance of
his own views that, after his return in October from
his three months trip, he insisted, despite the presi
dent s intimation that it was not necessary, upon
embodying them in a long, skilfully constructed
and fully documented report, which was sent to the
president. This paper, the existence of which was
well known to the radicals, with whom Schurz
affiliated, was promptly called for by the Senate 2
when Congress met, and became at once a leading
item in the case which was made up for the public
against the president s policy. To counteract its in
fluence Johnson sent with it a brief report by Gen
eral Grant of impressions gained on a short tour
through some of the southern states in November.
Grant s ideas went wholly to support the president s
policy. Some months later, April 6, 1866, when Tru
man had completed his thirty-one weeks of south
ern travel, he also prepared a formal summary
of his conclusions, which was duly transmitted to
Congress. 3 This paper traversed Schurz s opinions,
which it was obviously written to controvert, and
1 Most of the letters exist only in MS. in the Johnson Papers.
8 Senate Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., i Sess., No. 2 ; numerous extracts
from the report in Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction,
I., passim. 8 Senate Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., i Sess., No. 43-
50 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
brought to the support of the president s policy a
better balanced judgment and a saner philosophy
than the radical champion had displayed.
By the time Truman s report was written, how
ever, the question of policy towards the South had
passed the point where either testimony as to facts or
sober estimates of philosophy played a leading part.
Sectional passion and partisan political emotion had
taken the first place; and this had come to pass
through the spirit which attended the proceedings
in Congress.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL POLICY OF RE
CONSTRUCTION
(1865-1866)
THE Congress which assembled on December 4,
1865, was the product of the elections at which
the Union party, with Lincoln and Johnson, had
been victorious in I864. 1 In both House and Senate
the Democrats had but small delegations. Among
the majority there prevailed, of course, the same
variety and uncertainty of opinion about recon
struction that were prevalent among the people at
large ; but the initiative in action was taken by the
opponents of the president s policy, and was skil
fully employed to commit the two houses to an
attitude of hostility. Led by Thaddeus Stevens,
of Pennsylvania, the most uncompromising of radi
cals, the majority in the House of Representatives
denied to the members-elect from the rebel states
even the recognition usually accorded to claimants
for seats, and pressed through a resolution, to which
the Senate promptly agreed, creating a joint com-
1 See Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War (Am. Nation, XXL),
chap. ix.
52 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
mittee of fifteen on the condition of the states of the
late Confederacy, with authority to report whether
any of them were entitled to be represented in either
house of Congress. 1 Thus originated the famous
reconstruction committee, which was to play so
conspicuous a part in the political drama now be
ginning; and thus was announced the congressional
purpose that the organizations which had been
created by the president in the South should not
receive immediate, perhaps not eventual, recogni
tion as legitimate state governments.
The chief motive in determining this attitude of
Congress was, not a definite rejection of Johnson s
view as to restoration, but a purpose to assert the
right of Congress to a decisive voice in the matter.
It was to the esprit de corps of the legislature, as
against the overgrown pretensions of the executive,
that the most effective appeals were made by the
radical leaders, Stevens and Sumner. These men
could not have carried with them a majority of
either house probably not a majority of the non-
Democratic members in either for a proposition to
discard the president s plan; but for a proposition
to hold it in abeyance till Congress could formulate
an independent judgment on the question involved,
it was easy to win a decisive majority. ^The mes
sage which President Johnson sent to the two houses
on December 5 was an exceedingly strong and judi-
1 Elaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 112, 126; Rhodes,
United States, V., 545.
1865] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 53
cious presentation of the principles, both of law and -\
expediency, on which his proceedings in the South j
had been based; and the reception of the document
throughout the land indicated clearly that no hasty
breach with the president would be approved by
public opinion. 1 Hence the shrewd resolution of
his adversaries to hold the main issue in suspense
under cover of insistence on the legislative preroga
tive.
Pending the formulation by the joint committee of
some definite policy in reference to the readmission
of the states, an effective appeal to northern senti
ment was made by giving all possible prominence to
the question as to the apportionment of representa
tives. Slavery perished finally in the United States
through the formal announcement by Secretary
Seward, December 18, 1865, that the Thirteenth
Amendment, having been ratified by twenty-seven
states, constituting three-fourths of the whole num-
ber, was regularly in force. 2 Thereupon the con
stitutional provision which excluded two-fifths of
the slaves from the population by which the num
ber of representatives in Congress for any state was
determined became of no effect, and each of the
former slave states was entitled to an increase of
members. That the result of the war should be
an accession of influence in Congress to the South,
1 The message was written by George Bancroft. See Dunning,
in Mass. Hist. Soc., Proceedings, November, 1905.
* McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 6.
54 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
was a proposition which few northerners could con
template with entire equanimity. From the open
ing of the session, therefore, a readjustment of the
basis of apportionment became a central topic of
discussion; 1 and the radicals were gratified to find
in this an effective justification for postponing the
readmission of the southern states.
But this matter of the increase of southern rep
resentation, like that of asserting the legislative
authority against the executive, had its effect more
among the politicians in and out of Congress than
among the masses of northern voters. The latter
were much more deeply and generally moved by the
attitude of the new southern legislatures towards
the freedmen. Whatever differences of opinion
there had been in the North as to the relation of
slavery to the war, and as to the manner and means
of abolition, there was but a negligible element of
the northern people who did not feel and express
great satisfaction that the troublesome institution
was gone. For decades it had been persistently
preached that slavery was the source of all our
national ills; hence the adoption of the Thirteenth
Amendment was felt to be necessarily the inaugura
tion of a grateful and permanent relief from the
eternal African in politics. Indignation and anger
were therefore widely manifested when the radicals
not only asserted, but were able to present plausible
proofs of their assertion, that the southern legis-
1 Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 129.
1 866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 55
la tares, even while ratifying the Thirteenth Amend
ment, were enacting laws which preserved the sub
stance though avoiding the name of slavery.
Legislation to bring some degree of order out of
the existing social and industrial chaos was nat
urally the earliest task undertaken by the govern
ments organized under the president s guidance. Of
this necessary legislation the chief requirement was
that the status and rights of the freedmen should be
precisely defined. Mississippi, the first of the re
stored states to act, completed her legislation just
before Congress met, 1 and it was from her laws
chiefly that the radicals in the North drew the ma
terial for their agitation over the so-called * black
codes." The other states, except Texas, worked
out their enactments during the winter. Though
there were great differences among the various
bodies of legislation, all alike were involved in the
condemnation which derived its principal effective
ness from features which appeared in but one or
two. 2
The fundamental characteristic of the legislation
was that it set off the hitherto servile race as a
distinct class, designated generally as "persons of
color," consisting of all who had in them a speci
fied proportion, usually one-eighth, of negro blood.
1 Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 113.
2 For the laws in full, see session laws of the various states.
Summary in McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 29; many
examples in Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I.,
273-312.
5 6 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
To this class were assigned the ordinary civil rights
to make contracts, to sue and be sued in the
regular state courts, to acquire and hold property,
and to be secure in person and estate. But at the
same time various restrictions and qualifications
were imposed which placed persons of color on a
different plane from the whites. In some of the
states the inferior class were forbidden to carry
weapons except after obtaining a license; in many
they could be witnesses in court only in cases in
volving parties of their own race; and in practically
all they were subject to special formalities and
penalties in connection with contracts for labor.
The laws concerning vagrancy, also, were full of
discriminations and in many cases assured to the
white magistrates wide discretion in stamping blacks
as vagrants, and assigning them to the highest bidder
to work out fines.
Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina fur
nished the most notorious features of this legislation.
In Mississippi the freedmen could not own land,
nor could they even rent it save in incorporated
towns. 1 A local ordinance in Louisiana required
every negro to be in the regular service of "some
white person, or former owner, who shall be held
responsible for the conduct of said negro." 2 South
Carolina forbade persons of color to engage in any
trade or business other than husbandry and farm
1 Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 286.
2 Ibid., 280.
i866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 57
or domestic service, except under a license requiring
a substantial annual fee; and in the code concern
ing master and servants embodied many rules that
strongly suggested those formerly in force as to
master and slave. 1
To a distrustful northern mind such legislation
could very easily take the form of a systematic at
tempt to relegate the freedmen to a subjection only
less complete than that from which the war had set
them free. The radicals sounded a shrill note of
alarm. "We tell the white men of Mississippi,"
said the Chicago Tribune, "that the men of the
North will convert the state of Mississippi into a
frog-pond before they will allow any such laws to
disgrace one foot of soil over which the flag of free
dom waves." 2 In Congress, Wilson, Sumner, and
other extremists took up the cry, and with super
fluous ingenuity distorted the spirit and purpose of
both the laws and the law-makers of the South. 3 The
"black codes" were represented to be the expression
of a deliberate purpose by the southerners to nullify
the result of the war and to re-establish slavery, and
this impression gained wide prevalence in the North.
Yet, as a matter of fact, this legislation, far from
embodying any spirit of defiance towards the North
or any purpose to evade the conditions which the
1 Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 298 et seq.
2 Quoted by Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 115 n.
3 Congressional Globe, 39 Cong., i Sess, 39, 90; cf. Elaine,
Twenty Years of Congress, II., 94 et seq.
58 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
victors had imposed, was in the main a conscientious
and straightforward attempt to bring some sort of
order out of the social and economic chaos which a
full acceptance of the results of war and emancipa
tion involved. 1 In its general principle it corre
sponded very closely to the actual facts of the situa
tion. The freedmen were not, and in the nature of
the case could not for generations be, on the same
social, moral, and intellectual plane with the whites ;
and this fact was recognized by constituting them
a separate class in the civil order. As in general
principles, so in details, the legislation was faithful
on the whole to the actual conditions with which it
had to deal. The restrictions in respect to bearing
arms, testifying in court, and keeping labor con
tracts were justified by well-established traits and
habits of the negroes ; and the vagrancy laws dealt
with problems of destitution, idleness, and vice of
which no one not in the midst of them could appre
ciate the appalling magnitude and complexity. A
few of the enactments, such as that of Mississippi
excluding the blacks from leasing agricultural land,
were clearly animated by a spirit of oppression, re
flecting the antipathy of the lower-class whites to
the negroes; and others doubtless were lacking in
practical sagacity and in the nicest adaptation to
the purpose in hand; but, after all, the greatest fault
1 See views of southerners in Fleming, Documentary Hist, of
Reconstruction, I., 247 et seq.; Herbert, Why the Solid South, 31;
Rhodes, United States, V., 556.
i866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 59
of the southern law-makers was, not that their pro
cedure was unwise per se, but that, when legislating
as a conquered people, they failed adequately to
consider and be guided by the prejudices . of their
conquerors. Sagacious southerners warned the legis
lators that some of their acts would produce a dan
gerous effect in the North. 1 But the personnel of
the new governments did not include the most
shrewd and experienced politicians of the states,
and the legislatures, in yielding to the tremendous
pressure of social and economic distress, set lightly
aside some very urgent considerations of political
expediency.
To the congressmen who were seeking for grounds
on which to retard the restoration of the rebel
states, this legislation was a welcome resource. The
first effect of it was the Freedmen s Bureau bill,
which Mr. Trumbull reported to the Senate from
the judiciary committee, January 5, 1866. 2 This
bill proposed to extend the powers and territorial
sphere of the bureau, and to remove the limitation
by which the institution was to expire one year
after the termination of the war. It was designed
thus to continue for an indefinite period the pro
tection of the freedmen by Federal military power
against state legislation. As the president was
known to have been much annoyed by some feat-
1 Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 116; Fleming, Civil War
and Reconstruction in Ala., 378.
* Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., i Sess., 129.
60 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
ures of the "black codes," it was anticipated that
he might assent to such qualification of his plan for
immediate restoration as would be involved in an
enlargement of the bureau s functions. But though
the bill passed by great majorities in both houses,
Mr. Johnson met it with a veto, February 19,* and
thus formally opened the breach with Congress
which was to be his undoing.
In deciding to use his veto against this bill, the
president was much influenced by considerations
apart from the merits of the particular measure.
His combativeness had been roused by the strict
ures of the radicals on his policy, and his reverence
for the old-time Constitution was outraged by the
flouts and jeers with which they assailed that sacred
law. So far as concerned protection of the freed-
men against the more oppressive provisions of the
"black codes," practically as much as was author
ized by the bill had been done by action of the ex
isting bureau and the military commanders, and
Johnson had expressed no disapproval of this action. 2
But he professed to find in the proposition to au
thorize such protective procedure by law a danger
ous infringement of the Constitution. What was
most active in his mind was revealed by those para
graphs of his veto message in which he protested
strongly against the idea that Congress could ex-
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 398.
8 See orders of Sickles and Terry, in South Carolina and Vir
ginia, McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 36, 41.
i866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 61
elude states from representation. He feared the
purpose of the radicals to keep out the southern
representatives till some scheme of negro suffrage
could be adopted, and this fear had a substantial
ground in a bill for enfranchising the blacks in the
District of Columbia, which the House had passed
in January. 1
As a matter of fact, the radicals were at this time
by no means in control of the situation, and moderate
men were seeking diligently for some way of getting
on peaceably with the president. 2 On the issue pre
sented by the veto, however, the congressional esprit
de corps was aroused, and the feeling which antag
onized the reconstruction policy of Abraham Lin
coln in 1 864 s was easily directed to the ruin of
Andrew Johnson s policy two years later. On the
Freedmen s Bureau bill the president was success
ful. The vote in the Senate in favor of overriding
the veto fell a little short of the requisite two-thirds ;*
but this was the last victory which the record was
to show for Mr. Johnson. On the very day on
which the Senate voted though the coincidence
was probably fortuitous 5 the House adopted a
concurrent resolution declaring that no senator or
representative should be admitted from any insur-
1 McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 115.
2 Rhodes, United States, V., 572 et seq.
8 Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War (Am. Nation, XXL), 139.
4 McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 74.
8 Elaine, Twenty Years of Congress, 11., 203.
62 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
rectionary state until Congress should have de
clared the state entitled to representation. This
resolution the Senate adopted, March 2, 1866, and
thus committed Congress to an attitude which was
absolutely irreconcilable with the president s re
iterated constitutional doctrine. After this action,
one side or the other must give way or be over
ridden; and neither Andrew Johnson nor the group
of strong and positive men who led Congress was
likely to give way.
The feelings which animated the president were
very fully revealed to his fellow-citizens by a long
speech which he delivered to a serenading party on
February 22, just when the veto and the House
resolution were most before the public. 1 Con
temporaneous and subsequent comment on this
speech has devoted disproportionate attention to a
few passages which manifested Johnson s tendency
to offensive egotism and personalities in public speak
ing; 2 if these accidents be relegated to their proper
significance, the speech is a useful complement to
the veto message in estimating the influences which
led him, in his rage against the radicals who were
harrying him, to strike at Congress as a whole. That
the bad taste of some parts of the speech did not ob
scure the importance of the rest, is indicated by a
note to Johnson from Thurlow Weed: "I want to
thank you with my whole grateful heart for your
1 McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 58.
3 Rhodes, United States, V., 575.
1 866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 63
glorious speech of yesterday. It vindicates and
saves our government and our Union." 1
Johnson was soon obliged to confront another
measure which was much more subversive than the
Freedmen s Bureau bill of his most cherished con
stitutional convictions. This was the Civil Rights
bill, designed to secure to the freedmen through the
normal action of the courts the same protection
against discriminating state legislation that was se
cured in the earlier bill by military power. It de
clared the freedmen to be citizens of the United
States, and as such to have the same civil rights
and to be subject to the same criminal penalties as
white persons ; and it provided with great fulness for
the punishment of any one who, under color of state
laws, should discriminate against the blacks. It
was a plain announcement to the southern legis
latures that, as against their project of setting the
freedmen apart as a special class, with a status at
law corresponding to their status in fact, the North,
would insist on exact equality between the races in
civil status, regardless of any consideration of fact.
The constitutional questions involved in this meas
ure were of the most profound and intricate nature,
and the theory of citizenship which it embodied was
such as to make conservative constitutional law
yers stare and gasp. But Senator Trumbull, a for
mer state-rights Democrat, who was in charge of the
project, outdid himself in the ingenuity of his legal
1 MS., Johnson Papers.
VOL. XXII. 5
64 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
defence, 1 though in doing so he ran counter to all
the traditions of his professional past.
The president was in no mood now to run counter
to his constitutional past, and he vetoed the bill,
March 27, 1866. The objections set forth in his
message 2 were chiefly of a technical legal character,
but at the end of the document appeared what was
uppermost in his mind that the bill embodied an
unheard - of intrusion of the Federal government
within the sphere of the states, and was a stride
towards centralization. He stood stiffly on his be
lief that the situation in the South involved no con
ditions which required for their treatment a break
with the ancient political system. The Senate now
parted finally from him, and passed the bill over
his veto April 6. 3 The House had from the be
ginning of the session submitted passively to the
aggressive leadership of Stevens, and voted every
measure that his policy required.
This veto made irreparable the breach between
the president and Congress. Such a result was fore
seen while the measure was pending, and in conse
quence strong pressure was exerted to secure the
executive consent. The cabinet favored the bill,
four to three, 4 and influential men throughout the
1 Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., i Sess., 500, 1755; cf. Dunning, Essays
on the Civil War and Reconstruction, 93.
2 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 405.
3 McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 81 ; for the exciting inci
dents of the vote, see Rhodes, United States, V., 584 et seq.
4 Rhodes, United States, V., 583.
i866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 65
land, cognizant of the currents of northern popular
feeling, urged Johnson to sign it. 1 But at Washing
ton the radicals were in full hue and cry against
the president, especially since his Washington s
Birthday pronunciamento, and he was too old a
campaigner to shrink from a fair and square fight
for his ideas.
The definitive announcement of the ground on
which Congress would plant itself for the conflict
with the president was made through the joint com
mittee on reconstruction. In its membership, and
in the strenuous controversy in the midst of which
its conclusions took form, this body reflected faith
fully the diversity of sentiment among the congres
sional majority. Howard, of the Senate, and Stevens
and Boutwell, of the House, were radicals of the
extremest type; while Fessenden and Grimes, of the
Senate, and Bingham and Conkling, of the House,
stood conspicuous for ability among the holders of
moderate views in the majority. Senator Rever-
dy Johnson and Representatives Grider and Rogers,
who represented the minority on the committee,
were quite overwhelmed by the number of their op
ponents, and could make little impression. From
January to May the committee took testimony in
reference to conditions in the South. On the last
day of April it reported to the houses the measures
which embodied its plan of reconstruction, and later
1 Cf. letters from H. W. Beecher and J. D. Cox, in MS., John"
son Papers.
66 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
submitted a report, signed by the majority mem
bers, which constituted an expose de motif for the
proposed legislation. 1
In both the concrete measures reported and the
argument by which they were justified the exigency
of the pending conflict with the executive was more
obvious than any distinct and self -consistent solu
tion of the complex problems at issue. The major
ity report evaded any thoroughgoing discussion of
the constitutional questions of state status, in which
tire strength of the president s case lay, but put the
chief stress on the right of Congress to say the final
word as to the restoration of the insurgent com
munities, and on the evidence that the white people
of the South were still rebellious and impenitent in
spirit, bent on oppressing the freedmen and white
Unionists, and eager for representation in Congress
only in the hope of regaining thus the power and
influence which they had lost by the resort to arms.
The measures reported by the committee were, first,
a proposition for a fourteenth amendment of the
Constitution ; second, a bill providing that when this
amendment should become law any of the rebel
states which had ratified it might have representa
tives in Congress ; and, third, a bill declaring ineligi
ble to any office in the Federal government certain
classes of high officials of the Confederacy. These
1 For the complete report of the committee, with the testi
mony, see House Reports, 39 Cong., i Sess., No. 30; also, without
the testimony, in McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 84.
1 866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 67
measures, taken in connection with the committee s
report, revealed the plan on which the majority in
Congress proposed to appeal to the people against
the policy of the president. The plan was, in essence,
to deny the privileges of statehood to the southern
communities until the guarantee of certain results
of the war, as the North conceived them, should be
incorporated in the Constitution, and should be for
mally consented to by the southerners themselves.
The proposed amendment to the Constitution was
that which, with some modification, stands as the
Fourteenth Amendment to-day. It embodied, first,
a guarantee of citizenship and of equality in civi>
rights to the freedmen, thus providing against any
judicial or congressional nullification of the civil
rights act. In the second section the amendment
dealt with the vexed question of apportionment,
and combined it with that of negro suffrage in such
a way that the additional representatives due to
the South as a result of emancipation could be
secured only through enfranchisement of the freed
men, while, conversely, the failure to enfranchise
would entail a loss of representatives. The third
section disqualified for either Federal or state office
all persons who, after having taken the official oath
to support the Constitution, had participated in re
bellion. By the fourth section the validity of the
United States debt was formally asserted, and the
rebel debt in all its forms, together with all claims
for emancipation of slaves, was declared void.
68 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
This amendment, as a whole, signified a resolute
purpose in the leaders of the majority to subordinate
all factional differences to the one end of success
ful opposition to the president. The subjects dealt
with were most diverse in legal and practical signifi
cance, and the chances were slight that any one of
the sections could, on its merits alone, have secured
a two- thirds vote in each house; but united by the
bond of a relation to the issues of the war, and sus
tained by the pressure of partisan political necessity,
they served to support one another and to consoli
date the requisite majority. The amendment was
finally passed, June 13, 1866, and sent to the states
for ratification.
A month later a bill continuing the Freedmen s
Bureau for two years was passed over the president s
veto. 1 This action was in some sort a vote of con
fidence in the bureau as against the serious dispar
agement it had received through an investigation of
its practical workings by Generals Steedman and
Fuller ton, under the direction of the president. 2 The
new law insured the existence of the bureau, with
other important advantages to the radical cause, 3
against any action that Johnson might have taken
to abolish it on the ground that the limit fixed by
1 Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 321.
3 Peirce, Freedmen s Bureau (Univ. of Iowa, Studies, III.), 64
et seq.
8 Steedman to the president, June 26, 1866, in MS., Johnson
Papers.
1 866] CONGRESSIONAL POLICY 69
the original act, one year after the end of the war,
had been reached.
With this achievement the development of the
congressional plan ceased. The two bills reported
with the proposed amendment were not pushed to
enactment. They involved constitutional questions
which would excite much debate, and it was not in
such questions that the congressional party found
its best opportunity for appeal to northern popular
sentiment. There were many indications of a wide
spread regret in the North that circumstances re
quired the continued exclusion of the South from
representation; and the adversaries of the president
were unwilling to alienate those who felt this regret
by a formal declaration that admission to Congress
must be preceded by so distasteful an act as ratifi
cation of the proposed amendment. Pending the
elections, the discreet attitude of the Congress party
would be that of sympathy with the desire for speedy
restoration, and sadness that the perversity of the
southerners rendered some delay inevitable.
It was partly through this policy that the restora
tion of Tennessee was voted just at the end of the
session. The exclusion of that state had always been
a weak spot in the case of the Congress party, owing
to the exceptional size and position of the Union
element in the population. That element, headed
by the eccentric and violent "Parson" Brownlow,
who was governor, controlled the legislature, and
accordingly the proposed amendment was ratified
70 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
with great promptness, July 19, I866. 1 Though the
state had not enfranchised the freedmen, it had dis
franchised all Confederate sympathizers, and this
was assumed to be an equivalent by the moderates
in Congress, who were anxious to give some evidence
of interest in early restoration. Accordingly, against
radical opposition, a bill restoring Tennessee became
law, July 24, i866. 2
1 For the methods employed, see Fertig, Secession and Recon
struction in Tenn., 77 et seq.; Am. Annual Cyclop., 1866, p. 729.
2 McPherson, Hist. / Reconstruction, 152; Cong. Globe, 39
Cong., i Sess., 3999 et seq., esp. remarks of Brown and Sumner.
CHAPTER V
THE JUDGMENT OF NORTH AND SOUTH ON
RECONSTRUCTION
(1866-1867)
SOME time before Congress ended its labors, the
political campaign was in full swing which was
to determine whether the presidential or the con
gressional plan of dealing with the South had the
first place in the favor of the people. The two co
ordinate political departments of the national gov
ernment were in immovable deadlock, and only a
decisive expression of public opinion in the elections
could relieve the situation. Moreover, there was a
single concrete result which was to be conclusive as
to the popular will namely, the political complex
ion of the Fortieth Congress, the representatives of
which were to be chosen in the autumn. There
would be no need for ingenious interpretations of
state elections to deduce the sentiment of the people
on the national issue : if the result showed a major
ity in the next Congress against the president, his
policy would be doomed; if the majority proved to
be with him, the policy of Congress would be doomed.
No other element entered into the problem.
72 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
Mr. Johnson manifested a perfect confidence that
in a direct appeal to the people he would be fully
sustained in the attitude he had taken towards the
radicals and towards the congressional politicians.
But by midsummer his project of carrying with him
the Union party as a conservative organization 1
had manifestly met shipwreck. The politicians who
controlled the state and local machinery of the
party from the outset manifested great uneasiness
at the general movement of their old Democratic
antagonists to the support of the president. This
was the heyday of the spoils system; and though
the Democrats, when indorsing the administration,
commonly disclaimed all interest in the offices, and
Mr. Johnson disregarded the urgings of practical
men to use his patronage unsparingly to promote
his cause, the constant trend of the Union organiza
tion was away from him. His attitude towards the
moderate element of the Union party in Congress
had confirmed this movement. By his course on
the Freedmen s Bureau and Civil Rights bills he
had alienated men like Senator Trumbull, 2 whose
whole spirit was conservative, and had driven them
into alliance with the radicals. Long before the
end of the session of Congress it was evident to
active supporters of the president that a new party
organization would be necessary in order that his
1 See above, p. 43.
2 Ray to Montgomery Blair, April 10, 1866, in MS., Johnson
Papers; cf. Ray to Trumbull, often, in MS., Trumbull Papers.
1 866] NORTH AND SOUTH 73
policy should be properly sustained in the approach
ing campaign. As early as March 6 a club was
formed in Washington 1 by the leading senators
and others who supported Johnson, and in the latter
part of June the executive committee of this club
issued a call for a "National Union Convention"
to meet at Philadelphia in August.
This movement soon cleared the party situation:
a new Union organization was to be effected by the
supporters of the president. During July the cabi
net was broken up by the resignation of Harlan, of
the interior, Dennison, of the post-office, and Speed,
the attorney-general, who could go no further in
nominal support of Johnson when such action in
volved a clear breach with the old Union organiza
tion. 2 Browning, Randall, and Stanbery, who re
placed the retiring officers, brought a much-needed
element of vigor and aggressiveness into the poli
tics of the administration. The subordinate offices,
where hostility to the president had hitherto been
encouraged, were now, by drastic application of the
removing power, made to contribute what they could
to the building up of the new party. 3
It is to be noticed that in the reorganization of the
cabinet the president had no recourse to the Democ
racy ; none of the new members had ever affiliated
1 The original draught of the call for the formation of the
club is in MS., Johnson Papers.
3 Speed s letter, in Am. Annual Cyclop., 1866, p. 755.
3 Fish, Civil Service and the Patronage (Harvard Hist. Studies*
XL), 189.
74 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
with that party. Johnson exhibited at this crisis,
as throughout his presidential career, an immovable
fidelity to the conditions under which he attained
to his high office. But though he gave no recogni
tion to the Democracy, he could not prevent the
Democracy from giving recognition to him. The
call for the Philadelphia convention elicited a gen
eral and hearty response from the Democratic or
ganizations, and the delegations sent from the north
ern states embraced a full tale of representatives
of those bodies. Even the Copperhead wing was
fully represented, though the participation of Val-
landigham, of Ohio, the bright particular star of that
element, was after some little difficulty prevented. 1
From the South the response to the call for the
convention at Philadelphia was, of course, emphati
cally cordial. The delegations included many of
the most distinguished of the Confederates, now
testifying to their desire for a fully restored Union
under the president s plan. The presence of these
men was one of the chief elements in the broad pur
pose of the promoters of the convention. It was
intended to demonstrate that the true party of the
Union was that which could show itself national in
scope as contrasted with that whose supporters
were in the North only. In an important sense the
movement was one to nationalize what had hitherto
been a sectional party.
1 Rhodes, United States, V., 615; Randall and Browning to
Johnson, August 12 and 13, 1866, in MS., Johnson Papers.
i866] NORTH AND SOUTH 75
The convention, which assembled at Philadelphia
on August 14, 1866, was an imposing demonstration
of the sentiment which sustained the president s
policy. Its membership and the declaration of prin
ciples which it adopted 1 made entirely clear the
composition and purpose of the new party, and left
in doubt only the vital matter of the extent to which
it could win votes from the masses of the people.
The elements conspicuous among the delegates were, \
first, a considerable but hardly an encouraging body
of former Republicans; second, a distinguished but
numerically scanty representation of northern and
border-state Whigs, whose sympathies had been
wholly anti-Republican but strongly Union; third,
a mass of former northern Democrats, led by those
who had gone into the Union party during the war,
but including many prominent Copperheads; and,
finally, a large body of southerners, consisting chief
ly of the moderate and substantial ex-Confederates
who had come to the front in the reorganized state
governments. 2 The principles on which the con
vention placed itseuweT^-first, that the southern
whites could be and ought to be trusted to resume
the autonomy which they had enjoyed before seces
sion that conciliation and good feeling was the true
policy through which the Union was to be restored ;
1 In Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 213.
2 Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 220; Rhodes, United
States, V., 614, and his authorities; the New York daily papers
of August 15, 1866.
76 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
and, second, that the southern states were constitu
tional organizations, whose right to representation
in Congress it was beyond the power of any part
of the Federal government to deny or to make con
ditional upon any act whatever.
Against the party thus devoted to the support of
Johnson were arrayed the two elements, radical and
moderate, \which controlled the machinery of the old
Union party. The appropriation by the Philadel
phia convention of the name "Union" led to much
confusion in terminology ; for the Congress party hot
ly resented the assumption by the president s sup
porters that they were in the truest sense the up
holders of the Union. For distinction s sake the
compound term " Union - Republican " was not in
frequently used by the friends of Congress. "Re
publican" without qualification was but charily
employed ; for though the great mass of the Congress
party had been Republicans, there were t in all but the
most radical communities, considerable numbers of
voters to whom the name had odious associations,
and for these it was desirable to emphasize the* Union
rather than the Republican tradition.
To counteract the claim supported by the August
convention at Philadelphia, that only the presi
dent s party was truly national, while that of Con
gress was purely sectional, the radicals promoted
the assembling of another convention at the same
place, September 3. The original call for this meet
ing was addressed to "The Loyal Unionists of the
i866] NORTH AND SOUTH 77
South," and was designed to bring about a demon
stration by the thick-and-thin opponents of secession
and the Confederacy, who, through the operation of
Johnson s policy, had been overwhelmed in their
respective states by the popular ex-Confederates.
These loyalists were, however, but a small and un
impressive element of the southern people, and could
not by themselves contribute much to the cause
of the Congress party. Hence the call was made
to include the border states, whose delegates con
stituted a great majority of the convention; and in
addition the congressional leaders brought together
a great number of northern men, including the most
prominent political supporters of their cause, to
discuss the situation with the southerners. The
occasion as a whole, therefore, served as a general
demonstration in favor of the policy of Congress.
The southern and border states delegates, meeting
by themselves, agreed in bitter denunciation of
Johnson and of the ex-rebels, whom he was accused
of encouraging to abuse the true Union men ; but the
sessions degenerated at the close into an unedifying
w r rangle between two factions who respectively ad
vocated and denounced negro suffrage. 1 The north
erners presented and enlarged upon their doctrine
that the Fourteenth Amendment was indispensable
to any permanent reorganization in the South, and
that it was for Congress, and not the president, to
determine the conditions on which so momentous a
1 New York Herald, September 8, 1866.
78 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
political problem as that of restoration should be
solved.
Two other conventions illustrated the intensity
of the struggle that was in progress, and signalized
the formal entrance of the old-soldier influence into
politics. On September 17, at Cleveland, some of
those soldiers and sailors of the war who believed
in the president s policy of conciliation and imme
diate restoration of the Union, met to formulate
and discuss their ideas. On September 25 a larger
though hardly a more enthusiastic body of former
soldiers met in Pittsburg, and declared for Congress
and its policy. 1
In the discussion of the great issues before the
people, during the whole campaign of which these
conventions formed a part, much of the argument
was on a very high plane. The appeal was to rea
son and to the sound political sense of the voters.
No more serious debate, no more serious problem,
had engaged the attention of the American democ
racy since the memorable days of 1787 and 1788,
when the new frame of government was passed upon.
So far as this appeal to reason was concerned, the
choice between the two sides was most difficult to
make. The Constitution and the precedents of the
past favored the policy of the president; expediency
and concern for the future gave strong support to
the congressional scheme. What the outcome might
have been is very doubtful had not certain incidents,
1 Elaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 228 et seq.
1 866] NORTH AND SOUTH 79
at the very crisis of the campaign, served to bring
into play that fervor of emotion in the presence of
which the appeal to reason ceases to be of any
effect.
The first of these incidents was a serious riot at
New Orleans. A movement had developed in Lou
isiana for the introduction of negro suffrage. In
the interest of this movement steps were taken to
reassemble the constitutional convention of I864. 1
The opponents of negro suffrage denied the right of
the convention to resume its functions, and con
troversy over the matter became very fierce. July
30, 1866, the delegates who favored the reopening
of the convention proceeded to assemble, according
to the call, in New Orleans. A street procession of
negroes, marching to the place of the meeting, be
came involved in brawls with the crowds of hostile
white spectators, and shots were exchanged. There
upon the police undertook to arrest the negroes, who
resisted, and a warm fight ensued. The white spec
tators joined with the police, and the negroes fled
into the building where the convention had met.
Their pursuers stormed the building and shot down
without mercy the blacks and many of their white
sympathizers. The whole number of casualties in
the affair amounted to some two hundred, of which
only about a dozen were suffered by the police and
their supporters. 2
1 McCarthy, Lincoln s Plan of Reconstruction, 75.
2 House Reports, 39 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 16, p. 12.
VOL. XXII. 6
8o RECONSTRUCTION [1866
In the North this tragic event was systematically
exploited by the radicals as a manifestation of the
spirit with which the white people of the South were
animated towards the freedmen and towards loyal
men in general. It was represented as a deliberate
massacre, perpetrated by the rebel element of New
Orleans upon those who had been faithful to the
Union, and for no other purpose than to punish that
fidelity. The abundant evidence of rash and un
scrupulous procedure which put much of the re
sponsibility upon the promoters of the convention
was disregarded, and attention was concentrated
upon the disparity in the number of casualties on the
two sides and upon details of sickening brutality.
These facts gave unquestionable evidence that in
the heat of the combat the rage of the whites had
vented itself in unnecessary slaughter of their black
adversaries; but this was far from a just basis for a
generalization as to the spirit of the southern people,
or even of the people of Louisiana or Ne w Orleans.
Yet the influence of this affair on feeling in the North
was wholly adverse to the cause of the president.
It confirmed the impression which had been made
by a serious conflict between roughs of the two races
at Memphis in the spring, 1 and by sporadic cases of
violence upon the freedmen which were carefully
massed and exaggerated for partisan purposes. That
the blacks were being abused was probably of less
influence than the thought that the "rebels" were
1 House Reports, 39 Cong., i Sess., No 101.
i866] NORTH AND SOUTH 8x
abusing them. With this reflection the emotions of the
war-time revived among the northern people, and the
careful balancing of arguments gave way to the pas
sionate demand for the " results of the war " for the
visible humiliation of those who had been conquered.
A like influence in displacing reason by feeling
was produced by the unfortunate enterprise of the
president in taking a personal part in the campaign.
Having accepted an invitation to be present at the
laying of the corner-stone of a monument to Stephen
A. Douglas, at Chicago, on September 6, Johnson
employed the occasion to visit leading northern
cities and appeal directly to the people for the cause
which he represented. With a party that included
Secretaries Seward and Welles, Postmaster-General
Randall, General Grant and Admiral Farragut, he
travelled by easy stages through New York state
and northern Ohio to Chicago, and, after the cere
mony there, visited St. Louis and Indianapolis on
the way back to Washington. From the outset the
president s speeches at the various stopping-places
assumed a partisan character, abounding in self-
praise and in denunciation of Congress; and at
Cleveland and St. Louis interruptions of the crowd,
apparently calculated, drove him to retorts and ex
travagances of expression which were in the last de
gree offensive to dignity and good taste. 1
1 For the speeches, see McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 127.
For the most favorable view of them from the stand-point of the
president, cf. DeWitt, Impeachment, 113 et seq.
82 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
It did not need the gross perversions and exag
gerations with which the opposition press reported
the incidents of this tour to make it disastrous to
the president s cause. He had been earnestly warn
ed against extemporaneous speaking, 1 but he did
not, doubtless could not, heed ; and he paid the pen
alty. The unfavorable effect of his " swinging round
the circle," as this tour was dubbed by the press,
was discernible at once in the North. Many per
sons whose feelings were proof against the appeals
made on behalf of the freedmen and loyalists were
carried over to the side of Congress by sheer dis
gust at Johnson s performances. The alienation by
the president of this essentially thoughtful and con
servative element of the northern voters was as
disastrous and as inexcusable as the alienation of
those moderate men in Congress whom he had re
pelled by his narrow and obstinate policy in re
spect to the Freedmen s Bureau and Civil Rights
bills. 2 It was again demonstrated that Andrew
Johnson was not a statesman of national size in
such a crisis as existed in 1866.
The returns of the elections, as they came in dur
ing September, October, and November, told uni
formly the tale of a great defeat in the North for
the president. When the record was complete, it
revealed that the next House of Representatives
would show, like its predecessor, a two-thirds ma-
1 Senator Doolittle to Johnson, August 29, in MS., Johnson
Papers. * See above, pp. 60, 64.
1867] NORTH AND SOUTH 83
jority that could override any veto; and that from
the Senate, as a result of the election of new legis
latures, would disappear several of the small band
of former Republicans who had sustained Mr. John
son s policy. There was no room anywhere for
doubt that the people of the North would support
Congress as against the president in the policy of
reconstruction.
What, then, was the feeling of the South as to
the plan that Congress had proposed ? So far as it
could be expressed by the attitude assumed towards
the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, a series of
responses by the legislatures, beginning in October,
showed that sentiment was as strongly on one side
in the South as the elections showed it to be on the
other side in the North. By February, 1867, rati
fication of the amendment had been voted down in
the legislature of every one of the seceding states,
except Tennessee; and the best showing in favor of
ratification in any of the bodies that voted was 10
votes out of 103 in the lower house in North Caro
lina. 1 In three states the adverse vote was unani
mous in both houses. The reasons assigned for
this attitude included all of those conservative doc
trines which had been so strongly urged in Congress
against any change of the Constitution in respect
to citizenship and the basis of representation. But
especial stress was in most of the states laid upon
the effects of the section imposing political dis-
1 McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 194.
84 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
abilities on leading ex - Confederates, which would,
if ratified, depose from office very many of the chief
functionaries of the existing state governments, 1 and
upon the contention that, if the communities which
the legislatures represented were really states of the
Union, the presence of their members in Congr^
was essential to the validity of the amendment;
while if those communities were not states, their
ratification of the amendment was unnecessary.
Whatever the reasons, real or nominal, the fact that
the South stood solidly opposed on the great issue
of reconstruction to the North was through this
attitude put in the strongest and clearest light.
1 See Fleming, Reconstruction in Ala., 394; Reynolds, Recon
struction in S. C. y 33; Hamilton, Reconstruction in N. C., 167 et
seq.; Am. Annual Cyclop., 1866, under the various states.
CHAPTER VI
RA&ICAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WASHINGTON
(1866-1868)
WHEN the thirty -ninth Congress reassembled
for its second session in December, 1866, the
majority felt conscious of a mandate from the peo
ple of the North to disregard at discretion all that
had thus far been accomplished in connection with
reconstruction. The expediency, however, of a total
change of policy was at first strongly opposed by the
moderate wing of the party; but as the attitude of
the South towards the Fourteenth Amendment be
came clear many of the moderate men in Congress,
angered by what they considered the stubbornness of
the southerners, joined the radicals in projects for
an entirely new plan of reconstruction. Whether ac
ceptance of the amendment by the southern states
would have prevented this movement is more than
doubtful; for the leading radicals repudiated any
obligation to stand by the pledge embodied in the
reconstruction committee s bill of the last session, 1
and frankly announced their purpose to insist on
1 Cong. Globe., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., 124, 128; c also
Sumner, IV., 312 n.
86 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
the destruction of the existing state governments
in the South and on reorganization through negro
suffrage. 1 But the president and most of the south
erners were no less firm in their extreme views than
the radicals, and left no opportunity for com
promise. Movements in the South looking to ac
ceptance of the amendment, either as it stood or
with the omission of the section which imposed
political disabilities, came to naught. 2 There was
left no ground on which the moderate men of the
majority could stand in effective resistance to the
extremists, and Congress became, what it for some
years continued to be, radical and revolutionary.
The leaders in the legislation which was about to
supersede all that had hitherto been done towards
restoring the southern states were the men who
had consistently denied to the conquered communi
ties the right to the name of state as known to the
Constitution. Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sum-
ner now saw the triumph of their doctrines, which
had long been treated with contumely and ridicule.
Stevens, truculent, vindictive, and cynical, domi
nated the House of Representatives in the second
session of this Congress with even less opposition
than in the first. A keen and relentlessly logical
1 See bills introduced by Stevens and Ashley, Cong. Globe.,
39 Cong., 2 Sess., 250 et seq.
3 Fleming, Reconstruction in Ala., 397; Reynolds, Reconstruc
tion in S. C., 51; Hamilton, Reconstruction in N. C., 173; Sickles
to the president, January 25, MS-, Johnson Papers; Fleming,
Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 238.
1867] CONGRESS 87
mind, an ever-ready gift of biting sarcasm and sting
ing repartee, and a total lack of scruple as to means
in the pursuit of a legislative end, secured him an
ascendency in the House which none of his party
associates ever dreamed of disputing. Sumner, in
the Senate, made himself felt in a far different way.
His forte was exalted moral fervor and humanita
rian idealism. He lived in the empyrean, and de
scended thence upon his colleagues with dogmas
which he discovered there. However remote his
doctrines from any relation to the realities of hu
man affairs, he preached them without intermission
and forced his colleagues by mere iteration to give
them a place in law. He would shed tears at the
bare thought of refusing to freedmen rights of which
they had no comprehension, but would filibuster to
the end of the session to prevent the restoration to
the southern whites of rights which were essential to
their whole conception of life. 1 He was the perfect \ \i
type of that narrow fanaticism which erudition and j *
egotism combine to produce, and to which political j
crises alone give the opportunity for actual achieve
ment. -J^-
Of the lesser lights of the radicalism which now
had the upper hand, Massachusetts furnished three
of notable influence: Henry Wilson, in the Senate,
whose sympathy for the down-trodden was no less
demonstrative than his colleague s, but whose tears
in their flow never for a moment distorted*his count
1 See Pierce, Sumner, IV., 317.
88 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
of the votes to be gained for his party; George S.
Boutwell, destitute of Sumner s erudition and ego
tism and of Wilson s cant, but exemplifying per
fectly the hard, merciless type which the Puritan
conscience makes of a mediocre man; and, finally,
Benjamin F. Butler, whose demagogic gifts had
made him the hero of the late canvass, and had
brought him a seat in the fortieth Congress, where
he became the ambitious understudy and ultimate
successor of Thaddeus Stevens on the reconstruction
committee. The West furnished the other main
stays of radicalism in Congress, among whom the
two Michigan senators, Chandler and Howard, and
three Ohio men, Senator Wade and Representatives
Ashley and Lawrence, were conspicuous in the
thirty-ninth Congress ; and, in addition, Senator Mor
ton, of Indiana, and Representative John A. Logan,
of Illinois, in the fortieth. Of distinctly higher grade
than the radicals in the finer aspects of intellectual
and political character were such leaders of the
moderate Republican group as Trumbull and Fes-
senden in the Senate, and Blaine, of Maine, Bing-
ham, of Ohio, Wilson, of Iowa, and the rising young
Garfield in the House; but under the existing con
ditions there was left to the moderates only the
function of a drag on the reckless and revolution
ary policy to which the radicals gave an irresistible
impulse.
The programme unfolded in the winter of 1866-
1867 consisted of two parts, which were developed
1867] CONGRESS 89
simultaneously. The first part was devoted to the
effective assertion of congressional supremacy over
the judicial and executive branches of the govern
ment ; the second part consisted in the effective as
sertion of congressional supremacy in the conquered
South.
Little legislation was actually enacted as to the
judiciary, but much was initiated and held in sus
pense till the proper moment for decisive action.
In December, 1866, and January, 1867, three highly
important opinions were announced by the Supreme
Court. In ex parte Milligan 1 it was declared that
military commissions and the other incidents of
martial law were unconstitutional save where fla
grant war made the action of the ordinary courts
impossible. In Cummings vs. Missouri 2 a state test-
oath, by which Confederate sympathizers were ex
cluded from various professions, was held to con
travene the constitutional prohibition of ex post facto
laws; and in ex parte Garland 3 the Federal test-
oath so far as it operated to prevent attorneys from
practising in the United States courts, was for sim
ilar reasons found invalid. These cases all mani
fested a spirit in the court that boded ill for the
radical projects of reconstruction; and the con
gressional leaders, while obviously reluctant to at
tack the venerated judicial organ, did not conceal
1 4 Wallace, 2.
* Ibid., 277; also see above, p. 8.
*4 Wallace, 333.
9 o RECONSTRUCTION [1867
their purpose to do so if the provocation should go
further. 1
As to the executive, however, there was neither
hesitation nor restraint; by the end of the session,
March 4, a number of the most indispensable and
fully recognized attributes of the presidential office
had been taken from it, and a resolute movement
to oust Johnson by impeachment had made sub
stantial headway. Of the assaults on the consti
tutional powers of the president, the most impor
tant and far-reaching were those directed against
his control over his subordinates in the civil service
and in the army. By the celebrated tenure of office
act, 2 which became law March 2, 1867, he was pro
hibited from removing civil officers save with the
consent of the Senate, and was made guilty of a
misdemeanor punishable by fine and imprisonment
if he should violate the act. By a section inserted
in the army appropriation act 3 of the same date
he was forbidden to issue military orders except
through- the General of the Army ; or to relieve the
generay of his command or assign him to duty else
where than at Washington, save at the general s
own request, or with the previous approval of the
Senate; and a violation of these provisions also was
declared to be a misdemeanor.
In the passage of the tenure of office act, both
1 Cf . Dunning, Essays, 121 et seq.
Text in Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I.,
404 Text in Ibid., I., 403.
1867] CONGRESS 91
a permanent and a temporary influence were op
erative. Participation by the Senate in the power
of removal had never, since the origin of the Con
stitution, ceased to be claimed by members of the
body whose prestige and power would be enhanced
by the recognition of the principle ; but no House of
Representatives would have been likely to contrib
ute to the exaltation of the rival chamber except
under the pressure of such a condition as existed
in 1867, when Johnson s removals of radical office
holders were producing the maximum of exaspera
tion. 1 ^The legislation touching the president s mili
tary functions was purely a result of the tension
between Johnson and Congress ; and in requiring that
the commander-in-chief shall consult the Senate be
fore giving certain orders to his subordinate, it is
without parallel in our history, either for its en
croachment on the constitutional power of the ex
ecutive or for inherent preposterousness. //-But its
source is even more astonishing than its content ; for
it was secretly dictated to Boutwell by the presi
dent s official adviser, Edwin M. Stanton, secretary
of war. 2
This strange personage, whose amazing record
of duplicity 3 strongly suggests the vagaries of an
opium-eater, assumed now the task of inspiring in
Congress the belief that his chief, the president,
1 Elaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 267.
* Boutwell, Reminiscences, II., 108.
8 Cf. the characterization in DeWitt, Impeachment, 240 et seq.
92 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
was a desperate character, bent on over-riding the
majority by military force. Various expressions in
Johnson s foolish speeches could be readily adapted
to the support of this idea, and radicals like Bout-
well, who were under a complete obsession as to the
president, could be excused for adopting drastic
measures to thwart the impending revolution. But
no man who enjoyed the opportunities of a cabinet
member for close intercourse with Johnson had any
rational excuse for supposing that the president
was as violent in act as he was in speech. The very
retention of Stanton in office, when his sympathy
with Congress as against Johnson s policy was well
known, was evidence of an infirmity of spirit which
greatly annoyed the president s supporters. 1
Along with the legislation restraining the execu
tive, a movement for impeachment was promoted
by certain of the extreme radicals, especially Ash
ley. The House judiciary committee was instructed
in January to investigate the conduct of the presi
dent, and accordingly was engaged throughout the
session in a search for evidence against him. Mean
while the reconstruction committee labored diligent
ly on the problem of decisive action as to the situa
tion in the South. The result was a bill reported to
the House by Stevens, February 6, which after con-
letters to the president in the MS., Johnson Papers, con
tain abundant proof of this; cf. also Elaine, Twenty Years of
Congress, II., 241; McCulloch, Men and Measures, 391; W. T.
Sherman to John Sherman, in Sherman Letters, 297.
1867] CONGRESS 93
siderable modification became the reconstructio
act of March 2, I867. 1 /This famous law consisted
of two distinct parts : five of its six sections provided
for the establishment and administration of a rigor
ous and comprehensive military government through
out the ten states not yet restored to the Union;
while the remaining section, the fifth, declared that
the restoration of the states should be effected only
after reorganization, on the basis of general negro
enfranchisement and limited rebel disfranchisement<^
As a justification for military rule, it was declared
in the preamble that "no legal state governments
or adequate protection for life or property" existed/
in the "rebel states" enumerated. /"Thus the or
ganizations which Lincoln and Johnson had with so
much care nurtured into vigorous life were formally
pronounced by Congress destitute of legality as
state governments and "subject to the paramount
authority of the United States to abolish, modify,
control, or supersede the same." The absence of
adequate protection for life and property was a con
clusion which the majority drew from the Memphis
and New Orleans riots, 2 and from the reports of
outrages on freedmen and Unionists. These occa
sional and widely scattered disturbances were in fact
a wholly insufficient basis for the sweeping generali
zation that was made as to conditions in the South.
In most parts of that section life and property were,
1 Stats, at Large, XIV,, 428; text also in Fleming, Documentary
Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 401. 2 See above, pp. 79, 80.
94 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
despite the effects of the war, as well protected as
had ever been the case. But the radical programme
was not restricted by a careful regard for facts.
Nor was it, on the other hand, restricted by any
careful regard for constitutional law^^The clauses
xof the act authorizing military commissions for the
/ trial and punishment of crime were in direct and
contemptuous disregard of the Supreme Court s
opinion in the Milligan case, rendered less than three
months before, and were based upon the theory that
a state of war still existed, though executive, judi
ciary, and Congress itself had concurred in regarding
the war as long since ended. 1
The fifth section of the act, which set forth the
conditions on which the "rebel states" might be
restored to representation, embodied the triumph
of the radicals in respect to negro suffrage. Earlier
in the session the increasing strength of the move
ment for enfranchisement had been indicated by
the enactment of laws, over the president s veto,
giving the blacks the ballot in the District of Colum
bia and in the territories. 2 There was still strong
opposition in the Senate to so drastic a procedure
for the South, but under pressure of party neces
and of Sumner s tireless urging, the party caucus at
last adopted the provision by a majority of two, 3
and it was incorporated in the bill. The act as
1 Dunning, Essays, 129.
McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 116, 154, 184; Mason, Veto
Power, 152. 3 Pierce, Sumner, IV.. 320.
1867] CONGRESS 95
passed declared that any rebel state, in order to
become entitled to representation in Congress and
to exemption from military rule, must conform to
the following requirements: a convention must be
held, consisting of delegates "elected by the male
citizens ... of whatever race, color, or previous con
dition"; a constitution must be framed embodying
the same rule of suffrage; this constitution must be
ratified by the people and approved by Congress;
and the legislature elected under this constitution, -
must ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
In accordance with the belief that the president
was bent on nullifying the radical legislation, a law
had been passed requiring Congress to meet on
March 4. The fortieth Congress, therefore, embody
ing the results of the elections of 1866, organized
itself immediately upon the expiration of its prede
cessor, and continued the policy of the latter prac
tically without interruption. March 23, 1867, a sup
plementary reconstruction bill became law, 1 providing
in detail for the process through which the military
commanders were to bring about the organization of
new governments and the restoration of the states.
By the act of March 2 the ten states were divided *
into five military districts, with a general in com
mand of eachvVirginia constituted the first district,
the two Caroliiba the second, Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida the third, Mississippi and Arkansas the
1 Stats, at Large, XV., 2; Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Re
construction, I., 407.
VOL. XXII. 7
96 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
fourth, and Louisiana and Texas the fifth. By
the supplemental act the district commanders were
required to make a registration of the voters in
each state who were qualified under the original act ;
to hold an election for delegates to a state con
vention; to convoke the convention; to hold an
election on the question of ratifying the constitu
tion framed by this convention; and to transmit
the constitution, if ratified, to the president, for
earliest possible transmittal to Congress. For the
actual conduct of the registration and election, the
commanders were required to appoint in each elec
tion district a board of registration consisting of
three persons who should qualify by taking the
iron-clad oath, which excluded every one who had
given voluntary aid to the rebellion. Finally, every
applicant for registration as a voter was required
to subscribe to an oath which excluded all who had
been disfranchised for participation in rebellion,
and all who, after holding state or Federal office,
had given aid and comfort to enemies of the United
States. ~ ~"ir"
This legislation insured the creation of new states
in the South, with electorates and governments con
formed to the will of Congress^ There was grave
doubt in radical circles as to whether the president
would attempt to execute laws so flagrantly at war
with his views of the Constitution. His veto of the
first reconstruction act was draughted by Jeremiah S.
Black, and embodied a bitter and powerful assault
1867] CONGRESS 97
on the policy expressed in the legislation. 1 That
hostility to the policy should not go too far, the House
judiciary committee was promptly constituted in
the fortieth Congress, and instructed to continue
the vigilant watch for some basis of impeachment.
Johnson was advised, however, by the lawyers whom
he trusted, that he had no ground on which to set
up a resistance to the act, 2 and accordingly, in the
middle of March, he performed the duty imposed
upon him by the law and assigned Generals Scho-
field, Sickles, Pope, Ord, and Sheridan to the com
mand of the respective districts.
When those officers had entered fully upon the
performance of their duties, they soon had serious
trouble in construing various provisions of the acts.
The conflict between the radical and the moderate
elements in Congress resulted, as is usually the case,
in generalities and ambiguities of expression, which
left room for wide differences of procedure among
those who administered the law. During the spring
of 1867 many requests came from the district com
manders to the president for instructions on doubt
ful points. Attorney - General Stanbery, to whom
these matters were in due course referred, gave an
interpretation of the laws which went as far as was
possible in restricting the authority of the district
commanders as against the old state governments
J Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 498; Am. Hist. Rev.,
April, 1906, p. 585; Mason, Veto Power, 153.
2 MS., Johnson Papers.
98 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
and in mitigating the disfranchisement of the whites.
Stanton, the secretary of war, with an unwonted
boldness, for which the tenure of office act and the
approaching reassembling of Congress furnished a
sufficient ground, opposed in the cabinet both the
soundness of this interpretation and the policy of
promulgating it. 1 He took the ground that the
president s control, as commander-in-chief, of the
generals in the South was of a very limited nature,
and he revealed his purpose to do all that he could
to sustain the ultra-radical views that had currency
in Congress.
On July 3, 1867, Congress reassembled pursuant to
its purpose to keep watch over the president, and
on July 1 9 it passed over his veto a new supplement
ary act on reconstruction. 2 This act, which was
draughted by Stanton 3 to embody the ideas for which
he had contended in the cabinet, made authorita
tive the most rigorous interpretation of the previous
acts ; and by explicitly conferring certain powers of
appointment and removal on the General of the
Army, intimated a denial of these powers to the
president. Having taken this decisive step, Con
gress went into recess till November, despite ago
nizing appeals by radicals, especially Sumner, not
to leave Johnson so long free from restraint. 4
1 Gorham, Stanton, II., 360 et seq.
2 Stats, at Large, XV., 14; Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Re-
construction, I., 415. 3 Gorham, Stanton, II., 373.
4 Cong. Globe., 40 Cong., i Sess., 732.
1867] CONGRESS 99
Stanton s co-operation with the president s ad
versaries in connection with the act of July 19 was
so undisguised that Johnson finally cast aside his
strange reluctance to get rid of the secretary, and
on August 5 requested his resignation. 1 This re
quest was refused, in /terms which intimated Stan-
ton s belief that his continuance in the war depart
ment till Congress reassembled was indispensable
to the salvation of the government from Johnson s
nefarious schemes. The president s reply was an
order suspending Stanton from office, and designat- j
ing General Grant as secretary of war ai-igjfirtw.j
Stanton, denying the president s right to suspend
him, nevertheless gave up the office under protest,/
yielding, he said, to superior force. 2
For three months thenceforth President Johnson
enjoyed the satisfaction of a real control over his
own administration, and none of the dismal conse
quences ensued which had been predicted if Stanton
should leave his place. When Congress reassembled,
however, the final disposition of the suspended offi
cial must, by the terms of the tenure of office act,
be passed upon by the Senate, and it was quite im
probable that that body would permit the contin
uance of Johnson s triumph over its favorite. But
before the Senate took any action in this matter,
the House judiciary committee presented its report
1 Cf. DeWitt, Impeachment, 272 et seq.
2 The whole correspondence in McPherson, Hist, of Recon
struction, 261.
ioo RECONSTRUCTION [1867
of the investigation which it had so long been carry
ing on, and by a majority of one recommended the
impeachment of the president. 1 \; The twelve hundred
printed pages of evidence submitted were in reality,
however, a signal vindication of Mr. Johnson; for
the testimony of witnesses that ranged from as high
as the cabinet officers to as low as convicted felons
in prison 2 disclosed nothing in either his public or
his private life that even the bigoted Boutwell could
say was an illegal act. Yet this typical exponent
of the Puritan political conscience presented a reso
lution that the president be impeached. Though
many of the moderate Republicans in both House
and Senate believed that the removal of Johnson
would be a good thing for the country, they hesitated
to proceed to so serious a step till some specific act
of a criminal character could be alleged as a reason.
Hence the House, on December 7, 1867, voted down
Boutwell s resolution by 108 to 57.*
There was still hope for the radicals, however,
in the situation at the war department. Johnson,
moreover, was evidently charing under the restric
tions which Congress had imposed upon the execu
tive, and might be expected sooner or later to com
mit some of the "misdemeanors" which had been
craftily prepared to entrap him. 4 On December 12
1 House Reports, 40 Cong., i Sess., No. 7.
2 DeWitt, Impeachment, 154. 291.
3 Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., 68; McPherson, Hist, of Re
construction, 264. *See above, p. 90.
18681 CONGRESS 101
the president sent to the Senate a message giving
his reasons for suspending Stanton. 1 It dwelt chief
ly on the insolence and defiance manifested by the
secretary when requested to resign, and on the im
possibility of executing the laws through a head of
department in whom the president had no con
fidence. The CQgency of these reasons was natural
ly quite lost on the Senate, which formally refused,
January 13, 1868, to concur in the suspension. Im
mediately upon this vote Grant left the office of the
secretary of war, and Stanton took possession. 2
Johnson was now in an intolerable position. He
had intended to force Stanton into litigation for j
the possession of the office, and thus to test the
constitutionality of the tenure of office act. But
Grant had thwarted this plan by his prompt with
drawal, and the only way left open for getting rid
of Stanton was by what the president knew would
be declared an illegal and therefore an impeachable
act. After a month of preparation and of great
tension in political circles, Johnson, February 21,
sent Stanton an order removing him from office,
and named General Lorenzo Thomas secretary of /
war ad interim. Stanton refused to recognize the\
order, or to turn over his office to Thomas; 8 the \
Senate promptly passed a resolution declaring that
the president had no power to remove the secretary ;
save with its consent; and the House, February 24,
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI., 583.
DeWitt, Impeachment, 322. Ibid., 346.
102 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
adopted a resolution that the president be impeached
of high crimes and misdemeanors in office. 1
The great wave of passion which swept over the
majority of Congress at the news of Johnson s ac
tion obliterated in an instant the distinction be
tween moderates and radicals. He had committed,
it was felt, the specific offence which had previously
been undiscoverable, for the; tenure of office act de
clared in terms that any removal in contravention
of its provisions should be a misdemeanor; hence,
having defied the law, he must suffer the penalty.
But the preparations for bringing the offender be
fore the Senate for trial were not very far advanced
when it began to appear that the violation of law
was less clear than had been assumed. The tenure
of office act declared that every civil officer whose
appointment required the consent of the Senate
should be entitled to hold his office till his successor
should be duly appointed; but a provisp affecting
cabinet officers limited their tenure to "the term
of the president by whom they may have been ap
pointed and for one month thereafter." Stanton
had been appointed by Lincoln in 1862; and it was
very doubtful whether he could, under such circum
stances, claim to be protected by the act against
summary ejection by the president. If Stanton had
no title to his office, it could not have been a mis-
1 Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., 1400; summary of debate in
DeWitt, Impeachment, 358 et seq., and Blaine, Twenty Years
of Congress, II., 355.
i868] CONGRESS 103
demeanor for the president to oust him from it.
In view of the uncertainty on this matter of the sec
retary s term, the idea that a specific violation of
law must be found to justify impeachment was rele
gated to the background. Various illegal acts were,
indeed, alleged against Johnson in connection with
the appointment of Thomas and the administration
of the reconstruction acts; but as the proceedings
developed, the moderates were gradually obliged to
accept fully the radical ground, and to consent to
the policy of removing the president, not necessari
ly for any crime, but on considerations of general
party expediency.
The coalescence of the factions of the House ma
jority in a determined effort to get rid of Johnson
was apparent in the choice of managers to con
duct the prosecution. Five of the seven were rad
icals of the straitest sect Stevens, Butler, Bout-
well, Williams, and Logan ; the other two, Bingham
and Wilson, were notably of conservative cast, but
joined in the hue and cry that arose when Johnson
removed Stanton. The eleven articles in which the
indictment of the president took form * also illus
trated the blended strain of the prosecution. Most
of them dealt in lawyer-like fashion with various
aspects of the Stanton-Thomas episode. One, how
ever, the tenth, was the special work of Mr. Butler,
and was based on extracts from newspaper reports
l Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., "Trial of the President," i;
also in Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, L, 458.
104 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
of the president s speeches. 1 The adoption of this
article by the House was a personal triumph for
Butler, who had proposed impeachment, on the
ground of Johnson s speeches and general bad con
duct, as early as October 6, i866, 3 and had per
sistently urged tke policy ever since. His doctrine
was that a technical crime or misdemeanor was not
necessary as a ground for impeachment; and the
tenth article committed the House to this view.
The Senate organized for the trial of the president
March 5, 1868, Chief -Justice Chase taking the chair,
as required by the Constitution. As Chase was
known to have little sympathy with the policy of
the radicals, there was tension from the outset
between the radical senators and their presiding
officer; but Chase was sustained in general by a
majority of the body. 3 The defence of the presi
dent was conducted by Attorney-General Stanbery,
who resigned his office for the purpose, ex- Judge B.
R. Curtis, W. M. Evarts, T. A. R. Nelson, and W. S.
Groesbeck an array of talent which from the pure
ly legal point of view distinctly overtopped the
managers of the prosecution and in political acumen
did not suffer by comparison.
The trial began formally on March 13, 1868, and
terminated on May 26. As a field for the skill and
eloquence of the politicians and lawyers who were
1 See above, pp. 62, 81.
? Cincinnati daily papers of October 7 ; cf. MS., Johnson Papers
9 Hart, Chase, 359; Dunr.ir.g, Essays, 282.
i868] CONGRESS 105
concerned, it attracted the widest and closest at
tention ; but as a revelation to the world of lawless
ness and infamy in Andrew Johnson, it soon became
farcical. The evidence here, as before the judiciary
committee, 1 fell ridiculously short of justifying the
wild charges made by his adversaries. It showed \
that the president, while greatly embarrassed by the
hostile legislation of Congress and by the conduct
of Stanton, had administered his office with the
nicest regard for law and precedent. The removal
of Stanton conformed precisely to the procedure by
which John Adams got rid of the recakitrant sec
retary of state Timothy Pickering; 2 and the idea
that the tenure of office act guaranteed the per
manence of Johnson s cabinet was shown to have
been repudiated by prominent senators at the time
the bill was passed.
Under these circumstances the so-called trial be
came in its later stages a mere form. The question
was, not whether the president was guilty of any
crime, but whether he should be deposed from office
because of his political opposition to the majority
in Congress. On this issue a tremendous effort
was made by the radicals, employing every possible
means of partisan pressure, to hold the Republican
senators to a solid vote for conviction. 3 Every one
who did not make clear his purpose to vote so as to
1 See above, p. 100.
*Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., "Trial of the President," 117-
119. 8 A summary in DeWitt, Impeachment, 522 et seq.
106 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
insure conviction was spied upon by his colleagues,
overwhelmed with messages from his constituents,
and denounced in the General Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. 1 But all these efforts
proved unavailing. The eleventh article was se
lected as the first to be voted on, because it seemed
most likely to secure the requisite two-thirds ma
jority for conviction. 2 Drawn by Thaddeus Stevens,
this article bore striking testimony to the undimin-
ished shrewdness and intellectual strength of the
veteran, whose physical forces were close to their
end. The vote was taken on the eleventh article,
May 16, 1868, and resulted, "guilty," 35; "not
guilty," 19. Two-thirds being necessary for convic
tion, this vote was an acquittal. Ten days later
the same result was reached on the second and third
articles, whereupon the Senate, sitting as a court of
impeachment, adjourned sine die.
The failure of the effort to get rid of Johnson was
due to the votes of seven senators who had pre
viously stood firmly with the majority against the
president Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Hender
son, Ross, Trumbull, and Van Winkle; of these,
Fowler, of Tennessee, Henderson, of Missouri, and
Van Winkle, of West Virginia, were predisposed to
moderation by their border-state antecedents; Fes
senden, of Maine, Grimes, of Iowa, and Trumbull,
of Illinois, were opposed to the radical policy on the
1 DeWitt, Impeachment, 530; Journal of the General Conference,
155, 158. 2 Dunning, Essays, 300.
i868] CONGRESS 107
highest considerations of statesmanship; and Ross
was an inconspicuous and commonplace product of
Kansas, who rose to a proud height of independence
in resisting the influences brought to bear upon him
by the radicals, but after the verdict fell back to
the lower level through prompt and importunate
demands upon the president for patronage. Van
Winkle also sought offices from Johnson after the
verdict, bracketing himself thus with Ross in a sug
gestive contrast to Fessenden, who declined to in
dorse a friend s application for a place on the express
ground that such an act would, under the circum
stances, " expose me to offensive imputations." L
The majority of the Senate for conviction fell
only one short of the requisite two-thirds, and ap
parently the change of a .single vote would have
effected the removal of the president. Fut, in fact,
other moderates stood ready to vote "not guilty"
if their votes should be necessary to secure ac
quittal. 2 Every Republican who thus voted did so
with the practical certainty that his public career
in the party would be ended, since the radicals con
trolled the machinery in most states; and at least
two senators Sprague, of Rhode Island, and Willey,
of West Virginia, felt indisposed to sacrifice their
political future unnecessarily.
1 Ross to Johnson, June 6, July i and 10; Van Winkle to
Johnson, June 19; Fessenden to Peters, June 4; all in MS.,
Johnson Papers.
1 Conversation with ex-Senator J. B. Henderson in 1901.
io8 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
Immediately after the termination of the trial,
Stanton relinquished the office of which he had
maintained actual physical possession most of the
time since February 2I, 1 and on June i General
Schofield, after certain delicate negotiations by the
astute Evarts to insure the general s consent and
the Senate s confirmation, became secretary of war. 2
The president at last had his way in respect to his
own advisers, and the radicals had met their first
serious reverse since the struggle with Johnson be
gan. Out of sheer spite the Senate refused to con
firm the nomination of Stanbery for his former place
in the cabinet, "and the President offered it first to
Ex- Judge Curtis, who declined it, and next to the
generally popular Evarts, whom the Senate readily
confirmed as attorney-general. , With this incident
the conflict between the executive and the legis
lature practically ceased; for the campaign for the
choice of the next president had already opened, and
he was not to be Andrew Johnson.
1 Gorham, Stanton, II., 444.
2 Schofield, Forty-Six Years in the Army, 413.
CHAPTER VII
RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH
(1867-1868)
THROUGHOUT the year of active tension be
tween executive and Congress at Washington,
the process of reorganization in the South, which
Johnson was charged with systematically obstruct
ing, had gone steadily forward on the lines laid down
in the reconstruction acts. When the generals as
sumed control of their respective districts, in March,
1867, military rule under the Federal authority was
probably the only species of government that could
have maintained order; for the bitterness of the
whites over negro suffrage would have caused dis
turbances beyond the power of the civil officers to
suppress. No disposition anywhere appeared, how
ever, to resist the Federal military power, and a
mere handful of troops was sufficient to sustain a
far-reaching despotism.
It was, indeed, no novelty for the people of the
South to be subject to government by the United
States army. The situation under the reconstruc
tion acts was the same that had existed after the
close of hostilities and before the recognition of the
no RECONSTRUCTION [1867
new state governments by the president, 1 and the
Freedmen s Bureau never ceased from exercising its
authority even after those organizations were in full
operation. But there were many reasons for a feel
ing in the South in 1867 that had no parallel in 1865.
Military rule displacing civil governments that had
worked with satisfactory efficiency for a year was
a different thing from military rule that expressed
merely the temporary dominion of a conqueror at
the close of a long war. The reasoning by which the
policy of Congress was justified in the North was
regarded in the South as founded on falsehood and
malice. So far as the " black codes " were concerned,
it was pointed out that they could not be alleged as
evidences of a tendency to restore slavery or intro
duce peonage, since the offensive acts had in many
of the states been repealed by the legislatures them
selves, 2 and in all had been duly superseded by the
civil rights act. The much - exploited outrages on
freedmen and Unionists were declared to be exag
gerated or distorted reports of incidents which any
time of social tension must produce among the
criminal classes. The rejection of the Fourteenth
Amendment was considered as merely a dignified
refusal by honorable men to be the instruments of
their own humiliation and shame. 3
Under all these circumstances the southerners felt
1 See above, p. 2-9. 2 Cf. Rhodes, United States, VI., 26.
3 Cf . Hamilton, Reconstruction in N. C., 170; Fleming, Docu
mentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 236.
i86 7 ] THE SOUTH in
that the policy of Congress had no real cause save
the purpose of radical politicians to prolong and
extend their party power by means of negro suf
frage. This and this alone was the purpose for
which major-generals had been empowered to re
model the state governments at their will, to ex
ercise through general orders the functions of ex
ecutive, legislature, and courts, and to compel the
white people to recognize the blacks as their equals
wherever the stern word of military command could
reach. It was as inconceivable to the southerners
that rational men of the North should seriously ap
prove of negro suffrage per se as it had been in 1860
to the northerners that rational men of the South
should approve of secession per se. Hence, in the
one case as in the other, a craving for political power
was assumed to be the only explanation of an other
wise unintelligible proceeding.
The process of creating a new electorate and
through it a new government in each of the ten
states was carried on by the district commanders
in close conformity with the radical spirit of the
reconstruction acts. The registration of voters was
so directed as to insure beyond all peradventure the
fullest enrolment of the blacks and the completest
exclusion of disfranchised whites. 1 When the re
turns were all in it appeared that the negroes were
in the majority in South Carolina, Alabama, Florida,
Mississippi, and Louisiana, and the whites in Vir-
1 Dunning, Essays, 182 et seq.
VOL. XII. 8
ii2 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
ginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas, while in
Georgia the numbers were about equal. 1 The first
exercise by the newly enfranchised lass of their high
privilege was in the elections for the various con
stitutional conventions. In these elections, as in
the registration, the military authorities assumed the
duty of promoting in every way participation by the
blacks, and of counteracting every influence tending
to keep them from the polls. The result of the elec
tions was a group of constituent assemblies whose
unfitness for their task was pitiful. No one of them,
indeed, lacked members of fair ability and creditable
purpose ; but the number of such members was small,
and they were for the most part entirely out of touch
with the intelligent and substantial classes of the
population for whom they were framing a govern
ment. The chief part was taken in the conventions
by northern men who had come South with the
army or with the Freedmen s Bureau. Some few
well-qualified native southerners also, of the Union
ist element which had been the basis of the presi
dential restoration, assumed a prominent position
in the deliberations; but the mass of the delegates
consisted of whites and blacks whose ignorance and
inexperience in respect to political methods were
equalled only by the crudenes and distortion of
Lenes i
ncTsoci;
their ideas as to political ana social ends. 2
1 Senate Exec. Docs., 40 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 53 ; Dunning, Essays,
188.
2 Personnel of conventions analyzed in Garner, Reconstruction
i86;] THE SOUTH 113
The constitutions which were framed by these
conventions embodied many provisions which were
in the abstract highly commendable, and were ac
cordingly hailed by the radicals as abundantly
justifying their policy. In the financial and rev
enue systems, in the organization and tenure of the
judiciary, in the machinery of local government,
and especially in the provisions for public educa
tion, the institutions of those northern states which
regarded themselves as most enlightened and progres
sive were freely appropriated. But these very inno
vations, approved in the North as tokens of sub
stantial regeneration, served in the South to sharpen
the hatred and contempt with which the whole pro
cedure of reconstruction was received by the mass
of the whites. Quite apart from the doubts that
might be raised as to the applicability of north
ern institutions to southern conditions, the novelties
were looked upon as vitiated at the outset by the
means through which they were introduced. More
over, the guarantee of entire equality, civil and po
litical, among the citizens regardless of race was, of
course, a fundamental feature of all the new con
stitutions. This system, insuring as it did for the
future a large where not a controlling participation
of the blacks in all the functions of government, be-
in Miss., 187; Fleming, Reconstruction in Ala., 517; Hamilton,
Reconstruction in N. C., 229; Hollis, Reconstruction in S. C., 83;
Eckenrode, Va. during Reconstruction, 87; see also Am. Annual
Cyclop., under the various states.
ii 4 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
came the centre of partisan controversy to which all
other /issues were wholly subordinate.
During the late winter and spring of 1868 the
work of the constitutional conventions was com
pleted in all the states but Texas, and the ques
tion of ratification came before the electorates. By
this time the formation and consolidation of parties
had been completed, and the political antithesis of
the races was everywhere obvious. The passage of
the reconstruction acts by Congress terminated
abruptly and forever the political prospects of that
moderate, anti-secession, Whiggish element of the
whites which Johnson s policy had brought to the
front. To the great majority of these men negro
suffrage was as intolerable, as unthinkable as it was
to the most extreme of the ex-Confederates. The
actuality of the new order, as expressed in the as
sumption of authority by the district command
ers, reduced most of the whites to the impotence
and apathy of despair. But a solitary chance pre
sented itself of escape from the disasters of negro
political supremacy : if the freedmen could be won
to look for guidance in their new duties to their old
masters, all might yet be well. In some localities
systematic attempts were made to persuade the
blacks that their best interest lay in harmony with
the native whites ;* but the results were pathetically
1 Cf. Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, I., 420-
Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 180; Eckenrode, Va. during
Reconstruction, 74 et seq.
1 868] THE SOUTH 115
insignificant. To the emancipated race all the as
tounding changes of the recent wonder years had
come through other sources, and the vague but in
toxicating delights of political privilege must, they
felt, be enjoyed under the same auspices that had
brought them freedom, schools, and the unlimited in
dulgence of those weird emotions which they called J
religion.
But it was not unguided instinct alone that kept
the blacks apart politically from the native whites.
From the Union soldiers, from the northern mission
aries and school-teachers, and from bureau agents
of every grade the freedmen had heard proclaimed
for years now, in all the changes from mysterious
allusion to intemperate asseveration, the virtues of
the Union and Republican party which controlled
the North, and the vices and heresies of the Demo
crats which had brought ruin to the South. With
out a clear comprehension as to what it all meant,
the mass of the freedmen were sure that they must
be Union men and Republicans.
The way to this result had been diligently pre
pared, before enfranchisement became a fact, by
Union or Loyal Leagues organized in numbers in the
South. These societies, originating during the war
as agencies for the promotion of the Union cause
among the southern whites, devoted their energies
after the end of hostilities to the aid of the radical
projects of reconstruction. By the time the con
gressional policy was matured, the membership of
n6 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
the leagues had become predominantly negro, and
under cover of the secret and oath-bound organiza
tion, with awe-inspiring rites and ceremonial, the
new voters were duly trained for their political
activity by the few whites who were in control. 1
In the first elections under the reconstruction acts
the leagues were the chief factors in giving coherence
and efficiency to the majority party. And when,
later, Union Republican or radical organizations
were formally constituted in each of the states, it
was often hard to tell just where the Union League
ended and the regular party began.
The party, then, which triumphed in the making
of the constitutions, and which looked forward to
a further triumph in their ratification, consisted
chiefly of freedmen, led by a small number of north
ern whites the detested "carpet-baggers." With
these were united a body of native whites the
even more detested "scalawags" who were either
war-time Unionists animated by still undiminished
hatred of the ex-Confederates, or "reconstructed"
rebels who had given up the fight against the con
gressional policy, whether from sincere conviction
that such course was for the best or from a longing
for the good things of office which were obviously
to be expected only from the radical party.
The opposition to this party was generally desig
nated as the conservatives, though the name Demo-
1 For the ritual of the Union League and facts about its activity,
see Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, II., chap. vii.
1 868] THE~ SOUTH 117
crats became also a common and sufficiently accu
rate title. In it were included the great mass of
the white political population, with a sprinkling of
negroes too scanty in numbers to serve any purpose
save that of illustrating from time to time the claim
of the more optimistic whites that some headway
was being made against the radical control of the
freedmen. In the demoralization produced by the
reconstruction acts and by the vigorous and ag
gressive activity of the military commanders, the
conservatives failed to make much impression on
the elections for constitutional conventions. But
by the time the work of the conventions came before
the electorates for ratification, an energetic policy
of opposition had been organized by the conserva
tives in every state. The various specific features
of the new constitutions afforded abundant oppor
tunity for the usual kind of electioneering discus
sion; but the dominant tone in the campaign was
that which sounded with defiant resonance in the
resolutions of conservative conventions touching the
relations of the races. Witness the reference in
Louisiana to the "lapse of Caucasian civilization into
African barbarism"; the Mississippi denunciation of
the "nefarious design" of the Republicans to "de
grade the Caucasian race as the inferiors of the
African negro"; and the unequivocal declaration
in South Carolina that "the white people of our
state will never quietly submit to negro rule." *
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1868, pp. 432, 511, 697.
n8 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
But the hand of the national military authority
was too strong upon the states to permit of con
servative success in the first elections. Only in
Mississippi was ratification of the new constitution
defeated by a majority of the votes cast. In Ala
bama, ratification failed ; but the conservatives
achieved this end by systematic abstention from vot
ing. The registration in the state was about 170,-
ooo ; the vote was, for ratification, 70,812; against,
1005: thus the total vote was less than half the
total registration. 1 With a purpose to insure that
the new constitutions should never be called into
question as not emanating from the people of the
state, Congress had decreed in the reconstruction
acts that ratification should be valid only in case a
majority of the registered voters took part in the
election. After the disagreeable result in Alaba
ma, this requirement was repealed, 2 and other steps
were taken to facilitate the restoration of the states.
It was enacted, for example, that state officers under
the new constitutions might be voted for at the
same time with the vote on ratification. Through
this provision the radicals secured very important
advantages in the elections, 3 and during the spring
of 1868 the new constitutions were ratified and state
executives and legislatures chosen in Arkansas, the
two Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana.
1 Cf. Fleming, Reconstruction in Ala., 538 et seq.
3 Act of March xi, 1868, McPherson, Reconstruction, 336.
3 Dunning, Essays, 203 et seq.
i868] THE SOUTH 119
Congress, with a promptness that was not unin
fluenced by the exigencies of the impeachment trial
then in progress and of the approaching presidential
elections, took up and pressed to passage statutes
restoring the six states to representation ; l and in
the partisan zeal and triumph of the moment Ala
bama was restored with the rest and saddled with
the constitution which had failed of ratification in
the elections. This proceeding, by which the Ala
bama conservatives were unceremoniously deprived
of the fruits of the victory which their astute policy
had brought them, was not the least high-handed
and unscrupulous of the acts through which Thad-
deus Stevens and his extremist followers won dubi
ous distinction in this strenuous time.
Virginia and Texas failed to complete the fram
ing and ratification of their constitutions in time to
be passed upon by Congress during the summer of
1868 ; and, with Mississippi, these two remained under
military government for some time longer. In the
other seven states the governments chosen at the
elections in the spring were duly installed and mili
tary government was withdrawn. In each of the
seven except Georgia, the radicals made a pretty
clean sweep in the elections and gained a firm con
trol of all branches of the state government. In the
delegations sent to Congress, also, the conservatives
1 The act restoring Arkansas became law June 22, 1868, and
that restoring the other six states June 25, 1868; sketch of their
parliamentary history in McPherson, Reconstruction, 337.
120 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
had little representation. The most rasping feat
ure of the new situation to the old white element
of the South was the large predominance of north
erners and negroes in all the positions of political
power. Thus, for the states restored in 1868, ten
of the fourteen United States senators, twenty of
the thirty-five representatives, and four 1 of the
seven governors were men whose first acquaintance
with their constituencies was made during or af
ter the war. 2 The great majority of these carpet
baggers had served in the Union army or in the
treasury department. Many had established bona
fide residences in the South, but few had acquired
much property.
In the subordinate offices of the state and local
governments, except the judiciary, the carpet-bag
element was less conspicuous in proportion, and the
negro and scalawag element assumed chief prom
inence. The highest offices secured at this time by
the blacks were lieutenant-governor in Louisiana
and secretary of state in South Carolina. Every
legislature contained a substantial negro delegation,
and in South Carolina the black members .numbered
eighty-eight, the whites but sixty-seven. 3
The hostility with which the radicals were re-
1 Not including Governor Bullock, of Georgia, who went there
from the North in 1859.
3 These figures are derived from biographical information in
Poore, Political Register and Cong. Directory, and in the mono
graphs of Fleming, Reynolds, Hamilton, Garner, and Woolley,
3 Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C. t 108.
1 868] THE SOUTH 121
garded by the conservatives had, of course, a very
strong justification on other grounds than those of
alienage and race. The utter lack of financial re
sponsibility among the new political leaders was
established by statistics that, with all allowance
for exaggeration, were exceedingly suggestive. The
term "carpet-bagger" in its origin expressed the
general feeling, and in large measure the fact, so
far as the alien whites were concerned; a few were
men of substance, bent on settling in the South,
but most were of the limited possessions and un
stable future which were symbolized by the car
pet-bag. The negroes were, of course, very ill-sup
plied with this world s goods. The members of the
South Carolina legislature of 1868 are said to have
paid altogether but $635.23 of taxes, 91 of the 165
members paying none whatever. 1 In Alabama the
total taxes paid by legislators were estimated at less
than $100. 2
The inevitable extra-legal protest of the former
political people against their subjection to the f reed-
men and northerners was manifesting itself in many
places by the time the seven states were restored in
1868. Pari passu with the organization of the f reed-
men in Union Leagues the whites of various locali
ties formed bands for purposes sometimes of defence
from, sometimes of aggression upon, the blacks. 3
1 Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C., 108.
2 Fleming, Reconstruction in Ala., 739.
3 Cf. Brown, Lower South in Am. History, 192 et seq.
122 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
The membership of these bands was generally re
cruited from the less sober and substantial classes
of the whites, and their activity consisted in pro
ceedings designed to terrify or coerce the freedmen
into conduct that should manifest respect for the
persons and property of the superior race. With
the approach of negro enfranchisement, however,
the white societies were transformed in member
ship, spirit, and purpose. The deep dread of negro
domination under the auspices of invincible national
power impelled thousands of serious and respectable
whites to look for some means of mitigation, if not
complete salvation, in the methods of the secret
societies. In the spring of 1867 elaborate organi
zations were effected by the Ku-Klux Klan, or In
visible Empire, at Nashville, and the Knights of
the White Camelia at New Orleans. 1 The explicit
purpose of these organizations was to preserve the
social and political ascendency of the white race.
The means to be employed are not dilated upon in
the documents of the societies that have come to
light; but many other records of the reconstruction
time indicate that the means were of but slight con
sequence compared with the end, in the minds of
those who made the names of the societies of such
ominous significance throughout the land.
The operations of the Ku-Klux were conspicuous
1 Constitutions and rituals of these two orders, with illustra
tive material, in Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction,
II., chap, xii., esp. pp. 347, 349, 351.
1 868] THE SOUTH 123
features, in the South, of the presidential elections
of 1868. Reports of the proceedings through which
both blacks and whites were visited with the wrath
of the secret orders for supporting the radicals ex
cited wide-spread interest and comment. The chief
of the Invisible Empire became alarmed at the spirit
and proportions of the association which he headed,
and in 1869 sent forth the order to disband it; 1 but
though he surrendered his functions, the local so
cieties long continued to employ familiar methods
in asserting the supremacy of their race. The moral
suasion to which the leaders would limit the move
ment against the radicals never ceased to be sup
plemented by the merciless physical suasion in which
rested the confidence of the, rank and file.
1 Lester and Wilson, Ku-Klux llan (edited by Fleming), 128.
The editor s introduction gives fuller details.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ELECTION OF GRANT
(1868)
THE failure of the radicals in impeachment and
their success in effecting the restoration of most
of the rebel states both had intimate relations with
the initial stages of the presidential campaign of
1868. The Republican nominating convention met
at Chicago, May 20, four days after the first vote
acquitting the president; and July 4, nine days
after the passage of the act restoring the six
southern states to representation, the Democratic
convention assembled at New York. By the fail
ure to remove Johnson from office, the radical ex
tremists were in a certain measure discredited, and
in particular the aspirations of Senator Wade _to a
place on the ticket were thwarted. 1 Through the
completion of reconstruction in most of the states,
the party which was responsible for it could go into
the electoral campaign with all the advantage which
accrues in times of political crisis from the accom
plished fact, regardless of the manner and means of
its accomplishment. On July 20, in consequence
1 Cf. McClure. Our President* and How Wi Make Them, 210.
i868j ELECTION OF GRANT 125
of the ratifications of the newly restored common
wealths, the Fourteenth Amendment was proclaimed
in force, 1 and thus one more formidable obstacle was
raised up in the way of any reactionary movement
by the Democrats.
During the year preceding the presidential cam
paign of 1868 the prospect of such a radical victory
as that in 1866 was dimmed by the trend of affairs
in the North. The state elections of 1867 resulted in
important Democratic gains. 2 Negro suffrage was
apparently not in favor in the radical strongholds
of the West ; for constitutional amendments enfran
chising the blacks were rejected by popular votes
in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Kansas.* But, to
counterbalance the adverse state of popular opinion
on the suffrage question, the Republicans could count
upon the very certain party advantage which had
accrued from the completion of reconstruction. Of
the seven states that were restored in June, it was
confidently expected that all the electoral votes
would go to the radicals. In three of these states
Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana this end had
been striven for through far-reaching disfranchise-
ment of whites in addition to the enfranchisement
of the blacks. 4 Tennessee also had been made surely
radical by a most rigorous proscription of the ex-
1 McPherson, Reconstruction, 3 79.
*lbid., 372. *Ibid., 257, 353.
Franchise clauses of the constitutions, Ibid., 327, 329; c.
Dunning, Essays, 196.
126 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
Confederates. 1 Of the border states, Missouri and
West Virginia were in the firm grip of the radicals
by the same means. 2 And, finally, in addition to
the very substantial list of votes from the former
slave states, the Chicago nominee was assured of
three votes from Nebraska, which had been ad
mitted as a state in the spring of 1867 in spite of a
presidential veto. 3
Republican prospects were bright, moreover, from
the point of view of the predestined candidate for
the presidency. Long before the convention met,
the unanimous nomination of General Grant was
assured. His popularity in the North was universal
and overwhelming. The predilection for the mili
tary hero which had played so large a part in plac
ing Jackson, Harrison, and Taylor in the White
House centred upon Grant after Vicksburg, and
developed the utmost intensity after Appomattox.
So far as he had ever manifested any interest in
politics, he had affiliated with the Democrats; and
after the war there were evidences of a purpose in
certain Democratic leaders to claim him as their
own, and to exploit his popularity for their party s
behoof. 4 But Grant, on account of his official posi
tion as chief of the army, became inextricably in-
1 Herbert, Why the Solid South ? 190; Fertig, Secession and Re
construction in Tenn., 73.
See above, p. 8; Herbert, Why the Solid Sottih? 261, 263
et seq. a Mason, Veto Power, 152.
4 Badeau, Grant in Peace, 33.
1 868] ELECTION OF GRANT 127
volved in the political broils at Washington. He
strove conscientiously to follow the straight path
of his military duty, but he could not fully under
stand the forces which were in conflict around him,
or elude the efforts of one side or the other to profit
by the prestige of his name.
Up to the end of 1867, Grant s strong sense of
subordination to his constitutional commander-in-
chief, and the normal antipathy of the military head
of the army to the secretary of war, enabled the ad
ministration faction to claim the general as their
own and greatly to disquiet the congressional lead
ers. But in January, 1868, incidentally to the effort
of the president to keep Stanton out of the war de
partment, 1 the general managed to put himself in a
very equivocal position and became involved in an
open and violent quarrel with the president. 2 From
this time Grant s animosity towards Johnson was ex
treme and unconcealed; impeachment had no more
ardent advocate than the General of the Army. 1
Under such circumstances, the nomination of Grant
for the presidency was assured.
The completeness with which circumstances pre
determined the chief feature of the national con
vention left little serious work for the assembly at
Chicago. Of some significance was the discussion
1 See above, p. 101.
* Ant. Annual Cyclop., 1868, pp. 649 et seq., 742; Badeau,
Grant in Peace, 113; Rhodes, United States, VI., 100.
1 Badeatt, Grant in Peace, 134, 136.
VOL. xxn. 9
128 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
concerning the name of the party which the con
vention represented. A wide and deep gulf sepa
rated the organization in session from those which
nominated Lincoln in 1860 and 1864. But despite
the transformations effected by the developments of
war and reconstruction, there survived among the
delegates at Chicago a tradition of the Republican
ism of 1860 and a pride in the Unionism of 1864;
while the full representation of the southern states
gave an opportunity, wholly lacking in the previous
conventions, to cast off with ceremony the impu
tation of sectionalism. Accordingly the conven
tion adopted the name "National Union Republican
Party."
The platform 1 naturally placed first in arrange
ment and in emphasis the approval of congressional
reconstruction and the duty of leaving its results
unchanged. On negro suffrage, however, the warn
ing contained in the elections of 1867 was heeded,
and this masterpiece of evasion was presented:
"The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to
all loyal men at the South was demanded by every
consideration of public safety, of gratitude and of
justice, and must be maintained; while the question
of suffrage in all the loyal states properly belongs
to the people of those states." The questions of
finance and currency, which had been assuming
prominence for some time, were also handled gin-
1 McPherson, Reconstruction, 364; Stan wood, Hist, of the
Presidency, 318.
1 868] ELECTION OF GRANT 129
gerly in the platform. There appeared very clearly
the desire to please the circles of high finance in
the East without unduly antagonizing the " green
back" sentiment which was obviously a serious ele
ment of popular opinion in the West. As a whole,
the Republican position in the campaign, as infer
able from both platform and nominations, was that
of asking for the voter s approval of what had been
achieved in reconstruction, without any committal
to a definite future policy on any issue whatever.
Speaker Coif ax, indeed, who secured the nomina
tion for the vice-presidency, was known to be of
advanced ideas on negro suffrage ; but the key-note
of the campaign was the concluding sentence in
Grant s letter of acceptance: "Let us have peace." *
In the Democracy there was much difference of
opinion as to the proper policy for the approaching
campaign. Unterrified by the decisive manifesta
tion of northern sentiment in 1866, a large element
in the party was confident that another fight on
reconstruction would have a different outcome, es
pecially if the personality of Andrew Johnson should
be eliminated from the situation. On the other
hand, a group of the more conservative leaders were
disposed to put less emphasis on the undoing of the
work already completed by Congress, and wished to
signalize the reunion of the wings that had sepa
rated in 1 860 by a solemn consecration of the reunited
Democracy to its traditional doctrines strict con-
1 McPherson, Reconstruction, 365.
130 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
struction, tariff for revenue, hard money, and, in
general, the interests of the masses as against the
classes. By this element of the party the possibility
of Chief -Justice Chase as a candidate was seriously
entertained. Chase was still possessed by the con
viction which for twenty years had influenced his
political activity, that he was particularly well quali
fied to be a successful candidate for the presidency.
He permitted his friends to canvass the chances of
his nomination by the Republicans at Chicago, and
quickly discovered that his known dislike of many
features of radical reconstruction rendered his
chances nil. In response to the inquiry of leading
Democrats, whether he would permit his name to be
presented to the convention at New York, he signi
fied a willingness to lead a reorganized Democracy,
provided the party would indorse negro suffrage.
This reply, noble in its candor but quixotic in
its implications, practically put Chase out of the
running. 1
The radical spirits of the Democracy demanded
such action by the convention as should declare
relentless war on the work of the radical Congress.
A priori, President Johnson would be the logical can
didate; and he was eager for the nomination. But
Johnson s availability as a campaign leader had
been decisively tested in 1866, and his confidential
agent at New York, just before the convention met,
accurately reported that while everybody was prais-
1 Hart, Chase, 363 et seq.
i868] ELECTION OF GRANT 131
ing the president s courage and devotion to the Con
stitution, no one showed much disposition to nomi
nate him. 1 Much more to the taste of the radical
wing of the party was General Francis P. Blair, Jr.,
an energetic representative of the famous family
which had so profoundly influenced politics from the
days of Andrew Jackson down. The Blairs, in their
confidential relations with Johnson, had persistently
urged him on to extreme measures in his dealings with
Congress; 2 and the general, in a published letter of
June 30, i868, 3 addressed to J. O. Brodhead, round
ly declared that it would be the duty of the Demo
cratic candidate, if elected president, to abolish by
force the governments set up in the southern states,
treat the reconstruction acts as void, and restore the
situation which existed prior to their enactment.
The Blair idea at one extreme alienated as many
thoughtful and cautious Democrats as did the Chase
idea at the other. One result was that, when the
convention met, the greatest strength was displayed
by a faction which was devoted to relegating the
issues of reconstruction to a subordinate position
and putting in the front a financial issue. The
demand that certain of the bonds should be paid at
maturity in greenbacks rather than gold 4 had been
strongly and ably urged in the West, especially
1 Cooper to Johnson, July 3, 1868, in MS., Johnson Papers.
2 The Johnson Papers abound in evidence of this.
3 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1868, p. 746.
4 See below, p. 139.
I 3 2 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
by George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, the admired leader
of the Democracy of that state. When the conven
tion met at New York, the Pendleton men were far
more numerous than the supporters of any other
one candidate for the nomination, but fell much
short of the number necessary for a choice. To the
eastern leaders, however, the greenback issue was
very distasteful, as likely, if given too much em
phasis, to alienate many votes in the election ; and
the opposition to Pendleton, especially among the
New York delegates, was very strong.
Under all the circumstances, the outcome of the
convention at New York was entirely uncertain at
the beginning, and its proceedings had none of the
cut-and-dried character of the Republican assembly.
The platform adopted by the Democrats * mani
fested the dominance of the Pendleton element
rather than the Blair extremists. On the issues of
reconstruction the resolutions embodied, indeed, a
fierce arraignment of the congressional proceedings
and an indorsement of President Johnson, with the
explicit declaration that the reconstruction acts,
"so called," were " unconstitutional, revolutionary
and void." But nothing explicit was said as to
what ought to be done under the circumstances;
and the only positive demands made were that all
the states should be immediately restored to their
rights, that amnesty should be granted for political
offences, and that the question of the franchise should
1 McPherson, Reconstruction, 367.
i868] ELECTION OF GRANT 133
be left to the states. On the financial issue, on the
other hand, there was a straightforward declaration
that government bonds ought to be subject to taxa
tion, and that the interest on certain classes of them
ought in right and justice to be paid in "lawful
money" rather than coin.
The triumph of the Pendleton men in the plat
form was followed by their failure in the nomina
tion. After twenty-one ballots had revealed that
the cause of their favorite was hopeless, and when
the New York leaders were preparing to bring for
ward Chase to take advantage of the deadlock, the
Ohio delegation, by a dramatic coup, cast their votes
for Horatio Seymour, who was presiding over the
convention. Despite his peremptory refusal to be
a candidate, the delegates turned en masse to Sey
mour, and he was nominated unanimously. 1 Hav
ing triumphed on the main point, the moderates
readily conceded to the extremists the naming of
the vice-presidential candidate, and the choice went
speedily to General Blair. Seymour, after a period
of doubtful consideration, withdrew his refusal to
accept the nomination, and entered a campaign of
whose happy issue he had little expectation.
The result of the voting in November proved, how
ever, to be less discouraging to the Democracy than
had been anticipated. Grant was elected by 214
electoral votes against 80, carrying twenty-six out
of thirty-four states, and he had a majority of three
1 Rhodes, United States, VI., 167.
134 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
hundred thousand in the popular vote. Of the
fifteen former slave states, eight North Carolina,
South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Ten
nessee, West Virginia, and Missouri went Repub
lican. But it was evident on analysis that the
Republican majorities in these were due chiefly to
the disfranchisement of ex-Confederates. A very
strong and growing sentiment against this pro
scription of the whites existed in the Republican
party itself, and was bound soon to prevail; where
upon the reversion of all the southern and border
states to the Democracy seemed very probable.
With this substantial foundation, the securing of
enough northern states, four or eight years later,
to insure a presidential victory for the Democrats
was by no means a hopeless task; for Seymour car
ried New York, New Jersey, and Oregon, and was
dangerously near his competitor in California, Con
necticut, and Indiana. 1
The Republicans were as keenly awake to this
situation as were their adversaries, and it furnished
the main issue on which the factions within the
successful party divided in Grant s administration.
The radicals urged a policy which should, by all
the power of the national government, maintain
the hold of the Republicans on the South ; the mod
erates favored a relinquishment of southern issues
as soon as the work of reconstruction should have
been completed, and a recourse to policies of ad-
^cPherson, Reconstruction, 499.
1 868] ELECTION OF GRANT 135
ministration and finance that would enable the
party to commend itself to an overwhelming ma
jority in the North. But certain features of the
election of 1868 in the South united all elements of
the successful party in a far-reaching assertion of
power over the franchise. Seymour and Blair re
ceived heavy majorities in Georgia and Louisiana.
It was charged that this result was largely due to
organized and ruthless proceedings by the whites to.
suppress or nullify the negro vote, and investiga
tions disclosed much violence, especially in Louis
iana. 1 The Knights of the White Camelia mani
fested their purpose and methods in Louisiana
without much reserve, and the Ku-Klux were active
not only in Georgia, but also in Tennessee and north
ern Alabama. Whatever doubt was felt by mod
erate Republicans about disfranchisement of the
southern whites, there was none as to the policy of
maintaining what had been achieved in enfranchis
ing the blacks. Accordingly, the party stood solid
ly together in support of the Fifteenth Amendment,
which was proposed in the session of Congress that
followed the election.
1 Elaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 410; Senate Exec. Docs.,
40 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 15; House Misc. Does., 41 Cong., 2 Sess.,
No. 154.
CHAPTER IX
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STATE OF THE
NATION
(1865-1869)
THE financial and economic condition of the
country at the close of the year 1868 was well
adapted to promote the era of prosperity which
the apparent termination of intense political strife
brought to every one s attention. Both the purely
speculative and the really substantial elements of
wealth-making progress were active. It was felt
by many conservative men that the speculative
factors were unduly prominent, and that sound
development was impossible without important
changes in the system of currency and national
finance; but the prevailing tone of popular feeling
after the election was optimistic, and this spirit was
manifest in all phases of industrial activity.
The readjustment of the national finances after
the tension of the war had ceased was seriously im
peded by the political conflict about reconstruction.
President Johnson had little interest in finance, and
even less knowledge of the subject, and accordingly
the policy of the administration was left entirely
i86s] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 137
to Secretary McCulloch. 1 The conditions with which
he was called upon to deal were full of difficulties.
The national debt amounted, October 31, 1865, to
something over two billion eight hundred million
dollars, in the great variety of forms which the stress
of war had made inevitable. 2 Legal-tender treasury
notes to the amount of four hundred and twenty-
eight million dollars were the chief element in the
currency of the country, though there was much
doubt as to whether their legal-tender quality would
be held constitutional. Taxation was enormously
high, and applied to practically every available sub
ject known to fiscal usage. The great problems be
fore the treasury and Congress, therefore, were the
reorganization and speediest possible reduction of the
debt, the re-establishment of a specie currency, and
the curtailment of the revenue as rapidly as the
waning military expenses would permit.
Of these problems, the secretary believed that the
elimination of the legal-tender notes (greenbacks)
from the currency was of the first importance. All
the insidious and far-reaching evils of an irredeem
able paper money he felt were already manifest in
the United States: the notes were greatly depre
ciated, and prices of all commodities were corre
spondingly inflated; gold was at a premium, and
1 McCulloch, Men and Measures, 377; John Sherman, Recol
lections, I., 384.
"Sec. of Treas., Report, in House Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., i Sess.,
o. 3, p. 17; cf. Dewey, Financial Hist, of the U. S., 332.
138 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
the daily fluctuations of this premium, operating on
prices, brought uncertainty into every department
of commerce and industry. 1 McCulloch s belief in
prompt and radical measures for getting back to a
specie currency was widely shared by all classes of
the people, and was acted upon by Congress. By
a law of April 12, 1866, the secretary was authorized
to retire the legal-tender notes at a limited rate,
and under this authorization the amount outstanding
was reduced during the next two years to three
hundred and fifty-six million dollars. But during
that time a variety of circumstances, among which
the general hostility to Johnson s administration
played no minor part, 2 created violent opposition
to the policy of the treasury, and by act of Feb
ruary 4, 1868, Congress prohibited any further con
traction of the currency. 3
The original acquiescence in the movement for im
mediate resumption of specie payments was part
and parcel of the feeling which won general support
at the outset for Johnson s plan of restoring the
states. Paper money, like disorganized states, was
looked upon as an evil but unavoidable concomitant
of the war, to be got rid of by prompt and summary
action when the war had ceased. The reversal of
policy as to resumption demonstrated that no more
1 The market price of gold during Johnson s administration
ranged as follows, disregarding fractions: 1865, 128 to 234; 1866,
124 to 167; 1867, 132 to 146; 1868, 132 to 150.
8 Cf. Elaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II. , 332.
8 Dewey, Financial Hist, of the U. 5., 340, 343.
i868] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 139
in finance than in constitutional law and politics
was the restoration of the status quo ante to be a
simple operation after so long and desperate a civil
conflict.
Much of the opposition to McCulloch s policy was
directed against his means and method, rather than
against the end in view. Thus Senator John Sher
man, who was just assuming the high position in
public finance which he was to occupy for a gen
eration, strongly condemned the immediate retire
ment of the greenbacks, though he professed the
deepest interest in the resumption of specie pay
ments. 1 His contention was that the country need
ed all the currency it had, and that sudden contrac
tion, with resultant decline of prices, would bring
panic and general depression. This plea for abun
dant currency, taken up in a spirit different from
Sherman s, was the basis of the "greenback" move
ment which was so prominent in the politics of 1868.
If the temporary continuance of the legal-tenders
was a good thing, their permanent continuance, it
was argued, would be a better thing. If they had
saved the nation from disruption by rebels, they
would have equal power to save it from oppression
,by the speculators who controlled the precious
metals. On these lines all the familiar sophistry
was developed by which in many another place and
generation the fiat of government has been proved
1 For his opinions and arguments, see John Sherman, Recol
lections, I., chap. xvii.
I 4 o RECONSTRUCTION [1866
a good substitute for intrinsic value as the basis for
a currency. 1
More plausible and attractive to the popular ear
than the abstract theory about standards of value
were the arguments from certain concrete conditions
in the national finances. While greenbacks must by
law be accepted in all the transactions in which the
mass of the people were concerned, gold could be de
manded by holders of some of the government bonds
in payment of both interest and principal. It jarred
on sensitive Democratic nerves that the man to
whom fifty dollars was due as wages or as interest
on a mortgage must take just that sum in green
backs, while he who received fifty dollars in interest
on a government bond could at once transform his
gold into seventy-five dollars in paper. Between
bondholders and the rest of tbe people there seemed
an iniquitous discrimination. Hence the demand
of the Democratic platform of 1868: "One currency
for the Government and the people, the laborer and
the office holder, the pensioner and the soldier, the
producer and the bondholder "; hence also the de
mand that in every case where the law of issue did
not specifically provide for the payment of gold, the
government s bonds should be redeemed in green
backs.
With an unstable currency and disorganized
1 For a clever exposition of the greenback theory in its com-
pletest form, see speech of B. F. Butler, Cong. Globe, 40 Cong.,
3 Sess., 303.
1869] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 141
finances no commercial or industrial enterprise, how
ever legitimate, could escape an enormous burden
of risk. Hence, throughout Johnson s term there
was everywhere manifest that speculative spirit to
which the hazards and vicissitudes of the war had
given the original impulse. The spirit was in some
measure fostered by the state of the national rev
enue system. Sooner or later a great reduction of
the frightfully burdensome war taxes was to be an
ticipated. When it would come and what it would
immediately affect were questions of vital import
to industry and commerce. During Johnson s term
the decrease of taxation that the condition of the
treasury permitted was effected wholly in the in
ternal revenue, the receipts from this source falling
from about three hundred and eleven million dollars
in 1866, to one hundred and sixty million dollars in
I869. 1 The facility with which this end was at
tained was in considerable measure due to the reso
lute hostility with which the ultra-protectionists of
the majority of Congress met every suggestion of a
reduction in the tariff. Secretary McCulloch s an
ticipation of a reversion to the ante-bellum system
of a purely revenue tariff 2 was but another of those
conservative dreams, like immediate resumption of
specie payments and immediate restoration of state-
rights, that sprang from inability or unwillingness
1 Dewey, Financial Hist, of the U. S., 395.
2 Sec. of Treas., Report, in House Exec. Docs., 40 Cong., 3 Sess..
No. 2, p. xvi.
142 RECONSTRUCTION [1859
to appreciate the far-reaching revolution which the
war had effected in the whole national character
and ideals.
The speculative or gambling spirit in business was
fostered not only by the general condition of the
national finances, but also by certain notable facts
in the development of natural resources just at this
period. Petroleum in Pennsylvania, and the pre
cious metals in the Rocky Mountains, were at the
height of their spectacular potency in the sudden
making and unmaking of great fortunes. Both oil-
wells and Rocky Mountain mines had become active
elements in economic life just before the outbreak of
the war, and a marked increase of this activity was
coincident with the end of hostilities. 1 Great num
bers of adventurous spirits, for whom the life most
suited to their taste was ended by the disbandment
of the army, found the best available substitute in
the exciting pursuit of the fortune that came to him
who could "strike oil," or in the hard and perilous
search for gold among the mountains of Montana
and Idaho.
Though the more risky and irregular phases of
national progress were thus very conspicuous, the
solid basis of prosperity was seen in the steady and
substantial development of established agricultural
and manufacturing enterprises. The great crops
which were the chief index of economic welfare were
1 Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War (Am. Nation, XXI.), 355;
Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Co., chap. i.
1 868] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 143
in 1867 and 1868 altogether satisfactory in bulk
and value. Cotton, of course, was not yet nearly re
stored to the place it held before the war ; in view of
the social and political conditions in the South, the
commissioner of agriculture regarded it as remark
able that in 1868 the yield was half what it had
been in I859. 1 The value of the crop, owing to the
very high price, was about the same as that in 1859,
and cotton held its old place far in the lead of all
our exports. Wheat and corn, the great food crops
of the country, showed progress and prosperity in
the granary of the nation the Mississippi Valley.
Very significant was the now pronounced movement
westward of the centre of wheat production. The
proportion of the crop that came from west of the
Mississippi was, in 1859, but fourteen per cent, of
the total; in 1868 it was thirty per cent. 2 Min
nesota, Iowa, and California were responsible for
most of this increase, and this fact stands in close
relation to what proved to be the dominant factor
in the era of enterprise which moved rapidly to its
culmination after 1868. To keep pace with the
development of resources, agricultural in the nearer
and mineral in the farther West, and to bring the
products of these regions into the markets of the
older states, required an enormous expansion of
facilities in transportation. The Northwest became
the chief field of an extravagant railroad develop-
1 Commissioner of Agric., Report, 40 Cong., 3 Sess. 3.
Ubid., 17.
VOL. XXII. TO
~I44 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
ment, which affected all other parts of the country
as well, and which influenced profoundly the prog
ress, both speculative and substantial, of the agri
cultural and the manufacturing industry of the na
tion. The mileage of new lines constructed in the
whole country amounted, in 1865, to only 819. In
1869 it was 4102; and in 1872 it reached the amaz
ing total of 7439. 1
A determining stimulus to this form of enterprise
was given by the progress and completion of the
first transcontinental line. It was universally recog
nized that the Pacific railway was a work of the
utmost political importance that its utility in
guaranteeing the territorial integrity of the Union
far outweighed any consideration as to its financial
success. Its construction, moreover, in part at a
rate never before thought possible, involved en
gineering and labor problems of great magnitude
and complexity, the solution of which excited wide
spread public interest. With good reason, there
fore, the progress of the work from year to year was
followed with keen attention. The Union Pacific
builders, working westward from Omaha, having
only 40 miles finished at the end of 1865, added
some 250 miles in each of the next two years, and
then, in 1868, with a great burst of energy, added
425 miles, and placed themselves within 125 miles
of the end of their line. The Central Pacific, work
ing from Sacramento eastward, made but slow prog-
1 U. S. Census of 1880, Transportation, 290.
1869] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 145
ress till the Sierra Nevada had been surmounted;
but then, in 1868, added 363 miles to the record,
leaving 186 to bring it to the junction-point. On
May 10, 1869, the meeting of the lines at Promontory
Point, near Ogden, Utah, was effected with elabo
rate ceremony, and the event was signalized by
justifiable jubilation all over the land from Boston
to San Francisco. 1
The glamour of romance and adventure that hung
over the process of carrying a railroad line through
1775 miles of desert country, overrun by supposedly
dangerous animals and unquestionably dangerous
men, veiled in great measure many sordid features of
the enterprise, which were destined later to make its
name one of ill-repute. To insure the construction
of the road, Congress enlisted private enterprise by
heavy subsidies. For the main line, which was to run
exclusively through territories of the United States,
from Omaha to the California boundary, a corpora
tion was created the Union Pacific Railroad Com
pany to which was given: (i) a right of way through
the public domain; (2) twenty sections of land along
side each mile of road; (3) a loan of bonds of the
United States to an amount not in excess of fifty
million dollars, secured by a second mortgage on the
property. 2 Similar subsidies were granted also to
a number of state corporations for the construction
1 For details, see Davis, Union Pacific Railway, chap. v.
2 Acts of 1862 and 1864, U. S. Statutes at Large, XIL, 489;
XIII., 356.
I 4 6 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
of lines to connect with the Union Pacific and in
sure unbroken communication between the Mis
sissippi River and the western ocean. The vast
financial projects in which the government thus be
came involved called for frequent action by Congress
and for continuous supervision by the administration.
The financiers who directed the actual work of con
struction undertook from time to time to insure that
their interests should not be postponed to those of the
government, and the result was the scandal that is
associated with the Credit Mobilier. 1
The progress of the Pacific line across the plains
led to great social and economic changes through
out the vast region between the Missouri and Cali
fornia. A ribbon of settlements along the line of
the road, through Nebraska and beyond, was the
most immediate and obvious, but far from the most
important, result. In the mining communities of
Montana and Idaho, hundreds of miles to the north,
and of Colorado and New Mexico, as far to the south
of the line, the actuality of a railway across the
mountains added the stimulus of potential benefits
to a life that was never lacking in the allurements
of hope. Numerous branches to tap the country
on both sides of the main line formed part of the
general scheme of the Union Pacific, and parallel
trunk lines to the north and to the south of the
original line were already chartered. 2 Thus the
1 See below, p. 232.
Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War (Am. Nation, XXL), 133.
1 868] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 147
various territories created during the war, as a
result of the discoveries of gold and silver in the
Rocky Mountains, all felt the influence of the great
enterprise. A new territory, Wyoming, organized
by act of July 25, 1868, was practically a product
of the Union Pacific, no settlement of consequence
having existed within its limits till the construction
of the road reached it in I867. 1
To the aborigines of the plains the building of the
railway brought a climax of the unrest which first
came with the irruption of gold -seekers into the
mountains. The great nation of the Sioux, irri
tated by the establishment of a route to Montana
through their lands, broke out into fierce hostility,
put under close siege the military posts which
were intended to protect the route, and on Decem
ber 21, 1866, annihilated a detachment of troops
under Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman at Fort Philip
Kearny. 2 The conflagration spread to the southward,
where the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, of Colorado
and Kansas, only recently pacified, spread havoc
and terror among the scattered ranches and mail
stations of a wide region. All the operations of
railroad building in Nebraska had to be carried on
under military protection, and the engineers and
workmen, many of whom had served in the war,
were often called upon to exchange the peaceful
theodolite, pick, and shovel for the ever-ready rifle. 3
1 Cf. Am. Annual Cyclop., 1868, p. 727. *Ibid., 1867, p. 401.
3 Cf. Davis, Union Pacific Railway, 140, and paper there quoted.
i 4 8 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
Extensive operations by the army in 1867 failed to
bring decisive results. Sheridan, Hancock, Gib
bon, Augur, and Custer, campaigning against the
squalid bands of painted warriors, added nothing
to the laurels gained in the shock of great armies.
A peace commission, constituted by a statute of
July 20, 1867,* succeeded in the following summer
in making arrangements with the principal hostile
tribes ; but the chief influence in bringing the Sioux
to terms was the abandonment of the posts in
their territory which had originally roused their ire.
The progress of the railway westward contributed
most to this, by rendering available a route to
Montana to which the Indians raised no objection.*
While all the manifold interests associated with
the transportation industry west of the Mississippi
were centred about the construction of a single rail
road that should make a direct connection with
the Pacific, the problem east of the Mississippi was
chiefly that of piecing out, correlating, and con
solidating a multitude of independent roads into a
group of trunk lines between the Mississippi and the
Atlantic. It was between 1865 and 1869 that the
name of Vanderbilt first became of significance in
railroad enterprise. By the union of the Hudson
River road with the New York Central, in 1868, a
1 U. S. Statutes at Large, XV., 17.
3 For this whole Indian matter, see Indian Commission, Report,
in Sec. of Interior, Report, 1868-1869, p. 486; Am. Annual Cyclop.,
1867 and 1868, arts. Indian War.
1869] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 149
new and powerful through line between the sea
board and the Great Lakes was developed, to com
pete with the Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the Balti
more & Ohio for the traffic across the Appalachians.
From that event dated a long and ardent rivalry
among these great corporations in extending their
direct lines to Chicago and St. Louis, and in absorb
ing or rendering dependent a host of lesser com
panies. Denunciation of monopoly was promptly
and loudly directed against the strong men who
carried through these enterprises; nor did they, in
fact, omit any device of shifty and ruthless finan
ciering when serious opposition was to be overcome.
But the beneficial results of consolidation were many
and obvious. Under unified management barbarous
and costly features of primitive railroading that had
lasted through the war-time disappeared forever.
So long as the idea survived that the chief function
of the railway was to supplement water transporta
tion, terminal points of the lines were often at con
siderable distances from important business centres,
connection being completed by steamboats. These
gaps were now filled ; transshipment of freight and
passengers at connecting points of short railway
lines was continually reduced in frequency and In
convenience; and the era of "through-line" traffic
on a large scale between the Atlantic coast and the
Mississippi was fairly inaugurated.
The social and economic movements with which
this railroad development was in close relations of
-150 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
both cause and effect were of profound significance
and were noticeable in even the earliest stage of the
process. Among them were the drift of population
in the East to the great terminal cities, the build
ing up of the northwestern states through the re
vived immigration from Europe, 1 and the struggle
for popular or governmental control over the man
agement of the roads. That it was only the north
ern East and the northern West which the growing
trunk lines united and stimulated was too much a
matter of course to excite attention or interest.
The ruined and prostrate region below Mason and
Dixon s line offered scant attraction to capital or
enterprise, and great north-and-south through lines
were left for another generation to create.
1 The annual number of immigrants had fallen during the war
to a little over 100,000 (112,702 in 1861); in 1868 it was 326,232.
CHAPTER X
A CRITICAL PERIOD IN FOREIGN RELATIONS
(1865-1873)
THE problems of internal readjustment after the
war were large and difficult enough to justify
every effort to escape foreign complications. Two
aspects of public sentiment in the North conspired,
however, to render the period following the close of
hostilities one of grave tension and great activity
in diplomacy. The most serious factor was the
universal resentment felt towards France and Great
Britain on account of the course of their govern
ments during the war. Louis Napoleon and the
leading English politicians had, as Lord Salisbury
once cynically phrased it, put their money on the
wrong horse in that conflict; they had staked much
on the success of the Confederacy, and they had
lost. The settlement that was due they sought to
evade, or at least postpone, while a powerful element
of American opinion, confident in the resources and
reputation of a successful army and navy, demanded
an immediate and even a humiliating submission.
Closely involved with this influence was that of
the never extinct yearning in the United States for
152 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
territorial expansion. While the Civil War con-
vinced the more thoughtful and cautious politicians
that managing the territory already possessed was
a sufficient task for human energy, the mass of the
people, especially in the growing Northwest, still
manifested that craving for bigness which had
stretched the boundaries before the war. So far
from finding reason for hesitation in the loss and
burden of the terrible conflict, they boasted with
endless iteration that they had quelled the "great
est rebellion in history," and that to a people with
such a record no limit of achievement could be
fixed.
It happened that Secretary Seward, in whose
hands, almost exclusively, the direction of foreign
policy during Johnson s administration lay, was an
inveterate optimist and an inveterate expansionist.
He had always a serene confidence that Great Britain
and France would satisfy the just demands of Ameri
can sentiment without war; and at the same time
he let slip no opportunity to acquire new territory
where pacific means could effect it. The first diffi
cult problem which he had to solve was that of
expelling the French from Mexico. The permanence
of Maximilian s empire had been from the outset so
obviously conditioned on the success of the Con
federacy that Napoleon s only possible policy after
Appomattox was to save some fragments of pres
tige by a dignified manner of abandoning his disas
trous enterprise.
x86sl FOREIGN RELATIONS 153
By the spring of 1865 the imperial authority of
Maximilian was firmly established in all the best
parts of Mexico. Resistance by the Liberal, or Re
publican, party was reduced to feeble and desultory
guerilla warfare, centring chiefly in the mountain
ous northern regions, where a shadowy organization
headed by Benito Juarez preserved the tradition and
the name of the republic. The straits of the Repub
licans were due almost exclusively to the thirty-five
thousand disciplined French troops who had been
sent to support Maximilian. Public opinion in the
United States favored steps looking to the forcible
expulsion of the French invaders. Many high mili
tary officers, headed by General Grant himself, were
eagerly in favor of bringing decisive pressure upon
them before the volunteer army should be disbanded.
The president himself was believed to be well disposed
towards this policy. 1 Grant sent General Sheridan
to Texas in May, 1865, with orders to assemble a
large force on the Rio Grande. A little later a plan
was matured in accordance with which General
Schofield, while on leave of absence, was to visit
Mexico and organize a force there from disbanded
Union and Confederate soldiers who could be induced
to enter the service of the Liberal government.
Grant directed Sheridan to see that these troops
should be supplied with arms. 2 Though this project
1 Grant to Johnson, September 8, 1865, MS., Johnson Papers.
3 Schofield, Forty-Six Years in the Army, 380; Badeau, Grant
in Peace, chap. xxi.
154 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
fell through, Grant did not cease to urge open sup
port of the Liberals ; and the influence of so popular
and powerful a personage brought much aid, both
moral and material, to their cause. 1
The policy pressed by the military men was full
of peril, in that it was likely to offend the national
spirit in France, and thus give Napoleon an oppor
tunity to cover his loss of prestige with an appeal
for the defence of French honor. But Seward, with
the co-operation of the rest of the cabinet, 2 so guided
events as to achieve the desired end without undue
offence to Gallic susceptibilities. Grant s project of
organizing an army in Mexico was thwarted by
sending Schofield on an empty mission to France,
where he was duly kept busy and harmless till the
real diplomacy had done its work. 3 The popular
demand that recognition should be given to the
Mexican Republicans was satisfied, May 25, 1866,
by the appointment of Campbell, of Ohio, as minis
ter, accredited to President Juarez. 4 To give the
maximum of impressiveness to the formal recogni
tion of Juarez, President Johnson wished General
Grant to accompany Campbell to Mexico. Grant
peremptorily refused to go, suspecting that Johnson
had an ulterior motive in ordering him out of the
1 Cf. Grant to Sheridan, July 20, 1866, in Badeau, Grant in
Peace, 184, 392; Sheridan, Memoirs, II., 224.
2 McCulloch, Men and Measures, 387; Bancroft, Seward, II.,
433 et seq.
9 Ibid., 435-
4 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1866, pt. 3, p. 2.
i866] FOREIGN RELATIONS 155
country, 1 and General Sherman consented to go in
his place. The mission proved a fiasco ; for, after a
toilsome search, the minister and his distinguished
associate were quite unable to find Juarez or his
government, who were kept by Maximilian s French
forces and by rival Mexican chiefs far from any
accessible part of the country. 2
This untoward outcome of the mission in no way
diminished the pressure which Seward was exerting
diplomatically upon the French government. So
long as the Confederacy remained unconquered, the
secretary of state, while taking no pains to disguise
the dissatisfaction of the United States with the
French intervention, did not make the subject a
matter of urgent representations. But in the au
tumn of 1865 he changed his attitude. Napo
leon s government was informed in plain terms 3
that the United States would not tolerate either
the presence of a French force or the existence of
any foreign monarchy in Mexico. An offer of
prompt withdrawal of the troops on condition that
the United States recognize Maximilian was met
with a flat refusal. 4 April 5, 1866, it was officially
announced that the French forces would be re
moved from Mexico in detachments between No-
1 Badeau, Grant in Peace, 53; DeWitt, Impeachment, 129;
Boutwell, Sixty Years, II., 109.
8 House Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 76, pp. 577-5 8 5:
Sherman Letters, 284.
3 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1865, p. 320.
4 Bancroft, Seward, II., 438.
I 5 6 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
vember, 1866, and November, 1867. A change of
plan by which the beginning of the movement was
postponed till the spring of 1867 brought a prompt
protest from the United States. But Napoleon was
entirely sincere in his purpose to drop the Mexican
project. In the spring of 1867 the whole French
force embarked for home together, and Maximilian,
left with no support which could withstand the now
numerous and vengeful followers of Juarez, was
captured and executed in June.
While the tension with France was acute, the
secretary of state was much occupied also with
Great Britain; but this phase of the diplomatic
questions resulting directly from the war was sud
denly supplanted in public interest by an unex
pected opportunity to gratify the longing for terri
torial expansion. Just at the time when the French
troops were leaving Mexico, the Russian minister
at Washington approached Seward with the offer
of Russia s American possessions. The offer was
accepted with almost comical alacrity, 1 and March
30, 1867, a treaty was signed for the purchase of the
region for seven million two hundred thousand dol
lars in gold. Neither the government nor the peo
ple of the United States had ever shown either
interest in or knowledge concerning this territory.
It was generally regarded as a barren and desolate
region, whose resources, if of any value whatever,
could never be made available. The treasury of
1 Bancroft, Seward, II., 477.
V
1867] FOREIGN RELATIONS 157
the United States, moreover, was in a condition in
which a demand upon it for seven millions in gold
was a serious matter. On the other hand, there
was operative the feeling that the acquisition of the
territory was a step towards the rounding out of
dominion over the whole of North America; that
an opportunity was at hand to rid the continent of
one more monarchic power; and that for the first
time in our history the question of expansion would
certainly be free from all connection with any phase
of the negro question. Very powerful also was the
sense of gratitude to Russia for her uniformly friend
ly attitude towards the North during the Civil War. 1
The play of these considerations in Congress and
among the people at large determined the outcome
in favor of the purchase. The Senate ratified the
treaty April 9, 1867, with but two dissenting votes;
the army took formal possession in October; and
the new territory, after a persistent but happily
futile effort of certain newspapers to burden it with
the name "Walrussia," was officially christened
Alaska.
Before the final steps in the acquisition of the
Russian territory were taken, another European
monarchy consented to withdraw from the western
hemisphere in favor of the United States. Den
mark, moved by the hard exigencies of her internal
1 This last reason was of great weight in the Senate committee
on foreign relations. Pierce, Sumner, IV., 325 ; cf. Blaine, Twenty
Years of Cong., II., 334.
158 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
politics, agreed to sell her minute but advanta
geously situated West Indian islands, and Seward,
who had proposed the purchase originally in Jan
uary, 1865, succeeded in concluding a bargain for
St. Thomas and St. John, October 24, 1867.* The
treaty was sent to the Senate in December, 1867,
and a determined effort was made to secure ratifi
cation. But the need of a naval station in the West
Indies had ceased to be urgent since the close of
the war; the reputation of St. Thomas as a centre
for hurricanes and earthquakes was illustrated by a
disastrous visitation while the treaty was pending;
extension of territory southward, with the possibility
of an additional negro population, offered no great
attraction; and the price agreed upon, seven million
five hundred thousand dollars, seemed excessive for
seventy-five square miles, when over half a million
square miles had just been obtained for rather less
money. These considerations, together with a nat
ural indisposition of the radicals to add anything
more to the prestige of Seward and the Johnson
administration, caused the treaty to be smothered
in the Senate committee on foreign relations, 2 and
President Grant, upon his accession, dismissed with
contempt the whole project, only to enter with
ardor upon an equally ill-fated scheme in relation
to Santo Domingo.
1 Moore, International Law Digest, I., 605.
2 Pierce, Sumner, IV., 328, and App. I; Bancroft, Seward, II.,
485.
1867] FOREIGN RELATIONS 159
Seward was unfortunate also in his effort to bring
about an adjustment of the strained relations with
Great Britain. The bitter popular feeling in the
United States on account of the damage wrought
by the Confederate cruisers manifested itself con
tinuously after the close of the war. In Congress
and out a resolute purpose was always discernible
to seize the first opportunity to make the British
suffer for their attitude during hostilities. In its
most general form, the wrong complained of was
that the neutrality formally professed by the British
government had been either deliberately violated
or so construed as to give every possible aid to the
Confederate cause. Specifically it was charged that
the very hasty recognition of the Confederacy as a
belligerent, the refusal to detain the Alabama and
other cruisers when built, and the aid and welcome
given to them in British ports when in the midst
of their destructive career, were cumulative evidence
of hostility to the United States. The contention
of the British government was that the recognition
of the Confederacy as de facto a belligerent power
was reasonable in view of the actual conditions, and
was in accord with the attitude of the United States
in proclaiming a blockade, and that the two con
tending belligerents had been treated with scrupu
lous impartiality.
Before the end of the war, Seward, through Min
ister Adams, made strong representations on the
points at issue and suggested arbitration. This.
VOL. XXII. II
160 RECONSTRUCTION [1866
suggestion was met by Earl Russell with a curt
and peremptory refusal. 1 The effect in the United
States was such as to cause thoughtful Englishmen
some concern. The hostile feeling against Great
Britain assumed demonstrative form. [In the House
of Representatives, July 26, 1866, a bill passed
unanimously modifying the neutrality laws in such
way as to permit war-ships and military expeditions
to be fitted out against friendly powers. 2 Only a
few weeks before this the Fenian movement for
the liberation of Ireland reached its American cli
max, in an abortive invasion of Canada from New
York and Vermont. Several armed bands of Irish-
Americans crossed the frontier, but were quickly
driven back by the Canadians, and were then gath
ered up and sent to their homes by the" Federal
military authorities.^ Though the movement was too
pathetically feeble to justify official sympathy, {he
support which enabled it to assume even the little
dignity it attained was traceable to the popular
resentment against England. Suggestions were not
wanting that the United States should promptly
recognize the Fenian organization as a belligerent,
and permit it to fit out privateers against the com
merce of the other belligerent. More serious in its
pointedness was the same suggestion as to Abyssinia
when war broke out between that power and Great
1 Moore, International Arbitrations, I., 496.
8 Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., i Sess., 4193 ; Pierce, Sumner t IV., 290.
9 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1866, art. "Fenian Brotherhood."
1869] FOREIGN RELATIONS 161
Britain. Chandler offered in the Senate, November
29, 1867, a resolution recognizing to Abyssinia the
same rights which the British had recognized to the
Confederacy. 1
A consciousness of future peril in the position
assumed by Earl Russell led to a change of attitude
by his successor in the foreign office. Lord Stanley
actually offered in 1867 to submit to arbitration the
question as to whether Great Britain had failed to
maintain neutrality, but declined to include the
question as to the justification for her recognition
^of^ Confederate belligerency. The diplomatic dis
cussion became involved, moreover, in questions
arising out of the Fenian movement as to the rights
of naturalized citizens 2 and in a controversy about
the Northwest boundary-line. Eager to reach a
general settlement before his retirement, Seward
concluded, through Reverdy Johnson, a treaty which,
as to the Alabama claims, provided merely that a
joint high commission should pass finally upon all
claims of subjects of either government against the
other. This convention the Senate, on April 13,
1869, after the change of administration, refused to
ratify by the decisive vote of 54 to i. f
A disinclination to approve what was evidently
intended to be a crowning glory of the Johnson-
1 Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., 83.
*Cf. Adams, Charles Francis Adams, 357.
8 Moore, International Arbitrations, I., 506; Bancroft, Seward,
II., 499-
1 62 RECONSTRUCTION [1869
Seward administration doubtless contributed to
this unparalleled action. 1 But this influence was
of little significance compared with the feeling that
by the proposed settlement Great Britain would
escape making any adequate reparation for griev
ous wrongs done to the United States in its time
of sore distress. A speech by Sumner in the Senate,
April 13, 1869, which won him the only moment
of genuine popularity he ever enjoyed, voiced ef
fectively the public sentiment. Qreat Britain, he
argued, must acknowledge her wrong-doing and
must make reparation to the American nation; the
compensation of individuals for losses sustained
through the Confederate cruisers was but a minor
incident in the settlement required; national claims
must be satisfied, and his catalogue of these in
cluded many hundred millions of dollars for the
destruction of the American merchant marine, and
for the expenses incurred through the prolongation
of the war. 2
The rejection of the treaty and the publication of
Sumner s speech, which, through the action of the
Senate in removing the injunction of secrecy, was
made in a sense the official expression of American
demands, were followed by a period of angry and
excited discussion in the press of the two nations.
T" l Seward anticipated rejection of the treaty, Moore, Inter
national Arbitrations, I., 506. Grant desired that the matter
should go over to his administration, Pierce, Sumner, IV., 368.
For the speech, see Cong. Globe, 41 Cong., i Sess., App., 21;
Sumner, Works, XIII., 53.
1869] FOREIGN RELATIONS 163
Pending the subsidence of this turmoil, the foreign
offices of both governments moved slowly towards
a resumption of negotiations. > The episode revealed
to Great Britain that she had on her hands a prob
lem that was not to be solved without imminent peril
to her peace and prestige ; and at the same time the
threatening aspect of international affairs in Europe
warned her that some solution was in high degree
desirable. 1 ]
Meanwhile, President Grant himself precipitated a
new issue in the expansionist phase of American
foreign policy. The annexation of Santo Domingo
to the United States was proposed in the spring of
1869 by Baez, the politician who at the time held
the chief place in what passed for government in
the revolution-ridden little republic. General O. E.
Babcock, one of Grant s private secretaries, was sent
to investigate conditions in Santo Domingo, and,
after making a very favorable report, was authorized
to negotiate a treaty of annexation. The treaty was
concluded ^November 29, 1869; and Grant began at
once to exert all the pressure possible to secure its
ratification by the Senate. He had formed the most
extravagant opinion as to the importance of acquir
ing the territory: its possession would, he thought,
restore our lost merchant marine, insure the ex
tinction of slavery in the West Indies and Brazil,
redress the unfavorable balance of our foreign trade,
promote the just influence of the Monroe Doctrine,
1 C. F. Adams, Lee at Appomattox, 130.
1 64 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
and confer other inestimable benefits on the United
States and on mankind in general. 1 But in the
Senate the mental condition which superinduced
these distorted visions was absent, and, despite the
reluctance of the Republicans to oppose the ad
ministration, ratification was refused, June 30, 1870,
by a tie vote. 3 The president relaxed in no degree
his resolution to achieve his purpose, and in his
annual message in December recommended that a
commission be appointed to investigate conditions
in Santo Domingo and that steps be then taken to
annex by joint resolution, as in the case of Texas.
The commission was duly provided for, and ex-
Senator Wade, Professor Andrew D. White, and Dr.
S. G. Howe were named its members. Their report,
in April, 1871, made a good case for the desirability
,pf annexation. 3 JBut it had become evident before
this time that public opinion would not sustain the
president s policy; and in his message accompany
ing the report Grant indicated his reluctant con
viction that such was the case. 4
This episode had consequences in the internal
politics of the country that were of much more last
ing significance than its relation to foreign policy.
It revealed the heaviness of the burden which the
Republican leaders had assumed in placing in the
1 Special message, May 31, 1870, and annual message, Decem
ber 5, 1870, in Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 61, 99.
3 Pierce, Sumner, IV., 445.
8 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1871, p. 655.
4 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 128.
1871] FOREIGN RELATIONS 165
White House a narrow, headstrong, and politically
untutored military chief ; and it gave a great impulse
to the pending movement which split off the Liberal
element from the party during the remainder of
Grant s presidential service. A central incident of
the affair was the famous rupture between Grant
and Sumner. 1 The president and the senator were
ill-adapted by training and temperament to get
on well together. Sumner demanded, as the pre
requisite of agreeable personal intercourse, adula
tion, express or tacit; Grant had by 1870 become
accustomed to receive it, but had not, nor ever
would have, the power to give it. When the treaty
of Dominican annexation reached Washington, the
president in person asked Sumner s support, and
supposed that he obtained a pledge of it. Sumner,
however, led in the opposition to ratification, and
a tension arose which became open and scandalous
in the debate on the appointment of the commission.
The senator attacked the project with all the par
aphernalia of rhetorical exaggeration and imputa
tion with which it had been his custom to assail
slave-owners and Andrew Johnson, but steadfastly
denied, with every air of sincerity, that he was as
sailing Grant. The president failed to appreciate
the rhetorician s fine distinctions, and the most
1 The matter is threshed out completely in the debate on the
resolution appointing the commission, Cong. Globe, 41 Cong.,
3 Sess., passim; Sumner s speech, 226. Full treatment also
i in Pierce, Sumner, IV., 426, and C. F. Adams, Lee at Appomattox^
i66 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
weighty Republican leaders in the Senate shared
in the failure. Every mode of pressure which the
executive could exert was brought to bear against
Sumner, and at the organization of the forty-second
Congress, in March, 1871, he was by action of the
Republican caucus deposed from the chairmanship
of the committee on foreign relations a position
he had held since 1861.
The deposition of Sumner was intimately con
nected with the further and triumphant progress
of the government s negotiations for settlement of
the Alabama claims. Hamilton Fish, who became
secretary of state early in Grant s term, kept, a
quiet but persistent pressure upon the British gov
ernment, and the latter manifested nothing of the
arrogance which it had earlier displayed. In 1870
Bismarck s aggressive policy, culminating in the war
with France, rendered Great Britain s European
relations very uncertain, and made her statesmen
ready for an amicable adjustment with the United
States. Mr. Fish did not fail to make use of the
advantage thus given him. The president s annual
f message of December 5, 1870, recommended that all
individual claims against Great Britain for losses
due to the Alabama and other cruisers be assumed
by the United States government. This was an in
timation that the administration intended to make
the matter a serious national issue, and the full mean
ing of it was not lost on the British foreign office. 1
1 Adams, Lee at Appomattox, 133.
1871] FOREIGN RELATIONS 167
Two points in the American case which had given
especial offence to the British were allowed by Fish
to recede into the background ; these were the claim |
that wrong was done by the hasty recognition of
the Confederates as belligerents, and the demand I
for compensation for the "national" or "indirect" I
losses due to the Alabama. -The British govern
ment, on the other hand, indicated a readiness to
express regret for the damage done by the Alabama,
and to submit to arbitration the question of liability
for it. On the basis of these reciprocal concessions,
a plan for formal proceedings in a general adjust
ment was worked out in January, 1871, at informal
conferences between Secretary Fish and Sir John
Rose, a special secret commissioner sent from Eng
land for the purpose. 1 In accordance with this plan
a joint high commission, empowered to deal with
various matters, of which the North Atlantic fish
eries were nominally but the Alabama claims really
the chief, formulated between February and May
the famous treaty of Washington, signed on May
8, 1871, and ratified by the Senate sixteen days
later. It provided for a mixed commission to deal
with the question of the fisheries, and for the refer
ence of the Northwest boundary dispute and the
Alabama claims to tribunals of arbitration. For
the guidance of the arbitrators in the latter case,
Article VI. of the treaty laid down three rules as
1 The best account of this whole diplomatic affair is in Moore,
International Arbitrations, I., 519 et seq.
168 RECONSTRUCTION [1871
to the duty of neutrals, and these rules embodied
concessions by Great Britain that made a judgment
in favor of the United States very probable from
the outset.
This extremely creditable achievement of diplo
macy required of Secretary Fish the highest possible
degree of political as well as diplomatic tact and
sound judgment. The climax of the negotiation co
incided in time with the violent outbreak of Sumner
against the president on the Santo Domingo question.
Sumner was at the head of the Senate committee on
foreign relations, and he held that no settlement of
the Alabama claims should be accepted that did not
involve the abandonment by Great Britain of all
her possessions in the western hemisphere. To in
ject any such proposition into the negotiations at
the stage already reached would have been foolish
ness, and Fish felt that he must press on regardless
of Sumner s possible opposition. It was a hazardous
business; for another speech like that in April, I86Q, 1 --
might rouse the ever-ready popular sentiment of
hostility to Great Britain to such manifestations as
would end all the high hopes of peaceful adjustment.
The situation became further complicated by the
complete rupture, in January, 1871, of friendly per
sonal relations between Fish and Sumner. 2 Under
such circumstances, the continuance of the Massa-
1 See above, p. 162.
3 C. F. Adams, Lee at Appomattox, 171; Pierce, Sumner, IV.,
465-
1872] FOREIGN RELATIONS 169
chusetts senator at the head of the committee on
foreign relations would have stultified the secretary
of state personally and gravely imperilled his policy.
Hence the pressure which brought about Summer s
deposition.
To all but a relatively small though very noisy
element of the American people the adjustment
reached in the treaty of Washington was satisfac
tory. The British government, it was seen, had
expressed regret for the escape of the cruisers and
for their depredations, 1 and had consented to refer
to arbitration the question of its liability for Ameri
can losses caused thereby. This was a substantial
triumph for the United States, but the climax of
triumph was to come later. The tribunal of arbi
tration, consisting of representatives appointed by
the governments of the United States, Great Britain,
Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil, met at Geneva on
December 15, 1871, and reached its decision August
25, 1872. During the first six months of 1872 a
violent controversy threatened to wreck the whole
procedure. The formal case presented to the tri
bunal by the United States included in the claims
catalogued those known as " national " or " indirect "
namely, for the expense of pursuing the cruisers,
and for the losses due to the disappearance of our
merchant marine, to enhanced rates of insurance,
and to the prolongation of the war. The demand
for payment of such claims had always been re-
1 Art. I. of the treaty.
170 RECONSTRUCTION [1869
garded by British public opinion, and with some
reason, as in the nature of a demand for war in
demnity, and was resented accordingly. It had been
understood, even by the British negotiators, that
these claims were barred from the arbitration, and
their appearance in the American case caused so
furious an outbreak of rage in England that the
government was forced to take steps towards with
drawing from the tribunal. But Secretary Fish had
no desire to press these claims. They had been
presented partly with a view to satisfying the ex
treme elements of public opinion in the United
States, and partly for the purpose of having them
passed upon finally by an unassailable authority.
Accordingly, it was rather easily arranged that the
tribunal itself should rule them out. This was done
in June, and the consideration of the direct and
individual claims proceeded. The result was a
judgment that Great Britain had failed in her duty
as a neutral in connection with three of the Con
federate cruisers the Alabama, the Florida, and
the Shenandoah and their tenders, and that for
the losses incurred through these the compensatory
sum of fifteen millions five hundred thousand dol
lars should be paid to the United States.
Two months later the German emperor, to whose
arbitration the dispute as to the northwestern bound
ary at the island of San Juan had been referred, de
cided in favor of the American contention, and added
a minor element of satisfaction to public sentiment
1872] FOREIGN RELATIONS 171
in the United States. 1 The other important matter
provided for in the treaty of Washington, the long-
disputed fisheries question, was put in course of
settlement by means of a mixed commission, but
the end was not reached till i877. 2
Besides the distinction won by the settlement of
the troubles with Great Britain, Secretary Fish had
the satisfaction of averting on two different occa
sions vexatious tension with Spain. Cuba was in
the throes of a rebellion, designed to secure in
dependence of the Spanish authority. The insur
gents were in 1869 making only the slightest prog
ress; but they had many friends in the United
States, among whom was the secretary of war,
General Rawlins. Influenced by Rawlins, Presi
dent Grant signed a proclamation, August 19, 1869,
recognizing the insurgents as belligerents, and or
dered Secretary Fish to seal and issue it. Fish
knew that none of the conditions existed which, in
the practice of nations, justified such action; hence
he put the paper away and awaited the outcome.
Rawlins died shortly after, and Grant never re
curred to the subject except to thank Fish a year
later for having pigeonholed the proclamation. 3
The agitation for some friendly action towards
the insurgents continued in the United States press
and in Congress. Grant was clearly disposed to
favor them, in order to punish Spain for recogniz-
1 Moore, International Arbitrations, I., 229.
J Ibid., 745. 8 Cf . Adams, Lee at Appomattox, 118.
172 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
ing the Confederacy. 1 After long effort, however,
the president was won over to the policy of the
secretary, and on June 13, 1870, a special message to
Congress, written by Fish, announced definitively
that the administration would maintain strictly an
attitude of non-intervention. 2
Despite this destruction of the best hopes of the
insurgents, hostilities dragged on, with frequent in
cidents of extreme but indecisive ferocity on both
sides. In 1873 a particularly bloody act of the
Spanish authorities brought the United States to
the verge of war. The Virginius, a steamer flying
the American flag and bearing men and arms to the
insurgents, was captured, October 31, by a Spanish
gun-boat on the high seas between Jamaica and Cuba.
Fifty-three of the passengers and crew were sum
marily executed at Santiago, among them eight
citizens of the United States. At the news of this
proceeding passion flamed high in the United States,
and demands for war against Spain were heard on
all sides, receiving support in many quarters where
fever in the blood was unusual. For weeks it seemed
as if hostilities were inevitable. Reparation for the
violation of American rights was promptly demand
ed of Spain by Secretary Fish, and the Spanish gov
ernment manifested no disposition to refuse the de
mand ; but the officials in Cuba were inflamed with
1 Cf. Pierce, Sumner, IV., 409.
2 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 64; Adams, Lee at
Appomattox, 217, 219 (extracts from Fish s diary).
1873] FOREIGN RELATIONS 173
the spirit of vengeance on the captured insurgents,
and were with difficulty restrained from further ex
ecutions. Not till November 29 were the diploma
tists able to reach a settlement of the issues. It
was then agreed that the Virginius and her surviv
ing passengers should be restored to the authorities
of the United States, and that the Spanish officials
who had been responsible for illegal acts should be
punished. Secretary Fish soon received on all sides
particular honor for having avoided war; for it
proved that, though the insult to the American flag
was the central feature of the case against Spain,
the Virginius had obtained her registry by perjury
and fraud, and therefore had no right to bear that
flag. 1
1 For the whole affair, see Rhodes, United States, VII., 29-36,
and authorities cited, especially Richardson, Messages and
Papers, VII., 256.
CHAPTER XI
THE CLIMAX OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION
(1869-1872)
T HE prestige accruing from the result of the
1 Geneva arbitration was very welcome to the
Grant administration; for at the date at which the
decision was made the presidential campaign of
1872 was in progress, and the re-election of Grant
had been imperilled by a great defection of Repub
licans whom his radical policy in internal affairs
had alienated.
We have already seen 1 the partisan motive which
gave the impulse to the passage of the Fifteenth
Amendment. The discussion of this measure was
the central feature of business in the last session
of the fortieth Congress. While the administration
of Andrew Johnson waned dismally to its end, the
Republican majority wrestled manfully with the
problem of the suffrage. To render absolutely
secure the right of the negro to vote in the South
was not an easy task. The right was already con
ferred by every reconstructed constitution; and
every state but Tennessee had been declared "en-
1 See above, p. 135.
1869] THE CLIMAX 175
titled and admitted to representation in Congress"
upon the "fundamental condition" that its consti
tution should "never be so amended or changed
as to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the
United States of the right to vote . . . who are en
titled to vote by the constitution . . . herein recog
nized." But the validity of such a fundamental con
dition was very doubtful, 1 and the purpose of the
southern whites to use any available means to dis
franchise the blacks was beyond all doubt. Hence
the determination of the Republicans to meet this
purpose with an explicit prohibition in the Federal
Constitution.
There was, however, even among the Republicans,
a great reluctance to transfer the general control of
the suffrage from the states to the central govern
ment. The party chiefs were, moreover, strongly
opposed to any abstract dogmatizing about the
right to vote. Doctrinaires, ready with proposi
tions for levelling up, or down, to their ideals, would
have guaranteed the suffrage to every citizen of
mature years and sound mind. It was plausibly
argued that the right of intelligent white women to
vote was as worthy an object of a constitutional
guarantee as the right of ignorant and degraded
black men. Of more practical importance was the
prediction that, unless intelligence and property
qualifications were prohibited, they would be em
ployed by the southern states to disfranchise the
Dunning, Essa ys, *23, 346.
* J * **
VOL. XXII. 12
I 7 6 RECONSTRUCTION [1869
blacks. Partly under the influence of this sug
gestion, the Senate, at one stage of the discussion,
actually adopted a form prohibiting discrimination
by any state on account of "race, color, nativity,
property, education, or religious creed." l But in
the end no consideration was allowed to interfere
with the single immediate end in view the creation
of a constitutional mandate under which the national
government might maintain negro suffrage against
hostile procedure by the states. The Fifteenth
Amendment, in the form in which it now stands in
the Constitution, was finally passed on February 26,
1869, and duly sent to the states. /
A week later Andrew Johnson abandoned the
White House, and, with an unnoticed final appeal to
the people of the United States and to the impartial
judgment of history for justification of his presi
dential career, 2 retired to restless obscurity in his
Tennessee home. The inauguration of Grant was
generally regarded as the opening of a better era
in national politics. Much exasperating friction,
it was expected, would be removed from the work
ing of the governmental machine, when the execu
tive and the congressional majority should be in
harmony, and when the president should enjoy a
full measure of personal popularity.
Grant s earliest official acts, however, excited
l Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 3 Sess., 1035, 1040; Cf. McPherson,
Hist, of Reconstruction, 402; Blaine, Twenty Years of Cong., II.,
416. Am. Annual Cyclop., 1869, p. 589.
1869] THE CLIMAX 177
amazement and foreboding among party politicians
and the general public alike. His cabinet appoint
ments were in large measure determined by personal
friendship or unintelligent caprice. For the treasury,
for example, he named A. T. Stewart, a merchant
whose name was at that time a synonyme for fabulous
wealth. Stewart had neither experience nor record
ed convictions in politics, and his appointment was
the naive tribute of the man who had never been
able to earn in private business more than fifty
dollars a month to the man who had accumulated
millions. Stewart was found to be disqualified for
the office under an old law excluding from it any
one engaged in "trade or commerce." Grant, after
an unsuccessful attempt to get the law repealed,
appointed G. S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, to the
secretaryship, and Stewart, who was much cha
grined at losing it, eventually found characteristic
consolation in an effort to get the contract for
supplying the treasury with carpets. 1 For the
navy department Grant named Adolph E. Borie,
a wealthy gentleman of Philadelphia, w r ho like
Stewart was absolutely unknown in politics, and
who quickly abandoned his experiment in public
life. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, the congress
man who had brought Grant into the army at the
outbreak of the war, was named by his grateful
proteg to be secretary of state, but promptly ex
changed the post for that of minister to France,
1 Boutwell, Reminiscences, II., 207.
178 - RECONSTRUCTION [1869
and was succeeded in the cabinet by Hamilton
Fish, of New York. For secretary of war was
. named General J. A. Rawlins, another Illinois friend,
who had been chief of staff to Grant during the war.
Ex-Governor Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, J. A. J. Cress -
well, of Maryland, and Judge E. Rockwood Hoar,
of Massachusetts, as secretary of the interior, post
master-general, and attorney-general respectively,
possessed the qualifications usually expected of
cabinet members that is, experience in public life
and prominent association with the party in power.
In all the other appointments the personal predi
lection of the president was controlling. 1 ,
In his military career, Grant s natural reserve
and taciturnity had been eminently appropriate and
useful. In political life they proved much less so,
and accentuated the difficulty which flowed from
his lack of matured judgments on public affairs.
To supplement the deficiencies in his equipment the
most influential agency was the unlimited trust and
devotion which he gave to those who in any way
won his personal esteem. His judgment was rarely
strong enough to put the proper estimate on a policy
which was presented to him with the support of an
intimate friend, and his dogged refusal to see that-
his friendship had been used for unworthy purposes,
when the fact was obvious to everybody else, was a
source of unlimited scandal. Of rather less weight
1 Cf . Elaine, Twenty Years of Cong., II., 424; Badeau, Grant
in Peace, chap, xix; Wilson, Charles A. Dana, pp. 409-414.
1869] THE CLIMAX 179
than the personal was the party influence in deter
mining Grant s policy. He felt in a general way
that he was a Republican; but his perception of
what party really meant in the conduct of the ad
ministration was vague, and the difficulty of ascer
taining which of the various factional projects that
came to his notice reflected the real party will was
insuperable. Hence the tendency of his own tem
perament was confirmed, to regard himself as truly
representing the people and to act upon the impulses
of his independent judgment. The result was in- /
evitably an administration of caprice, of favorites,/;
and of malodorous intrigue.
In respect to the process of reconstruction, the
president s ideas were more clear and well-informed
than upon perhaps any other issue of the day./ He
readily adopted the policy of pushing the work to
completion with the least possible additional humilia
tion of the southern whites. /Three states, Virginia,
Mississippi, and Texas, were still under military gov
ernment. In the first two, the chief source of delay
had been the strong opposition, both in the states
and in Congress, to the disfranchisement of ex-Con
federates which was contained in the new constitu
tions. On this matter Grant s favor was well known
to have been won by the conservatives, and on
April 7, 1869, he suggested to Congress, in a special
message, the desirability of submitting the consti
tutions for ratification to the respective electorates,
with provision for a separate vote on the disfran-
i8o RECONSTRUCTION [1869
chising clauses. 1 A bill conforming to this sugges
tion became law three days later, with Texas also
included in the arrangement for a speedy restora
tion. The radicals in Congress, who were little
pleased with the opposition to disfranchisement,
found consolation in the requirement which they
succeeded in adding to the bill, that the three states
should not be restored till their legislatures should
have ratified the Fifteenth Amendment. 2 When
Congress met in December, 1869, the process con
templated by this act was nearing completion. All
three states ratified their constitutions, Virginia
and Mississippi rejecting the separately submitted
disfranchising clauses. The acts finally restoring
the states were duly passed early in 1870, and in
these again the radicals made themselves felt by
the incorporation of "fundamental conditions" of
more comprehensive scope than had hitherto been
imposed. 4 A justification was found for this in
creased rigor not only in the development of the Ku-
Klux movement against the blacks, but also in the
fact that by the elections in Virginia the state gov
ernment had fallen into the hands of the conserva
tives, who, though including many who had been
Unionists during the war, were now indiscriminately
stigmatized as " disloyal." 5
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., n.
2 Dunning, Essays, 231; Foulke, Morton, II. , 118.
3 Virginia, January 26; Mississippi, February 22; Texas,
March 30. 4 For details, see Dunning, Essays, 234.
3 Eckenrode, Va. during Reconstruction, 122 et seq.
1870] THE CLIMAX 181
By the end of March, 1870, every one of the rebel
states had been declared by act of Congress to be in
regular relations with the United States government ;
yet Georgia, by a peculiar chain of events, was
again under military control. \ In this state the
conservatives carried the elections for the legislature
in 1868, while the radicals elected their candidate
for governor. A fierce struggle arose at once be
tween Governor Bullock and the legislature. The
conservative majority in the latter, taking the posi
tion that the negroes, while duly entitled to vote,
were not endowed by the new constitution with the
right to hold office, excluded all the black radicals
and gave their seats to their white conservative
opponents. On the other hand, the majority con
strued very liberally the disqualifying section of the
Fourteenth Amendment, and neglected to exclude a
number of whites who fell fairly within the provi
sions of that section. Bullock took advantage of
these proceedings to raise the claim that Georgia had
not complied with the reconstruction acts and there
fore was not fully restored to statehood. The mat
ter was finally taken up by the president and by
Congress in the winter of 1869-1870. Conservative
Republicans were very chary of interfering; but
radical sentiment carried the day, largely through
the influence of a report by General Terry, which
presented a gloomy picture of Ku-Klux terrorism
throughout the state. 1 By act of December 22,
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1869, art. Georgia.
182 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
1869, it was provided that the membership of the
legislature should be determined by Governor Bul
lock, and that the tests to be applied should cer
tainly exclude persons disqualified by the Four
teenth Amendment and admit negroes. To this
drastic measure was added the requirement that
the legislature should ratify the still pending Fif
teenth Amendment. Under the operation of this
act Georgia was finally restored to her statehood;
but the effort, eventually futile, to discover for this
action a constitutional basis upon which the Repub
licans in Congress could agree protracted the debate
till July 15, iSyo. 1
Meanwhile the Fifteenth Amendment, whose fate
had been so anxiously followed by the radicals,
received the necessary ratifications and was pro
claimed in effect on March 3o. 2 Thus the right of
the freedmen to vote was made secure against any
legal restriction based on the ground of their color.
From every state in the South, however, were by
this time heard incessant complaints that the exer
cise of this right by the negroes was in fact very
seriously restricted. As soon as the national mili
tary power was withdrawn from control, and the
new state governments assumed full responsibility,
the tension between the races became violent. Every
electoral campaign was attended with disorder and
outrage. The whites ascribed the conditions to the
1 Dunning, Essays, 245; Woolley, Reconstruction of Georgia,
chap. viii. 2 McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 545.
1870] THE CLIMAX 183
insolence and ignorance of the blacks and the am
bition and knavery of the carpet-baggers who led
them; the negroes and their allies complained that
they were victims of a brutal lust for that inhuman
power which was lost when rebellion was subdued
and slavery was abolished. The Union Leagues on
the one hand, and the Ku-Klux Klans on the other,
furnished secret and terrorizing elements to the con
flict of the races. The radical state governments
had no stomach for the task of maintaining order.
Anxious appeals to the president for Federal troops
were common from the beginning of the new re
gime ; for to depend upon negro state militia for the
suppression of disorder would be to pour oil on the
flames. Governor Clayton in Arkansas, Governor
Brownlow in Tennessee, and Governor Holden in
North Carolina succeeded in putting white militia
into action, but the result in the latter two states
was oafer. to accelerate the overthrow of the radicals,
/ouisiana was clearly relieved to dis-
Leprived by law of authority to
in arms against the whites ; l
and in South Carolina the negro militia organized
by Governor Scott was from the outset a source of
the most serious turbulence in that most turbulent
state. 2
By the time when the Fifteenth Amendment went
1 See his testimony, in House Misc. Docs., 41 Cong., 2 Sess.,
"Contested Elections in La.," pt. 2, p. 512.
2 Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C., 136, and chap, v., passim.
1 84 RECONSTRUCTION [1868
into effect, it had become clear that in many of the
reconstructed states radical ascendency could not
be maintained by negro suffrage, and it was very
doubtful whether with conservatives in control the
political rights of the freedmen could remain secure.
In the presidential election of 1868, in Louisiana,
the struggle between the radicals and conserva
tives for the control of the great mass of ignorant
freedmen s votes was attended by grotesque and
shocking incidents of cajolery, intimidation, and out
rage. 1 The conservatives carried this election by
a heavy majority. In 1869 Tennessee was lost to
the radicals; and in the spring of 1870 the condi
tions indicated that North Carolina and Alabama
would follow. This trend of affairs was naturally
very distasteful to the Republicans at Washington,
and it was easily determined that, so far as the situa
tion was due to unlawful interference with the negro
vote, the national authority must be employed to
correct it.
The result was the enforcement act 6 > 3ft!*y "31,
i8yo, 2 which provided heavy penalties for imringe-
ment upon the right to vote as secured by the
Fifteenth Amendment, and also re-enacted the civil
rights act of i866, 3 and imposed penalties for
violation of the rights secured by the Fourteenth
Amendment. The practical purpose of this legis-
1 House Misc. Does., 41 Cong., 2 Sess., "Contested Elections
in La." * U. S. Statutes at Large, XVI., 140.
See above, p. 63.
1870] THE CLIMAX 185
lation was to give to the United States courts juris
diction for the maintenance of that civil and polit
ical equality which the adverse sentiment of the
southern whites prevented the state courts from
adequately maintaining. The act involved a very
wide extension of the national authority into a field
hitherto left to the states, and therefore, on con
stitutional grounds, it aroused serious opposition
among the more moderate Republicans. It made
up definitely the issue as to whether the last three
amendments authorized the central government to
guarantee equal rights to the freedmen against all
attacks by their white fellow-citizens, or only against
such attacks as were made with explicit sanction of
the states. The former view was incorporated in
the law, and this caused lively misgivings to many
Republicans who, while entirely willing to see the
national power applied to the protection of the
freedmen in the South, were entirely unwilling to
contemplate the interposition of the same power in
their own states.
In addition to this opposition on constitutional
grounds, the expediency of^ the enforcement act
was seriously questioned by moderate Republicans.
Not force, but conciliation, they argued, was now
the proper policy towards the South. Having en
franchised the blacks and secured their civil rights,
Congress should next remove that source of bitter
ness among the whites which lay in the existing
disabilities under the Fourteenth Amendment. The
i86 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
most able and influential of the southerners were
excluded from their natural leadership in politics,
and their restoration to their position would be, it
was argued, a dictate of sound statesmanship l
But the radical spirit was still distinctly in the
ascendant in Republican councils, and the moderates
were gradually forced away into the Liberal move
ment that was now developing. The elections of
1870 showed great Republican losses throughout the
Union. In the new House of Representatives the
majority would be reduced from ninety-seven to
thirty-five, 2 and North Carolina and Alabama, as
had been anticipated, were carried by the Demo
crats. But these reverses only nerved the radicals
in Congress to more strenuous pursuit of the part
they had chosen. By act of February 28, 1871,
a rigorous system of Federal supervision over con
gressional elections was established. 3 This was de
signed not only to supplement the weakness and
inefficiency of the radical state governments in the
South, but also to counteract the fraudulent and
violent practices which prevailed in New York and
other large cities of the North.
With particular reference to the South, on the j
reluctantly given recommendation of the president, 4 ,
1 See speeches of Ferry and Schurz, Cong. Globe, 41 Cong., 2
Sess., 3489, 3607. * Tribune Almanac, 1871, p. 45; 1872, p. 52.
8 U. S. Statutes at Large, XVL, 433.
4 Message of March 23, 1871, Richardson, Messages and Papers,
VII., 127; Boutwell, Reminiscences, II., 252; Hoar, Autobiog
raphy, I., 205.
1871] THE CLIMAX 187
Congress passed the second great enforcement act,
generally called the Ku-Klux act, April 20, 1871.*
A concrete basis for the law was found in the an
archic conditions which prevailed in some parts of
North Carolina. 2 The activity of Ku-Klux Klans
had been manifest and merciless, and the efforts of
the Republican state government to maintain order
resulted in its own overthrow in the elections. 3 By
the radicals at Washington, led by Morton and But
ler, the disorders in the South were held to be the
result of a general secret organization of the con
quered rebels for the purpose of suppressing the
Republican party in that section. Despite abun
dant evidence that the Ku-Klux movement was in
large measure but the unorganized and sporadic
expression of social demoralization, the political
motive was seized upon as dominant, and the new
act assumed to deal with a new rebellion. It not
only strengthened greatly the hands of the national
judiciary for dealing with the secret conspiracies,
but also authorized the president to suspend the
habeas corpus and suppress the disturbances by
military force.
On grounds of both constitutionality and expe
diency, this drastic measure was more strongly op
posed than its predecessor by Democrats and mod-
1 U. 5. Statutes at Large, XVII., 13.
3 Sen. Exec. Docs., 41 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 16, pt. ii.
3 The legislature was carried by the conservatives, and Gov
ernor Holden was impeached and removed from his office. Am.
Annual Cyclop., 1870, 1871, arts. North Carolina.
188 RECONSTRUCTION [1871
erate Republicans. 1 The idea that anything like
"rebellion" or "war" existed in the South was
justly denounced as far-fetched and visionary, while
the inability of the radical state governments to en
list efficient public sentiment in their support af
forded a good ground for the contention that the
policy which created them was a failure. It was
strongly urged, too, in opposition to the Ku-Klux
bill, that Congress had too little information as to
the real conditions in the South, and that a thorough
investigation should precede legislation. This view,
while it did not prevent the passage of the act, re
sulted in the creation of a joint select committee
on affairs in the late insurrectionary states, whose
labors, reported in thirteen volumes to the next
session of Congress, 2 brought to light most that is
known to-day as to the early working of congres
sional reconstruction east of the Mississippi.
While this committee was diligently seeking out
the facts of the situation, the president, October
17, 1871, applied the extremest provisions of the
Ku-Klux act in South Carolina. Nine counties of
that state were proclaimed to be in rebellion, the
writ of habeas corpus was suspended, 3 and detach- ^
ments of Federal troops arrested many hundreds
of persons on suspicion of connection with the secret
1 See, especially, speeches of Blair, of Michigan, and Garfield
in the House, and Trumbull and Schurz in the Senate, Cong.
Globe, 42 Cong., i Sess., 574, 686, and App., 71, 149.
2 House Report, 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 22.
Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 137.
1871] THE CLIMAX 189
organizations. Some were brought to trial before
the national courts, and a few were convicted under
the enforcement acts, but most were ultimately
discharged without trial. 1 The evidence before the
court, together with that secured by the investi
gating committee, revealed shocking conditions of
barbarity in the attitude of low-class whites towards
the freedmen, but showed that the political motive
in the outrages, so far as it was manifest at all, was
concerned with purely local incidents of radical
misrule, and was ridiculously remote from any pur
pose that could be fairly called "rebellion" against
the United States.
The execution of the enforcement acts rounded
out the radical policy to which the administration
was now entirely committed for the purposes of
the electoral campaign of 1872. Against this policy
a very powerful element of the Republican party
was in a position of vehement protest. About this
situation as a central feature were shaped the many
other influences which determined the Liberal Re
publican movement.
1 Excellent summary of the whole episode in Reynolds, Re-
construction in 5. C., chap. v. Full report of trials at Columbia
in House Reports, 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 22, "South Carolina,"
III., 1615.
CHAPTER XII
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT AND
ITS FAILURE
(1870-1872)
THE impulse to organized opposition by Repub
licans to the policies and persons that were
dominant at Washington came from Missouri. In
that state the disfranchisement and proscription of
Confederate sympathizers took an extreme form, 1
and was persisted in, despite a growing popular
hostility, until 1870. Then at last the Republican
party of the state was split on the issue, and the
radicals who held control were defeated by a coali
tion of bolting Liberals with the Democrats. 2 The
state constitution was so revised as to end the dis
criminations which the war had caused, and the
policy of conciliation and peace, thus triumphant,
attracted much attention and favor throughout the
country.
In spirit and result the Missouri plan of dealing
with southern conditions stood in absolute contrast
to that which was embodied in the enforcement
1 See above, p. 8.
3 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1870, art. Missouri.
1872] LIBERAL MOVEMENT igr
acts. A leading part in the Liberal movement was
taken by Carl Schurz, who, as senator from Missouri,
was prominent in opposition to Grant s Santo Do
mingo project and to the radical programme for the
South. In connection with the state election of 1870
in Missouri, the president took open ground against
the Liberals, denouncing them as merely scheming
to turn the state over to the Democrats. 1 The
Liberal movement and its leaders thus became nat
urally the focus of the anti-administration feeling
which pervaded the Republican party throughout
the Union. In January, 1872, the Missouri Liberals,
in a state convention, took formally a long-can
vassed step and issued a call for a national conven
tion at Cincinnati, with a view to nominations for
the approaching presidential election. 2
At the time this call was issued there was natural
ly much uncertainty as to the outcome ; for ultimate
success or failure would depend upon the action of
the regular Republican and Democratic organiza
tions. But as to the existence of a public sentiment
that justified the movement, there was no uncer
tainty whatever. The three years of Grant s ad
ministration had been disastrous to the president s
reputation among reflecting men, and had seriously
affected his popularity among the masses. His disre
gard for the conventions of propriety and good taste
which ought to control the occupant of the White
1 Ant. Annual Cyclop., 1870, p. 520.
"Stanwood, Hist, of the Presidency, 335.
VOL. xxn. 13
I 9 2 RECONSTRUCTION [1869
House was no less conspicuous, and was even more
offensive, than that of his predecessor. Where John
son had peremptorily refused valuable gifts from
admirers, Grant not only accepted them, but ap
pointed the donors to office. 1 By accepting social
courtesies from Fisk and Gould, then at the height
of a dubious prominence in Wall Street, he involved
his name in the scandal of their daring attempt to
corner gold during September, 1869, and in the
tragedy of their failure on "Black Friday." 2 In
this matter he was the victim in a measure of the
mingled gullibility and greed of a brother-in-law,
Corbin; and in other matters he exposed himself to
severe and not unjustifiable criticism for placing or
retaining in public office relatives whose influence
with him was made a valuable political asset.
A fundamental fact in these aspects of Grant s
quasi-private conduct was an utter lack of ability
to judge men. This defect played a large part also
in shaping the purely political developments of his
administration. His adhesion to the radical rather
than the moderate Republicans was determined by
his confidence in certain leaders ; and this confidence
resulted in some cases from wholly irrelevant canons
of judgment, in some cases from unpredictable
and inexplicable caprice, but very seldom from well-
1 Cf. Wilson, Charles A. Dana, pp. 413, 414, 423, 424.
* House Reports, 41 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 31, gives all the facts in
this famous affair. See also Adams, Chapters of Erie, 100;
Rhodes, United States, VI., 249 et seq.
1871] LIBERAL MOVEMENT 193
founded appreciation of their capacity and convic
tions. At the instance of senators who enjoyed his
favor he dismissed from his cabinet Attorney-Gen
eral Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Cox, whose
offending lay in aggressive, if not always tactful,
efforts to remedy the evils of congressional patron
age in appointments to office. 1 Though the presi
dent evinced a lively interest in the rising movement
for civil service reform, and in 1871 instituted a
commission through which the first definite step
towards the elimination of the spoils system was
made, many of the most ardent reformers, claiming
that his support lacked the vigor which sincerity
would have insured, cast their lot with the oppo
nents of his administration. The most aggressive
advocates of tariff reduction took the same position
from analogous motives. The feeling common to
both these elements was that reform in the adminis
tration and in the revenue was the most imperative
need of the nation, and that such reform was not to
be hoped for from the influences which had estab
lished themselves in control of the president. The
institution of a new policy of force in the South was
regarded as a deliberate and unwarranted revival
of dead issues, for the purpose of evading proper
consideration of those which were vital.
Civil service reform and tariff reform thus con-
1 Boutwell, Reminiscences, II., 211; J. D. Cox, "How Judge
Hoar Ceased to be Attorney-General," in Atlantic Monthly,
August, 1895.
i 9 4 RECONSTRUCTION [1872
tributed no little strength to the Liberal movement,
though the backbone of it was the desire that the
issues of war and reconstruction should be dropped,
and that the South should be let alone to work out
such destiny as existing conditions would permit.
The old demand, "universal suffrage and universal
amnesty," whose symmetrical phrase had embodied
the ideal of many optimistic souls since 1865, was
the watchword of the Liberal cause. In the con
viction that this ideal would, with the removal
of existing disqualifications on ex-Confederates, be
completely realized, a host of conservative Repub
licans united in the protest against the centralizing
tendencies of the enforcement acts. Such men
were painfully impressed, not only by the hitherto
unheard-of theory on which the Federal courts were
assuming a general jurisdiction over crime in the
South, but especially by the extent to which the
regular army was appearing as the mainstay of
most of the reconstructed state governments. The
frequently recurring instances of military interven
tion 1 furnished support to the theory, which the
president s adversaries diligently exploited, that
Grant was a gloomy despot, openly building up an
imperial dominion on the ruins of the Constitution,
Such was the theme of all Stunner s declamation
1 The great fire in Chicago in October, 1871, occasioned an
appeal by the local authorities to Federal troops under General
Sheridan to maintain order. Sheridan s proceedings brought a
vehement protest from the governor and legislature. Am. Annual
Cyclop. t 1871, p. 397.
1872] LIBERAL MOVEMENT 195
after the Santo Domingo episode; and the senator
even found somewhat to admire in Andrew Johnson
by comparison with the later object of his vituper
ation. 1 Apart from the ridiculous extravagance to
which Stunner s personal antipathy carried him, there
existed a perfectly serious and not unjustified feel
ing that the president was "an unsafe if not a posi
tively -dangerous chief of the administration, and
this feeling was the basis of the purely " anti-Grant "
motive which was prominent in the Liberal move
ment. With those to whom this appealed, the end
in view was not so much a specific policy as the ex
pulsion of the military chief from political power.
The national convention which was called by the
Missouri Liberals assembled at Cincinnati, May i,
1872. Among its members and its sympathizers
were included a notable array of names prominent
earlier or later in the Republican party. David A.
Wells, Edward Atkinson, and William Cullen Bryant
represented the demand for tariff reform ; Carl Schurz
and J. D. Cox emphasized the civil service reform
idea; David Davis and Lyman Trumbull typified
the dread of centralization and of departure from
ancient constitutional theories; Horace Greeley and
Charles Francis Adams were chiefly concerned with
eliminating the southern question from politics;
ex-Governors Curtin, of Pennsylvania, and Fenton,
of New York, embodied resentment at the admin
istration politics which had exalted their personal
1 Cong. Globe., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., 4121.
I 9 6 RECONSTRUCTION [1872
rivals, Senators Cameron and Conkling; and all the
list agreed with enthusiasm that the chief obstacle
to the realization of any of their special desires was
the continuance of Grant in the White House.
Schurz was permanent chairman of the convention,
and the platform 1 which it adopted embodied a
bitter arraignment of the president s record, both
personal and purely political. On its positive side
the document demanded all the various reforms
which have been referred to above save reduction
of the tariff. To reconcile the extreme protection
ism which Greeley had preached for thirty years
with the free trade for which Wells and Bryant were
striving proved quite beyond the genius of the ex
perts in platform writing. As a result, the plank
touching the tariff merely announced irreconcilable
differences on the subject, which were left to the
people to decide by their choice of congressmen.
As to the southern question, the declaration of Lib
eral faith was clear and explicit : equal rights before
the law, regardless of race or color; no reopening of
the questions settled by the last three amendments
of the Constitution; and immediate and complete
removal of political disabilities.
All the sanguine hopes of thoughtful men as to
this convention s work were wrecked by the nomi
nation for the presidency. That Charles Francis
Adams or David Davis or Lyman Trumbull or Gratz
1 McClure, Our Presidents, 231; Stanwood, Hist, of the Presi
dency, 341.
1872] LIBERAL MOVEMENT 197
Brown might lead the cause had been contemplated
with serenity by all. But when, on the sixth ballot,
Horace Greeley received the necessary majority and,
became the candidate, the doom of Liberalism was
sealed. The hopes of success had turned on the
selection of a candidate who first of all, by a record
of political strength and sagacity, should divert
Republican votes from Grant, and then, by a record
of sympathy with some article of the ancient creed
of the Democrats, should make it easy for them to
follow him in dropping the issues of the war. Gree
ley was the farthest possible from fulfilling either
of these requirements. 1 The qualities of head and
heart for which he was notorious justified the com-
ion remark among Republicans that to turn a
lave out of the White House for the purpose of
iting a fool in was hardly worth while; and the
liscovery of any single expression, in all his writ
ings of thirty years, signifying aught but contempt
for whatever pertained to Democracy was a task
beyond the power of himself or any of his friends.
In spite, however, of the dissatisfaction which the
nomination inspired, the general plan of campaign
on which the Liberal convention had been based was
carried out. This had turned upon the adoption of
the Cincinnati platform and candidates by the Democ
racy. Influential Democrats, notably F. P. Blair,
now senator from Missouri, had been in close touch
1 Elaine s estimate of Greeley and of the whole Liberal move
ment is valuable. Elaine, Twenty Years of Cong., II., 520*531.
I 9 8 RECONSTRUCTION [1872
with the Liberal chiefs, 1 and were too deeply com
mitted to withdraw. By this time there was, indeed,
no hope of success against Grant except through
Greeley; and accordingly the Democratic conven
tion, which met at Baltimore, July 9, simply adopted
the platform and the candidates of the Liberals.
The acceptance of the platform was a step of great
significance. Four years earlier the Democratic na
tional convention, under southern inspiration, com
mitted the party to repudiation of congressional
reconstruction and the war amendments as revo
lutionary and void; 2 now it solemnly resolved to
maintain emancipation and enfranchisement, and
" to oppose any reopening of the questions settled by
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amend
ments." This was simply to acknowledge defeat on
the issues of the war and reconstruction, to relegate
those issues to the dead past, and to take a stand
on the necessity of such relegation. The expedi
ency of this "new departure" in party policy had
been widely discussed during the growth of the
Liberal movement. Vallandigham, of Ohio, had
strongly advocated a change of base by the Democ
racy, 8 and the support given to the project by the
old Copperhead faction, which he represented, had
been a source of much encouragement to the anti-
Grant Republicans.
1 McClure, Our Presidents, 230; Blame, Twenty Years of Cong.,
II., 524. *See above, p. 132.
Am. Annual Cyolop., 1871, pp. 609, 750.
1872] LIBERAL MOVEMENT 199
On June 5, a month before the Democratic con
vention did its work, the regular Republicans met
at Philadelphia and carried through the long prede
termined programme of naming General Grant for
a second term. The serious anxiety which the
Liberal defection caused to the party chiefs was
largely dispelled by the outcome at Cincinnati; for
it was confidently calculated that the Democrats
alienated by Greeley would outnumber the Repub
licans attracted by the movement. If the Demo
cratic convention should refuse to indorse Greeley,
the opposition to Grant would be divided and power
less; if the convention should give its indorsement,
the problem of defeating Horace Greeley as the
nominee of the Democracy seemed ridiculously easy
of solution. The platform at Philadelphia was care
fully drawn so as to emphasize the party disloyalty
of the Liberals and deny them the name of Repub
licans. Though a host of men who had been indis
pensable to Lincoln in the war-time and to Congress
in its reconstruction policy were supporters of Gree
ley, the Philadelphia convention claimed to represent
the party which had suppressed the rebellion and
carried through the emancipation and enfranchise
ment of the blacks. On civil service reform and
amnesty the platform was not far removed from
that of the Liberals; on the tariff it threw into
strong relief the disharmony of its opponents by
declaring definitively for protection; but the most
characteristic feature of the platform was the clear
200 RECONSTRUCTION [1872
and explicit indorsement of the enforcement acts.
The party leaders felt entire confidence in an appeal
to northern sentiment against the "violent and trea
sonable organizations in certain lately rebellious re
gions," and shrewdly trusted in the efficacy of sec
tional antipathies to counteract the Liberal demand
that the issues of the war be dropped.
The electoral campaign at the outset was not
destitute of cheer to the Liberals, 1 but by the end
of the summer all hope was gone, save to their can
didate, and his baseless optimism was but another
evidence of his unsound judgment. Liberal Re
publicans in great numbers abandoned openly or
secretly the cause which they had supported ; north
ern Democrats sullenly repudiated a candidate whose
life had been devoted to vituperation of all that they
believed in, though a movement for an organized
bolt by " straight - out " Democrats failed through
lack of a leader 2 to make much impression. In the
South the Democrats were generally willing to take
Greeley in preference to Grant, but enthusiasm was
not conspicuous. The state elections in Septem
ber and October confirmed the anticipations of
shrewd observers, and convinced Greeley himself
that his cause was lost. In November came the
1 McClure, Our Presidents, 242; Elaine, Twenty Years of Cong.,
II., 534-
2 A convention at Louisville, September 3, nominated Charles
O Conor for president and John Quincy Adams for vice-presi
dent, but both declined to run. Am. Annual Cyclop., 1872, p.
782.
1872] LIBERAL MOVEMENT 201
full revelation of the popular verdict, in the triumph
of Grant by 286 out of 352 electoral votes, 1 and a
popular majority of some seven hundred and fifty
thousand. No northern state was carried by Gree-
ley; the seven which gave him majorities were three
of the border states Maryland, Kentucky, and
Missouri and four of the Confederacy Georgia,
Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas. His overwhelm
ing defeat combined with recent domestic affliction
to unseat the unfortunate^ candidate s reason, and
he died a madman, November 29, 1872.
For the magnitude of the catastrophe which swept
the Liberal movement to abrupt extinction, the pe
culiar unfitness of its .candidate was chiefly respon
sible ; but it is scarcely probable that it would have
succeeded with any candidate. The time had not
yet come when an appeal to sectional feeling would
fail to determine the political course of the northern
masses. Butler and Morton and Hoar and the rest
of the radicals who forced the Ku-Klux issue to
the front were more sagacious than the Liberals in
their estimate of popular emotion. It was good
"politics," if not the most far-sighted wisdom, to
call the war spirit to the aid of the war chief by
reviving the cry of treason and rebellion. Exalted
intellects like those of Schurz and Chase could ap
preciate the refinement of justice in enfranchising
1 This was as the vote was finally counted in Congress. The
votes of Louisiana and Arkansas were excluded. Stanwood, Hist.
of the Presidency, 353.
202 RECONSTRUCTION [1871
the black hordes of the South and then leaving them
to fight it out with their former masters; but the
rank and file of the Republicans, having with much
travail of spirit accepted the policy of bestowing the
suffrage, could not turn so sharp a corner and leave
the new voters to their fate. That distrust of the
southern whites which had been so violently stimu
lated in the North in order to secure the recon
struction acts and the Fifteenth Amendment long
remained sensitive to manipulation by politicians
of high and low degree. Only by some tremendous
shock of social and economic circumstance could the
southern question be displaced from its dominant
position in the political consciousness of the North.
Such a shock proved to be near at hand when General
Grant, in March, 1873, entered formally upon his
second term in the White House.
CHAPTER XIII
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEMORALIZATION IN
THE SOUTH
(1870-1873)
THE disastrous collapse of the Liberal move
ment brought dismay and despair to the white
people of the South; it seemed to postpone indefi
nitely the reversal of national policy which had been
so sanguinely hoped for, and to forebode an increase
of the rigor with which the enforcement acts were
applied by the administration. Some mitigation
of the burdens of which the southerners complained
had, indeed, attended the progress of the Liberal
movement. In 1871 the requirement of the iron
clad oath was repealed so far as ex-Confederates
were concerned ; 1 the next year Congress, by a
sweeping amnesty act, 2 removed the disabilities from
all but a small remnant, estimated at about seven
hundred and fifty, of those whom the Fourteenth
Amendment excluded from office; and an effort of
the radicals to extend the term of the president s
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 123.
2 U. S. Statutes at Large, XVII., 142; Blaine, Twenty Years of
Cong., II., 513.
204 RECONSTRUCTION [1871
summary powers tinder the Ku-Klux act failed. 1
Thus a host of southerners became again eligible to
the political dignities to which their fellow-citizens
might wish to raise them ; and the suspension of the
habeas corpus was no longer to be employed as it
had been in South Carolina. But eligibility to office
was of small practical consequence where election
was impossible; and the enforcement acts permit
ted the exercise of Federal power through Federal
troops without reference to the provision concern
ing the habeas corpus. In the ordinary process of
criminal justice, and at every election, the interpo
sition of United States marshals accompanied by
United States soldiers was a normal incident, 2 and
to that extent the sense of subjection was kept al
ways active among the people. General Terry,, com
manding the Department of the South, reported in
1871 two hundred instances in which detachments
of troops were sent out to aid civil officers, including
state authorities as well as Federal.
This ever-present source of irritation came as an
aggravation of the evils which by 1872 had in many
places become intolerable, arising from the ineffi
ciency, extravagance, and corruption of the radi
cal southern state governments. That the practical
working of these organizations was in all the states
bad, and in some of them a mere travesty of civilized
government, was made clear by the investigation of
1 Cong. Globe, 42 Cong., 2 Sess., 3931, 4323.
2 Sec. of War, Annual Report, 1871, p. 63.
1873] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 205
the joint committee of Congress, 1 commonly known
as the Ku-Klux committee; and it was not denied,
though it was palliated, in the report of the Repub
lican majority of that committee. 2
. The most conspicuous feature .of maladministra
tion was that of the finances. To the ambitious
northern whites, inexperienced southern whites, and
unintelligent blacks who controlled^ the Jirst recon
structed governments, ttfe grand end of their in
duction into power was to- put their states promptly
abreast of those which led in the prosperity and prog
ress at the. North. Things must be done, they be
lieved, on a larger, freer, nobler scale than under
the debased regime of slavery. Accordingly, both
by the new constitutions and by legislation, the ex
penses of the governments, were largely increased:
offices were multiplied in all departments; salaries
were made more worthy of the now regenerated
and progressive commonwealths; costly enterprises
were undertaken for the promotion of the general
welfare, especially w^here that welfare was primarily
connected with the uplifting of the freedmen. The
result of all this was promptly seen in an expansion
of state debts and an increase of taxation that to
the property-owning class were appalling and ruin
ous. .And the fact which was of the first impor-
1 See above, p. 188.
2 House Reports, 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 22, pt. i., p. 85 et seq.
See especially the report of the sub-committee on debts and
election laws, p. 101.
206 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
tance in the situation was that this class, which paid
the taxes, was sharply divided politically from that
which levied them, and was by the whole radical
theory of the reconstruction to be indefinitely ex
cluded from a determining voice in the government.
Of the objects of outlay which contributed to
swell the annual deficit of the state treasuries, many
were, of course, unexceptionable from any point of
view. The rebuilding of roads, bridges, and levees,
the renovation of public offices and other property,
the restoration of town improvements that had suf
fered by the devastation of the war all these works
absorbed large sums and were unopposed by the
conservatives, save where extravagance and cor
ruption were manifest or suspected. In respect to
the blacks, the governments had now to assume
many responsibilities which in slavery either per
tained to the masters or had no existence. Thus
the administration of criminal justice for the newly
enfranchised citizens and the regulation of their
family and property relations made an important
increase of public expenditure inevitable. One of
the largest items in the budgets of reconstruction
was the schools. Free public education existed in
only a rudimentary and sporadic form in the South
before the war, but the new constitutions provided
generally for complete systems on advanced north
ern models. 1 The financial burden of these enter-
1 Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., chap, x.; Fleming, Recon
struction in Ala., chap. xix.
1873] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 207
prises was very great, and the irritation thus caused
was increased by the fact that the blacks were the
chief beneficiaries of the new systems, while many
of the white tax-payers considered the education of
the negro, as carried on in the public schools, to be
either useless or positively dangerous to society.
Perhaps the chief element in the vast expansion
of state debts under the radical regime was that
incidental to the construction of railroads. That
many new lines and great improvements in the old
were essential to the economic resurrection of the
South, was recognized by conservatives and radi
cals alike, and almost all the new constitutions
authorized the loan of the state s credit to railway
enterprises. The North and West were at this time
in the midst of the great railway-building era else
where described, 1 and the spirit of these sections
moved across Mason and Dixon s line and down to
the Gulf. Projects of every degree of promise and
of fatuity were laid before the southern legislatures
for their authorization and endowment. Splendid
pictures of economic rehabilitation were exhibited
by the railway lobbyists, to follow the guarantee of
specified bonds; and many a sable legislator whose
financial experience before 1868 had been bounded
by the modest limits of a bootblack s or a field
hand s income was called upon to ponder the policy
of enterprises whose cost to the state would run
into the millions. The result was legislation of in-
1 See above, chap, ix., and below, chap. xiv.
VOL. XXII. 14
208 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
credible recklessness executed with inconceivable
corruption and fraud. On the debts due to the ex
tension of the government s regular expenses were
piled great masses of actual or prospective liabili
ties incurred on behalf of the railways. A very
conservative figure in 1872 put the increase of in
debtedness of the eleven states since their reconstruc
tion at $131,717,777.81, of which more than two-
thirds consisted of guarantees to various enterprises,
chiefly railways. 1 Much of this was well secured, so
far as the terms of the law were concerned, by liens
on the completed roads ; but it happened in only too
many instances that the issue of bonds preceded the
completion of the work, with the result that great
quantities of state - indorsed securities represented
no property of ascertainable value. Moreover, in
South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, railways
that had been owned in whole or in part by the
states were grossly mismanaged, and were exploited
for the profit of politicians. 2
In the maladministration that brought ruin to the
finances, inefficiency and corruption played about
equal parts. The responsible higher officials were
in many cases entirely honest, though pathetically
stupid, in their schemes to promote the interests of
their respective states. But the governments num
bered in their personnel, on the other hand, a host of
1 Ku-Klux Committee, Report, 101 et. seq., esp. 213.
3 Ibid., 389; Am. Annual Cyclop., 1871, 350; Fleming, Recon
struction in Ala., 599.
1873] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 209
officers to whom place was merely an opportunity
for plunder. The progressive depletion of the pub
lic treasuries was accompanied by great private
prosperity among radical politicians of high and
low degree. First to profit by their opportunity
were generally the northerners who led in radical
politics; but the "scalawag" southerners and the
negroes were quick to catch the idea. Bribery be
came the indispensable adjunct of legislation, and
fraud a common feature in the execution of the
laws. The form and manner of this corruption,
which has given so unsavory a connotation to the
name "reconstruction," were no different from
those which have appeared in many another time
and place in democratic government. At the very
time, indeed, when the administrations of Scott, in
South Carolina, and Warmoth, in Louisiana, were
establishing the southern high-water mark of rascal
ity in public finance, the Tweed ring in New York
City was at the culmination of its closely parallel
career. The really novel and peculiar element in
the maladministration in the South was the social
and race issue which underlay it, and which came
to the surface at once when any attempt at reform
was instituted.
In most of the reconstructed states the very first
term of the radical administration developed a
schism in the party in power. In a general way the
line of this cleavage was that dividing the southern
white from the northern white element the scala-
210 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
wag from the carpet-bagger. Between these two
elements there was a natural divergency of feeling
and policy in respect to the blacks, who constituted
the bulk of the party. As the negroes caught the
spirit of politics and demanded more and more of
the positions and essential power in their party, the
southern whites could not bring themselves to the
same amount of concession that th carpet-bag
gers made. The latter, therefore, became more and
more decisively the controlling element of the party.
Meanwhile the Democratic whites, constituting the
main body of tax-payers, watched with deepest alarm
the mounting debt and tax-rate in every state. They
were carrying most of the burden which radical ex
travagance and corruption were creating, and they
had small chance of success in any election against
the compact mass of negroes. They welcomed,
therefore, the chance to profit by the radical schisms,
and accordingly we find in most of the states, by
1872, a coalition of reforming Republicans and Dem
ocrats, under the name conservatives, in opposi
tion to the dominant radicals. The net outcome
of this movement was a sharpening of race lines in
party division a loss to the radicals of a consider
able fraction of the initially small white element
which they possessed. The tendency towards pure
ly race parties was promoted also by the return to
the North of many of the better class of carpet
baggers, discouraged with the failure of their proj
ects for making an honest fortune.
1873] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 211
In the reshaping of parties the conservatives prof
ited somewhat by the general amnesty act of Con
gress, 1 which brought many influential men once
more to the front. But the obstacles to a successful
campaign against the radicals were appalling. Not
only were the negroes impervious to arguments
based on existing maladministration, but, where the
whites were in the majority, the election laws of
most of the states enabled the party in power to
determine the result much at its will. In this mat
ter the reconstructed constitutions and legislatures
followed the example of the original acts of Congress,
and conferred upon the governors much the same
authority over the registration and elections as had
been possessed by the district commanders during
the military regime. 2 Under cover of a purpose to
insure protection to the negro voter, the control of
the local electoral machinery was centralized at the
state capitals, and extraordinary facilities for fraud
were embodied in the laws regulating both the cast
ing and the counting of the ballots. 3 The capstone
of the system was the "returning board," which in
some of the states was so constituted and so endowed
with power over the final canvass of the votes that
the governor and his appointees could determine the
result practically at their discretion, with but per
functory reference to the earlier incidents of the
election/
1 See above, p. 203. 2 Cf. Dunning, Essays, 190.
8 Ku-Klux Committee, Report, 252, 253, 354 et seq.
212 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
A final and terribly effective obstacle to political
reformation by the conservatives was the power of
the national administration. After the full com
mittal of President Grant to the policy of the en
forcement acts, the civil, judicial, and military
service of the United States in the South became
gradually a mere adjunct of the radical state gov
ernments. 1 Energetically directed by the attorney-
general at Washington, the district-attorneys and
marshals, and in some flagrant instances the district
judges themselves, gave indispensable support to
the radical cause. Indictments under the Ku-
Klux act, never brought to trial, were used as
a moderating influence on conservative enthusiasts
in close districts ; and it became a leading function
of United States soldiers to counteract by their
presence any tendency of negro interest in politics
to wane. Thus the useful service of the national
power in restraining the rash and violent elements
of southern white society that were active in the
later phases of the Ku-Klux movement was grad
ually transformed into the support of a social and
political system in which all the forces that made
for civilization were dominated by a mass of barbar
ous freedmen.
With the dwindling of the white element in the
radical party, it became increasingly apparent to
reflecting men that the demoralization in the South
1 For a scandalous employment of Federal troops in a mere
radical faction fight, see House Reports, 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 92.
1873] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 213
was less political than social in its essence that
the antithesis and antipathy of race and color were
crucial and ineradicable. Intelligence and political
capacity were, indeed, almost exclusively in the one
race; but this was not the key to the situation, for
the relations of the higher class of whites with the
blacks were notoriously far less hostile than those of
the lower class. A map of the Ku-Klux operations
which gave occasion for the enforcement acts does
not touch the region of the great plantations and
the black belts, where the aristocracy had their
homes, but includes only the piedmont territory,
where the poor whites lived* The negroes were dis
liked and feared almost in exact proportion to their
manifestation of intelligence and capacity. What
animated the whites was pride in their race as such
and a dread, partly instinctive, partly rational, lest
their institutions, traditions, and ideals were to be
appropriated or submerged. Whether or not this
feeling and spirit were abstractly preferable to those
which animated the northern idealist who preached
equality, the fact that such feeling and spirit were
at work must be taken squarely into account by
the historian.
The negro had no pride of race and no aspiration
or ideals save to be like the whites. With civil
rights and political power, not won, but almost
forced upon him, he came gradually to understand
and crave those more elusive privileges that con
stitute social equality. A more intimate associa-
214 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
tion with the other race than that which business
and politics involved was the end towards which
the ambition of the blacks tended consciously or
unconsciously to direct itself. The manifestations
of this ambition were infinite in their diversity. It
played a part in the demand for mixed schools, in
the legislative prohibition of discrimination between
the races in hotels and theatres, and even in the
hideous crime against white womanhood which now
assumed new meaning in the annals of outrage.
But every form and suggestion of social equality
was resented and resisted by the whites with the
energy of despair. The dread of it justified in their
eyes modes of lawlessness which were wholly sub
versive of civilization. Charles Sumner devoted the
last years of his life to a determined effort to
prohibit by Federal law any discrimination against
the blacks in hotels, theatres, railways, steamboats,
schools, churches, and cemeteries. 1 His bill did
not pass* Congress till 1875, after his death, but his
idea was taken up and enacted into law by most
of the southern radical legislatures. The laws
proved unenforceable and of small direct conse
quence, but the discussion of them furnished rich
fuel to the flames of race animosity, and nerved
many a hesitating white, as well as many an ambi
tious black, to violent deeds for the interest of his
people.
fierce, Sumner, IV., 499, 580, 581; Am. Annual Cyclop.,
1871, p. 752; 1872, p. 14.
1875] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 215
The deeper springs of southern conditions were ob
scured to the northern masses by the cloud of par
tisan prejudice which hung over the subject. The
radical claim that impenitent rebels were still re
sponsible for all the troubles in the South, through
their undying hatred of the negro and of the Re
publican party, served as a sufficient sedative for
uneasiness, so long as economic prosperity in the
North disposed the minds of the masses to optimism.
Yet the situation in the reconstructed states in 1873,
when the second administration of President Grant
got fairly under headway, was full of justification
for despair.
Four of the states Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia,
and North Carolina had come under conservative
control, and were gradually assuming the guise of
settled and orderly communities. But of these Vir
ginia and North Carolina were confessedly bank
rupt; and in all the states still under radical
control the finances were in the last stages of rotten
ness and chaos. The amount of the state debt was
in some cases undiscoverable, because no record of
bond issues had been preserved. 1 Charges of fraud,
bribery, and stealing constituted the burden of po
litical discussion in every state. Three governors
had been subjected to impeachment: Holden, of
North Carolina, and Warmoth, of Louisiana, were
convicted and deposed; Reed, of Florida, was ac-
1 Cf. Herbert, Why the Solid South? 420; Fleming, Reconstruc
tion in Ala., 594.
216 RECONSTRUCTION [1872
quitted, not, apparently, so much on the ground of
innocence as for the purpose of preventing the suc
cession of a conservative. 1 Every election, state
or national, was attended by charges on both sides
of fraud, intimidation, and outrage. Disputes as
to the results in 1872 were followed by the occupa
tion of three state capitals New Orleans, Mont
gomery, and Little Rock by United States troops
under the general direction of Attorney-General
Williams. 2 This officer s opinions on legal and po
litical questions became practically a decisive fac
tor in the result of every southern state election.
South Carolina and Louisiana were in 1873 the
spectacular illustrations of the working of recon
struction. The former state was thoroughly Afri
canized. A native white man, Franklin J. Moses,
Jr., of notoriously bad character, succeeded the
carpet-bagger Scott as governor, but most of the
other elected executive officers, two-thirds of the
legislature, and four out of the five congressmen
were negroes. 3 The shameless caricature of govern
ment which had prevailed at Columbia since the
blacks came to power was now known in its general
features throughout the North. 4 The disgust which
it might have been expected to inspire was subdued,
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1871, p. 559 (N. C.); Herbert, Why the
Solid South? 158 (Fla.), 415 (La.).
2 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1872, pp. 12, 483; 1874, p. 41.
3 Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C., 224.
4 For details, see Herbert, Why the Solid South? 88 et seq. ; Pike,
The Prostrate State, 120 et seq.
1873] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 217
however, by the feeling that the original secession
ists were meeting deserved retribution. Pathetic ap
peals of the small body of decent white men who
were still striving to maintain their rights and their
property against the flood of barbarism went un
noticed. President Grant, who found abundant
ground for interfering in other states, met the prayer
of a delegation from South Carolina with a non
possumus in which the nolumus was unconcealed. 1
The situation in Louisiana was more dramatic
than that in South Carolina. Henry C. Warmoth,
the carpet-bagger who was elected governor in 1868,
became involved during his term in a violent faction
fight with adversaries in his own party headed by
Packard, the United States marshal. In the election
of 1872 Warmoth became a Liberal and supported
the conservative state ticket against the radicals,
who had the favor of President Grant. The re
sult of the election depended chiefly on the return
ing board, and the legal composition of this body
was in dispute. Warmoth, in an exceedingly bit
ter and unscrupulous conflict in the state courts,
clearly outpointed his adversaries and secured a
canvass of the returns by his own board, giving the
presidential electors, the governorship, and the legis
lature to the conservatives. But Packard appealed
to the United States district judge, Durell, who, in
a grossly irregular way, prohibited the conservative
legislature to meet, ordered Federal troops to occupy
1 Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C., 263.
218 RECONSTRUCTION [1873
their hall and prevent their meeting, and directed
a canvass of the returns of the election by a board
which he said was the legal one. Warmoth took
care that this board should not get possession of the
actual returns, but a canvass was nevertheless made
of affidavits, census reports, and politicians guesses,
and the radical electors, governor, and legislature
were declared elected.
Thus double electoral returns were sent to Wash
ington, and two governments were organized in New
Orleans. The radical legislature went through the
form of impeaching and deposing Warmoth, rec
ognized the mulatto Pinchback as his temporary
successor, and finally installed Kellogg, another
carpet-bagger, as the duly elected governor. The
conservative legislature recognized Warmoth till the
end of his term, in January, 1873, and then in
stalled McEnery, their candidate, as governor. The
president, urged by his brother-in-law, Casey, col
lector of the port at New Orleans, and by Packard,
the United States marshal, recognized Pinchback
and Kellogg, and directed the troops to protect
them. Later he referred the matter to Congress, 1
where it became a subject of hot factional conflict
within the Republican majority. In counting the
electoral votes in February, 1873, the two houses
refused to accept either return from Louisiana. 2 The
Senate committee on elections, after making a care-
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 212.
2 Stan wood, Hist, of the Presidency, 355.
1873] POLITICS IN THE SOUTH 219
ful investigation, denounced in unmeasured terms
the proceeding of Judge Durell, but failed to find a
basis for definitive recognition of either of the state
governments, 1 and advised that another election be
held. No measure for this purpose could be passed,
and Louisiana remained in anarchy. The city of
New Orleans and the white population generally rec
ognized the McEnery government ; the blacks under
their carpet-bagger chiefs recognized Kellogg. In
the rural districts of the state serious collisions be
tween the races were caused by the disputes about
the offices. Most disastrous was the affair at Coif ax,
Grant Parish, in April, 1873, where in a pitched bat
tle several white men arid more than fifty negroes
were killed. 2 The troops of the United States were
admittedly all that kept the whites from sweeping
Kellogg and his black supporters into oblivion. Such
was the situation which, even more glaringly than
the conditions in South Carolina, displayed to the
people of the North the reductio ad absurdum of re
construction through negro suffrage and a regime
of carpet-baggers.
1 Senate Reports, 42 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 457.
2 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1873, p. 450; House Reports, 43 Cong.,
2 Sess., No. 261, pt. ii., pp. n, 891.
CHAPTER XIV
COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL DEMORALIZA*
* TION IN THE NORTH
(1869-1873)
THE years during which the southern situation
assumed the depressing aspect just suggested
were to the rest of the Union years of exuberant
economic prosperity. With the inauguration of
Grant in 1869 and the apparent settlement of the
vexatious question of political reconstruction, all
restraint upon the spirit of optimism seemed to dis
appear. Every form of business enterprise dis
played a restless activity; but side by side with
impressive exhibitions of honorable and legitimate
methods in successful commerce and industry ap
peared in disproportionate prominence the sordid
and repulsive features of a wealth-getting era. The
period of Grant s administrations was character
ized by a conspicuously low tone of both public and
private morality.
The problems of national finance, which had been
so haltingly dealt with under Johnson, were taken
up in a distinctly more hopeful spirit under his suc
cessor. Secretary Boutwell was as free as McCulloch
1871] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 221
had ever been from presidential interference with
the management of the treasury, 1 and was, in addi
tion, on harmonious terms with the majority in Con
gress. Progress, therefore, was possible in financial
readjustment, though differences of opinion among
the Republicans, both leaders and rank and file, put
out of the question any comprehensive project for
the settlement of all pending fiscal problems.
The danger to the public credit which was in
volved in the greenback movement in 1868 was
counteracted immediately upon Grant s assump
tion of office, by the act of March 18, 1860, hedging ,
the faith of the United States to pay u ooin all i
obligations not in terms otherwise redeemable, and
also to provide as soon as practicable for the re
demption of the legal tenders in coin. 2 This same
Congress, in its later sessions, systematized the proc
ess of reducing the debt and the annual interest
by the refunding acts of 1870 and 1871, which
authorized the substitution of bonds bearing four,
four and one-half, and five per cent, interest for the
war-time issues at higher rates. 3 Though the most
sanguine expectations as to the working of this legis
lation were not realized, its general influence was
good, and the burden of the debt was soon materially
lessened. 4
1 See above, p. 136; Boutwell, Reminiscences, II., 166.
2 McPherson, Hist, of Reconstruction, 412 ; see above, p. 139.
3 U. 5. Statutes at Large, XVI., 272, 399.
4 Dewey, Financial Hist, of U. 5., 354; Boutwell, Reminis
cences, II., 144.
222 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
The revenue system was also subjected to a far-
reaching revision during Grant s first term. By
virtue of the still-existing war taxes the receipts of
the treasury were heavily in excess of expenditures, 1
the surplus going to reduce the debt. But with all
the popular enthusiasm for paying off the debt, the
complaints of oppressive taxes were incessant, and
Congress was obliged to give heed: an act of July
14, 1870, was the outcome. By this measure sweep
ing reductions were made in the internal taxes, cut
ting off some fifty million dollars of revenue annually,
but only slight and unimportant changes could be
agreed upon in the tariff on imports. 2 Two years
later, however, under pressure of anti-protectionist
sentiment among western Republicans, and the
threatening aspect of the Liberal movement, a hori
zontal reduction of ten per cent., together with the
repeal of the duties on coffee and a few other articles,
was, after great difficulty, forced through Congress. 3
Through this legislation a further curtailment of the
revenue by some thirty million dollars annually was
effected. The protectionists were able, however,
to preserve their principle as embodied in the war
tariff, and circumstances were soon to enable them
to regain the little ground lost through the ten per
cent, reduction.
Of all the elements of public finance, the least satis-
1 Table in Dewey, Financial Hist, of U. S., 401.
Ubid., 397 .
1 Stanwood, Hist, of Tariff Controversies, II., 178.
1873] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 223
factory in its condition and the most potent in stim
ulating the spirit of speculation was the currency.
Though the redemption of the greenbacks was gen
erally assumed to be certain, the time and manner
of the process were wholly unsettled. When Con
gress peremptorily put a stop to the retirement of
the notes by Secretary McCulloch, 1 room for doubt
was left as to the authority of the secretary touch
ing those which had been withdrawn. The maxi
mum circulation fixed by law was $400,000,000;
the actual circulation was $356,000,000. Was the
secretary of the treasury authorized to reissue the
difference, $44,000,000, which he had, in accordance
with law, retired ? The uncertainty as to his power,
and, assuming his power, the uncertainty as to his
inclination, were for Wall Street and for all the
complex interests that radiated from that centre
an object of lively speculation. That the secretary
might, at his discretion and without warning, inject
so large a sum into the currency of the country was
a fact that could not be left out of account by any
financier or by any commercial or industrial pro
moter. Nor was this the only respect in which the
treasury was potent in business. The government
was the largest dealer in gold in all the land; in
payment of customs duties a large proportion of the
nation s supply of free gold flowed into the treasury.
The metal was regularly returned to circulation,
not only by the payment of interest on the debt,
1 See above, p. 138.
VOL. XXII 15
224 RECONSTRUCTION [1869
but also by public sales, the time and amount of
which were fixed by the secretary ; hence this officer
could exert a powerful influence on the market-price
of gold, and thus on the specie value of the legal-
tender currency.
The grave responsibility which this situation de
volved upon the administration had unhappy con
sequences in both business and politics. The mag
nates of industry and finance were obliged to shape
their projects by subtle calculations as to the mental
processes of the secretary of the treasury and the
president. It is not surprising that efforts were
made to determine those processes in advance. An
audacious attempt of Fisk and Gould to corner gold
in the summer of 1869 was based upon a systematic
campaign to influence President Grant; but Secre
tary Boutwell was left by the president free to act,
and by a sudden sale of treasury gold thwarted the
speculators scheme and precipitated the panic of
Black Friday. 1 This spectacular episode increased
the sensitiveness of popular opinion as to the rela
tions of the treasury with business. Later in Grant s
first term, Secretary Boutwell, under pressure of
apparent danger to the public credit, ventured to
solve the problem of his authority over the retired
greenbacks by reissuing temporarily some six mill
ion dollars. 2 This again illustrated the power of
1 Boutwell, Reminiscences, II., chap. xxxv.
* Dewey, Financial Hist, of U. S. t 360; Cong. Record, 43 Cong.,
i Sess., 704.
1874] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 225
the treasury, and evoked severe criticism, not only
from those who objected to all implication of the
government in the affairs of Wall Street, but also
from those who feared a movement towards infla
tion of the currency.
The West continued to furnish under Grant, as it
had furnished under Johnson, the chief inspiration
to the economic progress of the nation. Prosperity
was, indeed, quite general in its manifestations ; but
it was the rapid opening up and settlement of the
fertile plains of the north Mississippi Valley that
brought into highest relief the typical features of
the time. The movement of population to this
region and of crops away from it was a chief factor
in the enormous development of railroads; and this
development was, beyond question, the controlling
influence in both the prosperity which distinguished
the period and the catastrophe with which it ended.
After 1869 the consolidation of great trunk lines,
to which reference has already been made, 1 con
tinued, on an ever -increasing scale. 2 In 1871 the
Pennsylvania formally organized a general system
which put her mileage far in excess of that of any
of her eastern rivals, and included a direct line from
New York to every leading city as far as Chicago
and St. Louis. The Vanderbilts, in 1873, made
Chicago their western terminus. By 1874 the Balti
more & Ohio had a continuous line to the same
city. West of Chicago five powerful systems com-
1 See above, p. 148. a See map, facing p. 224.
226 RECONSTRUCTION [1869
pleted their connections across Iowa to the Mis
souri River; and in addition the Milwaukee &
St. Paul and the Chicago & Northwestern pushed
extensive enterprises into the undeveloped regions
of Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. Still farther
west a number of companies whose names betokened
an ambition to reach the ocean goal the Kansas
Pacific, Southern Pacific, Texas & Pacific, and
Northern Pacific stretched their lines across the
plains, but without the 6lan that carried the first
transcontinental road to completion.
The effects of railway development on the gen
eral financial and economic situation were every
where conspicuous. In the eastern parts of the
country the multiplication of new lines little more
than kept pace with the demands of the industrial
and commercial enterprises which it stimulated; in
the new regions of the West construction went bold
ly far in advance even of population, and absorbed
enormous amounts of capital on which the most
sanguine investors could not expect fair returns for
years. The efforts to escape or to distribute the risk
and burden of this situation gave a perpetually
feverish character to the financial markets. This
condition was aggravated by the operations attend
ing the process of consolidation. The creation of
the great systems was accompanied by stock- water
ing and other manipulation of securities on a scale
at that time unprecedented. These proceedings,
though quite in harmony with the prevalent spirit
1872] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 227
of speculation, appeared to the masses of the people,
untutored in the principles of high finance, iniqui
tous and alarming. The men who were concerned in
the greatest of the new enterprises the Vander-
bilts, Jay Gould, Thomas A. Scott, John W. Gar-
rett were indiscriminately grouped as a band of
pirates, amassing wealth at the expense of their
fellow-citizens.
Popular discontent with various aspects of the
railway situation became politically active, especial-
ly in the West, in the early seventies. A general
demand found expression in all party platforms that
" the grant of public land to " corporations and monop
olies should cease." Now that the immigration of
actual settlers was growing very large, it We s con
sidered a serious grievance that so much desirable
land could be procured only through the agents of
the railroads, and at prices much above that at
which adjoining pieces had been sold by the govern
ment. From the inauguration of the railway land-
grant policy in 1850 to 1873, some thirty-five mill
ion acres had been actually transferred from the
government to railways; and in the latter year
the amount yet to be transferred under existing
laws to the Pacific roads alone was estimated
at one hundred and forty-five million acres. 1 Be
fore such figures the land-hungry western farm
er stood aghast, and his resentment against the
magnates of railway finance waxed fierce. In the
1 Sec. of Interior, Annual Report, 1873, p. 288.
228 RECONSTRUCTION [1869
elections of 1872 every national platform embod
ied the demand that grants to corporations should
cease. 1
A more effective expression of popular feeling
was the so-called "Granger Legislation/ Begin-
I ning with Illinois in 1871, most of the states of the
I Northwest adopted measures of varying stringency
for the control of transportation within their boun
daries: commissions were created, with extensive
supervisory power over the roads ; discrimination in
charges, whether among persons or among places,
was prohibited ; and in some of the states 2 maximum
rates were prescribed for both passenger and freight
traffic. The grievances which these drastic meas
ures were designed to redress were in part due to the
rapid opening of new grain-producing areas, giving
crops that were too large to be cheaply and prompt
ly carried to the markets by the railroads, and in
part to the fierce efforts of the railway managers to
pay dividends on the great capital which the opera
tions of construction and consolidation had created.
But the farmer felt that all the trouble lay in the
greed and overgrown power of Vanderbilt and Scott
and Gould, and that the people must through gov
ernmental action defend themselves from the oppres
sion of these modern robber barons. Besides the
state legislation which this spirit produced, exten-
1 Stan wood, Hist, of the Presidency, 336 et seq.
2 Notably Illinois and Wisconsin. Am. Annual Cyclop., 1871,
p. 386; 1874, p. 808.
1871] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 229
sive projects of action by the Federal government
were agitated. The power of Congress in the prem
ises was made the subject of investigation and re
port, and the interstate commerce act of later years
was foreshadowed. 1
The popular hostility to the railways was closely
associated with the feeling roused by revelations of
corruption in political life. It was freely charged
that the corporations and the magnates of the finan
cial world were achieving their ends by improper in
fluence over public officials. During the first two
years of Grant s administration a number of epi
sodes revealed or suggested scandalous abuse of
governmental power. Most notorious of these was
the career of the Tweed ring in New York City.
William M. Tweed was the "boss" of Tammany
Hall. Through this organization he controlled the
government of the city, and by the authority thus
exercised in the Democratic party he secured, in
1869, a large measure of control over the state gov
ernment also. His power was used to place and
keep himself and his confederates in the offices
through which the finances of the city were ad
ministered, and to thwart all efforts by outsiders to
interfere with his methods. The result was fraud
and stealing on a scale unparalleled in the history
of civilized men. In two and a half years the debt
of the city was increased by about seventy million
dollars, most of which went into the pockets of the
1 House Reports, 43 Cong., i Sess., No. 28.
230 RECONSTRUCTION [1871
ring. 1 Though the general features of these pro
ceedings were notorious, it was not till the summer
of 1871 that evidence could be secured on which
the press generally and upright lawyers could effec
tively assail the offenders. By the end of the year
Tweed was under indictment, his principal confed
erates had abandoned their offices and were pre
paring for flight, and the city government was out
of Tammany s control. 2
Popular interest in the career of the Tweed ring
was chiefly absorbed in the ease and thoroughness
with which the plundering crew looted the treasury
of the metropolis; but thoughtful persons did not
fail to notice that the great financial concerns of
Wall Street manifested no signs of having suffered
at the hands of the brigands ; that judges who were
creatures of the ring were the chief instruments in
the most scandalous railway enterprises of Fisk and
Gould ; 3 and that when Tweed fell finally into the
clutches of the law, Jay Gould was the most impor
tant signer of his million-dollar bail bond.
In many other states than New York evidences
of corruption also appeared, though not on the same
colossal scale. The governor of Nebraska was im
peached and removed in 1871 for embezzlement;
sensational revelations of bribery in the elections of
1 Goodnow, in Bryce, American Commonwealth (ed. of 1888),
II., 3Si.
2 An excellent account of the whole affair in Rhodes, United
States, VI., 392 et seq.
3 Adams, Chapters of Erie, 33, 82, passim.
1872] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 231
United States senators were made in Kansas in the
following years. 1 Lesser scandals in state affairs
were not infrequent, and all combined to strengthen
the suspicions, which rumor and partisan malice
kept active, that the national government also was
permeated with corruption. Grant s Santo Domingo
project had been attended by sinister hints of com
mercial and industrial speculations in the back
ground. Our minister to Great Britain, General
Schenck, brought disgrace upon himself and his
government, in 1872, by association with a dubious
mining speculation. 2 These indications that the
spirit of unscrupulous wealth-getting was active
among public men, combined with the popular un
easiness at the great growth of corporate power in
the railways, prepared the way for the profound
indignation and resentment which swept over the
country in relation to the Credit Mobilier.
This term of ill-omen came into general discussion
during the presidential campaign of 1872. Charges
were made in the press that many prominent con
gressmen had been bribed by gifts of stock in a
corporation called the Credit Mobilier. An investi
gation was promptly ordered when Congress met
in December, 1872, and the facts were fully set forth
in two reports of the committees headed by Mr.
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1871, p. 537; 1872 and 1873, art.
Kansas.
* House Reports, 44 Cong., i Sess., No. 579, "The Emma
Mine."
232 RECONSTRUCTION [1867
Poland and Mr. Wilson, respectively. 1 The Credit
Mobilier was a concern through which the control
ling stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad
Company secured for themselves all the profits ac
cruing from the contracts for the construction of the
road. In 1867 a group of financiers, among whom
Oakes Ames, a member of the House of Represent
atives from Massachusetts, was the active leader,
holding a majority of the railroad stock, awarded to
themselves, in their capacity as controllers of the
Credit Mobilier, a contract to build and equip a
large part of the road on terms which insured to the
persons concerned practically all the proceeds of the
stock and bonds created by the railroad company.
To guard against any interference by Congress
with the smooth working of the scheme, Ames, in
the winter of 1867-1868, distributed among his asso
ciates in Congress a large amount of Credit Mobilier
stock at par, on which the dividends to the end of
1868 amounted to about three hundred and forty
per cent. The recipients of this stock were selected
by Ames with extraordinary shrewdness, in view of
his purpose to put the shares "where they will do
the most good to us." 2 Some of the members to
whom the stock was offered refused to have any
thing to do with it; but those who took it, either
directly or indirectly, and profited by it, included a
number of the most influential men in public life.
1 House Reports, 42 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 77; Rhodes, United
States, VII., chap. xl. 2 Cf. Hoar, Autobiography, I., 316.
1873] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 233
The exposure of these transactions by the Poland
committee caused a great panic among all who had
had any relations with Ames or his enterprise; and
some, in their frantic efforts to escape the odium of
corruption, brought upon themselves the added
reproach of perjury. Colfax, the outgoing vice-
president in 1873, and Wilson, his successor, were
both tainted by the affair, the former ruinously.
Oakes Ames and James Brooks, of New York,
were recommended for expulsion by the investi
gating committee, but were by the House merely
censured. Patterson, of New Hampshire, was rec
ommended for expulsion by a committee of the
Senate, but no action was taken before his term
expired on March 4, 1873. All the other con
gressmen who had been concerned in this affair
were declared by the committee guiltless of cor
rupt acts or motives ; but this judgment saVed their
virtue at the sacrifice of their intelligence, for it was
based on the view that they had taken the Credit
Mobilier stock without perceiving its relation to
their official capacity.
The effect of the Credit Mobilier revelations on
popular feeling was far-reaching. They were re-
garded as confirming the worst suspicions current
in reference both to the methods of railway cor
porations and to the influences pervading official
life at Washington. By a peculiar coincidence the
same session of Congress which opened with the
CreMit Mobilier investigation closed with another
234 RECONSTRUCTION [1873
proceeding that was like vitriol on the raw wound
of public sentiment. In the closing days of the
session, by insertion in an appropriation bill, an in
crease of salaries was enacted for the president, vice-
president, cabinet officers, judges of the Supreme
Court, and all congressmen. For the senators and
representatives the increase of twenty-five hundred
dollars per annum was made retroactive, so that
each member of the Congress that passed the bill
would receive five thousand dollars for the two
years of service just expiring. This feature was
strongly opposed by members like Garfield, whose
perception of the proprieties in official conduct had
been much sharpened by the recent Credit Mobilier
investigation ; but the bill was boldly pushed through,
with B. F. Butler cynically leading the movement.
The immediate result was an overwhelming ex
plosion of wrath in the press and through every
other medium for the expression of popular feeling.
The "salary grab" and the "back-pay steal" be
came a theme of denunciation in every hamlet in the
land, quite without distinction of party. In vain
did the luckless legislators explain that an increase
of their wages was justified by many considerations,
and that the retroactive provision had precedents
in every similar act throughout our history. Noth
ing availed to stem the torrent of adverse feeling.
Most of the members who looked for future favor
from their constituents refused to retain their share
of back pay, and the new Congress which assembled
1873] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 235
in December, 1873, with promptness and a chastened
spirit restored the members salaries to the original
figures.
Meanwhile, before this humiliating action was
taken, the era of prosperity, in which the miasma of
greed and corruption appeared to have its source,
came to an abrupt end. September 18, 1873, with
out premonition, the failure was announced of the
banking house of Jay Cooke & Company. This
firm enjoyed a unique position in popular estima
tion. It had been of invaluable service to the gov
ernment in floating the great loans of the war-time,
and its success was due to a shrewd appeal to the
small capitalists scattered through the less densely
populous parts of the country. The same method
was applied in pushing the bonds of the Northern
Pacific Railroad, but in this case it proved a fail
ure and precipitated the firm s disaster. A man of
ostentatious piety himself, 1 Jay Cooke impressed
upon his business a moral, religious, and patriotic
reputation, which to the godly people remote from
the centres of high finance distinguished his enter
prises from those of mere money-making bankers.
His failure, therefore, seemed to involve more than
purely business disaster, and to forebode a general
upheaval of social foundations. In Wall Street
the moral and religious aspects of the matter
played no part, but the effect on the financial
situation was appalling. Other large firms quickly
1 Century Mag., November, 1906, p. 129.
236 RECONSTRUCTION [1873
followed Cooke, and countless lesser concerns sus
pended ; prices on the stock-market tumbled, money
became unprocurable on any terms, and all the
features of a panic appeared. Heroic efforts were
made to check the demoralization : the banks pooled
their resources, and employed for the first time the
since familiar device of clearing-house certificates;
the stock- exchange was closed continuously from
September 20 to September 30 ; and urgent demands
were made on the treasury for relief to the money-
market. President Grant and the new secretary of
the treasury, Richardson, went to New York at the
height of the crisis and discussed the situation with
the leading financiers ; but beyond the purchase of
bonds by which thirteen million dollars were re
leased from the treasury, the government conser
vatively kept its hands off, and let the return of
confidence and credit proceed without artificial
stimulus. 1
The demoralizing effects of the panic spread rap
idly from Wall Street to all parts of the country.
Railroad building almost ceased, and all the forms
of enterprise subsidiary to it became slack and list
less. Multitudes of projects which the high prices
of good times had called into being industrial
and commercial, conservative and highly speculative
alike stopped short for lack of capital. Sanguine
souls regarded the crisis as merely an affair of Wall
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1873, p. 283 et seq.; Richardson, Mes
sages and Papers, VII., 243.
1878] INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH 237
Street speculation, and looked for a speedy return
of the conditions that preceded September. But
the weeks and months rolled on into years, and no
sign of revival of business appeared. Bankruptcies
increased in number to a maximum of 10,478, which
was reached only in 1878; the annual mileage of
new railroads fell from 7439 in 1872 to 1606 in
I875; 1 the production of pig-iron declined from
2,560,000 tons in 1873 to 1,868,000 in 1876; our
foreign commerce totalled $28 per capita in 1873,
and but $21.93 in 1876; 2 and the immigration which
added 459,803 aliens to our population in the year
of the panic added but half that number in i875. 3
Such figures show clearly the magnitude of the
catastrophe of which the failure of Jay Cooke was
the prelude. The long years of commercial and in
dustrial depression had a powerful influence on
social and political conditions. The panic of 1873
thus occupies a significant place in the process of
reconstruction after the war ; its effect on the politi
cal phase of that process was promptly manifested
in the congressional elections of 1874.
1 Tenth Census of the U. S. (1880), Transportation. 290.
9 Burton, Financial Crises, App. B.
8 Sec. of the Treasury, Finance Report, 1875, p. 671.
CHAPTER XV
THE "TIDAL WAVE" OF 1874
"PHE grave conditions in financial and industrial
1 affairs after the panic of September, 1873,
naturally gave full occupation to popular thought
during the succeeding winter, and the unhappy po
litical and social situation in the South was rele
gated to the background. When the forty- third
Congress met in December, it was greeted with an
annual message from the president in which south
ern affairs received no mention save a half-dozen
perfunctory lines at the end. Executive and legis
lature alike devoted themselves to problems of
finance and currency, which had suddenly become
urgent. From all parts of the country appeals were
heard for some governmental action to relieve the
distress of business interests. The political leaders
at Washington were badly divided in their views as
to what ought to be done, and the division was less
on party than on sectional lines the agricultural
West against the industrial East.
Out of a wide range of conflicting projects, issue
was most definitely joined on the proposition to in
crease the amount of greenbacks in circulation.
1874] ELECTIONS OF 1874 239
Secretary Richardson had felt obliged to follow
Boutwell s precedent in reissuing those that McCul-
loch had retired. 1 By January, 1874, the amount
reissued was twenty-six million dollars, making the
total in circulation three hundred and eighty-two
million dollars. This reissue was vehemently as
sailed as illegal, but a bill which substantially vali
dated it and provided further that the maximum of
greenbacks should be four hundred million dollars
passed both houses of Congress in April, 1874. This
"inflation bill," as it was called by its adversaries,
the president, after much hesitation, vetoed, 2 and >
the Senate failed to pass it over the veto. In June
the contending factions came together sufficiently
to pass a bill which the president approved, fixing
the maximum at the amount actually in circulation
namely, three hundred and eighty-two million dol
lars. 3 This compromise left a good deal of bad feel
ing among the extremists on both sides. The hard-
money men were angered at the permanent increase
of the amount of greenbacks ; the soft-money men at
provisions of the act which insured the permanence
and development of the national banks with their
circulating notes. This latter feature decisively
alienated from the party in power large masses of
voters in the West, who regarded the national bank
1 See above, p. 224.
Hoar, Autobiography, I., 206; Boutwell, Reminiscences, II.,
233.
3 U. 5. Statutes at Large, XVIII., 124.
VOL. XXII. 16
240 RECONSTRUCTION [1874
system as merely a device for increasing the wealth
and power of the eastern magnates of finance.
While divisions on questions of currency and
finance were thus sapping the strength of the Re
publican party, maladministration was contributing
much to the same end. There were many revela
tions during 1874 of the same sort of moral dete
rioration which the Credit Mobilier investigation
and the "salary grab" had brought to light in
the preceding year. Practically every executive
department was brought by the enemies of the
administration under imputation of systematic evil-
doing. In many cases specific charges failed on
investigation to be sustained, but a well-founded
impression was left that extravagance was en
couraged by the higher officials, that inefficiency
was very common among the lower, and that the
whole service was permeated by the spirit of pri
vate gain at the expense of the public. The navy
and several bureaus of the department of the interior
afforded disquieting evidence of evil agencies at
work, and especially of the malign influence of the
spoils system; in the treasury maladministration
was revealed with a clearness that had far-reaching
effects on public sentiment.
Fraud and corruption in the collection of the
national revenue had been frequently charged ever
since the war. The rates of taxation were so high
that the profits of evasion offered a temptation hard
to resist, and drastic methods had been authorized
1874] ELECTIONS OF 1874 241
by Congress to insure the enforcement of the laws.
Treasury agents and informers were stimulated to
the ferreting out of fraud by the guarantee of a
large percentage of all sums which they should dis
cover to have been illegally withheld from the
government. This moiety system, as it was called,
was found to cause rather more evil than it cured,
and it was finally abolished in 1874. The black
mailing operations of one Jayne, a specially active
revenue agent, had much to do with the abolition of
the system, and its disappearance was closely asso
ciated also with the notorious Sanborn contracts, of
which the facts were as follows. By a special agree
ment with the treasury, one Sanborn undertook to
recover certain wrongfully withheld taxes for fifty
per cent, of what he should get. Through the care
lessness or criminal collusion of treasury officials
he received authorization to collect, subject to his
claim for one-half, several millions of dollars which
would normally all come into the treasury through
the regular collectors. The scandalous character
of this affair was fully established by the report of
a House committee in March, I874. 1 The com
mittee refrained from ascribing corruption to any
officer of the treasury ; but Secretary Richardson was
so seriously compromised by the revelations that his
resignation became inevitable. He was translated
by Grant, though not without strong opposition in
1 House Reports, 43 Cong., i Sess., No. 559; cf. Nation, March
12, 1874; Hoar, Autobiography, I., chap, xxiii.
242 RECONSTRUCTION [1873
the Senate, to the court of claims, and he was suc
ceeded in the treasury, June i, by Benjamin H.
Bristow, of Kentucky.
The Sanborn affair brought into much prominence
one aspect of the factional conditions in the Republi
can party. Benjamin F. Butler was at this time at
the height of his power as a party leader: he was
chairman of the House committee on the judiciary,
and his influence at the White House was enormous,
as was demonstrated in the winter of 1873-1874 by
the ignominious defeat of his adversaries in a fierce
contest for the control of Federal patronage in Massa
chusetts. 1 Sanborn was a supporter of Butler in the
politics of this state, and the law under which the
notorious contracts were made was due largely to
the insistence of Butler. These facts afforded an
opportunity to discredit the latter, whose methods
and manners roused much personal enmity among
ambitious colleagues. Virulent assaults on the Mas
sachusetts member were made in the House by Re
publicans, especially by Charles Foster, a rising rep
resentative from Ohio; and Butler s defence, while
characterized by all the adroitness and audacity
which had carried him through many an earlier
affair of the kind, failed to remove entirely the im
putations which were derived from the facts of his
record. 2
The attack on Butler, and the sympathy it re-
1 Hoar, Autobiography, I., 210; Rhodes. United States, VII., 24.
* Cong. Record, 43 Cong., i Sess, 4122, 5220.
1875] ELECTIONS OF 1874 243
ceived in the party, were indications of a strong
anti-administration feeling in the Republican ranks.
This feeling was partly due to personal ambitions in
connection with the succession to the presidency,
and partly to a genuine conviction that the influences
which controlled Grant were inimical to the best in
terests of the country. It was notorious that the
Republican leaders who were most in favor at the
White House Butler, Morton, and Conkling were
the most persistent opponents of the movement
for reform in the civil service. The efforts of the
civil service advisory board to do away with the
grosser evils of congressional patronage in appoint
ments were continually thwarted through the activ
ity and influence of these leaders. Grant consistent
ly professed approval of the reform and a strong
desire for its success; yet in the practical issues
that arose from time to time between the board
and the hostile congressmen, he generally gave the
latter their way. As early as March, 1873, George
William Curtis, after two years service as head
of the board, gave up his task and resigned ; 1
and in 1875 Grant formally abandoned the whole
competitive system of appointments, on the ground,
which was perfectly valid, that he was not supported
by Congress. 2 This action of the president was fore-
1 Rhodes, United States, VII., 22; Fish, Civil Service and the
Patronage, 213.
2 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 301; Lalor, Cyclop
of Pol. Set., I., 484.
244 RECONSTRUCTION [1871
shadowed by the trend of affairs during the twelve
months preceding, and anti-administration sentiment
was correspondingly stimulated among the Republi
cans who looked for reform. The party thus ap
proached the elections of 1874 in a condition of
little-veiled discord, with a record of maladminis
tration and scandal that must prove a heavy han
dicap.
At the very end of the session of Congress, in
June, 1874, this handicap was increased by a scan
dal in the District of Columbia. Under a territorial
form of government given to the District in 1871,
the city of Washington was transformed from an
ugly country village into a beautiful modern city.
This process was pushed with remorseless energy
by A. R. Shepherd, the leading member of the board
of public works, and later governor of the District,
but was accompanied by an ever-growing volume
of complaints and protests from the property own
ers. Shepherd was, however, a warm personal friend
of Grant, and he could always command the unwa
vering support of the negro voters, who determined
the majority at every election. Not till 1874, there
fore, did his adversaries succeed in securing an in
vestigation, but the result was decisive: a joint com
mittee of the Senate and House, after a thorough
examination, unanimously reported in June that
the allegations of extravagance, corruption, and in
tolerable oppression were substantially true, and
that the territorial form of government for the Dis-
1874] ELECTIONS OF 1874 245
trict was a failure and ought to be abolished. 1 A
bill to this effect was promptly passed, with pro
vision for a transitional board of commissioners to
carry on the government till a new permanent form
could be devised. Grant s dogged devotion to his
friends when under fire was thereupon once more
illustrated. Though the report of the committee
had embodied an unsparing condemnation of Shep
herd, his name was sent in by the president as a
member of the transitional commission. The Sen
ate, with pardonable emphasis, rejected Shepherd s
nomination by a vote of 6 to 36, and some of the
president s strongest supporters gave public expres
sion to their disapproval of his action. 2
At the same time another aspect of the reform in
the District did not fail to impress reflecting minds.
The black population of the capital was very large
after the war, and the popular form of government
which was so unceremoniously set aside in 1874 had
been originally established as in some measure a
standing national exhibition of the blessings of
negro suffrage. Washington had thereupon become
the theatre of the same sort of politics and admin
istration that prevailed in the southern states. The
promptness and thoroughness with which the Re
publican Congress suppressed the exhibition at
Washington furnished a suggestive contrast to the
1 Senate Reports, 43 Cong., i Sess., No. 453. Summary in Am.
Annual Cyclop., 1874, p. 268.
3 Nation, June 25, 1874; Paine, Thomas Nast, 294.
246 RECONSTRUCTION [1872
policy by which the radical regime was prolonged in
the South.
The development of the autumn political cam
paign early revealed that the Republican ascen
dency was in peril. Throughout the West the farm
ers movement was dissolving the old parties, and
was taking political shape in " anti-monopoly " and
" independent" and "reform" organizations, whose
activity was in general directed against the Repub
licans. Here the railroad and currency questions
were most influential in the situation, while in the
East the party s record of scandal and maladminis
tration was doing most to alienate intelligent voters.
The popular impression of moral decay was doubt
less much deepened also by the unfolding during
the summer of a sensational social scandal in Brook
lyn, New York. Theodore Til ton, a prominent edi
tor, brought charges of gross immorality against
Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous pulpit orator
in the country; and the controversies that followed
put in a repulsive light the private lives of men
who had been ostentatious exponents of the exalted
moral ideas for which the Republican party claimed
to stand.
To stem the adverse current of public feeling, the
Republican leaders plied with desperate energy the
old and hitherto always effective southern issue.
The situation in the South, at first hardly favorable,
later shaped itself well to their hand. In Louisiana
the president grimly persisted in his support of the
1874] ELECTIONS OF 1874 247
Kellogg government, despite strong Republican op
position to this policy. Of the Senate committee
which investigated the situation but a single mem
ber, Morton, approved the president s position; 1
and the judiciary committee of the House reported
in favor of impeaching Judge Durell for the irreg
ular acts which had made the Kellogg regime pos
sible. 2 The effect of public and party opinion as to
Louisiana was manifest apparently in the policy
of the administration elsewhere. In Texas a state
election in December, 1873, resulted in an over
whelming defeat of the radicals. A decision of the
state supreme court afforded promising ground for
nullifying the election, and the radical governor
appealed to Grant for support in such action; but
though there was probably as good a case for inter
ference as in Louisiana, the president declined to
sustain the defeated party, and permitted the state
to lapse into conservative control. 8
Arkansas furnished even clearer evidence of a
change of policy by Grant. The election of 1872
in that state resulted in the installation of Baxter,
a radical, as governor. Fifteen months later, in
April, 1874, Brooks, the unsuccessful candidate,
secured a "snap judgment" of a state court revers
ing the declared result of the election, and there-
1 Foulke, Morton, II., 283.
3 House Reports, 43 Cong., i Sess., No. 732. Durell shortly
afterwards resigned.
3 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1873, art. Texas.
248 RECONSTRUCTION [1874
upon ejected Baxter by force from the state-house.
Partisans on both sides took arms, and for a month
Little Rock was occupied by the two forces, skir
mishing, but restrained from decisive battle by
United States troops. Because Baxter had not
given satisfaction to his former supporters, includ
ing United States Senators Clayton and Dorsey,
they were now in favor of Brooks, and the conser
vatives were against him. The president, however,
found difficulty in following these lightning-change
political artists, and Attorney - General Williams
duly provided the principles of law under which
Baxter was sustained as the governor. Brooks ac
cordingly gave up the contest, and the Democrats
skilfully turned the situation to their own account
and secured control of the state. 1
The evidence afforded by these incidents in Texas
and Arkansas that the administration was weaken
ing in its policy of interference probably had some
thing to do with the renewal of strife in Louisiana.
The conservatives of the state, large numbers of
whom were organized in semi -secret and military
societies known as White Leagues, had been qui
escent since Grant s formal recognition of Kellogg
in the spring of i873. 2 The radical government
maintained a formal existence, but with no moral
and little material support from the white popula-
1 Harrell, The Brooks-Baxter War, 163 et seq.; Am. Annual Cy
clop., 1874, art. Arkansas; House Reports, 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 2
2 See above, p. 218.
1874] ELECTIONS OF 1874 249
tion. In September, 1874, Kellogg undertook to
seize a lot of arms which the White League of New
Orleans had purchased. The result was a pitched
battle between the league and the police, mostly
negroes, who were organized and equipped as soldiers.
The police were totally defeated and dispersed, and
the radical governor took refuge in the custom-house
under protection of the Federal troops. But the
victors promptly learned that Grant s policy as to
Louisiana had not changed: they were commanded
by presidential proclamation to disperse, and the
United States forces were ordered to give effect to
this command. 1 The whites thereupon duly sur
rendered to General Emory, the Federal superior
officer, and the Kellogg organization, though shorn
of the last remnants of prestige and authority, re
sumed in the state-house the forms of governmental
activity in a community that was wholly anarchic.
These various affairs in the South were accom
panied, naturally enough, by exhibitions of race
animosity and violence that furnished to the de
spairing Republican leaders in the North the mate
rial most desired for appeal to sectional prejudice.
All other issues in the campaign were subordinated
to that involved in the "outrages" which the
"rebels" throughout the South were said to be
systematically inflicting upon negroes and white
Republicans. Early in September Grant ordered
the attorney-general again to set in full operation
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1874, art. Louisiana.
250 RECONSTRUCTION [1874
the machinery of the enforcement acts, which had
been allowed to slacken. 1 Republican newspapers
were urged by the campaign leaders to give great
prominence " until after the election" to the "hor
rible scenes of violence and bloodshed throughout
the South." 2 A heart-rending picture of proscrip
tion and terror among Republicans in Alabama was
drawn in a widely circulated letter of Congressman
Hays of that state ; but the writer incautiously gave
particulars of person, place, and date, and as a con
sequence his statements were promptly proved to
be largely false. 3 At Chattanooga, in October, the
work of systematic compilation of southern out
rages was undertaken by a convention which the
Nation, with possibly more picturesqueness than
accuracy, described as consisting of "all the more
prominent thieves, carpetbaggers and scalawags
among southern politicians." 4
Whatever facts there may have been to justify
this campaign policy of the Republicans, it proved
wholly ineffective. The elections went so over
whelmingly against the party as fully to warrant
the term "tidal wave" which was used to describe
the result. Democratic officers were chosen in a
majority of the states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and Indiana; and, most amazing of all, Massa-
1 Am. Annual Cyclop., 1874, p. 478.
2 Nation, October 15, 1874.
3 Fleming, Reconstruction in Ala., 787; Rhodes, United States,
VII., 79. * Cf . Am. Annual Cyclop., 1874, p. 299.
1874] ELECTIONS OF 1874 251
chusetts elected a Democrat, Gas ton, as governor.
Where the Republican control was retained, it was
rendered weak and insecure by a large element of
independents and reformers of various types which
the elections brought into the legislatures; but the
full significance of the voting was best revealed in
the returns for congressmen, which assured to the
Democrats in the next House of Representatives
a majority of about seventy members. With the
changes in the Senate that would follow the trans
formation of the state legislatures, it became ap
parent that the two-thirds majority of the Repub
licans in that body was doomed. Thus for the first
time since the withdrawal of the members from the
seceded states in 1861 the Democrats were to be
raised from the insignificance of an impotent faction
to a position of equality with their adversaries in
legislative power.
Such a result stamped the elections of 1874 as
epoch-making in the history of reconstruction after
the war. They clearly ended the era which the
elections of 1866 had as clearly begun. With the
Democrats controlling the House of Representa
tives and near to control of the Senate, the radical
policy towards the South was doomed to early dis
appearance.
XVI
THE SUPREME COURT AND RECONSTRUCTION
(1865-1875)
THE full realization of what must follow the loss
of control in Congress stimulated the Repub
licans to make all possible use of the short session
of 1874-1875, during which their majorities would
still be available. There was the usual recrimination
within the party as to which of the factions was
most responsible for the disaster in the elections.
The reforming element blamed the administration,
with its record of extravagance and scandal; the
radicals blamed the reformers, with their carping
at the president and his friends and with their
abandonment of the interests of the party in the
South. It was undeniable, however, that in two
matters which had everywhere great influence with
the voters the Credit Mobilier and the salary grab
the discredit was distributed rather evenly through
the party.
The question of the currency proved to be that
on which the Republican factions in Congress could
be most readily brought into harmony for the mak
ing up of a party record. President Grant, in his
1874] JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS 253
annual message of December 7, 1874, pleaded ear
nestly for legislation to insure an early return to
a specie basis. 1 Accordingly a senatorial caucus
committee, headed by John Sherman, laboriously
formulated a bill for the resumption of specie pay
ments. It was no simple matter to devise a meas
ure that should command the support of both those
who believed that more greenbacks were indis
pensable to the nation s welfare and those who
believed that there were already far too many in
circulation and that the existing economic depres
sion was due chiefly to this fact. But Sherman,
who had opposed both inflation and contraction,
and whose instinct was that of the opportunist
and practical man of affairs, succeeded in the task.
The bill provided for a gradual contraction of the
greenbacks to three hundred million dollars, with
an expansion of the bank-note circulation that
should more than compensate ; but the chief feature
was the fixing of a definite date, January i, 1879,
at which the redemption of greenbacks in coin should
begin. This pleased the hard-money men, because
it would enlist in their cause the argument of plighted
faith; while the opposing faction were willing to fix
a remote date, because of their conviction that be
fore it was reached circumstances would conclu
sively demonstrate the impossibility of carrying the
law into effect and would thus force its repeal. The
measure was admittedly ambiguous and defective
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 285.
254 RECONSTRUCTION [1874
in important particulars, but it was the best ob
tainable, and as such it was pressed through with
little discussion, and became law on January 14,
1875-
At the time of this success, however, the currency
question was quite overshadowed in public interest
by affairs in the South. Extraordinary develop
ments in Louisiana and a persistent purpose on the
part of the radicals in Congress to reverse the re
sults of the elections in Alabama and Arkansas 2
required that the Republicans should signalize their
last opportunity by positive and far-reaching legis
lation on southern affairs. But factional antago
nisms were too pronounced on this subject to be
reconciled, as had been done in respect to the cur
rency. A determined effort was made to enact a
bill combining and expanding the harshest pro
visions of the earlier enforcement legislation. 3 The
basis of the proposal was the report of a committee
which investigated the election of 1874 in Alabama;
and the whole power of the administration was be
hind this bill. But though there was abundant
evidence that the whites had demonstrated their
superiority in Alabama by methods that would
have no place in the North, the moderate Repub
licans were strongly opposed to the policy of fur-
1 U. S. Statutes at Large, XVIII. , 296; John Sherman, Recol
lections, I., 509; Foulke, Morton, II., 336.
2 See below, p. 267.
8 For the text of the bill, see McPherson, Handbook of Politics,
1876, p. 13.
1875] JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS 255
ther interference by the executive. The Democrats
in the House exhausted every device of filibustering
to delay the progress of the bill, and they received
aid in their struggle from Speaker Elaine, who had
no sympathy with the radicals purpose. 1 In con
sequence, the bill passed the House by a narrow
majority (135 to 114) only on February 27, too late
for any action by the Senate.
A single radical measure was pressed through to
passage against the opposition of both Democrats
and moderate Republicans. This was the much-
debated civil rights bill, which in various forms
had been before Congress for five years. 2 Sumner,
on his death-bed, in March, 1874, exacted from E.
R. Hoar a pledge to see that this favorite project
of the senator should be taken care of ; 3 but by the
irony of fate Benjamin F. Butler, whom Hoar cord
ially hated, actually had charge of the bill at its
final passage. The measure, having been shorn of
many of its extreme features, and reduced to a
guarantee of equal rights to the blacks in hotels,
public conveyances, and places of amusement, and
a prohibition of their exclusion from juries, became
law March i, i875. 4
With this the record of partisan legislation on
reconstruction was closed. The acts of Congress
bulked large and portentous in the statute-book,
1 Mayes, Lamar, 215; cf. Stan wood, Elaine, 117.
See above, p. 214. 3 Pierce, Sumner, IV., 598.
*McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1876, p. 3.
VOL. XXII. 17
256 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
but already the process of interpretation by the
Supreme Court had drawn off from the threatening
mass a large measure of its power, and the process
was destined to go on.
During the struggle between Congress and Presi
dent Johnson, the Supreme Court took great pains
to avoid becoming involved, and showed itself in
the highest degree sensitive to the manifestations of
public opinion and the currents of political feeling
in the North. When, just after the end of hostilities,
the dislike and fear of military courts were wide
spread and pronounced, the court decided the Milli-
gan case. 1 Within three months after the opinion
was rendered, Congress, in the reconstruction acts,
established throughout the South the precise mili
tary tribunals which the court had declared un
constitutional. The defiance was so patent that
able lawyers hastened to bring before the court the
new legislation, in sanguine expectation that it
would be nullified. But technical obstacles prompt
ly arose in bewildering profusion and insuperable
magnitude. While in the Milligan case the court,
with glowing enthusiasm for the supremacy of the
civil over the military order, swept aside techni
calities in the quest for substantial liberty and jus
tice, it welcomed technicalities with obvious joy
when they enabled it to evade jurisdiction over
congressional reconstruction. In the cases of Mis
sissippi vs. Johnson, and Georgia vs. Stanton, 2 in
1 See above, p. 89. *4 Wallace, 475; 6 Wallace, 50.
1869] JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS 257
April and May, 1867, the unwelcome responsibility
was put aside with some degree of dignity; in that
of ex parte McCardle there seemed absolutely no
alternative for the condemnation of military gov
ernment in the South save that of ignominiously
abandoning the Milligan doctrine. From this try
ing predicament the radicals in Congress extricated
the court by a hasty repeal of the legislation which
gave jurisdiction over the case; and the chief -justice,
whose dislike of military judicature was well known,
relinquished with some regret so perfect an oppor
tunity to damn it, but saved as he could the dignity
of the court by the resounding platitude: " Judicial
duty is not less fully performed by declining ungrant-
ed jurisdiction than by exercising firmly that which
the constitution and laws confer." l
In 1869, after the tension between the executive
and Congress had subsided, and after the recon
struction was in large measure complete, the court
indicated its general attitude towards the procedure
through which the rebel states had been rehabili
tated by the radical Congress. The case, Texas
vs. White, 2 did not require a direct opinion as to
the constitutionality of the reconstruction acts;
but it did require a determination of the question
whether Texas, pending her readmission under the
acts, was a state of the Union in the sense of that
clause of the Constitution which gives to the court
1 Hart, Chase, 350, 355; Dunning, Essays, 137.
3 7 Wallace, 700.
258 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
original jurisdiction in suits to which a state is a
party. The answer of the court was affirmative,
and the opinion, written by Chief -Just ice Chase,
embodied a substantial justification of the course
through which Congress had reorganized the South.
This discussion was probably better as politics than
as law; its chief significance was in the evidence it
gave that the court would recognize and not seek
to interfere with the faits accomplis of congressional
policy.
The dignity and reputation of the nation s high
est tribunal would have escaped a disagreeable
shock if acquiescence in accomplished facts had
guided its action on the important problem of war
iinance which was just at this time before it. On
February 7, 1870, a decision was announced de
claring unconstitutional the legal-tender act of 1862,
so far as concerned debts contracted prior to the
passage of the act. 1 This judgment was vigorously
dissented from by three of the seven judges then on
the bench, and was denounced as legal and political
heresy by substantially all the leaders of radical
Republicanism. Not less emphatic and influential
in criticism of the court were the representatives of
numerous corporations whose long-term bonds, now
approaching maturity, were made by the decision
payable in gold rather than greenbacks. 2 On the
very day on which the opinion was read by Chief -
1 Hepburn vs. Griswold, 8 Wallace, 603 .
Gold at this date stood at about 120.
1871] JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS 259
Justice Chase, two vacancies on the bench were
filled by the nomination of Judges Strong and
Bradley, whose views were known to be with the
minority of the court on the legal-tender question.
That these men were named with special reference
to securing a reversal of the decision, as was charged
at the time, cannot be maintained. 1 That they
would not have been named if their opinions had
been favorable to sustaining it may be readily ad
mitted. It is hardly to be wondered at that sus
picion of a deliberate purpose to overturn the orig
inal decision was aroused; for steps were at once
taken to reopen the question before the court, and
on May i, 1871, a decision was announced 2 revers
ing that of the previous year and upholding the
act of Congress as to all contracts. This result was
reached by a vote in which the two new judges
joined with the three of the former minority and
constituted a controlling majority.
The episode was accompanied by open exhibitions
of bad feeling among the judges. 8 To the chief-
justice the reversal of the decision was particularly
disagreeable. Yet, with all the loss of prestige to
the tribunal, and of personal comfort to Chase, it
was just as well that the reversal was made at once ;
for it is not to be presumed that Congress would
have felt more scruple about overriding a decision
1 Hart, Chase, 399; Rhodes^ United States f VI., 270, and his.
authorities, 2 Legal-Tender cases, 12 Wallace, 528.
3 Hartj Chase, 403,
260 RECONSTRUCTION [1873
that protected merely the property of citizens
against the war power than it had shown in over
riding one that protected their life and liberty.
We have seen that the court acquiesced almost grate
fully in the reversal of the Milligan doctrine by the
reconstruction act. There was not much dignity
in this proceeding; there was perhaps more in re
versing itself on the legal-tender question instead of
waiting to be reversed by Congress.
By the time the currency question was settled
the court had before it the first cases which de
manded an interpretation of the new amendments
to the Constitution. It was confidently inaintained
by the nationalizing school of lawyers and states
men that these amendments had effected a com
plete revolution in our constitutional jurisprudence
by transferring from the states to the" United States
the duty of protecting in last instance all the fun
damental rights of citizens their life, their liberty,
and their property. It was on this theory that the
most far-reaching provisions of the enforcement
acts had been framed. In its first decision on the
matter, however, the Supreme Court shattered this
theory and foreshadowed the judicial nullification
of the laws under color of which the administration
was harrying the white men of the South.
In the Slaughter-House cases, 1 decided April 14,
1873, the court declared, by five judges to four, that
the last three amendments must be construed in
1 1 6 Wallace, 72. t
1873] JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS 261
general, not as setting up a new and comprehensive
system of national rights and jurisdiction, but as
having for their primary, if not exclusive, purpose
to secure and protect the freedom of the negro.
It was to this end that the Thirteenth Amendment
prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, the
Fourteenth defined a citizen of the United States
and forbade a state to abridge his privileges and
immunities, and the Fifteenth guaranteed the right
of suffrage. The essential effect of the articles,
according to the court, was to narrow in specific
matters the power of the states, not to widen the
power of the general government. No authority
was conferred by the definition of United States
citizenship: the "privileges and immunities" per
taining to that status were not, the court held, the
broad, fundamental civil rights incidental to free
government in general, but merely certain partic
ular rights secured by the specific provisions of our
Federal Constitution. It was these latter rights
alone that the United States was authorized to pro
tect; the fundamental civil rights remained still
under the exclusive guardianship of the individual
states.
On the basis of these doctrines the court declined
to regard a law of Louisiana that created a monopoly
of the business of slaughtering cattle in New Orleans
as infringing upon any right, privilege, or immunity
of citizens of the United States. At the same time
the court refrained from enumerating the rights
262 RECONSTRUCTION [1875
which it would protect, and thus encouraged a long
series of cases through which inquisitive lawyers
sought to establish with precision the metes and
bounds of the privilege and immunity guaranteed
against state abridgment by the Fourteenth Amend
ment. A lady of Illinois, oppressed by exclusion from
the practise of law in its courts, applied at Washing
ton for relief; but the austere tribunal declared by
the usual majority that the right to practise law in a
state court, like the right to slaughter cattle in one s
back yard, was no privilege of United States citi
zenship. 1 From Iowa came the complaint of a
citizen of foreign extraction that his right to sell
whiskey was abridged by that virtuous common
wealth; he, too, was sent away without redress. 2
A fellow- citizen of the opposite sex besought the
court to give her the right to vote, of which the state
had deprived her; but the court assured her that
the right to vote pertained to citizenship of a state,
and that the only related right which she could claim
as a citizen of the United States was that of exemp
tion from denial of the suffrage on the ground of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 3
It was in a far different spirit from that manifest
ed in these cases that the attorney-general and the
district attorneys throughout the South were apply
ing the enforcement acts. But no opportunity for
1 Brad well vs. The State, 16 Wallace, 130.
* Bartemeyer vs. Iowa, 18 Wallace, 129.
* Minor ZAJ. Happersett, 21 Wallace, 162.
1875] JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS 263
the Supreme Court to express its views effectively
as to this legislation was given until 1875. Mean
while, Chief -Justice Chase passed away, and the
president, after Senator Conkling had declined to
be Chase s successor, and the Senate, supported by
public opinion, had refused to approve of either
Attorney-General Williams or Caleb Gushing for the
dignity, filled the place with the solid if not brilliant
Morrison R. Waite,, At the October term of 1875;
^^__ t 1 ^ -* j *j *
the new chief-justice, with concise and colorless
phrases, removed the chief supports of the enforce
ment acts and left them ready for total collapse.
In United States vs. Reese, 1 two sections of the act
of 1870 were declared unconstitutional because they
did not strictly limit the Federal jurisdiction for
protection of the right to vote to cases where the
right was denied by a state, and on the single ground
of race or color. This judgment ran squarely coun
ter to the theory and practice of the executive, which
had proceeded on the idea that the United States
must exercise a general guardianship over the right
to vote, as one of the essential prerogatives of its
citizens.
Equally damaging was the decision in United
States vs. Cruikshank. 2 This was the case of par
ticipants in the Coif ax massacre in Louisiana, where,
as in like affairs before and after, the unrestrained
fury of the victorious whites in a fight with armed
blacks had turned the battle-field into a sham-
1 92 U. S.. 214. *Ibid., 542.
264 RECONSTRUCTION [1873
bles. 1 No circumstance was lacking that could appeal
to the sympathy of the judges for the misguided
freedmen. But the court coldly declared that it
was not the duty or the right of the United States
government to protect its citizens against their fel
low-citizens ; that was the function of the state gov
ernments. All that the United States was author
ized by the Fourteenth Amendment to do was to
see that the protection given by the state govern
ments and laws should be offered to all citizens
alike. Not the extent but the uniformity of
rights and their protection was within the jurisdic
tion of the Federal courts. Cruikshank had been
indicted by the lower court for conspiracy, among
other things, to deprive the negroes of the right to
assemble for lawful purposes, and of the right to
bear arms. These rights w^ere not, the court de
clared, incidental to citizenship of the United States,
but to citizenship of a state ; the indictment, there
fore, had no place in a United States court.
These cases left practically no hope of a judicial
application of the enforcement acts that would in
any measure fulfil the expectation of their more san
guine promoters. Shortly afterwards the so-called
"Granger Cases," 2 involving the maximum -rate
laws of the western states, came before the Supreme
Court, and enabled it again to enunciate its narrow
1 See above, p. 219; cf. Grant s special message of January
5, in Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 307.
,U. S., 133-
~-~rf7
Tmi
1875] JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS 265
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment and
to leave the states very wide-reaching power over
the rights of property. The reactionary attitude
of the court in and after the Slaughter-House cases
excited much surprise and in radical circles some
indignation. It had been not unreasonably expect
ed that the judges who had found for the national
power such scope as had been set forth in the legal-
tender decision would have no trouble in giving a
wide interpretation to the new amendments. In
the one decision as in the other, however, considera
tions of public policy rather than of strict law had
been, almost beyond the limits of judicial propriety,
set up as the foundation of the court s opinion. The
chronology of the cases shows what may well have
operated to determine a majority: the Slaughter-
House cases were decided in April, 1873, just after
the extraordinary proceedings of the attorney-gen
eral and Judge Durell at New Orleans, 1 and the
Cruikshank and Reese cases followed soon after the
even more extreme assertions of power by the ad
ministration in Louisiana state affairs early in i875. 2
That the profound sensation caused by these oc
currences was without effect on the very human
personages who occupied the supreme bench is
hard to believe. The judicial interpretations of the
amendment, like the elections of 1874, embody, in
fact, a reaction of moderate men against the south
ern policy of the Grant administration.
1 See above, p. 217. 2 See beloj
CHAPTER XVII
THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS WHITE SUPREMACY
IN THE SOUTH
(1874-1875)
THE elections of 1874 were full of promise for
the afflicted white people of the South. It
was manifest from the result that other issues than
the wrongs of the negro and the sinfulness of the
rebels had assumed, temporarily at least, the con
trolling position in the minds of the northern voters.
The solid practical fact of a Democratic House of
Representatives in the next Congress was naturally
the salient feature of the new situation ; but scarcely
less satisfactory was the evidence of a growing vol
ume of sympathy on the part of the most thought
ful classes in the North for the corresponding class
es of the South. Liberal Republicanism, though a
dismal failure in practical politics, was an endur
ing influence for the intellectual and spiritual re
union of the sections. To this end the South made
a significant contribution, through the represent
ative, L. Q. C. Lamar, whom Mississippi, though
still radical in her state government, sent from
one district to the forty- third Congress. In April,
i8 7 4]< SOUTHERN POLITICS 267
1874, he delivered in the House an eloquent eulogy
on Charles Sumner, who had died March n. That
a southerner, presumed to be of the fire -eating type,
should find anything to approve in the Massachu
setts senator, save possibly his death, was a fact
to arrest instant attention through the length and
breadth of the land. The note of charity and
patriotism which Lamar skilfully infused into his
address struck a responsive chord on both sides of
Mason and Dixon s line. In the North it strength
ened greatly the hands of the reforming element
among the Republicans; in the South it perceptibly
checked a growing movement among the whites to
overthrow radicalism by a ruthless suppression of
the negro vote.
The campaign of 1874 went against the Repub
licans in the southern states as well as in the north
ern. Of the states hitherto radical, Alabama and
Arkansas were carried by the conservatives, Louis
iana and Florida, were very close, and South Caro
lina elected a radical governor pledged to reform.
In the conduct of the campaign by the conser
vatives a double policy was clearly discernible,
especially in Alabama and Louisiana. The end was
single the rescue of the states from the scandalous
misrule of the carpet-baggers and negroes. As to
the means, the more sagacious leaders, inspired
by the policy of Lamar and General J, B. Gordon,
senator from Georgia, aimed to win the sympathy
of northern Liberalism, and thus paralyze the radi-
268 RECONSTRUCTION [1874
cal influence in the administration. This, it was
maintained, would cut off the carpet-baggers from
their base, and would sooner or later cause their
fall.
To the more violent southerners, however, this
strategy was wearisome and distasteful. They pre
ferred a direct frontal attack to such manoeuvring
by the flank. The latter would involve, they said,
a continuation of the worn-out and useless appeal
to the blacks on rational grounds, which had been
proved by experience to be futile; for the most ex
plicit demonstration of radical misrule availed little
to win negro votes where the carpet-baggers de
clared that the conservatives were seeking to restore
slavery, or exhibited to the credulous freedmen an
order signed by General Grant directing them to
vote Republican. 1 To break the solid power of
such ignorance and prejudice it was necessary, the
extremists held, to use methods that should not fail
to impress the negro intelligence. Hence appeared,
in many of the regions where the black population
was most dense, open and unmistakable injunctions
to the negroes that they must vote with the con
servatives or not at all. The penalty for non-com
pliance was in many cases indicated by a pledge,
numerously signed, that the offender should have
no employment, no credit, no land to cultivate; in
many other cases the omission of any statement of
a penalty was calculated to have even greater effect
1 Cf. Fleming, Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, II., 90.
1874] SOUTHERN POLITICS 269
by the mystery, which yet was no deep mystery, of
the implication. 1
It was in connection with this policy of the ex
tremists that the White Leagues of Louisiana at
tained great celebrity in 1874. Their name came to
have something of the import that had attached to
"Ku-Klux" four years earlier. They were, how
ever, distinct from the earlier order in maintaining
little of mystery as to their doings and purposes.
Their very name connoted a drawing of the color
line in politics. Such deliberate proclamation of a
race issue was strongly deprecated by the moderate
conservative leaders; and their predictions as to its
effect seemed to be fulfilled when Grant ordered a
renewal of operations under the enforcement acts
during the electoral campaign. 2 But the results of
the elections served rather to confirm the confidence
of the extremists in their own methods^
President Grant s annual message, in December,
1874, gave perceptible indications of wavering and
uncertainty in his southern policy. 3 The election
returns and the undisguised hostility of the reform
ing Republicans had evidently had some effect.
Though he stoutly defended his course in sustain
ing Kellogg in Louisiana, and in using the troops
under the enforcement acts, yet he conceded that
1 For collections of documents illustrating this method, see
House Reports, 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 261, App. B.
2 See above, p. 249.
3 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 284.
270 RECONSTRUCTION [1874
there was a class of people in the South who were
law-abiding and who were suffering much from bad
government, and that possibly the outrages upon
the negroes were exaggerated in the North. These
concessions, though much qualified, were significant.
He expressed, moreover, a consciousness that his
interference by force in the affairs of states was
repugnant to public opinion; but he declared that
without such interference the whole scheme of
colored enfranchisement would be " worse than a
mockery and little better than a crime."
What he would not see, or was not permitted to
see, was that the whole system of interference under
the enforcement acts had become both a mockery
and a crime. These laws provided, in the first place,
that the Federal courts should take jurisdiction of
a variety of criminal offences. The proper and
adequate exercise of this jurisdiction would have
required at least a threefold increase in the number
of these tribunals. 1 In so large a territory as was
covered by the jurisdiction of a United States dis
trict court, it was not possible for the district
attorney to manage this one species of cases with
out neglecting all others. The application of the
acts thus became farcical, save on the occasions
when, under pressure from Washington, it became
1 Cf. Attorney - General s Report on Enforcement Acts, April
19, 1872, especially the reports of the district attorneys for
South Carolina and Kentucky, in House Exec. Docs., 42 Cong.,
2 Sess., No. 268.
1874] SOUTHERN POLITICS 271
unjust and outrageous. At such a time a drive
would be made and a great number of arrests and
indictments would terrorize some selected county
or region. But the matter ended there. The pro
portion of convictions to indictments was ridicu
lously small and sufficiently illustrated the iniquity
of the laws. In the year ending June 30, 1874, for
example, there were 102 convictions out of 966
cases, or 10.5 per cent., while for all other classes of
cases in the same courts (under the customs, internal
revenue, postal, and other laws) the percentage of
convictions was 49.9.*
Nor was there more efficiency in the military
feature of the enforcement acts. The small num
ber of troops available rendered impossible any
proper policing of the districts where disturbances
might be anticipated. The outbreaks of race vio
lence which occurred from time to time were almost
invariably at points beyond the ready reach of the
soldiery. Detachments were always sent to the
scene with promptness, but never reached it till the
trouble was over. 2 A slight service was probably
performed by the troops in some parts of Louisiana
in reassuring the negroes as to their safety when
the White Leagues were particularly demonstrative ;
but the characteristic function and one that was
exceedingly distasteful to many of the officers
1 Computed from Attorney-General s Annual Report, 1874; cf.
Rhodes, United States, VI., 318, for a table of cases for a series
of years. 2 Cf. Fleming, Reconstruction in Ala., 687.
VOL. XXII. 18
272 RECONSTRUCTION [1873
was that of contributing to the prestige and ambi
tion of an influential carpet-bag politician at election
time by parading his district as the posse of a deputy
marshal. Nothing was so effective in dispelling the
indifference of the blacks during a campaign.
The scandalous prostitution of the army to mere
ly partisan uses in the South was one of the most
powerful influences in discrediting the administra
tion in the North. Louisiana furnished the most
offensive instances of this abuse. S. B. Packard,
the United States marshal for the district, and hence
the official who could command at discretion the
movements of the Federal troops in the state, was
also chairman of the Republican state executive
committee. There was no pretence, as there was
certainly no evidence, that in his control of the
troops he was careful to discriminate between the
advantage of his party and the needs of the Federal
service. That Grant did not terminate the scandal
of Packard s performances was a capital item in the
criticism of the administration. But Louisiana had
been a particularly troublesome locality, as we have
seen, and Grant s determination to sustain the little
band of carpet-baggers whom he had taken under
his protection in I873 1 had assumed the rigidity of
an obsession. In January, 1875, it was subjected
to a new and serious test.
The state election in the preceding November
resulted, according to the returns of the local offi-
^,s 1 See above, p. 218.
1875] SOUTHERN POLITICS 273
cials, in a conservative majority of twenty-nine in
the lower house of the legislature. In passing
through the crucible of the radical state returning
board, the result was transmuted into a Repub
lican majority of three or four with five seats
undetermined. There was naturally great tension
at New Orleans when the legislature assembled,
and the conservative members of the lower house
planned and carried out, January 4, an irregular and
disorderly procedure through which they secured
control, elected a speaker, and filled the doubtful
seats with their own partisans. Thereupon Gov
ernor Kellogg formally summoned the Federal troops
to right matters, and General de Trobriand, who
was at the state-house with a detachment in antici
pation of trouble, took charge of the hall of the
house, expelled the five conservatives who had
been seated, and enabled the radicals to take con
trol. 1 At this all the conservative members with
drew and organized separately. Kellogg recog
nized the radical body as the legal house, and all
parties forwarded memorials to the president and
Congress. General Sheridan, who had been ordered
to New Orleans in December, sent to the war depart
ment a stream of despatches denouncing the con
servatives in unmeasured terms, and urging that
the leaders of the White League be declared " ban
ditti" by Congress or the president, or both, so that
1 House Reports, 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 101, pp. 287 et. seq.; Am.
Annual Cyclop., 1874, art. Louisiana.
274 RECONSTRUCTION [1875
the general could take care of them in his own
way.
The news that the legislature of a state had been
"purged" by Federal troops caused an ominous
sensation throughout the North, which was not
mitigated by the publication of Sheridan s amia
ble and statesman-like despatches. Though partisan
feeling dictated many of the northern protests, the
prevailing tone of public opinion was strongly hos
tile to the administration. 1 The high-handed inter
ference in Louisiana seemed a deliberate defiance
of the popular sentiment revealed by the late elec
tions. On January 13, 1875, Grant sent a special
message to Congress, 2 disclosing that de Trobriand
had acted without orders from Washington, and
admitting that the legality of his action was de
batable, but claiming some justification for both
it and Sheridan s artless proposals by reference to
past incidents of strife and turbulence in the state.
The president s strongest point was that Congress,
in failing to take any action for two years as to
Louisiana, had left him the heavy burden of main
taining order there under almost impossible condi
tions.
The failure of Congress to act had been due to
the conflict of opinion between the moderates and
the radicals of the Republican majority, and this
conflict promptly made itself conspicuous in the
1 Cf. Rhodes, United States, VII., 121.
3 Richardson, Messages and Papers, VII., 305.
1875] SOUTHERN POLITICS 275
existing crisis. A select committee of the House
of Representatives had been appointed in Decem
ber to consider affairs in the South, and a sub
committee on Louisiana, consisting of Foster,
Phelps, and Potter, were in New Orleans during the
dramatic events of early January. Two days after
Grant s special message, this sub-committee made
a unanimous report 1 justifying the whole conserv
ative contention as to the election of 1874 that
it had been free and peaceable, and that the action
of the returning board had been arbitrary, unjust,
and illegal. By implication, though not expressly,
the proceedings of the conservatives in the legislat
ure on January 4 were also justified.
Such a report, signed by two such conspicuous
Republicans as Charles Foster, of Ohio, and William
Walter Phelps, of New Jersey, caused an immense
scandal in party circles; and the select committee
immediately despatched the rest of its members to
New Orleans to investigate further and repair the
damage. The report of this new sub - committee,
written by George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, cor
rected the party aberration of its predecessor by
dwelling at great length on the maltreatment of the
blacks by the violent whites, and the resulting
intimidation of Republican voters.. Having thus
satisfied the requirements of the radicals for their
justification, the report came to agreement with that
1 House Reports, 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 101; also Am. Annual
Cyclop., 1874, p. 736.
276 RECONSTRUCTION. [1875
of the earlier committee as to the illegality of the
returning board s procedure.
The net outcome of all this investigation and re
port was that the lower house of the Louisiana legis
lature was wrongly constituted, but that no power
outside of the house itself could correct the wrong.
From this impasse a way out was ultimately found
through arbitration and compromise. The parties
in Louisiana submitted to the members of the select
committee of the House of Representatives, in their
private capacity, the question as to who were en
titled to seats in the legislature, and the judgment
of the arbitrators gave the conservatives the ma
jority in the lower house. On the other hand, the
house as thus constituted agreed not to disturb the
Kellogg administration. 1 This adjustment of a dan
gerous situation was due in large measure to the
tact and good judgment of Representative W. A.
Wheeler, of New York, and was accordingly referred
to commonly as the Wheeler compromise. 2
Through this adjustment in Louisiana, irregular
and unprecedented as was the method by which it
was reached, the white people of the state made a
decided advance towards the triumph of their cause.
Nor was the measure of this advance merely the
control of one house of the legislature. Quite as
important was the fact that prominent northern
1 McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1876, p. 200; Fleming,
Documentary Hist, of Reconstruction, II., 157.
2 Cf. Hoar, Autobiography, I., 243.
1875] SOUTHERN POLITICS 277
Republicans had condemned the procedure of the
radicals in the state and conceded some degree
of justification to the conservatives. Lamar s eu
logy on Sumner was not more significant of a new
era than the admission by Hoar that the former
rebels of Louisiana manifested in their home lives
some of the human traits and even virtues that
prevailed in New England.
Pending the settlement in Louisiana the presi
dent unexpectedly manifested a disposition to over
throw the conservative regime that had been es
tablished in Arkansas after the Brooks-Baxter war. 1
Here also, however, a House committee took direct
issue with the president and declared that there
was no occasion to interfere. 2 The adoption of this
report by the House was made the occasion for the
appointment of a day of thanksgiving by Governor
Garland, of Arkansas. 3 In April, 1875, Attorney-
General Williams, who had been regarded as Grant s
chief adviser in radical policies as to the South,
retired from the cabinet, and was succeeded by
Edwards Pierrepont, of New York, a man reputed
very moderate in his views. This change also gave
much encouragement to the white men of the South.
The movement for white supremacy, having met
with entire success in Alabama and Arkansas, and
with qualified success in Louisiana, manifested itself
1 Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1875, art. Arkansas; cf. above,
p. 248. 2 House Reports, 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 127.
8 Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1875, P- 3 6-
278 RECONSTRUCTION [1875
next in the state which adjoined all of these Mis
sissippi. This was, next to South Carolina, the
most thoroughly Africanized of the southern states.
The blacks were in a majority of some sixty thousand
in the population. Because the carpet-baggers were
not as numerous proportionately as in some of the
other states, the negro element among the office
holders was correspondingly more conspicuous. 1
Corruption and general misrule were manifest more
in the local than in the state administration; but
the evils of the radical regime assumed proportions
by 1875 that put Mississippi nearly abreast of
Louisiana and South Carolina. The governor at
that time, General Adelbert Ames, a son-in-law of
Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, was a well-
meaning but not politically experienced officer, who
had been induced to give up a promising career in
the army by the consciousness of a "mission " to aid
the blacks against their native white oppressors. 2
His administration as governor had produced a
schism in the radical party which contributed no
little to the hope of the conservatives in the cam
paign of 1875.
The aggressive and violent element among the
whites entered early and with ardor into the work
of the contest. Armed clubs on the model of the
Louisiana White Leagues were organized in all the
counties where the negroes were most numerous,
1 Cf. Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 414 n.
2 Senate Reports, 44 Cong., i Sess., No. 527, I., Test., 20.
i875] SOUTHERN POLITICS 279
and by boisterous parades, miscellaneous firing, and
other demonstrations, half sportive and half serious,
they impressed the blacks with a sense of impend
ing danger. Actual violence was rare, but early in
September, 1875, serious collisions between the races
occurred at Yazoo City and Clinton, with the usual
excess of colored casualties. Ames appealed to
the president for Federal troops, but Grant, through
Attorney-General Pierrepont, impatiently refused to
send them till the governor should have shown that
he could not keep the peace by his own resources.
This response, so different from what had been cus
tomary in respect to Louisiana, caused the governor
to look to the state militia. His preparations to
call out and employ negro companies caused panic
among the moderate conservatives. They had been
hardly less alarmed than the blacks themselves at
the proceedings of the violent whites ; for they knew
that the negro militia at its first appearance in force
would be mercilessly slaughtered by the white clubs,
and that the occupation of the state by the Federal
forces would promptly follow. It was charged, in
deed, that this was the precise end which Ames had
in view.
The governor, however, had no stomach for so ex
treme a policy. After several weeks of great ten
sion and of preparation for war, a sort of treaty of
peace was arranged between Ames and the con
servative leaders, in accordance with which they
undertook to put a stop to all forms of disorder till
280 RECONSTRUCTION [1875
after the election, and he agreed to disband his black
militia. 1 The remaining two weeks of the campaign
were relatively quiet, though the restraint of the
turbulent conservatives taxed to the utmost the
diligence of the leaders. 2 Peace prevailed generally
on the day of the voting, 3 and the returns showed a
clean sweep for the conservatives, with a majority
of thirty thousand.
When the new legislature, strongly conservative
in both houses, met early in 1876, the process of
terminating the regime of negroes and carpet-bag
gers was carried out with thoroughness and de
spatch. Having removed the lieutenant-governor
by impeachment, and forced the resignation of the
superintendent of education by the same process,
the legislature next proceeded to dispose of Ames.
The governor assumed a haughty and defiant atti
tude, denouncing the legislature as an illegal body,
elected by fraud and violence. But when he had
been impeached and the trial was about to begin,
he agreed to resign his office on condition that the
impeachment should be dismissed. The legislat
ure promptly acted on the proposition, and he re
signed March 29, i876. 4
1 Senate Reports, 44 Cong., i Sess., No. 527, I., 356; Garner,
Reconstruction in Miss., 388.
2 See telegrams in Senate Reports, 44 Cong., i Sess., No. 527,
I., 389 et seq.
3 For exceptions see Garner, Reconstruction in Miss., 394.
*Ibid., 406; Mayes, Lamar, 264.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NADIR OF NATIONAL DISGRACE
(1875-1876)
WHEN the f orty - fourth Congress met for its
first session, December 6, 1875, the new House
of Representatives gave striking evidence of the
political revolution which had produced it. The
speaker s chair, where Elaine, of Maine, had sat
through eight legislative years, was occupied by
Kerr, of Indiana; Randall, of Pennsylvania, Mor
rison, of Illinois, and Cox, of New York, took the
places of Dawes and Butler and Garfield as leaders
of the business on the floor; and the personnel of
both sides showed great changes among the rank
and file. Many of the old and tried Republican
heroes of the reconstruction times had disappeared,
while among the Democrats the salient fact was the
great influx of new men from the South, most of
-whom had served their section in arms during the
war. That the conflict of the races in the South
was not yet entirely settled in favor of the whites
was indicated by the presence of seven negroes in
the House, 1 two from South Carolina and one each
1 World Almanac, 1875, p. 63.
282 RECONSTRUCTION [1872
from North Carolina, Florida, 1 Alabama, Missis
sippi, and Louisiana; while in the Senate a single
member, Bruce, of Mississippi, still preserved the
foothold which his race had gained in that reluctant
body. 2
The Democrats in the House, however peremptory
and sweeping might seem their mandate from the
people, were obviously in no position to secure
partisan legislation on either of the two great pend
ing issues administrative reform and the southern
question. A substantial Republican majority in
the Senate and a Republican president blocked the
way. But the chief and obvious task of the Demo
crats in the House was to investigate and expose,
with all the resources of their great majority, the
springs and ramifications of that condition in the
government which the foes of the administration,
not wholly without reason, called "Grantism." To
this task they devoted themselves with promptness
and ardor, but with results that tempered the joy of
the partisan with the grief of the patriot.
There had been no lack of efforts by reforming
Republicans to ferret out the abuses and corruption
in the administration: the Sanborn contracts and
other unsavory affairs had been exposed by Repub*
licans. But the tendency had been in the House,
as it continued to be in the Senate, to expend most
time and energy on the crimes of the whites and the
1 Unseated in April, 1876; cf. McPherson, Handbook of Politics,
(876, p. 139. 2 McClure, Recollections, 253.
1875] NATIONAL DISGRACE. 283
sufferings of the blacks in the South. With the
change of control in the House, the inquisition into
the conduct of the executive departments was taken
up in a new spirit. 1 Before the forty-fourth Con
gress assembled, however, the administration itself
had brought to light, and in some measure to pun
ishment, the malefactors in a colossal scheme of
plundering and corruption, though the very process
made new revelations of the meaning of Grantisnv
That western distillers were systematically evad
ing the tax on whiskey was pretty well known as
early as Grant s second election, in 1872. Secre
tary Bristow, at his assumption of the treasury
portfolio in 1874^ addressed himself with vigor to
the task of terminating and punishing the frauds.
Success was slow in coming, because his plans were
revealed to the guilty parties by accomplices in
Washington. At last, in the spring of 1875, an in
genious scheme was devised and carried out through
which, with the utmost secrecy, the secretary secured
the necessary evidence on which to act. 3 Accord
ingly, on May 10, without warning, a large number
of distilleries were seized, and in due course nearly
two hundred and fifty civil and criminal suits were
instituted. The loss of revenue to the government
for the preceding ten months only was one million
1 See resolution of general instruction to House committees
January 14, 1876, Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., 414.
2 See above, p. 242.
3 Lalor, Cyclop, of Pol. Sci., III., 1112.
284 RECONSTRUCTION [1870
six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and earlier
stealing had made the total of the ring s illegal
profits enormous. 1
The ramifications of the system through which
the plunderers operated were very extensive. A
large number of revenue officials were involved,
their consciences being in some cases salved by the
explanation, which was in a very small degree true,
that the money stolen went into a Republican cam
paign fund. What caused profound apprehension
among decent people, however, was the fact that
the officers principally concerned were shown to
have been on intimate terms with General Babcock,
the president s private secretary, and in a measure
with Grant himself. John McDonald, a politician
of bad repute in St. Louis, had been appointed to a
responsible position in the internal revenue service
in 1870, against the protests of both senators frqm
Missouri, 2 and through him the whiskey ring de
veloped its operations. When the president visit
ed St. Louis,< in 1874, his party was lavishly enter
tained by McDonald, who also presented him with
a valuable pair of horses. These favors were ac
cepted, as Rhodes phrases it, 3 "with oriental non
chalance" by Grant. Fifteen months later Mc
Donald was convicted of complicity in the whiskey
Report of commissioner of internal revenue, in Appkton s
Annual Cyclop., 1876, p. 666.
2 Nation, November 25, 1875.
3 Rhodes, United States, VII., 184.
1875] .NATIONAL DISGRACE 285
frauds, and this fact was received by the president
apparently in the same spirit of emotionless detach
ment.
The enemies of the administration and many of
its sorrowing friends failed to share the presiden
tial imperturbability. They feared, moreover, that
behind the screen of Grant s self-complacency and
phlegm projects were evolving such as would nat
urally flow from human feeling, whether of anger at
friendship abused or of sympathy for persecuted
innocence. Not, however, till the prosecuting offi
cers came upon evidence pointing to Babcock as
the accomplice of the thieves did it appear that the
president was exerting direct influence upon the
course of judicial proceedings. The exact nature
and extent of this influence were not revealed till
some time afterwards, when it was shown that
Grant s weak judgment and almost infantile credu
lity had been exploited with great shrewdness by
Babcock and his friends. 1 Various modifications
of policy in the prosecution were dictated by the
president on grounds that struck him as compact
of impartial justice, but filled the hard-headed law
yers of the treasury and the department of justice
with dismay. By all the public save extreme radi
cals the fluctuating course of procedure was taken
to indicate that the power of the administration was
being employed to avert punishment from the guilty.
1 House Misc. Does., 44 Cong., i Sess., No. 186, especially testi
mony of Attorney-General Pierrepont and Bluford Wilson.
286 RECONSTRUCTION [1875
It was even suggested that not Babcock alone, but
Grant himself, was to be saved by these high-handed
means. That circumstances gave any basis what
ever for such insinuations carried profound humilia
tion to the heart of every sober-minded citizen.
The most desperate exertions in Babcock s inter
est extending to forgery for the purpose of discred
iting a prosecutor with Grant, and to the purloining
and publication of a confidential communication
from the attorney-general to his subordinates 1
did not avail to save the president s secretary from
arraignment before the courts. He was indicted in
December, 1875, and tried at St. Louis in the
succeeding February. The verdict of the jury was
"not guilty," but the verdict of the country was
"not proven." Grant made a deposition for the
defence, declaring that he knew of no wrong-doing
by the accused, nor of anything suggesting it. This
naive confession, coming in the midst of evidence
that Babcock had been in closest relations and in
uninterrupted communication with leading mem
bers of the ring, served only to emphasize the piti
ful stupidity of the president in his estimate of as
sociates, and to deepen the sense of shame among
decent people at the unprecedented position of the
nation s chief magistrate.
Just one week after the end of Babcock s trial, and
before the agitation connected with it had begun to
subside, an even lower depth of national humilia-
1 House Misc. Docs., 44 Cong, i Sess., No. 186, pp. n, 358.
1876] NATIONAL DISGRACE 287
tion was sounded. March 2, 1876, a House com
mittee, just beginning an investigation of the war
department, reported unquestioned evidence that
Secretary Belknap was guilty of malfeasance in
office, and recommended his impeachment. 1 The
House immediately and without opposition adopted
the recommendation, but not till after Belknap had
sent in, and Grant had accepted, his resignation as
secretary of war. It appeared that the post-trader
at Fort Sill, in the Indian Territory, had since 1870
been paying from six to twelve thousand dollars per
annum to a friend of Belknap s for the privilege of
retaining his place, and that a portion of this sum
had been regularly turned over to the secretary or
some member of his family. 2
Thatjohhery and graft; of this sort pervaded the
lower ranks of Federal officials had long been no
torious, for convincing indications of it appeared in
many investigations, though precise legal evidence
was naturally rare. It is doubtful, however, if the
most malicious assailant of the administration had
imagined any officer of cabinet rank guilty of the
sale of place, much less dreamed that such guilt
would be demonstrated with the utmost circum
stantiality. The demand for immediate punish
ment of Belknap was loud and angry from all parts
of the land and without distinction of party. But
the swift course of the impeachment was promptly
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., "Trial of W. W. Belknap,"
iii. * House Reports, 44 Cong., i Sess., No. 186, p. 3.
VOL. xxn. 10
288 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
blocked by a serious obstacle the denial that the
process of impeachment could be made use of in
this case; and with a certainty which even strong
Republican partisans now angrily declared was all
too familiar, the creation of this obstacle to speedy
justice was traceable to the White House.
By hasty acceptance of the secretary s resigna
tion the president divested him of the character of
officer of the United States. Whether one not pos
sessing that character was subject to impeachment
was a question about which the lawyers at once be
gan to weave a wordy tangle of technical debate.
The Senate organized itself as a court of impeach
ment April 5, but this question of jurisdiction oc
cupied its attention till the end of May, when it
finally voted, by 37 to 29, that Belknap was properly
before it for trial. 1 This vote foretold the outcome
and really rendered further proceedings unneces
sary. The trial, nevertheless, was carried to a con
clusion, which was reached August i. Thirty-seven
senators found Belknap guilty, and twenty-five voted
not guilty, many of the latter explaining that their
votes were based exclusively on the belief that the
Senate had no jurisdiction. 2 Thus, for want of a
two-thirds vote for conviction, the disgraced officer
escaped without further punishment.
Public dissatisfaction with the president for hav
ing promoted the failure of justice in this case was
l Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., "Trial of W. W. Belknap,"
76. *Ibid., 343 et seq.
1876] NATIONAL DISGRACE 289
even more pronounced than in the case of Babcock,
in proportion as the matter was more clear. His
hasty acceptance of Belknap s resignation was ex
plained on various grounds some creditable to his
humanity, some to his gallantry, but none suggest
ing statesmanship, ordinary political sagacity, or any
slightest perception of the larger moral respon
sibilities attaching to his exalted public position.
Whether he ever really felt that Belknap had done
wrong seems open to doubt. His own record in
the matter of accepting gifts was a mainstay of the
defence on the trial, and was mercilessly exploited
by the veteran Jeremiah S. Black. 1
The great and general agitation of public opinion
in connection with the Belknap affair seems to have
struck Grant as chiefly due to the approach of the
presidential election. Considerations of partisan
politics, which, as we have seen, had been almost
wholly neglected by him at the beginning of his ex
ecutive service, had since through long and hard ex
perience become a leading influence in his policy.
In 1869 he had regarded himself as the leader of the
people; in 1876 he realized that he was but the chief
of the Republican party, and indeed of but one
faction of that party. The terrible assaults on the
administration for the corruption which it harbored
he looked upon as merely Democratic campaign
practice, or the din of the moderate Republicans
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., "Trial of W. W. Belknap,"
290 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
seeking to terrify the radicals whom he was sup
porting for the succession. Secretary Bristow, seek
ing to complete the destruction of the whiskey ring,
became an object of suspicion to the president, and
was forced, in June, 1876, to resign, followed in his
retirement by all the subordinates who had been
most efficient in prosecuting the plunderers. 1 Grant
believed that Bristow was using his position in
scheming for the Republican nomination, and never
suspected that this belief was largely due to the
adroit and subtle manipulation of the presidential
mind by the powerful friends of the ring. The dis
missal of Postmaster-General Jewell in July gave
additional evidence that no toleration of reform was
to be exhibited; for the only apparent ground for
the act was Jewell s open preference for efficiency
over partisanship in the administration of his depart
ment. By this time, however, the presidential cam
paign was fully developed, and some allowance must
be made for that "necessity" which overrides rea
son and justice as surely in a battle of the ballots
as in a battle of the bullets.
The sudden and dramatic exposure of Belknap
in March gave a sharp stimulus to the inquisition
to which the House committees were subjecting
the executive departments. Partisan zeal quite as
much as purely moral fervor was operative in the
process, and the enlightened public watched with
something akin to terror lest some new shame should
1 North Am. Rev., October, 1876, p. 321.
1876] NATIONAL DISGRACE 291
be revealed. But the painstaking industry of the
committees gave no results comparable with the
ignominy of March. Name, place, and date were
established for practically every species of mal
administration that had been vaguely charged.
Extravagance, inefficiency, favoritism, disregard for
the exact requirements of the law appeared through
out the working of the navy department under
Robeson, 1 the postal department prior to Jewell s
accession, and the interior department under Delano ;
and in the war department an extensive traffic in
post-traderships, outside of that which brought the
secretary low, was exposed, of which a brother to
the president proved to be a conspicuous benefi
ciary. 2 The evils were, however, for the most part
abuses of discretionary powers rather than clear
violations of law; and the causes most obviously
responsible for them were the almost universal prev
alence of political patronage in connection with the
offices, and that spirit of relentless and unmoral wealth-
getting which, deprived by the industrial depression
since 1873 of the opportunity for effective action in
the business world, maintained and even strength
ened its hold on the devotees of the political life.
Though the executive departments furnished no
further startling revelations, the House of Repre-
1 The evidence is in three stout volumes, House Misc. Docs.,
44 Cong., i Sess., No. 170; see also House Reports, 44 Cong., r
Sess., Nos. 788, 789.
3 House Reports, 44 Cong., r Sess., No. 799.
292 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
sentatives itself contributed an incident which, while
not entirely clear in its outcome, served in some
degree to confirm the general sense of corruption
among public men. James G. Elaine, the brilliant
and popular Republican leader in the House, was,
in April, 1876, accused by certain newspapers of
having accepted substantial favors from the Union
Pacific and other land -grant railroad companies
while he was speaker in 1871. The judiciary com
mittee of the House was directed to investigate the
matter. Its proceedings developed the fact that
letters written by Elaine to one Fisher, a railway
promoter who had been interested in the roads con
cerned in the charges, were in the possession of a
witness named Mulligan. The ex-speaker went to
Mulligan s room, procured the letters for inspection,
refused to return them, and never again let them
get out of his own possession. He read them before
the House, however, in a wonderfully dramatic
speech in his own defence, June 5, and scored a re
markable success with the audience there present. 1
The cold analysis to which the investigating com
mittee would have subjected the matter was pre
vented, first by Elaine s refusal to surrender the
letters to the committee, and second by a sudden
illness, followed by an appointment to the Senate
which removed him from the jurisdiction of the
House. The facts developed put Mr. Elaine under
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., 3604; Gail Hamilton, Elaine,
362; Rhodes, United States, VII., 202.
1876] NATIONAL DISGRACE 293
grave suspicion of just that sort of questionable
wealth-getting, if nothing worse, which had ruined
his colleagues in the Credit Mobilier. Thus one more
exalted reputation was left tainted and tottering,
and the episode fitted harmoniously into that general
scheme of malodorousness in which Grantism had in
volved the Republican party and the republic itself.
The most cunning and malignant enemy of the
United States would not have timed differently
this period of national ill-repute; for it came with
the centennial of American independence. A cen
tury of the nation s life rounded to completion amid
the scandals that have been described. From his
preoccupation with the persecuted virtue of Bab-
cock and the vicious ambition of Bristow, the presi
dent was called to Philadelphia to open officially
the notable exhibition which from May till Novem
ber illustrated the progress and fed the pride of
the people. 1 On July 4 an impressive ceremony at
Philadelphia and an immense access of enthusiasm
throughout the country signalized the actual com
pletion of the hundred years. The occasion, de
pressing as it was to those who felt most keenly the
incongruities of things, served a very useful purpose
in diverting the great masses who wished to be
diverted from the evidence that the venerated in
stitutions of the fathers had not produced precisely
what the fathers would have desired.
I l Andrews, United States^ in Our Own Time, 197; Appleton s
Annual Cyclop., 1876, art. Exhibition.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
(1876)
THE issues about which the quadrennial conflict
of the parties was to turn were those defined
by the conditions sketched in the last two chapters
namely, the southern question and administrative
reform. Equally important with these in the field
of public interest and serious statesmanship was the
problem of the currency ; but the division of popular
sentiment on this subject was so far from coincid
ing with party lines x that the leaders on both sides
handled it very gingerly. The moderate opponents
of specie resumption retained their respective party
affiliations and sought to damage the policy as they
might by influence within the lines. An impressive
number of extremists, however, broke ancient bonds
and, through a national convention at Indianapolis,
May 17, i876, 2 organized a new party. This was
the political fruition of the crisis of 1873, and of the
distress and agitation which followed it, especially
1 See votes in the House on repealing the resumption act,
McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1876, pp. 177, 180.
1 AppUton s Annual Cyclop., 1876, p. 781.
1876] CAMPAIGN OF 1876 295
in the West. Taking the name " Independent,"
but more commonly known as the "Greenback"
party, the convention proclaimed a platform of res
olute opposition to resumption and of confidence
in government notes as the ideal currency. The
candidates presented to the voters were Peter Coo
per, of New York, and S. F. Gary, of Ohio. 1
In reference to the currency issue, then, the two
great parties were on substantially equal terms:
both feared, and neither could accurately gauge, the
strength and effects of the greenback movement.
As to the other two issues, the advantage at the
beginning of the year 1876 was distinctly with the
Democrats. The disrepute which had brought down
the wrath of the voters on the Republicans in 1874
was progressing steadily to its climax. No mortal
ingenuity could derive credit from the record of the
administration. There was now no reassuring popu
lar response to the sombre tales of southern outrage ;
the stanchest radical communities manifested stolid
indifference to the woes of the negroes in Mississippi
so long as the whiskey ring and Babcock were on
trial at St. Louis. It seemed as if the Republicans,
in the absence of any ground for aggressive appeal
for popular support, would be reduced in the ap
proaching campaign to a dull and hopeless defen
sive.
From this unpromising outlook they were rescued
by ex-Speaker Elaine. A bill for the removal of all
1 Stanwood, Hist, of the Presidency, 367.
296 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
remaining disabilities under the Fourteenth Amend
ment was taken up in the House of Representatives
early in January on motion of the Democratic lead
er, Mr. Randall. Blaine antagonized the bill by a
motion to except Jefferson Davis, and charged upon
him responsibility for the sufferings of Union pris
oners at Anderson ville. 1 A long and hot debate
ensued, in which the ex-Confederate members not
only defended Davis, but also, and not with great
wisdom, made grave charges against the North of
cruelty to Confederate prisoners. Blaine and his
supporters skilfully lured on the southerners to
heated expressions, and used the spirit thus elicited
to sharpen the point that through the Democratic
party the old rebel feeling and purpose persisted
and tended to triumph.
As mere party tactics this procedure of Mr. Blaine
was perfect. It gave the Republicans a much-
needed key-note of aggression. Cleverly avoiding
the worn-out and ineffective negro phase of the
southern question, it revived the white man s fiery
war-time passion. To the western Republicans, in
particular, this device appealed with strong effect.
Their love and pity for the freedmen never ap
proached in intensity their hatred 4 for the rebel.
To pass back over the issues of reconstruction to the
emotions of the war-time to suggest that the ex-
rebels were subtly striving to warp the national
power and resources to the justification and renewal
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., 323.
1876] CAMPAIGN OF 1876 297
of their lost cause was the sure way of arousing
the fervid Unionism of that great region which was
in a special sense the home of the party. The
January debate on amnesty gave new strength and
tone to the Republicans, and incidentally secured
for him who led it the first place in the race for the
presidential nomination.
Elaine s spectacular manoeuvre was viewed with
great chagrin by that wing of the party which
aimed to make reform the chief purpose of the cam
paign. He had been reckoned one of the moderates ;
but his new and effective appeal to sectional pas
sion alienated the more positive of his reforming
admirers. They did not share his instinctive per
ception that, in view of the administration s record,
the battle-cry of reform, by whomsoever raised,
would make more votes for the Democrats than for
their adversaries. In the middle of May a con
ference of moderate Republicans, including many
that had participated in the Liberal movement of
1872, was held at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New
York. 1 By this time the imputations upon Mr.
Elaine s integrity had become common property
and confirmed the hostility with which he was
regarded by reformers. Accordingly, the address
issued by the conference, written by Carl Schurz, 2
and designed particularly to influence the approach
ing Republican convention, included Elaine with
Morton and Conkling among the cleverly indicated
1 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 15. * Ibid., 16.
298 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
though unnamed aspirants whose candidacy the
friends of reform could not support. 1 Among the
members of the conference ex-Secretary Bristow
unquestionably was looked upon with most favor,
but the purpose to abstain from naming a candi
date doubtless confirmed by the dismal memories
of the Liberal fiasco was sedulously adhered to.
Senators Morton and Conkling aspired to the Re
publican nomination on the basis of their undeviat-
ing support of the administration. Each headed a
devoted column of supporters whose numbers and
enthusiasm derived chief nourishment from the
Federal patronage. The united forces of these as
pirants constituted that wing of the party which
was opposed h Voutrance to the demand for re
form. All its confidence was in the issue that the
southern whites were undoing reconstruction and
destroying the party that had saved the Union;
and its logical candidate was President Grant him
self.
Not long after Grant s second inauguration in
1873, the New York Herald, in the mere exuberance
of a notorious sensationalism, broached the idea that
the president was scheming to secure a third term
for himself. The idea was taken up with joy by
hostile journalists and politicians, and was nursed
and developed into a portentous bogey duly dubbed
"Caesarism." No thinking person, save Democratic
politicians seeking political capital, attached any
1 Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1876, p. 779.
1876] CAMPAIGN OF 1876 299
importance to the agitation, 1 which was kept up,
with obviously hard labor, throughout the elections
of 1874. In the spring of 1875, however, the presi
dent played into the hand of his enemies by writing
for publication a letter in which his declaration that
he was not a candidate for another nomination was
so carefully qualified as irresistibly to suggest that
he would willingly accept it. 2 The letter gave a new
aspect to the manoeuvres of the administration wing
of the Republican organization. At the same time
it stimulated conclusive demonstrations that the
party as a whole could never be brought to acquiesce
in the perpetuation of Grantism. At the opening of
the session of Congress in December, 1875, a resolu
tion passed the House, by a vote of 234 to 18, declar
ing that a third term would be "unwise, unpatriotic
and fraught with peril to our free institutions," 3
and the majority included two-thirds of the Repub
lican members of the House. In such an expression
of feeling there was no encouragement for those
who had been watching for a chance to press Grant
to the front, and the administration politicians pass
ed definitively to the work of nominating either
Conkling or Morton.
The Republican convention met at Cincinnati,
June 14, 1876. Its outcome was a radical platform
1 Cf. Paine, Thomas Nast, 279, 296, 307.
1 For the letter, see Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1875, p. 743;
for an illuminating incident in connection with its despatch,
see Garland, Grant, 432.
3 McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1876, p. 143.
3 oo RECONSTRUCTION [1876
and a reform nomination. With Babcock, Belknap,
and the whole unsavory record of the administration
fresh in their minds, the committee on resolutions
could hardly frame an inspiriting appeal for support
on the basis of the party s recent achievements.
Hence the only clauses that embodied anything of
the positive and aggressive tone familiar in plat
forms were those reciting the party s achievements
in dealing with slavery and rebellion, and those
denouncing the Democracy, and specifically the
majority in the House of Representatives, as sup
porters of treason and as foes of the nation. 1 This
species of "bloody-shirt" waving was obviously the
species that Mr. Elaine had designed, and his choice
as nominee would have been the appropriate accom
paniment of the platform. But though he was far
in the lead of every other candidate in number of
delegates, the extreme radicals and the extreme
reformers alike opposed him. The result was an
eventual recourse to a "dark horse" Governor
Hayes, of Ohio whose availability was of just that
nebulous type which bulks largest to a tired delegate
in despair of getting the man of his deliberate choice.
Hayes was nominated on the seventh ballot, and
Congressman Wheeler, of New York, was speedily
named for vice-president. Not till his letter of
acceptance appeared was the precise quality of
Hayes s Republicanism generally known. In that
1 Preamble and resolution 16 of the platform, in Stanwood,
Hist, of the Presidency, 369.
i8;6] CAMPAIGN OF 1876 301
document he proclaimed with the utmost distinct
ness his abhorrence of the spoils system and his
purpose to extirpate it, pledged himself not to ac
cept a renomination, and announced in respect to
southern affairs a desire to "wipe out forever the
distinction between North and South in our com
mon country." * These sentiments left no room to
doubt that the Republican nominee belonged to the
reforming wing of the party.
On the Democratic side, the initial stages of the
campaign followed lines which circumstances made
clear and easy. The record of Republican misrule
and corruption during Grant s eight years furnished
the basis of a platform, and the election and ad
ministration of Governor Tilden, in New York State,
indicated with unmistakable emphasis the candi
date. Tilden had, as a private citizen, contributed
much to the procedure through which the Tweed
ring was overthrown, and as governor he had brought
to destruction a strongly intrenched and extreme
ly corrupt canal ring in the interior of the state.
His record created an impression of clear judgment
and hard-headed efficiency. It was difficult for any
one to maintain that with Tilden in the White House
corruption in the public service would thrive with
out discovery. 2
1 Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1876, p. 783.
2 Cf. Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 28, and his authorities.
For a good characterization of Tilden, see Peck, Twenty years
of the Republic, 115.
302 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
The Democratic convention met at St. Louis,
June 27, 1876, and carried through with little fric
tion the predestined programme. The platform had
for its text "the urgent need of immediate reform,"
and from this it skilfully developed a telling indict
ment of the Republicans, involving all the scandals
of the Grant administration. Tilden s nomination
was effected on the second ballot, and Hendricks, of
Indiana, was with even less difficulty named for his
running mate. The letter of acceptance, in which
Mr. Tilden gave his personal interpretation of the
platform, was an able essay, 1 dwelling . with special
fulness upon the need and methods of reform in the
finances and the currency. 2 His views in regard
to the spoils system were scarcely distinguishable
from those of his rival; and this fact inspired in
thoughtful voters who were disgusted with Grant-
ism the comfortable conviction that, however the
election should go, an enormous change for the bet
ter would ensue at Washington. 3
The campaign was fought through with skill and
vigor on both sides. 4 For the Republicans, notwith
standing the triumph of the reforming wing in the
nominating convention, it was the radical wing that
furnished the only really effective issue. Hayes him
self, speaking mainly in regard to the West, urged
1 For a different judgment, see Rhodes, United States, VII.,
216. 2 Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1876, p. 787.
8 Cf. Merriam, Samuel Bowles, II., 353.
4 For details, see Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, chap, iv.;
Rhodes, United States, VII. , 219 et seq.
1876] CAMPAIGN OF 1876 303
that most stress should be laid on the "dread of a
solid South, rebel rule, etc., etc." l The Democrats
concentrated their fire on the weak spots in the Repub
lican administrative record, and had little difficulty
in keeping the adversary in general on the defensive.
In the South the campaign was determined in
its general features altogether by the issues of re
construction; the exciting prospect of escape from
the clutch of a hostile national administration set
the hearts of the whites throbbing wildly from the
Potomac to the Rio Grande. In those states in
which the conservatives had entire control of the
state governments, the most inveterate radical op
timist expected no electoral vote for Hayes. By
the time of voting in 1876, Mississippi, though " re
deemed" only a year before, was as sure to go Demo
cratic as was Tennessee or Virginia, whose redemp
tion dated six or seven years back. Only in the
three states in which negro and carpet-bag rule still
endured Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina
was there doubt as to the outcome of the election.
In Florida the campaign was destitute of unusual
incidents. The races, and hence the parties, were
very nearly equal numerically, and the employment
of irregular and lawless methods of affecting the
voters and the votes was on a small scale and not
a monopoly of either party. 2 Louisiana presented
1 Gail Hamilton, Elaine, 422.
3 Cf. House Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 143, pt. i.; Senate
Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 6n.
VOL. XXII. 2O
304 RECONSTRUCTION [1874
naturally a more exciting picture. The hope and
determination of the whites to get rid of radical
rule were no less marked than in 1874; but the vio
lent wing of the conservatives was not so conspicu
ous, and its operations were more restricted, both
in geographical scope and in publicity. The cam
paign of 1876 presented in a very large part of the
state the normal features of a close and heated po
litical contest. In New Orleans extensive fraud in
the registration was attempted by both parties,
with success chiefly on the part of the radicals,
through their control of the official machinery. 1 In
the great majority of the rural parishes a strong
and persistent appeal to the blacks to abandon the
radicals was made on more or less rational grounds
by the whites, and it met with a little more than
the customary success. More effective were the
cajolery and social pressure that were freely em
ployed to keep the blacks from the polls.
Open and systematic violence, however, which
had been since the war, and especially under the
anarchy of the Kellogg regime, a common feature
of life in Louisiana, was during the period of the
campaign noticeably rare. This result was attained
only through strenuous effort on the part of the
conservative leaders, who aimed to deprive the re
turning board of any pretext for manipulating the
vote. In some half-dozen parishes, where the black
population was most dense and barbarous, and the
1 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 92-94, and his authorities.
1876] CAMPAIGN OF 1876 305
whites were most brutal, little effort was made by
either party to insure orderly conditions. It was
taken for granted that many, if not all, of the pre
cinct returns would be rejected, and the normal
course of race tension, with incidents of hideous
outrage, was allowed to run uninterrupted. These
were the "bulldozed" parishes, whose peculiar rec
ord figured so conspicuously in the controversies
over the election, and furnished a basis for the con
tention that the state as a whole was given over to
violence and intimidation. 1
In South Carolina the campaign was carried
through by the conservatives with pretty open
reliance on what was aptly called the "Mississippi
plan." The situation was peculiar. In 1874, Daniel
H. Chamberlain, a Massachusetts man of great elo
quence and ability, had been elected governor to
succeed the unspeakable Moses. By bold and spec
tacular proceedings he effected very considerable re
forms in the state administration, 2 incurring there
by the vindictive animosity of the shameless crew
in his own party whose vicious practices were inter
fered with. As the campaign of 1876 approached,
the renomination which Chamberlain sought was
1 The foregoing is based on the great mass of evidence col
lected and reported on by congressional committees, especially
Senate Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 701; House Reports, 44
Cong., 2 Sess., No. 156; House Misc. Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess.,
No. 34.
2 Set forth in a series of articles in a friendly Conservative
newspaper, reprinted in Allen, Chamberlain s Administration,
chap, xviii.
306 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
violently opposed by the corrupt wing of the rad
icals. Among the Conservatives, on the other hand,
a strong element, in despair of rescuing the state
through their own party and race, supported the
governor 1 and tried to prevent the nomination of
any candidate against him.
Chamberlain was the only carpet-bagger governor
in the South who had shown both the will and the
ability to secure any measure of purity T m state
administration. On the race question, however, he
was an unyielding dogmatist of the extreme New
England type. With all his experience of the situa
tion in South Carolina, he did not abate one jot or
tittle of his confidence in the righteousness of recon
struction and of the political equality on which it
placed the races. Such views, never disguised, re
pelled the mass of the white people. July 8, 1876,
an armed collision between whites and blacks at
Hamburg, Aiken County, resulted in the usual
slaughter of the blacks. 2 Whether the original
cause of the trouble was the insolence and threats
of a negro militia company, or the aggressiveness and
violence of some young white men, was much dis
cussed throughout the state and, indeed, the country
at large. Chamberlain took frankly and strongly the
ground that the whites were at fault. 3 This affair,
and the governor s attitude in reference to it, prac-
1 Allen, Chamberlain s Administration, chap. xiii. at large.
Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 131, and his authorities.
Allen, Chamberlain s Administration, 312, 318.
1876] CAMPAIGN OF 1876 307
tically decided the question as to support of his
candidacy by the conservatives. 1 In their state
convention General Wade Hampton was named for
governor. Chamberlain succeeded in securing the
coveted nomination from his party, but his associates
on the ticket included some of the most disreputable
negro politicians that the radical regime had pro
duced. 2
The canvass was heated and was attended by
many riots and much general turbulence. 8 The
violent wing of the conservatives was imperfectly
controlled by the moderate leaders. In a number
of strong black counties white rifle clubs systemat
ically patrolled their respective neighborhoods, at
tended under arms all Republican meetings, often
with demands that Democratic speakers be heard,
and exercised in general a tremendous pressure upon
the negroes. After a serious collision between the
races at Ellenton, September 16, in which these
organizations had a large part, the governor felt
obliged to take extreme steps against them. The
clubs were appearing all over the state, and he
claimed to have knowledge that they numbered at
least two hundred and thirteen, with nearly thirteen
thousand members. 4 Accordingly, he appealed to
1 Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C. t 347.
2 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 135, and his authorities.
5 House Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 175, especially pt.
ii., p. 31 et seq.
4 Allen, Chamberlain s Administration, 410; cf. House Reports,
44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 175, pt. ii., p. 82.
3 o8 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
the president for aid in suppressing domestic vio
lence, and was promptly answered by a proclama
tion, under date of October 17, commanding the
rifle clubs, as "insurgents," to disperse and disband,
and by the despatch of all available troops in the
military division of the Atlantic to South Carolina. 1
Chamberlain s call for Federal aid finally severed
whatever friendly relations he had retained with any
conservatives. His view of the rifle clubs their
purpose and methods was bitterly denounced by the
whites. The conservative organizations, they claim
ed, were, so far as they had arms at all, purely de
fensive, intended to maintain the safety and peace
of their communities against the hordes of igno
rant blacks who were organized and armed to pro
mote the plundering schemes of radical politicians. 2
But most of the clubs which the governor denounced
were in fact merely peaceable political associations,
with no purpose save the legitimate activities of an
electoral campaign. Whatever of truth there may
have been in these claims of the conservatives, the
one fact was indisputable, that the contest in South
Carolina closed with the race lines strictly drawn,
save where the vicious adversaries of Chamberlain
in his own party refused to follow the leader who
had thwarted their now inveterate purposes of
plunder.
1 House Exec. Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 30, p. 16 et seq.
3 Reynolds, Reconstruction in 5. C., 356 et seq.
CHAPTER XX
THE DISPUTED COUNT
(1876)
ON November 7 the popular canvass of 1876
ended with the casting of the votes. Through
out the Union, in the turbulent South as well as in
the peaceful North, the day passed without dis
order. When in the evening the telegraph began the
customary report of the results, attention was con
centrated chiefly on the doubtful northern states,
which were expected to be decisive. The returns
from these early indicated that the Democrats had
carried them all New York, Connecticut, New Jer
sey, and Indiana. From the doubtful southern states
and from the Pacific slope satisfactory news was
slow in reaching party headquarters in New York.
What came, however, was generally favorable to
the Democrats, and on the morning of November
8 most newspapers of both parties announced that
Tilden was elected. 1
Meanwhile, anxious Republican editors and poli
ticians, loath to admit defeat and shrewd in inter
preting the latest reports, discovered a glimmer of
1 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 45.
310 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
hope for Hayes. 1 It appeared pretty clear that
Tilden had secured 184 electoral votes, one short of
a majority. California and Oregon were apparently
Republican; if to these could be added the three
doubtful southern states South Carolina, Florida,
and Louisiana Hayes would have 185 electoral
votes and the presidency. Accordingly, early in the
morning of November 8 the Republican leaders in
the doubtful states were notified of the situation
and urged to make sure of a favorable count, while
from Republican headquarters and editorial offices
the claim was sent forth in positive terms: "Hayes
has 185 electoral votes and is elected." 2
As it gradually became clear that the count of the
votes in the three disputed southern states would
decide who should next occupy the White House,
the proceedings in those states engaged the excited
attention of the whole country. Partisan feeling
became everywhere bitter and demonstrative. The
press teemed with charges and countercharges of
accomplished illegality and fraud in the casting of
the votes, and of intended fraud in counting them.
President Grant promptly insured that violence,
at least, should be excluded from the situation.
There were already considerable bodies of troops at
the capitals of Louisiana and South Carolina, and
1 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 48.
3 Haworth s account of the incidents of the night and early
morning after election is the most accurate of all thus far pub
lished. For others, see Gibson, A Political Crime; Bigelow,
Tilden, II., 8.
1876] DISPUTED COUNT 311
two days after the election a force was sent to Talla
hassee. 1 The commanding officers in all three capi
tals were enjoined to preserve peace, protect the
canvassing boards, and denounce fraud. 2
Parallel with the movement of troops to the storm-
centres, there was a conspicuous movement of poli
ticians in the same direction. Some went on their
own initiative, out of curiosity or interest; many
were urged to go by the respective party managers,
whose reciprocal distrust was deep and unconcealed.
William E. Chandler, an alert and energetic mem
ber of the Republican national committee, started
for Florida the day after the election. 3 Two days
later, November 10, President Grant himself re
quested a number of prominent northern Repub
licans to go to New Orleans "to witness the count,"
and Abram S. Hewitt, chairman of the Democratic
national committee, promptly addressed a like re
quest to leading northern Democrats. 4 As a result
of these various impulses the final canvass of the
popular vote in the three doubtful southern states
was observed and in no small measure directed by
groups of partisans of national reputation. In the
parlance of the day, they were known as the " visit
ing statesmen." Prominent among them were John
1 House Exec. Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 30, pp. 22, 23.
* Grant to Sherman, November 10, ibid., 24.
3 Gibson, A Political Crime, 52.
4 Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1876, p. 486; cf. House Misc.
Docs., 45 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 31, pp. 715, 862, 1084 passim;
John Sherman, Recollections, I., 554.
3 i2 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
Sherman, James A. Garfield, E. W. Stoughton, and
E. F. Noyes (Republicans), and J. M. Palmer, Lyman
Trumbull, Manton Marble, and Smith M. Weed
(Democrats).
Whether the part played by the visitors was use
ful may be doubted ; l that it imperilled many good
reputations among them is unhappily beyond all
doubt. At a time when practical politics was no
where in the United States always clean, in the
states where the carpet-bag regime endured it was
indescribably dirty. Fraud and corruption were
normal means to the attainment of political ends.
When the end was so important as the control of
the national government, it was not to be supposed
that the local politicians would abjure their wonted
methods. Hence some of the Republican visitors
were obliged to ignore or connive at notorious cheat
ing, and some of the Democrats to involve them
selves in bargains for bribes. Rumors and charges
of these things were incessant during the struggle
over the count, but most of the clear evidence about
them was revealed only two years later. 2
South Carolina was early eliminated from serious
controversy so far as the presidential vote was con
cerned. By the middle of November it was clear
that the Republican electors had a small but safe
1 McCulloch, Men and Measures, 420; Rhodes, United States,
VII., 238.
See House Reports, 45 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 140; House Misc.
Docs., 45 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 31.
1876] DISPUTED COUNT 313
majority in the popular vote. 1 The Democrats kept
on claiming the state for Tilden, and in connection
With the sharp struggle over the result of the vote
for governor 2 sought to secure the electoral votes
through legal process. 3 But the attempt failed, and
on the appointed day the Republican electors duly
cast their votes for Hayes and Wheeler. The Demo
cratic candidates also went through the forms of
voting for Tilden and Hendricks, but their proceed
ings lacked all the requirements of regularity.
In Florida the conflict over the choice of electors
was much more serious and doubtful. When all
the counties of the state were heard from, the Re
publicans claimed on the face of the returns a ma
jority of 45 for Hayes, the Democrats a majority of
90 or 113 for Tilden. 4 With so close a vote the final
result depended on the count to be made by the
board of state canvassers. This board consisted of
the secretary of state, the comptroller, and the at
torney-general, of whom in 1876 the first two were
Republicans and the last a Democrat. It was em
powered by law to exclude any returns "so irregu
lar, false or fraudulent that the board shall be unable
to determine the true vote." 5 Under this authority
1 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 155, and his authorities.
8 See below, p. 327.
3 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 151 et seq.; Reynolds, Re
construction in S, C. t 399.
4 Senate Peports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 611, pt. i., p. 3; House
Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 143, pt. i., p. 3.
8 Senate Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 611, "Doc. Ev.," p. 3.
314 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
the board assumed the right to take evidence in the
case of contested returns and to determine judicial
ly as to their correctness and validity. Its decisions,
however, showed no deviation from the strictest
partisanship. The Republican majority so modi
fied and rejected the disputed returns as to insure
the success of all the Republican electors, the low
est having 920 over the highest Democrat. 1 The
Republican governor, Stearns, accordingly certified
the choice of these men, and they cast the four votes
of the state on December 6 for Hayes and Wheeler.
The Democratic candidates for elector also met, re
ceived certificates of their election from the attor
ney-general of the state, and went through the form
of voting for Tilden and Hendricks.
The result reached by the Florida returning board
was promptly brought into question through suits
instituted by the Democrats in the courts of the
state. On December 23 the state supreme court
decided that the returning board must act in a
ministerial, not in a judicial, capacity, and must
count the votes cast, not those which it considered
legal. A recount of the vote for governor, ordered
in connection with this decision, gave the Democratic
candidate, Drew, a majority, and he was duly in
augurated, January 2, 1877. The new legislature,
being Democratic in both houses, promptly passed
an act directing that the vote for electors be can
vassed anew, and this time in accordance with the
1 Senate Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 6iz, p. 3.
1876] DISPUTED COUNT 315
law as declared in the decision of the supreme court.
The returning board, consisting now, through the
change of administration, entirely of Democrats,
performed its duty under the act, and on January
19 declared that the Tilden electors had a majority
of 87 votes. An additional act of the legislature
directed the governor to certify the votes of these
electors as the true electoral votes, and certificates
to this effect were transmitted to Washington. 1
Louisiana afforded to the Democrats the satis
faction, such as it was, of a substantial popular
majority for Tilden. The parish returns, as they
reached New Orleans, gave to the lowest Demo
cratic elector over six thousand more votes than the
highest Hayes elector. 2 While a Democratic ma
jority at the ballot-boxes had been anticipated, that
which actually appeared greatly exceeded Repub
lican calculations. The rejection by the returning
board of part or all of the votes from the "bull
dozed" parishes was practically taken for granted
by both parties ; but much more was necessary if the
goal of the Republicans was to be reached. Hence,
from the moment when this situation was suspected,
the radical state officials, sustained and assisted
by the local politicians and the visiting statesmen,
1 For all these proceedings after December 6, see Haworth,
Hayes-Tilden Election, 77 et seq., and his authorities; especially
House Misc. Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 35, pt. iii.
2 The figures varied considerably in different reports. Cf.
Senate Misc. Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 14, p. 164; House
Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 156, pt. i., p. i.
3i6 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
strained every nerve to furnish grounds on which
the conservative vote could be further reduced by
the returning board. Perjury, forgery, and shame
less manipulation of the returns before publication
were freely employed. 1 The Republicans asserted
that violence and intimidation had pervaded all
parts of the state, and were solely responsible for
the large conservative majority. 2 The efforts of
the conservatives to meet and refute the radical
charges, and counteract their illegal proceedings,
were no less energetic and in some cases no less
unscrupulous than those of their adversaries. But
the great advantage lay with the radicals because
they controlled the state and Federal offices.
The ease and nonchalance with which the return
ing board reversed the majority in its count made
the frantic lawlessness of its partisans before it met
wholly uncalled for and hence ridiculous. Its meth
ods were those which a Republican congressional
committee had severely denounced in 187 5.* It
left unfilled a vacancy caused by the resignation of
the only conservative member, though the law re
quired that all political parties be represented on
the board; 4 it ignored the specific statutory require-
1 The most conclusive evidence on this point is the report
and testimony of the Potter committee in 1878-1879, House Re-
ports* 45 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 140; cf. especially the testimony of
Jewett, Republican campaign manager, at p. 1440.
8 See report of visiting statesmen to the president, Senate
Exec. Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 2. * See above, p. 275.
* Election laws of Louisiana, in Senate Exec. Docs., 44 Cong.,
2 Sess., No. 2, p. 160; cf. Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 100.
DISPUTED COUNT 317
merits as to the proof of violence, intimidation,
and corruption, 1 and threw out returns on vague
rumor and unsupported assertion; it ignored tech
nical irregularities in returns that favored the Re
publicans, but used the same defects as a ground
for rejecting returns that favored the Democrats.
The spirit which is illustrated by such proceedings
was quite equal to any emergency. After labors
extending from November 20 to December 6, the
board on the latter date announced the result: by
rejecting every poll in two entire parishes and some
seventy judiciously selected polls in other parishes,
it cut down the Democratic vote by 13,213 and the
Republican by 2415, leaving the Hayes electors with
a majority of 3437 and upward. 2
From the decision thus made no appeal of any
kind was possible under the law of Louisiana. In
accordance with this report, the Republican elec
tors received certificates of election from Governor
Kellogg, and on the same day, December 6, duly
cast their votes for Hayes and Wheeler. At the
same time the Democratic candidates for electors,
reviving the dispute of i872, 3 secured certificates of
their election from McEnery, the long - quiescent
antagonist of Kellogg, and formally voted for Tilden
and Hendricks.
1 Laws of Louisiana, 1872, No. 98, 3, 26; also in Senate Exec.
Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 2.
3 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 113, and his authorities.
3 See above, p. 218.
3 i8 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
Throughout the four weeks of returning - board
activity in the South the country was in a state of
feverish excitement, tending steadily to fierce pas
sion as the remorseless extinction of Democratic
hopes marked the progress of the count. In an
eager search for means to stem the current that was
running so strongly against them, the Democrats
discovered a promising situation in Oregon. This
state had been carried by the Republicans by an
undisputed majority. Of the three electors, one,
named Watts, was found to be a postmaster, and
hence disqualified by the United States Constitution
from appointment as elector. The governor of the
state, L. F. Grover, was a Democrat. With the
advice and support of the Democratic national com
mittee, he took the ground that because Watts was
ineligible the votes cast for him were void, and
hence the leading Tilden candidate, Cronin by name,
was elected. Accordingly, Grover recognized Cronin
and the two eligible Republicans as the electors duly
chosen by the state. The Republicans naturally
refused to have anything to do with Cronin, and
the meeting and voting of the electoral college were
attended by proceedings l of a rather farcical char
acter, despite the serious issue depending on them.
The outcome was two sets of electoral returns from
Oregon, one giving three votes to Hayes and Wheeler,
and the other giving two votes to Hayes and Wheeler
1 Described fully in Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, chap,
ix.; and in Senate Reports, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 678.
1876] DISPUTED COUNT 319,
and one to Tilden and Hendricks; but the latter
return alone had that gubernatorial certification on
which so much stress had been laid by the Republi
cans in connection with the southern states.
From the proceedings in South Carolina, Florida,
Louisiana, and Oregon, it resulted that the voting
of the electors on December 6 was no more con
clusive as to who was to be president than the gen
eral voting of citizens on November 7. The double
returns from these four states prolonged the un
certainty, and the excitement attending it, to the
time when the electoral votes should be officially
counted.
Congress assembled on December 4, two days
before the electoral colleges voted. The situation
that confronted the legislators was hardly less dan
gerous and disheartening than that which in 1860
preceded the outbreak of the Civil War. The Demo
cratic half of the population believed that Tilden
had been elected president, and many were pro
fessing a determination to place him in the White
House by force, if necessary; the Republican half
were no less convinced and resolute in their claims
for Hayes. 1 Moderate men on both sides would
readily have demanded and secured the settlement
of the controversy in accordance with law; but the
crowning discouragement of this crisis was that no
law existed that could be appealed to, and none
1 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 168; Rhodes, United States,
VII., 241-
VOL. XXII. 21
320 RECONSTRUCTION
could be enacted save through the improbable, if not
impossible, concurrence of a Democratic House and
a Republican Senate.
From the hands of corrupt and lawless state
returning boards and pettifogging governors the
power to count the votes that would make the
president passed on December 6 to some Federal
authority, but what that authority was nobody
could conclusively say. History and precedent,
searched and scrutinized with tireless zeal during
the critical weeks since November 7, furnished no
enlightening comment on the pitifully non-com
mittal words of the Constitution: "The president
of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate
and House of Representatives, open all the certifi
cates, and the votes shall then be counted." l Count
ed by whom ? By the president of the Senate, said
many Republicans, with Senator Morton and Mr.
Hayes. 2 By the two houses in joint convention,
.said some good Democrats. 3 By the two houses
acting separately, said many of both parties. But
the practical point at issue was, who should deter
mine which, if any, of two or more returns from
South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon em-
1 A compilation of all previous proceedings and debates touch
ing the counting of the electoral votes was prepared by a House
^committee and printed in House Misc. Docs., 44 Cong., 2 Sess.,
No. 13.
8 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 185, 210, 211, and his
.-authorities.
3 Foulke, Morton, II., 441; Atlantic Monthly, October, 1893,
1876] DISPUTED COUNT 32 r
bodied the true vote of those states respectively.
In the existing condition of partisan feeling, to
leave the decision to the president of the Senate,
a Republican, would insure in advance the accept
ance of a Republican return in each case, and the
election of Hayes; to leave it to a joint convention
of the two houses, where the majority would be
Democratic, would insure in advance the election
of Tilden ; to vest it in the two houses acting sepa
rately would merely produce a deadlock. Irrespec
tive of their theoretical strength, none of these views
could meet the situation.
But beyond the question as to who should exer
cise the power to count loomed another equally
difficult and threatening. Under what limitations,
if any, must the power be exercised? Must the
counting authority accept as the true vote of a
state that given by electors regularly certified to
be such by the governor or other legally designated
officer, or might investigation be made to test the
correctness of the certificate? If the latter, how
far might the investigation be carried? Might the
report of the state canvassing board as to the vote
for electors be attacked on the ground of illegality,
error, or fraud in the board s procedure ? This was
a crucial question. The case of the Democrats in
Florida and Louisiana rested largely on their claim
that the majority for Tilden had been overthrown
by grossly illegal and fraudulent action of the re
turning boards, and that no remedy for such wrongs
322 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
existed unless the Federal authority could go be
hind the returns and correct them.
These vexatious questions, with many others, de
pendent and collateral, formed the core of violent
debate in both houses of Congress from its opening.
Prompt action must be had to escape anarchy at
the expiration of Grant s term on March 4, 1877.
For, quite in keeping with the other features of this
perplexing time, the same irreconcilable difference
of opinion that prevailed as to how the election
should be completed prevailed as to what should
be done if it should not be completed. Should the
president of the Senate assume the executive power ?
Or should President Grant remain in control until
his successor should be found? Either course, and
others that were suggested, would inevitably pro
voke resistance and civil war.
CHAPTER XXI
THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION
(i877)
THE critical condition of affairs when Congress
met caused moderate and conservative men of
both parties to exert all possible pressure in favor
of some practical compromise to get the votes count
ed. President Grant contributed much to the same
end, 1 and displayed at this point, as throughout the
electoral crisis, a breadth and firmness of judgment
that contrasted most favorably with his course at
other periods of his administrative career. As a
result of the strong influences working for peace,
each house appointed, just before Christmas, 1876,
a committee of seven to deal with the matter, and
the two committees were instructed to act in con
junction. After weeks of intense consideration and
debate 2 they agreed upon a bill, which was reported
to the houses January 18, i877. 3
This measure, which was by its own terms to
1 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 191; McClure s Mag., May,
1904, p. 81.
2 Northrup, secretary of the House committee, in the Century,
October, 1901, p. 923. See also Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Elec
tion, 196 et seq.; Rhodes, United States, VII., 248.
3 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., 713, 731.
RECONSTRUCTION [1877
apply only to the pending election, provided in
minute detail for every step in the counting of the
electoral votes. 1 The essential features were these:
whenever objection should be made to the vote of
a state from which but one return had been received,
the vote should be counted unless the two houses,
acting separately, concurred in rejecting it; when
question should arise as to which, if any, of two
or more returns from the same state was the valid
one, the matter should be referred to a special com
mission, provided for in the bill, and the decision
of this tribunal should be conclusive unless dis
approved by both houses. This commission was to
consist of five senators, five representatives, four
associate justices of the Supreme Court designated
in the bill, and a fifth associate justice to be chosen
by his four colleagues. Finally, the vexed and vital
question as to going behind the returns to ascertain
who were the legal electors was left to the com
mission itself for decision, with elaborate care in
the wording of the bill to avoid any suggestion as
to what the decision should be. In the commission
were vested "the same powers, if any, now pos
sessed [for the determining of the electoral vote]
by the two houses, acting separately or together";
and it was authorized to take into view "such
petition, depositions and other papers, if any, as
1 U. S. Statutes at Large, XIX., 227; the act is printed also in
Appleton s Annual Cyclop., 1877, p. 137; and in Haworth, Hayes-
Tilden Election, 345.
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 325
shall, by the constitution and now existing law,,
be competent and pertinent in such consideration."
The bill, though it gave in its wording no sug
gestion of party considerations, was in fact based
entirely upon them. Everybody knew that the
commission was to consist of seven Democrats,,
seven Republicans, and one justice whose politics;
was "independent." The House would appoint
three Democrats and two Republicans, the Senate
would precisely reverse these figures ; the four desig
nated justices had been selected solely with refer
ence to their known political sympathies two Re^
publican (Miller and Strong), two Democratic (Clif
ford and Field) ; and the independent, whose choice
was one of the fixed understandings, was to be David
Davis, of Illinois. Whether Justice Davis was more
likely to lean to one side or the other was most
minutely canvassed, and the Democrats derived, on
the whole, rather the greater satisfaction from the
process.
On January 25 the bill passed the Senate by 47
to 17. The Democrats gave 26 ayes and but one no.
Conspicuous among the opposing Republicans were
John Sherman, Elaine, and the truculent Morton..
Conkling, at the special request of the president,,
strongly supported the bill. 1 On the very day of
this vote an unexpected event in Illinois trans
formed the whole face of affairs in Washington.
1 Childs, Recollections of Grant, 13 ; A. R. Conkling, Roscoe
Conkling, 520.
326 RECONSTRUCTION [1876
Justice David Davis was elected by the legislature
to the Senate of the United States to succeed John
A. Logan. It was at once realized that Davis,
having been elected by Democratic votes, would
probably decline to accept the place on the elec
toral commission. This was a great blow to the
Democrats, 1 for the justices from whom the place
must now be filled were all pronounced Republicans.
Probably the Democrats were never fully conscious
how much their support of the bill was influenced
by the expectation of Da vis s appointment till they
experienced the shock of his withdrawal. But it
was too late to abandon the bill, and on January 26
it passed the House by 191 to 86, the Democrats
furnishing 160 ayes, and the Republicans 69 noes. 2
Strong men of the party of Hayes were in this op
position Garfield, Kasson, of Iowa, and Frye and
Hale, of Maine, among them. January 29 the bill
became law by the ready signature of the president,
and on the first day of February the two houses
came together to count the electoral votes.
The adoption of a plan to insure a peaceful count
had been promoted by the quiet but powerful in
fluence of certain conditions in the South. Of the
three southern states which were disputed as to
the presidential vote, Florida fell, as we have seen, 3
1 Cf. Century, October, 1901, p. 933.
1 Elaine, Twenty Years of Cong., II., 588 . For slightly dif
ferent figures, see Stanwood, Hist, of the Presidency, 387.
3 See above, p. 314.
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 327
completely and peacefully under Democratic con
trol so far as the state government was concerned.
South Carolina and Louisiana, on the other hand,
became the scenes of bitter controversies, tending
to bloodshed. In South Carolina a violent dispute
as to the control of the lower house of the legis
lature resulted in the organization of two houses,
one consisting of conservatives and the other of
radicals. These, in conjunction with the senators
of their respective parties, both canvassed the vote
for governor, and one declared Hampton elected,
the other Chamberlain. 1 Both governors were in
December, 1876, duly inaugurated by their partisans.
Chamberlain occupied the state-house, protected by
Federal troops; Hampton took quarters elsewhere
in Columbia, but received the support and encour
agement of practically the whole white population
of the state.
In Louisiana a similar situation arose. On Jan
uary 8, 1877, S. B. Packard was inaugurated as
governor by the radicals, F. T. Nicholls by the
conservatives, and each was recognized by a legis
lature consisting of his own partisans. 2 Packard and
his government were practically confined, however,
in the exercise of authority to the state-house, where
Federal troops protected them. The conservatives
in Louisiana, as in South Carolina, let it be clearly
understood that they would insure reversion to
1 Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C., 426.
*Appleton s Annual Cyclop. , 1876, p. 493; 1877, p. 458.
328 RECONSTRUCTION [1877
Federal military government rather than submit to
a continuance of radical rule. 1
Throughout the events connected with the set
ting up of dual governments, both Chamberlain and
Packard besieged Grant with entreaties for positive
recognition, and for the active employment of the
troops against the conservatives. 2 The president,
however, steadfastly refused to interfere ; he ordered
the commanders to prevent any violence, but de
clared that Congress must determine which was the
legal state government. Accordingly, the rival or
ganizations settled into relative quiet, pending the
settlement of the problem which absorbed all the
attention of the authorities at Washington.
Among the southern Democratic congressmen the
cause of Nicholls and Hampton was hardly second
in interest to that of Tilden. Even before Congress
assembled, sharp-witted Louisianians began fishing
in the troubled waters of the presidential dispute
for some advantage to Nicholls. It was ascertained
that Hayes might sustain the whites in case he be
came president. 3 Lamar and the other influential
southerners in Congress were by this possibility in
spired with a hope of saving something, even if they
lost the national government. This hope, added to
the general and unconcealed disinclination of the
1 Cf . House Misc. Does., 45 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 31, p. 959;
Reynolds, Reconstruction in S. C., 425.
2 McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1878, pp. 59, 77.
3 Testimony of Roberts, House Misc. Docs., 45 Cong., 3 Sess.,
No. 31, p. 875.
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 329
southern leaders for any more civil war, 1 caused
them to favor the bill for the electoral commission.
Every Democratic senator from the reconstructed
states voted for the measure, and only eight of the
fifty-eight Democratic representatives from those
states voted against it. On the other hand, every
one of the carpet-bagger senators was included
among the Republicans who opposed the bill. 2
The electoral commission organized for its work
January 31, with the following members: Senators
Edmunds, Morton, and Frelinghuysen (Republi
cans) ; Thurman and Bayard (Democrats) ; Repre
sentatives Payne, Hunton, and Abbott (Demo
crats) ; Garfield and Hoar (Republicans). For the
fifth justice, the four designated in the bill 3 chose,
as had been anticipated, Joseph P. Bradley, who,
though recently appointed by Grant as a Republi
can, had won much applause from Democrats, es
pecially at the South, by his opinions against the
constitutionality of the enforcement act in the case
arising out of the affair at Coif ax, Louisiana. 4
Justice Clifford, on the ground of his seniority, was
made president of the commission.
The counting of the votes began February i, in
the manner prescribed by the Constitution. The
president of the Senate, Ferry, of Michigan, in the
1 Cf . Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 176, 216.
See McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1878, p. 10, for the
classified votes.
8 See above, p. 325. 4 See above, pp. 219 and 263.
330 RECONSTRUCTION [1877
presence of the two houses, opened the certified lists
of votes from the states, taken in alphabetical order,
and, if there was no objection from any member of
either house, the votes were tabulated by duly ap
pointed tellers. When Florida was reached, the
three lists which had been sent from that state 1
were opened by President Ferry. Objection was
promptly made to each of them, and under the re
cent act they were all referred to the electoral
commission for its decision. Of the three returns,
only that of the Hayes electors conformed literally
to the law of the United States as to the cast
ing and certification of electoral votes. One Tilden
return, on the other hand, was fortified not only
by a certificate of the governor, but also by an act
of the legislature and a judgment of the state su
preme court, declaring that the Tilden electors were
the lawfully chosen representatives of the state. 2
The only weakness in this overwhelming official
testimony to the validity of the Tilden votes was
that all of it bore dates subsequent to December
6, 1876, the day on which, by Federal law, the
electors cast their votes and ended their official life.
An even more vital defect in the Hayes return was
alleged by the Democrats namely, that it was
the outcome of illegality and fraud. To prove
this, however, it was necessary to take evidence
1 See above, p. 314.
3 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., "Electoral Commission/ 1
288.
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 331
beyond that furnished by the returns themselves.
Hence arose the initial question which the com
mission must decide whether it would "go behind
the returns." On this question came the first great
struggle between the distinguished counsel who were
permitted to represent the respective causes, includ
ing Charles O Conor and Jeremiah S. Black on the
Tilden side, and William M. Evarts and Stanley
Matthews for Hayes.
The Democrats offered to prove, by certain rec
ords of the votes cast and of the canvass of them,
that the Florida returning board had, in reporting
a majority for the Hayes electors, acted in con
travention of the state law; and to prove further
that one of the Hayes electors, Humphreys by
name, was ineligible by virtue of holding a Federal
office. 1 This offer of evidence was opposed by the
Republican counsel on the ground that Federal
jurisdiction in presidential elections did not ex
tend to any questions about the appointment of
electors: the state was directed by the Constitution
to appoint electors, and the governor s certificate
that such appointment had been made in conform
ity to the state law was conclusive upon the two
houses of Congress when counting the votes. To
this plain deduction from the words of the Consti
tution was added the practical consideration that,
if the returning board s canvass could be attacked,
the canvass of the county and precinct authorities
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., "Electoral Commission," 18.
332 RECONSTRUCTION [1877
must also be open to investigation, and so on down
to the actual votes of individual citizens. To go
into all those questions as a general board of review
for state elections would be to postpone indefinite
ly the ascertainment of any result, and would in
sure the anarchy which the commission was created
to escape. To these arguments the Democratic
counsel made cogent reply that the constitutional
power to count votes must necessarily involve the
power to distinguish, by whatever means were
necessary, between genuine votes and counterfeit
presentments thereof, and that the inconvenience
of thorough investigation to establish right and
justice would be no greater than that of abstention
with the result of sanctifying fraud.
This question of taking evidence was the crux
of the whole count; and the secret sessions of the
commission while reaching a decision were long and
strenuous. From noon to eight in the evening of
one day, and from ten to three the next, the con
sultation lasted; and then, February 7, the formal
decision was made against receiving evidence out
side of the papers submitted to the two houses
with the certificates of the electoral votes, except
in respect to the eligibility of Humphreys. 1 The
vote on both phases of the decision stood eight to
seven, Commissioner Bradley going with the other
Republicans on the main issue, but with the Demo-
l Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., "Electoral Commission,"
375
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 333
crats in respect to Humphreys. The evidence taken
quickly showed that this elector had given up his
Federal office before November 7, I876. 1 Accord
ingly, on February 9, after additional arguments on
the general question, the commission voted by eight
to seven that the Hayes return embodied the true
vote of Florida, and so reported to the two houses.
Objection being made to this decision, the houses
separated, and after limited debate the Senate sus
tained and the House of Representatives rejected
the decision; under the act of January 29, the de
cision therefore was binding, and accordingly the
four votes of Florida went to Hayes and Wheeler,
This result of the first great contest foreshadowed
pretty distinctly the triumph of the Republicans.
The votes of the commission dispelled the idyllic
dreams of non-partisan judgments by its members.
On the nice and subtle points of law which were so
skilfully presented by the counsel, such legal ex
perts as Thurman and Edmunds, Abbott and Hoar,
Miller and Field, could not in every instance have
taken opposite sides if the party issue had not been
controlling. Justice Bradley alone, on a few votes,
separated from his party associates, but his action
was confined to subsidiary matters, and seemed a
rather pathetic effort to satisfy in some slight meas
ure the demands for exceptional independence which
were imposed by the circumstances of his appoint-
memX
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess.. " Electoral Commission," 38.
334 RECONSTRUCTION [1877
On February 12 Louisiana was reached in the
progress of the count, and was referred to the com
mission. It was known at this date that the meth
ods through which the Tilden majority had been
overcome by the returning board included those
which just two years before had been unsparingly
condemned by a House committee of which Wheeler,
the candidate for vice-president, and Hoar, of the
electoral commission, were members. 1 It was not
known, save to a few Louisiana radicals, that one
of the very papers before the commission, pur
porting to be a Hayes certificate, bore forged sig
natures. 2 But though this particular piece of crim
inality was not detected, the Democrats had good
grounds for hope that the frauds and illegality with
which the Republican votes were so deeply tainted
would insure their rejection, even if the manifest
irregularity of the Tilden return barred its accept
ance. And the rejection of a single return for Hayes
would elect Tilden.
In the Louisiana case the arguments of counsel
were of a perceptibly more vehement character,
with more frequent allusion to the political back
ground of the issues. Ex-Senators Carpenter and
Trumbull presented especially brilliant and striking
arguments against the Hayes returns. 3 But Evarts;
1 See above, p. 275.
2 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 115, and his authorities.
3 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., "Electoral Commission, 1
76, 89.
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 335
and his associates, holding stoutly to the general
theory which had triumphed in the Florida case,
insisted that the formal regularity of the Hayes
vote was conclusive upon the commission.
The Democratic counsel offered to prove a great
mass of iniquity in the Louisiana canvass and re
turns, and tendered evidence to show that a number
of the Republican electors were ineligible under the
state law; that the returning board was uncon
stitutional; that it had no jurisdiction; that it had
never canvassed the votes according to law. All
these offers were refused by eight to seven; and in
the steady march of the rejection the commission
qualified its action in the Florida case by refusing
to take testimony even as to the ineligibility of
electors when appointed. 1 Against the rigid barrier
thus opposed to it, the Democratic case went to
pieces, and on February 16 the commission reported
to the houses by the usual majority that the eight
votes of Louisiana belonged to Hayes and Wheeler.
This decision practically extinguished the last
hope of the Democrats; for every point on which
they depended in the remaining contests was prac
tically settled by anticipation against them. Indig
nation and wrath began therefore to be generally
manifested in all Democratic circles. Unmeasured
denunciation of the commission filled the press and
the debates of the houses at Washington. The law-
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., "Electoral Commission," 80
et seq., 117.
VOL. XXII. 22
330 RECONSTRUCTION [1877
lessness and fraud of the returning board were at
tached by imputation to the majority of the com
mission, Justice Bradley, naturally though unjustly,
bearing the brunt of the assaults. Republican edi
tors and speakers were not slothful or merciful in
obvious retort, and the war of debate and vitu
peration raged as fiercely as before the act estab
lishing the commission.
More serious, however, than the ebullitions of
wordy resentment was the disquieting appearance
of a purpose among some of the Democrats in the
House to thwart the whole purpose of the act of
January 29, and so to prolong the process of the
count that no result should be reached by March 4.
The act contained many provisions designed to in
sure despatch in all the proceedings and to prevent
obstructive action by either house; but the time
*ras now getting very short, and it seemed possible
that resolute filibustering, especially if in the least
favored by the speaker, might defeat the count.
The actual counting of the Louisiana votes was
delayed by action of the House till February 20.
On that day Oregon was reached, and the two re
turns from that state 1 went to the commission.
The chief issue here was as to the effect of choosing
an ineligible person as elector. Democratic counsel
made the best of a case which was already hopeless, 2
1 See above, p. 318.
1 See especially the argument of Merrick, Cong Record, 44
Cong., a Sess., * Electoral Commission," 175.
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 337
and the expected decision by the familiar vote was
reached on February 23. The filibustering now
became aggressive and open in the House, and
various dilatory motions were supported by a
majority of the Democrats. Only the unflinching
firmness of Speaker Randall in repressing his party
colleagues, and the union of a minority of the
Democrats with the Republicans in sustaining him, 1
secured the due progress of the main business.
South Carolina, referred to the commission on
February 26, was made the subject of political
oratory and invective rather than of legal argu
ment by Democratic counsel, 2 and was not argued
at all by the Republicans. It was assigned to
Hayes by the tribunal on the 28th, and was dis
posed of by the two houses on the same evening.
A filibustering device in connection with the re
turn from Vermont, 3 together with more or less per
functory objections to votes from Virginia and Wis
consin, gave occasion for proceedings of the most
boisterous and disorderly character in the House,
lasting all through March i. 4 Speaker Randall threw
precedent to the winds in meeting the devices of
the obstructionists; but he was sustained by a ma-
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., 2006 et seq. For classified
votes, see McPherson. Handbook of Politics t 1878, p. 26.
a Especially Black, Electoral Commission, 190.
8 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., 2021; Haworth, Hayes
Tilden Election, 274.
4 See especially Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., 2032-2035
et seq.
338 RECONSTRUCTION [1877
jority in his most arbitrary rulings, and as a result
the end of the count was reached by an all - night
session. At ten minutes past four in the morning
of March 2 the president of the Senate announced
to the two houses the election of Hayes and Wheeler
by the majority of one vote, precisely as had been
claimed for them on the day after the election of
November 7.*
It was Friday morning when the election of a new
president was thus finally effected. At noon on
the succeeding Sunday Grant s term would expire.
The margin was narrow, but it was sufficient. In
fact, the danger of an interregnum was never so
great as it at times appeared to be. Of the hundred
and more filibustering Democrats who delayed the
end, not more than forty were really bent on pre
venting an election. These could not have suc
ceeded, but they caused great uneasiness through
the temporary support given to them by moderate
colleagues. Among these latter were a group of
southerners whose acts were part of a shrewd polit
ical manoeuvre.
When by the award of Louisiana to Hayes his
election was made practically certain, some of the
southern Democrats resolved to insure at all haz
ards the recognition of Nicholls and Hampton by
the new administration. Support to the filibusters
was used to alarm the friends of Hayes, who were
then notified that this support would be withdrawn
1 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., 2068; cf. above, p. 310.
1877) ELECTORAL COMMISSION 339
if assurances could be given that he would, when
president, abandon the radicals in Louisiana and
South Carolina. A series of conferences took place,
participated in by a number of southerners, includ
ing Senator Gordon, of Georgia, and Representatives
Ellis and Levy, of Louisiana, and Watterson, of
Kentucky, on the one side, and prominent friends
of Hayes, including Senator John Sherman and
Representatives Foster and Garfield on the other.
The outcome was a definite agreement that the
Democrats should use their influence to complete
the count, and in the South should refrain from vio
lence, while the Republicans should see to it that
the new administration, and if possible Grant him
self before his term expired, should withdraw the
troops from the state -houses at New Orleans and
Columbia. 1
This agreement was formulated chiefly at a con
ference in the rooms of Mr. Evarts, at Wormley s
Hotel, on February 26. While Mr. Hayes was not
a party to it, it was based on evidence satisfactory
to the southerners that his policy was to be what his
friends undertook to secure. He had in fact re
solved, independently of any bargain, to withdraw
the troops, 2 and his friends knew it, though they
could not commit him by any explicit pledge. The
1 Testimony of Burke and Roberts, in House Misc. Does., 45
Cong., 3 Sess., No. 31, pp. 884, 964; Haworth, Hayes-Tilden
Election, 268 et seq.
2 Haworth, Hayes-Tilden Election, 270 n.
340 RECONSTRUCTION [1877
knell of the radical regime was officially sounded,
however, by Grant. On March i Packard was
notified of the president s belief that public opinion
would no longer support the maintenance of state
governments by use of the military, and of his pur
pose not to recognize either claimant for the gov
ernorship. 1 This was for the white people of Louis
iana a welcome peccavi from the man who had
doggedly stood behind Kellogg for such dreary
years. Despite Grant s pronouncement, however,
no formal order was issued withdrawing the troops
from the state - houses, and both Packard and
Chamberlain still held their positions when he
passed his authority over to his successor. Mr.
Hayes reached Washington on March 2, 1877, and
on the evening of the following day took the oath
of office in private at the White House as the guest
of Grant. Thus was obviated a last faint possibility
of trouble and interregnum, which was due to the
fact that the 4th fell on Sunday. On March 5
the ceremony of inauguration took place, and the
era of reconstruction as measured by administra
tions was ended.
The relief of the general public when the crisis was
finally passed was deep and devout. Though the
passion of fervid partisans found much fuel in some
features of the electoral commission s work, the
average citizen felt that any means of escape was
better than a plunge into the pit of anarchy on the
1 McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1878, p. 67.
1877] ELECTORAL COMMISSION 341
brink of which the nation had stood since November.
To the reflecting spirit of the North the whole dispute
confirmed the conviction, which had been created
by the panic of 1873 and the maladministration and
corruption later revealed, that other problems than
those of the South were in most pressing need of
solution. Though the Wormley agreement was not
generally known when Hayes was inaugurated, the
substance of it was in the thoughts of many men.
Generalized, this famous bargain meant: Let the
reforming Republicans direct the national govern
ment and the southern whites may rule the negroes.
Such were the terms on which the new administra
tion took up its task. They precisely and con
sciously reversed the principles of reconstruction as
followed tinder Grant, and hence they ended an
era. Grant in 1868 had cried peace, but in his time,
with the radicals and carpet-baggers in the saddle,
there was no peace; with Hayes peace came.
CH AFTER XXII
CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AIDS
HE best general guide to the sources for the period is
the foot-note references of James Ford Rhodes, His
tory of the United States from the Compromise of 1850
(7 vols., 1893-1906), V.-VII. J. N. Lamed, Literature of
American History (1902), contains an annotated list of
works dealing with the period; good but incomplete. W.
L. Fleming gives a very useful list in New York State
Education Department, Syllabus No. g8, The Reconstruc
tion of the Seceded States (1905). References appended to
articles in J. J. Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science (3 vols.,
1881-1884), are of value for the constitutional issues of
reconstruction, and are considerably extended in the re
print of those articles edited by J. A. Woodburn, as Ameri
can Political History (2 vols., 1905), II. The Cambridge
Modern History, VII., " The United States " (1903), 818-822,
has a very useful list, but without evaluation of the works.
GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS
The only comprehensive narrative covering the years of
reconstruction in a scientific spirit is James Ford Rhodes,
History of the United States front the Compromise of 1850
(7 vols., 1893-1906), V.-VII. Woodrow Wilson, History
of the American People (5 vols., 1902), includes a brief but
just and well-proportioned sketch of the period in vol. V.
The years after 1870 are very well treated by E. Benjamin
Andrews, The United States in Our Own Time (1903).
1877] AUTHORITIES 343
John W. Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution (1902),
deals incisively with the legal and political aspects of the
period. William A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and
Reconstruction (rev. ed., 1904), analyzes some of the prin
cipal constitutional and administrative developments in
the rehabilitation of the South. James G. Elaine, Twenty
Years of Congress (2 vols., 1884-1886), II., though strongly
partisan and often inaccurate, is useful and very suggestive
for the congressional politics of the years 1865-1870, but
has much less value for the later years. S. S. Cox, Three
Decades of Federal Legislation (1885), covering much the
same ground as Elaine, but from the opposite point of
view, is no less partisan, and is even more inaccurate in
details. Most leading topics of political and economic im
portance during the period are well treated in J. J. Lalor,
Cyclopedia of Political Science (3 vols., 1881-1884); these
articles, chiefly by the late Alexander Johnston, have been
reprinted, under the editorship of J. A. Woodburn, as
American Political History (2 vols., 1905). For a particular
account of the negroes during reconstruction, recourse may
be had to G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in
America (2 vols., 1883), by a member of the race.
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES
Only a few of the important manuscript materials for
this period have been made accessible to students. The
private correspondence of Charles Sumner is in the Library
of Harvard University. The Library of Congress possesses
four sets of private papers which are of value for this
period: (i) <the papers of Andrew Johnson, especially the
full files of private letters to Johnson very useful for the
politics of the most critical time of the reconstruction;
(2) papers of Thaddeus Stevens, scanty and unimportant;
(3) the Lyman Trumbull papers, consisting of letters re
ceived, but lacking all that related to impeachment;
(4) the diaries and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase,
collected by Albert Bushnell Hart for his life of Chase, and
344 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
subsequently transferred to the library; the set includes
about twelve thousand letters to Chase.
PRINTED COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES
For constitutional and political matters a great mass of
material is contained in Edward McPherson, Political
Manual, annual for the years 1866-1870, and united, with
revision and additions, into a single volume entitled Polit
ical History of the United States during the Period of Re
construction (2d ed., 1875). After 1870 the same plan is
followed in Edward McPherson, Handbook of Politics for
1872, 1874, 1876, 1878, each volume covering the two
years preceding July 15 of the year for which it is named.
McPherson was clerk of the House of Representatives from
the thirty-eighth to the forty-third Congress, inclusive, and
had unequalled facilities for the work of compiling the man
uals. They are carefully and accurately prepared, and make
readily accessible much information (such, for example, as
the party divisions on all important votes in the House)
that could otherwise be procured, if at all, only with great
labor. More comprehensive in scope is W. L. Fleming
Documentary History of Reconstruction (2 vols., 1906-1907),
which includes the social and economic, as well as the polit
ical, aspects of southern reorganization, and presents docu
ments from a wide range of unofficial as well as official
sources; its arrangement is primarily topical, and the editor
introduces each chapter with a short historical comment
and with a list of references. The work is very valuable
for this period. William MacDonald, Select Statutes, 1861-
1898 (1903), contains in convenient form, with useful his
torical comment, the principal statutes, proclamations, and
other official documents of the period of reconstruction,
accurately reproduced. A considerable number of ex
cerpts from public and private papers throwing light on
the time are given in Albert Bushnell Hart, American
History Told by Contemporaries (4 vols., 1897-1901), IV.
The Annual Cyclopedia, mentioned below, contains each
1877] AUTHORITIES 345
year many important state papers. Election returns and
political miscellany are to be found in the annual Tribune
Almanac and World Almanac; and the party platforms
and popular and electoral votes of the quadrennial presi
dential contests are reprinted in Edward Stanwood, A His
tory of the Presidency (1898), and A. K. McClure, Our
Presidents and How We Make Them (rev. ed., 1905).
PUBLIC DOCUMENTS
Indispensable material for the right understanding of
every phase of national history during this period is con
tained in the official publications of the government. The
original text of all legislation is to be found in the United
States Statutes at Large, XIV. to XIX., and a systematic
abridgment of it in the Revised Statutes of the United States
(2d ed., 1878).
The proceedings and debates in Congress are fully re
corded in the Congressional Globe for the thirty-ninth to
the forty-second Congress inclusive (1865-1873), and the
Congressional Record for the forty-third and forty-fourth
Congresses (1873-1877). Supplementary to these and even
more important are the collections of documents printed
for each house of each Congress. These include Executive
Documents, containing information formally communicated
to the houses by the president and heads of the executive
departments ; Reports of Committees, submitted to each house
in due course of business; and Miscellaneous Documents,
covering a vast range of matters, but in this period especial
ly important for the testimony taken by the numerous in
vestigating committees on affairs in the South and on the
management of the administration. In some cases this
testimony is to be found with the reports of the committees,
but in most instances the two are in distinct documents.
The messages, proclamations, and executive orders of
Presidents Johnson and Grant are included in the compen
dious but ill-arranged and ill-indexed compilation by James
D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents,
346 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
(10 vols., 1898), VI. and VII., published as
House Miscellaneous Documents, 53 Congress, 2 session,
No. 210.
The decisions and opinions of the Supreme Court of the
United States during this period are contained in United
States Reports, vols. LXX. to XCIV. inclusive, or, under
the old method of citation by the name of the reporter,
vols. 3 to 29 of Wallace, and i to 4 of Otto.
Selections from the diplomatic correspondence are print
ed in the annual volumes transmitted to Congress as Exec
utive Documents, under the title Foreign Relations of the
United States. All treaties may be found in the stout
volume compiled by John H. Haswell, Treaties and Con
ventions . . . between the United States and other Powers
since July 4, 1776 (1889), and printed as Senate Executive
Documents, 48 Congress, 2 session, No. 47.
CONTEMPORARY PERIODICALS
The most useful systematic repository of events as they
appeared to contemporaries is the American (after 1875,
Appleton s} Annual Cyclopedia (1861-1902). With allow
ance for inevitable errors in the newspaper reports on
which it is largely based, and for a perceptible conserva
tism in the editor, this compilation constitutes an invalu
able source for the general history of the period. All the
leading monthly magazines have numerous articles throw
ing light on reconstruction and the prominent features of
national life. These articles defy enumeration here, but
may be readily traced through Poole s Index to Periodi
cal Literature (1882), with supplementary volumes covering
later years. Some especially good matter is to be found
in the Galaxy, a magazine that ran from 1866 to 1878, and
was then merged in the Atlantic Monthly.
Of the weeklies, the Nation and Harper s Weekly are es
pecially important. The Nation first appeared in 1865,
and attained much influence before the end of its first
decade. Its comments on current political and social
1877] AUTHORITIES 347
events are a suggestive guide to the contemporary opin
ion of the more cultivated classes. By the end of our period
the political and social judgments of the Nation had come
to be distinctively those of its talented owner and editor,
Edwin L. Godkin, whose keen criticism and incisive satire
made him a power, but not always to the end he had most
at heart. Harper s Weekly, edited by George William Curtis,
gained its greatest influence and distinction through the
political cartoons of Thomas Nast, whose pictures, begin
ning with episodes of Johnson s presidency and reaching a
culmination of effectiveness in connection with the Tweed
ring and the campaign of 1872, present an invaluable
record of the feelings and the taste of the time. The Inde
pendent, edited up to 1870 by Theodore Tilton, and the
Christian Union, edited after 1870 by Henry Ward Beecher,
represent the liberal religious press of the period. Their
moral and political doctrine inspired and reflected the spirit
of a most upright and conscientious part of the population.
After the revelations made in connection with the Beecher-
Tilton scandal in 1874 the influence of these weeklies sensi
bly declined.
A careful and extensive reading of the daily newspapers
is essential to any proper understanding of our period.
For the conditions in the South during reconstruction the
correspondents of the northern papers, in formal and
elaborate letters that have since in great measure disap
peared from the columns of dailies, presented very important
material. Without attempting a list of the leading dailies,
certain facts concerning the great metropolitan organs may
be mentioned as useful in judging their news and editorial
views. The New York Times, edited by Henry J. Ray
mond, espoused Johnson s side in the struggle with the
radicals in Congress, and thus lost ground to the Tribune,
edited by Horace Greeley. When Greeley ran for presi
dent in 1872, the Times, now controlled by George Jones,
came out for Grant, and thus changed places in a party
sense with the Tribune. Both papers were regularly for
Hayes in 1876, and renewed their old rivalry on about
348 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
equal terms for journalistic leadership of the Republicans,
Whitelaw Reid having in the mean time succeeded Greeley
at the head of the Tribune. Of great significance was the
growth into national influence of the New York Sun, under
the editorship of Charles A. Dana, who assumed control
in 1868. The skilful, persistent, and malicious attacks of
the Sun on President Grant and his administration have
to be carefully reckoned with in estimating the course of
events and opinions during the eight years of his service.
COLLECTED WORKS OF PUBLIC MEN
Three collections of importance for our period are Charles
Sumner, Works (15 vols., 1870-1883), of which the last
seven volumes belong to the reconstruction time; James
A. Garfield, Works (2 vols., 1883); and Samuel J. Tilden,
Writings and Speeches (2 vols., 1885). Some useful matter
may be found in George William Curtis, Orations and Ad
dresses (3 vols., 1894); Jeremiah S. Black, Essays and
Speeches (1885); and Joseph P. Bradley, Miscellaneous
Writings (1901). Of a different character, but highly use
ful, is the Sherman Letters (1894), giving extended corre
spondence between General W. T. Sherman and his brother,
Senator John Sherman. A few letters of this period to
Chief- Justice Chase are printed in American Historical
Association, Report, 1902, vol. II.; and some suggestive
revelations of Grant s political feelings and opinions may
be found in General Grant s Letters to a Friend [E. B. Wash-
burne] (1897), edited by James Grant Wilson.
REMINISCENCES
The number of this kind of works throwing more or less
light on our period is large, but the significance of most
of them is unusually small ; the writers in many cases seem
to lose interest in their subjects after the thrilling and
dramatic scenes of the war-time have been passed, and to
dwell but briefly on the sordid and repulsive features of
the later years. From northern men of prominence we
1877] AUTHORITIES 349
have: Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Cen
tury (1888); Gideon J. Welles, important article in The
Galaxy, May, 1872; George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of
Sixty Years in Public Affairs (2 vols., 1902) ; John Sherman,
Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate, and Cabi
net (2 vols., 1895), very useful, especially in respect to
financial history; George W. Julian, Political Recollections
1840-1872 (1884). George F. Hoar, Autobiography of
Seventy Years (2 vols., 1903); and B. F. Butler, Autobiog
raphy and Personal Reminiscences (1892), are suggestive
and entertaining rather than historically trustworthy.
Some highly useful chapters for this period are contained
in John M. Schofield, Forty -six Years in the Army (1897);
Philip H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs (2 vols., 1888), II.;
A. K. McClure, Recollections of Half a Century (1902);
Ben. Perley Poore, Perley s Reminiscences (2 vols., 1886);
Andrew D. White, Autobiography (2 vols., 1905). From
southerners the following may be mentioned: Benjamin
F. Perry, Reminiscence;, with Speeches and Addresses (1883-
1889); Joseph Le Conte, Autobiography (1903); Mrs. R.
Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War (1904); Mrs. C.
C. Clay, A Belle of the Fifties (1904); Susan D. Smedes,
Memorials of a Southern Planter (1900). The last three
are full of suggestion as to the depth of ruin that came
upon well-to-do people in the wake of war, but are not in
all respects to be taken too seriously as historical sources.
BIOGRAPHIES
PUBLIC MEN OF THE NORTH. The only life of Andrew
Johnson covering the years of his presidency is by James
S. Jones (1901), a poor piece of work by an incompetent
writer. President Grant has been somewhat better treated,
though most of his biographers regard his military career
as all that is worth serious consideration. Adam Badeau,
Grant in Peace (1887), contributes more than any other
published work to the authentic knowledge of Grant s
political personality, but combines it with much that is of
doubtful authenticity. John Russell Young, Around the
350 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
World with General Grant (2 vols., 1879), incorporates in
the account of the journey a number of "Conversations"
in which the ex-president comments at large on the men
and events of his political career. These records are sug
gestive, but contain internal evidence that either Grant s
memory or Young s reporting, or both, were at times very
faulty. Hamlin Garland, Ulysses S. Grant (1898), an un
pretentious, well-written work, is probably tke best com
plete biography thus far at hand; that by W. C. Church,
a personal friend of Grant, is also good. G. W. Childs,
Recollections of General Grant (1890), is very slight but rela
tively important. Concerning men of cabinet rank we
have Frederic Bancroft, William H. Seward (2 vols., 1900),
scholarly and of high literary finish, F. W. Seward, Seward
at Washington (1891), and the relatively unimportant
biography of Seward by T. K. Lothrop (1896); G. C. Gor-
ham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton (2 vols.,
1899), and, less important, F. A. Flower, Edwin McM as
ters Stanton (1905). Much about Chief -Justice Salmon P.
Chase maybe found in biographies of him by J. W. Schuck-
ers (1874), R. B. Warden (1874), (both were army corre
spondents), and, in smaller compass but from fuller sources,
Albert Bushnell Hart (1899). As to the leaders in Congress
during the period, E. L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles
Sumner (4 vols., 26. ed., 1894), is extremely full and ac
curate on current political history, though strongly prej
udiced by affection for Sumner; W. D. Foulke, Life and
Public Service of Oliver P. Morton (2 vols., 1899), lets the
subject speak chiefly for himself; E. B. Callender, Memoirs
of Thaddeus Stevens, Commoner (1882), and S. W. McCall,
Thaddeus Stevens (1899), gi ve a rather inadequate treat
ment of the great parliamentary leader ; James G. Blaine is
the subject of a brilliant but untrustworthy Biography by
Gail Hamilton [Mary Abigail Dodge] (1895), and a smaller
and less brilliant but more candid volume by Edward Stan-
wood (Am. Statesmen Series, 1906). Less important than
the foregoing, but not to be neglected, are A. G. Riddle,
Life of Benjamin F. Wade (1888); A. R. Conkling, Life and.
1877] AUTHORITIES 351
Letters of Roscoe Conkling (1889) ; Detroit Post and Tribune,
Life of Zachariah Chandler (1880); C. E. Hamlin, Life and
Times of Hannibal Hamlin (1889); W. Salter, J. W. Grimes
(1876); O. J. Hollister, Life of Schuyler Colfax (1887);
C. F. Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1900). Of men high
in state official position, important biographies are those
of Samuel J. Tilden by John Bigelow (2 vols., 1895);
John A. Dix, by Morgan Dix (2 vols., 1883); and John
A. Andrew, by H. G. Pearson (2 vols., 1904). Valuable
light on the political and personal undercurrents during
the period is thrown by T. W. Barnes, Memoir of Thurlow
Weed (1884); G. S. Merriam, Life and Times of Samuel
Bowles (2 vols., 1885), a highly important work; Edward
Gary, George William Curtis (1900); W. A. Linn, Horace
Greeley (1903); Albert Bigelow Paine, Thomas Nast, his
Period and his Pictures (1904) ; E. P. Oberholtzer, Jay Cooke,
a series of articles in the Century Magazine, LXIII. (1906-
1907) ; Rollo Ogden, Life and Letters of Edwin Lawrence God-
kin (2 vols., 1907) ; J. H. Wilson, Life ofC.A. Dana (1907).
PUBLIC MEN OF THE SOUTH. The list under this head
contains few works of great importance for our period.
The best are Edward Mayes, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, his Life,
Times, and Speeches (1896); H. Fielder, Life, Times, and
Speeches of Joseph E. Brown (1883); B. H. Hill, Jr., Life
of Benjamin H. Hill (1893); Johnston and Browne, Life of
Alexander H. Stephens (1878). Others that throw incident
al light on conditions and feeling in the South are R. E.
Lee, Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee (1904);
Varina Davis, Memoir of Jefferson Davis (2 vols., 1890);
P. A. Stovall, Robert Toombs (1892); H. D. Capers, Life
and Times of C. G. Memminger (1893); W. P. Trent,
William Gil-more Simms (1892).
NORTHERN ACCOUNTS OF SOUTHERN CONDITIONS
Of high importance under this head are the report of
Carl Schurz to the president in the autumn of 1865, Senate
Executive Documents, 39 Cong., i Sess., No. 2, to which
is appended a report of observations by General Grant;
VOL. XXII. 23
352 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
and the report of B. C. Truman, of April, 1866, in Senate
Executive Documents, 39 Cong., i Sess., No, 43. All of
the important newspapers contained copious correspond
ence from the South, especially during 1865 and 1866.
The letters (unsigned) of J. R. Dennett, in the New York
Nation during the summer and fall of 1865, are among the
best of their kind. Several of the volumes mentioned be
low are reprints of correspondents letters: Sidney An
drews, The South Since the War (1866); Whitelaw Reid,
After the War (1866); J. T. Trowbridge, The South (1866);
J. S. Pike, The Prostrate State (1874), a former abolitionist s
description of the barbarism of negro rule in South Caro
lina; Charles Nordhoff, The Cotton States in . . . 1875 ( l8 7 6 )
another abolitionist s account of conditions several years
later than those observed by Pike; Edward King, The
Great South (1875). The foregoing are all highly valuable
sources of the period. With them may be classed the
work of the English observer Robert Somers, The Southern
States Since the War (1871), especially strong in comment
on agriculture and industry. The works of Pike and
Nordhoff, while deriving great vividness from the personal
observation of the authors, are made up mostly from the
evidence taken by congressional committees of investiga
tion. A. W. Tourgee, a carpet-bagger who held a judicial
position in North Carolina, incorporates much reflection
on the feeling and experiences of his class in his works of
fiction, A Fool s Errand (new ed., 1880) and Bricks With
out Straw (1880) ; his Appeal to C&sar (1884), a serious argu
ment for national aid in the education of the blacks, is
also of value for the reconstruction period. Another car
pet-bagger s experiences under cover of fiction are to be
found in A. T. Morgan, Yazoo, or the Picket Line of Free
dom in the South (1884).
MONOGRAPHS ON RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH
Why the Solid South? edited by H. A. Herbert (1890),
is a collection of essays by various authors, treating of
1877] AUTHORITIES 353
the period of reconstruction for the states that seceded,
together with Missouri and West Virginia. The sketches
are of very uneven quality, and all are strongly partisan
in spirit, seeking to justify the attachment of the South to
the Democratic party. Less prejudiced is a review of the
leading features of reconstruction in a series of articles
by various writers in the Atlantic Monthly, January to
October, 1901. Frederic Bancroft, The Negro in Politics,
(Columbia University, 1885), is a just and scholarly sketch
dealing chiefly with South Carolina and Mississippi. A
very complete and accurate account of a most conspicuous
agency in reconstruction is given by Paul S. Peirce, The
Freedmen s Bureau (University of Iowa Studies, 1904).
The Ku-Klux movement is cleared of some of its mystery
by J. C. Lester and D. L. Wilson, Ku-Klux Klan, its Origin,
Growth, and Disbandment, edited, with important additions,
by W. L. Fleming (1905); a just and interesting exposition
of this movement is given by W. G. Brown, in his collection
of essays entitled, The Lower South in American History
(1902). Most of the southern states are the subjects of
monographic studies covering our period. W. L. Fleming,
Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama (1905), is the
most comprehensive of the group, presenting a great mass
of social and economic as well as political facts, with a
marked southern bias in their interpretation ; J. W. Garner,
Reconstruction in Mississippi (1901), deals chiefly with the
legal and political movements, in a rigidly judicial spirit;
J. S. Reynolds, Reconstruction in South Carolina (1905), is
a painstaking compilation of fact, by a southern partisan ;
Walter Allen, Governor Chamberlain s Administration (1888),
treats with great fulness and as an avowed apologist for
the governor, the last years of reconstruction in South
Carolina; and J. P. Hollis sketches inadequately the first
years in his Early Reconstruction Period in South Carolina
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1905); E. C. Woolley,
Reconstruction in Georgia (Columbia University Studies,
1901), J. W. Fertig, Secession and Reconstruction of Ten
nessee (University of Chicago, 1896), and H. J. Eckenrode,
354 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
Virginia During Reconstruction (Johns Hopkins University
Studies, 1904), are very useful sketches, dealing with con
stitutional and political matters; J. G. de R. Hamilton,
Reconstruction in North Carolina (Columbia University,
1906), brings its subject down to 1868, and is in process of
completion to cover later years; John Wallace, Carpet-bag
Rule in Florida (1888), is a crude and untrustworthy re
view of its subject, by a negro who was active as a politi
cian; J. M. Harrell, The Brooks and Baxter War (1893),
covers the chief incidents of the period in Arkansas, en
tertainingly but in a form hard for outsiders to under
stand. Mrs. M. L. Avary, Dixie After the War (1906), is a
chatty volume, made up partly of reminiscences and partly
from familiar sources.
MONOGRAPHS ON NATIONAL POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION
Under this head may be placed W. H. Barnes, History
of the Thirty-ninth Congress (1868), a commonplace com
pilation from the Congressional Globe; C. E. Chadsey, The
Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Re
construction (Columbia University Studies, 1896), a useful
resume; D. M. DeWitt, The Impeachment and Trial of
Andrew Johnson (1903), an extremely complete and skil
ful analysis of the leading personal and political characters
and motives, with obvious dislike for the radicals ; Edmund
G. Ross, The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (1896), a
perfunctory account by one of the Republican senators
who voted for acquittal; John McDonald, Secrets of the
-Great Whiskey Ring (1880), written by one who served a
term in prison for complicity, and correspondingly untrust
worthy; A. M. Gibson, A Political Crime (1885), a strongly
partisan account of the election of 1876-1877, purporting
to prove that the Republicans triumphed through a far-
reaching conspiracy; Paul L. Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden
Disputed Presidential Election (1906), the fullest account,
presenting all facts with impartiality, but perceptibly fa
voring the Republicans in interpretation.
1877] AUTHORITIES 355
DIPLOMATIC HISTORY
A bibliography of the subject may be found in Albert
Bushnell Hart, Foundations of American Foreign Policy
(1902), chap. viii. The chief incidents of our foreign rela
tions are pretty fully treated in the current volumes of
Diplomatic Correspondence transmitted to each Congress.
A complete account from material that became available
only long after is given in the great work of John Bassett
Moore, A Digest of International Law (8 vols., 1906), a vast
compilation and commentary, fully indexed and equipped
with copious bibliographical matter. The French inter
vention in Mexico is set in full light in this work (vol. VI.),
and the diplomacy from the American point of view is also
clearly described in F. Bancroft, W. H. Seward, II. The
Mexican point of view is taken in H. H. Bancroft, History
of Mexico (6 vols., 1883-1888), VI.; the French imperial
policy is illustrated in Gaulot, La Verite sur V Expedition
du Mexique (3 vols., 1889-1890). Moore and Bancroft are
the best authorities also for the negotiations as to Alaska
and the Danish islands, with useful supplementary matter
in Pierce s Sumner. The general state of public opinion
on these various projects for acquisition of territory is well
described by Theodore Clarke Smith, "Expansion After the
War, 1865-1871," in Political Science Quarterly, Septem
ber, 1901. For our relations with Great Britain, cul
minating in the Geneva arbitration, the leading authority
is John Bassett Moore, History and Digest of the Inter
national Arbitrations to which the United States has been a
Party (6 vols., 1898), I. Interesting aspects of this sub
ject, with important extracts from the unpublished diary
of Hamilton Fish, are presented in the essay of Charles
Francis Adams, "The Treaty of Washington," in Lee at
Appomattox, and other Papers (1902). Other works on the
subject, bearing especially on the relations of Charles
Sumner to the negotiations, are J. C. B. Davis, Mr. Fish
and the Alabama Claims (1893), by the agent of the United
States at Geneva, and D. H. Chamberlain, Charles Sumner
356 RECONSTRUCTION [1865
and the Treaty of Washington (1902), opposing the un
favorable view of Sumner s acts as presented by Adams.
The British side of the affair is illustrated in A. Lang, Life,
Letters and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote (new ed., 1891) ;
Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of . . . Earl Granville (2
vols., 1905); and John Morley, Life of W. E. Gladstone (3
vols., 1903).
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY
Material in this field is scattered and fragmentary. The
national finances are admirably treated in Davis R. Dewey,
Financial History of the United States (American Citizen
Series, 1903), though necessarily with great conciseness;
and less scientifically, but more fully, in A. S. Bolles,
Financial History of the United States, 1861-1885 (26. ed.,
1894); A. D. Noyes, Thirty Years of American Finance,
1865-1895 (1898), is excellent, but devotes most attention
to the years subsequent to 1877. On the questions of
currency, light is to be found in J. J. Knox, United States
Notes (3d ed., 1888), and History of Banking in the United
States (1900), and in Horace White, Money and Banking (2d
ed., 1902). The tariff, not of the utmost importance during
our period, is fairly well treated by F. W. Taussig, Tariff
History of the United States (4th ed., 1899); and more fully
and from an avowedly protectionist point of view by
Edward Stan wood, American Tariff Controversies in the
Nineteenth Century (2 vols., 1903). The panic of 1873 is
explained in some detail by T. E. Burton, Financial Crises
(1902), and valuable illustrative tables are added in an
appendix.
On the development of railways during the period, the
basis of statistical fact is found in the great annual series
beginning in 1868 and edited by H. V. Poor, Manual of
the Railroads of the United States. Important information
and doctrine is to be found in C. F. Adams, Jr., Railroads,
their Origin and Problems (rev. ed., 1878); A. T. Hadley,
Railroad Transportation (1885); and E. R. Johnson, Ameri
can Railway Transportation (1903) The beginnings of the
1877] AUTHORITIES 357
transcontinental system are accurately described in the
excellent little volume by J. P. Davis, The Union Pacific
Railway (1894). In the brilliant and caustic collection of
C. F. Adams, Jr., and Henry Adams, Chapters of Erie and
Other Essays (1871), a strong light is thrown on salient feat
ures of speculative finance and on the general social and
political conditions in New York during the rise of Fisk
and Gould to prominence, and the heyday of the Tweed
ring s rule. Ida M. Tarbell, in her History of the Standard
Oil Company (1904), deals largely with social and indus
trial conditions in the early seventies, when the great cor
poration had its beginning; and the same field is opened
by Gilbert H. Montague, Rise and Progress of the Stand-
ard Oil Company (1903).
INDEX
ABBOTT, J. S., electoral com
mission, 329.
Abyssinia, recognition proposed
(1867), 160.
Adams, C. F., presents Alaba
ma claims, 159; and Liberal
movement, 195, 196; bibliog
raphy, 351.
Adams, J. Q., Jr., and nomina
tion for vice-president, 200 n.
Agriculture, post-war develop
ment, 142. See also Cotton.
Alabama claims, origin, 159;
presented, 159; responsibility
denied, 160; resentment and
proposed retaliation, 160; and
Fenian movement, 160, 161;
British proposals, 161; John
son treaty rejected, 161; in
direct claims, 162, 167, 169;
British anxiety, 163, 166; na
tional assumption of private
claims, 166; Fish s policy, 166,
167; joint high commission,
167; treaty of Washington,
1 67 - 1 69 ; arbitration, 1 69 ;
award, 170; bibliography,
Alabama, reconstruction consti
tution not ratified, 1 1 8 ; but
readmitted under it, 119; dis-
franchisement of whites, 125;
radicals lose control, 186, 267;
corrupt administration of rail
ways, 208; faked reign of ter
ror, 250; congressional inves
tigation, 254; bibliography,
, 353 See also Reconstruction.
Alaska, purchase, 156, 157;
named, 157.
Amendments. See amendments
by name.
American Annual Cyclopedia
as a source, 346.
Ames, Adelbert, as governor,
278; and negro militia, 279;
peace agreement, 279; im
peached, resigns, 280.
Ames, Oakes, and Credit Mo-
bilier, 232; censured, 233.
Amnesty, Johnson s proclama
tion, 36; individual pardons,
42; act of 1872, 203. See
also Disabilities.
Andrew, J. A., bibliography, 351.
Annexation. See Territory.
Apportionment. See Represen
tation.
Arapaho uprising (1867), 142.
Arkansas, loyal government,
14, 16; Johnson recognizes
loyal government, 36; re
admitted, 118; disfranchise-
ment of whites, 125; faction
al contest, 247; radicals lose
control, 48, 267; Congress
prevents interference, 277;
bibliography, 354. See also
Reconstruction.
Army, regular, opposition to
intervention of (1872), 194.
See also Union army.
Ashley, J. M., radical, 88; and
impeachment (1867), 92.
Atkinson, Edward, and Liberal
movement , 195.
RECONSTRUCTION
Augur, C. C., Indian campaign
(1867), 148.
BABCOCK, O. E., Santo Domin
go negotiation, 163 ; and whis
key ring, 284-286.
Baez, Buenaventura, and sale
of Santo Domingo, 163.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,
formation of trunk lines, 149,
225, 226.
Bartemeyer vs. Iowa, 262.
Baxter, Elisha, faction in Ar
kansas, 247; bibliography,
354-
Bayard, T. F., electoral com
mission, 329.
Beecher, H. W., Tilton affair,
246; as editor, 347.
Belknap, W. W., scandal and
resignation, 287 ; impeach
ment, 288.
Belligerency, recognition, 159,
161, 167.
Bibliography, of reconstruction,
342; of foreign affairs, 355.
Bingham, J. A., reconstruction
committee, 65; moderate re-
const ruction ist, 88; and im
peachment, 103.
Biographies of reconstruction
period, 349-351.
Black, J. S., writes veto of re
construction act, 96; as Bel-
knap s counsel, 289; counsel
before electoral commission,
331; bibliography, 348.
"Black codes," southern, 54-
59, no.
Black Friday, 192, 224.
Blaine, J. G., moderate re-
constructionist, 88; Mulligan
letters investigation, 292 ;
charges against Davis as po
litical manoeuvre, 295-297;
and presidential nomination
(1876), 300; and electoral
commission bill, 325; bibliog
raphy, 350.
Blair, F. P., Jr., and Demo
cratic nomination (1868), 13 1 ;
nominated for vice-president,
133; and Liberal movement,
197.
Blockade rescinded, 27.
"Bloody shirt" in campaign of
1876, 295-297, 300, 302.
Bonds, payment in greenbacks
as issue, 130-133, 140; public
credit act, 221; refunding
acts, 221. See also Debt.
Border states, post-war con
ditions, 7-9.
Borie, A. E., and navy port
folio, 177.
Boundaries, arbitration of San
Juan affair, 167, 170.
Boutwell, G. S., reconstruction
committee, 65 ; character, 88 ;
and tenure of office act, 91;
report on impeachment, 100;
impeachment manager, 1 03 ;
secretary of treasury, 177;
and Black Friday, 224; in
flates currency, 224; bibliog
raphy, 349.
Bowles, Samuel, bibliography,
35 1 -
Bradley, J. P., appointment
and legal -tender decision,
259; electoral commission,
329. 332, 333. 33 6 . bib
liography, 348.
Bradwell vs. State, 262.
Bristow, B. H., secretary of
treasury, 242; whiskey ring
prosecutions, 283; dismissed,
290; and presidential nomi
nation (1876), 290, 298.
Brooks, James, and Credit Mo-
bilier, 233.
Brooks, Joseph, faction in Ar
kansas, 247 ; bibliography,
Brown, B. Gratz, and Liberal
movement, 196.
Brown, J. E., confined, 35; bib
liography, 351.
INDEX
361
Browning, O. H., secretary of
interior, 73.
Brownlow, W. G., Johnson rec
ognizes as governor, 36; con
trol in Tennessee, 69; and
militia, 183.
Bruce, B. K., senator, 282.
Bryant, W. C., and Liberal
movement, 195, 196.
"Bulldozing," 305.
Bullock, R. B., struggle with
legislature, 181, 182.
Butler, B. F., character, 88;
and impeachment, 103; and
Ku-Klux act, 187; in cam
paign of 1872, 201; and
salary grab, 234; power, 242 ;
denounced, 242; and civil
service reform, 243; and
Sumner s civil rights bill,
255; bibliography, 349-
CABINET, Johnson s, 73, 108;
Grant s, 177, 242, 277, 290.
Campbell, J. A., confined, 23.
Campbell, L. D., mission to Mex
ico, 154.
Canada, Fenian raid (1866),
1 60.
Carpenter, M. H., counsel be
fore electoral commission,
334.
Carpet-baggers, use of term,
1 1 6, 12 1 ; ascendency in re
constructed states, 210. See
also Reconstruction.
Gary, S. F., nominated for vice-
president, 295.
Casey, J. F., and Louisiana fac
tional fight, 218.
Centennial exhibition, 293.
Central Pacific Railroad. See
Pacific Railway.
Chamberlain, D. H., as govern
or, 305, 306; antagonizes con
servatives, 306; canvass for
re-election, 307, 308; contest
ed election, 327, 328, 340; bib
liography, 353.
Chandler, W. E., in Florida,
311.
Chandler, Zachariah, radical,
88; proposes recognition of
Abyssinia, 161; bibliography,
351.
Chase, S. P., and negro suf
frage, 38, 130; presides at
trial of Johnson, 104; and
Democratic nomination
(1868), 130, 133; Texas vs.
White, 258; legal-tender de
cisions, 259; bibliography,
343* 348, 350.
Chattanooga, convention on
southern outrages, 250.
Cheyenne uprising (1867), 147.
Chicago, Federal troops at great
fire, 194 n.
Chicago and Northwestern Rail
road, development, 226.
Chicago Tribune on southern
black codes, 57.
Christian Union, influence, 347.
Civil rights, southern black
codes, 56, no; act of 1866,
63, 64; Fourteenth Amend
ment on, 67; in reconstruc
tion constitutions, 113; negro
desire for social equality, 183 ;
enforcement acts, 184-187;
Sumner s bill, 214, 255; at
tempted force bill, 254; Su
preme Court on state vs. na
tional protection, 260-265.
Civil service, Johnson s use of
patronage, 72, 73; tenure of
office act, 90; Grant and re
form, 193, 243, 290; reform as
issue (1872), 199; (1876), 301,
302; spoils system and cor
ruption, 291. See also Cor
ruption.
Civil War, end, 3 ; key of genesis,
4; social effect, 4, 5; after
math in North, 5; in border
states, 7-9; in South, 9-13,
25; disbandment of armies,
24-26; end proclaimed, 41.
362
RECONSTRUCTION
Clay, C. C., and assassination
of Lincoln, 20.
Clayton, Powell, and Arkansas
militia, 1 83 ; and state fac
tions, 248.
Clearing-house certificates, first
use, 236.
Clifford, Nathan, electoral com
mission, 325, 329.
Clinton, Mississippi, race riot,
279.
Coif ax, Louisiana, riot, 219.
Colfax, Schuyler, nominated for
vice-president, 129; and ne
gro suffrage, 129; and Credit
Mobilier, 233 ; bibliography,
35 1 -
Commerce, war restrictions re
moved, 27. See also Rail
roads.
Confederate army, disband-
ment, 25.
Confiscation, policy of radicals,
42; checked, 42.
Congress, Thirty-ninth : recon
structed states refused rec
ognition, 51-53, 61; recon
struction committee, 51, 65;
apportionment of represen
tation, 53; and southern
black codes, 57; Freedmen s
Bureau bills, 59-6 1 , 68 ; breach
with Johnson, 62, 64, 71; civil
rights act, 63-65; Stevens s
leadership, 64; report of re
construction committee, 65-
67, 69; Fourteenth Amend
ment, 67, 68; readmission of
Tennessee, 69 ; effect of south
ern rejection of amendment,
85; triumph of radicals, 86-
88; and Supreme Court, 89,
94; tenure of office act, 90,
91; impeachment movement,
92; reconstruction act, 92-95;
contraction of greenbacks,
138; revenue measures, 141;
Alabama claims, 160.
Fortieth : complexion, 82 ;
early meeting, 95; supple
mentary reconstruction acts,
95, 98; House refuses to im
peach Johnson, 100; and sus
pension of Stan ton, 101; im
peachment of Johnson, 101
104; trial, 104-108; suspends
contraction of greenbacks,
138; revenue measures, 141;
Alabama claims, 161; Fif
teenth Amendment, 174-176.
Forty-first: Alabama claims,
161, 162; Santo Domingo,
1 63 ; reconstruction meas
ures, 179-182; enforcement
act, 184-186; Federal super
vision of elections, 186; re
peal of iron-clad oath, 203;
public credit act, 221; re
funding acts, 221; revenue
act, 222.
Forty - second : treaty of
Washington, 167; complex
ion, 1 86; Ku-Klux act, 187,
1 88; report on Ku-Klux,
1 88; amnesty, 203; Louisiana
investigation, 218; revenue
act, 222; Credit Mobilier in
vestigation, 231-233; salary
grab, 233-235.
Forty-third: civil. rights act,
214, 255; repeals salary grab,
235; financial problems, 238;
inflation bills, 239; Sanborn
contracts investigation, 241;
investigation of the District,
244; Louisiana investigations,
247, 274-276; resumption act,
252-254; force bill, 254; mes
sage on southern policy, 269;
Arkansas investigation, 277.
Forty - fourth : complexion ,
251; leaders, 281; negro mem
bers, 281; Democratic task,
282; investigation of execu
tive departments, 283, 290;
Belknap scandal and im
peachment, 287, 288; Elaine
investigation, 292; third-term
INDEX
363
resolution, 299; problems of
electoral count, 3 19-322 ; elec
toral count bill, 323-326; elec
toral count, 330-338.
Conkling, Roscoe, reconstruc
tion committee, 65; Grant s
adviser, 243 ; and civil service
reform, 243; declines chief-
justiceship, 263; and presi
dential nomination (1876),
297-299; and electoral count
bill, 325; bibliography, 351.
Constitution, Federal, indestruc
tible states, 257; legal tender,
258-260. See also amend
ments by name.
Constitutions of reconstructed
states, 113.
Cooke, Jay, failure, 235; finan
cial reputation, 235; bibliog
raphy, 351.
Cooper, Peter, nominated for
president, 295.
Corruption, in reconstructed
states, 208; Tweed ring, 229,
230; evidence elsewhere, 230;
Cre*dit Mobilier, 231; in collec
tion of revenue, 240, 283-286;
in executive departments,
240, 290; Belknap scandal,
287-290; Elaine investiga
tion, 292.
Cotton, post-war conditions, 12,
26, 143; tax, 26; planters
from North, 28.
Cox, J. D., secretary of interior,
178; dismissed, 193; and civil
service reform, 193; and Lib
eral movement, 195.
Cox, S. S., leader in House, 281.
Credit Mobilier investigation,
231-233.
Cresswell, J. A. J., postmaster-
general, 178.
Cuba, rebellion, 171, 172; Fish
withholds proclamation rec
ognizing, 171; Virginius af
fair, 172.
Cummings vs. Missouri, 89.
Currency. See Paper money.
Curt in, A. G., and Liberal
movement, 195.
Curtis, B. R., counsel at im
peachment, 104; declines at
torney-generalship, 1 08.
Curtis, G. W., and civil service
reform, 243; bibliography,
348.
Gushing, Caleb, and chief-jus
ticeship, 263.
Custer, G. A., Indian campaign
(1867), 148.
DANA, C. A., as editor of Sun,
348, 351.
Danish West Indies, negotia
tion for, 157.
Davis, David, and Liberal move
ment, 195,196; and electoral
commission, 325, 326.
Davis, Jefferson, and assassina
tion of Lincoln, 20; John
son s attitude, 22; problem
of trial, 23; confined, 23;
Elaine s charges against, 296;
bibliography, 351.
Debt, Confederate, repudiated,
40 ; Fourteenth Amendment
on, 67; size of Federal (1865),
137; of reconstructed states,
205, 208, 215. See also
Bonds, Paper money.
Delano, Columbus, corruption
under, 291.
Democratic party, and John
son, 72-74; abandons recon
struction issues (1872), 198;
ascendency (1874), 251. See
also Elections.
Dennison, William, resigns, 73.
De Trobriand, P. R., and Loui
siana legislature, 273, 274.
Disabilities, Missouri test-oath,
8; Johnson s amnesty proc
lamation, 36; policy of radi
cals, 42; individual pardons,
42; in report of reconstruc
tion committee 66, 69; in
3 6 4
RECONSTRUCTION
Fourteenth Amendment, 67;
as reason for rejecting Four
teenth Amendment, 83 ; un
der reconstruction act, 96; in
reconstruction constitutions,
125; voted down in Missis
sippi and Virginia, 179; am
nesty act (1872), 203.
District of Columbia, negro suf
frage, 61, 94; territorial gov
ernment and scandal, 244;
working of negro suffrage,
.245-
Dix, J. A., bibliography, 351.
Dorsey, S. W., and Arkansas fac
tions, 248.
Drew, G. F., elected governor,
3*4-
Durell, E. H., and Louisiana
contested election, 217, 219;
impeachment threatened, 247 ;
resigns, 247 n.
ECONOMIC conditions, effect of
war, 4, 6; southern post-war,
9-13, 25-27; prosperity, 136,
142, 220; speculative spirit,
136, 141, 142; influence of
Pacific Railway, 146; panic
of 1873, 235; industrial de
pression, 236, 237; bibliogra-
gliy, 356. See also Finances,
ailroads, Taxation.
Edmunds, G. F., electoral com
mission, 329.
Education in reconstructed
states, 206.
Election laws, Federal super
vision, 1 86; in reconstructed
states, 211.
Elections, 1866: issue, 71-73;
" National Union Conven
tion," 73-76; LoyallUnionist s
Convention, 76-78; soldier s
conventions, 78; influence of
New Orleans riot, 79-81; of
Johnson s tour, 8 1 ; returns, 82 .
1868 : pre- campaign pros
pects, 124-126; Grant as can
didate, 126, 127; Republican
platform, 128; Democratic
aspirants and issues, 129-
132; Democratic convention,
132, 133; returns, 133; effect
on reconstruction, 134; com
plaints of southern fraud,
135. l8 4-
1872: origin of Liberal
movement, 164, 190; its call
for national convention, 191;
its justification, 191-193; its-
issues, 193-195 ; its prominent
adherents, 195; its platform,
196; Greeley as candidate,
196, 199, 200; Democrats in
dorse him and reconstruction
amendments, 198; renomina-
tion of Grant, 199; Republi
can platform, 199; attempted
Democratic bolt, 200; returns,
201; chances of Liberal suc
cess, 201; southern outrages
as issue, 201.
1874 : Republican handi
cap, 244; weakening of party r
246; southern conditions as
issue, 246, 249; Democratic
tidal wave, 250, 252.
1876: issues, 294, 295;
Greenback party, 295; in
jection of "bloody shirt,"
295-297, 300, 302; confer
ence of moderate Republi
cans, 297; Republican aspir
ants, 297, 298; elimination of
Grant, 298; Republican con
vention, 300; Hayes s letter
of acceptance, 300; Demo
cratic convention, 301, 302;
Tilden s letter of acceptance,
302; campaign in North, 302;
in South, 303-308; disputed
results, 309, 310; Grant s or
der against violence, 310;
"visiting statesmen," 311,
312; count in South Carolina,
312; in Florida, 313-315; in
Louisiana, 315-318; in Ore-
INDEX
365
on, 318; problems before
Congress, 319-322; danger of
; Grant s attitude,
war, 322
323; electoral count act, 323-
326; personnel of commission,
325, 326, 329; attitude of
southern congressmen, 328;
count begins, 330; Florida
vote before commission, 330-
332; refusal to go behind the
returns, 332; Florida vote
counted for Hayes, 333 ; par
tisanship of commission, 333 ;
Louisiana vote counted for
Hayes, 334, 335; Democratic
indignation, 335; attempt at
filibustering, 336-338; Ore
gon vote counted for Hayes,
336; also South Carolina vote,
337; Hayes declared elected,
338; understanding between
southerners and Hayes s
friends, 338, 339; Hayes takes
oath, 340; bibliography, 354.
Electoral commission. See Elec
tions (1876}.
Ellenton, South Carolina, race
riot, 307.
Ellis, E. J., agreement with
Hayes s friends, 339.
Emory, W. H., at New Orleans,
249.
Enforcement acts, first, 184-
186; Federal supervision of
elections, 186; Ku-Klux act,
186-189; renewed operation
(1874), 249; judicial inter
pretation, 262-265; charac
ter of application, 270.
Erie Railroad, formation of
trunk line, 149.
Evarts, W. M., counsel at im
peachment, 104; attorney-
general, 1 08; counsel before
electoral commission , 331,
334 ; and conference on Hayes s
southern policy, 339.
Executive departments, malad
ministration, 240, 290.
FARRAGUT, D. G M tour with
Johnson, 81.
Fenians, raid on Canada (1866),
1 60.
Fenton, RE., and Liberal move
ment, 195.
Fessenden, W. P., reconstruc
tion committee, 65 ; mod
erate reconstructionist, 88 ;
votes to acquit Johnson, 106,
107.
Fetterman, W. J., killed by Ind
ians, 147.
Field, S. J., electoral commis
sion, 325.
Fifteenth Amendment, causes,
135, 174; terms, 175; passes
Congress, 176; ratification re
quired before reconstruction,
180, 182; in force, 182; acts
to enforce, 184-186; judicial
interpretation, 261-263.
Finances, McCulloch s control,
136; of reconstructed states,
205, 206, 215; power over, of
secretary of treasury, 223-
225; panic of 1873, 235; bib
liography, 356. See also Debt,
Gold, Taxation.
Fish, Hamilton, Alabama claims
negotiations, 166-168; rupt
ure with Sumner, 168; and
indirect claims, 170; and rec
ognition of Cuba, 171; and
Virginius affair, 172; secre
tary of state, 178.
Fisheries, arbitration, 167, 171.
Fisk, James, Jr., attempt to
corner gold, 192, 224.
Florida, readmitted, 118; radi
cal control shaken, 267; cam
paign of 1876, 303; elector
al returns, 313-315; radicals
lose control, 314; vote count
ed for Hayes, 330-333; bib
liography, 354. See also Re
construction.
Foreign affairs, post-war prob
lems, 17, 151; bibliography,
366
RECONSTRUCTION
34 6 > 355- $ ee a ^ so nations
by name.
Foster, Charles, denounces But
ler, 242 ; Louisiana report,
275; assurance on Hayes s
southern policy, 339.
Fourteenth Amendment, in
Congress, provisions, 66-68;
rejected by South, 83 ; final
ity, 85 ; ratification required
before reconstruction, 95; in
force, 125; acts to enforce,
184-189; judicial interpreta
tion, 260-265.
Fowler, J. S., votes to acquit
Johnson, 106.
France. See Napoleon III.
Freedmen. See Negroes.
Freedmen s Bureau, origin, 30;
functions, 3 1 ; conduct of
officials, 32, 34; and southern
whites, 33 ; effect on negroes,
46; bill (1866), 59; veto of
it, 60, 61; new act passed
over veto, 68; bibliography,
Frelinghuysen, F. T., electoral
commission, 329.
Frye, W. P., and electoral com
mission bill, 326.
Fullerton, J. S., report on Freed
men s Bureau, 68.
GARFIELD, J. A., moderate re-
const ruction ist, 88; and sal
ary grab, 234; "visiting
statesman , " 312; and elec
toral count bill, 326; elec
toral commission, 329; assur
ance on Hayes s southern
policy, 339 ; bibliography, 348.
Garland, A. H., gratitude to
Federal House, 277.
Garland, ex parte, 89.
Garrett, J. W., popular denun
ciation, 227.
Gaston, William, governor of
Massachusetts, 251.
Georgia, readmitted, 118; in
election of 1868, 135; renewed
military control, 181; expul
sion of black legislators, 181;
new conditions of readmis-
sion, 182; corrupt administra
tion of railways, 208; radicals
lose control, 215; bibliogra
phy. 353-
Georgia vs. Stanton, 256.
Gibbon, John, Indian campaign
(1867), 148.
Godkin, E. L., as editor of
Nation, 347, 351
Gold, attempt to corner, 192,
224; influence of government
on price, 223, 224.
Gordon, J. B., policy, 267;
agreement with Hayes s
friends, 339.
Gould, Jay, attempt to corner
gold, 192, 224; popular de
nunciation, 227, 228; and
Tweed, 230.
Granger cases, 264.
Granger movement, 228.
Grant, U. S., protects Lee, 21;
report on southern conditions
(1865), 49; tour with John
son, 81; secretary of war ad
interim, 99, 101; as candidate
(1868), 126, 127; quarrel with
Johnson, 127; elected, 133;
and French in Mexico, 153,
154; and Danish West Indies,
158; and Santo Domingo, 1 63 ;
rupture with Sumner, 165;
character as president, 165,
178, 191-195; and Cuba, 171;
inauguration, 176; cabinet,
177, 193, 242, 277, 290; first
reconstruction policy, 179;
and Ku Klux, 186, 188; and
Liberal movement (1870),
191; accepts gifts, 192; and
Black Friday, 192, 224; and
civil service reform, 193, 243,
290; accused of militarism,
194; renominated, 199; re-
elected, 20 1 ; attitude towards
INDEX
367
South, 212, 217; and Loui
siana affairs, 218, 246, 249,
272-274, 328, 340; and fi
nance, 221 ; and panic of 1873,
236; veto of inflation bill,
239; maladministration un
der, 240, 246, 290; and Butler,
242; Republican opposition
to, 243, 252, 254, 265, 266,
275-277; chief advisers, 243;
and Shepherd, 245; and
Texas affairs, 247; and Ar
kansas factions, 247, 277;
renews rigor of enforcement
acts, 249; and resumption,
253; wavers on southern pol
icy (1874), 269; refuses to
interfere in Mississippi, 279;
administration investigated,
282; and whiskey ring, 284;
and charges against Bab-
cock, 285, 286; and Belknap
scandal, 287 - 289; belittles
popular condemnation, 289;
and third term, 298; inter
feres in South Carolina
(1876), 308; post - election
order (1876), 310; appoints
visiting statesmen , " 311;
and electoral count, 323, 325;
abandons policy of interfer
ence, 328, 340; bibliography
of administration, 342-357;
papers, 345, 348; biographies,
349-
Great Britain, post-war feeling
against, 17, 151, 159. See
also Alabama claims.
Greeley, Horace, and Liberal
movement, 195, 196; as can
didate for president, 197-
200; defeat, 201; death, 201;
bibliography, 351.
Greenback party (1876), 295.
Greenbacks. See Paper money.
Grider, Hesry, reconstruction
committee, 65.
Grimes, J. W., reconstruction
committee, 65; votes to ac-
VOL. XXII. 24
quit Johnson, 106; bibliog
raphy, 351.
Groesbeck, W. S., counsel at
impeachment, 104.
Grover, L. F., and Oregon elec
toral vote, 318.
HABEAS CORPUS, suspension of
writ revoked, 41; suspension
under Ku-Klux act, 187, 188.
Hale, Eugene, and electoral
count bill, 326.
Hamburg, South Carolina, race
fight, 306.
Hamlin, Hannibal, bibliogra
phy, 35 1 -
Hampton, Wade, canvass for
governor, 307 ; contested elec
tion, 327, 328, 340.
Hancock, W. S., Indian cam
paign (1867), J 4 8 -
Harlan, James, resigns, 73.
Harper s Weekly, influence, 347.
Hayes, R. B., nominated for
president, 300; letter of ac
ceptance, 301; and "bloody
shirt," 302; declared elected,
338; bargain of supporters,
33 8 339; takes oath, 340.
See also Elections (1876}.
Hays, ICharles, on Alabama
reign of terror, 250.
Henderson, J. B., votes to ac
quit Johnson, 106.
Hendricks, T. A., nominated for
vice-president, 320; declared
defeated, 338. See also Elec
tions (1876).
Hewitt, A. S., appoints "visit
ing statesmen," 311.
Hill, B. H., bibliography, 351.
Hoar, E. R., attorney-general,
178; dismissed, 193; and
Sumner s civil rights bill,
2 55-
Hoar, G. F., in campaign of
1872, 201; Louisiana report,
2 75 77J electoral commis
sion, 329; bibliography, 349.
3 68
RECONSTRUCTION
Holden, W. W., provisional
governor of North Carolina,
37; and militia, 183; im
peached, 187 ., 215.
Howard, J. M., reconstruction
committee, 65; radical, 88.
Howard, O. O., as head of
Freedmen s Bureau, 32.
Howe, S. G., Santo Domingo
commission, 164.
Humphreys, F. C., eligibility
as elector, 331-333.
Hunton, Eppa, electoral com
mission, 329.
IMMIGRATION, post-war devel
opment, 150.
Impeachment, of southern gov
ernors, 215; of Belknap, 288.
See also Johnson (Andrew).
Independent, influence, 347.
Indians, uprising (1867), 147.
Internal revenue, tax on cotton,
26; decrease under Johnson,
141; revision under Grant,
222; corruption in collecting,
240; whiskey ring, 283-286.
International law. See Ala
bama claims.
JAYNE, blackmail by, 241.
Jewell, Marshall, dismissed, 290.
Johnson, Andrew, as governor
of Tennessee, 14; nomina
tion for vice-president, 18;
character, 19; vindictiveness
against southern leaders, 20,
21 ; change of policy, 21, 41;
removes trade restrictions,
27; adopts Lincoln s policy,
35; amnesty proclamation,
36; reconstruction procla
mations, 37-39; and negro
suffrage, 38, 61; proclaims
end of rebellion, 41; pardons
to rebels, 42; policy, and po
litical readjustment, 42, 43,
72; popularity of policy, 43;
reports to, on southern con
ditions, 47-50; first message,
52; vetoes of Freedmen s
Bureau bills, 60, 61, 68;
February 22d speech, 62;
breach with Congress, 62,
64, 7 1 ; civil rights act veto,
64; policy as issue in 1866,
71-73; changes in cabinet,
73, 108; and Democracy, 73;
and " National Union Conven
tion, "73-76; use of patronage,
72, 73; tour, 81, 82; popular
verdict against policy, 82;
tenure of office and military
orders acts, 90, 91; and Stan-
ton, 91 ; indecision, 92 ; move
ment to impeach (1867), 92;
veto of reconstruction acts,
97; suspends Stanton, 99;
House refuses to impeach,
100; and reinstatement of
Stanton, 101; removes him,
101; impeached 101-104;
trial, 104-108; quarrel with
Grant, 127; and Democratic
nomination (1868), 130; and
Blairs, 131; and finance, 136;
and French in Mexico, 153,
154; farewell address, 176;
papers, 343; bibliography,
345. 349. 354-
Johnson, Reverdy, reconstruc
tion committee, 65 ; treaty on
Alabama claims, 161.
Juarez, Benito, straits, 153;
Campbell s mission, 154.
Judiciary. See Supreme Court,
Julian, G. W., bibliography,
349-
KANSAS, rejects negro suffrage
(1867), 125; corruption in,
230.
Kasson, J. A., and electoral
count bill, 326.
Kellogg, W. P., contested elec
tion for governor, 217-219,
247; government overthrown
and restored, 249; and con-
INDEX
369
flict in the legislature, 273;
Wheeler compromise, 276.
Kentucky, post-war conditions,
8, 9.
Kerr, M. C., speaker, 281.
Knights of White Camelia, 122,
J 35-
Ku-Klux Klan, origin and char
acter of activity, 121-123,
135, 181, 187; Federal act
against, 186-188; Federal in
vestigation, 1 88; enforcement
of act against, 188; failure to
renew act, 204; bibliography,
353-
LABOR, demoralization of f reed-
men, 10, 46.
Lamar, L. Q. C., eulogy on Sum-
ner, 266; policy, 267; and
electoral count bill, 328; bib
liography, 351.
Lawrence, William, radical, 88.
Lee, R. E., Grant protects, 21;
bibliography, 351.
Levy, W. M., agreement with
Hayes s friends, 339.
Liberal Republican party. See
Elections (1872}.
Lincoln, Abraham, reconstruc
tion policy, 13-16; political
effect of assassination, 20;
trial of conspirators, 22.
Logan, J. A., radical, 88; and
impeachment, 103.
Louisiana, loyal government,
14, 16; Johnson recognizes
loyal government, 36; black
code, 56; readmitted, 118;
disfranchisement of whites,
125; and election of 1868,
135, 184; Kellogg-McEnery
contested election, 217-219,
246; race conflicts, 219; con
gressional investigations,
247, 275; White Leagues,
248, 269; New Orleans rising,
249; radical control shaken
(1874), 267; Packard s con
trol, 272; conflict in legislat
ure and Federal interference
(1875), 2 7 2 ~" 2 74 northern
indignation over it, 274; af
fair in Congress, 274-276;
Wheeler compromise, 276;
campaign of 1876, 303-305;
electoral returns, 3 1 5-317;
Grant and contested state
election (1877), 327, 340;
vote counted for Hayes, 334,
335. See also Reconstruc
tion.
Loyal Leagues, 115.
Loyal Unionists Convention
(1866), 76-78.
McCARDLE, ex parte, 257.
McCulloch, Hugh, problems, 137;
andcontraction of greenbacks,
137; bibliography, 349.
McDonald, John, whiskey ring,
284, 354.
McEnery, John, contested elec
tion, si 8.
Magrath, A. G., confined, 35.
Mallory, S. R., confined, 23.
Marble, Manton, "visiting
statesman," 312.
Maryland, post-war conditions,
8.
Massachusetts goes Democratic
(1874), 250.
Matthews, Stanley, counsel be
fore electoral commission, 331.
Maximilian, establishment of
rule, 152; opposition to, of
United States, 153-155;
abandoned by French, 155;
executed, 156.
Memminger, C. G., bibliography,
Memphis, riot (1866), 80, 93.
Mexico, American post-war at
titude, 152 - 154; Seward s
diplomacy, 154, 155; with
drawal of French, 155; end
of empire, 156; bibliography,
355-
370
RECONSTRUCTION
Michigan rejects negro suf
frage (1867), 125.
Military tribunals, demand for
suppression, 22; final activ
ity, 22; Supreme Court on,
89; in reconstruction act, 94,
256.
Militia, negro, 183, 279.
Miller, S. P., electoral commis
sion, 325.
Milligan, ex parte, 89, 94.
Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail
road, development, 226.
Mining, western, and railway
development, 6; post-war de
velopment, 142.
Minnesota rejects negro suf
frage (1867), 125.
Minor vs. Happersett, 262.
Mississippi, rejects Thirteenth
Amendment, 40; black code,
56, 58; reconstruction defeat
ed, 1 1 8, 119; Africanization,
278; Ames as governor, 278;
radical schism, 278; campaign
(1875), intimidation of blacks
278; Federal troops refused,
279; negro militia, 279; peace
agreement, 279; radicals lose
control, 280; bibliography,
353. See also Reconstruc
tion.
Mississippi vs. Johnson, 256.
Missouri, post-war conditions,
8; test-oath, 8; test-oath un
constitutional, 89 ; radicals
control, 126; radicals lose con
trol, 190; Liberal movement,
190, 191.
Moiety system, evils and aboli
tion, 241.
Money. See Gold, Paper money.
Morrison, W. R., leader in
House, 281.
Morton, O. P., radical, 88; and
Ku-Klux act, 187; in cam
paign of 1872, 201; and civil
service reform, 243 ; and
Louisiana affairs, 247 ; and
presidential nomination
(1876), 297-299; and elec
toral count, 320, 325; elec
toral commission, 329; bib
liography, 350.
Moses, F. J., Jr., governor of
South Carolina, 216.
Murphy, Isaac, Johnson recog
nizes as governor, 36.
NAPOLEON III., resentment
against, 17, 151; and Mexico,
^a-iSS-
Nast, Thomas, cartoons, 347,
35 1 -
Nation, influence, 346.
National banks, western opposi
tion, 239; increased circula
tion authorized, 253.
" National Union Convention "
(1866), 73-76.
Nationalism, opposition to cen
tralizing tendencies (1872),
194.
Nebraska, admitted, 126; cor
ruption in, 230.
Negro suffrage, and Johnson s
reconstruction proclamation,
37, 42; in District of Colum
bia, 61, 94, 244, 245; Four
teenth Amendment on, 67 ;
Loyalists Convention on, 77;
in territories, 94; under re
construction acts, 94, in;
attitude of southern whites,
in, 117; in reconstruction
constitutions, 113; negroes
adhere to Republican party,
114, 115; Union Leagues, 115;
negro officials, 120, 216, 278,
281; means of intimidation,
121, 135, 268, 278, 304; oper
ations of Ku-Klux Klan, 122,
123, 135, 181, 187; defeated
in West (1867), I2 5I as is ~
sue in 1868, 128, 132; in
fluence of election of 1868
on, 135; Fifteenth Amend
ment, 135, 174-176, 182;
INDEX
Federal acts to protect, 184-
188; as issue in 1872, 196,
198, 199, 201; tendency tow
ards race parties, 210, 211;
judicial decisions on, 263.
See also Reconstruction.
Negro troops, southern pro
tests against, 30.
Negroes, post-war conditions
in Kentucky, 9; demoraliza
tion of freedmen, 10, 46;
Freedmen s Bureau, 30-34,
59-61, 68; first sign of race
friction, 45; "forty acres
and a mule," 46; southern
black codes, 54-59, no;
Federal civil rights acts, 63,
64, 214, 255; Fourteenth
Amendment on, 67; race vio
lence, 79-81, 182, 219, 249,
271, 279, 305-307; militia,
183, 279; Federal acts to pro
tect, 184; schools, 206; and
poor whites, 213; desire for
social equality, 213; faked
outrages on, 250. See also
Negro suffrage, Reconstruc
tion.
Nelson, T. A. R., counsel at
impeachment , 104.
Neutrality, rules in treaty of
Washington, 167. See also
Alabama claims.
New Orleans, riot (1866), 79-81,
93; rising (1874), 249.
New York City, Tweed ring, 229,
230.
New York Sun during recon
struction, 347.
New York Times during recon
struction, 347.
New York Tribune during re
construction, 347.
Newspapers of reconstruction
period, 347-
Nicholls, F. T., contested elec
tion, 327, 340.
North, post - war conditions
4-6.
North Carolina, reconstruction
movement during war, 14;
Johnson s reconstruction, 37-
39; readmitted, 118; militia,
183; radicals lose control,
1 86; activity of-. Ku-Klux,
187; impeachment of Holden,
187 ., 215; bankrupt, 215;
bibliography, 354. See also
Reconstruction .
Northwest, development and
prosperity, 143, 150, 225;
Granger movement, 228.
Noyes, E. F., "visiting states
man," 312.
OATHS, Missouri test -oath, 8;
amnesty, 36; Missouri and
Federal test, unconstitution
al, 89 ; required under recon
struction act, 96; iron-clad,
repealed, 203.
O Conor, Charles, and nomi
nation for president, 200 n. ;
counsel before electoral com
mission, 331.
Ohio, rejects negro suffrage
(1867), 125; idea (1868), 131;
goes Democratic (1874), 250.
Ord, E. O. C., district com
mander, 97.
Oregon, electoral returns (1876),
318; vote counted for Hayes,
336.
PACIFIC RAILWAY, construc
tion, 7, 144; government aid,
145; economic and social
effect, 146; additional lines
begun, 226; Credit Mobilier,
2 3 I ~233; bibliography, 357.
Packard, S. B., factional fight
in Louisiana, 217, 218; con
trol, 272; contested election
(1876), 327, 328, 340.
Palmer, J. M., as commander
of Kentucky, 9; "visiting
statesman," 312.
Panic of 1873, 255; resulting
372
RECONSTRUCTION
business depression, 236, 237;
political result, 237, 238; bib
liography, 356.
Paper money, as issue in 1868,
128, 131-133; payment of
bonds in, 131 - 133, 140;
amount of greenbacks (1865),
137; contraction, 137; con
traction suspended, 138; rea
sons against contraction, 139 ;
public credit act, 221; in
flation by secretary of treas
ury, 223-225, 239; inflation
bill vetoed, 239; compromise
inflation act, 239; national
bank-notes, 239, 254; re
sumption act, 252-254; ju
dicial decisions on legal ten
der, 258-260; as issue in
1876, 294, 295; bibliography,
356.
Patterson, J. W., and Credit
Mobilier, 233.
Payne, H. B., electoral com
mission, 329.
Peirpoint, F. H., recognized as
governor, 36.
Pendleton, G. H., and presi
dential nomination (1868),
132, 133-
Pennsylvania goes Democratic
(1874), 250.
Pennsylvania Railroad, forma
tion of trunk lines, 149, 225,
226.
Periodicals of reconstruction
period, 346-348.
Perry, B. F., bibliography, 349.
Petroleum, development of in
dustry, 142.
Phelps, W. W., Louisiana re
port, 275.
Philip Kearny, Fort, Indian at
tack, 147.
Pierrepont, Edwards, attorney-
general, 277; southern policy,
277, 279.
Pinchback, P. B. S., and con
tested election, 218.
Poland, L. P., Credit Mobilier
investigation, 232.
Politics of Johnson s reconstruc
tion policy, 42, 43, 72. See
also Corruption, Elections,
and parties by name.
Poor whites and negro rights,
213.
Pope, John, district commander,
97-
Potter, C. N., Louisiana re
port, 275.
Public credit act, 221.
Public lands, grants to rail
roads, 145; political opposi
tion to such grants, 227.
RAILROADS, post-war develop
ment, 7, 143; construction of
Pacific, 144-146; its effect,
146; formation of trunk lines,
148, 225; popular opposition
to consolidation, 149, 226;
beneficial results, 149; de
velopment and social move
ments, 149; corrupt develop
ment in reconstructed states,
207; excessive development,
226; opposition to land grants
to, 227; Granger legislation,
228; movement for Federal
regulation, 229; Granger
cases, 264; bibliography, 356.
Randall, A. W., postmaster-
general, 73; tour with John
son, 8 1.
Randall, S. J., leader in House,
281; and electoral count fili
bustering, 337.
Rawlins, J. A., and Cuba, 171;
death, 171; secretary of war,
178.
Raymond, H. J., as editor of
Times, 347.
Reagan, J. H., confined, 23.
Reconstruction, key of prob
lem, 4; post-war conditions
of South, 9-13, 25-27, 46;
conditions of state govern-
INDEX
373
merits, 13; Lincoln s policy
and loyal governments, 13-
16; influence of Johnson s
character, 19; his vindictive
attitude, 20, 21 ; his change of
policy, 21, 41; revival of in
tercourse, 27-29; military ad
ministration, 29 ; negro troops,
30; Freedmen s Bureau, 30-
34, 46; Johnson adopts Lin
coln s policy, 35; loyal gov
ernments recognized, 36;
amnesty proclamation, 36; re
construction proclamations,
37 39; constitutional con
ventions (1865), 39; secession
invalidated, 40; Thirteenth
Amendment ratified, 40; civil
governments completed, 40;
policy of radicals, 42; John
son s policy and party read
justment, 43, 72; popularity
of his policy, 43 ; ex-Confed
erates regain control, 44 ; signs
of race friction, 45-47; re
ports on conditions, 47-50;
Congress excludes recon
structed states, 51-53, 61;
congressional committee, 51,
65; motives influencing Con
gress, 52, 61; Johnson s mes
sage, 52; apportionment of
representation, 53, no; black
codes, 54-59, no; Freed
men s Bureau bills and veto,
59-61, 68; breach between
Johnson and Congress, 62, 64,
71; civil rights act, 63-65;
report of committee, 65-67,
69; Fourteenth Amendment,
67, 68; popular attitude in
North (1866), 69; readmis-
sion of Tennessee, 69; as is
sue in 1866, 71, 78; political
conventions, 7 3-7 8; influences
of New Orleans riot, 79-81;
popular support of Congress,
82 ; South rejects amendment,
83; finality of amendment,
85; influences of Supreme
Court decision, 89; first re
construction act, 92-95; sup
plementary act, 95; military
districts, 95; Johnson and
execution of act, 97; district
commanders, 97; Stanbery s
interpretation of acts, 97;
act nullifying interpretation,
98; progress under acts, 109;
attitude of whites, 109-111,
117; registration, 1 1 r ; consti
tutional conventions (1867),
112; constitutions, 113; rati
fication campaign, 114; po
litical attitude of negroes,
114, 115; Union Leagues, 115;
components of southern par
ties, 116; completed in seven
states, 118; radicals control,
119; character of office-hold
ers, 1 20, 208, 216, 278; Ku-
Klux, 121-123, 135, 181, 187;
as issue in 1868, 128, 129, 131,
132, 134; Fifteenth Amend
ment, 174-176, 180, 182; fun
damental conditions of read-
mission, 175, 180; completed
in rest of states, 179; radi
cals lose control, 180, 184,
186, 215, 247. 248, 267, 280,
314; set back in Georgia, 181 ;
race violence, 182, 219, 249,
271, 279, 305-307; negro mili
tia, 183, 279; first enforce
ment act, 184-186; Federal
supervision of elections, 186;
Ku-Klux act, 186-189; con
gressional report on condi
tions (1873), 1 88; as issue in
1872, 196, 198, 200 202;
amnesty act, 203; despair of
whites, 203, 204, 211, 212,
215; character and effect of
Federal interference, 204, 212,
216, 219, 270-272; malad
ministration, 204-209; pub
lic schools, 206; radical
schisms, 209; tendency tow-
374
RECONSTRUCTION
ards race parties, 210; elec
tion laws, 211; Grant s atti
tude, 212, 217; social aspect
of problem, 213; northern ig
norance, 215; election frauds,
216; South Carolina affairs,
216, 267, 305-308, 327, 340;
Louisiana affairs, 217-219,
246-249, 272-276, 303-305,
327, 340; as issue in 1874, 246,
249; Arkansas affairs, 247,
277; faked outrages, 250; ef
fect of election of 1874, 251;
Alabama investigation, 254;
attempted force bill (1875),
254; supplementary civil
rights act, 255; Republican
opposition to further inter
ference, 252, 254, 265, 266,
2 75~ 2 77* judicial undoing,
256; aloofness of Supreme
Court, 256-258; court de
prived of jurisdiction, 257;
interpretation of war amend
ments and enforcement acts,
260-265; means of restoring
white rule, 267-269; Grant
wavers in policy (1874), 269;
Mississippi affairs (1875), 27 8-
280; as issue in 1876, 294, 296,
300, 301 ; and electoral count,
328, 338, 339; Grant deserts
radicals, 328, 340; end of Fed
eral interference, 341; bibli
ography of period, 342-357;
secondary works on, 343;
sources, 343-349 ; biographies,
3 49-3 5 r accounts of southern
conditions, 351-354.
Reed, Harrison, acquitted, 215.
Registration under reconstruc
tion acts, 96, in.
Reminiscences of reconstruc
tion period, 348.
Representation, question of ap
portionment (1866), 53; un
der Fourteenth Amendment,
67.
Republican party, question of
name, 76, 128; freedmen ad
here to, 114-116; compo
nents of southern, 116; loses
control of southern states,
180, 184, 186, 215, 247, 248,
267, 280, 314; opposition to
Grant s southern policy, 243,
M2, 254,, 265, 266. See also
ections.
Richardson, W. A., and panic
of 1873, 2 3 6 : inflation by,
239; and Sanborn contracts,
241; translated, 241.
Robeson, G. M., corruption un
der, 291.
Rogers, A. J., reconstruction
committee, 65.
Rose, Sir John, Alabama claims
negotiations, 167.
Ross, E. G., votes to acquit
Johnson, 106; asks patron
age, 107.
Russell, Earl, denies Alabama
claims, 160.
Russia sells Alaska, 156, 157.
ST. JOHN ISLAND, negotiation
for, 158.
St. Thomas Island, negotiation
for, 158.
Salary grab, 233-235.
Sanborn contracts, 241.
San Juan Island, arbitration,
170.
Santo Domingo, attempted an
nexation, 163; influence on
internal politics, 164.
Saxton, Rufus, as Freedmen s i
Bureau commissioner, 33.
Scalawags, use of term, 116;
defection from radicals, 210.
Schenck, R. C., dubious specu
lation, 231.
Schofield, J. M., district com
mander, 97 ; secretary of war,
108; and Mexico, 153, 154;
bibliography, 349.
Schurz, Carl, report on south
ern conditions (1865), 47-
INDEX
375
49; and Liberal movement,
191, 195, 196; on Republican
aspirants (1876), 297.
Scott, R. K., and negro militia,
183.
Scott, T. A., popular denuncia
tion, 227, 228.
Secession, ordinances invali
dated, 40.
Sedden, J. A., confined, 23.
Seward, W. H., attitude tow
ards conquered South, 2 1 ;
tour with Johnson, 81; ex
pansionist, 152; and French
in Mexico, 154, 156; pur
chases Alaska, 156, 157;
negotiation for Danish West
Indies, 157; and Alabama
claims , 159-161; bibliogra
phy, 35-
Seymour, Horatio, nominated
for president, 133; defeated,
J 33-
Shepherd, A. R., government
of District of Columbia, 244.
Sheridan, P. H., district com
mander, 97; Indian campaign
(1867), 148; in Texas, 153;
in Chicago (1871), 194 n.\
"banditti" despatches, 273;
bibliography, 349.
Sherman, John, and contrac
tion of greenbacks, 139; re
sumption bill, 253; "visit
ing statesman," 312; and
electoral count bill, 325; as
surance on Hayes s southern
policy, 339 ; bibliography, 348,
349-
Sherman, W. T., mission to Mex
ico, 155; bibliography, 348.
Sickles, D. E., district com
mander, 97.
Simms, W. G., bibliography,
.351-
Sioux uprising (1866), 147.
Slaughter-House cases, 260.
Slavery abolished, 40, 53.
Social conditions, effect of war,
4; influence of Pacific rail
way, 146; drift to cities, 150;
revival of immigration, 150;
in reconstructed states, 213.
See also Corruption, Negroes.
Soldiers conventions (1866),
78.
Sources on reconstruction pe
riod, manuscript collections,
343; printed collections, 344;
public documents, 345; peri
odicals, 346; works of public
men, 348; reminiscences, 348.
South. See Reconstruction.
South Carolina, black code, 56;
readmitted, 118; negro mili
tia, 1 83 ; enforcement of Ku-
Klux act in, 188; corrupt ad
ministration of railways, 208;
Africanization , 216; Cham-
berlain as governor, 267, 305,
306; Hamburg race war, 306;
campaign (1876), Federal in
terference, 307, 308; electoral
vote, 312; contested state
election, 327, 340; vote count
ed for Hayes, 337; bibliogra
phy, 352, 353. See also Re
construction.
Spain. See Cuba.
Speculation, post -war spirit, 136,
141, 142.
Speed, James, and amnesty
proclamation, 36; on con
fiscation, 42; resigns, 73.
Sprague, William, and trial of
Johnson, 107.
Stanbery, Henry, attorney-gen
eral, 73 ; interpretation of re
construction acts, 97; resigns,
104; counsel at impeachment,
104; reappointment not con
firmed, 108.
Stanley, Lord, and Alabama
claims, 161.
Stanton, E. M., and assassina
tion of Lincoln, 20; disband-
memt of army, 24; dictates
tenure of office act, 91; du-
37^
RECONSTRUCTION
plicity towards Johnson, 91;
opposes Stanbery s recon
struction interpretation, 98;
draughts act nullifying it, 98;
suspended, 99; reinstated by
Senate, 101; removed, 101;
relinquishes office, 108; bib
liography, 350.
Stearns, M. L., and electoral
vote of Florida, 314.
Steedman, J. B., report on
Freedmen s Bureau, 68.
Stephens, A. H., confined, 23;
elected to Senate (1865), 45;
bibliography, 351.
Stevens, Thaddeus, reconstruc
tion policy, 51, 52; controls
House, 64; character, 86;
reports reconstruction bill,
92; and impeachment, 103,
1 06; bibliography, 343, 350.
Stewart, A. T., and treasury
portfolio, 177.
Stoughton, E. W., "visiting
statesman," 312.
Strong, William, appointment
and legal-tender decision, 259 ;
electoral commission, 325.
Suffrage, Federal supervision of
elections, 186, 204. See also
Negro suffrage.
Sumner, Charles, reconstruc
tion policy, 5 2 ; and southern
black codes, 57 ; character, 87 ;
and Alabama claims, 162,
1 68; rupture with Grant,
165; deposed from chair of
foreign relations committee,
1 66, 169; rupture with Fish,
1 68; on Grant s militarism,
194; and negro social equal
ity, 214; civil rights bill, 255;
Lamar s eulogy, 267; bib
liography, 343. 348, 350, 355-
Supreme Court, and Congress
(1867), 89, 94; attitude tow
ards reconstruction, 89;
stands aloof on reconstruc
tion measures, 256-258; de
prived of reconstruction juris
diction, 257; Texas vs. White,
statehood, 257; legal-tender
decisions, 258-260; interpre
tation of war amendments
and enforcement acts, 260-
265; policy of these decisions,
265.
TARIFF, post-war opposition to
reduction, 141; reform move
ment (1872), 193; platforms
on, 196, 199; revision under
Grant, 222; corruption in
collecting, 240; bibliography,
356.
Taxation in reconstructed
states, 205. See also Internal
revenue, Tariff.
Tennessee, post-war conditions,
9; war -time reconstruction,
14, 16; loyal government
recognized, 36 ; readmitted,
69 ; proscription of ex-Confed
erates, 125; radicals lose con
trol, 184; bibliography, 353.
See also Reconstruction.
Tenure of office act, provisions,
90; Stan ton author, 91; sus
pension and removal of Stan-
ton, 99, 101; and impeach
ment of Johnson, 102, 105.
Territories, negro suffrage, 94.
Territory, yearning for, 151;
Alaska, 156, 157; negotia
tions for Danish West Indies,
i 7 ; for Santo Domingo, 163 ;
bibliography of expanson,
Terry, A. H., report on Georgia
outrages, 181; on Federal in
terference, 204.
Texas, reconstruction delayed,
no; readmitted, 180; radi
cals lose control, 247. See
also Reconstruction.
Texas vs. White, 257.
Thirteenth Amendment, ratified
in South, 40; in force, 53.
INDEX
377
Thomas, Lorenzo, secretary of
war ad interim, 101.
Thompson, Jacob, and assassi
nation of Lincoln, 20.
Thurman, A. G., electoral com
mission, 329.
Tilden, S. J., as governor, 301;
nominated for president, 302 ;
letter of acceptance, 302; de
clared defeated, 338; bibli
ography, 348, 351. See also
Elections (1876).
Tilton, Theodore, Beecher scan
dal, 246; as editor, 347.
Toombs, Robert, bibliography,
3S 1 -
Treaties, Washington (1871),
167.
Truman, B. C., report on south
ern conditions, 47-50.
Trumbull, Lyman, reports
Freedmen s Bureau bill, 59;
moderate reconstructionist,
88; votes to acquit Johnson,
106; and Liberal movement,
195, 196; "visiting states
man," 312; counsel before
electoral commission, 334;
bibliography, 343.
Tweed ring, 229, 230.
UNION, effect of Civil War on,
5-
Union army, disbandment, 24.
Union Leagues, 115.
Union men and "scalawags,"
116.
Union Pacific Railroad. See
Pacific Railway.
United States vs. Cruikshank,
263.
United States vs. Reese, 263.
VALLANDIGHAM, C. L., and* Na
tional Union Convention," 74;
abandons war issues (1874),
198.
Vance, Z. B., confined, 35.
Vanderbilts, formation of trunk
lines, 148, 225; popular de
nunciation, 227.
Van Winkle, P. G., votes to ac
quit Johnson, 106; asks pat
ronage, 107.
Vetoes, Johnson s Freedmen s
Bureau, 60, 68 ; ineffectual, of
civil rights bill, 64; of recon
struction act, 96; Grant s, of
inflation bill, 239.
Virginia, loyal government, 15,
16; loyal government recog
nized, 36; reconstruction de
layed, 119; vote on disfran-
chisement, 179; readmitted,
1 80; conservatives control,
1 80; bankrupt, 215; bibliog
raphy, 354. See also Recon
struction.
Virginius affair, 172.
"Visiting statesmen," 311, 312.
WADE, B. F., radical, 88; Santo
Domingo commission, 164;
bibliography, 350.
Waite, M. R., chief - justice,
263; United States vs. Reese,
263.
Warmoth, H. C., deposed, 215;
factional fight, 217.
Washburne, E. B., and state
portfolio, 177.
Washington, treaty of, 167.
Watterson, Henry, report on
southern conditions (1865),
47; agreement with Hayes s
friends, 339.
Watts, J. W., as elector (1876),
318.
Watts, T. H., confined, 35.
Weed, S. M., "visiting states
man," 312.
Weed, Thurlow, on Johnson s
February 22 speech, 62; bib
liography, 351.
Welles, Gideon, tour with John
son, 81; bibliography, 349.
Wells, D. A., and Liberal move
ment, 195, 196.
RECONSTRUCTION
Wells, J. M., Johnson recog
nizes as governor, 36.
West, and paper money, 131,
238, 239; new party move
ments (1874), 246. See otso
Northwest.
West Virginia, radicals control,
126.
Wheat, post-war development,
*43-
Wheeler, W. A., Louisiana com
promise, 276; nominated for
vice-president, 300; declared
elected, 338. See also Elec
tions (1876).
Wheeler compromise, 276.
Whiskey ring, 283-286; bibliog
raphy, 354.
White, A. D., Santo Domingo
commission, 164; bibliogra
phy. 349-
White Leagues, 248, 269.
Whittlesey, Eliphalet, as Freed-
men s Bureau commissioner,
Willey, W. T., and trial of John
son, 107.
Williams, G. H., attitude tow
ards South, 216; and chief-
justiceship, 263, 278; resigns,
277. 1^
Williams, Thomas, and im
peachment, 103.
Wilson, Henry, and southern
black codes, 57; character,
87.
Wilson, J. F., moderate recon-
structionist, 88 ; and impeach
ment, 103.
Wilson, J. M., Credit Mobilier
investigation, 232.
Wirz, Henry, trial, 22.
Wyoming, territory organized.
147-
YAZOO CITY, race riot, 279.
END OF VOL. XXII
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