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ANDREW  JOHNSON 

PLEBEIAN  AND  PATRIOT 


BY 


ROBERT  W.WINSTON 


«^^ss* 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1928, 
BY 
HENRY    HOLT  AND   COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN   THE 
UNITED   STATES   OF  AMERICA 


1318490 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

First  of  all  I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  obligation  to  Andrew 
Johnson  Patterson,  grandson  of  Andrew  Johnson.  Mr.  Pat- 
terson has  given  me  free  access  to  President  Johnson's  old 
home  and  to  his  heirlooms,  entrusting  me  with  scrap  books, 
newspaper  files,  letters  and  other  material.  During  the  years 
1926  and  1927  I  visited  Tennessee,  where  many  of  the  older 
people  remembered  their  former  countryman.  From  them 
I  gathered  numerous  anecdotes  and  other  incidents.  But  for 
the  atmosphere  of  Johnson's  home  and  of  glorious  East  Ten- 
nessee I  could  not,  I  am  sure,  have  discovered  the  real  flesh  and 
blood  Andrew  Johnson.  The  Congressional  Library,  especi- 
ally the  manuscript  and  newspaper  rooms,  and  the  libraries  of 
the  University  of  North  Carolina,  of  Duke  University,  and  of 
Williams  College,  have  been  generous  in  the  use  of  material. 
The  North  Carolina  Historical  Society,  the  Tennessee  His- 
torical Society,  and  the  Carnegie  Library  at  Nashville  have 
likewise  furnished  me  with  newspaper  files  and  records  shed- 
ding additional  light  on  Johnson.  With  this  and  other 
material  in  hand,  I  have  been  enabled  to  follow  the  tailor- 
President  from  birth  to  death, — a  task,  I  may  add,  not  here- 
tofore undertaken.  Citations  in  the  footnotes  are  generally 
abbreviated  after  the  first  reference ;  the  bibliography  supple- 
ments the  notes,  giving  dates  and  places  of  publication  and 
authors'  names.  In  the  notes  I  refer  both  to  Johnson  Mss. 
and  to  Johnson  Mss.  at  Greeneville ;  in  the  former  case,  the 
manuscripts  are  in  the  Congressional  Library. 

Robert  W.  Winston. 

Williamstown,  Mass. 
February  12,  1928. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I:  ODDS 

1808-1860 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     Runaway  Apprentice 3 

II     A.  Johnson,  Tailor    .......  15 

III     Successor  to  Andrew  Jackson          ....  26 

IV     Congressman 40 

V  On  the  Stump 58 

VI     Governor  and   Senator 76 

VII     Home   Life           ........  95 

VIII     Jeff  Davis  Spoils  the  Broth  .....  108 

IX     Father  of  the  Homestead      .....  128 

X     Impasse 142 

PART  II:  ALONE 

1860-1865 

I     Testing  Time 155 

II     Lion-heart  .........  174 

III  The  Fight  for  Tennessee 188 

IV  Senatorial  Whip 205 

V  Military  Governor    , 217 

VI     Lincoln  and  Johnson 243 

VII     Vice-president 263 

-VIII     Execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt      .....  277 

IX     Hero  of  an  Hour 292 

X     Thad  Stevens  Pockets  Congress     ....  307 

PART  III:  UNBOV^ED 

1865  and  After 

I     Presidential  Reconstruction          ....  325 

II     Swinging  Round  the  Circle    .....  347 

III     Veto  Follows  Veto 372 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

IV     The  Great  Reconstruction 390 

V     Impeachment  of  the  President     ....  405 

VI     The  Trial 428 

VII     Foreign  and  Domestic  Policy        ....  455 

VIII     Leaving  the  White  House        .....  471 

IX     The  Come-back 490 

X     Sixty  Years  After 510 

Appendix 521 

Bibliography       . 529 

Index 541 


I 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Andrew  Johnson      .......        Frontispiece 

FACING    PAGE 

Jacob  Johns (t)on's  Marriage  Bond      .....  14 

Andrew  Johnson's  Birthplace,  Raleigh,  N.  C.        .         .         .  14 

Andrew  Johnson,  Runaway  Apprentice          ....  25 

Dress  Coat  Made  by  Andrew  Johnson 25 

Shears    and   Goose,   Now    in    Tailor    Shop    at    Greeneville, 

Tenn 25 

Andrew  Johnson's  Tailor  Shop  at  Greeneville,  Tenn.  ,         .  38 

As  the  Shop  Appears  Today,  Encased  in  Brick  ...  38 

Specimen  of  Andrew  Johnson's  Early  Handwriting,  1836  .  57 

Andrew  Johnson  in  Masonic  Regalia    .....  105 

Mrs.  Andrew  Johnson 105 

Andrew  Johnson's  Home  in  Greeneville,  Tenn.       .         .         .  105 

The  "Secession  Movement" 162 

A  Threatening  Letter  Sent  to  Andrew  Johnson  in  1861      .  189 

The  Capitol,  Nashville,  Tenn.,  Under  Siege :  Fort  Andrew 

Johnson 236 

Map  of  Greeneville,  Tenn 248 

Tennessee  Ticket  for  Governor  in  1855        ....  257 

Ticket  for  President,  1864 257 

Copperheadism  vs.  The  Union 261 

The  Tailor  and  Rail-splitter  Mending  the  Union          .         .  267 

The  Recommendation  for  Clemency  in  the  Surratt  Trial     .  291 

Johnson  Is  Crowned  King,  as  Wade  Predicted     .         .         .  307 

Reconstruction  and  How  It  Works 360 

ix 


X  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING    PAGE 

Reconstruction,  as  Illustrated  in  California          .         .         .  390 

The  Vote  on  Impeachment  and  Ticket  of  Admission  to  Trial  445 

Johnson  and  the  Constitution 460 

Mother  Seward  Rubs  on  Russian  Salve  .         .         .         .         .  460 

The  Era  of  Disgrace 505 


INTRODUCTION 

I  would  not  venture  to  say  when  I  first  became  interested  in 
Andrew  Johnson,  but  it  must  have  been  as  early  as  1865,  when 
I  was  a  mere  child.  A  thousand  times  I  have  passed  Casso's 
Inn  and  the  little  cabin  in  the  rear,  where  "Andy"  was  born. 
When  a  barefoot  boy  I  waded  in  the  old  swimming  holes  around 
Raleigh,  where  Andy  and  his  brother  Bill  and  Selby's  other 
"bound"  boys,  fifty  years  before,  had  dived  and  ducked  each 
other.  I  tramped  the  same  woods  and  caught  suckers  and 
goggle-eyed  perch  from  the  same  streams.  Well  do  I  remem- 
ber a  famous  watch  and  chain  President  Johnson  presented  my 
elder  brother,  valedictorian  of  his  class,  spouting  an  oration 
on  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  in  June  1867,  when  thou- 
sands crowded  the  University  campus,  at  Chapel  Hill,  to  get  a 
look  at  the  tailor-President. 

I  can  hear  Andrew  Johnson's  rich  mellow  voice,  as  he  tells 
the  students  of  his  cramped  childhood  and  of  a  long  journey 
afoot  in  1826,  when  he  was  making  his  way  through  the  village 
and  out  to  his  future  home,  in  far-away  Tennessee.  Nor 
shall  I  forget  the  crowds  that  gathered  in  Raleigh  to  meet  the 
President,  once  an  orphan  boy  apprenticed  to  Selby  the  tailor ; 
or  the  solemn  words  he  spoke  and  the  ludicrous  turn  an  old 
woman  in  the  crowd,  who  had  known  Andy  in  his  tailor-shop 
days,  gave  one  of  the  President's  figures  of  speech.  "I  have 
no  other  ambition  in  life,"  President  Johnson  declared,  "but 
to  mend  and  repair  the  breaches  in  the  torn  and  tattered  Con- 
stitution of  my  country."  "Bless  his  dear  heart,"  said  the  old 
lady,  "Andy's  going  to  come  back  home  and  open  up  his  tailor 
shop  again." 

I  also  remember  the  thousand  and  one  lies  people  were  telling 
on  him,  not  maliciously,  I  think,  but — well,  it  seems  to  be  per- 
missible to  manufacture  stories  about  those  in  high  place.  His 
birth  and  origin  puzzled  the  wiseacres.      Surely  old  Jacob 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

Johnson's  son,  the  stocky  little  black-haired,  black-eyed  Andy, 
who  used  to  be  Selby's  "bound  boy,"  could  not  have  risen,  step 
by  step,  to  the  Presidency.  Some  other  than  Jacob  must  have 
been  the  boy's  daddy.  Was  it  Chief  Justice  Ruffin  or  was  it 
Banker  Haywood?  It  must  have  been  Haywood,  for  as  An- 
drew Johnson,  the  President,  and  Dallas  Haywood,  the  Mayor, 
sat  side  by  side  that  June  day,  was  there  ever  a  more  striking 
likeness .''    They  were  "the  very  spit  and  image"  of  each  other ! 

These  were  childish  fancies  and  memories.  In  later  years, 
however,  I  became  interested  in  Andrew  Johnson  for  deeper 
reasons,  and  went  out  to  Tennessee  to  study  him  at  first  hand. 
In  Greeneville  I  loved  to  wander  down,  to  the  far  end  of  the 
town  to  the  Johnson  residence,  to  drink  from  the  Gum  spring, 
in  the  garden,  and  to  stroll  up  Water  Street  and  by  the  old 
ruined  mill,  with  its  overshot  wheel;  to  the  A.  Johnson  tailor- 
shop  and  there  to  take  in  my  hands  the  very  thimble  and 
shears  and  goose  with  which  Johnson  earned  a  livelihood  up  to 
the  day  he  became  a  Congressman.  There,  too,  I  saw  his  coat 
and  vest,  made  with  his  o\vn  hands,  blue  and  starchy,  just  the 
same  Clay  and  Calhoun  and  Benton  used  to  wear.  James 
Park,  son  of  Johnson's  abolition  and  Union  friend,  and  Dick 
Self,  son  of  Squire  Lewis  Self,  Andy  Johnson's  old  foreman, 
pointed  out  Depot  Street  where  in  days  of  Civil  War  a  Con- 
federate banner  was  stretched  branding  Andrew  Jolinson  as  a 
traitor,  and  where  a  few  years  later  anotlier  streamer  hailed 
him  as  the  patriot,  and  bade  him  welcome  home. 

Under  the  shaded  and  leafy  scuppcrnong  vine,  away  back 
in  the  garden  of  Dr.  Alex  Williams,  I  crept  and  there  I  stood 
on  the  spot  Avhere  Morgan,  the  noted  Confederate  raider,  was 
shot.  Shot  dead  by  the  Andrew  Johnson  Guards.  I  climbed 
tlie  Daniel  Boone  trail  also,  and  from  the  top  of  Pinnacle,  near 
the  Cumberland  Gap,  looked  over  tlic  valley  of  the  Watauga 
and  the  Nolichuck}',  over  Greeneville  and  the  Dan  Stover  place 
miles  away,  so  dear  to  Andrew  Johnson,  until  I  could  hear  the 
j)atriotic  man,  in  the  dark  months  of  1861  and  1862,  though  a 
fugitive  from  home  and  hunted  like  a  beast  through  the  fast- 
nesses of  the  mountains,  "exhorting  the  Tennessee  Unionists  to 
die  on  the  mountain  top  and  make  the  everlasting  hills  their 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

sole  monument  rather  than  give  up  those  lovely  valleys  to  the 
unresisted  march  of  armed  bands  of  traitors."  ^ 

Surely,  I  thought,  the  human  side  of  Andrew  Johnson 
should  be  brought  to  light,  the  events  of  his  checkered  career 
should  be  collected,  sifted  and  analyzed.  No  doubt  Johnson's 
bulldog  courage,  and  the  malignity  with  which  he  had  been 
pursued,  urged  me  to  undertake  the  job  of  writing  his  life. 
Anyway,  I  set  about  the  task.  In  the  Congressional  library, 
where  I  first  went,  I  found  nothing  about  him  collected  or 
grouped,  there  being  little  substantial  or  permanent  to  collect 
or  arrange.  The  card  index  pointed  to  seven  biographies, 
five  of  these  thrown  together  in  1866  to  catch  the  popular 
breeze,  setting  Johnson's  way,  and  Jones's  Life,  a  local  com- 
pilation, published  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago.  In  maga- 
zines and  newspaper  files  I  found  an  abundance  of  material, 
though  fugitive  and  generally  on  questionable  authority,  and 
apparently  scribbled  to  deepen  unfavorable  impressions.  And 
yet  from  these  hostile  sources  one  could  see  that  Andrew  John- 
son was  not  altogether  bad.  I  then  began  a  study  of  the  John- 
son manuscripts,  purchased  by  Congress  and  made  available 
about  1910,  and  of  Welles's  Diary  published  in  1911,  una- 
vailable, I  will  add,  to  the  fair-minded  historian,  James  Ford 
Rhodes,  when  he  wrote  the  history  of  Johnson's  administra- 
tion. Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  these  publications,  and 
an  analysis  of  them  by  modern  writers,  are  beginning  to  shed 
a  new  light  on  Andrew  Johnson. 

Undoubtedly  the  recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  that 
Johnson  was  right  and  Congress  dead  wrong,  in  the  matters  in 
controversy  between  them  on  which  the  Impeachment  was 
founded,  is  making  the  fair-minded  public  prick  up  their  ears 
and  ask,  "What  sort  of  a  fellow  did  President  Lincoln  pick  as 
a  running  mate  anyhow;  was  he  what  Lincoln  said  he  was,  a 
man  *to  whom  the  country  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  it  can  never 
repay ;'  ^  or  was  he  merely  *that  drunken  tailor  at  the  other 
end  of  the  avenue,'  as  old  Thad  Stevens  sized  him  up  ?" 

The  story  of  Andrew  Johnson's  life  is  difficult  of  approach. 

1  Bacon's  Life  of  Johnson,  Chap.  I. 

2  Life  and  Services  of  Andreio  Johnson,  p.  209. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

The  approach,  however,  is  of  importance.  Unless  Johnson's 
motives  are  understood  one  is  sure  to  miss  the  man.  In  ap- 
proaching the  subject  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Johnson 
hved  in  a  rough,  uncouth  time.  A  century  ago,  democracy 
being  new  and  untried,  philosophers  had  a  way  of  reminding 
us  that  "the  genius  of  America  is  not  in  executives  or  legisla- 
tures, not  in  colleges  or  churches  or  parlors,  but  in  the  common 
people."  In  that  early  day  our  public  men  were  on  their  knees 
to  the  masses — Webster,  our  greatest  orator  and  justly  known 
as  "the  divine  Daniel,"  publiclj'^  lamenting  he  had  not  been 
born  in  a  log  cabin.  And  yet  is  not  all  this  the  merest  bunk? 
In  this  land  of  the  free  are  not  class  distinctions  as  sharply 
drawn  as  elsewhere?  Is  it  not  recorded  that  Jefferson,  the 
apostle  of  American  democracy,  lived  so  elegantly  at  Monti- 
cello  that  Patrick  Henry,  the  stern  old  Virginia  patriot,  re- 
fused to  vote  for  him.  "Why,  the  fellow  eats  French  victuals," 
he  protested.  And  even  "Old  Hickory"  Jackson  kept  up  an 
establishment  at  the  Hermitage  in  regal  style. 

Now  Jefferson  and  Jackson  are  great  men,  of  a  quite  differ- 
ent order  from  Johnson,  and  yet  I  cannot  but  feel  that  this 
obstinate,  narrow-minded  defender  of  lost  causes  must  be  re- 
garded as  the  only  President  who  practiced  what  he  preached, 
drawing  no  distinction  between  rich  and  poor,  or  high  and 
low.  No  doubt  Johnson's  combativeness,  and  a  certain  ple- 
beian appeal,  have  blinded  us  to  the  fact  that  he  was  sin- 
cere and  not  merely  acting  a  part.  It  seems  ironical  that 
the  most  democratic  of  presidents  should  have  happened  to 
be  a  man  who  had  these  weaknesses,  one  who  was  so  tactless 
that  he  often  threw  obstacles  in  his  own  way  and  ran  against 
snags  that  might  have  been  avoided.  These  handicaps  ren- 
dered Johnson  an  easy  mark  for  ridicule,  and  to-day,  more 
than  half  a  century  after  his  death,  it  is  charged,  and  no  doubt 
generally  believed,  that  he  was  "a  dirty,  drunken  fellow  with 
squinting,  blinking  eyes  and  a  coarse,  thick  voice ;"  that  he  had 
"tlie  manners  of  a  demagogue"  and  "entertained  decided  ob- 
jections to  gentlemen."  ^ 

•1  The  phrase  "decided  objections  to  gentlemen"  may  illustrate  the  tendency 
to  belittle  Johnson;  Oberholtzer  quotes  it  from  Moore's  Life,  but  quotes  only 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

When  I  first  began  a  study  of  Johnson  I  cherished  the  hope 
that  the  charges  of  boorishness  and  uncouthness  were  true,  that 
he  was  what  Carlyle  calls  a  savage  Baresark.  Such  a  character 
would  fit  in  well  with  the  tough,  impossible  job  he  tackled.  But 
I  was  doomed  to  disappointment.  The  charge  was  untrue. 
Johnson's  private  secretary  assures  us  he  wore  well-fitting 
boots,  a  broadcloth  coat,  silk  vest,  stock  cravat  and  a  tall  hat. 
Alas,  he  also  indulged  in  a  daily  bath.  But  there  was  a 
graver  charge  against  him.  He  was  an  ambitious,  cheap- John 
politician,  and  his  acts  were  based  on  a  general  falsity  of  life. 
This  theory  of  his  falsity  is  one  that  has  been  incredible  to  me. 
For  myself  I  cannot  understand  how  one  may  act  a  part  while 
he  devotes  his  life  to  a  great  cause ;  or  how  he  may  be  "a  prince 
of  lies  and  no  lies  spoken  by  him." 

Some  day  the  psychologist  may  delve  into  Johnson's  child- 
hood and  there  find  what  has  puzzled  the  historian  and  biogra- 
pher. No  doubt  it  will  be  discovered  that  Johnson's  neglected 
and  impoverished  infancy  developed  a  complex,  perhaps  an 
under-dog  and  a  plebeian  complex.  Would  this  not  explain 
Henry  Watterson's  remark  that  poverty  in  rags  always  ap- 
pealed to  Andrew  Johnson?  Explain  also  why  he  was  ever- 
lastingly telling  the  world  he  was  a  plebeian,  and  humble  born, 
and  that  hunger,  gaunt  and  haggard  monster,  had  driven  him 
from  his  native  state;  why,  even  after  he  was  President,  he 
could  hardly  pass  a  tailor  shop  without  going  in  and  exchang- 
ing compliments  with  the  knights  of  the  goose  and  needle? 
This  complex,  call  it  "under-dog"  or  what  one  likes,  appears 
again  and  again  in  Johnson's  life.  Therefore  I  might  explain 
more  fully  that  his  childhood  was,  in  fact,  as  rasping  as  Oliver 
Twist's.  After  being  left  an  orphan  of  three  years,  he  was 
bound  to  a  tailor.  He  then  ran  away,  married  at  nineteen,  and 
was  taught  to  read  and  write  by  his  wife.  Until  thirty-five 
years  of  age  he  was  bending  over  the  tailor's  bench  for  a  live- 
lihood. And  yet,  during  this  cramped  and  scant  period,  his 
indomitable  will  was  not  broken  for  an  instant. 

a  part  of  the  sentence.  What  the  biographer  Moore  wrote  was,  Johnson 
"had  decided  objections  to  gentlemen  reared  in  affluence  and  idleness,  arro- 
gating to  themselves  the  right  to  all  knowledge  in  the  world." 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

Do  not  these  facts  furnish  an  explanation  of  Johnson's  life? 
Do  they  not  show  why  he  had  the  courage  to  go  up  against 
caste  and  cheap  aristocracy,  why  he  dared  to  stand  for  the 
under-dog,  whether  Catholic,  Hebrew,  foreigner,  mechanic, 
or  child;  and  to  cling  like  death  to  the  old  flag  and  the  Union? 
In  a  word  do  they  not  explain  Johnson's  apparent  egotism,  his 
obstinacy  and  his  bull-headedness  ?  He  was  but  expressing 
himself,  he  was  under  an  impulse  to  fight.  He  had  been  op- 
pressed, he  had  had  no  free  school,  the  wolf  had  been  at  his 
door,  on  him  the  laws  had  borne  hard,  because  of  class  distinc- 
tions and  unequal  laws.  Hence  he  lunged  at  these  monsters, 
vainly  seeking  to  build  up  an  ideal  Democracy  where  "there 
would  be  a  rich  people  and  a  poor  government,"  equal  laws,  and 
no  class  distinctions.  This  impulse  also  drove  him  out  of  the 
slave  autocracy  and  into  a  country  of  free  land  and  free  men. 
"In  the  secession  movement  he  saw  only  an  agency  that  would 
widen  the  interval  between  the  laborer  and  the  employer,  and 
reduce  non  slave-holding  whites  to  the  level  of  the  African 
slave."  * 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  must  conclude  that  Andrew  John- 
son has  not  had  a  fair  deal,  that  his  life,  though  angular  and 
old-fashioned,  was  honest  and  a  real  contribution  to  our  civi- 
lization. Though  he  was  often  rough  and  unconventional,  it 
must  be  remembered  he  had  a  rough  job.  He  was  a  leader  of 
the  labor  forces,  but  he  was  not  a  socialist  or  a  destructionist. 
Thrice  daily,  with  Eastern  devotion,  he  bowed  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, to  the  laws,  and  to  the  three  departments  of  government, 
but  to  a  fourth  department  he  rendered  a  peculiar  homage — 
to  him  the  people  were  above  Presidents,  Congresses,  or  Courts. 

R.  W.  W. 

*  Bacon's  Life  of  Johnson,  Chap.  I. 


PART  I:  ODDS 

1808-1860 


I 


CHAPTER  I 
RUNAWAY  APPRENTICE 

At  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  there  stood  in  the 
town  of  Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  a  spacious,  ramshackled 
building  called  Casso's  Inn.  Within  the  hotel  yard  a  small 
cottage  for  the  use  of  employees  of  the  establishment  had  been 
provided,  and  there,  on  December  29,  1808,  Andrew,  second 
son  of  Jacob  Johnson  and  Mary  McDonough  his  wife,  was 
born.^ 

This  inn  was  a  noted  place  in  its  day.  Located  on  two  high- 
ways, one  running  north  and  south  and  the  other  east  and 
west,  and  just  across  the  street  from  the  State  House,  it 
boasted  of  "a  stable  equal  to  any  on  the  continent,  sufficient 
to  contain  from  thirty  to  forty  head  of  horses,"  and  of  a  bar 
unexcelled  for  its  brands  of  foreign  and  domestic  liquors. 
During  festive  occasions  the  townspeople  would  come  together 
at  Casso's  and  celebrate  with  round  dances  and  the  cotillion, 
with  bountiful  feasts,  and  with  the  ever-flowing  bowl.  And 
Peter  Casso,  the  landlord,  was  well  fitted  for  the  position  of 
host.  Having  been  a  soldier  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  he 
was  a  man  of  the  world;  his  wife  was  received  into  the  best 
circles,  and  their  daughter,  "pretty  Peggy,"  as  Colonel 
William  Polk  once  named  her  in  a  gracious  toast,  was  a  gen- 
eral favorite.  But  the  popularity  of  the  inn  was  not  more 
due  to  the  Casso  family  than  to  their  porter,  Jacob  Johnson, 
and  to  "Polly,"  his  faithful  wife.=^ 

Now  the  occasion  of  Andy  Johnson's  birth  is  well  remem- 
bered. That  particular  night,  it  being  Christmas  week,  with 
seven  days  of  frolic  and  merrymaking,  a  ball  was  going  on  at 
the  inn.     Soon  after  the  ball,  it  became  known  that  a  son  had 

iR.  H.  Battle,  Library  Southern  Literature,  Vol.  VI,  p.  2719. 
2  David  L.   Swain,   Early  Times  in  Raleigh,   1867 ;    Memorial  Address   on 
Jacob  Johnson,  by  the  same. 

3 


4  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

been  born  to  the  Johnson  family,  and  pretty  Peggy  tripped 
down  to  the  cottage  to  lend  a  hand.  "What  are  you  going  to 
name  the  boy?"  she  asked.  Mrs.  Jolinson  invited  suggestions. 
"Andrew  Jackson  Johnson,"  was  the  reply.  And  so,  with  the 
middle  name  omitted  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  Andrew  Johnson 
set  out  on  liis  earthly  pilgrimage.^ 

The  community  into  which  this  young  chap  was  thus  un- 
ceremoniously ushered  was  typically  southern.  Though  the 
little  town,  of  less  than  a  thousand  souls,  could  not  claim  to  be 
as  aristocratic  as  Riclnnond  and  Charleston,  it  was  not  without 
a  slave-holding  aristocracy.*  During  the  hunting  season.  Gov- 
ernor Turner,  Treasurer  Haywood,  General  Beverly  Daniel 
and  other  notables,  "mounted  on  well-bred  horses,  accoutered 
with  shot-pouch  and  horn  and  followed  by  a  pack  of  yelping 
hounds,  could  be  seen  driving  the  deer  or  chasing  the  fox." 
Evening  teas  at  the  homes  of  the  Devereaux,  the  Mordecals, 
Hoggs,  Hills,  Camerons,  and  Polks  were  presided  over  by  Mrs. 
Gales,  mother  of  the  editor  of  the  Xatio?ial  Intelligencer^  and 
"other  intellectual  ladies,  who  graciously  mingled  with  the 
young  and  the  beautiful  of  the  village."  Fishing  parties  on 
Crab  Tree  Creek  were  frequent,  "winding  up  vriih.  a  dance  at 
the  paper  mills";  and,  on  the  first  of  ^lay,  "beautiful  cere- 
monies honored  the  Queen"  of  that  historic  day. 

Jacob  Johnson's  relationship  to  the  aristocratic  people  of 
Raleigh  was  a  peculiar  one.  Socially,  he  had  no  recognition 
at  all — he  was  simply  "a  poor  white."  Yet  in  the  position  of 
a  dependent,  with  the  requisites  of  "%'igor,  docility  and  fidel- 
ity'," he  was  the  best-loved  person  in  to'^Ti.  Belonging  to  that 
class  which  Hammond,  the  scholarly  Senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina, dubbed  the  "mud-sills  of  society  and  political  govern- 
ment," he  could  not,  without  great  effort,  have  risen  in  the 
social  or  political  scale ;  but  he  did  not  wish  to  rise ;  the  likeable 
fellow  craved  no  more  tlian  he  had.  His  cottage,  situated  on 
Main  Street  only  a  few  steps  from  the  Capitol,  was  in  the 
heart  of  things,  and  there  was  work  a  plenty,  menial  tliough 

3  President  K.  P.  Battle.  Centennial  Address,  'TEarly  History  of  Raleigh." 
Johnson's  relatives  think  he  was  named  for  his  mother's  brother,  but  Dr. 
Battle  gives  the  account  in  the  text. 

*  S.  A.  Ashe,  Biographical  History  of  North  Carolina,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  228-241. 


RUNAWAY  APPRENTICE  5 

it  might  be.°  "Mud-sills,"  the  Johnsons  were  born,  and  mud- 
sills the}^  died.  As  their  son  in  after-days  rather  proudly  de- 
clared, they  belonged  to  that  class  called  "plebeians."  In  fact, 
so  little  impression  did  Jacob  and  his  wife  make  on  the  com- 
munity, no  one  has  taken  the  pains  to  remember  or  record  the 
parentage  of  either.  Their  pedigree,  lost  in  obscurity  as  Mr. 
Lincoln  said  of  his,  was  short  and  sweet  like  the  annals  of  the 
poor.  This  much  hoMever  is  known  of  Jacob  Johnson,  no  man 
in  the  community  "bore  a  more  blameless  character,"  and  no 
woman  was  more  deserving  of  respect  than  Mary  McDonough, 
his  Scotch  wife. 

And  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  conclude  that  Jacob  Johnson 
was  a  person  of  no  consequence.  In  the  cardinal  virtues,  such 
as  honesty  and  bravery,  no  one  stood  higher  than  Jacob. 
When  Colonel  Polk,  cousin  of  President  James  K.  Polk,  opened 
the  first  state  bank  at  Raleigh  he  appointed  Jacob  Johnson  its 
porter.  At  one  time  he  was  captain  of  Muster  Division  No.  20 
of  the  ToA\'n  of  Raleigh,  with  sundry  citizen-soldiers  under  him. 
Occasionally  he  filled  the  position  of  sexton  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church  and  had  the  privilege  of  ringing  the  only  bell  in  town. 
As  this  bell  hung  at  Casso's  corner,  the  inn  had  a  great  ad- 
vantage over  the  rival  hotel  called  the  Eagle  which  had  no 
such  distinguishing  appurtenance.® 

Standing  under  the  spreading  oaks  which  give  the  name  of 
"The  City  of  Oaks"  to  Raleigh,  Jacob  Johnson  would  pull 
away  at  the  bell-rope,  ringing  for  weddings,  for  fires  or  for 
funerals.  And  Jacob  had  other  accomplishments;  he  was  an 
excellent  caterer,  and  could  barbecue  and  baste  the  young  pig 
to  a  nicety ;  he  was  also  a  huntsman,  a  fisherman,  and  an  all- 
round  good  fellow.  In  a  word,  no  man  of  his  class  was  more 
esteemed  than  Jacob  Johnson.  Mrs.  Polly  Johnson,  too,  was 
indispensable,  not  only  serving  Mrs.  Casso  but  being  her  friend. 
Such  Fourth  of  July  dinners  they  spread — roasting  ears, 
Brunswick  stew,  barbecued  pig,  and  hard  cider,  while  the  noisy 

^  W.  H.  Wheeler,  Reminiscences,  p.  435.  The  cottage  is  now  located  in 
Raleigh's  public  park;  it  then  stood  about  200  feet  north  of  the  present 
Masonic  Temple. 

6  Governor  Swain,  Address. 


6  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

patriots,  crowding  the  four-acre  square  across  the  street,  drank 
"as  many  standing  toasts  as  there  were  states  in  the  Union." 

In  the  midst  of  rich  and  powerful  friends  one  might  think 
Jacob  wo  did  have  accumulated  property,  but  he  did  not.  The 
acquisitive  instinct  he  did  not  possess.  Though  Dr.  William  G. 
Hill,  the  town  physician.  Colonel  Thomas  Henderson,  editor 
of  the  Raleigh  Star,  Colonel  William  Polk,  and  other  influ- 
ential men  were  his  friends,  nothing  came  of  their  friendship. 
At  birth  as  at  death,  poverty  was  Jacob's  portion,  and  how 
could  it  have  been  otherwise  ?  In  the  southern  life  of  that  day, 
based  on  pedigree  and  slavery  and  looking  down  on  manual 
labor,  it  must  be  said  there  was  no  influential  middle  class.  A 
race  had  been  developed  unsurpassed  for  elegance  of  manner, 
for  bravery,  for  loyalty,  and  for  other  attributes  of  manhood, 
but  of  a  substantial  yeomanry  there  was  none — from  master 
to  slave  there  was  no  half-way  ground.  The  caste  system  for- 
bade it. 

With  these  conditions  Jacob  Johnson  and  his  wife  were  not 
dissatisfied.  One  looks  in  vain  for  traces  of  that  galHng  of 
the  spirit,  which  marked  their  second-born  son.  Since  there 
was  no  work  Jacob  Johnson  could  engage  in  but  menial  labor, 
he  cheerfully  went  about  his  daily  task.  Uneducated  and 
without  family  connections,  he  could  not,  had  he  desired,  have 
entered  a  learned  profession.  Poor,  he  could  not  purchase  a 
farm  or  operate  a  mercantile  business.  Raleigh  being  a  rural 
village,  without  factories  or  other  industries,  and  the  uplands 
of  that  section  well-nigh  exhausted  by  unscientific  agriculture, 
opportunities  for  making  a  living  were  few  and  far  between. 

As  Jacob's  patrons  and  friends  were  the  owners  of  rich  river 
bottoms  on  the  Cape  Fear,  the  Neuse,  the  Roanoke  and  the 
Tar,  he  might  have  been  an  overseer  and  lived  on  one  of  these 
plantations;  but  a  life  in  town  he  preferred  to  a  life  in  the 
country.  His  genial,  social  disposition  craved  the  companion- 
ship of  the  city,  where  the  legislature  met.  State  and  United 
States  courts  sat,  where  there  were  occasional  circuses  and  min- 
strel shows,  and  where  Peter  Casso's  fine  bar  was  in  easy  reach. 
Not  that  he  drank  to  excess,  for  he  did  not ;  Colonel  Polk,  his 
employer,  would  not  have  stood  for  that.    But  country  life  to 


RUNAWAY  APPRENTICE  7 

such  a  happy-go-lucky  fellow  would  have  been  simply  unbear- 
able. The  days  of  "come-easy  go-easy"  were  soon  to  end. 
Fate  had  something  sterner  in  store  than  barbecues  and  fish- 
frys  for  the  little  family. 

One  December  day  in  1811,  a  merry  party  had  gathered  at 
Hunter's  Mill,  on  Walnut  Creek,  a  few  miles  from  town.  In 
the  midst  of  the  revelry,  no  doubt  dancing,  cock-fighting, 
gander-pulling,  and  general  carousal,  Colonel  Tom  Henderson 
and  two  other  hilarious  individuals  pushed  off  from  the  shore 
in  a  canoe  and  were  soon  amid  stream  and  in  ten-foot  water. 
One  of  the  number  rocked  the  boat  and  over  it  turned.  There 
were  loud  cries  for  help.  The  Colonel  and  one  of  the  men, 
who  could  not  swim,  were  sinking  beneath  the  waves  for  the 
third  and  last  time,  when,  rushing  to  the  gunwale,  and  "heed- 
less of  his  own  life,"  Jacob  Johnson  sprang  into  the  icy  stream. 
Diving  and  struggling,  he  succeeded,  "with  great  effort,"  in 
fishing  up  his  friend  the  Colonel,  to  whose  coat  the  other  drown- 
ing man  was  clinging.  In  a  word,  he  saved  the  lives  of  two 
human  beings,  but  lost  his  own.  Exposure  and  exhaustion 
proved  too  much  for  him.  Shortly  afterwards  Jacob  Johnson, 
father  of  the  seventeenth  President  of  the  United  States,  died 
a  martyr  and  a  hero. 

The  Raleigh  Star  of  January  12,  1912,  announcing  his 
death,  called  attention  to  his  useful  life,  to  his  "honesty,  so- 
briety, industry  and  humane  friendly  disposition."  "No  one 
laments  his  death  more  than  the  editor  of  this  paper,"  Colonel 
Henderson  wrote;  "for  he  owes  his  life  to  the  boldness  and 
humanity  of  Johnson."  Fifty  years  after  this  heroic  act  a 
monument  was  erected  to  the  memory  of  Jacob  Johnson,  as  a 
testimonial  of  his  courage  and  self-sacrifice  and  as  the  appreci- 
ation of  a  grateful  community.    On  this  tablet  one  may  read: 

"In  memory  of  Jacob  Johnson.  An  honest  man,  loved  and 
respected  by  all  who  knew  him." 

Little  Andy  was  now  three  years  old,  and  William,  his  older 
brother,  afterwards  turning  out  to  be  a  ne'er-do-well,  was  eight. 
The  mother  left  penniless,  with  two  small  children  dependent 
upon  her,  was  almost  an  object  of  charity.     But  with  brave 


8  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

heart  she  secured  a  hand-loom  and  set  up  the  business  of  weav- 
ing and  spinning  cloth.  By  industry  and  enterprise,  she  soon 
acquired  such  a  reputation  she  was  known  as  "Polly,  the 
Weaver."  The  burden  of  supporting  the  family  was  too  heavy 
for  her,  however,  and  on  August  14,  1814,  she  disposed  of  Bill 
by  apprenticing  him  to  Colonel  Thomas  Henderson,  her  hus- 
band's friend.  About  this  time,  Mrs.  Johnson  entered  upon 
a  second  matrimonial  venture.  This  second  husband,  a  fellow 
named  Turner  Dougherty,  was  more  impecunious,  if  possible, 
than  herself  and  bad  matters  were  made  worse. 

In  a  year  or  so.  Colonel  Henderson  died  and  Bill's  appren- 
ticeship came  to  an  end.  He  was  then  bound  to  J.  J.  Selby,  the 
town  tailor.  Andy  had  grown  to  be  fourteen  years  old  at  that 
time  and  he  too  was  apprenticed  to  the  same  tailor.  By  the 
terms  of  the  indenture,  the  boys  were  to  serve  Selby  till  they 
arrived  at  age.  The  master  bound  himself  to  furnish  them 
with  victuals  and  clothes  and  "to  instruct  them  in  the  trade 
of  a  tailor."  At  this  point  historians  have  gone  somewhat 
astray  as  to  a  certain  date;  they  assert  that  Andy  was  ten 
years  old  when  he  became  a  "bound-boy,"  whereas,  he  was 
fourteen  years  of  age.     As  witness  the  following  record: 

State  of  North  Carolina 

Wake  County 

At  a  court  of  Pleas  and  Quarterly  Sessions  begun  and  held  at 

the  Court  House  in  Raleigh  on  the  3rd  ]Monday  of  February,  1822 

being  the  forty-sixth  year  of  American  Independence   (and  the 

18th  day  of  February). 

rrn     1X7-      1  •   i-  1  1  Charles  L.  Hinton 
The  Worshipful      t^.  t3 

-r,  .  ^         >  JNathaniel  Hand 

I'resent  K.,  -r., 

J    JNlERRITT   DlLLARD 

Ordered  that  A.  Johnson,  an  orphan  boy  and  the  son  of  Jacob 
Johnson,  deceased,  14  3'ears  of  age,  be  bound  to  Jas.  J.  Selby  till 
he  arrive  at  lawful  age  to  learn  the  trade  of  a  Tailor. 

Andy,  only  three  years  old  when  his  father  died,  could  have 
remembered  little  or  nothing  of  him  or  of  his  cordial  inter- 
course with  the  men  who  ran  the  town.  But  as  the  child  grew 
and  looked  about  and  saw  other  children  at  play  or  at  school, 
living  in  comfortable  homes  with  gardens  of  roses,  honeysuckle, 


RUNAWAY  APPRENTICE  9 

and  bamboo,  or  watched  the  well-to-do  people  as  they  rode 
here  and  there  "in  coaches  drawn  by  dapple  grays"  and  driven 
by  negro  coachmen,  while  he,  a  bound-boy,  was  penned  indoors 
or  after  the  day's  grind  trudged  afoot,  could  he  do  less  than 
contrast  his  lot  with  theirs?  Who,  indeed,  can  say  how  much 
those  days  at  Selby's  shop,  and  before,  fixed  the  child's  mind, 
making  him  resentful  of  any  reflection  on  the  laboring  man, 
and  the  champion  of  his  rights. 

However  this  may  be,  at  Selby's  the  sturdy  chap  never 
flinched  or  repined.  Among  the  lads  of  the  town  he  "always 
led  the  crowd."  "Somehow  or  other  Andy  would  have  things 
his  own  way."  "If  he  said  'go  a-hunting,'  the  boys  went  hunt- 
ing; if  he  said  'let's  go  swimming,'  they  went  swimming."  A 
small  piercing  black  eye,  a  will  to  do  or  die,  a  spirit  that  never 
quailed — these  set  the  lad  above  his  surroundings. '^  And  he 
was  always  courteous  and  attentive  to  business.  When  a  rich 
patron  on  horseback  would  come  to  the  shop  Andy  would  run 
out  and  hold  his  mount,  graciously  accepting  the  tip  and  listen- 
ing to  many  a  word  of  cheer  and  advice. 

At  this  time  the  foreman  of  the  tailor  shop  was  an  educated 
man  named  Litchford,  who  took  a  fancy  to  the  chap.  As 
Litchford  describes  Andy,  he  was  "a  wild,  harum-scarum  boy 
with  no  unhonorable  traits,  however."  ^  On  holidays,  or  dur- 
ing summer  afternoons,  the  apprentice  boy,  with  his  play- 
mates, would  roam  the  forests,  climb  the  trees  for  bird  nests, 
go  seining  in  the  creeks,  and  often  return  home  with  clothing 
dripping  wet  or  torn  to  shreds.  The  exasperated  Mrs.  Selby 
scolded  in  vain;  finally  she  made  a  coarse,  heavy,  homespun 
shirt,  and,  stripping  Andy  to  the  skin,  clothed  him  in  this  non- 
tearable  "whole  undergarment." 

It  was  Mr.  Litchford  and  Dr.  Hill  who  taught  the  boy  his 
A  B  C's.  As  there  was  no  public  school  in  Raleigh  at  that  time, 
and  his  mother  could  not  read  or  write,  the  only  education  the 
lad  received  was  at  the  hands  of  these  two  men,  who  occasion- 
ally would  drop  into  Selby's  tailor  shop  and  instruct  him,  or, 
while  he  was  plying  his  needle  and  shoving  his  hot  goose,  read 

7  John  Savage,  Life  of  Johnson,  Chap.  I. 

8  lUd. 


10  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

from  Enfield's  Speaker,  or  from  the  newspapers  of  the  day.' 
Once  Dr.  Hill  read  a  paragraph  from  an  essay  on  elocu- 
tion. This  essay  gives  the  rules  for  successful  oratory.  First 
and  most  important  one  must  speak  sloM'ly.  "Almost  all  per- 
sons who  have  not  studied  the  art  of  speaking,"  so  the  book 
runs,  "have  a  habit  of  uttering  their  words  so  rapidly  that  the 
exercise  of  reading  aloud,  slowly  and  deliberately,  ought  to  be 
made  use  of  for  a  considerable  time.  Aim  at  nothing  higher, 
till  you  can  read  distinctly  and  deliberately. 

"  'Learn  to   speak  slow,   all   other  graces 
Will  follow  in  their  proper  places.'  "  ^^ 

By  following  these  directions — speaking  slowly  and  deliber- 
ately— Andrew  Johnson's  voice  was  well  trained;  it  would 
"carry  further  than  a  city  block."  As  an  encouragement  to 
the  little  fellow  and  a  reward  for  his  desire  to  educate  him- 
self. Dr.  Hill  presented  him  with  the  collection  of  speeches  and 
essays.  Unfortunately,  when  Johnson's  home  at  Greeneville, 
Tennessee,  was  seized  by  the  Confederate  Government,  the  little 
keep-sake,  dog-eared  and  well-worn,  was  destroyed.^ ^ 

And  so  the  days  of  Andy  Johnson's  apprenticeship  grew  into 
weeks,  the  weeks  into  months.  Many  hours  a  day,  shut  out 
from  fresh  air,  crouched  down  over  needle  and  thread,  deprived 
of  the  joys  of  childhood,  the  lad  bent  to  his  task;  the  inside 
of  a  schoolhouse  he  never  saw.  Finally,  after  two  years  of  ap- 
prenticeship, an  incident  happened  that  changed  the  course 
of  his  life — he  ran  away  from  his  master.  One  account  of  this 
event  is  that  Selby  insulted  tlie  lad  "and  was  soundly 
thrashed" ;  but  Litchf ord  gives  another  account.  At  that  time 
in  Raleigh  tliere  was  living  an  old  woman  named  Wells,  and 
Andy  Johnson  and  three  other  bound-boys  "rocked"  tliis  old 
lady's  house, — precisely  why  is  not  recorded.  Any  wa}^  she 
threatened  to   "persecute"   the   boys   and   off   they   skipped. 

8  Jacob  Johnson,  not  being  able  to  write,  niiidi'  liis  cross  mark  to  tlio  l)oiul 
he  vafl  required  to  pive  at  marriage. 

10  This  book  ia  referred  to  as  the  United  States  Speaker;  the  Standard 
Spealcvr :  the  Colunihia  Speaker.  I  have  chosen  Enfield's  Speaker  because 
copies  of  it  are  at  the  University  of  Nortli  Carolina,  near  .Johnson's  native 
phice.     C'f.  Jlnrpcr's  Young  People,  September  .'{0,  1890. 

11  Savage,  p.  22. 


RUNAWAY  APPRENTICE  11 

However   this   may    be,    on    June   24,    1824!,   the   citizens   of 
Raleigh  read  in  the  Raleigh  Gazette  the  following  notice : 

TEN  DOLLARS  REWARD 

Ran  away  from  the  Subscriber,  on  the  night  of  the  15th  in- 
stant, two  apprentice  boys,  legally  bound,  named  William  and 
Andeew  Johnson.  The  former  is  of  a  dark  complexion,  black 
hair,  eyes,  and  habits.  They  are  much  of  a  height,  about  5  feet 
4f  or  5  inches.  The  latter  is  very  fleshy,  freckled  face,  hght  hair, 
and  fair  complexion.  They  went  off  with  two  other  apprentices, 
advertised  by  Messrs.  Wm.  &  Chas.  Fowler.  When  they  went 
away,  they  were  well  clad — blue  cloth  coats,  light  colored  home- 
spun coats,  and  new  hats,  the  maker's  name  in  the  crown  of  the 
hats,  is  Theodore  Clark.  I  will  pay  the  above  Reward  to  any 
person  who  will  deliver  said  apprentices  to  me  in  Raleigh,  or  I 
will  give  the  above  Reward  for  Andrew  Johnson  alone. 

All  persons  are  cautioned  against  harboring  or  employing  said 
apprentices  on  pain  of  being  prosecuted. 

James  J.   Selby,  Tailor. 
Raleigh,  N.  C.  June  24,  1824. 

Now  Selby  was  in  such  a  dudgeon  when  he  wrote  this  notice 
he  described  Bill  for  Andy  and  Andy  for  Bill,  Andy  having 
the  black  hair  and  black  eyes  and  Bill  the  light  hair  and 
freckled  face.  At  all  events  the  reward  brought  no  tangible 
results. 

After  a  flight  of  several  days,  the  run-awaj^s  hauled  up  at 
the  town  of  Carthage,  about  seventy-five  miles  from  Raleigh; 
and  there  they  made  a  halt  and  remained  several  months. 
Renting  a  shack,  Andy  opened  a  tailor  shop  of  his  own  and 
advertised  for  business.  Business  came  pouring  in.  Speci- 
mens of  Andy's  handicraft  are  still  preserved  in  that  section, 
and  a  monument  commemorates  the  occasion  of  his  residence 
in  Carthage. 

But  Carthage  was  too  near  Raleigh.  Memories  of  Selby 
still  haunting  Andy,  he  took  to  his  heels  again,  arriving  at 
Laurens,  South  Carolina,  sometime  during  the  winter  of  1824. 
At  Laurens  the  usual  love  affair  of  a  youngster  of  sixteen 
took  place.  Andy  fell  in  love  with  a  "beautiful"  young  woman 
named  Sarah  Word,  by  whom  the  tender  passion  was  recipro- 
cated.    Unhappily  for  the  course  of  true  love,  the  parents 


12  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

objected.  A  boy  with  no  equipment  but  a  kit  of  tailor's  tools 
was  surely  no  match  for  a  promising  South  Carolina  beauty. 
The  dutiful  maiden,  therefore,  "sighing  like  a  lover  but  obey- 
ing like  a  child,"  broke  the  affair  up  and  the  romance  ended. 
Andy's  connection  with  this  love  scrape  and  his  failure  to 
press  his  suit  and  marry  Sarah,  over  the  heads  of  her  parents, 
added  to  the  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  by  the  people  of 
Laurens.^^ 

After  a  year  or  so  in  South  Carolina,  Andy  and  his  brother 
Bill  worked  their  way  back  to  Raleigh.  Andy  was  determined 
to  serve  out  his  apprenticeship  with  Selby.  But  Selby  had 
given  up  his  shop  in  Raleigh  and  moved  twenty  miles  away  in 
the  country.  On  the  boy  trudged  to  make  apology  and  take  up 
his  dog's  life  again.  Selby  wanted  security,  however.  This 
Andy  would  not  give  and  master  and  servant  parted  company 
forever. 

As  Andrew  Johnson,  penniless  and  out  of  a  job,  walked  the 
streets  of  Raleigh  or  hung  around  Casso's  inn  during  those  dis- 
mal days  of  1826,  the  game  of  life  seemed  blocked  against  him. 
Though  his  old  friend  Litchf ord  had  opened  a  shop  of  his  own, 
he  was  afraid  to  employ  an  advertised  run-away.  And  then 
there  was  Selby — at  any  moment  he  might  "put  the  law"  to 
Andy  for  jumping  his  contract  of  indenture.  In  fact,  the  jails 
were  full  of  debtors,  who  could  not  pay  their  debts.  The  up- 
shot of  the  business  was  that  Andy  resolved  to  leave  North 
Carolina  and  to  go  west  where  there  were  fertile,  unappropri- 
ated lands,  and  where  he  thought  the  laws  were  respecters  of 
persons  as  well  as  of  property.  Why  not  Tennessee?  Ten- 
nessee had  already  enticed  from  North  Carolina  her  ablest  sons, 
James  Robertson,  "the  father  of  Tennessee,"  John  Haywood, 
her  greatest  judge,  Andrew  Jackson,  Hugh  L.  White  and 
James  K.  Polk. 

The  little  Johnson  family,  therefore,  put  their  heads  to- 
gether, resolving  that  matters  might  be  improved  by  a  move. 
They  certainly  could  not  be  made  worse.  One  August  day 
in  1826,  dumping  their  earthly  belongings  into  a  two-wheeled 
cart,  without  cover  against  rain  or  shine,  they  set  out  for 

12  Greeneville  Sentinel,  February  10,  1910;  National  Magazine  6:63. 


RUNAWAY  APPRENTICE  13 

their  new  home.  No  covered  wagon,  no  barking,  prancing  dog, 
no  romance.  One  hour  Turner  Dougherty  and  Polly  would 
ride  and  the  boys  would  walk;  then,  turn  and  turn  about,  the 
boys  would  ride  and  the  old  folks  walk.  "Ride  and  tie,"  this 
arrangement  is  called  by  the  poorer  southern  country  folk 
when  making  a  long  joiirney  with  an  over-crowded  vehicle. 
At  the  end  of  the  first  day  the  little  caravan  had  made  nearly 
thirty  miles,  hauling  up  at  Chapel  Hill,  the  seat  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  North  Carolina.  Here  a  family  named  Craig  gave 
them  shelter  for  the  night.^^  Leaving  Chapel  Hill,  they  moved 
westward,  fording  rivers,  climbing  mountains,  camping  by  the 
wayside.  The  Eno,  the  Haw,  the  Yadkin,  the  Catawba,  the 
Swannanoa,  the  French  Broad,  the  Pigeon,  the  Nolichucky, 
and  their  tributaries,  many  of  these  streams  without  bridges, 
all  lay  between  them  and  their  journey's  end.  Following  the 
Daniel  Boone  trail,  they  scaled  the  Blue  Ridge  where  Andrew 
Jackson  crossed  half  a  century  before  and — tradition  says — 
met  "old  Hickory"  on  horseback.^*  Here  they  camped  for  the 
night  and  Bill  and  Andy  went  forth  and  killed  a  mountain 
bear.  Next  day,  they  passed  down  the  French  Broad  River 
and  along  the  Allen  Stand  road,  until  they  came  into  the 
Nolichucky  country.^ ^ 

A  wonderful  sight  now  caught  their  eye.  To  the  west  lay 
the  Cumberland  Mountains,  to  the  north  and  east  the  Blue 
Ridge,  between,  a  fertile  valley.  Here  their  journey  ended, 
and  on  a  certain  Saturday  evening  in  September  1826  the 
weary  little  band  pitched  their  tent  for  the  last  time,  camping 
at  the  "Gum  Spring"  in  the  town  of  Greeneville,  Tennessee. 
Unharnessing  the  M'eary  pony,  Andy  walked  up  the  hillside  and 
got  a  bundle  of  fodder  while  his  mother  was  busy  with  supper. 
W.  R.  Brown,  an  old  resident,  let  him  have  the  provender,  and 
took  such  a  fancy  to  the  boy  that  a  long  friendship  began. 
Next  day  Andy  visited  the  tailor  shop  and  procured  work.  In  a 
short  time,  however,  he  moved  on  to  Rutledge  in  the  adjoining 

13  Forty  years  after,  President  Johnson  and  Secretary  Seward  arrived  in 
this  village  to  be  invested  with  academic  honors  and  feted  as  befitted  their 
station. 

14  Thompson,  Southern  Hero  Tales,  p.  66. 

15  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


U  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

county,  resolved  to  possess  and  run  a  shop  in  his  own  name. 
At  Rutledge,  and  at  other  places  in  Tennessee,  he  worked  at 
his  trade  for  several  months.  But  in  March  1827,  when  he 
heard  that  the  Greeneville  tailor  had  quit  business,  he  rejoined 
his  mother  and  opened  up  a  shop  of  his  own — the  "A.  Johnson 
Tailor  Shop,"  renowned  in  song  and  story. 


r-:;  i.,;c:. nORTH  CAROLINA,   I 

i.  a-c^     /*Wi^'/!^j^/?^-^        ,— . — 

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1.  Jacob  Johns  (t)  oil's  Marriage  Bond. 

2.  Andrew  Johnson's   Birthplace,   Raleigh,  N.    C. 


CHAPTER  II 
A.  JOHNSON,  TAILOR 

When  the  Johnson  family  set  out  from  Raleigh  they  were 
bound  for  the  Sequatchie  Valley,  some  distance  southwest  of 
Greeneville,  where  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Johnson  lived.  So  far  as  we 
know,  therefore,  the  selection  of  Greeneville  was  a  mere  acci- 
dent, the  Johnsons  not  having  a  friend  or  an  acquaintance  in 
the  place.  Doubtless,  when  they  struck  Greeneville  they  had 
exhausted  their  patience;  certainly  they  had  exhausted  their 
funds  and  could  go  no  farther.  Anyway,  no  better  location  for 
a  tailor  to  start  business  could  have  been  found. 

In  that  early  day  much  of  the  soil  of  East  Tennessee  was 
untouched  by  the  plowshare,  and  the  population  which  had 
drifted  in  from  Free  States  as  well  as  Slave  was  more  cosmo- 
politan and  better  suited  to  Andrew  Johnson's  simple  notions 
than  that  of  the  more  conservative  State  of  North  Carolina. 
There  was  also  another  advantage,  the  people  of  East  Ten- 
nessee were  less  than  ten  per  cent,  negro.  Slavery  did  not 
count  for  much,  nor  was  manual  labor  considered  beneath  one's 
dignity.  In  fact,  much  of  the  State  was  still  occupied  by 
Indians.  In  1826  the  East  Tennessean  owned  his  farm,  gen- 
erally less  than  a  hundred  acres,  and  raised  enough  corn,  cattle 
and  home  supplies  for  his  family's  needs.  Tobacco  was  the 
chief  money  crop,  and  the  housewife  increased  the  income  by 
the  sale  of  eggs  and  poultry,  butter,  fruit,  vegetables  and 
honey.^  Tennessee,  being  a  grass-growing  country,  sheep  and 
cattle  were  also  raised  and  horses  and  mules  bred  for  the 
market. 

Two  hundred  dollars  a  year  in  cash,  a  Tennessee  historian 
assures  us,  were  enough  to  supply  a  mountain  family  with 
coffee,  sugar  and  other  necessaries  not  raised  on  the  farm. 
These  thrifty  people  would  not  think  of  going  to  stores  and 

1  Garrett  and  Goodpasture,  History  of  Tennessee,  p.  74. 

15 


16  ANDREW  JOHXSON 

squandering  their  money  on  clothing,  hats  and  shoes.  The 
shoemaker,  or  the  cobbler  as  he  was  poHtely  called,  and  the 
saddler,  traveling  from  section  to  section,  would  make  shoes 
and  harness  from  hides  tanned  in  the  local  vats,  and  the  tailor 
would  make  clothes  from  cotton  and  woolen  cloth  woven  by  the 
women.  The  men  were  usually  hunters  and  trappers,  did  their 
own  thinking,  and  voted  to  suit  themselves.  !Many  were  fathers 
of  boys  who  in  after  days  served  in  the  Union  ranks  under 
Sherman,  Thomas  and  Rosecrans.  Not  a  few  of  them  were 
Abolitionists,  though  generally  each  family  owned  at  least  one 
domestic  servant.  In  1821,  Ben  Lundy,  the  Ohio  Abolitionist, 
established  the  first  Abolition  paper  in  the  South  at  Greene- 
ville,  Tennessee.  He  called  his  paper  The  Genius  of  Universal 
Emancipation,  and  finally  moved  it  to  the  city  of  Baltimore. - 
From  such  surroundings  sprang  Dave  Crockett  and  Admiral 
Farragut,  Sergeant  York,  and  many  another  typical  Ten- 
nessee mountain  boy,  clothed  in  homespun,  shod  with  raw-hide 
boots,  and  with  wool  hat  on  his  head. 

It  was  this  picture  of  an  independent,  ideal,  country  com- 
munity Andrew  Johnson  had  in  mind  when  he  said,  '*If  you 
wish  to  make  a  useful  citizen,  take  a  worthy  laborer,  though 
he  may  have  no  property,  no  trade,  no  work,  and  transplant 
liim  to  the  West ;  give  such  a  man  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres 
of  fat  virgin  soil  and  soon  he  will  clear  up  a  few  acres  around 
him,  get  a  horse,  a  mule  or  two,  and  some  fat,  thrifty  hogs 
grunting  around  his  log  cabin,  a  few  milch  cows  lowing  at  the 
barnyard,  and  when  his  country  calls  him,  he  will  unhitch  his 
horse,  leave  the  plow  standing  idle  in  the  furrow,  shoulder 
his  musket,  and  march  to  the  front."  And  it  was  just  this 
kind  of  a  country  community  Andrew  Johnson  delighted  to 
find  in  the  mountain  sections  of  East  Tennessee.^ 

But  it  must  not  be  concluded  tliat  the  town  of  Greeneville 
was  an  Arcadia  or  social  Paradise,  or  anj'thing  of  that  sort. 
Like  other  places,  Greeneville  had  its  classes  and  its  masses,  its 
aristocrats  and  its  democrats.  Just  before  Tennessee  became 
a  State,  Greeneville,  in  fact,  had  been  a  capital  city,  the  capital 

2  Magazine  American  History,  Vol.  XX,  p.  43. 

3  Garrett  and  Goodpasture,  History  of  Tennessee,  p.  230. 


A.  JOHNSON,  TAILOR  17 

of  the  state  of  Franklin.  Among  its  citizens  were  men  of 
wealth  and  distinction:  Col.  Thomas  Arnold,  handsome  and 
aristocratic,  long  a  Congressman  from  the  First  District;  Dr. 
Alex  Williams,  the  Whig  boss  of  that  entire  section ;  the  Dix- 
ons  and  others.  These  old  families,  before  Andrew  Johnson's 
arrival,  had  selected  the  best  sites  in  town  and  built  commodi- 
ous mansion  houses.  Connected  with  "the  great  house,"  as 
the  plain  people  deferentially  called  such  establishments,  were 
slave  quarters  and  extensive  gardens ;  usually  an  orchard,  a 
scuppernong  vine,  sometimes  covering  a  quarter  of  an  acre 
of  ground,  and  groves  of  oak,  elms  and  hickory.  The  head 
of  the  Dixon  family  numbered  his  slaves  by  the  score;  while 
"Alexander  the  Great,"  for  such  Andy  Johnson  dubbed  Dr. 
Alex  Williams,  his  fierce  political  antagonist,  was  the  owner 
of  no  less  than  sixty  fox  hounds. 

It  did  not  take  Andy  Johnson  long,  after  arriving  in  Greene- 
ville,  to  decide  in  which  crowd  he  belonged.  He  was  a  laborer, 
it  was  true,  and  dependent  upon  the  well-to-do  for  custom,  yet 
he  did  not  fawn  on  the  rich  or  turn  himself  to  those  who  pur- 
chased his  merchandise.  It  was  to  the  man  by  his  side  he  went, 
to  the  plasterer  and  the  carpenter,  the  brick-layer  and  the 
shoemaker,  the  stock-raiser  and  the  farmer.  In  one  of  these 
laborers,  a  stern,  tough-fibered  fellow  named  Blackstone  Mc- 
Daniel,  he  found  a  man  of  congenial  tastes,  democratic,  hard  to 
sweep  off  his  feet,  and  with  a  head  full  of  brains.  "Old  Mac," 
as  Andy  called  Blackstone  McDaniel,  was  the  village  plasterer, 
and  from  first  to  last,  as  every  one  in  Greeneville  well  knew, 
was  "Andy  Johnson's  only  intimate." 

To  be  sure  there  M^ere  others  with  whom  Andrew  Johnson 
ran.  For  instance,  there  were  Squire  Mordecai  Lincoln,  the 
village  magistrate,  and  perhaps  an  uncle  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, who  dispensed  justice  and  tied  the  marriage  knot,  and 
Bill  Lowery,  the  best  scribe  of  the  bunch,  and  John  Jones,  a 
peculiar  fellow,  a  recluse  and  a  college  graduate  living  a  few 
miles  in  the  country.  Besides  these,  there  were  a  likeable  law- 
yer named  Russell,  a  poor  young  Scotchman  named  Brown, 
whose  widow  afterwards  married  General  Ewell,  of  Confederate 
fame,  and  last  but  not  least,  Lewis  Self,  a  man  of  vast  stores 


18  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

of  homely  wisdom  and  mother  wit.  But  there  was  only  one 
"dear  Old  Mac."  To  Blackstone  McDaniel,  Andrew  Johnson 
went  with  his  secrets  and  his  troubles,  and  between  the  two, 
with  many  a  bloody  oath,  plans  were  laid  to  build  up  a  real 
democracy  in  Greeneville  and  to  put  the  slave-holding  oli- 
garchy to  rout.  The  headquarters  of  this  gang  of  village 
philosophers  was  Andy  Johnson's  tailor  shop,  located  at  first 
near  the  present  Opera  House  and  not  far  from  the  Court 
House.  Busy  as  the  young  tailor  was,  he  never  got  too  busy 
to  welcome  his  fellow-toiler  to  the  unwashed,  democratic  salon 
which  he  had  established. 

Soon  after  Andy  and  McDaniel  struck  up  an  acquaintance, 
they  engaged  in  a  public  discussion  on  the  subject  of  the  Indian 
tribes  living  in  Tennessee.  The  query  was,  "Shall  the  crim- 
inal laws  of  Tennessee  be  extended  to  the  Tennessee  Indians.''" 
On  the  appointed  evening  a  large  crowd  gathered  at  the  town 
academy  to  hear  the  debate  between  the  young  village  Demos- 
theneses.  ]\Iac  opened  the  discussion  and  Andy  replied,  then 
there  was  a  fifteen  minute  rejoinder  by  each.  When  the  vote 
was  taken,  Andy  won  the  debate,  but  soon  afterward  lost  the 
championship  to  John  Park.  Park  was  the  crack  debater  of  the 
town ;  an  independent,  unique  character,  he  despised  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  and  advocated  its  immediate  abolition.  This 
overthrow  of  Andy  created  a  stir  in  the  community,  which  we 
of  the  present  day  cannot  fully  appreciate.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, however,  that  a  hundred  years  ago  debating  clubs 
were  the  most  exciting  forms  of  diversion.  Andy's  defeat  only 
spurred  him  on  to  greater  efforts;  he  was  determined  to  fit 
himself  to  vanquish  the  best  debater  in  town.  About  four 
miles  from  Greeneville  there  was,  at  that  time,  a  small  college 
called  Greeneville  College,  where  public  debates  were  indulged 
in  every  Friday  night.  Andy  got  permission  to  join  this  club 
and  once  every  week  for  several  years,  four  miles  out  and 
four  miles  in,  he  walked,  through  hot  and  through  cold,  taking 
part  in  the  college  debates.  Finally  the  college  suspended  and 
Andy  transferred  his  membership  to  Tusculum  College,  about 
four  miles  from  Greeneville  in  an  opposite  direction. 

Every  Saturday  when  the  boys  would  come  to  town  thev 


A.  JOHNSON,  TAILOR  19 

would  gather  in  Andy  Johnson's  tailor  shop  and  fight  the 
debates  over  again.  With  them  Andy  grew  to  be  a  prime 
favorite,  and  being  much  older  than  they  were,  he  was  heralded 
forth  as  a  mighty  debater.  In  his  relation  to  these  young 
college  students,  who  like  himself  were  poor  and  many  de- 
pendent upon  their  own  labors  to  pay  their  way  through  col- 
lege, he  developed  a  trait  which  aided  him  through  life, — the 
rare  gift  of  making  and  retaining  friends  among  the  people 
of  his  own  class. 

At  Greeneville  College  Andy  Johnson  fell  in  with  a  man 
who  influenced  and  largely  shaped  his  life.  This  tall  moun- 
taineer, democratic  to  the  core  and  standing  firm  in  his  shoes, 
was  plain  and  modest,  "and  of  respectable  parentage."  As 
Blackstone  McDaniel  was  Johnson's  personal  friend,  so  Sam 
Milligan  became  his  political  and  legal  adviser.  IVIilligan  was 
a  graduate  of  William  and  Mary  College  in  Virginia  and  was 
teaching  at  Greeneville  College  when  Andy  was  taking  part  in 
the  debates.  Very  soon  Milligan  was  attracted  to  the  prodigy 
of  the  tailor  shop  and  loaned  him  books  from  the  library  and 
assisted  him  in  picking  up  useful  information.  While  Sam 
Milligan  was  no  speaker,  he  was  a  man  of  poise  and  good  judg- 
ment. He  also  had  a  sense  of  duty,  an  inflexible  honesty  and 
a  broad  national  point  of  view.* 

But  Andrew  Johnson  was  interested  in  other  things  besides 
his  tailor  shop  during  the  fine  spring  days  of  1827.  In  fact,  al- 
most from  the  very  first  day  he  landed  in  Greeneville,  the  gos- 
sips were  saying  that  his  fancy  had  been  turning  to  thoughts 
of  love.  Alas  for  the  fickleness  of  the  sterner  sex,  his  love 
affair  with  Sarah  Word,  the  South  Carolina  maiden,  so  dainty 
and  coy  looking,  in  her  lace  gown  and  bonnet,  had  passed  out 
of  mind.  Forgotten  was  the  cotton  quilt  of  many  colors  he  and 
Sarah  had  created  with  joint  needle  and  thread;  forgotten  too 
the  familiar  chair  on  which  they  had  carved  in  imperishable 
characters  the  sweet  words,  "S.  W.  1820."  ^ 

Eliza  McCardle,  for  she  it  was  who  had  supplanted  Sarah 

*  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 

5  "A  President's  Love  Affairs."  National  Magazine,  Vol.  VI,  p.  63,  with 
portraits  of  Sarah  Word,  snug  as  a  Puritan  maiden,  also  with  pictures  of 
the  quilt  and  chair. 


20  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

in  Andy's  affections,  was  an  orphan,  seventeen  years  of  age, 
when  she  first  encountered  her  future  husband.  Her  father, 
a  Scotchman  and  a  shoemaker,  had  died  a  few  years  before  and 
Ehza,  the  only  child,  was  living  with  her  widowed  mother.  A 
typical  Scotch  lassie,  her  nut-brown  hair  played  around  an 
ample  forehead,  her  eyes  were  soft  hazel,  and  her  unusually 
long  Greek  nose  Phidias  would  undoubtedly  have  envied; 
add  to  these  attractions  a  generous  mouth  and  a  tall  shapely 
figure  and  we  have  Eliza  McCardle,  when  Andy  Johnson  ran 
into  her  on  a  certain  September  morning  in  1826.  As  every 
one  in  Greeneville  will  tell  you  even  to  this  day,  on  the  occasion 
in  question  Eliza  McCardle  and  a  bevy  of  school  girls  from 
Rhea  Academy  were  standing  on  the  sidewalk  of  Greeneville 
when  Andy  Johnson,  penniless  and  friendless,  passed  along  to 
the  tailor  shop  looking  for  a  job.  The  instant  Eliza's  eyes 
fell  upon  the  sturdy  chap,  moving  with  firm  step  and  resolute 
manner,  she  shyly  whispered  to  a  girl  friend  by  her  side, 
"There  goes  my  beau."  The  courtship  and  engagement  were 
of  short  duration.  In  a  few  days,  as  we  have  seen,  Andy  moved 
off  to  Rutledge  but  soon  returned  to  Greeneville,  and,  on  May 
17th  following,  the  marriage  took  place.  At  the  bride's  home 
the  brave  young  couple,  with  stout  hearts  and  empty  purses 
were  joined  together  by  Mordecai  Lincoln,  one  of  Andy's  best 
friends.^ 

From  this  time,  the  education  of  Andrew  Johnson  began  in 
dead  earnest.  Though  he  could  spell  just  a  little,  and  read 
simple  words,  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  he  was  unable  to 
write.  The  task  of  teaching  him  to  read  and  to  write  was 
undertaken  by  his  girl-wife  with  a  loving  heart,  and  so  well  did 
she  succeed  that  in  ten  years  her  husband  was  writing  a  legible, 
though  an  unformed,  hand,  was  a  fair  speller,  as  spelling 
went  in  those  days,  and  was  reading  everything  he  could  get 
his  hands  upon.  But  the  toil  of  the  young  couple  is  shown 
not  only  in  the  education  of  Andy  but  also  in  the  accumula- 
tion of  property  and  the  increase  of  their  influence.     Almost 

8  J.  H.  Barrett,  Ahe  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Vol.  I,  p.  7  note:  "Married 
at  Greeneville,  TenncBsee,  on  May  17,  1827,  Andrew  Johnson  to  Eliza  McCardle, 
by  Mordecai  Lincoln,  Esq.,  probably  a  son  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  grand- 
father." 


A.  JOHNSON,  TAILOR  21 

continuously  from  1827  to  1843,  Andrew  Johnson  filled  cer- 
tain local  offices  and  yet  during  this  time  he  managed  to 
accumulate  a  home,  a  tailor  shop,  a  brick  store  in  Greeneville, 
and  a  nice  little  farm  containing  more  than  a  hundred  acres. 
On  the  farm,  which  was  a  few  miles  from  town,  he  settled  his 
mother  and  step-father.  Bill  Johnson,  his  peripatetic  brother, 
plied  his  chosen  trade  of  carpenter  for  a  short  time  and  then 
set  out  for  Texas.  Before  leaving,  hoAvever,  Bill  made  a  mas- 
sive table  which  he  presented  to  his  brother  Andy,  and  to 
this  day  the  curious  traveler  will  discover  this  table  in  the 
Andy  Johnson  tailor  shop  and  may  read  thereon  these  words, 
"This  table  was  made  in  1828  by  William  Johnson." 

At  the  time  of  marriage,  Andrew  Johnson  was  doing  business 
in  a  two-room  building  on  Main  Street.  In  the  front  room  he 
conducted  his  tailoring  establishment  and  "built  his  political 
fences";  the  rear  room  was  used  for  every  imaginable  pur- 
pose,— it  was  kitchen  and  dining-room,  and  it  was  also  bed- 
chamber and  parlor.  In  this  back  room,  Andrew  Johnson  and 
his  Mdfe  lived,  and  here  Martha,  in  after  days  mistress  of  the 
White  House,  was  born,  and  so  was  Charles,  the  first  son. 
In  about  four  years  after  marriage,  Andy's  prospects  were 
much  improved  and  he  was  looking  about  for  a  home  of  his 
own.  This  notion  of  a  home  was  Andrew  Johnson's  big  idea. 
"Without  a  home  there  can  be  no  good  citizen,"  he  would  say ; 
"with  a  home  there  can  be  no  bad  one." 

To  secure  a  home  and  a  competency,  he  practiced  a  rigid 
economy  and  bent  to  his  tailor's  job.  Having  been  driven 
from  his  native  State,  as  he  declared,  by  the  gaunt  and  hag- 
gard monster  called  hunger,  he  was  resolved  to  provide  against 
a  return  of  such  evil  and  to  secure  a  home  and  a  competency 
for  himself  and  for  those  dependent  upon  him.  Luckily,  about 
this  time  a  dwelling  and  a  smithshop,  down  on  Water  Street 
and  just  a  few  steps  from  the  Court  House,  came  upon  the 
market  for  sale.  Johnson's  attention  was  called  to  the  sale 
by  Mordecai  Lincoln,  who  had  a  judgment  against  the  prop- 
erty for  $36.66.  The  sale  took  place  on  February  24,  1831, 
when  the  dwelling,  known  as  Lot  No.  77  on  the  city  plot,  and 
containing  70  poles,  and  the  smith-lot,  known  as  part  of  Lot 


ANDREW  JOHNSON 


No.  68,  were  sold  under  a  writ  of  fieri  facias  in  favor  of  Morde- 
cai  Lincoln  and  other  creditors  against  the  heirs-at-law  of 
John  T.  Myrick.  At  this  sale  Andrew  Johnson  became  the 
last  and  highest  bidder,  at  the  price  of  about  one  thousand 
dollars.  Soon  a  deed  was  spread  upon  the  records  of  Greene 
County  bearing  this  caption: 


"Richard  M.  Woods,  Sherijff 
of  Greene  County, 

To 

Andrew  Johnson 


Deed 

Registered  in  Book  15 

Page  396, 

This  February  26,  1831." 


The  property  was  soon  paid  for  and  the  proud  owners  moved 
their  little  "plunder"  into  their  own  dwelling  and  set  up  as 
real  housekeepers.  Pretty  soon  they  found  a  building  for  sale, 
also  situated  on  Main  Street;  this  they  purchased  and  rolled 
a  block  and  a  half  to  the  smith-lot,  fitting  it  up  into  a  com- 
fortable tailor  shop,  as  it  appears  to-day.  Over  the  door  of 
this  shop  Andy  nailed  a  sign  which  reads  as  follows: 

"A.  JOHNSON 
TAILOR." ' 

Located  under  his  own  vine  and  fig  tree,  Andy  strove  harder 
than  ever  in  the  work  of  his  trade.  Every  garment  must  be 
a  perfect  fit,  there  must  be  no  dissatisfied  customer;  the  An- 
drew Johnson  brand  of  clothes  was  to  become  a  guarantee  of 
good  workmanship.  More  and  more  the  Andy  Johnson  tailor 
shop  became  the  center  of  village  politics,  the  gathering  place 
for  cornfield  philosophers,  and  the  most  talked  about  establisli- 
ment  in  East  Tennessee.  To  keep  himself  posted  on  pubhc 
affairs,  Andy  employed  a  reader,  pajdng  him  fifty  cents  a  day 
to  read  aloud  while  he  worked  at  the  bench.  Current  news- 
papers, speeches  of  Senators  and  Congressmen,  Government 
reports,  and  such  books  as  coukl  be  borrowed  were  thus  read 
aloud  and  devoured  by  the  ambitious  man.     Grcenevillc  and 

7  This  building,  more  thnn  a  century  old.  and  the  Hij^n.  which  is  a  duplicate 
of  the  original,  are  now  the  property  of  the  Stale  of  Tennessee. 


A.  JOHNSON,  TAILOR  23 

the  tailor  shop  were  going  to  know  whatever  was  worth  know- 
ing. The  "tariff  of  abominations,"  and  the  nuDification  of 
the  same  by  South  CaroHna;  the  summary  "hanging  of  Cal- 
houn by  Andrew  Jackson"  for  threatening  to  destroy  the  life 
of  the  Nation ;  "Nick"  Biddle  and  his  terrible  national  bank ; 
the  annexation  of  Texas  by  the  United  States;  the  internal 
improvement  scheme  which  hit  Tennessee  so  hard  about  1830, 
and  the  threatened  bond  issue  for  millions  and  millions  of  dol- 
lars; these  and  other  public  matters  the  tailor  shop  crowd 
"chewed  over"  in  their  cornfield  way.  Tennessee's  old  worn- 
out  Constitution  came  in  of  course  for  abuse;  that  property 
was  of  more  value  than  the  life,  limb  and  happiness  of  the 
people,  and  that  there  was  a  law  authorizing  imprisonment 
for  debt,  these  were  surely  relics  of  a  barbarous  age  and  ought 
to  be  abolished. 

As  in  England,  Germany  and  France  and  in  the  large  cities 
of  the  United  States,  so  in  the  wilds  of  Tennessee,  "the  aspira- 
tions towards  equal  citizenship  became  the  keynote  of  labor's 
earliest  political  movement,"  and  "the  wage-earner's  Jackson- 
ianism  struck  a  note  all  its  own."  ^ 

Much  the  most  important  question,  however,  the  tailor 
shop  tackled  was,  who  should  run  the  town  of  Greeneville,  the 
aristocrats  or  the  democrats,  the  money  interests  or  the  labor- 
ers? Undoubtedly  the  aristocrats  had  been  bossing  the  job  for 
a  long  time.  Should  they  continue  to  do  this,  or  should  the 
democrats  have  a  chance.?  To  bring  this  matter  to  a  head, 
in  the  spring  of  1829,  the  mechanics  and  laborers  brought  out 
for  the  position  of  alderman,  Andy  Johnson,  the  town  tailor. 
"Alexander  the  Great"  was  simply  dumfounded.  The  idea  of 
having  a  tailor  for  a  City  Father  was  appalling.  Surely  the 
impudence  and  insolence  of  the  laboring  classes  were  ruining 
the  country!  But  despite  the  influence  and  the  money  of  the 
aristocrats,  Andy  was  elected.  In  fact  he  made  such  a  good 
alderman  he  was  elected  the  second  time,  and  then  reelected, 
and  finally  was  chosen  Mayor  of  the  city,  filling  this  position 
for  three  successive  terms. 

8  Selig  Perlman,  Trade  Unionism  in  the  United  States,  New  York,  1922. 


24)  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

In  1833  he  took  part  in  calling  a  convention  of  the  State. 
This  convention,  which  met  in  1834,  abolished  property 
qualifications  for  office,  imprisonment  for  debt,  made  a  fuller 
guarantee  of  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  and  in 
other  respects  reformed  the  old  Federalist  Constitution 
of  1796.  While  serving  as  Alderman  and  Mayor,  Johnson 
grew  to  be  the  recognized  leader  of  the  laboring  classes  in  the 
community.  His  reforms  in  municipal  government,  his  fair- 
ness in  dealing  with  every  class,  and  his  advocacy  and  practice 
of  economy,  created  hosts  of  friends  besides  improving  the  town 
of  Greeneville.  His  acquaintance,  too,  began  to  spread,  ex- 
tending throughout  the  County  of  Greene.  Everywhere,  from 
Bull's  Gap  to  the  North  Carolina  line,  he  was  a  welcome  visitor 
to  the  homes  of  the  mountaineers  of  Tennessee. 

It  must  be  said  that  Andrew  Johnson's  dream  was  universal 
democracy  and  that  to  the  accomplishment  of  this  task  he 
was  devoting  his  all.  His  local  surroundings  strengthened  and 
upheld  him.  Not  only  the  laborers,  who  gathered  about  the 
tailor  shop,  but  political  friends,  in  and  around  the  Court 
House,  had  begun  to  recognize  him  as  a  promising  Democratic 
leader.  Into  the  fiber  of  his  life,  indeed,  the  spirit  of  the  hills 
and  mountains  of  East  Tennessee  and  of  the  plains  and  valleys 
between,  was  passing.  Climbing  to  the  pinnacle  of  High  Hill 
or  some  adjacent  eminence,  Johnson  would  stand  alone  in  his 
favorite  posture,  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  back,  gazing 
in  silence  far  away  toward  the  sky  line  across  the  mountains 
of  adjoining  States;  or  in  the  sliadow  of  his  tailor  shop  he 
would  watch  the  swiftly  flowing  stream  as  it  ran  unhindered  to 
the  sea.  In  sky,  in  mountain  and  in  brook,  everj^where,  he  felt 
that  the  law  of  nature  was  freedom  and  equality.  But  in  hu- 
man life  tliis  law  seemed  to  him  to  be  perverted.  Men  were 
in  no  sense  equal.  The  task  was  to  restore  the  balance,  to 
give  the  laborer  and  the  mechanic  a  chance.  Nor  was  tliis  a 
mere  gesture.  It  was  not  solely  an  intellectual  performance, 
it  was  the  result  of  a  conviction  firm  as  life. 

"Gladly  I  would  lay  down  my  life,"  he  wrote,  "if  I  could  so 
engraft  democracy  into  our  general  government  that  it  would 


ilthiuit.  Mr. 


a  \e:i 


i  en  Doll.irs    lieu  ard. 

|"SA"    \U,\V    |,.,..,   ,:„.   fiur.sn-iijcr,   t.n   ihe 
f.  ^    ':■:'"■    ■■<  ■         '  ):    ;    Mt,    nv,)  :.i.;.rc;iii;<;c 

ij;.  ,  ■    ,  .  , 


1  i.  ■  ,  .a,  I- 13  very  jiesliy  fn-tkiftJ  (uc,  li^^ii  li„ir, 
.1  ;!  I  :r  cKjipIexion  Tlicy  Mcut  oil' ai'li  tun 
I  ;ii:;:-  aiijin-i.lici-s,  ii(I\e"li3f,I  l.y  Mi.-ssn  Win. 
k.  Cli:iS.  I'mvi,  r  When  lliey  ni'iil  :m';iy,  tiny 
v.fi-e  Mi'll  ulaii— biu.-  clnili  conis,  lij;lil  ci.lon  il 
!  'Vi:t-,j)iii.  co;il3,  ami  new  Ir.us,  tlif  aiAur's  iiauic 
I'.  i!r  c;-)wr>  ori!i«  luilr,.  is  'Clu-oitdre  rhak.  1 
v.iU  j.'iy  the  aliov:;  k'war.l  !o  any  iktsou  who 
ui;l  .i.lnLr  ^:ii(l  ii[)|)i-t'ii  icL-3  to  me  iii'l{alci(.>li,  or 
I  v.ill  ^ivu  tlic  auoK;  IJcw..;-.!  lor  Amireiv  Joiin- 
S'M  aiiiiu- 

All  pirsrui'J  arc  caiiliMnt-.t  a.;caliisl  li.ii-i)orlii!»  or 
crfijilfjMiii,'   BaicJ   ainii-unticcs,  on    pain    of  bfiug 

JA>ir.;j,;  SKLr.v,  r.uior. 

Ha!,  iu'li,  X.C.  June  '.'i.,  1H'»1  -C,  .ii 


I.i!M;,l)!irii;   Fcinuln  AcadcMiiv. 

D\   ii.  ■■■.■..m>\  Sr.isiMM   will   .•,„>,, ,.■,-  „.,     »!,,., 


1.  AlldlCW     .Inliiisdii.     l;illi:l\\;l\     .\|i|ircllt  ice. 

2.  Dress  ('(ia(    Made   Ijv    AikIicw    .Idliii-ini. 

."!.    Shears  and  (ioosc,  imw    in    Tailui'  Sli(i|i  ;i(   ( ;  iciiiev  ilU 


A.  JOHNSON,  TAILOR  25 

be  permanent."  Fortunately  Thomas  Jefferson  had  laid  down 
the  principles  of  democracy  which  Andrew  Jackson  in  the 
White  House  and  Andrew  Johnson  in  his  tailor  shop  were 
equally  vitalizing.^ 

9  In  preparing  this  chapter  I  have  consulted  the  Johnson  MS.  at  Washington 
and  at  Greeneville.  Johnson  died  in  July  1875,  the  Johnson  monument  was 
dedicated  in  1878,  and  in  the  present  century  Tennessee  purchased  the  tailor 
shop  and  the  National  Government  took  over  his  place  of  burial.  Both  of 
these  are  now  open  to  the  public.  On  these  occasions  the  facts  of  Johnson's 
early  life  were  given  to  the  public  by  the  press. 


CHAPTER  III 
SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON 

In  the  twenties,  when  Johnson  moved  to  Greene ville,  there 
was  living  in  the  neighboring  city  of  Knoxville  a  man  of  such  a 
stern  sense  of  duty,  so  unaffected  and  ruggedly  honest,  he  was 
known  as  "The  Cato  of  America."  And  he  too,  like  Jackson 
and  Johnson,  was  a  native  of  North  Carolina.  Hugh  Lawson 
White  was  a  very  strong  character.  In  fact,  he  was  Andrew 
Jackson's  right-hand  man  for  a  while,  and  Andrew  Johnson's 
ideal.  Aristocratic,  tall,  spare  and  dignified,  with  long,  flow- 
ing curly  locks  and  a  benign  countenance.  Judge  White  was 
yet  simplicity  itself,  and  the  most  approachable  of  men.  Later 
he  was  a  candidate  for  President  against  Martin  Van  Buren. 

Sometimes  a  law  student  would  call  at  Judge  White's  home 
to  be  examined  for  license  to  practice  law,  and  the  judge  would 
be  away,  perhaps  in  the  cornfield  plowing.  Up  and  down  the 
rows  he  would  go,  swinging  to  the  wobbly  plow  handles  and 
guiding  "Old  Dobbin"  at  the  same  time.  Presently,  at  the 
end  of  a  row  he  would  look  up,  wipe  the  sweat  from  his  eyes, 
and  discover  the  applicant  for  license.  "Just  follow  along  be- 
hind me,  my  son,"  he  would  quietly  remark,  slapping  his  horse 
with  the  reins.  On  they  would  go,  judge  and  student,  dis- 
cussing Coke  and  Blackstone  and  the  Rule  in  Shelley's  Case, 
and  plowing  the  corn  as  they  went.  After  an  hour  or  so,  the 
judge  would  knock  off  work,  go  back  to  his  office,  and  announce 
the  result  of  the  examination.  Of  course  such  a  tlioroughgoing 
individual  w^as  a  man  after  Andrew  Johnson's  own  heart ;  and 
when  the  judge  and  Jackson  "broke,"  Johnson  wavered  in 
his  support,  leaning,  however,  to  the  Cato  of  the  plow  handles, 
in  fact,  supporting  him  for  President  in  1836.  But  this  period 
of  disloyalty  was  sliort,  and  soon  after  entering  politics  An- 
drew Johnson  became  a  Democrat  of  the  Jackson  kind,  not  a 
Democrat  in  the  party  sense  but  a  universal  Democrat,  looking 

to  democracy  to  cure  all  tlie  evils  of  life. 

20 


SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON  27 

The  Johnson  manuscripts  in  the  Congressional  Library, 
good,  bad  and  indifferent,  number  more  than  twenty  thousand. 
One  day,  when  I  was  turning  over  the  pages  of  this  uncensored 
collection,  I  was  struck  with  the  frequent  comparison  writers 
made  between  Andrew  Jackson  and  Andrew  Johnson.  Time 
and  again  I  discovered  letters  to  Johnson  with  such  expres- 
sions as  these:  "You  are  a  second  Andrew  Jackson."  .  .  . 
"You  are  a  man,  every  inch  of  you,  standing  in  the  shoes  of 
*01d  Hickory.'  "  Occasionally  I  would  come  across  a  letter 
reminding  Johnson  that  he  was  "trying  to  ape  Andrew  Jack- 
son but  cannot  make  the  grade."  Now  outside  of  Tennessee 
this  comparison  was  not  instituted  until  Johnson  had  become 
a  national  figure.  In  Tennessee,  however,  the  resemblance  to 
Jackson  was  frequently  commented  on,  almost  as  soon  as  John- 
son entered  public  life.^  Externally,  of  course,  no  two  men 
were  more  unlike,  Jackson  being  a  rollicking  fellow,  fond  of 
horse-racing  and  cock-fighting,  and  more  fond  of  sports  than 
books ;  Johnson,  caring  nothing  for  sports,  too  serious  minded, 
and  always  plugging  away  at  some  problem  of  government. 

The  trait,  however,  that  was  common  to  both  men  was 
courage,  bull-dog  tenacity,  the  will  to  do  or  die,  and  the  cor- 
responding virtue  of  being  able  to  take  punishment  without 
flinching.  Each  man  also  was  peculiar  in  another  respect: 
though  he  stood  for  the  State  and  for  States'  rights  to  the 
fullest  extent,  he  managed  to  place  the  Union  above  the  State, 
and  had  no  patience  with  dis-Union,  whether  under  the  guise 
of  Nullification  or  Secession.  Just  about  the  time  Jackson 
was  sworn  in  for  the  first  time  as  President,  Johnson  was  sworn 
in  as  an  Alderman  of  Greeneville.  Some  months  later  a  great 
"Jefferson  Day"  dinner  was  celebrated  in  Washington  City 
and  Andy  Johnson  read  the  toast  Andrew  Jackson  delivered 
on  that  famous  April  13,  1830.  The  air  was  full  of  Nullifica- 
tion, and  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolutions,  which  seemed 
to  sanction  a  voluntary  and  peaceful  separation  of  the  States, 
were  discussed  on  every  street  corner. 

At  the  "Jefferson  Day"  dinner  the  toasts  proposed  were  so 
revolutionary  and  the  Republican  speakers  so  obnoxious,  the 

1  Temple,  Notable  Men  of  Tennessee,  p.  371. 


28  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Pennsylvania  delegates  and  other  conservatives  refused  to 
attend.  Calhoun,  the  father  of  Nullification,  was  present,  of 
course,  and  the  Virginia  Resolutions  and  Madison's  Report  of 
1798  had  been  responded  to  when  the  next  toast  was  announced. 
"To  Louisiana  and  the  memory  of  him  who  acquired  it,"  the 
toast  read.  This  was  Andrew  Jackson's  toast  and  the  moment 
was  most  anxiously  awaited.  What  would  the  great  States' 
Rights  Democrat  do.^*  Thus  far  he  had  not  committed  him- 
self on  Nullification,  and  neither,  by  look  nor  gesture,  had  he 
given  the  slightest  indication  of  what  he  was  going  to  say  in 
response  to  his  toast.  On  the  back  of  the  program  having  writ- 
ten a  few  words  with  a  lead  pencil,  to  the  horror  of  the  NuUi- 
fiers,  "Old  Hickory"  rose  and  read,  "Our  Federal  Union  it 
must  be  preserved."  ^ 

In  1837  Andrew  Jackson's  second  term  expired  and  he  re- 
tired from  the  White  House  to  become  the  "Sage  of  the 
Hermitage."  In  his  old  age,  however,  he  continued  to  be  a 
dominating  factor  in  the  Democratic  Party  of  the  State  and 
Nation.  Naming  Van  Buren  as  his  successor,  he  afterwards 
turned  him  down  because  of  disloyalty  to  slavery.  A  little 
later  he  put  his  hands  on  the  head  of  James  K.  Polk  as  a  suc- 
cessor to  John  Tyler,  and  continued  the  Jacksonian  dynasty. 
In  the  Federalist  and  Whig  State  of  Tennessee,  however,  Jack- 
sonian Democracy  was  not  dominant.  In  1832  the  State  voted 
against  Jackson  for  President,  and  in  1840  it  went  against  his 
man  Van  Buren,  as  it  did  against  James  K.  Polk  in  1844).  The 
hatred  of  the  Federalists  for  Jackson,  and  of  the  Whigs  for 
Johnson,  passes  modern  belief.  We  of  to-day  have  grown  ac- 
customed to  the  kind  of  democracy  these  men  advocated.  The 
election  of  Senators  and  Judges  by  tlie  people,  the  referendum 
and  recall,  public  education  in  all  its  ramifications,  and  the 
principle  of  the  income  tax,  are  to-day  commonplaces.  But 
in  the  '30's  and  '4<0's  wlien  Jackson  and  Johnson  were  stand- 
ing for  principles  of  this  kind  they  were  screamed  at  by  every 
Federalist  paper  in  the  land.  They  were  called  Icvelers,  wlio 
taught  and  practiced  principles  unworthy  of  the  Fathers,  de- 
structive of  property  and  offensive  to  gentlemen.     President 

zMcMaster,  Ilistorii  of  the  I'nitcd  Slates,  Vol.  VI,  p.  32. 


SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON  29 

Jackson's  New  Year  receptions  were  called,  and  doubtless  were, 
coarse  and  vulgar.  It  was  said  that  they  were  "orgies  where 
the  rabble  gathered  themselves  together,  drinking  and  swear- 
ing, smashing  the  White  House  plate  and  furniture,  and  soil- 
ings rugs  and  carpets  with  tobacco  juice." 

Though  Jackson  was  not  at  all  intimate  with  Andrew  John- 
son, now  and  then  he  would  send  words  of  approval  to  his 
youthful  namesake,  especially  commending  his  backbone.  In 
a  short  time  after  entering  Tennessee  politics  Andrew  Johnson 
began  to  conjure  with  Andrew  Jackson's  name.  Thus,  when 
he  ran  for  office,  he  would  arrange  a  ballot  that  stirred  the 
fighting  blood  of  Democrats.  At  the  top  of  the  ballot  he  would 
place  the  familiar  picture  of  "Old  Hickory,"  stern  and  fierce, 
with  his  stiff,  bristly  hair  and  his  bull-dog  jaw.  Under  the 
picture  of  Jackson,  and  in  large  bold  type,  would  be  printed 
these  words:  ^'^For  Political  and  Religious  Freedom.''^  Just 
below  this  motto  would  come  the  names  of  the  Democratic 
candidates  for  oflfice.  In  all  parts  of  the  State  survivors  of 
General  Jackson's  old  army  still  lived  and  his  political  hench- 
men hung  around  almost  every  court  house.  In  Greene 
County,  for  example,  Richard  M.  Woods,  who  had  been  a 
Captain  under  General  Jackson  at  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans, 
was  Sheriff,  and  George  W.  Foute,  a  wiry,  political  leader, 
was  Clerk  of  the  Court.^  These  men  and  other  Jacksonian 
leaders  backed  young  Andy  to  the  limit,  and  they  encouraged 
the  people  to  look  to  him  as  they  had  to  "Old  Hickory."  As  he 
rose  to  power  and  influence  they  hailed  him  as  a  second  Andy 
Jackson  and  predicted:  "Some  day  he  will  be  President  of  the 
United  States."  Andy  Johnson  proudly  accepted  the  title 
of  a  second  Andy  Jackson  and  set  out  to  make  it  good. 

A  local  historian  records  that  on  a  certain  Saturday,  in  the 
spring  of  1835,  a  muster  was  held  at  Babbs'  Mill  a  few  miles 
from  Greeneville,  when  the  various  candidates  took  advantage 
of  the  gathering  and  announced  themselves.*  That  night, 
while  the  usual  Saturday  crowd  had  gathered  in  George  Jones' 
store  and  were  smoking  and  swapping  yarns,  some  one  came  in 

3  Temple,  "Notable  Men  of  Tennessee,  p.  372. 

4  Chattanooga  Times,  January  28,  1900. 


30  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

from  the  muster  and  announced  "who-all"  had  entered  the  race 
for  the  legislature:  Major  Matt  Stephenson,  the  then  "floater," 
for  one  and  Major  James  Britton  for  another.^  Thereupon 
Andy  rose  from  his  seat,  and,  slapping  his  hands  together, 
broke  out,  "Boys,  count  me  in  the  fight  too."  The  tailor  shop 
crowd  having  "prevailed"  on  their  champion  to  throw  his  hat 
in  the  ring,  all  that  was  necessary  to  launch  a  boom  was  a 
public  announcement.  In  those  happy  days,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, there  were  neither  conventions  nor  primaries. 

The  district  which  Andrew  Johnson  aspired  to  represent  in 
the  legislature  was  composed  of  two  counties,  Greeneville  and 
Washington,  and  in  the  latter  county  the  young  fellow  was 
totally  unknown."  The  first  debate  took  place  in  Washington 
County  and,  on  the  day  appointed,  the  two  majors  and  Andy 
were  on  hand,  cocked  and  primed  for  the  fight.  Major  Ste- 
phenson, the  Whig  candidate  and  a  man  of  wealth  and  large 
family  connection,  lived  in  that  county  and  was  on  his  own 
"dung-hill."  He  led  off  the  discussion  and  expounded  the 
Whig  doctrines  of  internal  improvements,  protection  to  home 
industry,  a  national  banking  system,  and  paternalism  gen- 
erally. 

Johnson  followed  the  Major  and  spoke  so  earnestly  and 
poured  out  such  a  mass  of  facts  and  figures  the  crowd  was 
amazed.  He  and  Milligan  and  John  Jones  had  been  at  work 
on  that  speech  for  weeks.  The  audacious  youngster  wanted 
to  know  what  industries  there  were  in  East  Tennessee  to  be 
protected  by  high  taxes;  he  paid  a  tribute  to  "Old  Hickory" 
for  putting  down  South  Carolina's  nullification  scheme  and 
saving  the  Union — "the  grandest  government  God  ever  made." 
He  assured  the  boys  that  he  was  neither  a  lawyer,  a  major  nor 
a  colonel,  but  a  plain  man  laboring  with  his  hands,  for  his  daily 
bread,  that  he  knew  what  they  wanted  and  would  carry  out 
their  wishes.  He  wound  up  by  declaring  the  curse  of  the  day 
was  too  much  legislation  and  a  centralized  government,  that 
the  best  governed  country  was  the  least  governed  country,  and 
that  "there  are  no  good  laws  but  such  as  repeal  other  laws." 

B  Greeneville  Intelligence,  August  6,  1875. 
0  Chattanooga  Timea,  January  28,  1900. 


SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON  31 

Promising  if  elected  to  work  for  retrenchment  and  economy 
and  for  justice  to  the  laboring  man,  he  concluded  his  maiden 
effort.  Major  Britton,  seeing  that  the  race  was  between 
Stephenson  and  the  Greeneville  tailor,  withdrew,  and  at  the 
polls  Andy  was  triumphant,  by  a  very  small  majority. 

In  the  legislature  Andy  Johnson  sounded  the  keynote  of  his 
life,  a  rigid  economy,  adherence  to  the  Constitution,  attach- 
ment to  democracy  in  its  simplest  form  and,  above  all,  justice 
to  the  man  who  toiled  and  labored.  Individualistic,  he  did  not 
intend  to  bind  himself  hand  and  foot  to  any  political  party  or 
to  bow  down  to  any  religious  creed.  Primitive,  self-confident 
and  courageous,  he  proceeded  to  say  things  and  to  do  things 
which  would  have  ruined  any  other  man.  And  all  the  time  he 
made  his  appeals  to  the  people  direct  and  over  the  heads  of  the 
politicians.  In  fact,  when  the  young  fellow  became  convinced 
of  a  course  of  conduct  he  put  no  bridle  on  his  tongue  and  he 
counted  neither  the  cost  nor  the  danger.  Nor  did  he  hesitate 
to  bed  with  the  strangest  fellows. 

In  1841  the  term  of  Senator  White  having  expired  and  Felix 
Grundy,  the  other  Whig  Senator  and  Tennessee's  greatest  ora- 
tor, having  died,  the  legislature  was  called  upon  to  elect  their 
successors.  The  Democrats  had  a  margin  in  the  Senate  of  only 
one  vote,  while  the  Whig  margin  in  the  House  was  two;  the 
Whigs  therefore  had  a  clear  majority  of  one  on  joint  ballot. 
But  the  question  was  how  to  get  the  Democratic  Senate  to  act, 
how  to  bring  about  a  session  of  the  two  houses  so  as  to  take  a 
joint  ballot.  Each  day  the  clerk  of  the  House  would  convey  to 
the  Senate  the  request  of  his  body  for  a  joint  session.  Mr. 
Reneau,  a  Whig  Senator,  would  move  that  the  Senate  "do 
comply  with  the  request  of  the  House  and  fix  the  date  accord- 
ingly." The  motion  would  be  put  and  defeated — twelve  Whigs 
voting  "Aye"  and  thirteen  Democrats  voting  "No" — the 
leader  of  the  "No's"  being  Andy  Johnson.  Finally  the  Demo- 
crats proposed  a  compromise,  to  let  the  Whigs  elect  one  Sen- 
ator and  the  Democrats  one.  But  the  Whigs  were  not  to  be 
thus  bulldozed.  During  the  entire  session  the  dead-lock  con- 
tinued— twelve  Whig  Senators  always  voting  for  and  thirteen 
Democratic  Senators  against  a  joint  session.    The  recalcitrant 


S2  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Democrats  passed  into  history  as  the  "Immortal  Thirteen." 
This  strategy  of  Andy  Johnson,  leader  of  the  "Immortal  Thir- 
teen," greatly  raised  him  in  the  estimate  of  James  K.  Polk, 
who  advocated  Johnson  for  the  United  States  Senate  and 
"Old  Hickory"  from  the  Hermitage  sent  his  blessings.'' 
Now,  if  one  understands  Tennessee  politics  in  the  roaring 
'40's  he  will  not  be  too  critical  of  the  "Immortal  Thirteen." 
The  campaign  of  184!0  had  just  ended  with  the  defeat  and 
humiliation  of  the  Democrats.  Log  cabins  and  hard  cider, 
coonskin  caps,  songs  and  dancing  and  general  hysteria  had 
done  the  work  for  the  disgusted  Democrats. 

At  the  session  of  the  legislature  in  1835  the  most  important 
measure  was  a  bill  authorizing  several  millions  of  bonds.  Out 
of  the  proceeds  it  was  proposed  to  construct  a  system  of  macad- 
amized turnpikes  throughout  the  state.  Johnson  fought  the 
bill  with  every  argument  he  could  think  of.  He  doubted  "the 
power  of  the  legislature  to  impose  a  tax  on  the  people  with- 
out their  consent  first  expressed  at  the  polls"  and  he  prophe- 
sied direful  consequences  should  the  bonds  be  issued.  The 
funds  would  be  squandered,  he  declared,  and  scandals  would 
surely  arise;  sharpers  and  swindlers  would  infest  the  depart- 
ments. Notwithstanding  the  "eloquence"  of  the  young  mem- 
ber from  Greeneville,  the  Whigs  passed  the  measure  against 
Democratic  opposition. 

Johnson  also  opposed  the  granting  of  a  charter  to  the  Hia- 
wassee  Railroad  and  assigned  as  a  reason  the  immature  fears 
of  a  rustic  law-giver.  "A  raih'oad !"  he  exclaimed.  "Why,  it 
would  frighten  horses,  put  the  owners  of  public  vehicles  out  of 
business,  break  up  inns  and  taverns  and  be  a  monopoly  gen- 
erally." In  the  beginning  of  the  session  a  bill  to  open  the 
legislature  with  daily  praj^cr  had  come  up.  Johnson,  defying 
public  opinion,  boldly  planted  himself  in  opposition.  If  mem- 
bers of  the  legislature  felt  the  need  of  religious  instruction, 
why  not  go  to  some  church  and  get  it,  he  asked.  For  himself, 
he  opposed  the  union  of  church  and  state  and  insisted  that  they 
should  be  kept  as  far  apart  as  possible. 

7  The  True  Whig  in  May  1853  and  other  Whig  papers  assailed  Johnson  for 
his  conduct  as  {Senator. 


SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON  2S 

Now  this  opposition  to  macadamized  roads  could  not  have 
been  mere  demagoguery.  Johnson's  home  people  favored  them. 
The  counties  of  Greene  and  Washington  were  mountain  coun- 
ties and  much  concerned  about  good  roads.  In  Middle  and 
West  Tennessee,  where  there  were  water-ways  over  which 
comnerce  could  pass,  roads  were  not  so  necessary.  But  in  East 
Tenr-ssee,  turnpikes  were  a  necessity.  The  people,  therefore, 
disapproved  of  the  young  Solon,  and  in  1837,  when  he  offered 
himself  for  reelection,  he  was  badly  defeated  by  Brookings 
Campbell. 

But  his  defeat  was  a  blessing  in  disguise — it  gave  him  a 
chance  to  ripen  and  mature.  Availing  himself  of  spare  mo- 
ments, he  continued  to  improve  his  mind  and  to  acquire  an 
education.  In  the  legislature  of  1835  he  had  made  a  num- 
ber of  useful  friends.  One  of  these,  a  member  from  the  county 
of  Lincoln,  was  a  laborer  like  himself.  George  W.  Jones,  who 
served  in  the  first  legislature  with  Johnson,  a  tanner  and  sad- 
dler by  trade,  possessed  a  keen  intellect.  In  large  measure 
he  guided  Johnson  into  the  Democratic  party.  On  December 
25,  1835,  Johnson  wrote  to  Jones  endorsing  Van  Buren,  the 
newly  elected  President.^ 

In  1839,  with  methods  of  thought  somewhat  improved,  John- 
son again  announced  himself  for  the  legislature.  His  oppo- 
nent was  Brookings  Campbell.  But  the  canvass  of  1839  was 
under  far  different  circumstances  from  that  of  1837.  The 
tide  was  now  setting  Johnson's  way.  Nearly  all  of  his  pre- 
dictions about  the  internal  improvement  scheme  of  1835  had 
been  fulfilled.  The  public  funds  had  been  mismanaged  or 
squandered,  the  speculator  and  the  swindler  had  been  abroad 
in  the  land.  The  people,  in  no  humor  to  follow  Campbell  with 
his  high-tax  program,  elected  Johnson  by  a  good  vote.  In  the 
legislature  Johnson  opposed  the  letting  of  convict  labor  in 
competition  with  free  labor,  setting  forth  such  views  as  to 
attract  general  attention.  The  direct,  personal  style  of  the 
rising  young  laborite  may  be  seen  from  a  paper  on  the  subject 
of  convict  labor  prepared  by  him  for  the  mechanics  of  Greene- 
ville.    The  memorial  sets  forth  the  unfairness,  in  fact  the  deg- 

8  Letter  in  archives  of  Tennessee  Historical  Society. 


84.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

radation,  of  pitting  honest  labor  against  convict  labor,  and 
winds  up  with  a  formidable  list  of  mechanics  and  artisans 
who  have  rendered  service  to  the  human  family.  "Adam,  the 
father  of  the  race,"  Andy  wrote,  "was  a  tailor  by  trade,  sewing 
fig  leaves  together  for  aprons ;  Tubal  Cain  was  an  artificer  in 
brass  and  iron ;  Joseph,  the  husband  of  Mary,  was  a  carpenter, 
and  our  Saviour  probably  followed  the  same  trade ;  the  Apostle 
Paul  was  a  tent-maker;  Socrates  was  a  sculptor;  Archimedes 
was  a  mechanic ;  King  Crispin  was  a  shoe-maker ;  and  so  were 
Roger  Sherman,  who  helped  to  form  the  Constitution,  and 
Daniel  Shelf y,  of  Virginia ;  General  Greene  was  a  tinker,  while 
General  Morgan  was  a  blacksmith."  ° 

During  the  session  of  1839  Johnson  was  a  trifle  "gun  shy" 
in  the  matter  of  fighting  internal  improvements.  This  course 
had  defeated  him  in  1837.  He  therefore  brought  forward  a 
cautious,  well-prepared  scheme  of  internal  improvements  which 
was  adopted  and  served  a  useful  purpose.  The  money  to  be  ex- 
pended in  this  enterprise  was  to  be  carefully  guarded  and 
placed  under  the  control  of  a  wise  board  of  trustees.  In  fine, 
Johnson's  record,  in  the  second  legislature,  was  an  improve- 
ment over  his  former  record.  In  the  following  campaign,  hav- 
ing become  a  full-fledged  Democrat,  he  served  as  elector-at- 
large  on  the  Martin  Van  Buren  ticket,  canvassing  the  State 
against  the  leading  Whig  orators.  In  1841  he  was  elected 
to  the  Senate  from  a  district  composed  of  Greene  and  Hawkins 
Counties.  With  the  session  of  1841  and  1842  his  legislative 
career  came  to  an  end.  All  during  this  period  the  feeling 
between  Whigs  and  Democrats  was  bitter,  so  bitter  that  for 
two  years,  from  1843  to  1845,  as  we  have  seen,  the  State  was 
entirely  without  representation  in  the  United  States  Senate. 

For  example,  in  Nashville  during  the  campaign  of  1840  a 
leather  ball  almost  as  tall  as  a  house  was  landed  from  a  steamer 
and  rolled  through  the  city  by  a  giant  nearly  eight  feet  tall 
while  thousands  of  hilarious  Whigs  danced  and  shouted  and 
sang  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too"  and  other  campaign  dit- 
ties.   Henry  Clay,  "the  Mill  Boy  of  the  Slashes,"  addressed  the 

"Frank  Mooiv,  Life  of  Aiuhxic  Jolinson,  p.  (58. 


SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON  35 

Whig  cohorts  at  Nashville,  not  in  hundreds  or  thousands,  but 
in  acres.^" 

Not  even  the  pulpit  escaped  the  political  rancor.  On  one 
occasion  during  the  campaign  old  "Father"  Aiken,  a  Demo- 
cratic preacher,  and  the  eccentric  William  G.  Brownlow,  a 
Whig  parson,  were  conducting  a  joint  religious  meeting. 
Father  Aiken  started  off  the  meeting  with  an  opening  prayer. 

"O  Lord,"  he  prayed  with  great  unction,  "deliver  us  from 
the  evils  of  Whiggery."  "God  forbid,"  Brownlow  interjected 
from  his  knees.  Turning  on  the  "Fighting  Parson,"  Father 
Aiken  shouted  back,  "Billy,  you  keep  still  while  I  am  pray- 

ing""  .  1318490 

At  the  session  of  the  legislature  of  184)1  Andrew  Johnson 
began  a  movement  for  a  new  state  to  be  called  Frankland,  to 
be  composed  of  East  Tennessee  counties  and  the  mountain 
counties  of  North  Carolina,  Virginia  and  Georgia.  After 
years  of  intercourse  with  representatives  in  the  legislature, 
particularly  from  Middle  and  West  Tennessee,  and  a  canvass 
of  the  State,  Johnson  had  become  convinced  that  there  were 
vital  issues  dividing  the  Tennessee  mountain  counties  from 
those  in  the  plains.  Before  the  Civil  War  East  Tennessee  in 
fact  was  more  nearly  akin  to  Kentucky  and  Ohio  on  the  north 
than  to  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  on  the  south.  These  plain 
mountain  people  owned  few  or  no  slaves  and  did  their  own 
work.  In  so  doing  they  labored  under  the  "tyranny  of  a  social 
and  industrial  system  which  held  them  fast."  The  new  state 
of  Frankland,  Johnson  thought,  would  solve  this  difficulty. 
In  this  new  state  there  would  be  less  than  ten  per  cent,  slave 
population ;  manual  labor  would  not  be  in  disfavor  but  would 
be  dignified  and  honored.  Moreover,  in  this  new  land,  which 
Johnson  dreamed  of,  worth  and  not  family  or  pedigree  would 
make  the  man.  Johnson  had  scant  support,  however,  from  his 
fellow  members  for  his  great  scheme,  though  he  managed  to 
get  the  bill  through  the  Senate. 

But  the  most  significant  measure  of  Andrew  Johnson's  leg- 

10  J.  C.  Guild,  Old  Times  in  Tennessee,  p.  160;  The  True  Whig,  August  19, 
1840.  '  i-  '  y,       &  , 

11  Jones,  Life  of  Andrew  Johnson,  p.  25. 


36  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

islative  career  was  a  bill  offered  by  him  affecting  the  white  basis 
of  representation  and  taxation.  Under  the  Tennessee  Con- 
stitution, similar  to  the  United  States  Constitution,  in  esti- 
mating the  population  and  fixing  the  basis  of  representation 
and  of  taxation  negro  slaves  were  counted  as  three-fifths. 
Thus  a  West  Tennessee  negro  county  with  15,000  slaves  and 
only  1,000  freemen  would  be  given  a  population  of  11,000; 
whereas  an  East  Tennessee  white  county  with  5,000  freemen, 
that  is,  five  times  as  many,  but  with  only  1,500  slaves,  would  be 
given  a  population  of  only  6,000. 

Johnson  attacked  this  system.  It  was  unjust  to  the  free 
white  man,  he  urged.  He  therefore  offered  an  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  to  wipe  out  the  three-fifths  clause.  As  we 
shall  see,  this  was  no  fleeting  fancy  of  Andrew  Johnson,  but 
was  a  dominating  influence  till  he  passed  off  the  stage  of  life. 
This  bill  met  the  fate  of  so  many  of  his  other  bills  and  was 
defeated.  From  that  day  forth,  however,  Johnson  was  under 
suspicion  by  slave-holding  politicians.^" 

Of  the  many  honors  that  came  Andrew  Johnson's  way  none 
was  more  significant  than  his  choice  by  the  Democrats  of  Ten- 
nessee in  1840  as  elector  for  the  State  at  large.  He  was  but 
thirty-two,  had  served  only  two  terms  in  the  legislature,  and 
the  Democratic  party  was  full  of  able  speakers — Cave  Johnson, 
Aaron  V.  Brown,  A.  O.  P.  Nicholson  and  others.  Yet  these 
trained  men  were  turned  down  and  the  Greeneville  tailor  was 
called  from  his  workbench  to  lead  the  Democratic  host. 

Forthwith  he  issued  a  challenge  to  Spencer  Jarnagan  and 
Ephraim  H.  Foster,  Whig  electors  with  wide  reputation  as  de- 
baters, to  divide  time  and  meet  him  on  the  stump.  Wily  poli- 
ticians that  they  were,  they  declined  the  proffered  challenge. 
The  Whig  State  of  Tennessee  was  unwilling  to  furnish  crowds 
for  Johnson  to  address."  The  best  he  could  do,  therefore,  was 
to  trail  along  behind  and  answer  to-day  what  the  Whig  speak- 
ers had  said  yesterday.  In  this  furious  campaign  of  1840  the 
Democrats  were  defeated,  but  Johnson's  canvass  added  to  his 
reputation.     In  fact,  it  was  obvious  that  if  the  Whig  party 

12  The  True  Whig,  June  and  July  1853  and  1855. 
"Temple,  p.  376. 


SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON  37 

was  ever  to  be  dislodged  from  power  plain  Andy  Johnson,  with 
his  personal  following,  was  the  man  to  do  it. 

And  no  one  realized  this  fact  more  than  Johnson  himself. 
A  Democrat  in  the  sense  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  in  no  party  sense,  he  detested  "whiggery,"  as  he  called  the 
Whig  party.  To  him  whiggery  meant  caste.  Whiggery  de- 
rided and  sneered  at  the  laboring  man.  It  was  the  broad-cloth 
party  and  its  members  owned  two-thirds  or  three-fourths  of  the 
slaves  in  the  South.  Now  and  then,  as  in  the  Harrison  cam- 
paign of  1840,  it  might  masquerade  as  the  poor  man's  friend, 
and  charge  that  Van  Buren  was  an  aristocrat,  but  at  heart  it 
was  exclusive  and  aristocratic.  In  this  respect  the  Whigs  of 
Tennessee  were  no  whit  better  than  the  Whigs  of  Virginia,  who 
professed  "to  know  each  other  by  the  instincts  of  a  gentle- 
man." When  old  John  Syme,  editor  of  the  National  Intelli- 
gencer, was  asked  whether  or  not  a  Democrat  could  be  a  gentle- 
man, he  was  wont  to  tap  his  snuff  box  significantly  and  reply, 
"Well,  he  is  apt  not  to  be,  but  if  he  is,  he's  in  damn  bad 
company."  ^* 

Now  in  order  to  fill  the  position  of  Democratic  standard- 
bearer  and  meet  the  Whig  orators  in  debate  young  Johnson 
knew  he  must  equip  himself.  Accordingly,  he  acquired  all  the 
political  literature  possible.  His  offices  he  filled  with  speeches, 
essays,  pamphlets,  copies  of  the  Constitution,  treatises,  and 
other  reading  matter  on  politics.  Newspapers,  by  the  score, 
he  subscribed  to  and  encouraged ;  newspaper  men  he  welcomed. 
Huge  scrapbooks  he  filled  with  everything — ^local  happenings, 
scandal,  anecdotes,  clippings  from  North  and  South.  One  of 
these  books  he  labeled,  Whiggery  in  Its  New  Dress,  printing 
the  title  in  large  and  showy  type.^^  The  Greeneville  Spy,  a 
Democratic  paper  operated  by  Sam  Milligan,  could  be  relied 
on  to  reply  to  Brownlow's  terrible  Whig.  The  young  fellow 
Johnson  was  now  much  in  the  public  eye.  The  Democratic 
press  were  beginning  to  over-praise  his  oratory  as  much  as  the 
Whigs    under-estimated    it.      To    the    Democrats    Johnson's 

14  Cole,  The  Whig  Party  in  the  South,  pp.  60-60;  Claiborne,  Sixty-five  Years 
in  Virginia,  p.  131;   Temple,  East  Tennessee  and  the  Civil  War,  p.  335. 

15  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


38  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

speeches  were  a  "mighty  Niagara"  sweeping  everything  before 
them;  the  Whigs,  however,  considered  them  but  a  "spring 
shower." 

Neither  praise  nor  blame,  however,  swerved  him  from  his 
course ;  with  energies  unrelaxed  he  went  forward  with  his  work. 
Nor  did  he  neglect  the  people,  "the  source  of  all  power." 
Wherever  public  meetings  were  held  he  was  sure  to  be  present, 
taking  a  lively  interest  in  neighborhood  affairs,  mingling  with 
the  country  people  and  interesting  himself,  particularly,  with 
the  younger  ones.  In  truth,  he  was  beginning  that  intimate 
connection  with  the  mountain  people  of  Tennessee  which  finally 
made  him  their  guide — their  political  god.  Under  his  mold- 
ing hand  they  were  becoming  "solid,  compact,  petrified,"  even 
as  in  the  days  of  Andrew  Jackson.  "He  knew  their  names, 
they  knew  his  voice."  "There  was  an  exact  fitness  between 
him  and  them."  With  a  religious  faith  they  had  believed  in 
Andrew  Jackson  and  when  "Old  Hickory"  died  they  were  dis- 
consolate, but  now  that  Andrew  Johnson  had  come  amongst 
them  "they  hoped  he  would  save  the  country."  ^® 

But  he  must  pay  the  usual  penalty  of  success,  the  dislike 
and  envy  of  the  select  few — a  situation  he  could  not  under- 
stand. Why  should  the  rich  and  powerful  dislike  him?  He 
would  do  them  no  harm;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  seeking  to 
benefit  them.  He  would  improve  labor,  raise  the  general  aver- 
age of  intelligence,  and  thereby  benefit  the  body  politic.  Dr. 
Alexander  Williams,  "Alexander  the  Great,"  in  particular  con- 
tinued to  annoy  the  young  man,  losing  no  opportunity  to 
slight  him  and  to  back  his  enemies  with  campaign  funds.  In 
1836  the  Doctor  gave  a  great  banquet  in  Greene ville.  Every 
one  was  invited  but  Andy  Johnson.  The  banquet  was  to  honor 
Johnson's  rival,  Brookings  Campbell.  After  the  feast  was 
over  Andy  chanced  to  meet  on  the  streets  of  Greeneville  a 
young  Whig  lawyer  named  Temple,  and  proceeded  to  indulge 
in  strong  talk.  "Some  day  I  will  show  the  stuck-up  aristocrats 
who  is  running  the  country,"  lie  said.  "A  cheap  purse-proud 
set  they  are,  not  half  as  good  as  the  man  who  earns  his  bread 
by  the  sweat  of  his  brow." 

16  Temple,  pp.  368-3G'J. 


1.  Andrew  Johnson's  Tailor  Shop  at  Greeneville,  Tenn. 

2.  As  It  Appears  Today,  Encased  in  Brick. 


SUCCESSOR  TO  ANDREW  JACKSON  39 

Undoubtedly  this  slight  of  Alexander  the  Great's — as  It  got 
rumored  around  in  the  country  districts — was  worth  thousands 
of  votes  to  the  young  fellow.  People  were  beginning  to  love 
him  for  the  enemies  he  had  made.  Those  who  took  the  pains  to 
study  his  record  understood  that  he  was  neither  a  socialist  nor 
an  agrarian.  His  offense  no  doubt  was  deeper  than  socialism, 
it  was  a  challenge  to  good  society.  When  one  has  attained 
greatness  must  he  kick  away  "the  ladder  of  lowliness  by  which 
he  has  ascended".''  Is  it  possible  to  be  a  gentleman  and  a  cross- 
legged  tailor  at  the  same  time.'^ 


CHAPTER  IV 
CONGRESSMAN 

While  in  Nashville  as  a  member  of  the  legislature,  Johnson 
kept  up  a  brisk  correspondence  with  his  Greeneville  constit- 
uents, posting  them  on  public  affairs  at  the  Capital  and  asking 
for  the  local  news.  Among  the  first  letters  he  wrote  was  one 
to  his  friend  William  Lowery,  bearing  date  October  4,  184<1. 
Though  the  hand^\Titing  is  juvenile  and  cramped,  as  if  written 
by  fingers  made  stiff  by  hard  labor,  the  letter  has  a  tone  of 
confidence  and  of  buoyancy.  "Governor  Polk's  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress was  fine,"  he  wrote.  "The  Whigs  are  down  in  the  mouth, 
and  though  they  have  a  majority  of  one,  the  Democrats  are 
going  to  block  their  game,  they  are  planning  to  postpone  the 
election  of  United  States  Senators  for  two  years."  Some 
months  previous,  Johnson  had  written  a  letter  to  Governor 
Polk.  In  a  boyish  hand,  and  with  numerous  misspelled  words 
he  wrote :  "Unless  I  am  'rong'  the  terms  of  United  States  Sen- 
ators expire  March  the  4th  next,"  and  suggested  "an  extra  ses- 
sion of  the  legislature  to  handle  the  matter."  Politics  had 
evidently  gone  to  the  J'^oung  fellow's  head.^ 

In  1842,  on  retiring  from  the  State  Senate,  Johnson  began 
to  aim  at  bigger  game ;  his  eye  was  fixed  on  a  seat  in  Congress. 
For  the  past  fifteen  j^ears,  with  his  own  hand,  he  had  worked 
at  the  tailor  trade.  All  day  long  he  had  measured  customers, 
cut  out  garments  and  shoved  the  tailor's  goose.  Sitting  on  his 
workbench,  he  could  be  found  with  wax  and  thread,  needle  and 
thimble,  in  hand.  Though  his  ears  were  erect  and  his  mind 
alert  for  knowledge,  he  was  intent  on  earning  his  daily  bread. 
Not  only  not  ashamed  that  he  was  a  tailor  but  proud  of  it.  "I 
always  gave  a  snug  fit,"  he  would  sagely  remark,  when  after- 
wards some  one  joked  him  about  his  tailor  days.  And  the  busi- 
ness had  grown  and  prospered.     It  now  required  five  or  six 

1  Johnson  MS. 

40 


COXGRESSALIX  41 

journeymen  tailors  to  turn  out  the  work.  Lewis  Self  had  been 
promoted  to  the  position  of  manager,  and  a  better  one  could 
not  have  been  found. 

In  fact,  the  loyal  support  of  Johnson's  workmen  and  the  idea 
of  a  genuine  tailor,  sitting  in  legislative  halls  and  aspiring  to 
a  seat  in  Congress,  spread  the  fame  of  the  tailor  shop  far  and 
near.  The  leaders,  of  course,  had  little  patience  with  the  un- 
conventional fellow,  everlastingly  thrusting  himself  forward 
among  his  betters.  Many  of  the  Donocrats  among  the  upper 
classes  plotted  against  him  but  were  afraid  to  oppose  him 
openly,  fearing  the  man  who  had  grown  in  popular  favor  till 
he  was  stronger  than  the  party  itseK.-  Three  years  he  had 
served  as  Alderman  of  Greeneville,  three  years  as  Mayor,  six 
years  in  the  legislature,  and  one  year  as  Elector  for  the  State 
at  large — thirteen  years  in  all — and  had  advocated  no  measure 
and  given  no  vote  except  for  economy  and  reform  and  in  fur- 
therance of  the  rights  of  the  laborer.  On  this  record  he  pro- 
posed to  enter  the  race  for  Congress. 

Arriving  at  home,  after  the  legislature  adjourned,  he  called 
together  his  friends  and  told  them  that  he  wished  to  go  to 
Congress.  At  Washington,  he  felt  the  field  would  be  larger 
and  he  could  serve  the  cause  of  the  laborer  more  successfully 
than  in  the  Tennessee  legislature.  He  thought  he  could  cut 
down  the  taxes,  especially  the  tariff  taxes  on  such  necessities 
as  clothing  and  shoes,  and  on  sugar  and  coffee.  Undoubtedly 
there  should  be  an  increase  of  the  tax  on  such  luxuries  as  silks 
and  diamonds.  In  Washington,  too,  he  would  fight  the  battle 
of  the  homeless  and  the  landless.  He  had  been  reading  of  the 
waste  lands  in  the  West  which  were  uncultivated  and  unoccu- 
pied. These  lands  should  be  cut  up  into  lots  of  160  acres  each 
and  given  to  genuine  settlers,  thereby  building  up  the  country 
and  furnishing  a  home  to  those  without  homes. 

The  word  was  therefore  passed  around  that  the  First  Dis- 
trict should  have  a  laboring  man  for  Congress,  and,  from  the 
valley  of  the  Watauga  and  the  Xolichucky  to  the  Cumberland 
Gap,  the  news  spread.  Cheered  on  by  the  action  of  their 
brethren  in  Greeneville,  the  laborers  and  mechanics  of  the  Dis- 

3  Temple,  p.  379. 


42  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

trict  passed  the  word  along.  Sheriff  Woods  and  the  Court 
House  gang,  together  with  Sam  Milligan  and  WilHam  Lowery, 
Blackstone  McDaniel  and  Lewis  Self  got  behind  the  move- 
ment. But  at  this  stage  matters  came  to  a  halt.  It  was  plain 
that  the  Democratic  leaders  were  not  going  to  allow  a  tailor  to 
represent  them  in  Congress  without  a  stiff  fight.  A  farmer, 
or  even  a  mechanic,  they  could  endure,  but  they  drew  the  line 
at  a  tailor,  nine  of  whom  "it  takes  to  make  a  man."  But  they 
little  knew  what  was  in  store.  If  the  Democratic  party  did  not 
wish  Andy  Johnson  he  would  run  anyway,  as  an  independent. 

This  brought  most  of  the  leaders  to  terms  and  in  1842  A. 
Johnson,  tailor,  was  chosen  the  Democratic  standard  bearer 
for  tlie  First  Congressional  District.  But  the  exclusive  ele- 
ment in  the  Democratic  party  still  kicked.  The  humiliation 
of  having  a  tailor  in  the  halls  of  Congress,  sitting  side  by  side 
with  the  aristocratic  Winthrop,  Dromgoole,  and  Rhett  was  a 
little  too  much.  Uniting  forces  with  the  Whigs,  the  dis- 
gruntled Democrats  brought  out  Colonel  John  Aiken,  a  Demo- 
cratic lawyer  and  popular  speaker  of  the  neighboring  town  of 
Jonesboro.  Aiken  was  expected  to  put  an  end  to  the  upstart, 
but  on  election  day  Johnson  won.  The  banner  of  the  laborer 
and  the  mechanic  waved  triumphant,  and  in  1843  the  Greene- 
ville  tailor  took  his  seat  in  the  Twentj^-eighth  Congress.  He 
served  five  terms,  until  1853. 

I  may  here  state  that  in  the  campaign  of  1844  Andy  John- 
son's opponent  was  the  erratic  W.  G.  Bro^^Tllow,  called  the 
"Fighting  Parson";  in  1846  his  opponent  was  Judge  O.  P. 
Temple,  a  scholarly  Whig;  in  1848  he  was  Col.  N.  G.  Taylor, 
likewise  a  Whig  and  a  man  of  magnanimous  nature.  In  1850 
the  Whigs,  losing  hope  of  defeating  Johnson,  went  into  the 
camp  of  the  enemy  again  and  ran  a  Democrat,  Landon  C. 
Haynes,  one  of  the  most  brilHant  and  dramatic  orators  in  East 
Tennessee.  Haynes  likewise  bit  the  dust.  As  a  last  resort  the 
Whigs  in  the  Legislature  of  1851  "gerrymandered"  Johnson's 
district.  The  irrepressible  fellow  was  in  Congress  forever, 
they  feared,  unless  they  could  smother  his  district  with  Whig 
counties.  This  they  proceeded  to  do  by  a  clever  "gerryman- 
der."    Though  this  trick  put  an  end  to  Johnson's  Congres- 


COVGRESSM-IX  43 

sional  career,  it  also  put  him  in  the  Governors  chair,  or,  as 
the  bovs  said,  "Hcked  Andj  Johnson  up-stairs." 

In  1S43,  when  Andrew  Jchnstm  arrived  in  Washington,  he 
had  never  seen  a  city  of  any  size  before  except  Baltimore,  where 
he  attended  the  National  CcmTention  of  1840.  Monphis,  the 
largest  town  in  his  State,  had  a  population  of  less  tiian  eight 
thousand,  and  GreeneviUe  was  a  viDage  of  less  than  a  thoasand, 
whereas  Washington  City  boasted  near  40,000  souls ;  and  yet 
WaE^ungtiMi  was  far  from  being  a  real  dty.  Oonds  of  fine 
dust  from  the  unpaTed  streets  tormented  the  pedestrians  in 
summer,  and  in  winter  the  mud  was  almost  impassable,  while 
the  filtiij  'Tiber"  oozed  across  Pennsylvania  Avenue  near  the 
CapitoL  On  the  other  hand,  the  public  buildings  were  hand- 
some and  nowhere  was  the  entertaining  more  elegant  or  elab- 
orate than  in  the  White  House  and  in  the  residenoes  of  the 
great  party  leaders.  AH  was  therefore  new  and  wonderful  to 
the  young  and  illiterate  Ccmgressman.  The  Library  of  Con- 
gress became  his  place  of  resort.  In  the  library  experts  would 
find  books  for  him  and  would  run  do^m  any  subject  which  he 
might  be  inTestigating.^  His  rooms  were  at  a  boarding-house 
on  Capitol  Hill  and  were  modest  and  inexpensiTe.  Here  he  and 
Abe  Lincoln  and  other  young  Congressmoi  of  small  means  had 
their  hcniei.  His  table  and  desk  were  fifled  with  books: 
.£sops'  F:  '  Plutarch's  Livcs^  the  writings  of  Jefferson, 
treatises  on  :„;  l  :iL5titution  and  on  politics ;  these  he  kept  over- 
time, often  receiving  notices  to  renew  them  frc»n  the  librarian.* 
While  other  Congressmen  were  off  on  pleasure  trips  to  Fortress 
Monroe,  Richmond  and  Baltimore,  Andy  Johns 
miproving  his  handwriting,  studying  nouns  and  :  _ :_  __; 
Congressional  debates.  Many  a  day  he  would  cross  over  to  the 
Senate,  and  sit  at  the  feet  of  Clay,  Calhoun  and  Webster;  or 
listen  to  the  bombastic  oratory  of  old  Tcxn  Benton,  who  was  the 
friend  and  champion  of  their  mutual  friend,  ''Hickory^  Jack- 
son. 

At  this  time  the  West  was  filling  up  with  people  from  the 

Free  States,  and  the  Henry  Clay  compromise  of  1850  was  not 

J  G.  W.  Jaws,  AMnn  m  1S78. 
^JokmaamVS. 


44  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

far  away.  Kansas  and  Nebraska  would  soon  be  knocking  at 
the  doors  of  Congress  for  admission  to  the  Union.  The  issue 
between  North  and  South — the  issue  of  slavery  or  freedom — 
was  taking  shape. 

By  the  side  of  Andrew  Johnson,  during  the  ten  years  he 
served  in  Congress,  were  the  great  actors  in  the  tragedy  then 
impending.  There  were  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Jefferson 
Davis,  W.  L.  Yancey,  the  truculent  Southerner,  and  Robert  C. 
Winthrop,  the  courtly  New  Englander,  Howell  Cobb  and 
Anson  Burlingame,  Alex  Stephens  and  John  Sherman,  Bob 
Toombs,  whose  scarred  face  resembled  Mirabeau's,  and  Owen 
Love  joy.  Johnson  and  Congressman  Horace  Greeley  grew  to 
be  friends,  Greeley's  simplicity,  thrift,  and  industry  appealing 
to  Johnson.  But  in  many  respects  the  most  interesting  char- 
acter in  the  House,  as  Johnson  thought,  was  John  Quincy 
Adams,  ex-President  and  now  a  Congressman  from  Massachu- 
setts. Though  an  aristocrat,  Adams,  like  Andy  Johnson,  stood 
for  the  plain  man,  the  laborer  and  the  under-dog.  During  the 
late  '40's  Mr.  Adams  was  quite  ill  and  did  not  make  his  ap- 
pearance until  the  end  of  the  session.  At  length,  when  the  old 
hero  appeared  on  the  floor.  Whig  and  Democrat  rose,  as  one 
man,  to  do  him  homage.  Andrew  Johnson,  having  fallen  heir 
to  one  of  the  best  seats,  in  appropriate  words  and  according 
to  arrangement,  presented  his  seat  to  John  Quincy  Adams. ° 

It  is  significant  that  the  first  speech  AndreAV  Johnson  made 
favored  martial  law  and  the  repajanent  to  General  Andrew 
Jackson  of  the  fine  of  $1,000  imposed  by  United  States  Judge 
Hall.  In  March  1815  General  Jackson  had  proclaimed  mar- 
tial law  in  New  Orleans ;  and  in  the  Avar  zone  a  citizen  was  ar- 
rested by  military  order.  The  prisoner  obtained  a  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  from  Judge  Hall  and  the  Judge  proceeded  to 
take  jurisdiction.  "Old  Hickory"  quietly  seized  Judge  Hall, 
broke  into  the  clerk's  office,  captured  the  writ,  tore  it  to 
pieces,  and  put  the  Judge  in  jail,  finally  sending  him  off  eight 
or  ten  miles,  under  a  squad  of  troopers,  and  turning  him  loose 
in  the  public  road.  In  a  few  days  the  war  ended  and  Judge 
Hall  opened  his  Court  again.     He  then  put  the  General  in 

c  J.  G.  Blaine,  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,  Vol.  II,  p.  68. 


CONGRESS^LIN  45 

contempt,  and  fined  him  $1,000.^  It  gave  Andy  Johnson  great 
satisfaction,  of  course,  to  speak  in  favor  of  a  return  of  this 
sum  and  interest  to  the  old  Tennessee  hero ;  especially,  since  it 
accorded  with  his  views  that  when  war  is  waging  the  courts 
cannot  function  nor  can  the  hfe  of  the  nation  be  preserved  ex- 
cept by  the  strong  hand  of  the  military.  The  resolution 
passed  Congress,  the  fine  with  interest  was  paid  to  General 
Jackson,  and  the  Democrats  were  happy. 

When  the  subject  of  excluding  petitions  wliich  demanded 
the  aboHtion  of  slavery  came  up,  Johnson  took  sides  with  the 
South.  A5  the  Constitution  guaranteed  slavery  and  recog- 
nized slaves  as  property,  such  petitions  were  calculated  and  in- 
tended, he  alleged,  to  destroy  property  rights  and  defeat  the 
Constitution.  The  right  of  a  state  to  two  Senators  was  not 
more  firmly  fixed  by  the  Constitution  than  the  guarantee  of 
slavery  itself.  Confident  of  his  ground,  Johnson  turned  on 
Jolm  Quincy  Adams  and  asked  him  the  question,  what  did  he 
imply  by  a  recent  speech  before  a  Free  Soil  assemblage  in 
^Massachusetts.''  On  that  occasion  he  had  declared  that  "if 
slavery  must  go  by  blood  and  war,  let  it  come."  What  did  he 
mean  when  he  used  these  words 't  Was  he  not  then  violating  the 
Constitution  of  his  country?  The  Sage  of  Braintree  was  con- 
tent not  to  refute  the  charge  and  recorded  in  his  Diary  that 
the  young  man  Johnson  was  "possessed  of  great  native  abil- 
ity." " 

Though  Johnson  voted  that  such  petitions  be  not  received 
by  Congress  he  was  unwilling  to  cut  off  free  speech.  In  Janu- 
ary 1844  Giddings,  in  violation  of  Rule  21  of  the  House, 
presented  a  petition  advocating  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
District.  On  the  following  day  the  press  carried  a  story  that 
Giddings  had  deceived  the  House,  that  he  did  not  disclose  that 
the  petition  related  to  slavery.  The  succeeding  day  Giddings 
rose  to  a  question  of  personal  privilege  and  was  going  on  to 
state  that  he  had  been  misrepresented.  In  a  moment  the  House 
was  thro^Ti  into  the  usual  confusion,  southern  members  ob- 
jecting and  insisting  that  the  affair  could  in  no  sense  fall 

^  First  Session  Ticenty -eighth  Congress,  p.  94. 
7  J.  Q.  Adams,  Memoirs,  Vol.  XII,  p.  240. 


46  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

under  the  head  of  personal  privilege.  Gilmer,  a  leading  Amer- 
ican, doubting  Giddings's  word,  called  on  the  House,  "man 
by  man,"  to  say  if  any  one  had  heard  Giddings  announce  that 
the  petition  related  to  slavery.  Dean,  a  northern  Congress- 
man, aflSrmed  that  he  had.  The  Speaker  ruled  that  Giddings 
could  be  heard  only  upon  a  suspension  of  the  rules.  Giddings 
rose  to  explain.  He  declared  the  disorder  was  so  great  when 
he  undertook  to  speak  no  one  could  hear  his  ears.  The  motion 
to  suspend  the  rules  failed  for  lack  of  a  two-third  vote,  George 
W.  Jones,  A.  V.  Brown  and  Cave  Johnson  voting  "no."  An- 
drew Johnson  alone  voted  to  give  Giddings  a  chance.  For 
this  vote  he  called  down  the  wrath  of  Tennessee  politicians  for 
a  dozen  years.^ 

In  this  debate  the  Polk  administration  and  the  South  were 
jeered  at  by  Joshua  Giddings,  the  eloquent  and  fiery  Aboli- 
tionist. "You  will  fight  Mexico,  a  poor  unarmed  people,"  said 
Giddings  to  the  Democrats,  "and  you  will  fix  the  Texas 
boundary-line  where  you  will,  but  England?  England,  you 
will  not  fight,  you  will  not  risk  a  war  which  will  set  free  your 
slaves."  Polk  and  his  cabinet  will  "not  insist  on  the  line  of 
54!-4*0  as  a  boundary  for  Oregon ;  they  will  back  out.  In  the 
interest  of  slavery  you  admit  the  slave  State  of  Texas,  Oregon 
you  will  not  admit."  ^  Andrew  Johnson  took  an  active  part 
in  the  debate  and,  because  of  his  split  with  the  South,  attracted 
national  attention.^'*  In  the  platform  of  the  Democratic  party, 
adopted  at  Baltimore  in  1840,  the  new  states  of  Texas  and 
Oregon  were  coupled  together,  Johnson  maintained.  It  was 
there  agreed  that  Texas  should  be  first  admitted  and  then 
Oregon.^^  The  bill  admitting  Texas  had  been  passed  by  a 
combination  of  southern  and  northern  votes.  The  admission 
of  Oregon,  however,  was  blocked — Southerners  had  "jumped 
the  coop"  and  refused  to  carry  out  tlie  Democratic  platform. 

8  The  Nashville  Banner,  The  True  Whig,  and  othor  \\hig  papers,  during  the 
campaigns  of  1853,  1855,  1857  and  1859,  took  this  vote  of  Johnson  as  a  stand- 
ing text,  proving  that  he  was  an  Abolitionist  and  a  northern  sympathizer. 

8  Had  the  South  understood  when  aeqiiiring  Louisiana  that  out  of  this 
"Purchase,"  called  "the  Croat  American  Desert,"  nine  or  more  Free  States 
would  come,  the  trade  with  Napoleon  would  have  no  doubt  failed.  Blaine, 
Vol.  T,  p.  54. 

10  First  Session  Twcnty-nimth  Congress,  p.  286. 

11  Howe,  Political  Jlistory  of  Secession,  p.  1181. 


CONGRESSMAN  47 

But  Johnson  was  going  to  vote  to  admit  Oregon,  as  he  had 
Texas.  And  so  he  did.  Almost  alone  among  Southerners  he 
stuck  to  the  Baltimore  platform  and  voted  with  the  North  to 
admit  the  free  State  of  Oregon.  Justifying  his  course,  John- 
son said:  "When  the  admission  of  Texas  came  up,  one  year 
ago,  this  hall  was  filled  with  spectators.  The  chandelier  shed 
forth  its  light  on  a  scene  of  brilliancy  and  magnificence.  I 
almost  seemed  to  see  the  American  eagle,  over  the  President's 
chair ;  intense  anxiety  and  breathless  silence  prevailed  while  the 
announcement  of  the  final  result  was  waited  for.  Texas  was 
knocking  at  the  door.  Texas  dyed  in  blood,  bearing  aloft  the 
lone  star  which  had  waved  in  triumph  at  the  battle  of  San 
Jacinto.  There  she  stood,  her  presence  recalling  the  massacre 
of  the  Alamo  and  the  victory  of  San  Jacinto.  The  Union  of 
Texas  and  the  United  States  was  about  to  be  consummated, 
but  at  this  interesting  period  there  was  an  objector.  I  will 
describe  the  elements  of  his  composition  and  you  can  infer  who 
he  was;  his  head  was  the  United  States  bank;  his  arms,  the 
latitudinous  construction  of  the  Constitution;  his  heart  and 
stomach,  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the 
public  lands ;  his  back-bone  and  spine,  a  tariff  for  protection ; 
his  huge  and  ponderous  legs,  an  assumption  of  $200,000,000 
of  debts  of  the  States ;  his  long,  dirty,  greasy  tail,  the  retro- 
spective feature  of  the  bankrupt  law. 

"But  despite  this  objector  the  union  was  consummated. 
Uncle  Sam  with  the  Stars  and  Stripes  in  his  right  hand  was 
seen  approaching  in  the  distance,  and,  as  he  drew  near  the 
hymeneal  altar,  Texas,  the  interesting  young  virgin  of  the 
South,  was  seen  leaning  on  his  arm,  the  ring  of  'Annexation' 
on  her  finger;  and  the  vows  are  said.  Uncle  Sam  and  Texas 
sit  down  to  the  marriage  feast.  The  monster  objector  is  con- 
signed to  the  grave  and  becomes  the  food  for  grave-worms,  and 
Uncle  Sam  and  Texas  are  conducted  to  the  bridal  chamber  and 
there,  in  the  arms  of  affection,  multiply  and  become  exceed- 
ingly fruitful."  "But  now,"  Johnson  asks,  "shall  his  back 
be  turned  on  her  twin  sister?  .  .  .  Not  that  I  would  intimate 
that  Uncle  Sam,  like  King  Solomon,  is  a  polygamist,  but  he 
has  lost  none  of  his  devotion  to  her  twin  sister  and  is  still  in 


48  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

favor  of  adopting  the  daughter  of  the  North  and  admitting 
her  into  the  Union  of  these  States."  ^-  Despite  such  plati- 
tudinous and  perfervid  appeals  Uncle  Sam  turned  his  back  on 
the  fair  damsel  and  Texas'  twin  sister  was  compelled  to  wait 
for  another  proposal. 

Johnson's  advocacy  of  the  Oregon  bill,  the  zeal  with  which 
he  had  been  supporting  homestead  measures,  his  argument  dis- 
paraging the  general  intelligence  of  the  South  as  compared 
with  the  North,  his  willingness  to  associate  w^ith  Free  Soilers, 
such  as  Julian  and  Horace  Greeley,  made  him  the  target  of 
southern  leaders.  Alert  and  sensitive,  they  felt  that  he  was 
an  apostate.  At  an  earlier  date  Clingman  of  North  Carolina 
had  undertaken  the  same  role  that  Johnson  was  playing,  that 
of  independent.  Clingman  had  voted  with  the  Free  Soilers 
to  admit  petitions  advocating  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Not 
only  he  so  voted  but  he  backed  up  his  opinion  with  cogent  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press  and 
freedom  of  petition.  Hammett,  the  bold  Congressman  from 
Mississippi,  replying,  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  all 
the  South  there  was  only  one  discordant  note  on  this  vital  ques- 
tion of  leaving  slavery  untouched  and  undebated.  Now,  Cling- 
man was  part  Indian  and  noted  as  a  fighter,  and  fighting  was 
the  order  of  the  day  in  Dixie.  Therefore  when  William 
Lownes  Yancej^,  suave,  confident,  and  terrible,  rose  to  join  in 
the  attack  on  Clingman,  and  with  that  reserved  manner  and 
biting  sarcasm  which  so  characterized  him,  turned  and  said 
that  he  had  "nothing  to  say  with  one  possessed  of  the  head  and 
heart  of  the  gentleman  from  North  Carolina,"  every  one  knew 
what  would  follow.  In  a  short  time,  across  the  Maryland  line, 
Clingman  and  Yancey  fought  a  duel.  But  Senator  Clingman 
could  not  stand  alone;  he  was  duly  disciplined  and  whipped 
into  line.  Ceasing  to  be  an  "independent,"  he  joined  Senator 
Foote  in  the  business  of  "arousing  the  South." 

Andy  Johnson  must  also  be  disciplined.  The  man  was  no 
Southerner ;  at  best  he  was  but  a  fool  and  did  not  understand 
what  he  was  about  or  else  he  was  a  traitor.  Jefferson  Davis 
would  destroy  him  by  contemptuous  allusions ;  Bayly  of  Vir- 

12  Second  Session  Twenty-eighth  Congress,  p.  288. 


CONGRESSMAN  49 

ginia,  by  fixing  him  with  the  epithet  of  "ally,"  the  "ally"  of 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  of  the  abolitionists.  It  was  January 
31,  1846  and  the  Oregon  question  was  up  for  debate.  Bayl}'- 
had  intimated  that  Adams  was  the  leader  in  the  Oregon  mat- 
ters and  that  Johnson  was  his  ally.  But,  according  to  John- 
son, Bayly  "had  forgotten  that  a  prominent  Southerner,  Ham- 
mett,  was  the  real  leader  for  giving  notice  to  England  to  vacate 
Oregon."  Baj'ly  indeed  had  no  reason  for  opposing  the  bill 
except  that  John  Quincy  Adams  was  for  it,  as  Johnson  inti- 
mated. Bayly  interrupted  and  brusquel}^  asserted  that  the 
gentleman  misrepresented  him.  "Unintentionally,  I  presume." 
"Will  the  gentleman  specify  in  what  particular  I  misrepre- 
sented him.''"  said  Johnson.  Bayly  refused  to  answer,  sitting 
with  scowls  on  his  face.  "The  gentleman's  scowls  and  threats 
have  no  terrors  for  me,"  exclaimed  Johnson.  "He  maj"  go  and 
show  his  slaves  how  choleric  he  is,  and  make  his  bondsmen 
tremble." 

Johnson's  replj'  to  Clingman's  attack  on  Polk  and  the 
Democrac}^  also  gave  offense  to  the  South.  In  18-i5  Clingman 
in  sheer  despair  because  his  great  chief,  Henr}'  Clay,  had  been 
defeated  by  Polk  for  President,  attacked  the  "New  York  Em- 
pire Club."  ^^  It  was  that  club  "that  had  carried  New  York 
for  Polk,"  he  declared.  "A  lot  of  gamblers,  pickpockets, 
thimble-riggers,  droppers,  barn-burners,  quibblers  and  re- 
peaters." Such  in  fact,  said  Clingman,  was  the  Democratic 
part}"  generally,  whereas  the  Whigs  possessed  "the  intelli- 
gence and  the  virtue  of  the  country."  Replying,  Andrew 
Johnson  employed  his  old  method ;  he  relied  on  the  facts  and  the 
figures.  Selecting  Clingman's  State,  North  Carolina,  a  Whig 
state,  and  contrasting  it  with  the  Democratic  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania, he  asked,  "How  stands  this  matter  of  intelligence.^ 
Why,  in  Pennsylvania  only  one  person  out  of  122  is  illiterate 
and  unable  to  read  and  write,  whereas  in  North  Carolina  one 
person  out  of  every  four  is  illiterate."  Now  this  was  treason 
to  the  South,  and  Andrew  Johnson,  with  disagreeable  census 
tables,  disregard  of  southern  sentiment  and  tradition,  and 
with  his  independence  and  boorishness  was  simply  a  nuisance, 

13  Ibid.,  p.  170. 


50  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

an  out  and  out  Abolitionist,  or  in  the  language  of  the  '50's, 
a  "Helperite." 

In  one  of  the  running  debates  there  was  opposition  on  the 
part  of  some  members,  Johnson  included,  to  increased  appro- 
priations to  the  West  Point  Academy,  at  which  Jefferson  Davis 
had  graduated ;  and  also  to  the  employment  of  experts,  at  what 
was  considered  an  extravagant  price.  In  a  reply  to  Johnson, 
Davis  sneeringly  asked,  "Can  a  blacksmith  or  a  tailor  construct 
the  bastioned  field-works  opposite  Matamoras?  .  .  .  Can  any 
but  a  trained  man  do  this?"  This  slur  at  the  laboring  classes 
raised  Johnson's  ire.  "I  am  a  mechanic,"  angrily  he  replied, 
"and  when  a  blow  is  struck  on  that  class  I  will  resent  it."  "I 
know  we  have  an  illegitimate,  swaggering,  bastard,  scrub  aris- 
tocracy who  assume  to  know  a  great  deal,  but  who,  when  the 
jBowing  veil  of  pretension  is  torn  off  from  it,  is  seen  to  possess 
neither  talents  nor  information  on  which  one  can  rear  a  useful 
super-structure.  .  .  .  Sir,  I  vindicate  the  mechanical  profes- 
sion." Next  day  Johnson,  who  really  desired  to  be  friendly 
with  Mr.  Davis,  rose  and  said  he  intended  nothing  unkind 
to  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi,  but  thought  if  he  was  not 
personal  in  his  remarks  he  might  at  least  have  said  that  no 
one  "unless  he  had  a  military  education  could  command  an 
army."     "Why  had  the  gentleman  selected  a  tailor?" 

To  this  olive  branch,  Davis  replied,  "I  retract  nothing  that 
I  said  in  that  debate." 

In  the  Congressional  campaign  of  184)5  Parson  Brownlow 
had  made  awful  charges  against  Johnson,  He  was  an  infidel 
and  an  atheist.  He  did  not  believe  in  the  Church!  Why, 
Johnson  opposed  opening  the  Tennessee  legislature  with 
prayer.  Now,  after  Johnson  had  "wooled"  the  "Fighting  Par- 
son" at  the  polls  he  returned  to  Washington  to  renew  the 
attack.  At  the  first  opportunity  he  offered  a  resolution  "that 
Congress  should  be  opened  with  sincere  prayer  to  the  Giver  of 
all  Good  for  His  blessings,  and  that  the  same  should  be  done 
upon  the  terms  as  laid  down  in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
without  money  and  without  price,  except  as  shall  be  voluntarily 
contributed  by  the  members  of  the  House  individual!}"."  The 
previous  question  was  moved  and  the  resolution  was  tabled. 


CONGRESSMAN  51 

Johnson  likewise  continued  his  attack  on  convict  labor  in 
competition  with  free  labor,  and  offered  a  resolution  abolish- 
ing the  penitentiary  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  "as  it  brings 
criminals  and  felons  on  a  par  with  honest  labor."  This  reso- 
lution was  tabled  on  the  motion  of  a  Southerner,  Jacob  Thomp- 
son of  Mississippi. 

Despite  an  occasional  tilt  with  northern  Congressmen,  John- 
son got  along  better  with  them  than  with  Southerners.  They 
were  usually  men  of  simpler  tastes  and  did  not  set  as  much 
store  by  family  history.  In  fact,  the  Homestead  bill  which 
he  offered  in  March  1846,  and  by  hard  work  put  through  the 
House,  was  a  link  binding  him  to  the  Free  Soilers  from  Bos- 
ton to  Ohio.  As  northern  men  cast  no  slurs  at  him  or  his 
views,  but  rather  approved,  Johnson  was  pleased  by  their 
attentions.  He  was  also  proud  that  by  his  own  exertions,  and 
though  "smarting  under  the  lack  of  an  early  education,"  he 
was  the  peer  of  anj^  man  in  Congress  and  a  representative  of 
the  common  people  of  America.  "Sir,"  he  said  in  replj'^  to  an 
attack,  "I  do  not  forget  that  I  am  a  mechanic.  I  am  proud 
to  own  it.  Neither  do  I  forget  that  Adam  was  a  tailor  and 
sewed  fig  leaves,  or  that  our  Saviour  was  the  son  of  a  carpen- 
ter." ^*  Evidently  the  homely  but  far-fetched  notion  that 
Adam  and  himself  were  members  of  the  same  craft  pleased 
Andy  Johnson  immensely. 

Johnson's  defense  of  the  veto  power  was  prophetic,  adum- 
brating the  time  when  he  himself  would  be  exercising  it.  As 
he  worked  it  out  the  veto  was  "of  plebeian  origin."  In  479 
B.  C.  the  Roman  Senate  had  grown  so  oppressive,  he  said, 
the  people  met  on  Mt.  Monsacer  and  compelled  the  Senate  to 
grant  the  veto  power  to  five  Tribunes  of  the  people.  In  time 
the  Tribunes  were  abolished  and  the  veto  power  passed  to  the 
Emperor,  to  be  used,  however,  not  as  an  engine  of  oppres- 
sion but  in  behalf  of  popular  rights. ^^  The  veto  being  guar- 
anteed by  the  Constitution,  as  Johnson  declared,  he  would  take 
the  Constitution  as  it  is,  "and  as  for  my  country,  whether  right 
or  wrong,  I  am  for  my  country  always." 

1*  In  1866  a  similar  speech  in  Philadelphia  was  called  blasphemous. 
15  Moore,  Life  of  Johnson,  p.  2. 


52  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Of  the  labors  of  Congressman  Johnson  as  a  whole  it  must 
be  said  that  they  ran  true  to  form.  He  said  nothing,  and  did 
nothing  that  "the  Andy  Johnson  tailor  shop"  would  condemn. 
When  he  moved  to  limit  the  price  to  be  paid  for  Washington's 
Farewell  Address  to  one  thousand  dollars  and  made  a  speech 
warning  that  unless  the  price  was  limited  "by-bidders  and 
sweeteners"  would  run  it  up,  he  was  speaking  according  to  his 
lights,  and  in  the  words  of  the  "A.  Johnson  tailor  shop."  He 
was  also  serving  the  people,  as  he  thought,  when  he  voted 
against  large  appropriations  to  add  wings  to  the  Patent  Office. 
"Great  frauds  have  been  practiced  in  this  department,"  he 
asserted,  and  the  money  would  be  wasted.  His  opposition  to 
the  Smithsonian  Institute  and  his  resolutions  to  "change  the 
same  into  an  industrial  school,  for  training  American  me- 
chanics throughout  the  United  States  for  the  duties  of  their 
trade,"  was  in  line  with  his  life  work — ^lie  was  doing  what  he 
set  out  to  do,  he  was  substituting  the  practical  and  useful  for 
the  ornamental.^^ 

Because  of  his  unwillingness  to  cooperate  with  political 
parties  or  organizations,  Johnson  in  Congress  waged  but  a 
guerilla  warfare — a  warfare  sometimes  inside  the  Democratic 
party  and  sometimes  outside.  Always,  however,  he  stood  upon 
the  old  platform,  equal  distribution  of  governmental  favors, 
equal  treatment  of  rich  and  poor,  farmer,  laborer,  mechanic, 
manufacturer  or  what  not.  A  strict  interpretation  of  the 
Constitution  and  an  observance  of  its  letter  had  now  become 
his  guiding  principle.  Unlike  his  fellow  Southerners,  Johnson 
had  come  "to  place  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  above  the 
objects  for  which  the  Union  was  formed." 

With  these  views  he  advocated  a  downward  tariff  to  prevent 
monopolies.  To  bills  which  would  increase  the  pa}'^  of  clerks 
and  other  indoor  laborers,  he  tacked  riders  providing  that  the 
pay  of  the  man  with  the  shovel  and  the  pick  should  be  cor- 
respondingly increased.  He  also  offered  resolutions  to  reduce 
the  salary  of  Congressmen  and  to  reduce  the  clerical  force. 
These  clerks  did  no  real  work,  he  asserted,  "they  are  mere 
henchmen  and  fuglemen,  going  around  the  country  blowing 

10  Congressional  Olobc,  1847,  pp.  298  and  571. 


CONGRESSMAN  SB 

the  horn  of  their  bosses."  Nor  did  he  stop  with  his  attack 
on  clerks  but  assailed  the  Congressional  perquisite  system, 
by  which  thousands  were  wasted.  He  knew  a  Congressman, 
he  said,  who  had  "sold  books  and  stationery,  costing  the  Gov- 
ernment five  hundred  dollars,  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars." 

His  sincerity  was  seen  in  connection  with  an  incident  in- 
volving the  small  sum  of  two  hundred  and  sixteen  dollars.  For 
services  as  a  member  of  the  committee  to  investigate  a  charge 
against  Tom  Corvin  of  Ohio,  charged  with  receiving  fees  while 
serving  as  Congressman,  Johnson  was  given  a  voucher  for 
seven  hundred  and  sixty-eight  dollars.  He  accepted  only  five 
hundred  and  fifty-two  dollars  and  returned  the  balance  to  the 
government.  He  had  earned  no  mileage,  he  said,  and  had  in 
fact  served  only  twent3^-seven  days.  He  was  handing  back  to 
the  government  all  of  the  mileage  and  the  unearned  per  diem 
which  amounted  to  two  hundred  and  sixteen  dollars.^^ 

Opposing  the  creation  of  a  public  debt,  he  declared  that  the 
ideal  country  was  a  country  with  "a  poor  government  but  a 
rich  people."  "Large  cities  are  eyesores  in  the  body  politic." 
"Property  should  not  be  the  object  of  government  but  the  life, 
the  liberty  and  the  happiness  of  the  people."  "If  the  rabble 
were  lopped  off  at  one  end  and  the  aristocrat  at  the  other, 
all  would  be  well  with  the  country."  Though  he  was  "not  an 
agrarian  nor  the  advocate  of  any  *isms'  or  'seisms'  "  he  could 
understand  when  injustice  was  done  to  the  people.^® 

The  administration  of  President  Polk,  though  Polk  was  a 
Democrat  and  from  the  State  of  Tennessee,  came  in  for  criti- 
cism. "If  one  could  remove  the  lid  so  the  people  could  have  a 
look-in  and  see  the  trickery,  the  jobbery,  the  waste  and  the  ex- 
travagance, probably  there  would  be  a  chance  for  the  better," 
said  Johnson.  "Besides,"  as  he  wrote  "old  Mac,"  and  this  cir- 
cumstance no  doubt  had  set  the  Congressman  against  the 
President,  "the  most  outrageous  appointments  ever  made  have 
been  made  by  Polk" ;  "the  party  is  without  a  leader  and  defeat 
will  surely  come  at  the  next  election."  Polk's  idea  of  politics 
was  "to  hang  one  old  friend  in  order  to  make  two  new  ones." 

17  Globe,  January  14,  1853. 

18  Kenneth  Rayner,  Life  of  Johnson,  pp.  11  and  73. 


54  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

About  this  time  President  Polk  was  recording  in  his  Diary  that 
Andrew  Johnson  was  no  Democrat.  "He  had  not  appeared  at 
the  White  House  during  the  entire  session."  Polk,  in  fact, 
had  become  disgusted  with  the  position  of  President  and  was 
unwilling  to  consider  applications  for  office.  "If  I  live,"  he 
wrote,  "I  shall  tell  the  country  about  the  hungry  Congressmen 
who  infest  the  city  of  Washington."  Though  Johnson  sus- 
tained President  Polk  in  Mexican  war  matters,  he  maintained 
that  "the  expenses  of  the  war  should  be  borne  by  the  rich 
whose  property  the  government  protected,  and  not  by  the 
poor  and  the  laborer  who  received  little  at  its  hands." 

Johnson  wrote  often  and  freely  to  his  son-in-law,  Patterson. 
"Dan  the  God-like  is  considered  out  of  the  fight  for  President," 
he  wrote  Patterson  in  1852,  "and  without  hope  of  success.  .  .  . 
Scott  will  be  the  nominee  of  the  Whig  party.  .  .  .  Cass  at 
this  time  has  the  sun  and  is  stronger  than  any  other  candi- 
date; the  difficulty  will  lie  in  getting  two-thirds  in  conven- 
tion." .  .  .  "All  agree  that  if  Sam  Houston  could  receive  the 
nomination  he  would  be  elected  by  a  greater  majority  than 
any  other  person ;  he  is  the  only  man  in  our  ranks  that  can 
defeat  General  Scott,  if  he  is  a  candidate  for  the  Whig  Party." 
Of  Douglas  he  wrote  that  he  was  "the  candidate  of  the  cor- 
morants," that  he  was  "a  mere  hotbed  production,  a  precocious 
politician,  warmed  into  and  kept  in  existence  by  a  set  of  in- 
terested plunderers  that  would,  in  the  event  of  success,  dis- 
embowel the  treasury,  disgrace  the  country  and  damn  the 
party  to  all  eternity  that  brought  them  into  power."  .  .  . 
"The  crowd  which  drinks  and  liaugh-haughs  with  Douglas  are 
fitter  to  occupy  cells  in  the  penitentiary  than  places  of  state." 
"Lank  Jimmy  Jones,"  ex-governor  of  Tennessee,  etc.,  "since 
his  arrival  this  winter,  has  been  trying  to  play  a  bold  game 
for  either  the  first  or  second  place  on  the  Presidential  ticket 
but  has  signally  failed  and  fallen  flat ;  Bell,  Gentry  and  Wat- 
kins  are  dead  against  him  here,  Brownlow,  Nelson  and  others 
at  home."  Referring  to  a  certain  person  named  Good,  John- 
son wrote  that  he  had  had  "the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  parson 
who  is  not  worth  the  powder  and  lead  it  would  take  to  kill  him, 


CONGRESSMAN  55 

he  is  no  manner  account  as  I  am  thoroughly  convinced."  ^^ 
Occasionally  Andy  Johnson  would  tire  of  Congressional  life 
and  of  reading  and  studying  and  would  take  a  night  off.  Such 
a  night  must  have  been  November  3,  1848.  On  the  day  follow- 
ing he  took  his  pen  in  hand  and  wrote  eight  pages  to  Black- 
stone  McDaniel.  This  letter  is  dated  Washington  City,  D.  C, 
November  4,  1848,  and  begins,  "Well,  old  Mac."  It  then 
sets  out  some  acts  of  kindness  the  writer  had  done  for  Mc- 
Daniel and  proceeds  to  describe  a  visit  to  Baltimore  the  night 
before.  "G.  W.  McLane  and  two  or  three  others  of  our  old 
companions  in  arms,"  Johnson  writes,  "got  on  a  kind  of  bust 
— not  a  big  drunk  and  mounted  in  the  five  o'clock  train  of 
cars  were  in  Baltimore  for  supper  at  seven  o'clock.  After 
supper  we  all  went  up  to  the  'Front  Street  Theater'  and 
witnessed  ^The  Danseuses  Viennoises.*  This  splendid  per- 
formance you  will  never  be  able  to  appreciate  until  you  see 
it  for  yourself.  It  consists  of  forty-eight  little  girls  all  dressed 
in  the  richest  and  most  gaudy  manner,  performing  every  im- 
magionahle  evolution  and  arranging  themselves  in  every  circle 
and  figure  to  be  found  in  the  tactics  of  the  fashionable  world, 
and  singing  with  a  voice  so  sweet — and  dancing  with  a  foot 
so  light  that  JOB  in  the  midst  of  his  afflictions  would  have 
rejoiced  at  the  scenes  before  him. 

"The  theater  over  and  the  fine  Oyster  supper  devoured,  we 
retired  to  our  'virtuous  couches'  and  then  in  perfect  quiet 
rested  till  six  o'clock  this  morning.  Then  rose,  and  after  we 
had  taken  a  drink  felt  like  'giants  refreshed  with  new  wine.' 
At  seven  o'clock  a.m.  we  again  took  the  cars  and  were  in  Wash- 
ington by  nine  o'clock  a.m.  And  here  I  am  now  at  eleven 
o'clock  A.M.  neither  sick,  drunk  nor  groggy,  finishing  my 
paper  to  my  old  well-tried  and  faithful  friend  and  pilcher, 
'Mac'  "  ^' 

Andrew  Johnson's  appearance  on  the  floor  of  Congress  was 
far  from  uncouth  or  "ludicrous,"  as  Rhodes  affirms. ^^     His 

19  Johnson  MS.,  Vol.  I,  p.  81. 

20  The  Johnson  MSS.  from  which  this  letter  is  taken  are  a  store-house  of 
uncensored  material — Johnson  once  said  to  his  grandson,  Andrew  Johnson 
Patterson,  that  no  piece  of  writing  ought  ever  to  be  destroyed. 

21  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  V,  Chap.  III. 


56  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

attire  was  the  last  word  in  the  dress  of  the  day ;  his  enemies  in 
fact  charged  that  he  dressed  in  perfect  form  "for  the  purpose 
of  adding  to  his  strength  with  the  masses."  ^^  When  in  John- 
son's presence  one  had  a  feeHng  of  admiration,  a  feeHng  that 
he  had  been  with  a  strong  man  and  an  unusual  character. 
Even  those  who  disliked  him  remarked  on  "the  great  dignity 
with  which  he  bore  himself  and  the  remarkably  neat  appear- 
ance of  his  apparel."  ^^ 

Johnson's  speeches  in  Congress  were  not  of  high  order. 
They  were  pedantic,  personal  and  often  sophomoric,  and  they 
showed  a  lack  of  training  and  of  early  education.  Besides,  he 
was  deficient  in  vocabulary  and  there  was  sometimes  a  want 
of  the  usual  niceties  and  proprieties  of  debate.  These  defects, 
however,  were  natural  in  a  man  of  no  education,  who,  ten  years 
before  entering  Congress,  could  scarcely  write  his  name.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  good  points  outweighed  the  bad.  No  one 
was  more  diligent  in  preparation  than  Johnson ;  he  ransacked 
the  Congressional  library  and  covered  every  point  that  could 
possibly  arise.  In  addition,  he  knew  the  value  of  repetition, 
of  reiteration  and  elaboration,  and  he  kept  hammering  away 
at  his  central  thought  till  he  finally  brought  it  into  shape. 
His  honesty  and  the  sincerity  with  which  he  addressed  himself 
to  questions  under  discussion  likewise  held  his  audiences.  His 
voice  was  a  wonderful  asset.  Rich,  full  and  well  modulated, 
Johnson's  voice  could  never  be  forgotten.  In  moments  of  ex- 
citement, when  he  was  discussing  a  great  subject,  and  stood 
before  a  sympathetic  crowd,  he  rose  to  the  height  of  really 
great  oratory. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  must  be  admitted  that  when  the  tailor 
Congressman,  after  ten  j-^ears  in  Congress  returned  to  Ten- 
nessee to  give  an  account  of  his  stewardship,  he  returned  witli 
satisfaction;  he  had  pleased  his  friends  and  disappointed  his 
enemies.  Though  he  was  closely  identified  with  the  labor 
party,  he  was  not  in  accord  with  its  radical  teachings.  Firmly 
believing  in  tlie  Constitution  and  the  laws,  as  to  the  rights  of 
property,  such  leaders  as  Ebenezer  Ford  of  New  York  he 

22  Temple,  p.  461. 

23  Magazine  of  American  History ,  Vol.  XX,  p.  41. 


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CONGRESSMAN  57 

would  not  follow.  Ford's  ideas  that  "the  private  ownership 
of  the  soil  is  barbarously  unjust,  that  the  transition  of  wealth 
from  father  to  son  is  the  prime  cause  of  all  our  calamities, 
that  bankers  are  knaves"  and  such  like  doctrines,  were  the 
exact  opposite  of  Johnson's  creed.  Property  Johnson  would 
protect,  but  especially  he  would  improve  the  condition  of  labor. 
The  labor  of  the  poor  was  the  property  of  the  poor.  Hence 
he  advocated  equal  taxation,  and  adequate  lien  law  for  me- 
chanics, abolition  of  large  standing  armies,  and  of  licensed 
monopolies.  In  short,  "he  placed  himself  in  opposition  to 
that  system  of  capitalism  which  had  its  youth  in  1830  to  1850," 
and  was  fostered,  as  he  maintained,  by  the  Whigs."* 
24  Claude  Bowers,  Party  Battles,  p.  50. 


CHAPTER  V 
ON  THE  STUMP 

Mr.  Seward  once  declared  that  Andrew  Jolinson  was  the 
best  stumper  in  America/  However  this  may  be,  Johnson 
lived,  moved,  and  had  his  being  in  the  home  of  the  "spell- 
binder." As  there  were  few  newspapers  in  Tennessee  before 
the  Civil  War,  the  stump  orator  was  at  a  premium,  the  desti- 
nies of  both  political  parties  depending  on  which  side  could 
"down"  the  other  on  the  stump. 

Thus  in  1841  when  "lank  Jimmy"  Jones,  born  between  the 
plow  handles,  six  feet  two  inches  tall,  and  weighing  a  scant 
hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds,  led  the  Whigs,  "he  made  a 
monkey  of  James  K.  Polk"  ^  and  a  great  Whig  ma j  ority  was 
rolled  up.  On  the  other  hand,  in  1855  when  Andy  Johnson  in 
speeches  of  two  or  three  hours'  length  stamped  his  foot  on  the 
neck  of  Know-Nothingism,  "the  grand  old  Democratic  party" 
was  a  sure  winner.  In  fact,  when  Andy  mounted  the  stump 
and  set  forth  the  virtues  of  Democracy  "the  crowds  wept  with 
joy";  but  when  he  denounced  the  villainous  and  perfidious 
Whigs  they  "clutched  the  handles  of  their  weapons." 

During  the  campaign  for  Governor  between  Polk  and  Jones, 
the  drollery,  good  temper  and  graveyard  solemnity  of  "lank 
Jimmy"  filled  his  party  with  such  enthusiasm,  their  opponents 
"fled  in  dismay,  as  birds  when  a  falcon  is  abroad."  ^ 

"And  what  did  our  man  Polk  say  to-day?"  a  dismayed 
Polkite  asked  a  fellow  Democrat,  who  had  ventured  forth  to 
one  of  the  speakings. 

"Oh !  Polk  made  an  ass  of  himself  as  usual,"  was  the  reply ; 
"the  idea  of  talking  sense  to  a  lot  of  d — d  fools." 

"And  what  did  Jones  say  ?" 

"Jones — Jones?     Why,  I  don't  know  what  Jones  said,  nor 

1  McCutchoon,  A.  Johnson  at  Alhea,  p.  532. 

2  Temple,  Cliapter  on  "Jixs.  C.  Jones." 
8  Temple,  p.  256. 

58 


ON  THE  STUMP  69 

does  any  one  else;  but,  if  I  were  Polk,  damned  if  I  would 
allow  any  one  to  make  a  laughing  stock  of  me." 

Perhaps  this  debate  was  the  occasion  when  Jones  made 
such  a  monkey  of  Polk.  At  all  events,  in  one  of  the  joint  de- 
bates Governor  Polk  undertook  to  call  down  the  clownish 
Jones.  Having  served  fourteen  years  in  Congress  and  two 
terms  as  Speaker  of  the  National  House,  and  being  then  a 
candidate  for  Governor  for  the  third  time,  Polk  naturally  felt 
his  importance.  A  debate  in  which  he  took  part  ought  to  be  on 
a  much  higher  plane  than  Jones  had  pitched  it. 

"Why,  fellow  citizens,"  said  the  dignified  Polk,  "if  a  stran- 
ger were  in  this  crowd  to-day  he  would  not  imagine  for  an  in- 
stant this  was  a  campaign  for  the  high  office  of  Governor,  but 
would  conclude  my  opponent  was  acting  the  leading  part  in 
a  circus." 

"Agreed,"  said  Jones  in  reply.  "I'll  be  the  ring-master." 
Then,  making  an  imaginary  ring  with  his  long  bony  arms, 
he  went  on,  "Yes,  I  accept  the  position  of  ring-master,  and  I 
will  get  right  down  in  the  circus  ring,  with  my  whip  in  my 
hand,  and  I'll  trot  out  the  little  clay-bank  pony ;  but  my  oppo- 
nent must  play  his  part  too,  he  must  wear  the  spangles,  and 
put  on  the  red  cap  and  bells  and  take  the  part  of  the  little 
fellow  that  goes  round  on  the  pony.  And  when  I  raise  my 
whip — crack — and  say,  'Go ! — '  "  Lank  Jimmy  got  no  fur- 
ther. The  crowd,  roaring  "Monkey,  monkey,  monkey !"  imag- 
ined they  saw  the  dignified  Polk,  arraj^ed  in  red  cap,  spangles 
and  bells,  flying  around  the  circus  ring.  "Polk  was  so  petri- 
fied, he  gave  up  the  canvass  and  went  down  in  defeat."  * 

The  Tennessee  lawyer  was  as  famous  as  the  stump  speaker. 
Once  when  the  magnetic  orator,  Felix  Grundy,  turned  himself 
loose  in  defense  of  a  criminal,  charged  with  murder,  the  scene 
was  indescribable.  The  Judge  on  the  bench  "forgot  his  posi- 
tion, lolled  out  his  tongue,  and  clapped  his  hands  for  joy, 
while  a  refined  and  enlightened  gallery  wept  and  fainted  in  the 
excess  of  feeling."  ^  In  the  pulpit  also  the  spellbinder  was  a 
second  Wesley.     In  August,  after  crops  were  laid  by,  camp 

4  Temple,  p.  257. 

5  Old  Times  in  Tennessee,  p.  84. 


60  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

meetings  would  take  place  in  some  grove,  where  there  was 
plenty  of  water  for  baptizing  purposes.  Pulpit  orators,  such 
as  McGready,  Gwinn,  and  Blackstone,  or  John  and  James 
McGee,  would  preach  to  "perishing  souls"  and  the  camp- 
ground would  be  covered  with  the  "slain."  The  only  safety  to 
the  "seeker,"  jumping  up  and  down,  and  jerking  head,  arms 
and  legs,  was  to  tie  on  to  a  pine  sapling,  scores  of  which  had 
been  cut  off  a  convenient  length  and  arranged  for  the  pur- 
pose.*' In  the  land  of  David  Crockett,  Sam  Houston  and  An- 
drew Jackson,  nothing  was  done  by  halves. 

Amidst  such  surroundings  Andrew  Johnson  was  developing 
into  a  far-famed  spellbinder.  He  did  not  wait  until  election 
year  came  on  to  mend  his  political  fences,  but,  early  in  the 
summer  before,  began  training  the  cohorts  of  Democracy.  His 
organization,  however,  was  not  subject  to  party  rules — it  was 
personal  and  along  the  lines  of  "Old  Hickory"  Jackson.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  campaign  he  would  arrange  a  monster 
rally  and  appoint  Sheriff  Dick  Woods  master  of  ceremonies. 
Clerk  Foute,  LoAvery,  Milligan,  McDaniel,  John  Jones  and  the 
tailor  shop  contingent  would  lend  a  hand.  Advertised  far  and 
wide,  these  meetings  in  Greeneville  attracted  great  interest. 
On  the  appointed  day  the  Democracy  of  the  mountains  would 
arrive  by  the  thousands  in  covered  wagons,  in  carts  and  bug- 
gies, on  horseback  and  on  foot.  A  stand  would  be  erected  in 
the  court  yard  and  at  the  hour  named,  usually  early  in  the 
morning  to  allow  an  all  day  meeting,  Clerk  Foute,  in  his  ring- 
ing voice,  would  read  the  resolutions.  These  had  been  care- 
fully prepared  by  Johnson,  Milligan  and  John  Jones.  They 
assailed  Hamilton  and  the  Federalist  party.  They  charged 
bargain  and  corruption  between  Clay  and  Adams,  and  they 
saw  in  Andrew  Jackson  the  saviour  of  his  country,  the  man 
who  routed  the  British  at  New  Orleans  and  knocked  out  the 
National  Bank,  the  monster  about  to  destroy  the  liberties  of 
the  people.  In  conclusion,  they  denounced  Whiggery  and 
the  Whigs,  dubbing  them  "successors  to  the  hated  Federalists 
who  hung  out  blue  lights  to  the  enemy,  and  in  1812  tried  to 
put  an  end  to  the  war  by  the  Hartford  Secession  Convention." 
6  History  of  Tennessee  ( 1800 ) ,  p.  74. 


ON  THE  STUMP  61 

Upon  these  resolutions  Andrew  Johnson  would  then  deliver 
himself.  Though  he  stuck  close  to  the  issues,  he  seasoned  his 
speech  with  personal  anecdote  and  reminiscence,  and  he  de- 
ported himself  with  a  rough  dignity  and  seriousness.  The 
crowds  were  "spellbound,"  of  course,  and  the  influence  of  the 
meetings  would  spread  to  the  corners  of  the  district.  Judge 
Temple  was  present  on  one  occasion  and  took  down  John- 
son's harangue.  Commencing  in  a  low  soft  tone,  says  Temple, 
Johnson  grew  louder  as  he  warmed  up.  After  an  hour  or  so, 
his  voice  rang  out  on  the  air  in  loud,  but  not  unmusical  tones, 
and  was  heard  distinctly  a  great  distance.  It  seemed  particu- 
larly adapted  to  the  open  air.  "Without  hesitation  or  drag- 
ging and  with  no  effort  after  words,"  Temple  continues,  "John- 
son went  right  on,  the  exact  language  coming  to  his  lips  to 
express  the  idea  in  his  mind.  As  he  grew  warm  and  hurled 
the  terrible  thunder  of  his  wrath  against  the  old  Federalists, 
the  shouts  sent  up  by  the  Democracy  could  be  heard  far  and 
wide  among  the  surrounding  hills."  As  Johnson  pictured 
the  aggressions  of  the  old  Federal  party  and  entreated  the 
people  to  stand  firm  upon  the  Constitution,  the  "crowd  would 
huddle  closer  together  as  if  for  mutual  protection  and  plant 
their  feet  firmly  upon  the  ground."  When  he  warned  the 
people  that  eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty  and  that 
power  is  always  stealing  from  the  many  to  give  to  the  few, 
"they  would  furtively  glance  around  to  see  if  any  one  was 
trying  to  steal  from  them." 

In  these  fierce  philippics  Johnson  never  failed  to  use  a 
figure  drawn  from  the  road.  He  would  exhort  the  people  to 
stand  together  "hand  to  hand,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  foot  to 
foot,  and  to  make  a  long  pull,  a  strong  pull  and  a  pull  alto- 
gether." At  this  allusion  to  the  well-known  custom  among 
the  farmers  of  that  day  of  doubling  teams,  and  assisting  one 
another  out  of  mud  holes  by  all  lending  a  helping  hand  in 
pushing  and  pulling,  the  old  wagoners  would  be  set  "wild  with 
delight,"  and  the  crowd  would  become  tumultuous.  Its  hur- 
rahs were  like  the  sound  of  many  waters,  and  the  din  and 
uproar  became  almost  infernal.  The  enthusiasm  was  so  great 
the  crowds  did  not  leave  until  the  sun  had  sunk  well  beneath 


62  ANDREW  JOHXSOX 

the  mountain  tops.  Many  of  those  present  lived  twenty  or 
more  miles  away  and  for  such  a  long  journey,  over  muddy 
roads,  a  supply  of  stimulants  was  laid  in  at  the  tavern.  "When 
night  overtook  them."  Temple  concludes  liis  account,  "on  their 
homeward  way,  in  the  bewildered  condition  of  their  intellects, 
they  recalled  dim  images  of  blue  lights  and  black  cockades  and, 
in  every  dark  wood,  they  feared  to  see  these  monsters,  what- 
ever they  were,  confront  theml'' 

Andrew  Jolinson  had  little  trouble  in  campaigning  with 
Aiken,  Brownlow,  Taylor  and  Temple.  In  1831,  however, 
Landon  C.  Haynes,  his  opponent  for  Congress,  proved  a 
tougher  proposition.  Haynes  was  a  Democratic  lawyer  and 
had  been  Speaker  of  the  Tennessee  House.  Subsequently,  he 
was  a  member  of  the  Confederate  Senate.  A  great  battle  was 
expected  when  Johnson  and  the  fiery,  impassioned  Haynes 
''locked  horns."  and  the  crowds  in  attendance  were  not  disap- 
pointed. For  six  hours  during  the  hot  days  of  June  and  July 
the  antagonists  faced  each  other.  Charges  and  counter- 
charges, personal,  social  and  political,  flew  thick  and  fast ;  but 
Haynes,  with  his  rhetoric  and  imagery,  was  outclassed.  John- 
son's barrage  of  facts,  sledge-hannner  blows,  and  adherence  to 
the  main  issue  put  his  adversary  to  flight. 

Other  speakers,  like  Jones,  might  indulge  in  buffoonery  or 
side-splitting  anecdotes,  or,  like  Haynes,  in  rhetorical  flour- 
ishes, but  Andrew  Johnson  wasted  no  time  with  smaU  shot. 
He  was  dead  in  earnest  and  he  believed  with  his  soul  every  doc- 
trine he  announced.  Over  and  over  he  presented  the  strong 
points  till  the  humblest  hearer  grasped  his  meaning.  One 
fault  with  Johnson  was  his  seriousness,  his  lack  of  fun  and 
humor.  Though  a  friend  to  those  he  liked,  that  is  to  simple, 
plain,  unsophisticated  folk,  to  the  opposite  he  was  a  veritable 
thorn  in  the  flesh.  The  man  who  gave  himself  airs,  the  oppor- 
tunist, the  trifler  or  parlor-knight,  he  either  shunned  or 
crushed.  To  his  political  opponent  likewise  he  was  too  often 
formal  and  distant,  assuming  a  haughty  air  of  superiority.  At 
the  end  of  every  canvass  his  blows  had  been  so  terrible,  his 
opponents  were  mortified  and  crushed  and  never  demanded  a 
come-back.     For  example,  when  Johnson's  heavy  paw  fell  on 


ON  THE  STUMP  63 

the  neck  of  his  fellow  townsman,  0.  P.  Temple,  the  young  man 
fled  from  the  district  in  which  he  was  born.  ''I  moved  to  Knox- 
ville,"  the  Judge  naively  admits,  "to  get  out  of  politics  and  to 
avoid  another  race  which  would  result  in  defeat." 

Landon  C.  Haynes  likewise  smarted  under  the  lasliings  he 
had  received  at  Johnson's  hands.  On  one  occasion  shortly 
after  his  defeat  for  Congress,  Ha\-nes  was  returning  from 
Nashville,  Johnson  being  then  Governor,  when  he  was  asked 
how  the  Governor  was  getting  on. 

"Oh!  fairly,"  he  replied.  "He  is  boarding  with  a  butcher 
and  skinning  cattle  for  his  board !"  " 

Even  the  lovable  Gentry,  after  his  defeat  by  Johnson,  was 
sore.  Under  the  influence  of  liquor  Gentry  was  abusing  John- 
son in  severe  but  classic  phrase.  Brownlow,  who  happened  to 
be  present,  checked  Mr.  Gentry,  insisting  that  instead  of  abus- 
ing Andy  Johnson  he  should  be  praying  for  his  souPs  salva- 
tion. 

"Pray  for  the  salvation  of  Andrew  Johnson.''"  Gentry  mum- 
bled. "Why,  to  save  him  would  exhaust  the  plan  of  salvation 
and  where  would  the  rest  of  us  be.''" 

Whoever  indeed  went  up  against  Johnson  encountered  his 
oratorical  bowie-knife.  A  correspondent  of  a  New  York  daily, 
who  heard  Johnson  speak  about  this  time,  declares  that  "he  cut 
and  slashed  right  and  left,  that  he  tore  big  wounds  and  left 
something  behind  to  fester  and  be  remembered."  "His  phrase- 
ology may  be  uncouth,"  said  the  writer,  "and  there  may  be 
many  false  Anglicisms,  but  his  views  are  easily  understood  and 
he  talks  strong  thoughts  and  carefully  culled  facts,  in  quick 
succession;  .  .  .  running  his  opponents  through  and  through 
with  a  rusty  jagged  weapon ;  chopping  to  mincemeat  or  grind- 
ing to  powder  his  luckless  adversary."  ^ 

An  incident  occurred  in  the  campaign  of  1845,  when  the 
"Fighting  Parson"  opposed  Johnson  for  Congress,  which 
wounded  ]Mr.  Johnson's  pride  as  nothing  ever  did.  The 
Parson  charged  that  Andrew  Johnson  was  a  bastard.  Now 
this  campaign  of  1845  was  the  most  exasperating  of  Johnson's 

"  Temple,  p.  465. 

sXashville  Union,  May  21,  1849,  citing  Xew  York  Times. 


64  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

life.  That  year  the  two  old  enemies,  Whiggery  and  Democ- 
racy, were  at  each  other's  throats.  Argument  was  thrown  to 
the  winds,  and  abuse  and  slander  were  the  weapons  of  attack. 
If  Johnson  could  not  be  defeated  in  open  debate,  he  must  be 
crushed  by  insinuation  and  by  charges  so  foul  none  would 
vote  for  him.  Mud-slinging,  in  truth,  was  the  order  of  that 
day.  Dickinson  used  it  in  his  attack  on  Andrew  Jackson, 
charging  that  Mrs.  Jackson,  before  marriage,  slept  with  Jack- 
son between  adulterous  sheets.  Called  to  account  by  "Old 
Hickory,"  Dickinson  died  on  the  field  of  honor. 

In  the  campaign  of  1845,  therefore,  it  was  decided  that 
Johnson  must  be  destroyed.  The  "Fighting  Parson"  was 
chosen  to  lead  the  attack  and  was  backed,  as  Johnson  charged, 
by  the  slave-holding  oligarchy  of  Greeneville — Dr.  Alex  Wil- 
liams, Foster  and  others.  Such  a  campaign  as  Parson  Brown- 
low  and  the  Jonesboro  Whig  waged  had  never  before  taken 
place  in  Tennessee.  Now  Johnson  did  not  resent  the  other 
accusations,  but  the  charge  that  he  was  a  bastard  aroused  his 
indignation.  It  seems  that  Johnson's  enemies  had  started 
an  inquiry  among  the  Whigs  of  Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  con- 
cerning this  matter,  and  certain  of  the  Raleigh  Whigs,  as 
bitter  against  the  Democratic  party  as  their  brother  Whigs 
of  Greeneville,  furnished  rumors  to  give  color  to  the  charge. 
Andrew  Johnson,  they  argued,  could  not  have  been  the  son 
of  such  humble  parentage.  A  noble  ancestor  he  must  have 
had.  In  a  word,  they  apotheosized  Andy  and  made  a  myth 
of  him,  as  is  the  case  witli  all  humble  individuals,  once  they 
rise  to  fame.  Honorable  William  H.  Haywood,  cashier  of  the 
bank  of  which  Jacob  Johnson  had  been  porter,  was  Andy's 
father,  so  the  charge  was  made.  Any  one  could  see  Andy's 
likeness  to  the  distinguished  Haywood  family.  Why  there  was 
Dallas  Haywood,  afterwards  Mayor  of  Raleigh,  the  nephew 
of  William  aforesaid,  and  as  much  like  Andy  as  two  peas. 
Undoubtedly  Dallas  was  Johnson's  first  cousin.  How  else 
account  for  Andrew  Johnson's  greatness.''® 

Instead  of  treating  this  idle  gossip  with  the  contempt  it  de- 

0  Watterson,  Marse  Henry,  Vol.  I,  p.  157;  J.  S.  Wise,  Recollections  of  Thir- 
teen Presidents,  p.  107. 


ON  THE  STUMP  65 

served,  Jolinson,  following  the  custom  of  the  day,  opened  his 
batteries.  His  enemies  and  detractors  were  "ghouls  and 
hyenas,"  he  declared.  "They  would  dig  up  the  grave  of  Jacob 
Johnson,  my  father,  and  charge  my  mother  with  bastardy."  ^^ 
Parson  Brownlow's  charges  fell  fiat,  of  course,  and  Johnson 
was  elected  to  Congress  by  an  increased  majority.  But  so 
much  hurt  was  he  by  the  slanders,  Johnson  went  to  Raleigh  and 
satisfied  himself  of  their  falsity."  In  October  1845,  after  the 
campaign  was  over,  "when  the  public  mind  was  tranquil,"  and 
no  election  was  on,  he  wrote  an  open  letter  to  the  public.  The 
charge  that  he  was  an  infidel  was  refuted,  he  argued,  by  the 
charge  that  he  was  a  Catholic ;  no  man  could  be  a  good  Cath- 
olic and  an  infidel  at  the  same  time.  Though  a  member  of 
no  church,  he  asserted  that  religion  and  "the  doctrines  of  the 
Bible,  as  taught  and  practiced  by  Jesus  Christ,"  he  never 
doubted ;  in  conclusion,  he  asserted  that  "the  confidence  of  the 
people,  as  shown  by  the  increased  majority  in  the  last  election, 
has  sunk  deep  in  my  bosom,"  and  "will  only  cease  to  be  cher- 
ished with  my  last  breath." 

As  the  next  campaign  was  coming  on,  and  Johnson  thought 
of  the  humiliation  to  which  he  might  again  be  subjected,  he 
unbosomed  himself  to  his  old  friend,  Blackstone  McDaniel, 
using  rough  words.  Thoroughly  conscious  of  the  integrity  of 
his  life  and  of  his  desire  to  promote  the  interest  of  the  whole 
country.  North  and  South,  he  was  exasperated  that  credence 
should  have  been  given  in  Greeneville,  where  he  was  well-known, 
to  the  slanders  of  his  enemy.  He  began  his  letter  to  McDaniel 
with  these  words:  "My  dear  friend,  if  there  is  one  left  that  I 
dare  call  my  friend."  Then  he  depicted  a  cold,  gloomy  Sunday 
in  Washington,  "the  clouds  white  and  angry,  indicating  a 
snow  storm."  "When  I  reflect,"  he  goes  on,  "upon  my  past 
life  and  that  of  my  family,  and  know  that  it  has  been  my  con- 
stant aim  and  desire  to  steer  them  and  myself  through  society 
in  as  unoffending  a  manner  as  possible — this  though  it  seems 
I  have  most  signally  failed — when  I  sum  up  the  many  taunts, 
the  jeers,  the  gotten-up  and  intended  slights  to  me  and  mine, 

10  Open  Letter  of  Andrew  Johnson,  dated  October  15,  1845,  in  Library  of 
Congress. 

11  Savage,  Life,  note  to  Chap.  1 


66  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

all  without  cause  so  far  as  know(n)  I  wish  from  the  bottom  of 
my  heart  that  we  were  all  blotted  out  of  existence,  and  even 
the  remembrance  of  things  that  were."  He  longs  for  "one 
obliviating  draft  of  the  waters  of  Lethe,"  and  he  wishes  to  God 
that  Old  Mac  were  present  with  him  in  Washington  that  day 
so  he  could  "talk  over  everything" — unbosom  liimself  as  he  had 
done  on  some  occasions  before. 

"I  will  not  enter  into  the  details  of  the  unpleasant  state  of 
my  mind,"  he  continues,  "but  I  fear  that  the  only  person  left 
to  whom  I  can  look  and  rely  as  a  sincere  friend  is  yourself ;  I 
used  to  think  that  Milligan  was  my  friend,  but  how  the  matter 
really  stands  I  have  some  doubts,  as  Milligan  has  taken  posi- 
tions in  Greeneville  that  will  ultimately  carry  him  into  the 
hands  of  those  that  have  always  been  against  him  and  against 
us."  As  to  certain  property  on  Main  Street  in  Greeneville  re- 
cently purchased  and  redeemed  by  McKinney,  he  declares  that, 
"they  may  take  and  go  to  Hell  with  it  for  me."  "I  never  want 
to  own  another  foot  of  dirt  in  the  dam  town  while  I  live — 
If  I  should  happen  to  die  among  the  dam  spirits  that  infest 
Greeneville,  my  last  request  before  death  would  be  for  some 
friend  (if  I  had  no  friend,  which  is  highly  probable)  I  would 
bequeath  the  last  dollar  to  some  negro  to  pay  to  take  my  dirty, 
stinky  carcas  after  death,  out  on  some  mountain  peak  and 
there  leave  it  to  be  devoured  by  the  vultures  and  wolves,  or 
make  a  fire  sufficiently  large  to  consume  the  smallest  particle, 
that  it  might  pass  off  in  smoke  and  ride  upon  the  wind  in 
triumph  over  the  god-forsaken  and  Hell-deserving,  money- 
loving,  hypocritical,  back-biting,  Sunday-praying,  scoundrels 
of  the  town  of  Greeneville.  .  .  .  Tell  Patterson  he  must  write 
to  me.  .  .  .  Please  accept  assurances  of  my  sincere  friend- 
ship." A.  Johnson." 

When  the  campaign  of  1847  came  off,  the  Whigs  were  more 
decent  to  Johnson  than  they  had  been  in  the  Brownlow  cam- 
paign and  his  equanimity  was  restored.  On  October  9,  he 
wrote  a  cheerful  epistle  to  his  friends,  MilHgan  and  McDaniel, 
then  in  Mexico  serving  as  officers  in  General  Winfield  Scott's 

12  Johnson  MS.,  October  15,  1845. 


ON  THE  STUMP  67 

army.  President  Polk,  at  the  instance  of  Johnson,  had  ap- 
pointed Milligan  Quarter-Master  General  and  old  Mac  had 
gone  along  as  the  General's  clerk.  Writing  from  Greeneville 
to  these  old  cronies,  Andy  Johnson  wishes  them  "to  accept  the 
assurance  of  his  high  esteem,  etc."  "My  devout  prayer  is," 
he  rambles  on  in  a  fatherly  way,  "that  the  divine  arm  of  a 
protecting  providence  may  be  extended  over  you  and  that  the 
aegis  of  American  liberty  be  thrown  around  you  throughout  to 
preserve  you  from  harm,  from  the  dangers  of  the  destructive 
climate,  and  to  shield  you  from  the  assaults  of  a  perfidious  and 
dastardly  foe."  As  to  the  Greeneville  news,  he  tells  his  old  pals 
that  "the  health  of  the  town  is  good,"  "scandal  of  all  sorts  is 
abundant" ;  and  he  presumes  "a  fair  proportion  of  whoring  is 
carried  on,  by  way  of  variety."  "You  may  say  to  Milligan," 
he  adds,  "not  to  be  impatient  in  relation  to  leaving  his  heart 
behind  him,  for  rumor  says  that  his  betrothed  will  certainly 
wait  until  he  returns  from  the  war,"  etc.^^ 

In  the  Governor's  campaign  with  Gentry,  Johnson  was  well 
prepared  and  made  apt  replies.  Indeed  he  was  said  to  possess 
the  gift  of  repartee  and  quickness,  but  he  did  not  have  this 
gift.  His  mind  was  not  light  or  agile;  in  quickness  he  was 
no  match  for  Gentry  or  other  quick-witted  associates  in  Con- 
gress. Every  speech  he  studied  and  fortified  with  facts,  and 
his  power  lay  in  strength,  not  in  lightness  and  nimbleness. 
Prepared  to  defend  any  vote  he  had  given,  his  replies  some- 
times passed  for  the  inspiration  of  the  moment,  but  were  the 
result  of  unremitting  toil. 

In  Johnson's  first  race  for  Governor,  Gustavus  Henry 
turned  on  him  and  charged  that  he  had  given  a  vote  in  the 
legislature  which  should  entitle  him  to  an  immortality,  "Aye, 
an  infamous  immortality."  Johnson  replied  that  he  would  then 
be  "possessed  of  a  double  immortality" ;  for  when  he  was  work- 
ing as  a  tailor  in  the  little  town  of  Greeneville,  from  which  he 
hailed,  the  boys  used  to  sing  a  song  which  gave  him  an  im- 
mortality in  verse  and  now  his  opponent  had  given  him  an 
immortality  in  history.     "Perhaps  my  opponent,"  he  taunted, 

13  Johnson  MS.,  p.  45. 


68  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

"would  like  to  hear  the  little  song  that  the  boys  of  Greeneville 
used  to  sing. 

"  *If  you  want  a  brand-new  coat 
I'll  tell  you  what  to  do : 
Go  down  to  Andrew  Johnson's  shop 
And  get  a  long  tail  blue. 

"  *If  you  want  the  girls  to  love  you, 
To  love  you  good  and  true, 
Go  down  to  Andy's  tailor  shop 
And  get  a  long  tail  blue.'  " 

In  another  debate,  this  time  in  Memphis,  Major  Henry 
sought  to  entrap  Andy  and  bring  him  "in  bad"  with  the  Irish 
vote.  "Why,"  the  Major  charged,  "when  in  Congress,  my 
honorable  opponent  voted  against  a  resolution  to  appropriate 
money  for  famine-stricken  Ireland.  How  could  any  one  be  so 
inhuman,  so  heartless,  as  to  cast  such  a  vote.?" 

Johnson  admitted  the  charge ;  he  had  voted  not  to  apply  the 
money  of  the  people  for  that  worthy  cause.  "But  that  is  not 
all  of  the  story,"  he  said,  "for  when  I  voted  against  that  reso- 
lution I  turned  to  my  fellow  Congressmen  and  proposed  to  give 
fifty  dollars  of  my  own  funds  if  they  would  give  a  like  amount, 
and  when  they  declined  the  proposition,  I  ran  my  hand  in  my 
pocket.  Major  Henry,  and  pulled  out  fifty  dollars  of  good 
money,  which  I  donated  to  the  cause.  How  much  did  you 
give,  sir.?"  A  few  days  later  when  Johnson  discovered  he  was 
getting  the  better  of  Henry,  the  "Eagle  Orator,"  he  laugh- 
ingly turned  and  said,  "The  Eagle  Orator,  indeed!  Why, 
fellow  citizens,  this  is  the  fifth  appointment,  five  times  in  the 
pit  together,  but  I  see  no  blood  on  the  Eagle's  beak !"  The 
Major  replied  that  the  "proud  Eagle  never  feeds  on  carrion." 
This  banal  answer  to  Andy's  cheap  remark  delighted  the 
Whigs  no  little  and  was  embalmed  and  passed  on  to  posterity.^* 

Doubtless  this  thrust  of  the  courtly  Henry  was  provoked  by 
the  speeches  of  his  opponent,  Andy  Johnson  having  badgered 
the  Major  all  over  the  State.  As  we  have  seen,  the  legislature 
of  1851  passed  a  bill  gerrymandering  Johnson  out  of  Congress, 

1*  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


ON  THE  STUMP  69 

— that  Is,  Greene  County,  where  Johnson  lived,  was  taken  from 
an  old  Democratic  district  and  put  into  a  solidly  Whig  dis- 
trict. Now  Major  Henry  was  known  to  be  the  father  of  this 
"gerrymander,"  and  before  taking  the  stump  Johnson  read  up 
and  posted  himself  on  "gerrymanders."  The  Massachusetts 
Republicans  in  1812,  under  Governor  Elbridge  Gerry,  he  read, 
had  created  a  new  district,  wliich  was  so  misshapen  it  looked 
like  a  salamander  and  the  people  called  the  trick  a  "gerry- 
mander." This  gave  Andy  a  brand-new  idea  and  the  first  time 
he  met  the  Major  on  the  stump  he  pitched  into  him,  with 
gloves  off. 

"Fellow  citizens,"  he  said,  "the  Whigs  have  cheated  me  out 
of  Congress,  they  have  torn  the  county  of  Greene  from  its 
sister  counties,  and  attached  it  to  a  lot  of  foreign  counties. 
They  have  split  it  up  till  it  looks  like  a  salamander.  The  fact 
is  they  have  "gerrymandered"  me  out  of  Congress — no,  I  am 
mistaken,  they  have  not  "gerrymandered"  me  out,  they  have 
Henrymandered  me  out!"  After  this  shot,  the  "Eagle  Or- 
ator" was  not  able  to  fly  as  high  as  before  and  in  August  1852 
Andy  Johnson  was  elected  the  "mechanic  governor"  of  Ten- 
nessee. 

The  "Know-Nothing"  campaign  of  1854  aroused  Andrew 
Johnson  to  greater  effort  than  ever  before,  and  at  the  end  of  it 
he  was  securely  at  the  head  of  the  Democratic  hosts.  The 
doctrines  of  the  Know-Nothing  or  American  party  were  spe- 
cially obnoxious  to  Johnson.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the  Know- 
Nothings  opposed  foreigners.  Catholics  and  Masons,  and  that 
this  was  their  cardinal  doctrine.  Now  persecution  and  pre- 
scription enraged  Johnson  and  the  worst  form  of  intolerance, 
as  he  thought,  was  religious  bigotry  and  hatred  of  foreigners. 
There  were  few  Catholics  or  foreigners  in  his  district.  Never- 
theless, while  in  Congress  he  had,  time  and  again,  expressed  his 
indignation  because  of  attacks  on  them.  "Are  the  blood- 
hounds of  prescription  and  persecution  to  be  let  loose  on  the 
Irish .f^"  he  asked,  in  his  debate  with  Clingman.  "Is  the  guillo- 
tine to  be  set  up  in  a  republican  form  of  government?" 
Throughout  the  canvass  with  Gentry,  Johnson  hammered  away 
on  the  same  line,  speaking  boldly  for  religious  tolerance  and 


70  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

for  justice  to  the  foreigners.  At  Murfreesboro  he  said,  "It  is 
not  in  my  nature  when  the  poor  Irishman  leaves  his  own  coun- 
try and  seeks  America,  as  the  home  of  the  oppressed  and  the 
asylum  of  the  exile,  to  meet  him  on  the  shore  and  forbid  his 
entrance." 

The  debates  between  Gentry  and  Johnson  covered  nearly 
three  months,  the  two  men  meeting  each  other  sixty  times  and 
attracting  attention  not  only  in  Tennessee  but  throughout  the 
South.^^  The  brilliant  Gentry  was  the  idol  of  the  Whig  party. 
Twelve  years  before  he  had  served  in  Congress.  "His  voice  was 
grand  and  extraordinary,  and  manj'^  claimed  it  was  superior 
to  Henry  Clay's."  ^®  J.  Q.  Adams,  A.  H.  Stephens,  and  other 
Whig  leaders,  who  served  in  Congress  with  him,  pronounced 
Gentry  the  finest  orator  in  the  body.  In  the  presidential  cam- 
paign of  1852,  when  Fillmore  and  Webster  were  sacrificed,  at 
the  instance  of  Seward  and  other  Whigs,  to  General  Scott, 
Gentry  was  broken-hearted.  Rising  in  Congress,  he  bemoaned 
the  fact  he  was  "an  excommunicated  Whig" ;  he  was  "resolved, 
however,  to  adopt  the  advice  of  Cato  to  his  son."  He  was 
"going  to  retire,  content  to  be  obscurely  good,  for  the  post 
of  honor  when  vice  prevails  is  the  private  station."  .  .  .  "In 
a  sequestered  valley  in  the  State  of  Tennessee,"  he  sighed, 
"there  is  a  smiling  farm  with  bubbling  fountains,  covered  with 
rich  pasturage  and  fat  flocks  and  all  that  is  needful  for  the 
occupation  and  enjoyment  of  a  man  of  uncorrupted  taste. 
There  I  will  go  and  pray  for  'Rome.'  " 

Three  years  later,  as  has  been  stated,  this  rare  old  Whig 
gentleman  was  prevailed  upon  to  enter  the  race  for  Governor, 
against  the  rough-tongued  tailor-politician  from  Greeneville. 
As  soon  as  the  joint  debate  got  under  way,  Andrew  Johnson 
began  to  refer  to  the  gentleman  wlio  resided  on  tlie  Sabine 
farm  and  was  praying  for  Rome.  His  retirement  to  the  Sabine 
farm  and  his  prayer  for  Rome  had  been  very  short,  according 
to  Johnson,  and  his  searcli  for  office  had  come  hard  on  the  heels 
of  his  denunciation  of  the  Whig  party.     In  reply.  Gentry  in- 

10  Union  and  American,  April  10,  1855. 
10  Temple,  p.  235. 


ON  THE  STUMP  71 

sisted  that  Johnson  had  been  a  candidate  for  office  oftener  than 
he,  and  that,  as  for  himself,  he  did  not  enter  the  race  until  it 
was  manifest  the  people  wanted  him.  His  reason  for  leaving 
the  Sabine  farm  and  ceasing  to  pray  for  Rome  he  would  illus- 
trate with  a  true  story.  "Once  a  fearful  drought  ajfflicted 
Spain.  The  earth  was  parched  with  heat  and  for  lack  of  rain 
streams  dried  up ;  cattle  were  dying  and  people  were  perishing. 
A  pious  priest,  with  a  band  of  devout  Catholics,  traveled  over 
the  country,  praying  for  rain.  Presently  they  came  upon  a 
field,  particularly  dry  and  parched;  the  priest  looked  at  it  a 
moment,  then  raised  his  hands  and  closed  his  eyes,  but  said 
nothing.  Opening  his  eyes,  he  surveyed  the  barren  field  again 
and  again,  closed  them,  raising  his  hands,  but  saying  nothing. 
For  the  third  time  he  surveyed  the  field  and  then  said:  *My 
brethren,  prayer  is  no  good  for  soil  so  cursed  and  blighted  as 
this  has  been ;  this  field  must  have  manure.* 

"Alas!  My  fellow  countrymen,"  Gentry  concluded,  **the 
State  of  Tennessee  does  not  need  prayers;  there  is  a  curse 
resting  on  her,  parching  and  drying  up  her  prosperity,  and 
that  curse  must  first  be  removed.  I  have  come  forth  from  my 
retirement  and  my  prayers  are  joined  with  yours  to  remove 
that  curse — and  that  curse  is  Andrew  Johnson." 

But  Johnson  soon  evened  up  with  Gentry.  Adopting  the 
policy  of  Henry  A.  Wise,  candidate  for  Governor  in  Virginia, 
he  fiercely  attacked  and  destroyed  the  Know-Nothing  party 
on  account  of  its  signs,  its  grips,  its  passwords,  its  oaths  and 
secret  conclaves,  its  midnight  gatherings,  its  narrowness,  little- 
ness and  proscriptiveness.  He  charged  that  the  members  were 
sworn  to  tell  a  lie  when  entering  the  order.  "Show  me  a  Know- 
Nothing,"  he  exclaimed,  "and  I  will  show  you  a  loathsome  rep- 
tile, on  whose  neck  every  honest  man  should  set  his  feet.  .  .  . 
Why,  such  a  gang  are  little  better  than  John  A.  Murrell's  clan 
of  outlaws."  As  Johnson  spoke  these  words  the  audience  be- 
came "pale  with  rage  and  still  as  death."  Many  voices  shouted 
back,  "It's  a  lie — it's  a  lie."  Pistols  were  cocked,  "men  ceased 
to  breathe,  their  hearts  stopped  beating,  the  suspense  was  ter- 
rible."     Johnson,   unmoved,   paused   a  minute,   and,   gazing 


72  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

around  on  the  fearful  scene  he  had  evoked,  dehberately  re- 
sumed his  speech.^^ 

After  this  episode  a  committee  of  Democratic  politicians 
waited  on  Johnson.  He  must  tame  do^Mi  or  he  would  be  de- 
feated; particularly  he  must  stop  defending  Catholics  and 
foreigners ;  in  fact,  certain  Protestant  ministers  had  already 
met  to  consider  organizing  against  him.  Johnson  heard  what 
his  friends  had  to  say  and  then,  striding  up  and  down  the 
floor,  announced  his  decision.  "Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "I  will 
make  that  same  speech  to-morrow  if  it  blows  the  Democratic 
party  to  hell."  '' 

It  so  happened  that  the  next  day  the  appointment  was  in  a 
strong  Whig  community.  Before  the  speaking  began  Johnson 
received  notice  that  the  Know-Nothings  were  not  going  to  let 
him  speak,  that  they  were  going  to  pull  him  off  the  stump.  He 
armed  himself  therefore  and  prepared  for  the  worst.  Know- 
Nothingism  was  bearing  its  legitimate  fruits — first  the  Catho- 
lics were  to  be  suppressed,  then  the  foreigners,  and  now,  him- 
self for  daring  to  criticize.  Mounting  the  stump,  he  faced 
the  crowd:  "Fellow  citizens,"  he  said,  "it  is  proper  when  free- 
men assemble  for  the  discussion  of  important  public  matters 
that  everything  should  be  done  decently  and  in  order.  I  have 
been  informed  that  part  of  the  business  to  be  transacted  on  the 
present  occasion  is  the  assassination  of  the  individual  who  now 
has  the  honor  of  addressing  j^ou.  I  suppose  therefore  that  this 
is  the  first  business  in  order — if  any  man  has  come  here  to-day 
for  this  purpose  this  is  tlie  proper  time  to  proceed."  Pausing 
for  a  moment  and  with  his  right  hand  on  his  pistol,  he  quietly 
surveyed  the  crowd.  After  a  pause  of  a  few  seconds  he  re- 
sumed: "Gentlemen,  it  appears  that  I  have  been  misinformed. 
I  will  now  proceed  to  address  you  on  the  subject  that  has 
called  us  together." 

At  one  of  these  debates  Gentry  charged  that  Andrew  John- 
son was  not  a  southern  man.  In  Congress  he  affihated  with 
Northerners  and  not  with  Soutlierners ;  liis  friends  were  the 
well-knoMTi  abohtionists  Gerrit  Smith,  W.  H.  Seward,  Chase, 

17  Temple,  p.  386. 

18  Grecnevilie  Hun,  February  23,  1911. 


ON  THE  STUMP  73 

Sumner  and  I.  P.  Walker  of  Wisconsin/'^  Now  these  charges, 
except  that  Johnson  was  an  abolitionist,  were  true,  and  would 
have  destroyed  any  other  southern  man  of  the  day.  Johnson 
had  advocated  measures  which  his  southern  associates  in  Con- 
gress opposed,  and  for  which  northern  Congressmen  stood.  To 
pass  the  Homestead  bill  was  the  ambition  of  his  life,  and  yet 
this  bill  would  destroy  slavery ;  he  had  voted  to  admit  Oregon  as 
a  free  state ;  he  had  sneered  at  Bayly  of  Virginia,  "a  choleric 
slave-holder";  he  had  hurled  epithets  at  Jefferson  Davis,  the 
southern  leader,  and  he  had  advocated  abolishing  the  three- 
fifths  white  clause  in  the  Constitution.  But  all  this  was  done 
while  he  was  a  Congressman,  representing  one  mountain  dis- 
trict only.  It  was  easy  enough  to  get  away  with  such  pe- 
culiar notions  in  East  Tennessee,  where  the  population  was 
white  and  partly  abolitionist. 

In  1853,  1855  and  1857,  however,  when  a  candidate,  he  ad- 
dressed an  entire  State,  faced  a  slave-holding  oligarchy  and 
the  assaults  of  the  daily  Whig  papers,  and  was  dependent  for 
election  on  the  votes  of  West  and  Middle  Tennessee.  And  yet 
he  made  no  change  in  his  line  of  attack,  advocating  the  same 
principles  as  before.  An  idea  which  he  sprang  on  the  stump, 
that  pure  democracy  and  theocracy  were  converging  lines,  and 
would  some  day  meet  and  be  one  and  the  same,  was  pronounced 
by  the  Whig  papers  of  Memphis  and  Nashville  as  the  veriest 
sacrilege.  Daily,  for  years  and  years,  the  Whig  press  assaulted 
him.  He  was  "an  apostate  son  of  the  South";  they  charged 
he  was  a  "mobocrat,"  "a  Catiline,  full  of  treason  and  hate 
against  the  rich" ;  "Robespierre  was  as  bad,  but  he  used  chaste 
language."  Johnson  always  won  out,  they  declared,  "by  the 
votes  of  Catholics,  Irish  and  thugs" — ^he  was  "low,  despicable 
and  dirty."  ^' 

Johnson's  reply  to  these  charges  was  bolder  than  before. 
"Whose  hands  built  your  Capitol .?"  he  asked  on  one  occasion. 
"Whose  toil,  whose  labor  built  your  railroads  and  your  ships.? 
Does  not  all  life  rest  on  labor?"  ...  "I  have  no  quarrel  with 

19  Walker  was  included  among  the  abolitionists  though  he  was  a  southern 
sympathizer. 

20i?ep.  Banner,  Nashville,  October  10,  1857;  The  True  Whig,  May  and  June 
1853. 


74  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

an  aristocracy  founded  on  merit  and  on  honest  toil,  but  for 
a  rabble,  upstart,  mock  aristocracy,  I  have  supreme  con- 
tempt ;"  and  I  call  on  you  toiling  people  "to  educate  your  sons, 
and  especially  your  daughters,  who  will  become  mothers  of 
sons  to  secure  equal  and  exact  justice  to  one  and  all."  "There 
are  in  Congress,"  he  declared,  "two  hundred  and  twenty-three 
Congressmen,  and  of  this  large  number  all  are  lawyers  except 
twenty-three.  The  laboring  man  of  America  is  ignored,  he  has 
no  proportionate  representation,  though  he  constitutes  a  large 
majority  of  the  voting  population;  the  mechanic,  the  laborer 
and  the  farmer  in  Congress  is  only  ten  per  cent,  represented. 
For  my  own  part,  I  say  let  the  mechanic  and  the  laborer  make 
our  laws,  rather  than  the  idle  and  vicious  aristocrat."  "^  The 
editorials  of  Tennessee  papers,  in  the  campaigns  of  1853,  1855, 
1857  and  1859,  were  devoted  largely  to  Andrew  Johnson  and 
his  canvass,  and  the  news  columns  bristled  with  praise  or  de- 
nunciation of  him.^^ 

To  the  charge  of  the  Whig  papers,  that  an  industrial  con- 
gress of  America  had  endorsed  Johnson's  course,  classing  him 
with  Gerrit  Smith  of  New  York  and  Governor  I.  P.  Walker 
of  Wisconsin,  "as  able  and  tried  champions  of  law  reform 
and  of  the  rights  of  labor  and  advocates  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery,"  he  made  no  denial. ^^  The  jubilant  Democratic  pa- 
pers, however,  met  all  such  charges  with  a  bold  front  and  with 
praise  of  their  man  "Andy  Johnson."  He  was  "the  Mechanic 
Statesman";  he  had  "the  best  intellect  of  the  day";  he  was 
"Tennessee's  greatest  leader";  he  had  "a  heart  as  big  as  a 
fodder  stack."  -^  And  these  encomiums  they  proceeded  to  sub- 
stantiate by  illustrations.  Thus,  an  old  friend  who  had  been 
in  California  for  years  had  just  called  on  Congressman  John- 
son in  Washington  and  wished  to  borrow  money.  Things  had 
gone  wrong  with  him  in  the  far  West.  After  Johnson  heard 
his  story,  he  opened  his  pocketbook  and  said,  "Why,  Jack,  old 
fellow,  if  I  had  only  five  dollars  every  cent  would  be  yours. 

21  Speech  at  the  Agricultural  Fair  at  Nashville  in  1857. 

22  Republican  Banner,  Nashville,  Tcnnossoc,  Jums  July  and  August,    1853, 
1855,  1857  and  1850;  Nashville  Union  of  same  dates. 

23h'ep.  Banner,  July  14,  1855. 

24  Union  and  Amc7-wan,  April  20,  1853,  and  October  9,  1857. 


ON  THE  STUMP  75 

How  much  do  you  want?"  "Jack"  had  eight  thousand  dollars 
of  good  Western  gold  in  the  bank  at  that  very  moment,  and 
was  merely  testing  Andy. 

Judge  Temple  declares  that  upon  the  stump  Johnson  never 
met  his  match.  And  were  not  Seward  and  Temple  correct  in 
their  estimate  of  him?  How  could  any  one  indeed  hope  to 
"down"  such  a  man?  Sprung  from  the  people,  thinking  their 
thoughts,  living  their  lives,  voicing  their  needs,  law  abiding, 
and  opposed  to  socialism  in  every  form,  he  was  invincible. 
Now  stump  oratory  is  not  one  of  the  fine  arts,  it  will  be  ad- 
mitted, but  it  must  be  remembered  that  Andrew  Johnson  was 
not  contending  with  weaklings.  In  the  '40's  and  '50's  Ten- 
nessee was  under  the  spell  of  men  of  national  character.  And 
the  list  is  a  long  one :  James  K.  Polk,  John  Bell,  Ephraim  H. 
Foster,  Bailie  Peyton,  Spencer  Jarnagan,  Cave  Johnson, 
Aaron  V.  Bro^\Ti,  James  C.  Jones,  Gustavus  Henry,  A.  O.  P. 
Nicholson,  M.  P.  Gentry,  Emerson  Etheridge,  W.  T.  Haskell, 
Isham  G.  Harris,  W.  T.  Senter,  Landon  C.  Haynes,  Horace 
Maynard,  and  John  Netherland.  And  yet  on  the  stump  and 
at  their  very  best — at  the  "perihelion  of  their  palaver" — no 
man  of  them  was  the  equal  of  "old  Andy  Johnson." 


CHAPTER  VI 
GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR 

In  April  1853  the  Democratic  convention  of  Tennessee  met 
in  Nashville  to  nominate  state  officers.  Andrew  Johnson, 
though  a  candidate  for  governor,  did  not  attend  the  convention 
in  person.  The  year  before,  when  the  Whigs  "gerrymandered" 
him  out  of  Congress,  his  old  friend,  George  W.  Jones,  and 
other  Democrats  had  urged  him  to  run  for  governor  and  he 
had  consented  to  do  so.  In  the  fall  of  1852  Johnson  wrote 
Andrew  Ewing,  asking  him  to  take  charge  of  his  candidacy  for 
governor,  and  adding  that  he  "should  withdraw  his  name  if 
necessary  to  produce  harmony."  ^  Meanwhile  Mr.  Swing's 
name  was  also  mentioned  for  the  same  office,  but  before  the 
convention  met  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Johnson  and  also  the 
public  declining  to  run.^  And  so  it  came  about  that  on  April 
14),  1853,  Andrew  Johnson,  the  Greeneville  tailor,  became  the 
unanimous  choice  of  the  Democratic  party  for  Governor,  and, 
in  August  following,  defeated  his  Whig  opponent.  Honorable 
Gustavus  Henry,  the  aristocratic  "Eagle  Orator."  ^ 

In  October  1853  the  inaugural  committee  at  Nashville  were 
making  preparation  to  induct  Andrew  Johnson  into  the  high 
office  of  Governor.  There  were  to  be  brass  bands,  of  course, 
military  companies,  regaliaed  marshals,  and  a  procession'of  car- 
riages, the  Governor's  equipage  Avith  the  outgoing  and  incom- 
ing Governor  leading  the  rest.  But  the  gala  occasion  failed 
to  materialize  as  arranged — the  new  Governor  preferred  to 
walk.  If  Thomas  Jefferson  could  foot  it  across  the  square  to 
his  inaugural  and  Andy  Jackson  could  ride  horseback  and, 
without  fuss  or  feathers,  take  the  oath,  why  not  Andy  John- 

1  George  W.  Jones,  Address,  1878. 

2Kat.ional  Union,  April  15,  1853;   The  True  Whig,  April  20,  1853. 

8  Professor  Sioussat,  a  student  of  Johnson's  life  and  generally  fair  to  him, 
states  that  in  the  1853  Convention  Johnson  took  advantage  of  a  casual 
promise  of  Andrew  Ewing  to  support  the  former  and  this  caused  Ewing  to 
withdraw  in  Jolinson's  favor.  The  True  Whig,  June  1,  1853,  sets  forth  the 
advanced  platform  on  which  Johnson  ran. 

76 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  77 

son,  as  well?  Walking  from  the  hotel  to  the  Capitol,  there- 
fore, the  Governor  pulled  out  his  inaugural  and  proceeded  to 
"shadow  forth"  his  opinion  as  to  what  constitutes  an  ideal 
republic* 

The  difference  between  the  two  political  parties  he  found  in 
the  answer  to  this  question,  "Where  should  the  proper  lodg- 
ment of  the  supreme  power  of  a  nation  be  made?"  On  the 
one  side  was  the  Federalist  or  Whig  party,  "which  maintained 
the  old  monarchical  or  kingly  notion  of  Hamilton  that  man- 
kind was  not  capable  of  governing  himself."  .  .  .  Then  "there 
was  the  Republican  or  Democratic  party,  holding  with  Madi- 
son, that  man  was  honest  and  capable  of  self-government," 
According  to  the  Federalists,  the  Governor  declared,  "The  Con- 
stitution was  but  a  paper  wall  through  which  they  could  thrust 
their  fingers  at  pleasure,  or  a  piece  of  gum  elastic,  that  could 
be  expanded  or  contracted  at  the  will  or  whim  of  the  legisla- 
ture." 

"I  claim  to  belong  to  that  division  of  the  Democratic  party," 
said  the  Governor,  "which  stands  firmly  by  the  combined  and 
recorded  judgment  of  the  people,  until  changed  or  modified  by 
them;  .  .  .  which  is  progressive,  not  in  violation  of,  but  in 
conformity  with,  the  law  and  the  Constitution."  "There  are 
some  who  lack  confidence  in  the  integrity  and  capacity  of  the 
people  to  govern  themselves,"  he  said.  "To  all  who  entertain 
such  fears  I  will  most  respectfully  say  that  I  entertain  none 
.  .  .  and  I  will  ask  the  question.  If  man  is  not  capable,  and  is 
not  to  be  trusted  with  the  government  of  himself,  is  he  to  be 
trusted  with  the  government  of  others?  .  .  .  Who,  then,  will 
govern?  The  answer  must  be,  Man — for  we  have  no  angels  in 
the  shape  of  men,  as  yet,  who  are  willing  to  take  charge  of 
our  political  affairs.  Man  is  not  perfect,  it  is  true,  but  we  all 
hope  he  is  approximating  perfection,  and  that  he  will,  in  the 
progress  of  time,  reach  this  grand  and  most  important  end  in 
all  human  affairs." 

"This,"  the  Governor  declared,  in  an  ecstasy  of  Democratic 
joy,  "I  term  the  divinity  of  man  .  .  .  and  this  divinity  can  be 
enlarged,  and  man  can  become  more  God-like  than  he  is.    It  is 

4  Temple,  p.  381. 


78  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  business  of  the  Democratic  party  to  progress  in  the  work 
of  increasing  this  principle  of  divinity  or  Democracy  and 
thereby  elevate  and  make  man  more  perfect.  ...  I  hold  that 
the  Democratic  party  proper,  of  the  whole  world,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  United  States,  has  undertaken  the  political  re- 
demption of  man,  and  sooner  or  later  the  great  work  will  be  ac- 
complished. In  the  political  world  it  corresponds  to  that  of 
Christianity  in  the  moral.  They  are  going  along,  not  in 
divergents,  nor  in  parallels,  but  in  converging  lines — the  one 
purifying  and  elevating  man  religiously,  the  other  politically. 
.  .  .  At  what  period  of  time  they  will  have  finished  the  work 
of  progress  and  elevation,  it  is  not  now  for  me  to  determine, 
but,  when  finished,  these  two  lines  will  have  approximated  each 
other.  At  this  point  it  is  that  the  Church  Militant  will  give 
way  and  cease  to  exist,  and  the  Church  Triumphant  begin. 
At  the  same  point.  Democracy  progressive  will  give  way  and 
cease  to  exist,  and  Theocracy  begin." 

Soaring  higher,  the  apocalyptical  Governor  "confidently 
and  exultingly"  asserted  that  "then  the  voice  of  the  people  will 
be  the  voice  of  God."  At  that  auspicious  moment  proclamation 
would  be  made  "that  the  millennial  morning  has  dawned,  and 
that  the  time  has  come  when  'the  lion  and  lamb  will  lie  down  to- 
gether'; when  'the  voice  of  the  turtle  shall  be  heard  in  our 
land' ;  when  'the  suckling  child  shall  play  upon  the  hole  of  the 
asp,  and  the  weaned  child  put  its  hand  upon  the  cockatrice's 
den,'  and  the  glad  tidings  shall  be  proclaimed,  throughout  the 
land,  of  man's  political  and  religious  redemption,  and  that 
there  is  'on  earth  peace,  good  will  toward  men.'  " 

For  the  young  men  the  Governor  likewise  had  a  word.  He 
warned  them  that  "their  wealth,  and  too  often  their  pre- 
ceptors," some  of  whom  were  "bigoted  and  supercilious  and 
assumed  superior  information,"  inspired  them  "with  false  ideas 
of  their  own  superiority,  mixed  with  a  superabundance  of  self- 
esteem,  wliich  cause  them  to  feel  that  the  great  mass  of  man- 
kind are  intended  by  their  creator  to  be  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water."  .  .  .  "It  will  be  readily  perceived  by  all 
discerning  young  men,"  he  proceeded,  "that  Democracy  is 
a  ladder,  corresponding  in  politics  to  the  one  spiritual  which 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  79 

Jacob  saw  in  his  vision ;  one  up  which  all,  in  proportion  to  their 
merit,  may  ascend.  While  it  extends  to  the  humblest  of  all 
created  beings,  here  on  earth  below,  it  reaches  to  God  on  high ; 
and  it  would  seem  that  the  class  of  young  men  to  which  I  have 
alluded  might  find  a  position  somewhere  between  the  lower  and 
upper  extremes  of  this  ladder,  commensurate,  at  least,  with 
their  virtue  and  merit,  if  not  equal  to  their  inflated  ambition, 
which  they  would  occupy  with  honor  to  themselves  and  advan- 
tage to  their  country."  ^ 

This  remarkable  document  was  heard  by  Whigs  and  anti- 
Johnson  Democrats  with  shouts  of  laughter  and  derision. 
They  dubbed  it  the  "Jacob's  Ladder  Speech,"  and  declared 
that  it  was  copied  from  the  platform  of  a  labor  party  in  the 
North.  On  the  other  hand,  the  rank  and  file  were  greatly 
pleased  and  the  message  was  broadcasted  throughout  the  land. 
Though  the  address  was  censured  by  the  conservative  states- 
men of  this  country  and  by  the  aristocratic  press  of  England 
and  France,  democratic  opinion  in  America,  and  especially  in 
the  great  West,  thought  it  "better  than  almost  anything 
from  Governor  Johnson's  pen."  '^ 

If,  however,  Johnson's  inaugural  was  high-flown,  his  message 
to  the  Legislature  was  quite  the  opposite.^  Dealing  in  a  prac- 
tical way  with  all  these  issues,  the  Governor  made  the  subject 
of  popular  education  his  central  thought.  In  truth,  to  Gov- 
ernor Johnson  belongs  the  credit  "of  being  the  first  Governor 
of  Tennessee  to  strike  an  effectual  blow  for  the  common  schools 
and  for  a  system  of  public  taxation  throughout  the  State."  ^ 
Governor  Cannon  in  1837  had  suggested  a  similar  remedy  for 
the  prevailing  illiteracy,  but  the  Legislature  did  not,  at  that 
time,  act  on  his  recommendation.^ 

Attacking  Tennessee's  system  of  public  schools,  the  new 
Governor  declared  that  it  fell  far  short  of  the  commands  of 
the  Constitution.  The  public  schools  were  in  fact  doing  no 
good  but  rather  harm.     They  failed  to  educate  the  child  and 

5  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville ;  pamphlet  in  Carnegie  Library,  Nashville. 

6  Western  Democratic  Review  of  this  period. 

7  Message,  December  19,  1853. 

8  Jones,  p.  .50;  Garrett  and  Goodpasture,  History  of  Tennessee,  p.  297. 

9  McGee,  History  of  Tennessee,  pp.  177-178;  Merritt,  Tennessee  and  Ten- 
nesseeans,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  570. 


80  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

yet  prevented  the  people  from  operating  private  schools  of 
their  own.  To  remedy  this  evil  he  urged  that  a  tax  on  the 
people  of  the  whole  State  be  levied  and  collected.  By  way  of 
contrast,  he  called  attention  to  the  new  capitol  building  then 
nearing  completion.  "When  millions  are  being  appropriated 
to  aid  various  works  of  internal  improvements,"  he  asked,  "can 
nothing  be  done  for  education?"  .  .  .  "With  niches  and  ro- 
tundas, for  fine  statues  and  generous  paintings,  and  the  ex- 
terior, grand  with  carved  and  massive  columns,  and  costing  the 
people  a  million  and  a  half  dollars,"  he  urged  that  education 
should  receive  like  consideration.  In  fact,  the  Governor  made 
such  a  worthy  plea  and  presented  the  point  so  clearly,  and 
with  such  danger  to  any  politician  who  dared  oppose,  the 
legislature  adopted  his  recommendations.  Thereby  was  begun 
a  modern  system  of  common  schools  at  the  public  expense. 
This  stand  of  the  Governor  in  favor  of  education  was  no  sur- 
prise to  the  people  of  Greeneville,  where  he  had  always  been 
interested  in  the  subject.  Soon  after  his  arrival  in  Greeneville, 
and  for  a  great  number  of  years,  he  served  as  a  trustee  of  Rhea 
Academy — a  flourishing  boys'  and  girls'  school  in  that  town. 
On  all  occasions  he  cooperated  in  behalf  of  public  education. 

However,  the  "Mechanic  Governor"  did  not  stop  with  these 
recommendations.  He  brought  his  Homestead  hobby  from 
Washington  to  Nashville.  Despite  the  attacks  by  the  southern 
press  on  this  measure,  he  urged  the  legislature,  "To  instruct 
our  Senators  in  Congress  and  request  our  Representatives  to 
use  all  reasonable  exertion  to  procure  the  passage  of  a  bill 
granting  to  every  head  of  a  family,  who  is  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  a  'Homestead'  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of 
land,  upon  condition  of  settlement  and  cultivation  for  a  num- 
ber of  years."  Governor  Johnson  also  recommended  that  steps 
be  taken  by  tlie  legislature  looking  to  the  passage  of  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  requiring 
that  the  President  and  Vice-President  be  elected  by  popular 
vote.  Later  in  his  career,  it  will  be  remembered,  he  advocated 
the  election  of  the  Supreme  Court  judges  by  a  like  popular 
vote  for  twelve  years  only.  After  reading  the  Governor's  radi- 
cal program,  the  conservatives  of  Tennessee  were  amazed.  The 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  81 

man  was  "leading  a  rabble  against  the  better  elements  of  so- 
ciety." He  was  an  iconoclast  of  the  most  pronounced  type, 
"pulling  down  and  breaking  to  pieces  at  his  haughty  will." 
He  was  "a  natural  leveler  and  his  theories  and  appeals  were 
based  on  the  gullibility  of  the  masses."  ^°  These  attacks  on  the 
Governor,  however,  were  growing  weaker  and  weaker.  The 
aristocrats  had  learned  that  the  more  they  abused  him  the 
stronger  he  became  with  the  people. 

During  both  his  first  and  second  administrations  Governor 
Johnson  reviewed  the  financial  history  of  Tennessee  and  its 
existing  status.  Striking  a  balance  between  debits  and  credits, 
he  warned  against  extravagance.  He  likewise  cautioned  the 
legislature  to  provide  that  "state  banks  should  carry  a  larger 
percentage  of  gold  and  silver  in  proportion  to  the  total  bank 
issue."  Otherwise,  as  he  suggested,  inflation  would  be  in- 
evitable. Governor  Johnson,  though  much  devoted  to  economy 
and  reform,  was  not  more  so  than  to  the  fame  of  his  old 
chief,  Andy  Jackson.  The  first  speech  Johnson  made  in  Con- 
gress, it  will  be  recalled,  was  urging  the  repayment  to  "Old 
Hickory"  of  the  fine  of  a  thousand  dollars  and  interest,  im- 
posed by  Judge  Hall  because  Jackson  refused  to  obey  an  order 
of  the  court  and  was  adjudged  guilty  of  contempt.  And  now 
an  opportunity  was  presented  to  again  honor  Jackson.  "The 
Hermitage,"  Jackson's  home  near  Nashville,  could  be  pur- 
chased by  the  State  for  forty-eight  thousand  dollars.  Governor 
Johnson  advocating  the  purchase,  the  property  was  bought. 
It  is  now  one  of  the  magnificent  places  of  pilgrimage  for  state 
and  nation. 

In  consequence  of  the  Governor's  recommendation  the  leg- 
islature likewise  appropriated  a  handsome  sum  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  agricultural  and  mechanical  fairs,  with  farm 
exhibits  and  livestock.  During  the  Johnson  administration 
various  colleges  and  schools  of  high  grade  were  established,  and 
to  this  period  must  be  credited  the  start  of  the  public  library 
for  the  State.^^  Before  the  administration  of  Governor  John- 
son the  state  library  was  composed  almost  entirely  of  Court 

10  J.  S.  Wise,  Recollections  of  Thirteen  Presidents,  p.  107 ;  Temple,  p.  455. 

11  McGee,  History  of  Tennessee,  pp.  177-178. 


82  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Reports,  Congressional  documents  and  a  few  other  books  of 
a  public  nature,  and  of  little  value.  In  1854  the  legislature 
appropriated  five  thousand  dollars  for  books,  appointing  Re- 
turn J.  Meigs  to  purchase  them.  Shortly  afterwards  Mr. 
Meigs  was  given  a  regular  salary.  From  this  beginning  has 
grown  the  present  state  library  of  Tennessee.  In  the  year 
1857  the  Tennessee  Historical  Society  was  located  in  Nash- 
ville and  a  museum  of  Indian  relics  and  minerals.  Confederate 
money,  old  letters,  portraits  and  the  usual  accompaniments 
of  such  an  institution  were  collected.  In  a  word,  during  the 
Johnson  administration,  the  affairs  of  Tennessee  were  wisely 
and  honestly  administered  and  progress  was  made.  Tennessee 
historians,  indeed,  agree  that  "the  administrations  of  Johnson 
and  of  Harris  mark  the  beginning  of  an  era  of  advance  in 
learning  and  intellectual  life,  of  wealth,  of  culture  and  of  the 
development  of  a  distinctly  southern  spirit  and  pride  among 
the  people."  ^^ 

Having  won  over  the  heads  of  the  leaders,  the  Governor  did 
not  court  their  favor.  In  fact,  he  went  his  own  way  regard- 
less of  party.  People  were  beginning  to  say  that  the  Demo- 
cratic party  of  Tennessee  had  become  the  "Johnson  party." 
Nothing  better  illustrates  his  detachment  from  party  than 
an  incident  occurring  in  March  1855,  when  his  first  term  as 
Governor  ended  and  he  had  just  been  renominated  to  succeed 
himself.^^  The  Democratic  party,  in  convention  at  Nashville, 
failed  to  endorse  Johnson's  administration.  A  committee  of 
five  on  resolutions  was  appointed  and  made  a  report,  endors- 
ing the  national  Democratic  party  but  not  the  State.  The 
report  pointed  "with  pride  to  the  acliievements  of  the  National 
Democratic  party."  It  declared  that  "Franklin  Pierce  has 
been  faithful  and  true,  his  leading  measures  able,  enlightened 
and  patriotic  and  deserve  as  they  receive,  our  cordial  and 
earnest  support."  Nothing,  however,  was  said  about  tlie  Jolni- 
son  administration.  INIr.  Matthews  of  Bedford  did  introduce 
the  following  milk  and  water  resolution : 

*'Rc'solved — That  Andrew  Johnson  has  been  nominated  for 

laMcGee,  p.  180. 

IS  Daily  Union  and  Anicrican,  March  28,  1855. 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  83 

reelection  by  the  Democracy  of  Tennessee  and  that  this  con- 
vention registers  and  endorses  his  nomination,  with  pride  and 
confidence." 

The  resolution  was  carried  without  a  dissenting  vote.  When 
Governor  Johnson  accepted  the  nomination  from  the  com- 
mittee he  threw  a  bit  of  humor  into  his  reply.  He  declared 
that  the  resolutions  which  "endorsed  and  registered  the  will  of 
the  people,  as  expressed  in  their  primary  meetings  in  various 
portions  of  the  State,"  were  gratifying  to  him  ".  .  .  emanat- 
ing as  they  do,  from  the  true  source  of  all  political  power, 
the  people."  ^*  No  doubt  this  failure  to  endorse  Johnson's 
administration  was  intentional.  His  advocacy  of  "wild,  im 
practical  schemes"  was  not  to  the  fancy  of  the  leaders.  Presi- 
dent Polk  had  already  written  on  a  petition  for  a  Homestead 
bill,  "It  is  not  worthy  of  an  answer."  ^^ 

Moreover,  only  a  few  months  before.  Governor  Johnson  had 
exchanged  gifts  and  letters  with  Judge  Pepper  and  had  given 
utterance  to  views  well-bred  people  could  by  no  means  approve. 
Mr.  Pepper,  now  a  Judge,  had  once  been  a  blacksmith. 
Though  a  Whig,  he  was  an  admirer  of  the  mechanic  Governor. 
Doffing  his  judicial  ermine,  he  went  to  the  shop  and  made  a 
shovel  and  sent  the  same  to  the  Governor  with  his  compliments. 
The  Governor,  not  to  be  outdone,  cut  out  with  his  own  hands 
a  broadcloth  coat  which  he  sent  to  the  Judge  with  his  compli- 
ments.^*' The  Governor  accompanied  the  gift  with  an  open 
letter  declaring  that  the  "main  highway  and  surest  passport 
to  honesty  and  useful  distinction  will  soon  be  through  the 
harvest  field  and  the  workshop."  He  suggested  that  all  per- 
sons who  aspired  "to  be  leaders  in  political  affairs  shall  be 
required  to  undergo  such  probation  in  order  to  identify  them 
in  feeling,  in  sentiment,  in  interest,  in  sympathy,  and  even  in 
prejudice,  with  the  great  mass  of  people  whose  toil  and  sweat 
it  is  that  produces  all  that  sustains  the  government  in  every 
department  both  State  and  Federal."  ^^ 

^4:  Daily  Union  and  American,  April  3,  1855. 

15  "Andrew  Johnson  and  the  Early  Phases  of  the  Homestead,"  Missifssippi 
Valley  Historical  Review,  Vol.  V.  No.  3,  p.  267. 

16  This  coat  is  now  in  the  Historical  Museum  of  Tennessee.  New  York 
Times,  January  2,  1927. 

11  Letter  dated  July  17,  1854,  Jolinson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


84j  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Notwithstanding  the  disHke  such  undignified  incidents  en- 
gendered among  the  leaders,  Johnson's  administration,  with 
the  boys  in  the  plow  rows,  was  growing  stronger  and  stronger. 
In  1856,  for  the  first  time  since  1828,  when  Jackson  carried  the 
State,  Tennessee  polled  a  Democratic  majority,  casting  its 
vote  for  Buchanan  for  President.  Isham  G.  Harris,  after- 
wards one  of  Tennessee's  greatest  sons,  running  for  governor 
on  the  ticket  with  Buchanan,  was  also  elected.  Johnson  can- 
vassed for  Harris  and  contributed  much  to  his  success.  On  the 
evening  of  July  15,  1856,  Governor  Johnson  delivered  an 
address  before  the  Democratic  Club  of  Davidson  County. 
This  speech  created  wide  interest,  was  published  in  pamphlet, 
and  became  a  campaign  document. 

As  one  reads  this  speech  and  compares  it  with  the  Gover- 
nor's inaugural,  in  which  he  took  such  a  bold  stand  for  freedom 
and  equality,  an  idea  of  the  grip  of  slavery  is  discernible.  The 
entire  speech  is  devoted  to  the  argument  that  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Act  of  1854)  was  neither  new  nor  startling,  that 
the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  had  already  been  repealed 
by  the  Compromise  of  1850,  and  that  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Act  simply  reaffirmed  this  fact.^^ 

This  unfortunate  speech,  and  Johnson's  advocacy  of  the 
Jeff  Davis  resolutions  of  February  I860,  that  slavery  fol- 
lowed the  flag  into  the  territories,  mark  the  high  water  mark 
of  Andrew  Johnson  in  his  progress  towards  the  slavery  posi- 
tion of  Calhoun  and  Davis.  However,  it  must  be  said  that 
though,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  Andrew  Johnson  was  in 
a  blind  alley,  neither  by  word  nor  deed  did  he  advocate  seces- 
sion or  stand  out  against  the  Union.  Under  no  circumstances 
would  he  have  joined  with  the  forty-eight  Southern  leaders, 
Calhoun  and  Davis  included,  who,  in  1849,  in  a  caucus  at 
Washington  and  in  a  manifesto  to  the  South,  threatened  the 
life  of  the  Nation  unless  soutliern  rights  were  granted,^'* 

Much  besides  politics  was  happening  in  the  Governor's  life 
at  Nashville.     During  his  first  term  as  Governor,  a  brother 

18  Address  of  Andrew  Johnson  on  the  Political  Issues  of  the  Day,  at  Nash- 
ville, July  15,  1856.     In  the  Tennessee  State  Library. 

loJIcMaster,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  VllI,  p.  3;  Rhodes,  \o].  I, 
p.  135. 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  85 

tailor  was  taken  sick,  and,  after  a  painful  illness,  died,  leaving 
a  wife  and  a  number  of  small  children.  This  little  family  the 
Governor  befriended,  visiting  them,  sending  them  clothing  and 
money,  and  furnishing  them  a  home  in  which  to  live.  Forth- 
with the  tongue  of  scandal  began  to  wag  and  "all  sorts  of  un- 
true stories  were  circulated  about  him."  '^^  While  Governor 
Johnson  was  living  in  a  hotel  at  Nashville  an  incident  occurred, 
very  much  like  the  saving  of  the  life  of  Colonel  Henderson  by 
old  Jacob  Johnson  at  Raleigh  when  Andy  was  three  years  old. 
One  night  the  Governor  was  aroused  from  bed  by  loud  cries 
of  fire.  Rushing  from  his  apartment  to  give  such  aid  as  he 
could,  he  saw  that  the  hotel  was  ablaze.  Near  by  he  could 
hear  the  cries  of  a  woman  screaming  for  help.  Hastening  to 
her  side,  through  smoke  and  flame,  he  conveyed  the  woman  to 
a  place  of  safety,  not  only  risking  his  life,  but  losing  his  trunk 
and  other  personal  effects,  including  $2,500  in  currency,  all 
of  which  were  consumed  by  the  flames.'^ 

Fortunately  for  his  social  life,  several  of  Johnson's  old 
Greeneville  friends  had  moved  to  Nashville  and  were  living 
there  in  the  '50's.  Hugh  Douglass  was  one  of  these.  This 
young  fellow  moved  to  Greeneville,  and  was  a  new  comer  in  the 
'20's,  working  in  the  humble  position  of  clerk  in  his  uncle's 
store.  Now  Hugh  was  a  Scotch  boy,  and,  though  of  the  house 
of  Douglass  of  Garalan  and  an  aristocrat,  was  very  poor. 
In  Greeneville  the  two  youngsters  had  grown  to  be  fast  friends. 
The  first  tailor-made  coat  Hugh  ever  ordered  was  Andy's 
handiwork.  Though  the  young  Scotchman  was  a  Whig,  he 
was  in  no  sense  a  politician.  A  scholar  and  a  recluse,  he  was 
just  the  opposite  of  his  young  friend,  Johnson.  In  the  larger 
sense  of  the  word  he  was  thoroughly  democratic.  Born  in  Ayr, 
the  birthplace  of  Burns,  he,  too,  felt  that  "A  man's  a  man  for 
a'  that."  After  a  time  Douglass  succeeded  in  business  and 
moved  from  Greeneville  to  Nashville.  There  he  became  a 
wealthy  merchant,  and  was  called  "one  of  the  nabobs  of  the 
town."  In  the  midst  of  riches,  however,  he  did  not  forget  his 
old  crony,  Andy  Johnson.    Each  Christmas  he  would  send  over 

^^  Harper's  Magazine,  Vol.  CXX,  p.  169. 
21  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


86  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

to  the  Mansion  a  dozen  red  bandanna  handkerchiefs,  for  the 
"sake  of  auld  lang  syne."  The  two  men  never  forgot  their 
early  days,  never  ceased  to  cherish  memories  of  their  boyhood.-^ 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  Andrew  Johnson  had  a  natural 
dislike  for  gentlemen — only  those  gentlemen  who  assumed  su- 
perior airs  seemed  to  excite  his  M^rath.  In  Nashville  some  of 
the  oldest  families  cultivated  his  friendship.  In  the  '50's 
one  of  the  most  refined  homes  in  the  city  was  that  presided 
over  by  the  accomplished  Lazinka  Campbell  Brown,  daughter 
of  a  Congressman,  a  Senator,  a  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
under  Monroe,  and  a  Minister  to  Russia.  As  the  Russian 
name,  Lazinka,  might  suggest,  Mrs.  Brown  was  born  in  St. 
Petersburg  and  bore  the  name  of  a  Russian  Empress.  Now 
Lazinka  Campbell  Brown  and  Harriott,  her  equally  accom- 
plished daughter,  welcomed  the  Governor,  who  formed  the 
habit  of  making  frequent  visits  to  their  home.  These  good 
ladies  and  Judge  W.  F.  Cooper  once  consulted  together  about 
broadening  Johnson's  views  of  life,  which  they  agreed  were 
extremely  narrow.  Accordingly  the  next  time  the  Governor 
visited  the  Brown  home  and  asked  for  a  book  to  read,  INIrs. 
Brown,  carrying  out  the  conspiracy,  handed  him  Sartor 
Resartus.  After  a  few  days  he  returned  the  book,  remarking 
simply,  "I  can't  make  head  or  tail  out  of  it."  "If  it  had 
occurred  to  him  that  there  was  anything  in  it  applicable  to 
himself,  he  artfully  concealed  the  fact,"  the  ladies  declared, 
when  they  afterwards  related  the  story. 

One  evening  while  the  Governor  was  expounding  his  demo- 
cratic creed,  he  informed  the  Browns  that  in  his  opinion  me- 
chanics were  superior  to  other  men.  "Why,  then.  Governor," 
said  the  mother  of  the  household  to  him,  "did  5'ou  make  lawyers 
of  your  two  sons,  Charles  and  Robert?"  "Because  they  had 
not  sense  enough  to  be  mechanics,"  he  retorted. 

Perhaps  in  the  '50's  the  practice  of  dueling  in  the  South 
reached  its  culmination,  and,  under  the  code  duello,  men  killed 
each  other  as  courteously  as  they  would  bow  to  a  queen.    It  was 

22  In  1869,  when  a  daughter  of  Iluj^h  Douplass  married  J.  S.  Wise,  ex- 
President  Johnson  was  a  guest  at  the  wedding;  the  aristoeratie  mother, 
though  skeptieal  of  Johnson  as  a  wedding  guest,  was  foreed  to  admit  that 
"Mr.  Johnson's  manners  are  exeelh'iit,  liis  conversation  interesting  and  com- 
plimentary, and  liis  deportment  digniliud  and  decorous." — J.  fcs.  Wise,  Rtxul- 
Icclions  of  Thirteen  Administrutiona,  p.  107. 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  87 

one  of  the  hallmarks  of  a  southern  gentleman  "to  give  satis- 
faction" to  any  other  gentleman  who  demanded  it.  Frequent 
attempts  were  made  to  draw  Governor  Johnson  into  this  deadly 
game,  and  at  the  end  of  his  first  term  as  Governor  it  seemed 
that  he  would  be  forced  into  such  a  contest.  The  campaign  of 
1855  ended  at  the  August  election  with  the  overthrow  of  the 
aristocratic  Gentry  and  the  reelection  of  himself,  a  plain  Demo- 
crat as  Governor  of  the  State.  The  Democrats  concluded 
that  such  a  splendid  result  ought  to  be  celebrated.  There  must 
be  a  general  jollification  with  speech-making  and  parades. 
Greeneville  started  off,  "with  its  public  demonstration  of  joy," 
Gen.  T.  B.  Arnold  being  the  presiding  officer.  Governor  John- 
son was  the  orator  of  the  occasion,  and  everything  passed 
off  smoothly.  "Three  rousing  cheers"  were  given  for  Greene- 
ville's  Governor.  In  Knoxville,  the  succeeding  week,  another 
celebration  was  held  and  Johnson  spoke  again.  Parson  Brown- 
low,  though  a  Whig  and  not  expected  to  attend  a  Democratic 
jubilee,  was  nevertheless  on  hand  and  wrote  up  the  speech  for 
the  Nashville  Banner  in  his  best  Brownlowesque  fashion. 

"Johnson,"  so  Brownlow  wrote  the  Banner,  "called  the 
American  Party  a  gang  of  horse  thieves  and  counterfeiters ;" 
his  speech  was  "a  low-flung  and  disgraceful  affair."  ^^  Now, 
according  to  the  Democratic  papers,  what  Johnson  really 
said  was  this :  "The  American  Party  charges  that  both  Whigs 
and  Democrats  are  corrupt  and  claims  that  it  is  the  only  pure 
party,  being  made  up  of  both  the  old  parties.  How  can  purity 
come  out  of  corruption?"  .  .  .  "If  we  have  one  gang  of  horse 
thieves  and  another  gang  of  counterfeiters,  can  an  honest  or- 
ganization be  formed  from  these  two.?"  ^*  The  Whig  papers 
in  Nashville,  taking  Brownlow's  letter  as  a  text,  also  set  out,  at 
great  length,  Johnson's  agrarian  course  as  Congressman  and 
Governor.  They  warned  the  people  that  their  new  Governor 
was  "an  arrant  demagogue  and  little  if  any  better  than  a  f  ree- 
soiler." 

On  August  20  it  came  the  turn  of  Nashville  to  celebrate  the 
Democratic  victory,  but  the  Whigs  determined  that  the  meet- 
ing should  not  take  place.     On  the  appointed  night  there  was 

23  Nashville  Banner,  August  23  and  25,  1855. 

24  Nashville  Union,  August  21  to  26,  1855. 


88  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

so  much  noise  and  confusion  in  the  rear  no  one  could  be 
heard.  Governor  Johnson  had  mounted  the  stump  and  read 
the  secret  pohtical  oath  of  the  Know-Nothings,  in  the  follow- 
ing words :  "You  do  solemnly  swear  that  in  all  political  matters 
for  all  political  offices  you  will  support  the  members  of  the 
Order,"  and  was  going  on  to  say  that  those  who  took  that  oath 
were  perjurers,  incompetent  to  serve  on  juries  or  as  witnesses 
or  judges.  "Such  a  person,"  he  declared,  "is  not  a  free  man 
but  a  slave,  and  his  liberty  is  controlled  by  a  Know-Nothing 
conclave."  At  this  precise  point  Mr.  T.  T.  Smiley,  a  Whig 
enthusiast,  approached  the  speaker  and  begged  him  to  mod- 
erate his  language.  The  Governor,  however,  would  do  no  such 
thing,  but  roundly  denounced  the  high-handed  attempt  to  bull- 
doze him,  rubbing  it  in  worse  than  ever. 

Smiley  challenged  the  Governor  to  fight  a  duel ;  notes  passed 
between  friends.  Generals  Washington  Barrow  and  S.  R. 
Cheatham  "tendered  their  good  offices."  Mr.  Smiley  finally 
admitted  that  he  was  not  present  on  the  occasion  to  break  up 
the  meeting,  but  to  hold  back  the  infuriated  Whigs ;  Governor 
Johnson  met  Smiley  halfwa}^,  declaring  that  he  had  no  par- 
ticular reference  to  him  but  was  referring  to  those  who  had 
come  to  prevent  the  speaking.  The  referees,  feeling  that  the 
lionor  of  each  man  had  been  preserved,  wrote  duplicate  letters 
to  the  Governor  and  to  Smiley,  the  letter  to  the  Governor  being 
as  follows : 

Nashville,  Tenn.,  August  29,  1855. 
Dear  Sir  : 

Having  received  assurances  yesterday  from  Thos.  T.  Smiley 
and  yourself  to  notes  of  the  same  date  addressed  by  us  to 
both  of  you,  under  circumstances  of  which  you  are  aware,  we 
are  happy  to  find  that  there  no  longer  exists  any  cause  for  the 
interruption  of  the  personal  relations  existing  between  you  pre- 
vious to  the  evening  of  the  20th  instant. 

Very  resp'y  yours 

Washington  Barrow, 
B.  F.  Cheatham 
To  Gov.  Johnson 
Pres't.-° 

20  Johnson  MSS.  Noa.  112  to  124.  Tlioiiph  off  on  cliiillcnpod  to  fiplit  duels, 
Andrew  .Tohnaon  was  opposed  on  principle  to  duelinpj  nnd  did  not  enp;«K*'  J" 
the  practice:  Prof.  J,  G.  DeH.  liumiltun,  Dearborn  Jinlcpoidciit,  February 
1927. 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  89 

At  the  end  of  his  second  term  as  Governor,  Andrew  Johnson 
was  unanimously  chosen  by  a  Democratic  Legislature  to  a  seat 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  The  Thirty-fifth  Congress  con- 
vened December  7,  1857.  The  oath  was  administered  to  the 
new  Senator  by  Jesse  D.  Bright  of  Indiana.  During  John- 
son's four  years'  absence  as  Governor  of  Tennessee  great 
changes  had  taken  place  in  American  politics.  Slavery,  which 
Clay's  compromise  measures  of  1850  had  settled  forever — as 
every  one  thought — was  now  the  vital  issue.  The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Act  of  1854,  repealing  the  Compromise  of  1850,  had 
been  the  occasion  of  border  warfare  in  Kansas.  The  country 
was  in  a  ferment  and  a  new  and  growing  political  party,  the 
Republican  party,  was  just  born.  The  old  Whig  party. 
South,  as  well  as  North,  had  nearly  disbanded.  In  the  South 
its  members  had  joined  the  Democracy;  in  the  North  they 
had  for  the  most  part  joined  the  new  party.  Southern  Whig 
leaders,  Alex  Stephens,  Clingman,  and  Bob  Toombs,  w^ere  now 
Democrats  and,  nominally  at  least,  in  the  same  party  with 
Andrew  Johnson.  Jefferson  Davis  and  Thomas  L.  Clingman, 
Johnson's  old  antagonists  in  the  House,  had  been  promoted  to 
the  United  States  Senate.  Many  faces  confronted  Senator 
Johnson,  with  whom  he  was  shortly  to  have  much  to  do: 
Fessenden  and  Hamlin  of  Maine;  Hale  and  Clark,  New 
Hampshire ;  Sumner  and  Wilson,  Massachusetts ;  Dixon,  Con- 
necticut; Seward  and  Preston  King,  New  York;  Cameron, 
Pennsylvania ;  Wade,  Ohio ;  Trumbull,  Illinois ;  Chandler, 
Michigan ;  Doolittle,  Wisconsin ;  and  Harlan,  Iowa."'' 

During  the  past  four  years  Andrew  Johnson  had  made 
considerable  progress.  He  was  now  a  better  thinker  and 
student  than  formerly.  His  handwriting  was  wonderfully  im- 
proved, being  legible,  mature  and  well-formed.  His  spelling 
had  become  as  good  as  the  average.  His  figure,  too,  was 
rounded  out.  In  fact,  he  had  become  a  notable  character,  at- 
tracting attention  in  almost  any  company.  Moreover,  his 
mind  was  better  disciplined,  he  was  less  pugnacious,  and  not 
so  sensitive.  If  a  Senator  were  seeking  trouble  he  could  find 
it,  of  course ;  but  Johnson  did  not  now  go  out  of  his  way  look- 
ing for  trouble.     And  the  Senate  treated  him  with  greater 

26  Jas.  Ford  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  II,  p.  283. 


90  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

consideration  than  the  House  had  done.  They  practically 
tendered  him  the  chairmanship  of  a  special  committee,  but  he 
declined  it.  Only  once  in  the  House  had  he  been  chairman 
of  a  committee,  the  committee  on  public  expenditures.  Howell 
Cobb,  the  speaker  in  1850,  had  given  him  this  appointment, 
but  Johnson  resigned  it  shortly  afterwards,  stating  that  he 
had  nothing  to  do.  The  select  committee  on  curtailing  govern- 
mental expenses,  the  chairmanship  of  which  the  Senate  would 
now  confer  on  Johnson,  arose  because  of  a  recommendation  of 
President  Buchanan.  Buchanan,  in  his  message,  had  urged 
a  reduction  in  governmental  expenses,  and  Senator  Johnson 
had  offered  a  resolution  to  give  effect  to  the  President's  mes- 
sage. Johnson's  resolution  named  a  certain  sum  beyond  which 
the  annual  expenditures  should  not  go.  He  declined  the  chair- 
manship of  this  select  committee  because  he  felt  "the  work 
should  be  undertaken  by  the  judiciary  committee  or  some 
other  regular  committee  of  the  Senate." 

Andrew  Johnson's  speeches  in  the  Senate  were  less  soph- 
omoric  and  pedantic  than  when  he  was  in  the  House.  In  a 
debate  in  Congress  on  the  Oregon  Boundary  bill,  with  its  well- 
known  slogan  of  "54-40  or  fight,"  Johnson  had  been  highly 
dramatic.  He  would  pit  tlie  American  eagle  against  the 
British  lion  any  da3\  He  boasted  that  "when  the  king  of 
birds  swoops  down  from  the  Rockies  the  lion  will  be  seen  tuck- 
ing tail  and  seeking  the  mountain  coves !"  On  the  question  of 
admitting  Texas  as  a  state  he  had  likewise  been  immature  and 
juvenile,  as  we  have  seen,  alluding  to  nuptial  vows.  Hymen's 
votary,  and  Uncle  Sam's  taking  the  lovely  bride,  Texas,  to 
wife.  As  Senator  this  juvenility  disappeared,  and  Johnson 
held  himself  better  in  hand.  But  in  the  Senate,  as  in  the 
House,  lie  continued  to  be  independent  and  unorthodox. 

Soon  he  found  opposition  in  Jefferson  Davis,  his  old  antag- 
onist. Mr.  Davis,  who  always  advocated  a  large  and  perma- 
nent standing  army,  offered  a  resolution  to  accomplish  this 
purpose.  The  measure  sharply  divided  the  parties.  Rc})ubli- 
cans  feared  it  was  a  ruse  of  tlie  Democrats,  insisting  that  the 
Buchanan  administration,  controlled  by  the  South,  would  use 
this  increased  army  in  "bleeding  Kansas."     Kansas  would  be 


GOVERNOR  AXD  SENATOR  91 

forced  into  the  Union,  as  a  Slave  State,  under  the  Lecompton 
Constitution.  When  Senator  Seward  joined  with  Senator 
Davis  and  advocated  the  bill,  Hale  of  New  Hampsliire  was 
"pained  and  mortified."  "Will  the  Senator,"  Hale  asked, 
"vote  seven  thousand  extra  men  to  the  executive  of  the  United 
States  who  proclaims  and  practices  such  dangerous,  fatal  and 
damaging  doctrines ;  will  he  lav  down  his  fame  and  his  reputa- 
tion at  the  footstool  of  the  slave  power  r" 

Xow  Andi'ew  Jolinson  was  listening  to  tiiis  discussion,  took 
part  in  it,  and  thorouglily  understood  that  it  was  a  fight  with 
the  North  on  one  side  and  the  South  on  the  other.  Neverthe- 
less, he  ahgned  liimself  with  the  North  and  against  Jefferson 
Davis.  Mr.  Davis  did  not  forget  tliis  incident,-'  In  the  debate 
on  the  standing  army,  however,  Senator  Jolmson  did  not  place 
his  opposition  on  the  same  ground  with  Senator  Hale.-'  On 
principle,  as  he  declared,  he  turned  himself  against  the  bill. 
"This  measure,*'  he  lu'ged,  "will  entail  unnecessary  expense" 
and  is  "against  the  spirit  of  the  people."  "A  standing  army 
is  an  incubus,  a  canker,  a  fungus  in  the  body  politic."  ...  "I 
want  no  rabble  here  on  one  hand,"  he  declared,  "and  I  want  no 
aristocracy  on  the  other."  Some  southern  Senators,  includ- 
ing Toombs,  voted  against  the  bill,  and  it  was  defeated.  In 
the  Senate,  as  in  the  House,  Jefferson  Da\'is  and  Andrew  Jolm- 
son were  in  frequent  conflict — the  imperious,  self-sufficient  and 
scholarlv  Davis  neither  understanding  nor  caring  to  under- 
stand  Jolinson,  the  plebeian. 

Johnson  opposed  the  building  of  the  Pacific  Raili'oad,  and 
insisted  that  Congress  had  no  power,  under  the  Constitution, 
to  go  into  the  business  of  building  railroads.  He  suggested 
that  politics  and  a  desire  to  Ijecome  President  were  behind 
many  such  schemes,  e\'idently  striking  at  Jefferson  Davis. 
Davis  and  Broderick  both  replied  to  Johnson.  Broderick 
asked  how  Jolinson  could  vote  for  the  purchase  of  Cuba  and 
against  the  Pacific  Railroad.  "Why  is  it,"  he  asked,  "consti- 
tutional to  purchase  Cuba  for  slave  purposes  and  unconstitu- 
tional to  build  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific  for  war  purposes?" 

2"  Jefferson  Davis,  Rise  and  Fall,  p.  703. 
28  Savage,  p.  99. 


92  AXDREW  JOHNSON 

Mr.  Davis  was  more  personal  than  Broderick.  He  ridiculed 
Johnson's  pretensions  and  insinuated  that  when  he  entered  the 
race  for  President  "it  would  be  a  pony  race."  Jolinson  replied 
with  indignation.  "The  Presidency  has  become  a  great  absorb- 
ing idea,"  he  said,  "the  Aaron's  rod  swallowing  up  everything ; 
legislation  is  impaii'ed  and  public  business  ruined  because  Sen- 
ators are  president-making."  .  .  .  "Let  the  people  attend  to 
that."  .  .  .  "Damn  the  Presidency ! — It  is  not  worthy  of  the 
aspirations  of  a  man  who  desires  to  do  right."  ^^ 

Senator  Gwin  of  Cahfornia  called  Johnson's  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  National  Democratic  Convention  of  1856 
declared  for  the  Pacific  Railroad.  Johnson  retorted  that  it 
was  true  the  last  Democratic  convention  had  passed  a  resolu- 
tion recommending  the  completion  of  the  Pacific  Railroad,  but 
that  thereby  "they  hung  a  millstone  around  the  neck  of  the 
party."  ...  "I  am  no  party  man,  bound  by  no  party  plat- 
forms, and  will  vote  as  I  please,"  he  said. 

In  the  spring  of  1858  Senator  Johnson  had  an  unfortunate 
colloquy  with  Senator  Bell  of  Tennessee.  Senator  Bell  was 
one  of  the  few  Southern  Senators  voting  against  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  of  185-i.  In  debating  that  measure.  Bell  had 
said  that  when  a  Senator's  views  were  "in  direct  opposition  to 
the  settled  sentiments  of  his  constituency  he  should  resign." 
Now  it  so  happened  that  the  Tennessee  legislature  favored  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill  and  therefore  passed  a  resolution  asking 
Senator  Bell  to  resign  his  seat.  Bell  was  anxious  to  conciliate 
Johnson,  though  he  had  been  sneering  at  and  belittling  him 
for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  centurj\  In  discussing  the  Ten- 
nessee resolution  which  asked  his  resignation,  Bell  made  certain 
strictures  on  the  members  of  the  legislature,  some  of  them 
Johnson's  friends.  Senator  Jolmson  espoused  the  cause  of  the 
Tennessee  legislature  and  justified  its  action  in  calling  for 
Bell's  resignation.  In  the  course  of  his  remarks  he  spoke  of 
Bell  as  his  "competitor."  Bell,  replying,  resented  the  sugges- 
tion that  Johnson  was  his  "competitor,"  treating  the  idea  with 
scorn.  Johnson,  now  thoroughly  aroused,  admonished  Bell 
that  he  had  had  "competitors  that  were  worthy  of  my  steel,  men 

28  Savage,  p.  131. 


GOVERNOR  AND  SENATOR  93 

who  recognized  me  as  such."  .  .  .  "A  gentleman  and  a  well- 
bred  man  will  respect  me;  all  others  I  will  make  do  it."  .  .  . 
"I  stand  here  to-day  not  as  the  competitor  of  any  Senator ;  I 
know  my  rights  and  I  intend  to  learn  the  proprieties  of  the 
Senate,  and  in  compliance  with  those  proprieties,  my  rights, 
and  the  right  of  the  State  I  haye  the  honor  in  part  to  repre- 
sent shall  be  maintained — to  use  terms  yery  familiar  with  us — 
at  all  hazards  and  to  the  last  extremity." 

It  ma}'  be  thought  that  Johnson  intended  by  his  last  remark 
to  inyite  Bell  to  fight  a  duel,  but  such  was  perhaps  not  the  case. 
Johnson  opposed  dueling  on  principle.  In  a  debate  with  Cling- 
man  he  ridiculed  the  field  of  honor  and  spoke  of  dueling  as  an 
"infamy  and  a  disgrace."  ^^  While  Senator  Johnson  took  part 
in  these  running  debates  he  was  not  engrossed  by  them.  His 
attention  was  upon  a  larger  matter — the  homestead  bill.  The 
homestead  bill  was  the  goal  of  his  ambition  and  when  that 
bill  passed,  he  declared,  he  would  die  content. 

While  in  Congress,  i\Ir.  Johnson  was  injured  in  a  railroad 
accident,  his  right  arm  being  broken.  This  injury  somewhat 
impaired  his  handwriting  which,  by  constant  practice,  had 
become  flowing  and  legible.  Under  treatment  of  surgeons  in 
a  Philadelphia  hospital  he  was  soon  cured  and  returned  to  his 
duties.^^  At  this  time  Johnson  had  high  hopes  of  his  son, 
Robert.  He  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  Robert,  giying 
liim  an  account  of  his  injury,  and  also  of  the  politics  and  gossip 
of  the  day.  Robert  had  obtained  license  to  practice  law  and 
had  been  honored  with  the  position  of  Secretary  of  the  Greene- 
yille  Bar  Association,  of  which  Sam  Milligan  was  President. 
He  was  also  elected  a  member  of  the  Tennessee  legislature. 
The  young  man  was  a  general  fayorite  in  Greene  County, 
Johnson's  old  friends  writing  congratulatory  letters  and  com- 
mending his  course  in  matters  of  public  concern.  Mr.  Johnson 
wrote  Robert  that  he  was  going  to  canyass  the  State  of  Ala- 
bama for  Buchanan  for  President;  and  in  1859  wrote  that  he 
had  been  urged  to  canyass  Ohio  for  the  Democratic  party. 

Johnson  greatly   admired   Sam  Houston,   "Old   Fuss  and 

soXorth  Carolina  Historical  Society,  1915-19. 
31  Johnson  MSS.  Nos.  138  and  169. 


94)  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Feathers."  Houston  once  wrote  a  letter  introducing  Johnson 
to  Col.  A.  H.  Mickle.  After  commending  Johnson  to  Mickle, 
he  added,  "You  must  make  my  friend  cheerful  while  he  may  be 
with  you.  Thine  truly,  Sam  Houston."  Senator  Johnson 
also  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  Lewis  Cass ;  and,  after  the 
Democratic  victory  of  1856,  Cass  wrote  Johnson  and  "gave 
thanks  to  God  for  the  victory."  Writing  to  his  son,  Robert, 
in  1858,  Johnson  expressed  the  opinion  that  Buchanan  was  a 
failure,  that  Douglas  was  a  dead  cock  in  the  pit,  "lost  the 
North  by  advocating  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  and  lost  the 
South  by  opposing  the  Lecompton  Constitution."  Frequently 
during  the  years  1858  and  1859  Governor  Harris  wrote  urg- 
ing Senator  Johnson's  help  in  the  campaign.  He  must  come  to 
a  meeting  "to  harmonize  and  bring  about  the  success  of  the 
Democratic  party."  ^^  Perhaps  Andrew  Johnson  was  closer  to 
George  W.  Jones  of  Tennessee  than  to  any  other  Congressman. 
With  Jones,  once  a  tanner,  Johnson  had  a  common  tie.  They 
served  together  ten  years  in  the  House.  Jones  was  an  able  and 
a  conscientious  man  and  was  considered  one  of  the  best  finan- 
ciers in  the  House;  he  was  known  as  the  "watch-dog  of  the 
treasury."  ^^  Next  to  G.  W.  Jones,  Johnson  relied  on  the  aid 
of  A.  O.  P.  Nicholson.  Nicholson  was  college  bred  and  stood 
high  with  Democratic  leaders.  He,  almost  alone  among  the 
great  leaders  of  Tennessee,  born  to  affluence  and  high  station, 
was  Andrew  Johnson's  constant  friend.  In  return  for  this  de- 
votion, Johnson  caused  him  to  be  chosen,  in  1859,  a  United 
States  Senator. 

32  Johnson  MS.,  pp.  84,  136  and  175. 

33  The  Tennessee  Historical  tSociety  has  several  autograph  letters  from  John- 
son to  Jones.  In  December,  '3G.  he  asks  Jones  "to  pardon  his  blunders,"  as  he 
knew  the  difficulties  he  labored  under;  in  a  letter  dated  February  13,  1843, 
Johnson  advises  Jones  not  to  .submit  his  claims  to  a  seat  in  Congress  to  any 
convention,  "except  as  a  last  resort." 


CHAPTER  VII 
HOME  LIFE 

Martha  and  Charles,  the  first  two  children  of  the  Johnson 
family,  were  born  in  the  rear  room  of  the  small  rented  house 
on  Main  Street.  Robert  and  Mary  came  while  their  parents 
lived  down  on  Water  Street,  and  Andrew,  Jr.,  the  baby,  ar- 
rived during  his  father's  governorship  and  after  the  family 
had  moved  for  the  third  time  to  their  permanent  home.  Until 
this  last  move,  the  home  surroundings  had  been  cramped, 
without  yard,  garden  or  other  open  space. 

In  September  1851,  however,  Congressman  Johnson  pur- 
chased nearly  an  acre  of  land  on  Main  Street  in  the  residence 
section  of  Greeneville,  only  a  short  walk  from  the  tailor  shop. 
On  the  lot  at  that  time  was  an  unfinished  brick  dwelling.  The 
owner,  being  unable  to  complete  the  building,  agreed  to  ex- 
change it  with  Johnson  for  the  Water  Street  property  and 
nine  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  additional.  Accordingly,  the 
trade  was  made  and  as  soon  as  the  building  could  be  finished, 
probably  about  January  1,  1852,  the  family  moved  in.  An- 
drew Johnson's  "sweet  conception,"  as  he  called  one's  home  and 
appurtenances,  was  realized  at  last.  He  could  now  proclaim, 
"I  have  a  home,  an  abiding  place  for  my  wife  and  for  my  chil- 
dren." ^  It  was  not  entirely  accidental  that  the  lot  purchased 
was  the  same  lot  on  which  twenty-five  years  before,  on  a 
September  night,  the  run-away  apprentice  boy  and  his 
brother.  Bill,  and  their  mother  and  Turner  Dougherty,  her 
impecunious  spouse,  had  camped.  Essentially  Andrew  John- 
son was  a  home-loving  body,  loyal  not  only  to  persons  but  to 
places. 

And  it  was  a  great  daj'^,  we  may  be  sure,  when  Andrew  John- 
son and  his  wife,  with  sons  and  daughters,  moved  into  their  new 
and  spacious  residence,  not  showy  or  expensive,  yet  comfort- 

1  National  Portrait  Gallery,  Vol.  III.     Title  "Andrew  Johnson." 

95 


96  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

able  and  homelike,  with  generous  fireplaces,  high  pitched  ceil- 
ings and  a  pleasing  view  from  every  window.  There  were  tAvo 
rooms  above  and  two  below — a  pantry  and  serving-room  were 
attached  to  the  rear.  Twenty  "honest"  steps  separated  the 
kitchen  from  the  "Great  House."  This  was  in  accordance  with 
an  old  southern  idea  that  the  odor  of  boiled  onions  and  cab- 
bage should  be  avoided.  Built  on  the  plan  of  English  homes, 
the  front  of  the  dwelling  was  flush  with  the  street ;  the  veranda 
was  afterwards  arranged  on  the  side,  overlooking  the  lawn 
some  distance  below.  The  parlor  on  the  left,  as  one  enters  the 
front  door,  had  the  usual  furnishings  of  middle-class  homes 
of  that  day :  the  walnut  chairs  and  sofa  upholstered  in  mohair 
cloth ;  the  inevitable  walnut  what-not  in  one  corner  and,  in  the 
other,  an  old-fashioned  escritoire.  The  floor  was  covered  with 
a  flowery  "store"  carpet  and  on  the  neat,  but  cheaply  papered, 
walls  were  pictures  of  Johnson  and  his  wife  and  copies  of  works 
of  the  masters. 

One  can  hear  the  voice  of  the  lovable  Charles,  as  he  wanders 
through  the  new  home,  humming  some  old  love  song,  while  his 
mother  is  busying  herself  in  the  yard  and  garden,  planting 
evergreens,  superintending  the  seeding  of  grass,  or  setting  out 
a  wonderful  scuppernong  vine.^  Martha,  a  woman  of  poise 
and  superb  nerve,  serious-minded  and  devoted  to  duty,  was  the 
companion  of  her  father.  Charles,  with  his  light  heart  and 
merry  ways,  was  the  idol  of  his  mother,  and  a  ra}'^  of  sunshine 
to  all.  Though  his  conviviality  and  dissipation  were  a  source 
of  grief  to  motlier  and  father,  they  did  not  scold  or  complain 
but  met  the  situation  philosophically.^  Charles  was  now  a 
licensed  physician  and  druggist.  Robert,  a  fledgling  at  tlic 
bar,  Avas  doing  well  with  the  help  of  Sam  Milligan,  presi- 
dent of  the  local  bar  association.  Wliiskey,  however,  the  curse 
of  the  old  South,  was  beginning  to  hold  both  of  the  boys  in  its 
clutch,  drink  cutting  them  off  before  they  reached  middle  life. 

From  the  new  home  Martha  and  INIary  shortly  went  forth 

2  In  Johnson's  home  and  in  the  tailor  sliop  aro  sundry  niomcnlocs  of  the 
tailor-president,  such  as  needles,  thimbles,  a  tailor's  goose  and  specimens 
of  his  hajuliwork,  including  a  silk  vest  and  broadcloth  coat  he  once  made  for 
himself  and  wore. — Knoxville  SnitincI,  July  .30,  1!)22. 

:' Jones,  p.  ;{04;  Johnson  vs.  Patterson,  Tennessee  Reports,  Vol.  LXXXI, 
p.  G27. 


HOME  LIFE  97 

as  brides.  Martha,  on  December  13,  1855,  married  David  T. 
Patterson,  eight  years  her  senior,  a  circuit  judge  and  a  close 
friend  of  her  father.  Patterson  was  upright  and  capable, 
conservative  and  patriotic,  but  slow  and  heavy  and  fond  of 
his  cups.  Mary  married  Dan  Stover,  a  typical  blue-eyed 
mountaineer,  soon  to  become  Colonel  of  the  Fourth  Tennessee 
Union  Infantry.  He  was  a  man  of  high  courage,  known  to 
fame  as  leader  of  the  bridge  burners.  Dan,  a  nephew  of  Mor- 
decai  Lincoln,  was  the  person  of  all  others  Andrew  Johnson 
would  have  selected  as  a  son-in-law.  The  Pattersons  lived  on  a 
small  farm  a  short  distance  from  Greeneville,  and  Dan  Stover 
also  owned  a  fine  plantation  in  the  Watauga  Valley,  in  the 
adjoining  county  of  Carter.  These  plantation-homes,  easy, 
hospitable,  and  unconventional,  were  a  God-send  to  Andrew 
Johnson,  furnishing  him  an  outlet  from  cares.  The  Stover 
place  especially  attracted  him ;  the  winding  Watauga,  "the 
beautiful  valley  and  the  towering  mountains"  where  the  Stover 
place  lay  he  never  tired  of.* 

His  own  home  at  Greeneville,  however,  was  the  place  where 
the  family  would  gather,  and  most  attractive  it  was  becoming — 
the  yard  green  with  velvety  blue-grass,  the  scuppernong  vines 
spreading  and  covering  nearly  an  eighth  of  an  acre,  the  garden 
heavy  with  vegetables  and  fruits.  Growing  things  made  their 
appeal  to  Andrew  Johnson.  The  pastoral  was  the  corner  stone 
on  which  he  was  building  his  philosophy  of  life.  Oftentimes 
he  would  work  with  his  own  hands  in  the  garden  or  he  would 
turn  the  mellow  soil  to  the  golden  corn,  or  now  and  then  he 
would  harness  the  family  horse  to  the  rockaway  and  run  out 
to  John  Parks'  or  Judge  Patterson's  or  John  Jones's  or  up  the 
Boone  trail,  sometimes  going  as  far  as  the  Stover  place.  Such 
were  the  simple  recreations  of  the  "Mechanic  Governor,"  as 
the  people  called  Andrew  Johnson  long  after  he  quit  the  gov- 
ernorship. The  spring  in  the  rear,  from  which  he  first  drank 
when  he  landed  in  Greeneville  that  long  ago  September  night, 
he  put  in  first-class  condition.  Walling  it  up  with  a  new  gum 
curb  and  opening  the  path  to  Water  Street,  he  threw  the  rear 

*  Letter  from  Congressman  Taylor  to  Dr.  Ensor  of  Hopeton,  Okla.,  Decem- 
ber 8,  1925;  Journal  and  Tribune,  July  10,  1901;  Knoxville  Sentinel,  July  10, 
1901. 


98  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

of  the  lot  open  to  the  pubHc.  It  deHghted  him  to  see  his  humble 
neighbors  gather  on  the  premises,  drinking  from  the  spring 
and  carrying  pails  filled  with  the  cool  water  to  their  homes. 

Near  the  spring  he  planted  a  willow-sprout  dug  from  the 
tomb  of  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena.  I  may  anticipate  and  explain 
that  this  sprout  soon  grew  into  a  spreading,  feathery  tree  and 
that  this  historic  willow  and  a  number  of  elms,  which  Johnson 
also  planted,  now  give  welcome  to  thousands  of  tourists  motor- 
ing from  Bristol  to  Memphis  to  visit  the  old  tailor  shop  and 
the  home  of  the  Tennessee  tailor. 

With  the  arrival  of  grandchildren,  a  boy  and  a  girl  in  the 
Patterson  household  and  a  boy  and  two  girls  in  the  Stover 
home,  Andrew  Johnson  softened  and  unbent,  and  his  daugh- 
ters stood  less  in  awe  of  their  austere  parent.  But,  after  all, 
the  center  of  the  family  was  Mrs.  Andrew  Johnson.  When  her 
husband  was  away  she  took  his  place,  collecting  the  rents, 
looking  after  the  real  estate  and  running  the  household;  she 
was  also  the  tie  that  bound  the  family  together.  The  influence 
she  exerted  over  her  husband  was  remarkable.  When  he 
would  exhibit  temper  or  get  out  of  sorts  she  would  place  her 
hand  on  his  shoulder  and  speak  the  word  "Andrew,  Andrew," 
and  the  indomitable  man  would  instantly  subside.  It  seemed 
to  the  partial  ones,  living  under  the  same  roof,  that  the  match 
between  the  lowly  tailor  and  the  shoemaker's  daughter  "had 
been  made  in  heaven."  ^  Manifestly  Mrs.  Johnson's  control 
over  her  husband  was  due  to  the  fact  that  they  had  the  same 
view  of  life.  In  word  and  deed  Mrs.  Johnson  and  Mrs.  Pat- 
terson were  as  democratic  as  Johnson  himself.  They  sus- 
tained him  throughout,  no  matter  how  "plebeian"  he  might  be- 
come. By  the  late  '50's,  with  the  management  of  these  women, 
Johnson  had  accumulated  an  estate  worth  more  than  fifty 
thousand  dollars,  his  holdings  including  a  hotel  and  an  office 
near  his  dwelling.  This  office  became  the  hanging-out  place 
for  the  old  tailor-shop  crowd.  Though  his  friends,  McDaniel, 
Milligan,  Lowery,  and  Self,  were  not  scholars  and  could  not 
assist  him  in  the  delicate  work  of  preparing  speeclics  and  pub- 
lic documents,  they  were  safe  men  and  just  the  kind  Andrew 

6  \V.  H.  Crooks,  Through  Five  Administrations,  pj).  85-90. 


HOME  LIFE  99 

Jolmson  needed  as  storm  clouds  appeared  in  the  sky.  The  new 
offices  in  the  hotel  yard,  consisting  of  two  rooms,  one  story  high, 
were  in  the  center  of  the  town  and  easy  to  reach.  In  one  room 
he  arranged  his  books,  papers,  periodicals  and  clippings. 
There  were  thousands  of  these — Johnson  insisting  that  no 
scrap  of  paper  should  ever  be  destroyed  and  his  wife  assisting 
him  in  making  the  collection.  The  other  room  was  used  as  a 
reception  room  for  visitors  and  friends. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing,  about  two  years  before 
the  Civil  War,  Senator  Jolmson  was  fifty-two  years  of  age  and 
in  robust  health.  He  was  a  man  of  medium  height,  about  five 
feet  nine  inches  tall,  with  dark,  luxurious  hair,  black,  piercing, 
deep-set  eyes,  and  a  head  large  and  round.  His  shoulders  were 
broad,  his  figure  strong,  muscular  and  well  proportioned,  and 
his  step  elastic  and  graceful.  Smiles  and  laughter  were  not 
frequent  with  him  but  when  they  came  they  were  hearty  and 
sincere.  Though  possessed  of  great  dignity  and  gravity  of 
manner,  when  he  walked  down  the  streets  of  Greeneville  his 
salute  to  the  humblest  individual  was  as  courteous  as  to  the 
most  distinguished. 

On  Saturdays  or  holidays  when  the  country  people  came  to 
town  he  would  leave  his  office  and  walk  slowly  along,  greeting 
the  friends  and  patrons  of  younger  days.  Soon  the  crowd 
would  gather  around  and  he  would  address  them  as  if  making 
a  speech.  Every  follower  of  his  confidently  expected  him  to 
be  the  next  President  of  the  United  States;  but  they  would 
anxiously  enquire  what  would  happen  if  Seward  or  Chase  or 
Lincoln  or  other  "abolitionist"  were  elected  President.^  Would 
South  Carolina  and  the  Far  South  leave  the  Union?  If  John- 
son ran  across  a  mechanic  he  would  never  pass  him  by  without 
a  word  of  greeting. 

On  a  certain  occasion  he  noticed  a  man  and  his  wife  painting 
a  fence  around  the  Baptist  Church.  The  spectacle  of  a  woman 
painting  a  fence  attracted  his  attention  and  he  asked  what  it 
meant.  The  woman  replied  that  she  was  paying  her  subscrip- 
tion to  the  church,  that  she  was  too  poor  to  give  money,  and  so 

6  To  the  secessionist  of  the  late  '50's  all  Republicans  were  known  as  Aboli- 
tionists. 


100  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

she  was  painting  the  fence  and  raising  the  needed  five  dollars. 
Johnson  pulled  out  his  pocketbook  and  handed  her  a  five  dollar 
bill,  telling  her  to  go  home  and  look  after  her  household  affairs. 
Even  to  this  day  one  will  hear  on  the  streets  of  Greeneville 
stories  of  Johnson's  interest  in  the  under-dog.  Once  he  saw 
in  Greeneville  a  man  that  had  been  well-to-do  but  was  then 
down  at  the  heel  and  working  at  the  carpenter's  trade.  Taking 
the  fellow  by  the  hand,  he  told  him  to  go  ahead  and  learn  the 
trade,  then  come  back,  and  he  would  set  him  up  in  business  for 
himself.  So  encouraged  was  the  mechanic  he  persevered,  and 
with  Johnson's  aid  made  a  go  of  it.  Sometimes  a  young  fellow 
would  be  surprised  to  get  a  letter  from  him,  perhaps  offering 
a  position  as  clerk  or  secretary  or  making  useful  suggestions. 
Strolling  into  the  office  of  a  briefless  lawyer  or  clientless  physi- 
cian, he  would  encourage  him  and  perhaps  make  a  loan.^ 

In  his  home  town,  as  in  Washington,  Andrew  Johnson  paid 
little  attention  to  the  demands  of  society,  no  doubt  disapprov- 
ing of  the  "caste"  basis  on  which  society  rested.  In  the  Sen- 
ate repeated  efforts  were  made  by  Jefferson  Davis  and  other 
social  and  political  leaders  to  win  him  over  to  the  exclusive  and 
aristocratic  classes,  but  they  could  not  move  him.^  His  daugh- 
ter, Martha,  was  a  guest  at  social  functions  in  Washington, 
and  he  himself  was  often  invited  out,  but  declined.  In  matters 
religious  Mrs.  Johnson  and  Mrs.  Patterson  affiliated  with  the 
Methodist  church.  Seventy-five  years  ago  INIethodism  was 
wholly   unworldly   and   almost   as   unadorned   as   Quakerism. 

7 1  examined  the  final  returns  of  Johnson's  personal  representatives  at 
Greeneville  and  saw  scores  of  notes  returned  "worthless."  These  notes  had 
been  made  by  poor  people  without  security. 

8  In  1865  Jeflfcrson  Davis,  a  prisoner  at  Fortress  Monroe,  was  asked  by  Dr. 
Craven  his  opinion  of  President  Johnson.  "He  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then 
said  that  the  Senators  respected  his  ability,  integrity,  and  greatly  original 
force  of  character,  but  nothing  could  make  him  be,  or  seem  to  wish  to  feel, 
at  home  in  their  society.  A  casual  word  would  seem  to  woxmd  him  to  the 
quick  when  he  would  shrink  back  to  the  isolation  of  his  earlier  and  humble 
life  as  if  to  gain  strength  from  touching  his  mother  earth.  .  .  .  His  habits 
were  marked  by  temperance,  industry,  courage,  and  luiswerving  porservance," 
Mr.  Davis  continued.  .  .  .  "One  of  the  people  by  birth,  he  remained  so  by 
conviction,  continually  referring  to  his  origin.  ...  Of  !Mr.  Johnson's  char- 
acter, justice  was  an  eminent  feature,  though  not  uncoupled  with  kindliness 
and  generosity.  .  .  .  He  was  indifferent  to  money  and  careless  of  praise 
or  censure.  .  .  .  But  for  a  decided  attitude  against  secession,  he  would  prob- 
ably have  been  given  the  Vice-presidency." — Craven,  Prison  Life  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  p.  301. 


HOME  LIFE  101 

Though  mother  and  daughter  cared  little  for  society,  they  did 
not  dislike  or  shun  it.  On  the  contrary,  they  took  an  active 
part  in  the  woman's  work  of  the  church  and  in  community  life. 
Doubtless  down  in  their  hearts  they  had  as  much  pity  for  the 
misguided,  "card-playing,  theater-going,  and  dancing  ele- 
ment" in  their  midst  as  these  had  for  them — and  each  side  was 
no  doubt  right,  as  such  things  are  matters  of  taste.  In  the  late 
'50's,  however,  the  old  factional  fight  between  aristocrat  and 
democrat  in  Greeneville  had  about  played  out.  General 
Thomas  D.  Arnold,  Congressman  in  the  '30's,  having  be- 
come Johnson's  friend,  was  presiding  over  jollification  meet- 
ings in  his  honor.  Dr.  Alexander  Williams,  "Alexander  the 
Great,"  had  passed  to  his  reward.  Dicksons,  Arnolds,  Wil- 
liamses,  and  Johnsons  were  living  together  in  peace  and  friend- 
ship. Surely  if  Andrew  Johnson  could  "clean  up"  the  poli- 
ticians in  his  home  town,  in  the  district  and  in  the  State,  and 
could  "swing  around  the  circle"  from  alderman  to  the  legis- 
lature, from  the  legislature  to  Congress,  from  Congress  to 
the  governorship,  from  Governor  to  Senator,  and  be  sought 
after  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas  as  a  running  mate  for  Vice-presi- 
dent, he  was  becoming  a  man  of  some  consequence.^ 

I  have  stated  that  the  influence  of  Mrs.  Johnson  over  her 
husband  was  unbounded,  and  yet  into  one  place  he  would  not 
follow  her — the  organized  church.  She  might  find  satisfac- 
tion in  such  a  church  but  he  could  not.  Like  Lincoln,  if  he 
could  have  found  an  organization  based  on  the  personality  of 
Christ,  without  creed  or  dogma,  without  class  distinctions  or 
the  exaltation  and  deification  of  money,  he  was  willing  to  join 
it  "with  all  his  soul."  But  so  far  as  he  could  make  out  there 
was  no  such  church.  Believing  in  a  rule  of  right  and  in  a 
revealed  religion,  he  took  Christ  as  a  model,  yet  he  feared  that 
the  Christians  of  his  day  were  further  away  from  the  simplic- 
ity, the  charity  and  the  love  of  their  fellows,  which  Christ  en- 
joined, than  many  a  heathen  was. 

9  Judge  Temple,  a  leading  Whig,  living  in  the  '40's  next  door  to  the 
Johnsons,  rather  boasts  that  he  never  went  into  their  house,  whereas  the 
father  and  mother  of  Judge  Barton  and  the  families  of  Colonel  Reeves  and 
of  the  Milligans  were  their  intimate  friends. — Temple.  Chapter  on  "Andrew 
Johnson." 


102  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Long  and  earnestly  he  labored  over  the  problem  of  linking 
up  democracy  with  theocracy  and  of  a  return  to  the  simplicity 
of  the  patriarchs.  At  one  time  he  consulted  spiritualists  on 
this  subject  and  received  much  useless  advice.  The  Catholic 
church  interested  him  because  in  it  he  found  a  saving  virtue  : 
No  class  distinctions  in  its  worship.  Therefore,  he  entered  one 
son  in  a  CathoHc  school,  and  sometimes  attended  the  Catholic 
church  himself.  In  fact,  however,  he  was  a  Baptist,  holding 
with  Thomas  Jefferson  that  the  United  States  Government 
was  organized  on  the  same  general  plan  as  Baptist  churches; 
that  each  state,  like  each  church,  was  a  separate  entity.  If 
there  was  a  cure  for  class  distinctions  and  snobbery,  he  con- 
cluded, it  did  not  lie  in  the  religion  of  his  day,  but  in  universal 
education.  This  theme  he  was  always  expounding.  Early  in 
his  career,  when  the  County  Court  of  Greene  elected  him  a 
trustee  of  Rhea  Academy,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was  flattered  no 
little.  He  filled  the  position  of  trustee  for  years,  with  pleasure 
and  satisfaction. 

Andrew  Johnson,  the  apostle  of  absolute  equality,  was  j^et 
a  slave  o\\Tier,  possessing  eight  slaves.  These  people  lived  in 
a  cabin,  about  twenty  by  thirty  feet,  located  on  the  premises 
and  not  far  from  the  spring.  Sam  and  Bill,  with  a  wife  apiece 
and  sundry  pickaninnies,  constituted  the  "crap."  Johnson's 
relation  to  these  domestic  slaves  was  familiar  and  patriarchal. 
He  was  the  head  of  the  family,  of  which  they  were  as  much 
a  part  as  his  own  children.  In  slave  day^s  the  house  servants 
were  treated  as  grown  up  children  and  were  greatly  spoiled. 
Witli  the  other  slaves,  those  who  lived  in  the  quarters,  it  was 
far  different.  These  unfortunate  people — "the  field  hands" — 
scarcely  knew  the  name  of  their  master  and  were  compelled  to 
take  slavery  with  its  narrowness  and  burdens.  Though  the 
domestic  slaves  were  a  part  of  the  household,  all  others  were 
considered  little  above  a  drove  of  horses  or  mules.  Thus  Judge 
IMilligan  advised.  Johnson  to  accept  the  southern  argument. 
God  had  seen  fit  to  place  certain  of  his  creatures  in  fixed  posi- 
tions— the  white  man  in  his  place,  the  ass  in  his  and  the 
"nigger"  in  his.  Why  interfere  with  the  plans  of  the  Al- 
mighty.'*    Why  promote  tlie  "nigger"  and  not  promote  the 


HOME  LIFE  103 

ass?  Or  as  a  popular  and  liberal  southern  woman  put  the 
case,  "Is  not  this  unfortunate  brother  ass — this  hirsute  relative 
— trampled  upon?  Why  should  he  not  lie  amidst  feathers  and 
velvet  as  well  as  the  best  in  the  land?"  ^'^ 

Now  as  to  old  Sam,  Johnson's  favorite  slave,  it  was  almost 
true  that  he  did  rest  amidst  velvet  and  feathers.  In  fact, 
according  to  Mrs.  Patterson,  it  was  a  mistake  to  call  Sam  a 
slave  at  all.  She  often  laughed  and  said  that  Sam  did  not 
belong  to  her  father  but  her  father  belonged  to  Sam.  Tall  and 
dignified,  black  as  a  coal,  Sam  was  one  of  the  best  known  char- 
acters in  Greeneville,  and  a  thorough  gentleman.  He  at  least 
was  an  aristocrat !  ^^ 

Johnson's  other  manservant.  Bill,  was  fully  as  privileged 
as  Sam.  Bill's  wife  was  the  family  cook  and  an  excellent  one 
too.  When  old  Mas'r  would  rig  himself  out  in  his  tall  hat  and 
long-tailed  broadcloth  coat,  which  Sam  and  Bill  called  a 
"jimswinger,"  and  go  abroad,  Bill  was  sure  to  go  too.  When 
night  came  he  would  stir  around  and  get  a  pair  of  blankets 
and  make  a  pallet  in  the  same  room  with  old  Mas'r.  When  he 
would  get  back  home,  tall  tales  Bill  would  tell  about  his  trip. 
"Old  Mas'r,"  he  would  say,  "let  dem  po'  white  folks  know  de 
body  servant's  place  was  in  de  room  wid  him,"  wisely  shaking 
his  woolly  head  and  ha-ha-ing  with  laughter.^"  When  Johnson 
became  President  he  rented  the  tailor  shop  to  Bill.^^ 

loDeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  p.  197. 

n  After  Sam  was  set  free  he  bought  a  silk  hat,  a  long-tailed  coat,  and 
hocame  a  church  janitor,  respectful  and  courteous.  "He  looked  like  a  lord."— 
Jones,  p.  29.  Mrs.  E.  C.  Reeves  writes  me  that  Dora,  Sam's  daughter,  was 
her  cook,  soon  after  the  war,  and  the  seventy-five  cents  a  week  paid  Dora  was 
regarded  as  enormously  high. 

12  Greeneville  papers  of  May  1923  at  the  Johnson  Tailor  Shop  celebration. 

13  In  1869  a  New  York  Herald  correspondent  visited  his  shop,  then  battle- 
scarred  and  going  to  decay.  He  took  a  look  at  the  watermill  grinding  corn 
at  its  door  and  at  Spring  Branch,  and  gave  the  following  account  of  the 
shop  itself:  "The  place  where  the  famous  knight  of  the  scissors  held  forth 
was  the  next  thing  that  attracted  my  curiosity,  and  so  I  went  also  to  see 
that.  'A.  Johnson,  Tailor,'  painted  in  crude  letters  en  imitation,  said  Eureka 
to  me,  and  I  stopped  before  the  magic  symbol,  gazing  intently  on  the  little 
eight  by  ten  frame  building.  It  is  plebeian  in  the  extreme,  built  very  much 
on  the  style  of  a  farmer's  smoke  house,  of  rough  weather  boarding,  white- 
washed. On  either  end  the  boards  are  torn  off  in  places,  and  the  chimney 
is  crumbling  to  decay.  An  old  negro  raised  by  President  Johnson  and  assum- 
ing his  name  is  the  sole  occupant  of  the  building,  and  he  is  the  successor  in 
business  of  'A.  Johnson,  Tailor.'  He  says,  'Massa  Johnson  been  in  the  trade, 
de  boss  tailor  in  dese  diggins.' " 


104.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

In  ante  helium  days  the  home  of  every  southern  gentleman 
had  its  sideboard  and  its  decanters.  No  guest  was  hospitably 
entertained  without  a  glass  of  French  brandy  or  a  frosty  mint 
julep,  and  no  more  was  required  of  host  or  guest,  on  leaving 
a  social  occasion,  than  that  he  could  "navigate"  without  assist- 
ance. Strangely  enough,  in  the  midst  of  such  universal 
dissipation,  Andrew  Johnson  was  not  overmuch  afflicted  with 
the  drink  habit.  "I  have  never  failed  to  publicly  denounce  An- 
drew Johnson,"  said  Parson  BrownloAv,  his  lifetime  enemy,  to 
Judge  Chase,  "but  I  never  charged  him  with  being  a  drunk- 
ard; in  fact  nobody  in  Tennessee  ever  regarded  him  as  ad- 
dicted to  the  excessive  use  of  whiskey."  ^* 

Squire  Self  had  a  story  he  loved  to  tell.  On  a  certain  occa- 
sion, it  may  have  been  the  visit  of  J.  M.  Ashley's  "smelling 
committee,"  some  one  came  to  Greeneville  to  interview  the 
Squire.  He  wanted  to  know  about  Johnson's  habits.  "Wasn't 
he  in  the  habit  of  getting  drunk  and  making  a  spectacle  of 
himself.'"'  the  visitor  inquired.  "Well,"  the  Squire  replied, 
"I'll  tell  you  this :  he  never  got  too  drunk  to  disremember  his 
friends."  If  Johnson  had  been  willing  to  join  some  church 
or  let  up  in  his  advocacy  of  labor  doctrines  and  plebeianism  he 
might  have  saved  a  lot  of  trouble,  but  this  he  would  not  do  and 
ridicule  and  slander  continued  to  pile  up. 

A  story  went  the  rounds  that  when  Governor  he  boarded  at 
a  livery  stable,  and  "ate  bacon  and  cabbage  with  his  washer- 
woman." It  seemed  a  pity  to  spoil  the  story  but  the  fact  is 
Johnson  boarded  at  a  hotel.  On  New  Year's  da^^,  however, 
he  did  turn  down  an  invitation  to  dine  with  Aaron  V.  Brown, 
Postmaster  General  under  Buchanan,  and  took  a  twelve  o'clock 
dinner  with  a  mechanic  with  whom  he  had  a  previous  engage- 
ment. But  the  story  was  too  good  to  keep  and  in  the  telling 
was  added  to  until  it  became  a  matter  of  national  merriment.' "^ 
One  of  the  harshest  statements  about  Andrew  Johnson  was 
made  by  Governor  Harris,  war  governor  of  Tennessee.  "If 
Johnson  were  a  snake  he  would  hide  himself  in  the  grass  and 

14  Congressman    Brownlow,    in    the    TayJor-Trotwood   Magazine,    September 
1908.     No  charge  of  drinking  is  in  the  Tennessee  newspapers. 

15  Nashville  Banner,  January  20,   1910;  Harper's  Magazine,  Vol.  CXX,  p. 
171. 


1.  Aiidn-w  .Idliiisiiii    ill    .Ma'-i>iiic    l,'c>:alia. 

2.  Mrs.  Andrew    .lulni^ini. 

."}.    Aiulrow  .luhiiMinV    lldiiic   in   ( Ircciicv  ilir.  'rcmi. 


HOME  LIFE  105 

bite  the  heels  of  the  children  of  rich  people,"  said  Harris. 
But  this  cheerful  opinion  the  Governor  did  not  express  until 
he  had  become  a  "secesh"  and  Johnson  a  Unionist.  When  the 
two  were  brother  Democrats  together  Governor  Harris  was 
in  the  habit  of  calling  on  Governor  Johnson  to  pull  the  party 
out  of  many  a  hole.^*^ 

Slander  and  abuse,  however,  made  no  impression  on  Andrew 
Johnson's  home  life.  To  his  wife  and  family  he  was  above 
reproach.  And  so  thought  the  rank  and  file.  The  greater 
the  abuse  the  more  they  looked  upon  Andrew  Johnson  as  their 
man.  "Old  Andy,"  as  they  called  him,  "never  went  back  on 
his  raisin'."  That  was  enough  for  them.  As  he  was  half 
southern  and  half  western  they  were  not  expecting  a  saint. 
The  masses  loved  him  because,  like  themselves,  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  human  family.  Of  course  he  swore  a  bloody  oath, 
but  what  of  that.?  He  never  failed  to  pay  an  honest  debt. 
Though  he  took  a  drink,  when  he  felt  like  it,  he  made  no  con- 
cealment of  the  fact ;  ^"  he  despised  hypocrisy  and  belonged 
to  no  church,  but  he  was  always  with  the  under-dog  and  never 
ran  up  the  white  flag.  On  this  level  the  plain  people  accepted 
Andy  Johnson,  "warts  and  all,"  and  Andy  bound  himself  to 
them  for  better  or  for  worse. 

From  Bristol  to  Memphis  every  inch  of  Tennessee's  soil  was 
now  dear  to  him,  and  whosoever  assailed  the  fair  name  of  Ten- 
nessee had  a  fight  on  his  hands.  As  soon  as  Congress  ad- 
journed and  he  could  get  away  from  Washington  he  would 
run  down  home  and  mingle  with  the  people  of  his  beloved  State. 
In  the  masonic  lodges  he  found  pleasure  and  comradeship. 
There  was  an  earnestness  and  a  fixedness  of  purpose  as  well  as 
a  dignity  about  this  venerable  institution  he  could  not  resist. 
He  and  Andrew  Jackson  entered  masonry  through  the  same 
lodge,  the  Greeneville  Masonic  Lodge  No.  119,  a  fact  to  which 
he  proudly  and  constantly  alluded.     As  Sir  Knight  Andrew 

16  In  1861,  when  matters  in  Tennessee  were  going  bad  for  the  Confederacy, 
the  citizens  of  Memphis  demanded  a  king,  and  suggested  Isham  G.  Harris 
for  the  job.  Senator  Johnson,  rising  from  his  place  in  the  Senate,  scorned 
the  idea.  "Isham  G.  Harris  a  king!"  he  said.  "My  king!  I  know  the  man — 
I  know  his  elements.  King  Harris  to  be  my  master!  Mr.  President,  he  should 
not  be  my  slave." — Savage,  p.  243. 

1"  His  whiskey  bills  are  filed  witli  other  manuscripts  at  Greeneville. 


106  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Johnson,  in  his  sword  and  sash,  in  braid  and  regalia,  he  cut  a 
brave  figure — in  masonry  at  least  he  could  tolerate  brass  but- 
tons. In  truth,  nothing  of  interest  happened  to  the  plain 
people  of  Tennessee  but  he  had  a  hand  in  it,  and  as  he  climbed 
higher  and  higher  he  took  his  friends  by  the  hand,  lifting  them 
upward.  McDaniel,  Barton,  Reeves,  Milligan,  Self,  Lowery, 
Watterson,  Meigs,  Witthorne,  Taylor,  Holtsinger  and  many 
another  were  assisted  and  sustained  by  this  man.  And  their 
affection  was  returned  to  him  fourfold ;  in  every  emergency  he 
could  rely  on  their  aid.^^ 

Andrew  Johnson  placed  a  high  value  on  his  home ;  he  would 
not  use  it  as  a  means  of  advertising  or  as  a  place  for  political 
gatherings  and  conferences.  Business  and  politics  must  be 
attended  to  elsewhere.  With  the  austerity  of  the  men  of  his 
day,  he  looked  upon  a  home  as  a  spot  far  removed  from  the 
turmoil  of  life  and  the  women  of  the  household  as  guardians 
of  his  good  name.  In  Johnson's  early  days  he  was  no  doubt 
severe  and  rigid,  the  rule  of  his  home  having  been  strict  atten- 
tion to  duty  and  fidelity  to  facts.  "Tell  it  as  it  is  or  not  at  all," 
says  Mrs.  Patterson,  "was  then  the  household  slogan."  But 
with  age,  when  he  grew  more  broad-minded  and  also  more 
prosperous  and  had  no  longer  to  fight  the  wolf  at  the  door, 
"his  home  life  became  as  tender  as  a  woman's."  ^^  Though  An- 
drew Johnson  failed,  as  others  have  failed,  to  inaugurate  the 
brotherhood  of  man  and  to  make  democracy  and  theocracy 
coterminous,  he  succeeded,  in  a  measure,  in  maintaining  a 
household  based  on  the  equality  of  man.  American  homes  he 
considered  the  hope  of  America,  and  certainly  his  home  was 
a  tower  of  strength;  without  it,  and  without  the  encourage- 
ment of  his  wife  and  daughters,  Andrew  Johnson  could  never 
have  put  up  the  fight  he  did. 

Must  it  not  be  said  of  Eliza  McCardle  Johnson  tliat  she 
was  one  woman  out  of  a  million?  Undazzled  by  wealth  or 
position,  she  discarded  ostentation,  "added  grace  to  merit, 
plainness  to  plenty  and  by  the  simplicity  of  her  life  illustrated 

18  Tn  1875.  in  the  Tennoasee  lopislnturo  it  was  the  mpn  he  had  assisted  who 
returned  Johnson  to  the  Senate.     Hon.  A.  A.  Taylor  was  one  of  them. 
18  Jones,  p.  388. 


HOME  LIFE  107 

the  true  democratic  character  of  our  government."  '"^  In 
younger  days  she  was  a  beautiful  woman.  Her  soft  features 
and  graceful  form,  her  wavy,  light  brown  hair  and  her  large, 
hazel  eyes,  her  fair  complexion,  and  above  all  her  thoughtful 
expression  and  pleasing  address,  constituted  her  a  woman  in- 
deed, one  fit  to  rule  over  the  fervid  nature  of  her  husband  and 
to  aid  him  in  his  quest  of  ideal  Democracy.  "I  should  not 
wonder,"  says  the  historian  Schouler,  "if  Andrew  Johnson  did 
not  consult  his  wife  and  daughters  more  than  he  did  any 
fellow  statesman."  ^^ 

20  Jones,  p.  394. 

21  Jas.  Schouler,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  VII,  p.  21,  coveriug  the 
reconstruction  period. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH 

In  December  1859  the  House  did  not  adjourn  for  the  usual 
Christmas  hoHdays.  It  was  in  no  humor  for  merry-making. 
Since  convening  early  in  December  it  had  tried  in  vain  to 
organize  and  elect  a  speaker.  John  Sherman,  leading  candi- 
date for  the  speakership,  had  disqualified  himself,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  conservatives,  because  of  an  endorsement  of  the  Im- 
pending Crisis. 

This  remarkable  publication,  written  by  J.  Rowan  Helper, 
a  poor  North  Carolina  white,  was  creating  almost  as  much 
trouble  in  Congress  as  John  Brown's  Raid.^  In  this  book 
Helper  insisted  that  the  South  was  a  decadent  country,  that 
slavery  was  gradually  undermining  its  prosperity  and  destroy- 
ing its  soul,  that  it  was  the  most  backward  section  of  the  Union. 
Not  only  did  he  make  this  contention;  he  undertook  to  prove 
it  by  cold  facts  from  the  census  table.  His  remedy  was  the 
abolition  of  slavery  and  colonization  of  the  negro.  Though  his 
attack  on  southern  slave-holders  was  untrue  and  unnecessary, 
his  demonstration  was  unanswerable.  At  the  bare  mention 
of  Helper's  book  southern  Congressmen  went  into  a  frenz}^, 
the  term  "Helperite"  becoming  the  synonym  for  treacher}^ 
to  the  South.  Though  published  in  1857,  the  book  did  not 
come  into  prominence  till  the  winter  of  1859,  about  the  time 
John  Brown  was  going  to  the  gallows  in  Virginia.  Helper's 
Impending  Crisis  was  Andrew  Johnson's  vade  mecum — his 
arsenal  of  facts. 

While  the  House  was  endeavoring  to  elect  a  speaker  the 
greatest  confusion  and  discord  prevailed.  Southern  Congress- 
men charged  tliat  Harper's  Ferry  and  John  Brown's  Raid  were 
the  direct  result  of  Black  Republicanism  as  contended  for  by 
Helper  and  by  Seward  and  Lincoln.     Seward's  "irrepressible 

1  First  Session  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  p.  574. 

108 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  109 

conflict"  and  Lincoln's  "house  divided  against  itself"  utter- 
ances were  regarded  as  unspeakably  false  and  treasonable. 
During  the  spring  session,  bowieknives  and  pistols  flashed  in 
Congressional  halls  and  challenges  to  fight  duels  were  not  in- 
frequent. Potter  of  Wisconsin  accepted  the  challenge  of 
Prior  of  Virginia  and  chose  bowieknives.  Prior  refused  the 
challenge,  being  unwilling  to  engage  in  "so  barbarous  a 
method  of  warfare."  On  one  occasion  Owen  Love  joy,  an 
Illinois  Congressman,  brother  of  Elijah  Love  joy,  murdered 
by  an  anti-abolition  mob,  crossing  over  from  his  seat,  stood 
facing  the  Democratic  side  of  the  Chamber :  "The  principle  of 
slavery,"  said  the  exasperated  man,  "is  the  doctrine  of  devils 
as  well."  There  is  no  place  in  the  universe  "outside  of  the 
five  points  of  hell  and  the  Democratic  party  where  the  prac- 
tice would  not  be  a  disgrace."  Prior  of  Virginia  angrily  ex- 
claimed: "The  gentleman  shall  not  approach  this  side  of  the 
House" — shaking  his  fist — "it  is  bad  enough  to  be  compelled 
to  sit  here  and  hear  a  member  use  treasonable  and  insulting 
language;  but  he  shall  not,  sir,  come  upon  this  side  of  the 
House  shaking  his  fist  in  our  faces."  Potter  of  Wisconsin 
rushed  forth  to  the  help  of  Love  joy,  followed  by  a  score  of 
Republican  Congressmen.  Barksdale  of  Mississippi,  with 
bowieknife  in  hand,  led  a  dozen  angry  Southerners  to  the 
rescue.  The  confusion  was  great.  It  seemed  as  if  a  terrible 
encounter  was  about  to  take  place  on  the  floor  of  the  House. 
After  order  was  restored.  Love  joy  broke  forth  again.  "You 
might,"  he  exclaimed,  "put  each  crime  perpetrated  among 
men  into  a  moral  crucible  and  dissolve  and  combine  them  all 
and  the  resultant  amalgam  is  slave-holding.  ...  It  is  the 
violence  of  robbery."  Prior:  "You  shake  your  fist  at  us,  go 
to  your  side."  Barksdale:  "Order  that  black-hearted  scoun- 
drel and  negro-stealing  thief  to  take  his  seat  or — "  Again 
discord  and  confusion  broke  out.  A  motion  to  adjourn  was 
made.  Congressmen  gathered  in  hostile  array  as  before. 
Love  joy  resuming,  abated  not  a  jot  of  his  denunciation.  "You 
speak  of  us  Avho  labor  as  greasy  mechanics,"  he  scowled, 
"filthy  operatives,  and  you  jeer  at  us  as  worse  than  slaves.  .  .  . 
Slavery  must  die.    'Carthago  delenda  est'  "    Barksdale:  "The 


110  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

meanest  slave  in  the  South  is  your  superior."  Singleton: 
"May  I  ask  a  question?"  Barksdale:  "I  hope  the  gentleman 
will  hold  no  parley  with  the  perjured  negro  thief." 

After  the  usual  holiday  recess  the  Senate  convened  with 
two  important  measures  confronting  it.  The  first  was  the 
Homestead  bill,  whose  fate  I  shall  discuss  in  the  next  chapter, 
the  other  was  the  slavery  question  in  all  its  ramifications.  This 
being  election  year,  platforms  were  to  be  written,  candidates 
chosen  and  a  President  elected.  If  the  election  of  1856  had 
been  held  in  September  or  October  of  that  year  instead  of 
November  it  had  been  believed  that  Fremont,  the  Republican, 
would  have  defeated  Buchanan.  As  the  canvass  proceeded, 
however,  the  conservative  element  became  alarmed.  Fear  of 
a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  in  the  event  of  Fremont's  election, 
drove  thousands  to  vote  for  Buchanan.  Throughout  the 
South  open  threats  had  been  made  that  the  Union  would  be 
dissolved  if  a  Black  Republican  were  elected.  Now,  in  this 
opinion  Andrew  Johnson  did  not  concur ;  in  fact,  he  regarded 
such  threats  as  idle  and  vain.  He  did  not  think  that  the  Union 
was  in  danger  in  1856,  nor  did  he  think  it  in  danger  in  1860. 
Moreover,  he  was  decidedly  of  opinion  that  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  government,  such  as  the  Homestead  bill,  should  be 
considered  on  their  merits  and  not  under  threats  of  dissolving 
the  Union.  Though  he  voted  for  the  compromise  measures  of 
1850  he  did  so  with  reluctance.  He  was  never  a  compromise 
man.  Addressing  the  Senate  in  1858,  he  said,  "In  1820  we  had 
a  compromise;  the  republic  was  agitated;  dissolution  threat- 
ened before  it  was  made,  and  when  it  was  effected  it  became 
a  permanent  subject  of  contention — until  it  was  repealed  .  .  . 
In  1850  several  measures  were  passed  as  compromise  measures ; 
they  produced  a  great  agitation;  a  dissolution  of  the  Union 
was  threatened ;  in  1851  some  great  pacificators  came  forward 
on  another  compromise  and  that  compromise  has  been  a  con- 
tinual and  increasing  source  of  agitation." 

"Compromise !"  he  exclaimed.  "I  almost  wish  the  term  was 
stricken  out  of  the  English  language."  "Let  us  agree  to  abide 
by  tlie  Constitution  of  the  country  and  have  no  more  com- 
promises." .  .  .  "We  have  been  compromised  and  conserva- 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  111 

tized  until  there  is  hardly  any  Constitution  left."  ..."  *The 
Union!  the  Union!'  is  the  constant  cry.  Sir,  I  am  for  the 
Union ;  but  in  every  little  speech  I  have  to  make  I  do  not  deem 
it  necessary  to  sing  peans  and  hosannas  to  the  Union.  I  think 
the  Union  will  stand  uninterrupted.  It  will  go  on  as  it  has 
gone  on  without  my  singing  peans  to  it;  and  this  thing  of 
saving  the  Union  I  will  remark  here  has  been  done  so  often 
that  it  has  gotten  to  be  entirely  a  business  transaction."  " 

John  C.  Calhoun,  father  of  the  nullification  doctrine,  John- 
son regarded  as  a  mere  logician,  "more  of  a  politician  than 
a  statesman,"  "often  wrong  in  his  premises,"  "the  founder  of 
a  sect,  not  of  a  great  national  party."  "If  Calhoun  were  now 
living,"  said  Johnson,  "he  and  all  the  men  in  the  United  States 
could  not  put  a  government  into  successful  operation  under 
the  system  he  laid  down.^  The  Union,"  Johnson  exclaimed, 
"it  cannot,  it  cannot  be  dissolved." 

Though  Andrew  Johnson  deplored  the  waste  of  time  in  the 
discussion  of  Davis'  resolutions,  such  debates  in  Congress  were 
not  unusual.  Foote's  resolution  on  the  public  lands  gave  rise 
to  the  Webster-Hayne  debate;  Calhoun's  resolution  of  Janu- 
ary 23,  1833,  condemning  the  high  tariff  measure  and  justify- 
ing the  action  of  South  Carolina  in  nullifying  the  same,  pro- 
voked the  Calhoun-Webster  debate. 

These  resolutions  of  Calhoun  declared  that  the  American 
government  is  a  compact  to  which  the  sovereign  states  are 
parties  and  each  state  has  a  right,  in  case  of  a  violation  of  the 
compact,  to  choose  its  own  mode  of  redress.*  Hereunder,  Cal- 
houn advocated,  as  the  mode  of  redress,  not  Secession  but  Nulli- 
fication. That  is,  the  aggrieved  state  would  nullify  the  ob- 
noxious law  but,  at  the  same  time,  remain  in  the  Union.  This 
was  not  Jefferson  Davis'  idea  at  all.  His  school  differed  from 
Calhoun  as  to  the  relation  of  the  states  to  the  general  govern- 
ment. According  to  Davis,  each  state  was  sovereign  and  above 
the  government.  In  1787,  upon  entering  into  the  agreement 
to  form  a  Union,  each  state  contracted  with  each  other  state, 

2  Congressional  Globe,  First  Session  Thirty-fifth  Congress,  1858. 

3  Savage,  Life  of  Johnson,  p.  147. 
^Niles  Register,  Vol.  XLIII,  p.  170. 


112  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

but  not  witli  the  general  government.  In  a  word,  a  compact 
was  then  formed  between  Sovereign  States.  The  general  gov- 
ernment was  a  mere  agent,  a  mere  stake-holder  or  trustee  and 
no  more.  It  made  no  contract  nor  was  it  under  any  obligation 
to  the  states ;  it  was  but  a  wisp  of  hay,  binding  the  bundles 
together.  In  case  of  a  breach  of  this  contract,  therefore,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Davis,  the  following  results  would  appear:  If 
the  United  States  government  should  break  the  contract  the 
aggrieved  state  would  seek  redress  inside  the  Union,  that  is,  by 
nullification.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a  Sovereign  State  should 
breach  the  contract,  ipso  facto  the  contract  would  be  abro- 
gated, and  the  injured  state  might  withdraw  from  the  Union. 
It  would  then  become  a  foreign  power. 

Accordingly,  the  Davis  school,  speaking  through  Rhett  and 
Keitt  of  South  Carolina,  insisted  that  in  1860  the  United 
States  had  not  broken  the  contract ;  that  certain  of  the  north- 
ern States  had  broken  it;  and  in  so  doing,  they  had  absolved 
the  other  states  from  their  obligations.^  Indeed,  these  men  in- 
sisted that  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  of  1850  the  general 
government  was  not  to  blame  for  failure  to  return  fugitive 
slaves.  This  duty  of  returning  fugitive  slaves  devolved,  under 
the  Constitution,  on  each  state.  When  the  State  of  Vermont 
or  New  Hampshire  or  Massachusetts  or  Rhode  Island  or  Con- 
necticut or  New  York  or  Michigan  or  Ohio  refused  to  return 
escaped  slaves  that  state  thereby  annulled  the  compact.  When 
John  Quincy  Adams  asserted  that  "Massachusetts  men  are  not 
to  be  made  slave  catchers  of"  he  was  speaking  as  a  citizen  of 
Massachusetts  and  not  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 

Now  Andrew  Jolmson  did  not  agree  with  Calhoun  nor  did 
he  agree  with  Jefferson  Davis.  Though  a  state's-rights  man, 
he  held  that  each  state  had  parted  with  such  attributes  of 
sovereignty  as  related  to  the  continuity  and  perpetuit}^  of  the 
national  government,  but  no  more.  Johnson  looked  to  the 
people  as  the  source  of  all  power.  Agreeing  with  Webster,  he 
maintained  that  the  opening  words  of  the  Constitution  de- 
clared by  whom  the  instrument  was  formed.  "We  tlie  people 
of  the  United  States,"  Jolinson  read  to  mean  that  the  people 

6  Oreat  Political  Debates,  Vol.  XXI,  p.  103. 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  113 

were  sovereign  and  not  the  states.  Though  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  writing  to  Sam  MiUigan  and  making  fun  of  the  "Divine 
Daniel,"  at  heart  he  agreed  with  Webster  that  there  was  an 
indestructible  Union  of  indestructible  states.  In  1788,  when 
Patrick  Henry  read  the  proposed  Constitution  and  discovered 
that  these  words,  "we  the  people,"  were  written  therein,  he  set 
up  a  great  howl.  "It  squints  at  despotism!"  the  old  patriot 
exclaimed.  "Why  change  the  wording  of  the  articles  of  Con- 
federation? Why  substitute  the  words,  'We  the  people  of  the 
United  States,'  for  the  names  of  the  states  themselves?" 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  Mr.  Davis'  resolutions  were 
offered  to  destroy  Douglas;  but  may  they  not  have  been 
offered  for  a  double  purpose?  The  Democratic  party  in  the 
South  was  being  crowded  with  Whigs.  These  Whigs  were 
driven  from  their  party  by  the  attitude  of  Seward  and  other 
northern  Whig  abolitionists.  In  fact,  an  acceptance  of  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  excluding  slavery  from  the  territories,  had 
almost  become  a  prerequisite  to  admission  into  the  Whig  party 
at  the  North.*^  This  heterogeneous  mass  needed  to  be  welded 
together  and  made  coherent.  Andrew  Johnson  was  an  insur- 
gent; Clingman  had  been.  These  men  and  all  other  kickers 
must  be  rounded  up.  Johnson  in  particular  was  troublesome 
and  must  be  made  to  show  his  hand.  The  Davis  resolutions 
would  force  the  issue.  In  a  debate  with  Congressman  Stanley 
Andrew  Johnson  had  used  treasonable  language.  Stanley  had 
moved  to  organize  the  House  by  dividing  out  the  offices,  which 
motion  Andrew  Johnson  had  opposed.  It  was  "but  a  bargain 
and  sale,"  Johnson  insisted,  and  it  "would  cut  out  the  Free 
Soil  party."  Stanley,  who  was  not  averse  to  the  field  of  honor, 
retorted  that  a  man  like  Andrew  Johnson  "would  not  blush 
at  anything."  "^ 

If  the  Davis'  resolutions  would  destroy  Douglas,  force  the 
hand  of  Andrew  Johnson  and  other  weak-kneed  Southerners, 
and  write  a  new  platform,  the  South  could  present  an  unob- 
structed front  against  the  North,  and  Jefferson  Davis  would 

6T.  L.  Clingman,  Life  and  Letters,  p.  341. 

7  Thirty-first  Congress,  Congressional  Globe,  Part  I,  p.  34. 


114j  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

not  suffer  in  the  shake-up.^  In  the  '50's,  at  a  Quitman  ban- 
quet in  Georgia,  he  had  been  toasted  as  "the  game  cock  of  the 
Confederacy."  As  Secretary  of  War  he  had  dominated  the 
Pierce  administration,  making  it  possible  for  Douglas  to  push 
through  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  In  January  1859  he  had 
advised  the  Mississippi  Legislature,  in  the  event  of  the  election 
of  an  abolitionist  to  the  Presidency,  to  seek  safety  outside  of 
the  Union. ^  Dignified  and  austere,  Jefferson  Davis,  in  appear- 
ance and  in  intellect,  was  more  northern  than  southern.  Seven 
3^ears  of  study,  after  leaving  the  army,  had  weakened  his  con- 
stitution. One  eye  was  gone.  Swathed  and  bandaged,  he  often 
came  to  his  duties  in  the  Senate  chamber,  a  sick  man.  Tall 
and  spare,  pale  and  emaciated,  he  caused  many  to  remark 
a  resemblance  to  Senator  Fessenden  of  Maine.  His  language 
was  chaste  and  restrained.  Unforgiving  and  Cassius-like,  he 
had  fcAV  friends — almost  none  among  his  equals.  He  was  not 
of  gentle  birth,  his  father  having  been  a  Avandering  Kentucky 
tenant.  Not  till  past  fifty  years  did  he  leave  the  church  of 
his  father,  the  Baptist  church,  to  join  Saint  James'  church, 
Richmond.  Around  him  as  the  center  and  the  chief  apostle  of 
slavery  gathered  the  fiery  and  truculent  Wigfall  and  Iverson, 
the  smooth  and  wily  Benjamin  and  Slidell,  the  cultured  and 
aristocratic  Mason  and  Hammond,  proud  of  the  slightest  nod 
of  approval. 

Jefferson  Davis  firmly  believed  that  there  were  two  alle- 
giances, one  to  the  State  and  the  other  to  the  United  States. 
He  likewise  held,  as  a  corollary,  that  there  were  two  kinds  of 
treasons,  one  against  the  State  and  the  other  against  the 
United  States.  In  the  conflict  between  State  and  Nation,  he 
stood  with  the  State.^°  But  he  was  now  playing  a  desperate 
game.  He  was  matching  slavery  against  the  Union  and  laying 
down  terms  to  the  North  which,  if  rejected,  miglit  bring  on  a 
conflict.  From  the  old  and  safe  position  of  his  party  that 
Congress  had  no  right  to  legislate  slavery  out  of  the  terri- 
tories, he  had  advanced  to  the  new  position  that  Congress  must 

8  Rhodes,  Vol.  II,  p.  27 ;  Quitman  was  a  Northerner  turuetl  southern  "iiro 
cater." 

»Ihid.,  p.  348, 

10  Craven,  Prison  Life,  p.  114. 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  115 

legislate  slavery  into  them.    This  the  North  called  a  "national 
slave  code." 

Would  the  North  yield  to  this  demand?  Constitutions  and 
Dred  Scott  decisions  to  the  contrary,  would  the  North  become 
a  partner  In  the  slavery  business  ?  That  the  North  should  bow 
to  the  Constitution  and  return  run-away  slaves,  property  of 
high  value,  to  their  masters,  thereby  obeying  the  Supreme 
Court,  Andrew  Johnson  stoutly  maintained.  But  if  the  North 
refused  to  do  these  things,  would  the  South  make  good  its 
threat  of  secession  ?  This  was  the  dilemma  Johnson  now  faced. 
To  this  extremity  was  he  brought  by  the  zealots  in  his  own 
party,  and  he  must  shortly  decide  what  course  he  would  pursue, 
for  an  event  soon  took  place  indicating  that  the  fiery  South- 
erner from  the  Cotton  States  was  going  to  throw  the  sword 
into  the  scales. 

Nearly  four  years  had  passed  since  Buchanan's  election  and 
conservative  men  were  again  asking  if  the  Union  could  be 
saved  in  1860  as  in  1856.  Would  appeals  to  the  thoughtful 
business  element  prevent  a  split  in  the  Democratic  party  and 
the  defeat  of  "black  Republicanism".^  Abraham  Lincoln,  in 
his  Cooper  Union  speech  in  February  1860,  had  announced  the 
Free  Soil  or  Republican  doctrine:  Though  slavery  could  not 
be  interfered  with  in  the  states,  it  was  morally  wrong  and 
should  not  be  extended.  Douglas  in  September  1859,  unhap- 
pily for  himself,  restated  his  "squatter  sovereignty"  idea :  ^^ 
The  Constitution  neither  establishes  nor  prohibits  slavery  in 
the  territories  but  leaves  it  to  the  people  thereof  to  decide.  On 
this  platform  the  Democrats  had  elected  Buchanan  In  1856 
and  on  it  Douglas  expected  to  succeed  Buchanan  in  1860.  But 
a  disturbing  influence  had  arisen  since  1856 — the  Dred  Scott 
case  had  been  decided. 

In  this  case  the  Supreme  Court,  in  an  effort  to  put  the 
slavery  question  at  rest  forever,  had  held  two  things.  First, 
that  a  negro  was  not  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  and  could 
not  be — ^that  the  Constitution  was  not  made  for  negroes. 
Secondly/,  that  slavery  was  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution  and 
was  beyond  the  control  of  Congress.     The  result  naturally 

11  harper's,  September  1859. 


116  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

followed  that  all  existing  legislation  prohibiting  slavery  in  the 
territories  was  unconstitutional,  null  and  void.  The  Missouri 
Compromise  of  1820,  prohibiting  slavery  north  of  36°  30',  was 
void.  So  was  the  Clay  Compromise  of  1850.  The  fathers  were 
in  error.  Monroe  and  his  cabinet, — John  Quincy  Adams, 
Crawford,  Calhoun,  Thompson  of  New  York,  McLean  of  Ohio, 
and  Wirt,  advising  that  said  compromise  was  constitutional, 
were  likewise  wrong.  So  were  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Webster 
and  others  who  enacted  the  Compromise  of  1850.  In  fact, 
every  one  was  wrong  on  the  subject  except  Jefferson  Davis, 
W.  L.  Yancey  and  their  followers.  John  C.  Calhoun,  when 
he  in  1848  originated  the  doctrine  and  thereby  overruled  his 
opinion  to  INIonroe  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  uncon- 
stitutional, was  correct.^^ 

What  then  was  Jefferson  Davis,  leader  of  the  Democratic 
party,  to  do?  Was  he  to  move  the  party  from  the  caucus  plat- 
form of  1856 — plant  it  on  the  Dred  Scott  decision — or  was  he 
to  lie  down  and  surrender  the  advantage  vouchsafed  by  the 
court's  decision.^  Davis  naturally  chose  the  former  course — • 
that  is,  he  took  advantage  of  the  Dred  Scott  opinion.  On  Feb- 
ruary 29,  1860,  he  offered  his  famous  resolutions  in  the  Senate. 
The  chief  one  declared  "that  neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial 
legislature  has  the  power  to  annul  the  constitutional  right  of 
citizens  to  take  slaves  into  the  common  territory,  but  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  Federal  Government  to  afford  to  slaves  as  to  other 
species  of  property  the  needful  protection."  "  In  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  Democratic  convention  was  to  meet  at  Charles- 
ton, in  April  following,  and  that  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was 
almost  sure  of  nomination  on  the  platform  of  1856 — in  direct 
conflict  with  Davis'  resolutions — a  fight  of  immense  propor- 
tions was  anticipated.  Every  one  knew  that  the  resolutions  if 
adopted  would  defeat  Douglas'  chances  for  the  Presidency, 
and  would  split  the  Democratic  party.  Some  charged  that 
the  Davis  resolutions  were  offered  for  that  purpose  and  for 

12  Rhodes,  Vol.  I,  p.  468. 

13  Con.  Olobe,  First  Session  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  p.  658. 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  117 

the  further  purpose  of  creating  a  secession  of  the  Southern 
States  and  the  disruption  of  the  Union. ^* 

Before  these  resolutions  were  offered  Mr.  Davis  conferred 
with  President  Buchanan,  who  concurred  in  their  adoption/^ 
Senator  SHdell  of  Louisiana  was  called  into  the  conference ;  he 
too  approved.  This  conference,  and  the  subsequent  caucus  of 
certain  Senators  and  Congressmen  from  the  far  South,  Cling- 
man,  a  Democratic  Senator  with  union  proclivities,  called  "the 
conspiracy  of  Buchanan,  Douglas  and  Slidell,"  a  conspiracy 
"surpassing  in  insanity  and  wickedness,"  he  declared,  "all 
other  events  in  the  history  of  humanity."  '^^  But  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  conspiracy  was  not  understood  by  those  on  the 
outside ;  only  the  insiders  knew  its  real  significance.  The 
North  was  fooled  and  so  was  Andrew  Johnson.  Regarding  the 
movement  as  a  mere  abstraction,  a  political  ruse  to  defeat 
Douglas,  Johnson  had  no  idea  that  the  L^nion  was  in  danger.^^ 
President  Buchanan,  no  doubt,  also  regarded  it  as  a  mere  trick 
to  kill  off  Douglas ;  he  certainly  could  not  have  understood 
that  the  first  step  in  breaking  up  the  Union  had  been  taken. 
Edmund  Ruffin,  however,  knew  what  was  up.  "You  must  dis- 
rupt the  Democratic  party,"  he  said,  "before  j^ou  disrupt  the 
Union."  ^« 

On  May  8,  1860,  while  Andrew  Johnson  was  urging  the 
Senate  to  allow  his  Homestead  bill  to  come  forward  and  in- 
sisting that  mere  abstractions  like  the  Davis  resolutions  should 
not  displace  it,  and  that  an  expression  of  opinion  on  the  terri- 
tories was  an  idle  performance,  his  Democratic  colleagues, 
headed  by  Jefferson  Davis,  were  in  fierce  controversy  with 
Senator  Douglas.^^  "We  know,"  said  Senator  Douglas,  "for 
what  object  this  matter  is  brought  up  now.     It  is  all  under- 

14  Wilson,  Rise  and  Fall,  p.  230;  A.  Johnson's  July  27,  1861,  speech;  Presi- 
dent Tavlor,  Davis'  father-in-law,  made  a  like  charge  in  the  '50's;  Rhodes, 
Vol.  I,  p.   135. 

ISA.  H.  Stephens,  War  Between  The  States,  Vol.  II,  p.  271. 

16  Clingman,  Life  and  Letters,  p.  48. 

17  J.  S.  Schouler,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  VI,  p.  84;  Johnson  at- 
tended no  disunion  caucus. 

18  Johnson  MS..  Josiah  Turner's  "Petition  for  Pardon."  Euffin  claims  "to 
have  pulled  the  first  lanvard  at  Sumter." 

19  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  Part  III,  p.  1971. 


118  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

stood ;  the  country  understands  it ;  the  Senate  understands  it." 
Davis:  "I  do  not,  I  wish  you  would  state  it."  Douglas:  "If  the 
Senator  doesn't  understand  it  I  am  not  aware  I  am  under  any 
obligations  to  furnish  him  with  information  on  that  point." 
Davis:  "I  desire  it."  (Mr.  Mason  here  made  a  signal  to  Mr. 
Davis.)  Douglas:  "I  will  see  what  the  Senator  from  Virginia 
has  to  say."  Senator  Mason:  "I  was  talking  to  the  Senator 
from  Mississippi."  Douglas:  "Talking  too  loud,  in  violation 
of  the  courtesies  of  the  body."  Mason:  "You  are  welcome  to 
hear  it."  Presiding  Officer:  "The  Senator  from  Virginia  will 
address  the  chair."  Senator  Mason:  "He  interrupts  me,  sir, 
that  is  all."  Douglas:  "His  manner  does  not  carry  any  terrors 
for  me." 

Andrew  Johnson  had  little  sympathy  with  these  Davis  reso- 
lutions. Insofar  as  they  would  injure  Douglas'  chances  at 
Charleston  he  was  in  favor  of  them.  As  an  abstract  proposi- 
tion, and  whollj'  harmless,  he  had  no  objection  to  them,  but 
as  the  subject  of  serious  debate  they  were  a  mere  waste  of 
time,  and  so  he  referred  to  them.  "Whj^,"  he  asked,  "should 
the  business  of  the  country  be  delaj^ed  while  the  Senate  in- 
dulges in  the  expression  of  an  opinion  on  the  territories."  In 
fact,  Johnson  thought,  as  many  others,  that  the  matter  in  dis- 
pute involved  "the  protection  of  a  nameless  'nigger'  in  a  name- 
less place."  As  all  western  lands,  suitable  for  slaves  and  slav- 
ery, had  already  passed  out  of  a  territorial  condition  and  be- 
come States,  everj'^  one  understood  that  the  matter  was  of  no 
practical  importance.  When  a  ballot  was  taken  on  the  Davis 
resolutions,  however,  Andrew  Johnson  voted  with  the  South. 
Indeed,  all  Democrats  so  voted  except  Pugh  and  Douglas.  As 
Andrew  Johnson's  Homestead  bill  was  at  this  time  in  an  acute 
stage,  no  doubt  his  vote  was  cast  to  hold  as  many  Southerners 
as  possible  in  line. 

If  Andrew  Johnson,  a  southern  man  living  among  the 
negroes,  had  been  free  to  discuss  slavery,  and  to  do  with  it  as  he 
pleased,  he  would  no  doubt  have  been,  like  ]\Ir.  Lincoln,  un- 
able to  say  wliat  to  do.  "If  j'ou  liberate  the  negro,"  he  once 
asked,  "what  will  be  the  next  step.?"  .  .  .  "What  will  we  do 
with  two  million  negroes  in  our  midst .''"  .  .  .  "Blood,  rape  and 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  119 

rapine  will  be  our  portion.  You  can't  get  rid  of  the  negro 
except  by  holding  him  in  slavery." 

Dear  as  was  the  Homestead  to  Johnson,  strong  as  was  his 
opposition  to  the  Wilmot  Proviso  and  other  measures  invading 
the  constitutional  rights  of  the  South,  love  of  the  Union  was 
dearer  and  stronger  than  these.  "The  preservation  of  this 
Union  ought  to  be  the  object  that  is  paramount  to  all  other 
considerations,"  Johnson  had  urged,  when  discussing  the  Wil- 
mot Proviso.  Debating  the  John  Brown  raid,  he  further  de- 
clared: "Our  rights  must  be  safeguarded  and  preserved,  not 
outside,  but  always  inside  the  Union."  While  these  words  were 
falling  from  the  mouth  of  Andrew  Johnson,  news  from  home 
came  that  he  was  going  too  far  in  these  matters.  "Some  of  our 
papers  are  not  strong  for  you,"  wrote  W.  M.  Lowery  in  the 
spring  of  1860. 

When  the  Democratic  convention  met  at  Charleston  April 
23,  1860,  Andrew  Johnson  was  in  Washington  busying  himself 
with  his  homestead  measure.  His  son,  Robert,  had  written 
from  Greeneville  that  he  felt  sure  his  father  would  be  nomi- 
nated, in  fact  had  a  presentiment  to  that  effect.  Johnson,  how- 
ever, did  not  think  so.  He  did  not  expect  to  me  nominated 
for  President.^*'  Notwithstanding  this  doubt,  he  had  made 
arrangements  to  have  his  claims  presented  to  the  convention. 
Robert  was  to  attend.  General  Sam  Milligan,  a  delegate-at- 
large,  was  supplied  with  funds  to  meet  expenses.  Andrew 
Ewing  and  W.  C.  Witthorne  were  chosen  to  place  Johnson  in 
nomination.  The  State  Democratic  convention  at  Nashville, 
had  already  endorsed  Johnson  for  the  Presidency.  Therefore, 
he  would  start  off  with  twelve  votes  at  all  events. 

On  January  27,  1860,  soon  after  the  Nashville  convention 
adjourned,  Lowery  wrote  and  gave  an  account  of  the  meeting: 
"Good  feeling  and  harmony  prevailed  throughout;  it  was  the 
largest  convention  ever  held  in  the  State."  The  resolutions 
written  by  Lowery  and  "endorsing  the  Governor  were  unani- 
mously adopted."  .  .  .  "The  delegation,  however,  was  not 
satisfactory,"   Lowery    wrote,    and    he    was    "not   altogether 

20  Johnson  MS.,  p.  250. 


UO  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

pleased  with  the  delegation."  ^^  On  the  day  of  the  Charleston 
convention  William  Lowery  wrote  again  that  he  was  surprised 
at  the  course  of  the  Memphis  Avalanche.  "It  has  done  much 
to  give  tone  to  things  in  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Mississippi  and 
Texas ;  it  has  acted  badly  and  ought  to  have  stood  up  manfully 
for  Tennessee's  nomination." 

After  the  Tennessee  delegation  arrived  at  Charleston  it  was 
evident  that  some  of  its  members  were  at  heart  opposed  to  An- 
drew Johnson.  Sam  Milligan  wrote  Governor  Johnson  that 
Isham  G.  Harris  at  heart  was  not  for  him ;  Robert  wrote  that 
Watterson,  Andrew  Ewing  and  Jones  of  Overton  "fought 
manfully,  being  much  better  friends  than  some  whose  preten- 
sions were  greater."  In  truth,  it  was  soon  manifest  that  the 
convention  had  not  met  to  elect  but  to  defeat.  From  start  to 
finish  it  was  riding  for  a  fall.^^  Douglas,  who  four  years  be- 
fore, because  of  his  Kansas-Nebraska  measure,  was  the  prime 
southern  favorite,  was  now  in  disrepute.  The  strength  of 
Buchanan's  administration  was  being  hurled  against  him. 
The  Davis  resolutions,  pending  in  the  Senate,  were  rendering 
him  hateful  to  the  people  of  the  South.^^  Andrew  Johnson's 
antipathy  for  Douglas  was  purely  personal.  As  to  national 
politics  they  were  not  in  great  disagreement.  Johnson  disliked 
him  because  he  considered  him  an  opportunist,  skillful  in 
catching  on  his  feet.  As  he  wrote  Patterson,  interested  plun- 
derers were  "throwing  their  arms  about  his  neck  along  the 
street" — "reading  pieces  to  him  in  the  Oyster  Cellar  of  a  com- 
plimentary character,  which  are  to  be  sent  off  to  some  subsi- 
dized press  for  publication" ;  if  Patterson  were  present  where 
"he  could  see  some  of  the  persons  engaged  and  the  appliances 
brought  to  bear  for  the  purpose  of  securing  Douglas'  elec- 
tion," he  would  involuntarily  denounce  the  whole  concern. 

Was  man  ever  worse  treated  than  Douglas  by  the  slave  party 
of  the  South  ?  He  had  fought  its  battles  on  a  hundred  stumps 
and  on  the  issue  of  slavery  he  had  just  met  and  defeated  Lin- 
coln for  the  Senate.    But  in  the  eyes  of  southern  leaders  Doug- 

21  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 

22  jjife  of  Thurlow  Weed,  p.  618. 

2a  Caucuses  of  1860,  p.  70;  Clingman,  p.  484. 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  121 

las  had  committed  two  grievous  sins :  He  had  opposed  the  Le- 
compton  Slave  Constitution  for  Kansas  and  he  had  declared 
that  Squatter  Sovereignty  would  survive  despite  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  What  though  slavery  be  guaranteed  by  the 
Constitution,  so  that  Congress  cannot  shut  it  out  of  the  terri- 
tories, he  had  said,  nevertheless  an  adverse  sentiment  in  such 
territories  will  destroy  slavery.  When  President  Buchanan 
informed  Douglas  he  was  going  to  sustain  the  contentions  of 
the  slave  power  the  latter  replied  that  he  would  then  denounce 
such  policy  in  the  Senate.  Buchanan  bluntly  reminded  Doug- 
las that  "no  one  has  ever  survived  who  opposed  an  administra- 
tion of  his  own  choice,"  and  cited  the  case  of  Reeves  and 
Tallmadge.  Douglas,  putting  an  end  to  the  interview,  em- 
phatically remarked:  "Mr.  President,  I  wish  you  to  remem- 
ber Andrew  Jackson  is  dead."  -* 

Never  was  there  such  a  madcap  crowd  as  gathered  in  pic- 
turesque Charleston  that  April  day,  1860.  And  never  a  more 
academic  issue.  "A  fight  to  protect  a  nameless  'nigger'  in  a 
nameless  country" — a  "quarrel  over  goats'  wool."  Many  of 
the  Western  delegates  had  never  seen  the  "Sunny  South" 
before.  Plain,  hardy  men,  living  on  the  corn  lands  of  Iowa  and 
Illinois,  some  of  them  raising  hogs  and  cattle  for  a  livelihood, 
they  were  interested  and  bewildered  by  the  spectacle  of  Charles- 
ton. Though  a  city  of  only  about  forty  thousand  people,  it 
was  the  most  aristocratic  center  in  America.  The  Battery  set 
in  its  gem-like  harbor,  old  Saint  Michael's  church,  ^lagnolia 
Gardens,  with  tropical  plants  and  palmettoes,  elegantly 
gowned  women  and  gay  equipages,  these  were  in  sharp  con- 
trast to  the  work-a-day  surroundings  of  the  great  western 
prairies.  Despite  its  elegance  and  reputation  for  hospitality, 
however,  Charleston  made  no  effort  to  entertain  the  delegates, 
the  haughty  bearing  of  Charleston  towards  the  Tammany 
Braves  and  the  uncouth  western  delegate  being  obvious 
throughout.-^  Yet  politically  the  aristocratic  Southerner  and 
the  democratic  Westerner  were  further  apart  than  socially. 

24  Rhodes,  Vol.  II,  p.  282. 
25md.,  p.  441. 


U2  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

On  the  morality  of  slavery  they  were  indeed  as  far  apart  as  the 
poles. 

The  platform,  therefore,  was  the  bone  of  contention.  Would 
it  be  the  platform  of  1856,  or  would  it  be  the  Jefferson  Davis 
resolutions.?  Before  the  convention  met  a  caucus  of  anti- 
Douglas  delegates  was  held,  when  it  was  decided  to  support 
these  resolutions.  Though  Davis  was  not  at  the  convention, 
Senator  John  Slidell  of  Louisiana  was  on  hand  to  guide  and 
direct.  Smooth,  cunning,  adroit  and  wealthy,  Senator  Slidell 
was  the  man  for  the  job.  Having  secured  the  committee  on 
platform,  the  Yancey-Davis  forces  wrote  the  majority  report, 
and  Avery  of  North  Carolina  submitted  it  to  the  convention. 
This  report  covered  practically  the  same  ground  as  the  Davis 
resolutions.  The  minority  report  substantially  covered  the 
national  platform  of  1856,  that  is  to  say  it  affirmed  Douglas' 
Squatter  Sovereignty  idea,  as  embraced  in  the  Kansas-Ne- 
braska bill  of  1854j.  The  debates  on  the  proposed  platforms 
were  earnest  and  exciting.  Yancey  of  Alabama  was  the 
southern  champion ;  Senator  Pugh  of  Ohio,  the  northern.  In 
the  early  '50's  Yancey  had  been  in  Congress ;  he  had  likewise 
attended  other  national  Democratic  conventions  and  he  was 
the  product  of  a  northern  college.  Heretofore  his  radical 
views  had  made  him  a  dangerous,  even  an  unwelcome  leader. 
Now  he  was  more  than  welcome.  The  "Yancey"  doctrine,  for 
which  Yancey  and  R.  B.  Rhett  of  South  Carolina  had  vainly 
contended  for  a  score  of  years,  was  now  the  Jefferson  Davis 
doctrine.  Could  Yancey  secure  its  approval  in  the  convention 
hall.? 

When  the  great  southern  orator  rose  to  address  the  con- 
vention, every  seat  was  taken  and  the  aisles  were  crowded.  A 
plain,  mild-mannered  man,  unruffled,  never  out  of  humor,  rose 
to  address  the  convention.  In  a  smooth,  southern  voice  which 
filled  every  corner  of  the  hall  he  advocated  the  majority  plat- 
form. The  spectacle  was  dramatic  beyond  description.  The 
fate  of  a  great  party — the  fate  of  the  Nation,  perhaps — 
hung  on  his  words.  He  spoke  for  nearly  two  hours,  not  con- 
cluding till  the  gas  jets  were  lighted.  Setting  forth  the  south- 
ern view  of  slavery,  he  declared  tliat  it  was  of  God,  embedded 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  123 

in  the  Constitution,  upheld  by  the  highest  court.  On  it  the 
South  had  builded  the  greatest  civilization  known  to  man. 
Would  this  benign  institution  survive  or  would  northern  fa- 
natics tear  it  to  pieces?  Addressing  northern  Democrats,  he 
exclaimed :  "You  have  made  a  fatal  mistake  in  admitting  slav- 
ery to  be  wrong ;  you  have  greatly  erred ;  it  is  divine  and  it  is 
right.  No  more  pandering  to  abolitionists.  Go  back  and 
preach  that  doctrine  and  win  the  North."  Yancey  had  swept 
the  convention;  the  applause  was  deafening.  Replying,  Sen- 
ator Pugh  reached  the  climax  of  his  speech  when  he  declared, 
"You  mistake  us,  sir,  we  will  not  do  it."  Pugh's  speech  was 
strong  and  logical.  Admitting  the  constitutional  right  of 
slavery,  agreeing  that  the  fugitive  slave  law  should  be  obeyed, 
advocating  the  continuance  of  slavery  in  the  states,  never- 
theless he  would  not,  for  himself  or  for  his  people,  admit  the 
morality  of  slavery  or  that  slavery  should  be  extended.  The 
re-opening  of  the  African  slave  trade  he  regarded  with  abhor- 
rence. Richardson  of  Illinois  and  Payne  of  Ohio  likewise 
championed  the  cause  of  Douglas.^'' 

On  a  proposition,  sponsored  by  Yancey,  to  re-open  the  slave 
trade,  Virginia  and  the  Border  States  were  in  violent  opposi- 
tion. A  delegate  from  Georgia,  named  Gaulden,  got  the  floor. 
An  honest,  straightforward  slave-holder  and  dealer,  without 
concealments,  he  declared  that  he  was  for  the  African  slave 
trade  and  that  he  understood  the  attitude  of  Virginia.  "Vir- 
ginia is  after  the  dollar."  .  .  .  "She  wants  to  breed  and  sell 
niggers  at  two  thousand  dollars  a  head  when  I  can  go  to  Africa 
and  buy  a  better  article  for  fifty  dollars  a  head."  .  .  .  "Go 
with  me  home,  gentlemen,  and  I  will  show  you  some  darkies  I 
purchased  in  Virginia,  some  in  Georgia,  some  in  Alabama  and 
some  in  Louisiana,  and  then  I  will  show  you  the  native  African, 
noblest  Roman  of  them  all.  In  Virginia  he  costs  me  twelve 
hundred  dollars  and  in  his  native  wilds,  only  fifty  dollars — and 
I  make  a  Christian  of  him  besides."  Roars  of  laughter  greeted 
the  Georgia  delegate,  in  fact  he  had  "let  the  cat  out  of  the 
bag."  Shortly  afterwards  he  was  repudiated  by  the  State  of 
Georgia. 

26  Political  Textbook,  1860. 


lU  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

When  the  platform  was  voted  on  the  minority  won  and  the 
Far  South  seceded  from  the  convention.  That  night  the  city 
of  Charleston  was  all  excitement;  "she  never  enjoyed  her- 
self so  much  as  over  the  idea  of  Secession."  A  meeting  was 
held  at  the  Court  House  and  there  were  loud  calls  for  Yancey. 
Mounting  the  platform,  Yancey  again  addressed  the  people. 
Calling  the  convention,  which  he  had  just  left,  a  "Rump  con- 
vention," he  uttered  a  characteristic  thought,  in  characteristic 
words :  "Perhaps  even  now,"  he  softly  insinuated,  "the  pen  of 
the  historian  is  nibbed  to  write  the  stor}'^  of  a  new  Revolution." 
Three  cheers  for  the  Independent  Southern  Republic  were 
called  for  and  given  with  a  will.^^ 

When  balloting  began  Andrew  Johnson  received  twelve 
votes,  the  entire  vote  of  Tennessee,  for  President,  and  at  one 
time  a  Minnesota  delegate  rose  and  declared  that  he  wished  to 
cast  one  of  Minnesota's  votes  for  Andrew  Johnson.  On  the 
sixth  day  Johnson's  friends  communicated  with  him  b}'^  wire. 
On  April  29,  W.  C.  Witthorne  telegraphed  as  follows :  "Have 
you  declared  for  Douglas  in  the  event  of  adoption  of  minority 
report?  Six  or  more  states  will  withdraw.  What  ought  Ten- 
nessee to  do.P"  To  this  telegram  Johnson  wired :  "I  would  hold 
on  and  acquiesce  in  result.  Nicholson,  Wright  and  Avery 
concurring." 

On  the  second  of  May  W.  H.  Carroll  sent  the  following 
wire  to  Johnson:  "We  have  withdrawn  you.  Douglas  has 
majority.  lOught  we  support  him.'*"  On  the  next  day  and  in 
response  Johnson  wired:  "The  delegation  present,  with  all 
facts  before  them,  are  better  prepared  to  determine  what 
course  to  pursue  than  I  am."  On  the  thirty-sixth  ballot  John- 
son's name  was  withdrawn  from  the  convention. 

During  the  month  of  May  sundry  letters  were  received  by 
Andrew  Jolmson,  giving  him  an  account  of  the  Charleston 
convention ;  in  fact,  Wasliington  and  Charleston  were  in  con- 
stant communication  at  that  time.  Sam  Milligan  wrote:  "I 
fear  the  election  is  lost,  all  due  to  the  extreme  Soutli."  He 
likewise  suggested  a  convention  in  Tennessee  in  June  "to  speak 
out  on  Union  or  dis-Union."     A.  G.  Graham  of  Jonesboro 

27  Caucuses  of  ISGO,  p.  64. 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  125 

\\Tote  and  said,  "you  can  be  nominated  for  Vice-president 
though  I  hear  that  you  will  not  accept  it."  On  INIay  8, 
Robert  Johnson  wrote  from  Greeneville :  "The  Charleston  con- 
vention was  a  general  row  and  injured  the  Democratic  party 
more  than  anything  that  has  happened  to  it  for  j'^ears.  .  .  . 
I  was  sorry  to  see  the  southern  States  permit  such  a  man  as 
W.  L.  Yancey  of  Alabama  lead  them  by  the  nose  whereso- 
ever he  saw  proper.  I  would  have  had  more  independence  than 
that,  and  if  I  had  wanted  a  leader  I  would  have  selected  a  dif- 
ferent man — but  he,  in  the  opinion  of  some  is  a  very  great 
man — in  my  judgment  he  is  no  man  at  all."  Robert  likewise 
informed  his  father  that  "some  of  the  Tennessee  delegates  were 
stricken  with  the  fire-eating  movement  and  were  ready  to  go  oif 
with  the  others  but  better  counsel  prevailed" ;  he  also  sent  some 
distressing  news  from  home.  Charles  had  gotten  on  a  spree 
at  Charleston  and  given  him  considerable  trouble.  But 
they  were  "at  home  again  now  and  would  have  to  make  the 
best  of  it  as  it  could  not  be  remedied.  Mother  and  myself," 
he  added,  "would  have  started  to  Washington  this  week  if  he 
had  kept  straight  but  as  it  is  we  cannot  say  when  we  will 
get  off  but  I  hope  in  a  short  time." 

W^hile  letters  and  newspapers  were  advising  Johnson  of  the 
insane  course  of  the  Democratic  party  at  Charleston,  he  was 
sticking  to  his  post,  endeavoring  to  hold  the  discordant  forces 
together  in  order  to  pass  his  Homestead  bill.  To  his  disgust 
the  Senate  had  resolved  itself  into  a  mere  debating  society. 
The  Charleston  convention  and  the  "Yancey  Platform"  were 
almost  the  sole  subject  of  discussion.  Lyman  Trumbull,  a 
Democratic  Senator  from  Illinois,  declared  that  he  was  op- 
posed to  the  Senate's  directing  party  conventions."^  W^igfall 
and  Judah  P.  Benjamin  continued  to  pour  out  their  wrath  on 
Douglas.  Senator  Doolittle,  quoting  Benjamin  that  since  the 
Charleston  convention  Douglas  was  dead,  wished  to  remark 
that  if  Douglas  was  dead,  "then  it  is  the  biggest  funeral  pro- 
cession I  ever  attended." 

It  was  becoming  plainer  and  plainer  that  April  30,  1860,  at 
Charleston,  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  epoch  in  the  United 

2»  First  Session  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  Part  III,  p.  2234. 


126  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

States.  Northern  Democrats  liaving  left  the  slave-holding 
Democracy,  slavery  was  doomed  to  destruction.^^  By  slavery 
the  Democratic  party  was  being  split  in  two  as  nearly  all  the 
churches  had  been.  In  the  Senate  Mr.  Davis  continued  his 
fight  on  Douglas.  In  an  exciting  debate  with  Douglas  he  de- 
clared: "I  have  a  declining  respect  for  platforms;  I  would 
sooner  have  an  honest  man  on  any  sort  of  rickety  platform 
you  could  construct  than  to  have  a  man  I  did  not  trust  on  the 
best  platform  which  could  be  made."  "If  the  platform  is  not 
a  matter  of  much  consequence,"  Douglas  retorted,  "why  press 
that  question  to  the  disruption  of  the  party  ?  Why  did  you  not 
tell  us  in  the  beginning  of  this  debate  that  the  whole  fight  was 
against  the  man  and  not  upon  the  platform.?"  Teasingly  and 
sneeringly  Davis  rejoined:  "I  am  only  a  small  man.  I  speak 
for  myself  only."  Amid  such  trifling  scenes  Andrew  Johnson 
was  fretting  his  life  away,  anxious  that  the  Senate  should  de- 
vote itself  to  matters  of  state.  "Is  it  not  possible,"  he  com- 
plained, "that  these  idle  abstractions  shall  give  place  to  my 
Homestead  bill.''"  But,  as  we  shall  see,  his  Homestead  bill  was 
not  destined  to  become  the  law  at  this  session,  not  in  fact  till 
1862,  after  all  southern  Congressmen  had  retired  from  Con- 
gress. Thus  Congress  dragged  itself  along  till  late  in  June, 
when  it  adjourned. 

Douglas,  at  the  Charleston  convention,  had  not  been  able  to 
secure  the  requisite  two-thirds.  The  convention,  after  a  ten 
days'  session,  adjourned  to  meet  in  Baltimore  on  June  18,  when 
Douglas  and  Herschel  Johnson  were  nominated.  The  Whig 
party  nominated  for  President  and  Vice-president,  Bell  of 
Tennessee  and  Edward  Everett  of  Massachusetts.  The  in- 
surgent Democrats  nominated  Breckinridge  and  Lane  and 
the  Republicans  nominated  Lincoln  and  Hamlin.  Though 
Sam  Milligan,  Robert  Johnson,  Witthorne  and  other  friends 
of  Andrew  Johnson  attended  the  adjourned  Baltimore  con- 
vention, Johnson's  name  was  not  presented.  On  June  18, 
Johnson  wrote  to  General  INIilligan  and  requested  that  such 
course  be  taken.     After  thanking  MilHgan  and  his  associates 

20  Von  Hoist,  Constitutional  History  of  the  United  States,  p.  138;  Thirty- 
sixth  Congress,  Second  Session,  p.  20"). 


JEFF  DAVIS  SPOILS  THE  BROTH  127 

for  tHeir  support,  he  expressed  apprehension  for  the  welfare 
and  perpetuity  of  the  government,  declaring  that  he  would  not 
suffer  his  name  to  add  to  the  difficulties  and  embarrassments  of 
the  situation.  "I  feel  that  it  is  incumbent  upon  you,  and  upon 
me,"  he  wrote,  "to  do  everything  that  can  honorably  and  con- 
sistently be  done  by  us  to  secure  unity  and  harmony  of  action, 
to  the  end  that  correct  principles  may  be  maintained,  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  only  national  organization  remaining  con- 
tinued, and  above  all,  that  the  Union  with  the  blessings,  guar- 
antees, and  protection  of  its  Constitution,  be  perpetuated  for- 
ever." 

Well  might  Andrew  Johnson  feel  that  the  Union  was  in  dan- 
ger and  that  the  Charleston  convention  was  the  beginning  of 
the  end.  Opinions  then  differed  widely  as  to  what  the  further 
development  of  the  struggle  would  probably  be.  "But  there 
was  no  difference  of  opinion  .  .  .  that  in  the  whole  history  of 
the  Union,  from  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  scarcely 
an  event  could  be  found  that  could  be  compared  in  impor- 
tance with  this  event  of  the  Charleston  convention."  ^'^  But 
the  convention  at  Charleston  was  as  disastrous  to  Johnson's 
Homestead  as  to  the  Democratic  party.  As  that  convention 
was  bottomed  on  slavery  and  as  the  Homestead  was  bottomed 
on  freedom,  the  two  were  in  deadly  conflict.  "In  fact,  the 
Homestead  was  more  destructive  of  slavery  than  the  Wilmot 
Proviso."  Yet  Johnson  advocated  both  the  Homestead  and 
slavery — a  position  alike  delicate  and  ambiguous.^^ 

30  Von  HolBt,  p.  138. 

3^ North  American  Review,  Vol.  CXLI,  p.  182;  Blaiue,  Vol.  II,  p.  4. 


CHAPTER  IX 
FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD 

One  of  the  most  interesting  problems  of  the  early  American 
statesman  was  what  should  be  done  with  vacant  government 
lands.  In  1803  France  had  ceded  Louisiana  to  the  United 
States;  in  1819  the  Floridas  had  been  purchased  and  there- 
after, by  the  Mexican  War,  the  Oregon  Boundary,  and  the 
Gadsden  Purchase,  much  other  territory  was  added. 

In  1821  Missouri  had  become  a  state,  and,  lying  on  the 
outskirts  of  civilization,  was  particularly  desirous  of  attracting 
settlers.  Thos.  H.  Benton,  long  a  Senator  from  Missouri, 
was  an  early  advocate  of  homestead  legislation.^  Benton  pro- 
posed the  "Graduation  Plan" ;  a  sale  but  on  a  graduated  scale. 
The  best  unoccupied  lands  would  be  sold  at  a  fair  price,  the 
waste  or  left-over  land  at  a  smaller  price,  and  lands  occupied 
by  squatters,  who  claimed  title  but  in  fact  had  none,  at  a 
nominal  figure.  Benton  went  so  far  as  to  advocate  a  donation 
of  lands  to  settlers,  after  a  certain  number  of  years'  residence.^ 
The  minimum  price  of  lands  before  1820  was  $2.00  an  acre, 
with  liberal  terms  of  credit;  but  in  1820  the  credit  system  was 
abolished  and  a  price  of  $1.25  cash  was  fixed. 

Graduation  homestead  bills  were  frequently  offered  in  Con- 
gress in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century.  The  famous 
Webster-Hayne  debate  of  1830  was  upon  resolutions  of  Foote 
of  Connecticut  relating  to  and  criticizing  public  land  legisla- 
tion. These  resolutions  inquired  as  to  the  advantage  the  West 
was  getting  in  the  sale  of  such  lands.  At  that  time  the  issue 
was  not  between  North  and  South,^  Southerners  not  then 
dreaming  that  the  "Great  American  Desert,"  as  the  recent 
Louisiana  Purchase  was  called,  was  a  territory  larger  than  the 

1  Mississippi  TaHcp  Eistorical  Review,  Vol.  V,  p.  282. 

2  Boiiton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  Vol.  I,  pp.  102-103. 

3  \\illiam  McDonald,  Jacksonian  Democracy,  p.  10!). 

128 


FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD  129 

thirteen  original  States  and  that  valuable  land  subject  to 
homestead  rights  lay  within  that  Purchase.  The  relation  of 
the  South  to  the  North  was  intimate  and  cordial  in  those  days. 
As  time  passed,  however,  and  nine  territories  grew  up  demand- 
ing admittance  into  the  Union,  it  became  apparent  that  the 
influx  of  free  men  would  make  the  West  free  and  give  the 
North  the  whip-hand  over  the  South.  When  this  discovery  was 
made  southern  politicians  stood  aghast,  and  debates  in  Con- 
gress became  sectional.  When  Senator  Hale  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, at  a  later  date,  wanted  to  know  of  Senator  Wigfall  of 
Texas,  "What  wrong  has  the  North  done  you?"  the  fiery 
Texan  came  back  with  an  answer.  "Inhabitants  of  the  new 
territories,"  he  replied,  "gathered  from  ever}'  quarter  of  the 
world,  from  the  five  points  of  New  York  and  the  purlieus  of 
London,  under  homestead  bills  have  squatted  and  undertaken 
to  say  what  is  and  what  is  not  property,  in  open  violation  of 
the  Constitution."  In  the  '40's,  as  Wigfall  stated,  foreigners 
had  begun  to  crowd  American  shores,  famine  in  Ireland,  and 
dissensions  in  Europe  driving  three  hundred  thousand  refugees 
to  America  in  1850. 

But  before  the  sectional  issue  arose  Southerners  as  well  as 
Northerners  advocated  homestead  bills.  Henry  Clay,  with 
his  internal  improvement  views,  proposed  a  sale  and  distribu- 
tion of  the  proceeds  among  the  States.  Calhoun,  always  an 
advocate  of  increasing  the  power  of  the  states,  would  sur- 
render to  the  states  such  lands  as  were  within  the  organized 
boundaries.  President  Polk  favored  a  sale,  and  out  of  the 
proceeds  the  payment  of  the  costs  of  the  Mexican  War. 
Efforts  were  also  made  to  combine  the  two  leading  ideas — the 
raising  of  revenue  and  at  the  same  time  the  assistance  of  hona- 
fide  settlers.  Considerable  quantities  of  land  were  disposed  of 
under  homestead  bills  subject  to  preemption  laws — that  is,  the 
right  of  occupants  to  hold  the  lands  on  compl34ng  with  the 
law.  But  primarily  "public  lands  were  regarded  as  the  basis 
of  a  very  large  revenue."  *  In  1841  the  passage  of  Clay's 
Distribution  Act  was  "an  indication  of  a  policy  hostile  to  a 
reduction  of  the  price  of  lands,  as  there  would  then  be  much 

i  American  Historical  Revieic,  Vol.  VI,  p.  19. 


130  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

less  to  be  distributed."  °  In  1844)  the  question  whether  lands 
should  be  sold  or  donated  was  not  active,  indeed  was  not  an 
issue  between  the  Whigs  and  Democrats. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  land  legislation  when  Andrew 
Johnson  entered  Congress  in  1843.  On  March  27,  1846  he 
offered  his  famous  homestead  measure,  at  which  he  kept  driv- 
ing ahead  till  it  became  an  absorbing  issue.  This  issue  was 
greatly  complicated,  however.  First  of  all,  there  were  the 
land-speculators  and  big  land  owners.  North  and  South. 
These  opposed  any  free-land  bill.^  Trans-continental  rail- 
roads began  to  "grab"  the  public  lands;  Free  Soilers  to  de- 
mand them  for  genuine  settlers;  slave-holders  to  condemn 
homestead  legislation  as  a  policy  hostile  to  the  South,  and 
"Know-Nothings"  to  dread  an  influx  of  Catholic  immigrants. 
The  tariff  also  entered  into  the  fight.  If  the  lands  were  sold 
and  the  proceeds  placed  in  the  national  treasury  there  would 
be  no  need  for  tariff  taxes. 

Subject  to  these  handicaps,  Andrew  Johnson  set  to  work  to 
pass  an  out  and  out  homestead  bill,  a  measure  in  the  interest 
of  "the  landless."  Andrew  Johnson's  Homestead  bill  was 
simple  and  uncomplicated.  Its  distinguishing  feature  was  bene- 
fit to  settlers  and  not  revenue.  The  Government's  western 
lands  should  be  divided  up  and  provide  homesteads  to  bona-fide 
settlers — without  money  or  price.  One  hundred  and  sixty  acres 
should  be  thus  granted  to  every  head  of  a  family,  being  a  citi- 
zen of  the  United  States,  upon  condition  of  settlement  and 
cultivation  for  a  number  of  years.  This  homestead  idea  John- 
son came  by  very  naturally.  He  knew  what  it  Avas  to  be 
without  a  home  and  to  feel  the  gnawings  of  hunger!  Besides 
the  Homestead  was  a  Tennessee  idea.  Throughout  Tennessee 
there  were  tracts  of  land,  for  which  no  grant  from  North  Caro- 
lina had  been  issued.  These  vacant  lands  were  subject  to  entry 
and  thousands  of  enterers  were  occupying  them  with  no  other 
title  than  naked  possession.  Jolmson's  bill  would  quiet  their 
titles  and  make  them  real  owners. 

<i  American  Historical  Review,  Vol,  VI,  p.  26. 
"Carl  Sandburg,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Vol.  1,  p.  455. 


FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD  131 

Congressman  Andrew  Johnson  had  rough  sledding  to  recon- 
cile and  hold  together  the  advocates  of  his  measure.  Jefferson 
Davis,  the  Mississippi  slavery  apostle,  and  Thad  Stevens,  the 
New  England  abolitionist,  sleeping  in  the  same  bed,  surely 
made  a  dangerous  pair.  In  fact,  one  day  when  Stevens,  the 
"Vermont  cobbler,"  then  representing  a  Pennsylvania  District, 
addressed  the  House  on  Johnson's  Homestead,  he  all  but 
"threw  the  fat  in  the  fire."  "Slave  countries  never  can  have  a 
yeomanry,"  said  Stevens.  "There  is  no  sound  connecting  link 
between  the  aristocrat  and  the  slave."  .  .  .  "True  there  is  a 
class  of  human  beings  between  them  but  they  are  the  most 
worthless  and  miserable  of  mankind."  .  .  .  "The  poor  white  is 
the  scorn  of  the  slave  himself.  For  slavery  always  degrades 
labor.  The  white  population  who  work  with  their  hands  are 
ranked  with  the  slaves,  .  .  .  they  are  excluded  from  the  society 
of  the  rich;  and  feel  that  they  are  degraded  and  despised." 
Forestalling  Helper's  The  Impending  Crisis,  Stevens  de- 
scribed what  the  South  would  be  but  for  slavery.  He  praised 
the  soil,  the  climate  and  the  harbors  of  Virginia,  spoke  of  her 
early  achievements  and  of  her  present  decay.  "In  Virginia 
there  are  no  new  towns,  no  improved  highwaj'^s,  no  public 
schools."  .  .  .  "Ask  us  the  cause,  sir,  and  I  will  abide  the 
answer,"  the  great  orator  declared.  "Education  is  necessary 
to  civilization  and  there  can  be  no  education  on  big  planta- 
tions. The  children  of  rich  men  cannot  associate  with  poor 
whites,  that  would  be  an  offense,  hence  there  must  be  private 
tutors."  .  .  .  "The  sons  of  Virginia  instead  of  seeking  for  the 
best  breed  of  horses  and  cattle  to  feed  on  her  hills  and  valleys 
must  devote  their  time  to  slavery  and  growing  lusty  sires  and 
the  most  fruitful  wenches  to  supply  the  slave  barracoons  of 
the  South."  .  .  .  "And  this  is  not  my  picture,"  Stevens  sol- 
emnly warned,  "but  the  description  of  a  Congressman  from 
Virginia,  a  statesman  who  pathetically  laments  that  the  profits 
of  this  gentle  traffic  *will  be  greatly  lessened  by  the  circum- 
scription of  slavery.'  " 

On  July  25,  1850,  Johnson  addressed  the  House  on  his  bill, 
and  gave  expression  to  his  humanitarian  ideas.    "Every  man  is 


132  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

entitled  to  a  home,"  he  asserted.  When  "the  government  fails 
to  supply  a  home  it  makes  war  on  the  interests  of  those  it  is 
bound  to  protect."  ''  Standing  with  General  Jackson  on  the 
land  question,  he  urged  that  America  should  learn  a  lesson 
from  poverty-stricken  Ireland.  The  argument  that  revenue 
would  be  lost  by  a  gift  he  met  with  the  assertion  that  there 
would  be  more  revenue  in  taxes  from  western  lands,  when 
occupied  and  cultivated,  than  from  a  sale  at  $1.25  an  acre. 
"There  were  1,442,216,116  acres  of  public  lands  on  Septem- 
ber 30,  1848,"  he  declared,  "which  at  $1.25  an  acre  would  be 
$1,802,707,000;"  but  "when  these  lands  are  put  in  cultivation 
they  will  be  worth  many  billions  more."  He  rested  his  case, 
however,  not  on  revenue  but  on  the  right  of  the  thing.  "Like 
the  air  or  like  the  heat,  the  public  domain,"  he  said,  "is  the 
property  of  all,  intended  to  be  used  and  enjoyed  by  all."  It 
was  this  feature  of  Johnson's  Homestead — free  land  for  free 
laborers — that  distinguished  it  from  all  previous  measures. 

Holding  his  unruly  forces  together,  Congressman  Johnson 
succeeded  in  passing  his  measure  through  the  House,  though 
only  Jones  and  Clements,  of  the  Tennessee  delegation,  voted 
for  it.  In  the  Senate  it  was  defeated.  At  almost  every  subse- 
quent session  the  House  would  act  favorably  on  the  bill  and 
the  Senate,  unfavorably.  In  1854,  while  Johnson  was  Gov- 
ernor of  Tennessee,  the  House  again  passed  the  bill.  The 
Senate  again  set  it  aside  for  a  substitute,  providing  that  after 
a  bona-fide  occupancy  for  five  years  the  tenant  could  pur- 
chase at  twenty-five  cents  an  acre.  But  nothing  further  was 
done  towards  the  passage  of  the  bill.  Thus  homestead  legisla- 
tion halted  and  stood  still  in  Congress,  during  the  four  years 
Johnson  was  Governor  of  Tennessee.  Meanwhile  his  efforts  as 
labor  leader  and  as  a  champion  of  the  Homestead  had  given 
him  recognition  throughout  the  Union.^  At  a  convention  of  a 
labor  party  held  at  Albany  in  June  1851,  he  received  three 
votes  for  President  of  the  United  States."  In  the  preceding 
month,  at  the  invitation  of  George  Henry  Evans,  exponent  of 

T  First  Session  Thirty-first  Congress,  Part  II,  p.  1449. 
8  Mississippi  Valley  Historical  Review,  Vol.  V,  p.  3. 
oNew  York  Tribune,  June  2,   1851. 


FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD  133 

land  reform  in  America,  and  editor  of  the  Working  Man's  Ad- 
vocate, and  of  Greeley,  of  the  Tribune,  he  had  gone  to  New 
York  to  address  a  land  reform  association. 

When  accepting  this  invitation  Johnson  wrote  to  Chairman 
Evans  and  expressed  the  wish  that  the  meeting  should  be 
gotten  up  as  "a  homestead  gathering  without  connection  with 
any  of  the  *isms'  of  the  day."  The  meeting  was  to  be  held  in 
a  public  park,  but  a  rain-storm  drove  the  reformers  indoors. 
A  fair-sized  crowd  was  in  attendance,  and  the  New  York  papers 
carried  good  accounts  of  the  speeches.  The  Tribune  in  an  edi- 
torial commended  Andrew  Johnson  and  his  work.  Shortly 
after  this,  Johnson,  with  pride  and  satisfaction,  wrote  to  Sam 
Milligan  that  he  was  in  New  York  sometime  since,  "and  had 
quite  a  pleasant  time  of  it  in  the  Empire  City  and  was  treated 
there  with  marked  kindness  and  attention."  ^^  But  if  Johnson 
received  marked  kindness  in  the  North,  in  the  South  he  was 
suspected  of  abolitionism  and  of  treachery  to  his  native  land. 
In  the  South  Johnson's  scheme  was  called  "wild  agrarianism," 
"socialistic."  "It  was  an  infamous  and  a  nefarious  scheme." 
"Who  would  own  a  farm  in  North  Carolina  when  he  can  get 
better  in  the  West  for  nothing.'^"  it  was  asked.  Johnson  him- 
self was  called  "the  greatest  of  national  humbugs"  and  the 
"pioneer  insurgent."  ^^ 

Nothing  better  shows  the  confusion  into  which  Andrew 
Johnson  had  been  thrown  by  circumstances  beyond  his  con- 
trol than  his  attempt  to  ride  two  horses  at  the  same  time.  As 
between  the  two,  however,  there  is  no  doubt  of  his  choice.  His 
advocacy  of  slavery  was  perfunctory,  his  advocacy  of  the  home- 
stead, spontaneous  and  whole-souled.  In  the  '50's  the  South 
had  passed  under  the  dominion  of  the  slave  power.  Middle  and 
West  Tennessee  being  as  much  controlled  by  it  as  other  sections 
of  the  South.  Old  abolition  ideas  no  longer  prevailed.  A  good 
negro  fellow,  "sound  in  wind  and  limb,"  who  in  the  '30's  or 
earlier — before  the  cotton  gin  or  the  spinning  jenny — would 
have  brought  three  or  four  hundred  dollars,  was  now  fetching 

10  Johnson  MS. 

"i^i- Raleigh  Register,  June  2,  1852;  McMaster,  History  of  the  United  States, 
Vol.  VIII,  p.  109;  Eichmond  Whig,  May  15,  1852;  Wilmington  Journal  (N. 
C. ) ,  same  date. 


134  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

twelve  or  fifteen  hundred.  Free  negroes  had  been  disfran- 
chised, slave  laws  were  harsher  and  more  rigid.  To  teach  the 
slave  to  read  or  write  was  a  misdemeanor  and,  in  the  Far 
South,  to  advocate  freeing  the  negro  was  a  felony  punishable 
with  death.  These  laws  were  necessary  to  preserve  slavery. 
Educated  slaves  were  an  impossibility.  Therefore,  through 
necessity,  Andrew  Johnson  was  an  advocate  of  slavery. 
Doubtless  he  would  have  taken  this  position  anyway,  despite 
public  opinion.  He  stood  by  the  Constitution  and  "that  sacred 
document,"  as  he  called  it,  recognized  slavery.  "But  for  the 
protection  of  slavery  in  the  Constitution,"  the  Supreme  Court 
had  said  in  substance,  "southern  slave  states  would  not  have 
come  into  the  Union,  and  there  could  have  been  no  United 
States." 

For  these  reasons  Johnson  was  with  the  South  on  the  slavery 
issue.  If  his  attitude  towards  slavery  was  compulsory,  on  the 
other  hand  the  Homestead  appealed  to  his  fighting  blood.  For 
it  he  stood  heart  and  soul.  Looking  upon  the  white  race  as 
superior  to  the  black,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  he  had  settled 
that  matter.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  North  to  obey  the  com- 
promise measures  of  1850  and  return  fugitive  slaves. 

In  not  obeying  this  law  Ohio,  Michigan,  Massachusetts  and 
other  states  were  law-breakers  and  violators  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. If  the  abolitionists  succeeded  in  emancipating  the  slaves 
and  turning  them  loose  on  the  South,  "the  non-slaveholder 
would  join  with  the  slave-owner  and  extirpate  them,"  he  had 
said;  and  "if  one  should  be  more  ready  to  join  than  another 
it  would  be  myself."  ^"  This  usual  southern  view,  I  may  add, 
explains  the  attitude  of  poor  whites  during  the  Civil  War; 
they  fought,  as  they  thought,  for  racial  integrity.  If  slavery 
were  abolished  either  the  poor  white  or  the  free  negro  must  be 
exterminated,  and  they  stood  by  their  race. 

In  a  debate  with  Senator  Trumbull  Andrew  Johnson  once 
quoted  that  Senator  to  the  effect  that  "politically  the  races 
are  equal."  He  then  asked,  "If  Arizona  were  populated  by 
negroes  would  the  Senator  admit  it  as  a  state?"  Trumbull 
assented  that  he  would  not  and  declared  that  "there  is  a  dis- 

^2  Thirty-sixth  Con.  Olohe,  Tart  II,  p.  1307. 


FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD  135 

tinction  between  white  and  black,  made  by  omnipotence  itself." 
"Ah,"  Johnson  retorted,  "the  difference  then  begins  with  the 
deity,  and  the  whole  ground  being  conceded,  all  this  claptrap 
falls  to  the  ground."  When  Sam  Milligan  read  this  speech  he 
wrote  Johnson  "not  to  try  to  justify  slavery  by  the  Bible  but 
by  the  laws  of  nature."  .  .  .  "Slavery  advances  civilization 
because  it  improves  the  ignorant,  vicious  negro,  who  can  be 
thus  and  thus  only  used."  "  That  Andrew  Johnson  knew 
slavery  to  be  a  curse  appears  from  his  Texas  "gateway"  speech 
in  the  '40's.  "Texas  in  the  end,"  he  declared  when  advocating 
the  admission  of  Texas,  "may  prove  to  be  the  gateway  out  of 
which  the  sable  sons  of  Africa  are  to  pass  from  bondage  to 
freedom."  ^*  Though  Johnson  toyed  with  slavery,  the  home- 
stead idea  moved  his  soul ;  "free  land  for  free  labor,"  he  tackled 
in  dead  earnest.  In  touch  with  Free  Soilers  and  well  posted 
on  the  land  question,  he  was  ready  to  show  his  colors,  on  this 
great  issue,  in  the  South  as  well  as  in  the  North.^^ 

A  Free  Soil  Democracy  had  existed  for  some  time  and  in 
1848  had  nominated  Hale  of  New  Hampshire  for  President 
and  Chas.  F.  Adams  for  Vice-president.  This  party  seceded 
from  the  Democrats  but  did  not  join  the  Whigs.  In  1852 
they  nominated  Hale  for  President  and  Julian  for  Vice-presi- 
dent, on  a  platform  advocating  Johnson's  plan,  "land  to  land- 
less settlers,  free  of  cost."  In  1856  this  party  and  the  Whigs 
merged  and  out  of  this  merger  came  the  Republican  party. 

On  returning  to  the  Senate  in  1857  Johnson  offered  his 
Homestead  bill  again,  determined  to  make  any  sacrifice  in  its 
behalf.  Addressing  the  Senate  he  endeavored  to  show  that  the 
measure  was  not  sectional  because  many  great  Southerners, 
Andrew  Jackson  for  example,  had  favored  it.  Economically 
too  the  bill  was  sound,  he  urged.  More  and  more,  however, 
the  incongruity  of  a  slave-holder's  advocating  the  Homestead 
bill  appeared.  Thus  in  February  1859  Wade,  the  noted  aboli- 
tionist, moved  to  postpone  prior  orders  and  vote  on  Johnson's 
Homestead — the  prior  order  was  a  proposition  to  purchase 

13  Johnson  MSS.,  January,  1860  and  February  9,  1860. 

14  Savage,  p.  32. 

15  Johnson  MS. 


136  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Cuba  for  slave  purposes.  Every  one  knew  that  the  Cuba  bill, 
to  which  Johnson  was  committed,  could  not  pass,  yet  it  was 
used  as  a  buffer  to  defeat  the  Homestead  bill.  Seward  joined 
with  Wade  and  urged  that  the  Homestead  bill  take  precedence 
over  the  Cuba  bill.  "The  Homestead  bill,"  said  he,  "is  a  ques- 
tion of  homes  for  the  homeless,  of  land  for  the  landless ;  while 
Cuba  is  the  question  of  slaves  for  the  slave-holders." 

The  leonine  Toombs,  incensed  by  Seward's  thrust,  paid  his 
respects  to  demagogues.  "If  you  don't  want  to  give  thirty 
milHons  for  Cuba,"  he  declared,  "say  so,  but  don't  sidetrack 
Cuba  with  your  plea  of  'land  for  the  landless.'  Don't  divert 
us  from  a  great  public  policy  by  pretext  or  by  the  shivering  in 
the  wind  of  men  in  certain  localities."  "We  are  'shivering  in 
the  wind'  are  we,  sir,"  said  Wade,  "over  your  Cuban  question.'' 
You  may  have  occasion  to  shiver  on  that  question  before  you 
are  through  with  it.  The  question  will  be,  shall  we  give 
'niggers  to  the  niggerless'  or  'land  to  the  landless.'  You  can 
no  more  run  your  party  without  niggers  than  you  can  run  a 
steam  engine  without  fuel;  that  is  all  there  is  of  democracy. 
.  .  .  Are  you  going  to  buy  Cuba  for  land  for  the  landless.'' 
What  is  there.'*  You  will  find  there  three-fourths  of  a  million 
of  niggers,  but  you  will  not  find  any  land — not  one  foot,  not  an 
inch."  ^'^  What  must  have  been  the  feelings  of  Andrew  John- 
son while  listening  to  this  debate  between  his  friend  and  "all}'," 
bluff  Ben  Wade,  and  fiery  Bob  Toombs,  the  favorite  son  of 
Georgia.?  Anyhow,  Cuba  won  out.  The  Senate  determined  to 
debate  slavery  and  postpone  the  homestead.  Five  times  the 
vote  was  taken  on  the  question,  "Shall  the  Senate  consider  the 
Cuban  question  or  the  homestead  question.'*"  Five  times  Cuba 
won.  Once  there  was  a  tie,  twenty-eight  to  twenty-eight, 
broken  by  Vice-president  Breckinridge  in  favor  of  Cuba.  In 
1860  Johnson  made  a  comprehensive  speech  in  favor  of  his  bill, 
pleading,  conciliating,  and  quoting  facts  and  figures.  "Take  a 
million  families,"  he  suggested;  "in  the  East  they  can  hardly 
procure  the  necessaries  of  life.  Place  them  each  on  a  quarter 
section  and  how  long  before  their  condition  will  be  improved 
so  as  to  make  them  able  to  contribute  something  to  the  support 

■>■»  Congressional  Globe,  Vol.  XXXVIII,  p.  1354. 


FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD  137 

of  the  government?"  After  depicting  the  future  grandeur  and 
permanency  of  America's  free  institutions,  he  exclaimed,  "Who 
dares  say  this  is  not  our  destiny  if  we  will  only  permit  it  to  be 
fulfilled?  .  .  .  This  great  work  of  interesting  men  in  becom- 
ing connected  with  the  soil"  must  go  on ;  they  must  "be  inter- 
ested in  remaining  in  mechanic  shops ;  prevented  from  accumu- 
lating in  the  streets  of  your  cities,"  and  thereby  this  will  dis- 
pense "with  the  necessity  of  all  your  pauper  systems."  Reply- 
ing to  Senator  Hammond,  who  had  called  the  poor  white  man 
the  "mudsill  of  society"  and  commended  him  for  his  hon- 
esty, docility  and  fidelity,  Johnson  said  that  such  remarks  were 
"invidious."  .  .  .  "Laboring  with  the  hands  does  not  make 
one  a  slave,"  he  replied;  if  so,  "Paul  was  a  slave  and  Archi- 
medes." " 

Nevertheless,  Andrew  Johnson  must  have  felt  that  his  Home- 
stead bill  was  doomed  to  defeat.  Its  advocates,  differing  as  the 
poles,  would  have  brought  this  to  pass.  "Bluff"  Ben  Wade, 
who  sponsored  the  bill,  was  perhaps  the  most  disliked  man  in 
the  South;  Seward  was  almost  as  obnoxious,  and  Julian  the 
Free-Soiler  was  in  the  same  case.  As  the  debate  proceeded  fric- 
tion between  North  and  South  increased.  Senator  Johnson  of 
Arkansas  declared  that  Andrew  Johnson's  Homestead  was  "so 
strongly  tinctured  with  abolition  no  southern  man  could  vote 
for  it."  Doolittle  of  Wisconsin  advocated  the  measure,  but  by 
his  frankness  gave  much  offense  to  Johnson.  "Slavery  is  the 
curse  of  America,"  said  Doolittle,  and  "the  Homestead  bill  by 
giving  free  land  to  free  men  will  remedy  the  evil."  By  this  time 
Senator  Andrew  Johnson's  patience  was  well-nigh  exhausted. 
He  could  not  understand  why  the  bill  was  not  debated  on  its 
merits.  "Why  lug  slavery  into  the  matter?"  he  asked.  He 
verily  believed  that  if  the  Ten  Commandments  were  up  for  con- 
sideration "somebody  would  find  a  negro  in  them  somewhere" ; 
the  chances  were  "that  a  Northern  man  would  argue  that  they 
had  a  tendency  to  diminish  the  area  of  slavery ;  to  prevent  the 
increase  of  the  slave  population  and  in  the  end  perhaps  to 
abolish  slavery."     On  the  other  hand,  "if  some  Senator  from 

17  Savage,  pp.  66-67 ;  Cf.  Hammond,  Plantation  Manual,  in  the  Library  of 
Congress. 


138  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  South  would  introduce  the  Lord's  Prayer,"  .  .  .  "some- 
body would  see  a  negro  in  it  somewhere;  it  would  be  argued 
upon  the  Ten  Commandments  or  the  Lord's  Prayer  that  the 
result  would  be  a  tendency  to  promote  or  advance  slavery,  on 
the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  to  diminish  or  abolish  it." 
Wigfall  vigorously  replied  to  Johnson's  attack  on  southern 
statesmen.  Wigfall,  indeed,  possessed  a  vocabulary  of  un- 
usual words  and  a  torrent  of  uncontrollable  eloquence.  Jeer- 
ing and  scoffing  at  the  money-loving  North,  the  fierce,  scarred- 
faced  southern  orator  called  the  roll  of  southern  soldiers  sit- 
ting about  him  in  the  Senate  Chamber.  "Colonel  Jefferson 
Davis,  General  Joe  Lane,  and  Colonel  Hemphill, — these  I  dis- 
cover," he  said.  But  who,  "on  the  other  side  of  the  Chamber.? 
Who  among  you  is  a  soldier  or  a  fighter.?  ...  I  stand  here 
and,  on  my  conscience,  say  I  do  not  believe  a  black  Republican 
can  ever  be  inaugurated  President  of  these  United  States.  .  .  . 
An  irrepressible  conflict  indeed !"  he  exclaimed.  "The  North 
would  be  a  barren  waste  without  the  South."  Despite  such 
turbulent  scenes  Johnson  did  not  despair.  He  kept  his  eye 
on  the  raging  contest  and  on  his  Homestead. 

His  bill  had  already  passed  the  House  by  a  vote  of  115  to 
90,  but  in  the  Senate  it  was  evident  the  House  bill  could  not 
pass.  Therefore  Johnson  proposed  a  substitute  which  gave 
to  actual  settlers  the  right  of  preemption  at  twenty-five  cents 
an  acre.^^  Senators  attacked  the  bill  by  argument  and  by  mo- 
tions to  lay  on  the  table  and  to  adjourn.  But  finally,  on  May 
.10,  the  bill  came  to  a  vote.  Forty-four  Senators  voted  for  the 
bill  and  eight  against  it.^^  All  of  the  negative  votes  except 
one  were  from  the  South.  Johnson,  with  the  aid  of  Brown  of 
Mississippi,  had  run  the  politicians  to  cover,  making  it  plain 
that  the  poor  man  was  about  to  get  a  raw  deal. 

On  May  21  the  House  took  up  the  Senate  bill  and  by  a 
vote  of  one  hundred  and  tliree  to  fifty-five  adopted  a  substi- 
tute. As  amended,  the  bill,  storm-tossed  and  scarred,  entered 
the  harbor.  It  passed  Congress  on  June  19,  I860.  Andrew 
Johnson  could  "now  die  content,"  as  lie  had  often  written  his 

18  J.  B.  Sanborn,  American  Historical  Review,  Vol.  VT,  p.  M4. 
10  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  Part  III,  p.  2043. 


FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD  139 

son-in-law,  Patterson.  The  Homestead  had  passed  Congress. 
The  labors  of  many  years  had  been  rewarded  by  victory,  and 
he  had  "been  the  means  of  giving  homes  to  thousands  of  worthy 
families."  In  the  language  of  Senator  Brown,  spoken  when 
the  measure  passed,  Johnson  was  "the  Daddy  of  the  baby," 
"the  Father  of  the  Homestead." 

But  even  while  Johnson  was  rejoicing  Southerners  were  be- 
sieging President  Buchanan  to  veto  the  bill.  This  he  did  and 
the  veto  was  sustained.  "The  slave-holding  interests  were  so 
strong,  Buchanan  felt  justified  in  overriding  Congress."  -°  It 
was  charged  that  Buchanan's  main  object  in  his  veto  was  to 
destroy  Douglas'  chances  to  be  elected  President.  The  veto 
was  a  labored  affair.  It  was  based  largely  on  the  ground  that 
the  measure  was  not  constitutional  and  that  the  public  lands 
when  disposed  of  should  be  sold. 

Johnson  was  not  only  indignant,  he  was  enraged.  A  Presi- 
dent and  a  Democrat,  whom  he  had  in  a  measure  elected  and 
who  had  formerly  stood  for  the  Homestead,  had  gone  back  on 
him.  This  conduct  was  inexplicable,  except  that  he  had  "sold 
out"  to  the  slavocracy.  His  "veto  message,"  Johnson  declared 
in  debating  it,  "is  monstrous  and  absurd."  When  the  veto 
was  voted  on  in  the  Senate,  Senator  Davis  reversed  himself, 
voting  to  sustain  the  President.  Senator  Toombs,  in  high 
feather,  objected  to  Johnson's  moving  a  reconsideration, 
though  Johnson  had  voted  "aye"  to  enable  him  to  make  the 
motion.  "As  Senator  Johnson  is  the  defeated  party,"  Toombs 
sneered,  "he  has  nothing  to  reconsider."  I  will  now  anticipate 
events  and  add  that  in  June  1862  after  southern  Senators  and 
Congressmen  had  gone  out  with  their  states,  Johnson's  bill 
was  passed  almost  without  a  fight.  "Free  land  and  free  labor" 
was  the  slogan  in  I860  and  on  it  Lincoln  and  the  Republicans 
had  won.^^ 

In  the  sense  that  Andrew  Johnson  popularized  and  "put 
across"  the  idea  of  land  for  the  landless,  he  is  the  acknowledged 
Father  of  the  Homestead.     Not  that  he  was  the  first  to  offer  a 

20  Stephens,  Political  History  of  Public  Lands;  Sanborn,  Congressional 
Grant  of  Lands;  Cowan,  Economic  Beginnings  of  the  West,  p.  360. 

21  Cowan,  Economic  Beginnings,  p.  365. 


140  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

bill  donating  land, — Felix  Grundy  McConnell  anticipated  him 
by  more  than  two  months,  having  introduced  a  bill  in  Congress 
similar  to  Johnson's  on  January  9,  1846.  But  neither  Mc- 
Connell's  bill,  nor  others  of  like  kind,  except  Johnson's,  became 
the  law.  To  Andrew  Johnson  therefore  is  due  the  credit  of 
a  workable  homestead  law,  "copied  from  no  other  nation,  dis- 
tinctly American  and  with  the  merit  of  originality."  ^^  John- 
son's Homestead  is  "the  concentrated  wisdom  of  legislation 
after  eighteen  years."  .  .  .  "It  protects  the  government,  fills 
the  new  territory  with  homes."  .  .  .  "It  builds  up  commun- 
ities" and  by  "yielding  ownership  of  soil  to  occupants  lessens 
the  chance  of  social  and  civil  disorder."  Between  1867  and 
1874  "one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  thousand  families,  native 
and  foreign,  had  settled  in  the  Far  West  and  twenty-seven 
million  of  Quarter  Sections  had  been  occupied."  Johnson's 
Homestead  "admits  of  no  favoritism,  has  promoted  an  amount 
of  emigration  the  like  of  which  the  history  of  the  world  affords 
no  other  example,"  and  it  has  "produced  to  the  United  States 
a  revenue  which  has  averaged  about  a  half  million  sterling  per 
annum."  .  .  .  "It  appears  to  combine  all  the  chief  requisites 
of  the  greatest  efficiency."  ^^ 

During  the  discussion  of  Johnson's  Homestead  and  after  its 
passage  Congressmen  and  Senators  gave  him  the  credit  fol'  its 
enactment.  The  Senator  from  Iowa  returned  his  thanks  to  "a 
mechanic  struggling  Math  poverty,  working  with  the  hands 
which  God  gave  him  .  .  .  the  most  able  and  faithful  member 
of  Congress."  Senator  Johnson  appeared  to  another  enthusi- 
astic Senator  as  Lycurgus,  when  "returning  through  the  fields 
just  reaped;  .  .  .  and  he  is  entitled  to  and  receives  the 
homage  of  my  poor  esteem,"  he  added.  Senator  Brown  de- 
clared that  Johnson's  "reward  in  the  future  must  be  the  lowly 
inscription  of  his  name  with  those  who  loved  the  people."  But 
in  June  1860,  when  Congress  adjourned,  the  future  was  dark 
to  Andrew  Johnson;  he  could  not  divine  the  events  I  have  just 
described.  So  far  as  he  could  see  he  was  but  a  defeated  man. 
The  labors  of  a  life  had  come  to  naught  and  at  the  hands  of  his 

22  Doiinalson,  Pnhlic  Land  Commission,  p.  SoO. 

23  Mississipjyi  Valley  History,  Vol.  V,  Part  III,  p.  254. 


FATHER  OF  THE  HOMESTEAD  Ul 

party  associates.  The  veto  was  an  act  of  his  own  President, 
and  the  failure  to  override  the  veto  was  due  to  the  change  of 
Jefferson  Davis  with  whom,  thirty  days  before,  Johnson  had 
joined  hands  in  the  famous  February  resolutions.  At  the  last 
moment  Mr.  Davis  had  changed  his  vote  on  the  Homestead — 
unwilling  to  fellowship  with  Free  S oilers.  Truly  Andrew 
Johnson  was  sailing  in  rough  weather,  but  he  was  also  growing 
tougher  and  stronger  to  meet  a  more  angry  sea. 


CHAPTER  X 
IMPASSE 

With  the  disruption  of  the  Democratic  party  at  Charleston, 
and  the  defeat  of  the  Homestead  bill,  on  which  he  had  staked 
his  all,  Andrew  Johnson  was  a  man  at  sea  without  chart  or 
compass.  Out  of  tune  with  southern  sentiment,  without  the 
backing  of  a  political  party,  and  having  no  ability  to  organize, 
he  was  now  playing  a  lone  hand.  So  far,  the  best  he  had  been 
able  to  do  was  to  raise  his  voice  against  special  privileges  and 
for  the  absolute  equality  of  persons  of  the  white  race.  The 
negro  he  did  not  consider  entitled  to  the  blessings  of  freedom. 
This  attitude  on  slavery,  though  an  error,  was  an  error  of  the 
times.  In  1858,  when  he  voted  for  the  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion to  fasten  slavery  on  the  free  State  of  Kansas,  he  made  a 
mistake,  but  he  was  following  the  highest  court  in  the  land. 
Slaves  were  not  persons,  they  were  but  things,  and  "they  had 
no  rights  which  the  white  man  was  bound  to  respect."  Thus 
the  Dred  Scott  opinion  was  interpreted  by  the  people. 

Though  Johnson  was  willing  to  protect  slavery  as  property, 
he  was  unwilling  to  imperil  the  Nation's  life  on  the  issue,  and 
he  was  equally  unwilling  to  fall  down  before  slavery,  worship 
it  and  call  it  an  institution  of  God.  He  considered  it  an  evil, 
but  to  get  rid  of  it  by  setting  the  negroes  free  and  leaving  them 
a  source  of  constant  irritation  was  as  great  an  evil  as  slavery 
itself.  The  argument  of  southern  men,  like  Alex  Stephens, 
that  there  was  no  such  tiling  as  slavery  and  that  the  question 
was  *'one  relating  to  the  proper  status  of  white  and  black" 
sounded  strange  and  specious  to  Andrew  Johnson. 

Almost  any  day  he  could  go  down  to  slave  pens  and  auction 

sales  in  Washington  and  sec  negroes  sold  as  if  they  were  cattle 

or  sheep.     And  yet  he  knew  from  his  own  experience  that 

southern  masters  were  kind  and  indulgent  and  that  house 

142 


IMPASSE  143 

servants  in  particular  had  "many  advantages  over  the  white 
race  of  Hke  rank  in  Europe."  This  fact  Sir  Charles  Lyell  had 
confirmed  after  seeing  the  plantation  system  at  work.^  Often 
Johnson  had  fooled  himself  with  the  thought  that  slave  labor  in 
the  South  and  free  labor  in  the  North  fitted  into  each  other, 
a  fallacy  he  soon  rid  himself  of.  Yet  there  was  a  world  of 
difference  between  him  and  southern  men  on  the  subject  of 
slavery.  To  him  slavery  was  an  incident,  a  thing  impossible  to 
get  rid  of ;  whereas,  to  most  southern  leaders  slavery  was  vital, 
the  foundation  of  southern  greatness,  and  well  worth  fighting 
for. 

In  the  month  of  June  1860,  as  Andrew  Johnson  journeyed 
home  from  Washington,  passing  through  Staunton,  Roanoke, 
and  Bristol,  he  traveled  along  the  upper  Shenandoah.  A  land 
of  plenty  spread  before  his  eyes.  In  the  meadows  sheep  and 
cattle  were  grazing,  comfortable  farm-houses  dotted  every  hill- 
side, and  plantation  melodies  could  be  heard  as  the  slaves  fol- 
lowed the  plow  or  swung  the  cradle  in  the  wheat  fields.  All 
was  peace  and  plenty  in  that  favored  land.  The  low  tariff  of 
1857,  though  hurtful  to  the  manufacturing  North,  had  bene- 
fited the  agricultural  South. 

As  Johnson  reflected  on  his  career,  strange  thoughts  must 
have  come  to  mind.  He  could  no  doubt  have  been  on  the 
ticket  with  Douglas  at  that  very  moment;  why  had  he  not 
acquiesced  and  run  for  Vice-president  ?  ^  Why  was  he  not  will- 
ing to  drift  with  the  tide,  why  worry  because  the  President  had 
vetoed  his  Homestead  bill,  why  fight  the  battles  of  labor  and 
contend  that  the  working  man's  wages  should  be  increased  and 
put  on  a  level  with  clerks  and  sheltered  employees  ?  Why  con- 
tinue to  set  himself  up  against  the  evils  of  the  day — hypocrisy 
and  extravagance;  caste  and  cheap  aristocracy?  "If  I  cannot 
live  in  peace,"  he  must  have  said  to  himself,  "why  not  go  to 
the  Northwest  where  notions  like  mine  will  be  respected.?"^ 
No  doubt  he  considered  himself  one  born  out  of  time.  Poverty, 
ill-treatment,  and  hard  luck  had  been  the  portion  of  his  early 

1  Rhodes,  Vol.  I,  p.  334. 

2  Johnson  MSS.,  May  19  and  28,  1860. 

3  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  4, 


144  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

life.  Did  the  impressions  of  that  period  still  pursue  him? 
He  was  called  a  demagogue  and  a  sans-culotte — a  traitor  to  the 
South  urged  on  by  obstinacy  and  unholy  ambition.  Since 
entering  public  life  the  Whigs  had  taken  him  as  a  target,  and 
justly  so,  they  maintained,  because  he  among  southern  leaders 
stood  alone. 

In  truth,  the  man  Andrew  Johnson  found  himself  in  the 
plight  of  the  Roman  judge  who  saw  both  sides  of  a  disputed 
question  and  whom  both  sides  put  to  instant  death.  Though 
Johnson  had  often  voted  and  acted  with  the  North,  he  knew 
that  the  North  was  as  blameworthy  as  the  South.  He  cherished 
the  hope  that  Vermont  and  other  Free  States  would  repeal  their 
laws  making  it  a  crime  to  return  fugitive  slaves,  and  agree  to 
put  a  guarantee  in  the  Constitution  to  protect  slaver3^  He 
reflected  that  many  Northern  States  had  been  high-handed  in 
the  matter  of  refusing  to  return  fugitive  slaves.  Though 
Congress  had  passed  statutes  requiring  that  they  should  do 
this,  under  heavy  penalty,  they  had  flatly  refused.  In  fact,  so 
far  as  Massachusetts  was  concerned,  Missouri,  which  came  in 
as  a  Slave  State  in  1821,  had  never  been  in  the  Union  at  all.* 
As  Johnson  read  and  pondered  these  anti-fugitive  slave  laws 
his  perplexity  must  have  increased.  What  should  be  thought 
of  a  state  which  made  it  a  crime  to  do  that  which  the  United 
States  made  it  a  crime  not  to  do?  Thus  the  Vermont  law  pro- 
vided that,  "Every  person  who  may  have  been  held  as  a  slave, 
who  shall  come  or  who  may  be  brought  into  this  State,  with 
the  consent  of  his  or  her  alleged  master  or  mistress,  or  who 
shall  come  or  be  brought,  or  who  shall  be  in  this  State,  shall  be 
free." 

Not  only  so,  but  it  was  further  provided  tliat  "Every  person 
who  shall  hold  or  attempt  to  hold,  in  tliis  State,  in  slavery,  as 
a  slave,  any  free  person  in  any  form  or  for  any  time,  howsoever 
short,  under  the  pretense  that  such  person  is  or  has  been  a 
slave,  shall,  on  conviction  thereof,  be  imprisoned  in  tlie  State 
Prison  for  a  term  not  less  than  five  years,  nor  more  than  twent^s 
and  be  fined  not  less  than  one  hundred  dollars,  nor  more  than 

^Massachusetts  Statutes  of  this  date  so  doclarinj;. 


IMPASSE  145 

ten  thousand  dollars."     Thus   were   State   and   Nation   "at 
grips." 

Johnson  knew  the  argument  of  Chase  and  Wade  and  Julian. 
These  abolitionist  friends  of  his  were  always  preaching  of  the 
beauty  of  freedom,  depicting  the  horrors  of  slavery  and  urging 
its  abolition.  But  to  him  the  Constitution  was  the  supreme 
law  and  that  instrument  was  dead  against  their  position.  If 
the  Constitution  was  flouted,  the  American  Government  must 
go  to  pieces.  That  proposition  seemed  too  plain  for  argument. 
The  abolition  appeal  indeed  got  nowhere  with  him ;  if  he  had 
his  way  he  "would  punish  southern  fire-eater  and  northern 
abolitionist"  to  the  limit.  "I  would  chain  Massachusetts  and 
South  Carolina  together,"  he  once  said  in  Congress,  "and  I 
would  transport  them  to  some  island  in  the  Arctic  Ocean,  the 
colder  the  better,  till  they  cool  off  and  come  to  their  senses." 

Arriving  at  home,  Andrew  Johnson  found  the  State  of  Ten- 
nessee in  a  turmoil.  His  old  running-mate.  Governor  Harris, 
and  his  friend,  W.  C.  Witthorne,  were  bitten  by  the  serpent  of 
Secession  and  were  declaring  that  the  election  of  an  abolitionist 
as  President  should  dissolve  the  Union.  Even  A.  0.  P.  Nich- 
olson and  George  W.  Jones,  Union  men,  were  bending  to  the 
popular  wrath.  Though  he  was  beginning  to  lose  confidence 
in  the  Democratic  party,  and  though  the  Charleston  conven- 
tion had  opened  his  eyes  to  strange  sights,  he  had  not  yet  ar- 
rived at  the  conclusion  that  Wigfall,  Iverson,  Slidell,  and 
Jefferson  Davis  were  plotting  to  break  up  the  Union.  Before 
the  summer  was  ended,  however,  he  had  almost  made  up  his 
mind  to  that  effect. 

"The  blood  of  secession  at  the  Charleston  convention  is  not 
on  my  head,"  he  declared.  "The  Democratic  party  has  made 
a  fearful  mistake ;  it  ought  to  have  stuck  it  out  at  Charleston 
and  not  gone  to  pieces."  ^  At  a  political  meeting  in  Norfolk, 
and  again  at  Raleigh,  during  this  turbulent  period,  some  one 
asked  Stephen  A.  Douglas  if  he  favored  disunion  in  the  event 
of  Lincoln's  election.  "Never,  never,"  Douglas  answered. 
"No  circumstances  can  justify  such  a  course."  In  Tennessee, 
Yancey  of  Alabama  was  abroad  stumping  it  for  Breckinridge 

5  Nashville  Banner,  October  2,  1860. 


14.6  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

and  Lane.  Consumed  'w'ith  wrath  and  overwhelmed  by  a  con- 
viction that  the  South  was  being  humiHated  and  trampled  upon 
by  the  North  and  that  Lincoln's  election  meant  the  destruc- 
tion of  slavery  and  a  rending  to  pieces  of  the  Constitution, 
Yancey  was  nevertheless  as  mild  as  a  dove.  At  Knoxville  he 
was  interrupted  in  his  speech  by  a  written  question  passed  up 
to  the  speaker's  stand.  It  was  the  usual  question  agitating 
the  South  at  that  moment,  "What  do  you  advise,  Mr.  Yancey, 
if  Lincoln  is  elected?" 

"Come  forward,  sir,"  said  the  great  orator.  The  man 
obeyed,  as  every  one  else  seemed  to  do  when  Yancej'^  ordered. 
"Who  prompted  you  to  this,  sir?"  said  Yancey.  The  names 
were  given — Judge  Temple,  Parson  Brownlow,  and  three  other 
Union  Whigs.  "Let  Judge  Temple  and  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Bro\^Tilow  come  forward,"  said  the  imperious  Yancey.  Duti- 
fully the  "culprits"  came  up  to  the  stand,  in  the  midst  of 
secession  applause.  "Judge  Temple,"  said  Yancey,  "have  you 
the  honor  of  John  Bell's  acquaintance?"  "I  have,  sir,"  Temple 
meekly  answered.  "Is  he  a  worthy  man,  one  to  be  trusted  and 
followed,  sir?"  "He  is."  Drawing  a  paper  from  his  pocket, 
Yancey  read  a  letter  from  Bell  practically  urging  secession  in 
the  event  of  Lincoln's  election.  Temple  was  dumfounded,  but 
the  Fighting  Parson  was  not.  Straightening  himself  up  and 
staring  Yancey  in  the  e^^e,  he  exclaimed,  "If  a  Secessionist 
from  Alabama  or  anywheres  else  undertakes  to  march  through 
the  State  of  Tennessee  it  will  be  over  my  dead  body."  For  the 
first  and  only  time,  William  G.  Brownlow  and  Andrew  John- 
son were  getting  together  on  tlie  same  platform.^ 

As  the  canvass  proceeded,  there  were  urgent  calls  for  Sen- 
ator Johnson  to  take  the  stump.  Why  was  that  voice  which 
swayed  the  masses  hushed  and  silent,  wliy  was  the  man  who 
had  converted  the  Whig  State  of  Tennessee  into  a  Democratic 
commonwealth  sulking  in  his  tent?  At  last  the  great  Tribune 
came  forth  to  his  task,  entering  the  contest  for  Breckinridge 
and  Lane.  But  his  heart  was  lieavy  within  him ;  a  new  issue 
had  arisen.  He  miglit  urge  the  people  to  vote  against  Whig- 
gery  and  John  Bell,  the  candidate  of  tlie  Whigs,  because  this 

0  Temple,  East  Tennessee  and  the  Civil  War,  p.  316. 


IMPASSE  147 

was  the  old  fight  of  the  classes  and  the  masses,  yet  no  one 
was  interested.  The  burning  question  was,  what  shall  be 
done  if  Lincoln  is  elected?  And  in  West  and  Middle  Ten- 
nessee, only  the  fire-eater  could  answer  this  question  to  the 
satisfaction  of  an  infuriated  people. 

Though  Johnson  claimed  that  Breckinridge  and  Lane  were 
better  Union  men  than  Bell  and  Everett,  and  deserved  to  be 
elected,  the  people  did  not  so  understand  it.  On  every  stump 
he  exhibited  "Campaign  Document  Number  Sixteen."  This 
paper  asserted  that  Breckinridge  and  Lane  were  devoted  to 
the  Union,  that  they  would  not  destroy  it  but  "would  lengthen 
it  and  strengthen  it."  But  Johnson  could  get  up  little  en- 
thusiasm, his  speeches  lacked  punch;  he  was  not  red-hot  on  the 
main  issue.  Being  nothing  of  a  fire-eater,  using  no  epithets 
or  braggadocio,  he  could  not  keep  step  with  the  secession  ora- 
tors of  the  day.  Others  might  call  names  and  vilify  the  North, 
but  not  he.  The  term  "Black  Republican,"  applied  to  Lincoln, 
he  cut  out.  The  popular  statement  that  if  war  came  the  North 
would  not  fight,  and  if  they  did  one  southern  man  could  whip 
half  a  dozen  Yankees,  and  that  the  South  was  strong  and 
growing  stronger,  while  the  North  was  weak  and  growing 
weaker,  he  did  not  believe  a  word  of.  In  the  House,  he  had 
frequently  shown  from  the  census  that  the  Free  States  were 
surpassing  the  Slave  States.  Having  made  a  study  of  The 
Impending  Crisis  and  compared  Helper's  figures  with  the  cen- 
sus table,  he  knew  that  Helper  was  right  and  that  the  blight  of 
slavery  was  upon  his  native  land. 

During  the  canvass  Johnson  spoke  in  the  city  of  Memphis, 
which  he  loved  so  well.  The  people  of  that  growing  city  were 
the  owners  of  slaves  by  the  thousands,  and  were  therefore  red- 
hot  Secessionists.  When  Johnson  arrived  they  sounded  him 
out  on  the  great  issue,  "What  do  you  advise.  Senator  Johnson, 
if  Lincoln  is  elected?"  "As  for  myself,"  he  replied,  "I  shall 
stay  inside  the  Union  and  there  fight  for  southern  rights.  I 
advise  all  others  to  do  the  same,"  he  added,  quickly  passing  to 
other  issues.^  In  a  speech  at  Meridian,  Mississippi,  he  went 
a  step  further  and  declared  that  both  Breckinridge  and  Doug- 

7  Nashville  Banner,  October  20,  1860. 


148  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

las  were  bolters  and  that  any  Democrat  was  at  liberty  to  vote 
for  whom  he  chose.  The  people  were  disappointed.  The  Mer- 
cury and  The  Banner,  Whig  papers,  quoting  Johnson's 
speeches,  interpreted  him  as  opposing  the  Breckinridge 
platform.® 

Once  or  twice  the  Senator  spoke  from  the  same  platform 
with  Nicholson,  but  these  meetings  were  not  a  success.  Finding 
that  the  political  situation  was  unbearable,  he  returned  home 
to  think  matters  over.  Concluding  that  Tennessee  was  des- 
tined to  cast  her  vote  for  Bell,  the  Whig  candidate,  unless  the 
Democrats  could  get  together,  he  dispatched  his  son,  Robert, 
to  confer  with  the  managers  of  Douglas  and  of  Breckinridge 
and  to  arrange  for  a  fusion  between  the  two.  This  could  not 
be  worked  out,  however,  and  was  abandoned.  Urging  this 
fusion,  Johnson  declared  that  both  Douglas  and  Breckinridge 
were  good  men,  differing  only  on  their  interpretation  of  the 
Dred  Scott  case.  He  declared  that  Breckinridge  construed  the 
decision  to  mean  the  Constitution  carried  slavery  into  the  terri- 
tories, whereas  Douglas  insisted  that  the  matter  of  slavery  was 
for  the  people  of  such  territories  to  decide. 

Sad  at  heart,  when  the  canvass  was  over,  Johnson  returned 
home.  He  had  accomplished  nothing,  added  no  new  laurels. 
November  6,  1860,  arrived.  It  was  election  day  and  Lincoln 
was  elected.  Boston,  the  capital  of  Massachusetts,  and 
Charleston,  the  chief  city  of  South  Carolina,  rejoiced  and  were 
exceedingly  glad — Boston  because  the  slave  power  would  be 
curtailed,  Charleston  because  the  accursed  Union  would  be 
dissolved.  Immediately  South  Carolina  took  steps  to  with- 
draw from  the  Union.  December  17  was  fixed  on  as  the  date 
when  a  convention  should  meet  to  arrange  the  details.  The 
Far  South  would  probably  follow  South  Carolina. 

In  a  few  days  the  Senate  would  be  in  session  and  Johnson 
would  be  called  upon  to  take  sides.  From  the  Far  South 
exultant  cries  of  dis-Union  rolled  up,  but  the  Border  States 
held  back.  A  thousand  conflicting  emotions  swelled  in  Andrew 
Johnson's  breast,  but  one  dominated  all  others :  In  a  slave  em- 

8  Nashville  Banner,  October  17,  1860  j  Tennessee  Ilistorical  Magazine,  Octo- 
ber 1926. 


IMPASSE  149 

pire  what  cliance  for  the  "mud-sill"?  ^  Was  he  going  lo  sur- 
render the  principles  for  which  he  had  always  struggled  ?  Was 
he  willing  to  live  in  a  slavocracy  where  popular  education 
would  be  impossible,  where  there  was  no  equality  of  man,  and 
where  the  laborer's  rights  would  not  be  respected  ?  In  a  border 
state,  as  Tennessee  would  be  in  the  new  Confederacy,  when 
fugitive  slaves  escaped  to  free  territory,  would  there  not  be 
border  warfare  as  in  Kansas?  In  Johnson's  mind  all  was 
discord  and  confusion ;  others  seemed  sure,  others  had  no  doubt 
of  the  course  to  pursue.  They  understood  it  all,  Johnson  did 
not.  Indeed,  had  not  his  life  always  been  confusion?  Had  he 
not  advocated  measures,  assembled  facts,  adduced  arguments 
fitting  in  with  freedom  and  not  with  slavery?  His  Homestead 
bill,  would  it  not  kill  slavery?  Would  not  a  repeal  of  the 
Three-fifths  White  clause  be  an  admission  that  slavery  was 
wrong  in  principle?  Was  he  not  a  southern  man  with  north- 
ern principles?  Yancey  had  no  doubt  about  what  he  wished, 
nor  did  Giddings.  Yancey  would  dissolve  the  Union  and  make 
a  slave  empire,  reopening  the  African  slave  trade  and  multi- 
plying the  happiness  and  wealth  of  the  new  nation;  Giddings 
would  dissolve  it,  making  a  free  northern  republic  without  the 
taint  of  slavery.  But  Johnson  had  no  such  assurances;  he 
felt  no  such  satisfaction. 

In  those  fast-fleeing  November  days,  doubtless  the  moun- 
tains about  Greeneville,  clothed  in  their  fall  garments,  never 
looked  fairer.  His  own  home  was  never  more  inviting  and  his 
surroundings  never  more  propitious.  Just  out  of  town,  his 
son-in-law,  Patterson,  had  a  good  farm  and  he  and  Martha 
were  rearing  a  little  family ;  Dan  Stover's  place  over  in  Carter 
County  was  a  perpetual  comfort.  In  Greeneville  his  sway  was 
supreme.  As  he  walked  down  the  main  street  of  the  town  and 
on  by  the  Court  House,  a  turn  to  the  right  took  him  to  Water 
Street  where  his  little  tailor  shop  was  still  doing  business.  A 
few  steps  up  Spring  Branch  from  the  shop  was  the  famous 
town  spring.  How  beautiful  and  wonderful,  bolder  than  the 
boldest !  From  its  bowels  a  million  gallons  of  mountain  water, 
pure  and  cold,  gushed  forth  every  twenty-four  hours.     Over 

9  Johnson  MS.;  Statement  of  Senator  A.  G.  Brown  at  Greeneville  in  1861. 


150  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

pebbly  bottoms  it  rushed,  washing  the  foundation  of  the  tailor 
shop  and  turning  a  mill  wheel  a  few  paces  below/"  Only  a 
few  yards  to  the  north  was  High  Hill.  Towering  a  hundred 
feet  or  more  in  the  air,  this  was  a  restful  place  in  the  long 
summer  days.  His  mother  had  died  in  1856  and  his  stepfather 
about  the  same  time.  He  buried  them  in  the  village  church- 
yard hard  by.  Now  and  then  his  stroll  would  be  to  the  other 
end  of  the  town ;  over  in  that  section  there  was  a  knoll,  with  a 
fine  view  of  the  mountains.  Like  a  great  dome  this  knoll  shot 
up  into  the  air.  Though  little  given  to  sentiment,  he  pointed 
out  this  spot  to  a  friend,  saying  that  there  he  wished  to  rest 
and  to  take  his  final  sleep.  Searching  out  the  owner,  he  ac- 
quired this  property,  and  took  a  deed  to  the  same.^^ 

On  Monday,  November  5,  1860,  the  day  before  the  election, 
Andrew  Johnson  and  Col.  J.  J.  Turner  spoke  at  Gallatin,  and 
the  Colonel  invited  the  Senator  to  tea.  That  evening  the  con- 
versation was  almost  wholly  about  the  election  to  take  place  on 
the  morrow  and  on  the  probable  result  if  Mr.  Lincoln  were 
chosen  President.  In  the  conversation,  Johnson  gave  it  as 
his  opinion  that  Lincoln  would  be  elected,  "that  the  South 
would  seize  upon  his  election  as  a  pretext  to  secede  and  that  he 
did  not  believe  a  state  had  the  right  to  secede."  At  this  point 
he  paused  in  his  remarks  and  rose  from  his  seat.  "When  the 
crisis  comes,"  said  he  solemnly,  "I  will  be  found  standing 
by  the  Union."  He  intended  to  go  to  Washington  and  "come 
out  distinctly  in  opposition  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union." 
Concluding,  he  prophesied:  "The  attempt  to  secede  will  fail, 
as  the  South  has  no  resources,  can  not  manufacture  arms  and 
will  probably  be  cut  off  from  the  whole  world.  .  .  .  Slavery 
will  find  no  friends  anywhere."  ^" 

Colonel  Turner  was  greatly  alarmed  at  what  Senator  John- 
son had  said  and  at  once  wired  Governor  Harris  to  meet  him  in 
Nashville  on  the  following  day.  The  Governor,  startled  at 
Johnson's  attitude,  wired  to  Senator  Nicholson  to  come  to 
Nashville  at  once.    Nicholson  came.    He  and  Harris  did  their 

10  It  is  to-day  Greeneville's  sole  source  of  water  supply. 

11  Johnson  MS.  at  Creeneville. 

12  Ihid. 


IMPASSE  151 

utmost  to  dissuade  Johnson  from  declaring  himself  in  favor 
of  the  Union.  Johnson  was  immovable.  "Nothing  could  be 
done  with  him."  ^^ 

The  Senate  convened  on  Monday,  December  8,  Vice-presi- 
dent Breckinridge,  defeated  candidate  for  President,  presid- 
ing. Hannibal  Hamlin,  just  elected  Vice-president,  was  a  Sen- 
ator from  the  State  of  Maine,  "attracting  much  attention  and 
endeavoring  to  escape  notice";  General  Joe  Lane,  defeated 
Democratic  candidate  for  Vice-president,  was  a  Senator  from 
Oregon.  Southerners  from  the  Far  South  were  jubilant.  The 
agony  was  over,  the  battle  for  southern  rights  as  well  as  won. 
Away  with  the  accursed  Union!  Senators  from  South  Caro- 
lina were  conspicuous  by  their  absence.  Northern  Senators 
and  southern  Senators  scarcely  bowed  to  each  other  as  they 
passed.  The  election  of  Lincoln  was  bearing  fruit.  A  group 
of  Senators  would  gather  here  and  another  group  would 
gather  there.  Abolitionists  flocking  with  Abolitionists,  Free 
Soilers  hobnobbing  with  Free  Soilers,  Fire-Eaters  swaggering 
around  with  Fire-Eaters,  Compromisers  whispering  to  Com- 
promisers. Andrew  Johnson  sat  alone.  In  the  entire  body 
there  was  no  one  to  whom  he  could  go.  Would  the  unlettered 
Tennessee  tailor  defy  the  combined  wisdom  of  the  South, 
would  he  set  up  his  opinion  against  the  world  and  tread  the 
wine-press  alone? 

13  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


PART  II:  ALONE 
1860-1865 


CHAPTER  I 
TESTING  TIME 

As  soon  as  the  South  CaroHiia  legislature  called  a  Secession 
convention,  the  North  became  thoroughly  alarmed  and  sobered. 
So  often  had  idle  threats  to  secede  been  made,  both  in  the  North 
and  in  the  South,  the  cry  of  "Wolf !  Wolf !"  had  lost  its  ter- 
rors. But  now  at  last  the  "wolf"  was  at  the  door  and  what 
was  to  be  done?  The  obvious  thing  was  to  comply  with  the 
constitutional  demands  of  the  South,  as  Andrew  Johnson  and 
other  Unionists  insisted. 

On  December  17  Congress,  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote, 
requested  the  abolition  states  to  repudiate  their  Personal  Lib- 
erty Laws.  The  offending  states  set  about  complying  with 
this  request  and  all  of  them,  except  possibly  Massachusetts, 
would  have  repealed  these  unconstitutional  statutes.  But  the 
concession  came  too  late.  Southern  Senators  like  Davis  and 
Iverson  let  it  be  known  that  the  proposition  would  be  rejected. 
"The  progress  of  this  revolution  would  not  be  stopped,"  they 
declared,  "if  every  Personal  Liberty  Law  were  repealed  to- 
morrow." ^  Thurlow  Weed,  Republican  Congressman  from 
New  York,  and  a  partner  of  Senator  Seward,  proposed  to  go 
further.  Weed  offered  resolutions,  extending  the  Missouri 
compromise  line  to  the  Pacific  and  providing  that  compensa- 
tion be  paid  to  owners  of  run-away  slaves  by  counties  refusing 
to  deliver  up  such  fugitives  to  their  masters.  Crittenden,  the 
patriarchal  Senator  from  Kentucky,  offered  a  famous  resolu- 
tion to  amend  the  Constitution.  The  Crittenden  Amendment, 
as  it  is  known,  would  have  prohibited  slavery  in  existing  states 
north  of  36°  30',  and  south  of  that  line  would  have  protected 
slavery  irrevocably  and  without  the  possibility  of  repeal.  The 
territory  north  or  south  of  that  line,  not  yet  states,  should  be 

^Cong.  Globe,  December  5,  p.  11. 

155 


156  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

formed  into  states  with  liberty  to  admit  or  exclude  slavery  as 
they  elected.^ 

Before  coming  to  Washington  Lincoln  had  said  to  Weed 
that  he  would  not  accept  the  Crittenden  Amendment.  Slavery 
being  morally  wrong,  he  declared  it  ought  to  be  restricted ;  no 
doubt  it  would  in  time  be  abolished  by  slave  o^vners,  and  the 
slaves  colonized.  Lincoln  was  unwilling  to  bind  future  genera- 
tions to  slavery.  This  he  made  kno^\Ti  to  Weed,  who  went  to 
Springfield  in  the  winter  of  1860  to  get  the  new  President's 
assent  to  the  compromise.  In  this  conclusion  Lincoln  was 
voicing  the  decree  of  his  party  as  registered  in  the  November 
election.  His  views  on  the  subject  he  also  set  forth  in  a  cor- 
respondence with  Alexander  Stephens  and  John  A.  Gilmer. 
"You  think  slavery  right  and  ought  to  be  extended,"  he  wrote 
Gilmer,  "while  we  think  it  wrong  and  ought  to  be  restricted."  ' 

In  the  present  emergency  much  depended  on  President 
Buchanan.  Under  the  Constitution  he  was  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  army  and  clothed  with  the  duty  of  suppressing  in- 
surrections, a  serious  responsibility  indeed.  What  would 
he  do.^  On  December  fourth  his  message  was  read  to  Congress. 
In  its  discussion  of  slavery,  the  one  absorbing  issue,  it  was  a 
fine  example  of  running  with  the  hare  and  holding  with  the 
hounds.  As  Wade  read  the  message,  the  President  laid  down 
three  general  propositions:  (1)  South  Carolina  had  just  cause 
to  secede.  (2)  She  had  no  right  to  secede.  (3)  The  United 
States  had  no  right  to  prevent  her  from  seceding.  As  time 
passed,  clouds  gathered  in  the  southern  sky  and  dis-Union 
appeared  nearer  and  nearer.  Men  began  to  cry  out :  "Oh,  for 
an  hour  of  Old  Hickory  Jackson!"  At  the  same  time  that 
Crittenden  proposed  his  resolution  the  Senate  adopted  another 
resolution  appointing  a  Committee  of  Thirteen  to  consider  the 
grievances  between  the  slaveholding  and  the  non-slaveholding 
states  and  to  suggest  some  remedy.  A  strong  and  representa- 
tive committee  was  appointed  by  Vice-president  Breckinridge 
— three  from  Border  States,  two  from  the  Far  South,  five  Re- 
publicans  and   three   northern   Democrats.     This   committee 

2  S.  S.  Cox,  Three  Decades  of  Federal  Jjcgislation,  p.  Gfi. 
iS  A.  H.  bttphens,  War  Between  the  States,  Vol.  II,  p.  267. 


TESTING  TIME  157 

began  work  late  in  December  and,  upon  the  motion  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  it  was  decided  that  no  report  should  be  adopted  without 
the  approval  of  a  majority  of  the  Republicans.*  This  motion 
may  not  have  tied  the  hands  of  the  committee,  but  at  all  events 
the  committee  accomplished  nothing.  Being  unable  to  agree, 
they  were  discharged  before  the  first  of  the  year.^  As  Hale  of 
New  Hampshire  declared,  "When  the  committee  was  appointed 
it  was  determined  that  the  controversy  should  not  be  settled 
in  Congress." 

While  Congress  and  the  Committee  of  Thirteen  were  dis- 
cussing the  state  of  the  nation,  the  Ship  of  State  seemed  to  be 
headed  for  the  rocks.  At  least  three  of  Buchanan's  official 
family  were  committed  to  the  right  of  a  state  to  secede — Floyd, 
Secretary  of  War;  Cobb,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and 
Thompson,  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  The  commercial  North 
was  now  anxious  to  heal  the  breach.^  Many  northern  people, 
who  had  voted  for  Lincoln  in  November  with  enthusiasm,  were 
now  in  despair.  The  prospect  of  a  dismemberment  of  the 
nation  was  not  a  pleasing  one.  Buchanan's  course  gave  satis- 
faction neither  to  the  North  nor  to  the  South.  Soon  his  cab- 
inet disagreed  and  went  to  pieces.  On  December  8  Cobb,  an 
able  Georgian,  resigned  because  the  President  would  not  sur- 
render the  Charleston  forts  to  South  Carolina.  A  week  later 
Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of  State  and  in  1852  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  President,  likewise  resigned,  but  for  quite  a 
different  reason.  He  opposed  Buchanan's  surrender  to  Jeffer- 
son Davis  and  the  South.'^  He  and  Attorney-General  Black 
and  Joseph  Holt  advised  fortifying  and  holding  the  South 
Carolina  forts  and  a  thorough-going  Jacksonian  policy.  Gen- 
eral Scott  wrote  to  the  President,  calling  his  attention  to  the 
situation  that  confronted  Jackson  in  the  '30's  when  South 
Carolina  was  engaged  in  the  same  business  of  becoming  a  "sov- 
ereign" state.  With  due  apologies  the  General  would  inform 
the  President  that  "on  that  occasion  Jackson  had  sent  the 

4  Cox,  Three  Decades,  p.  69. 

6  Rhodes,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  170. 

«Ihid.,  p.  171. 

"J  Annual  Encyclopedia  for  1861,  p.  700. 


^58  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

sloop  of  war  Natchez  with  two  Revenue  cutters  to  Moultrie  to 
prevent  the  seizure  of  that  fort  by  the  NuUifiers."  * 

But  the  aged  and  distracted  President,  alternately  praying 
and  crying,  hesitated.  Meanwhile  the  people  grew  suspicious 
and  critical.  It  was  currently  rumored  that  the  President  had 
lost  his  mind  and  was  unable  to  transact  business.  The  coun- 
try at  large  was  as  much  divided  as  the  cabinet.  Some  were 
for  peaceful  secession.  Others  would  bring  the  South  back 
into  the  Union  if  every  demand  had  to  be  acceded  to.  Still 
others,  like  Seward,  were  for  a  do-nothing  policy,  relying  on 
the  healing  influence  of  time.  The  "Georgia"  idea  was  to  take 
the  South  out  of  the  Union  for  a  season,  so  as  to  get  better 
terms,  and  presently  to  bring  her  back  home  again.  Nearly 
every  northern  paper  concurred  with  Horace  Greeley  and  the 
Tribune:  "Let  the  erring  sisters  go  in  peace."  Chase  likewise 
favored  this  course.  Ex-President  Pierce  wrote  "Jeff."  Davis 
that  if  an  attempt  were  made  to  coerce  the  South,  blood  would 
flow  in  northern  cities.  It  was  well-known  that  few  if  any  Re- 
publicans in  Congress  were  in  favor  of  coercing  a  state.^  The 
stalwart  Abolitionists  to  a  man  favored  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union  in  order  to  get  rid  of  slavery. 

To  them  Lincoln  was  simply  despicable.  His  universal 
heart,  his  ability  to  see  both  sides  of  the  slavery  question,  were 
specially  objectionable.  Shortly  after  Lincoln's  nomination, 
Garrison,  editor  of  the  Liberator,  wrote  an  article  on  him  and 
headed  it,  "The  Slave  Hound  of  Illinois."  "We  gibbet  a 
northern  hound  to-day  side  by  side  with  the  infamous  INIason  of 
Virginia,"  the  implacable  Abolitionist  wrote.  Wendell  Phillips 
was  quite  as  severe.  "Who  is  this  huckster  in  politics?"  he 
asked,  referring  to  Lincoln,  "Who  is  tliis  County  Court  advo- 
cate?" In  a  word  the  Abolitionists  placed  human  freedom 
above  the  Union  and  above  the  Constitution.  To  them  the 
Constitution  was  "a  covenant  with  death  and  agreement  with 
hell."  ^° 

Time  passed.    It  became  certain  that  South  Carolina  would 

8  Rhodes,  Vol.  II,  p.  189. 

0  Howe,  History  of  Secession,  p.  500. 

10  Howe,  p.  441;  Rhodes,  Vol.  I,  p.  74. 


TESTING  TIME  159 

leave  the  Union  and  that  other  southern  states  of  the  Far 
South  had  caught  the  secession  contagion.  Yet  no  effort  was 
made  to  suppress  them.  The  old  flag  had  no  advocate.  The 
Far  South  was  eager  to  depart.  To  avoid  war,  public  interests 
in  the  North  and  East  were  willing  to  let  her  go.  New  York 
was  arranging  to  become  a  free  city  like  Venice.  A  panic  was 
upon  the  country.  Banks  were  failing,  money  was  hard  to  bor- 
row at  twelve  per  cent.  United  States  vessels  were  scattered. 
Secretary  Floyd  and  Secretary  Thompson  were  actively  co- 
operating with  South  Carolina.  Mr.  Barnwell,  of  that  "sov- 
ereign" state,  was  pressing  Buchanan  so  hard  to  evacuate 
Sumter  "he  didn't  have  time  to  say  his  prayers."  ^^  Northern 
papers  were  filled  with  sentiments  against  coercion.  "Not  a 
Democrat  in  the  North  would  raise  his  hand  against  his  South- 
ern brothers,"  they  were  asserting.  "The  Crittenden  amend- 
ment is  the  least  the  South  should  ask."  ^^  In  Albany  a  public 
meeting  was  held.  It  resolved  that  the  North  were  "the  revo- 
lutionists and  not  the  South" ;  that  the  idea  of  coercion,  "as  all 
men  know,  the  founders  of  the  government  ,  .  .  would  have 
rejected  with  scorn."  Governor  Seymour  of  New  York  asked 
if  northern  coercion  was  less  revolutionary  than  successful  se- 
cession and  "whether  revolution  can  be  prevented  by  over- 
throwing the  principles  of  the  government." 

The  Senate  was  cross  and  in  bad  humor.  A  simple  resolu- 
tion to  print  the  usual  number  of  copies  of  the  President's 
message  brought  on  a  long  and  heated  debate.  Threats,  taunts 
and  jeers  were  indulged  in.^^  Iverson,  the  terrible,  declared 
that  five  states  would  be  out  of  the  Union  before  INIarch  4. 
"Texas'  secession  is  now  clogged  by  Governor  Houston,"  he 
roared,  "and  if  he  does  not  yield  some  Texan  Brutus  will  rise 
to  rid  his  country  of  the  hoary-headed  incubus."  ^*  Senator 
Davis  suggested  that  threats  were  inappropriate  "as  between 
ambassadors  of  sovereign  states" ;  that  he  expected  to  be  out  of 
the  Senate  in  ten  days.    Wigf  all  proposed  that  all  Southerners 

11  War  Records,  Vol.  I,  pp.  90-100. 

12  Bangor  Union,  February  4,  1861;  Detroit  Free  Press,  February  4,  1861; 
Carr,  Life  of  Douglas,  p.  118;  Annual  Encyclopedia,  1861,  p.  700. 

IS  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  Part  I,  p.  12. 
14  Savage,  Life  of  Johnson,  p.  206. 


160  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

withdraw  at  once  and  form  a  New  Treaty.  Senator  Lane 
wanted  to  get  Lincoln's  election  before  the  Supreme  Court, 
claiming  that  "undoubtedly  it  is  unconstitutional  and  void." 
Amidst  derisive  laughter  by  northern  Senators,  Lane  shouted, 
"The  gentlemen  may  laugh  but  it  is  not  contemplated  that  a 
sectional  President  on  a  sectional  platform  should  be  elected." 
Hale  of  New  Hampshire  grew  belligerent.  "If  the  will  of  the 
people,"  he  said,  "as  expressed  at  an  election  held  under  the 
Constitution  will  not  be  submitted  to  and  war  is  the  alternative, 
let  it  come."  At  this  threat  the  Senate,  which  had  not  yet 
found  itself,  stood  aghast.  The  idea  of  coercing  a  state! 
Bro'R-n  of  Georgia  declared  that  the  South  asked  no  more  than 
to  be  allowed  to  "depart  in  peace  and  let  God  defend  the  right." 
Iverson  enthusiastically  quoted  Hammond  of  South  Carolina* 
who  had  not  returned  to  his  seat  at  this  session,  "The  State  of 
South  Carolina  has  gone  out  high  and  dry."  "But,"  Iverson 
comforted,  "there  will  be  no  war.  Like  Senator  Seward,  the 
North  has  too  much  common  sense  for  that."  Iverson,  closing 
a  defiant  attack  on  northern  aggression,  exclaimed  with 
Toombs,  "Seize  the  forts  and  to  your  tents,  O  Israel." 
"Bluff"  Ben  Wade  declined  to  say  whether  he  would  enforce 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law  or  not,  but  intimated  that  "the  South 
might  take  her  slaves  and  go  her  way  and  the  Free  North 
would  go  hers."  "The  Free  States  would  offer  to  the  world 
a  homestead  law,"  he  declared,  "and  they  would  invite  the 
laboring  white  man  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe."  .  .  . 
"The  Slave  States  might  go  on  with  their  system  alongside, 
and  the  world  would  judge  which  system  was  most  consonant 
with  human  happiness."  ^°  Senator  Andrew  Johnson  rose,  sad 
at  heart,  and  asked  that  his  new  homestead  bill  be  referred  to 
the  committee  on  public  lands.    Tlie  motion  was  agreed  to. 

Powell,  making  a  strong  plea  for  tlie  old  Union  in  a  spirit 
of  compromise,  declared  that  "the  Union  has  cost  blood  and 
money";  Senator  Douglas,  joining  in  this  plea,  declared  that 
he  was  for  the  Union  and  did  not  wish  to  hear  the  word  party 
again.  Senator  Jeff  Davis  corrected  tlie  Senators:  "The 
Union  cost  no  blood,  no  time,  no  treasure,"  he  asserted,  "the 

10  Savage,  p.  209. 


TESTING  TIME  161 

Revolution  cost  blood,  time  and  treasure  but  the  Union  cost 
nothing."  Referring  to  the  proposed  coercion  and  degrada- 
tion of  the  South,  Davis  wished  to  know  "who  would  keep  a 
flower  which  has  lost  its  beauty  and  its  fragrance  and  in  their 
stead  had  formed  a  seed-vessel  containing  the  deadliest  poi- 
son?" Sumner  read  a  letter  of  "Old  Hickory"  Jackson's. 
"Now  it's  the  tariff,"  the  letter  ran.  "The  next  excuse  to 
destroy  the  Union  will  be  slavery."  Wade  asked,  "Wh}'^  is  the 
South  kicking?  She  controls  the  nation,  including  Congress 
and  the  courts.  As  for  the  President,  why  you  own  him 
as  much  as  j^ou  do  the  servant  on  j^our  plantation."  The 
second  day  after  the  genial  Hale  made  his  warlike  speech,  he 
got  "cold  feet"  and  rose  to  explain.  He  had  been  misquoted. 
He  did  not  intend  to  say  a  state  could  be  coerced.  "I  agree  with 
the  speech  of  Senator  Davis,"  he  insisted.  Thus  for  weeks  did 
the  Senate  sidestep  the  great  issue,  "What  ought  the  govern- 
ment to  do?  In  the  present  emergency  is  she  going  to  assert 
her  integrity  or  is  she  going  to  surrender  to  South  Carolina  .f* 
Is  she  going  to  continue  to  function  or  lie  down  ?" 

Nor  is  this  attitude  to  be  wondered  at.  Before  1860  there 
was  no  American  Nation — there  was  but  a  confederacy".  Dur- 
ing the  first  years  of  the  Republic  few  doubted  the  right  of  a 
state  to  leave  the  Union  for  just  cause,  of  which  the  state  itself 
was  the  judge.  The  Hartford  Convention  of  1814  was  an 
inchoate  expression  of  this  right.  "From  the  beginning  of  the 
ratification  of  the  Constitution  to  the  end  there  never  was  a 
moment  when  the  people  of  the  whole  United  States  acted  in 
their  collective  capacity  or  in  any  other  manner  than  as  people 
of  sovereign  states,"  ^^  The  great  idea  that  the  people  and  not 
the  states  ratified  the  Constitution  was  Marshall's  distinct 
contribution  to  American  constitutional  law.^^  Certainly  it 
did  not  lie  in  the  mouth  of  Senators  Wade  and  Chase  to  harshly 
criticize  South  Carolina.  Rather  than  engage  in  the  inhuman 
business  of  catching  and  returning  runaway  slaves,  as  the 
United  States  statutes  directed,  they  would  have  favored  the 

16  Professor  McDonald,  Jacksonian  Democracy,  p.  100. 

■i-1  McCulloch  vs.  Maryland,  Wheat  IV,  p.  316,  decided  in  1819. 


162  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

withdrawal  of  Ohio  from  the  Union/^  These  men  were  actu- 
ated by  a  high  purpose,  and  this  purpose  was  of  greater  value, 
as  they  thought,  than  obedience  to  the  Constitution.  The 
truth  is,  the  Irresistible  and  the  Immovable  at  last  stood  facing 
each  other.  Freedom  and  slavery  were  at  each  other's  throats. 
No  written  constitution,  no  compromise  however  tightly  drawn, 
not  even  Henry  Clay  himself,  could  reconcile  freedom  and 
slavery.  The  stars  in  their  courses  were  against  slavery.  The 
South  failed  to  see  this  fact  and  South  Carolina,  the  "Harry 
Percy"  of  the  Union,  went  rushing  to  her  doom. 

On  December  17,  I860,  another  convention  met  in  Charles- 
ton, but  a  far  different  one  from  that  of  eight  months  before.^" 
Now  there  was  no  debate,  no  uncertainty,  everything  was  clear- 
cut,  everything  settled.  Governors,  Senators,  Chancellors, 
Judges,  and  other  wise  men,  Senator  Hammond  included,  were 
unanimous.  The  position  of  R.  Barnwell  Rhett  of  Charleston, 
taken  years  before  and  continuously  advocated  by  him,  was 
correct.  The  "accursed"  Union  must  be  dissolved.  To  cele- 
brate the  event  the  city  of  Charleston  was  taking  a  day  off. 
Business  was  suspended;  the  city  was  gay  with  bunting;  joy 
was  unconfined.  The  blue  cockade  was  on  every  gentleman's 
lapel;  guns  roared;  Saint  Michael's  bells  pealed  forth,  rever- 
berating across  the  Battery  and  far  out  into  the  harbor. 
South  Carolina  had  left  tlie  Union,  the  first  step  had  been  taken 
to  construct  a  Southern  Confederacy  "whose  corner-stone  was 
to  be  slavery  and  whose  mudsill  was  to  be  the  poor  white."  "" 

Washington  City  was  likewise  aflutter, — a  Secession  town, 
she  was  backing  South  Carolina,  the  "Game-Cock."  Events 
were  happening  so  fast  no  one  could  keep  track  of  them. 
To-day  it  was  certain  tliat  the  Charleston  forts  would  be  evacu- 
ated and  turned  over  to  tlie  "sovereign"  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina; to-morrow  it  was  equally  certain  that  Major  Anderson, 

18  Cox,  Three  Decades,  p.  63;  Chaao'a  Speech  before  Peace  Conference,  Feb- 
ruary, 1861.  In  1855  Wade  advocated  the  right  of  a  state  to  secede.  He 
then  declared  "that  a  state  is  not  only  tlie  judge  of  an  unconstitutional 
statute,  but  of  the  remedy  in  such  cases." — Second  iScssioji  Thirty-third  Con- 
gress, p.  214,  Appendix. 

3  0  Rhodes,  Vol.   11,  p.  440. 

20  Cox,  Three  Decades,  p.  115;  Alex  Stephens'  Corner-atone  Speech  at 
Augusta  in  1861. 


TESTING  TIME  163 

in  command  at  Fort  Moultrie,  would  be  succored,  that  pro- 
visions and  reenforcements  would  be  sent  him. 

In  the  Capital  of  the  Nation  things  were  going  on  for  the 
cause  of  Secession  about  as  well  as  in  Charleston.  Before  the 
Crittenden  Amendment  was  offered  in  the  Senate,  favorable 
action  on  it  had  been  forestalled  and  foreclosed.  On  December 
14),  four  days  before  the  Crittenden  Amendment,  extending  the 
Missouri  Compromise  line,  was  offered  and  a  week  before  the 
first  vote  on  the  measure  was  taken,  twenty-nine  southern 
Senators  and  Congressmen,  Jefferson  Davis  among  them,  had 
met,  consulted  and  devised  a  plan  which  would  smother  the 
infant  n.mendment  in  its  crib.  Reuben  Davis,  a  Mississippi 
Congressman,  declared  that  this  manifesto  was  issued  to  kill 
off  the  peace  resolutions  which  had  been  adopted  by  the  House 
Peace  Committee  of  Thirty-three.  These  resolutions  had  set 
forth  a  desire  "that  all  troubles  might  be  composed,  the  Consti- 
tution obeyed,  rights  guaranteed  and  the  Union  restored."  ^^ 
If  adopted  by  Congress  they  would  have  prevented  war. 
Whatever  the  purpose  of  the  southern  manifesto,  its  language 
was  plain:  "The  argument  is  exhausted,"  it  declared.  "All 
hope  of  peaceful  relations  extinguished.  .  .  .  Nothing  is  left 
but  speedy  and  absolute  separation  from  a  Union  of  hostile 
states,  and  the  organization  of  a  southern  confederacy."  ^^ 

News  from  the  Charleston  convention  was  eagerly  awaited. 
It  was  the  habit  of  wealthy  southern  gentlemen  to  reside  in 
Washington  during  the  sessions  of  Congress,  with  their  wives 
and  daughters.  These  devoted  women  often  filled  the  galleries 
of  Senate  and  House.  As  they  followed  the  debates  the  hot 
southern  blood  surged  through  their  veins.  Who  could  make 
the  welkin  ring  like  Toombs  or  Wigfall.^*  "Coerce  the  South.?" 
these  gallant  gentlemen  would  scornfully  ask.  You  may  try 
it  but  "we  will  welcome  you  to  the  harvest  of  death"  and  "fu- 
ture generations  will  point  to  a  small  hillock  upon  our  border 
showing  the  reception  we  have  given  you."  .  .  .  "Even  as 
the  sons  of  Hamilcar  were  sworn  on  the  altar  to  die  for  coun- 
try," so  the  sons  of  the  South,  "for  home  and  fireside." 

21  Rhodes,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  177. 

22  Savage,  p.  210. 


164.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Of  this  scene  Andrew  Johnson  was  a  part.  Full  well  he 
knew  what  it  meant  if  he  stood  in  the  way.  Thirteen  years 
he  had  spent  in  Congress  and  he  had  not  failed  to  observe  the 
temper  of  his  southern  associates.  Abuse,  proscription,  vio- 
lence, a  duel,  more  than  likely  death,  these  might  be  his  portion. 
Nevertheless  he  had  made  up  his  mind.  He  was  going  to  stand 
for  the  Union.  Come  what  might,  this  would  be  his  course. 
Like  the  man  in  the  boat  he  would  no  longer  look  one  way  and 
row  another.  Every  consideration  impelled  him  to  this  course. 
The  Union  gone,  and  Tennessee  in  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
what  would  happen  .^^  He  would  be  a  citizen  of  a  slaveholding 
oligarchy.  What  then  would  become  of  the  mudsill.?  South 
Carolina  was  the  leader  in  this  movement.  In  South  Carolina 
he  himself  could  not  hold  ofEce.  Before  one  could  sit  in  the 
legislature  of  that  State  and  make  laws  he  must  be  the  owner 
of  a  hundred  acres  of  land  and  of  ten  negroes.  Johnson  owned 
only  eight.  Would  laws  made  by  such  land-owners  and  slave- 
owners bear  equally  upon  high  and  low  ?  Had  not  the  problem 
of  the  southern  slave-holding  oligarchy  always  been,  how  can 
the  few,  and  the  relatively  always  becoming  fewer,  rule  the 
greater  number,  and  the  alwa3"s  relatively  growing  greater.? 
Great  principles  were  at  stake,  the  dignity  of  labor,  the  home- 
stead law,  free  land  for  free  men.  Dissolve  the  Union  and  his 
life  work  would  be  blotted  out.  Preserve  the  Union  and  abol- 
ish slavery  and  the  white  man  as  well  as  the  slave  would  be 
set  free  and  his  beloved  Tennessee  would  bound  forward.  No 
doubt  she  would  equal  Ohio,  Pennsylvania  or  Illinois. 

While  these  thoughts  were  disturbing  Johnson's  mind,  the 
Senate  chamber  was  in  a  constant  hubbub.  When  Wigfall 
would  cry  out  that  the  "blood  bought  Union  cannot  be  held 
together  with  hemp"  tlie  galleries  would  resound  with  cheers. 
When  he  was  ridiculing  the  Peace  Committee  of  Thirteen,  de- 
claring that  "the  states  and  not  that  committee  must  settle  the 
differences"  and  that  "  whipt  syllabub  is  not  the  remedy  for  tlie 
patient,"  and  that  "if  you  of  the  North  wish  long  to  live  in  our 
company  you  must  abolish  your  so-called  liberty  laws,  abolisli 
all  your  abolition  societies  and  abolish  all  newspapers  advo- 
cating abolition,"  Free  Soil  Senators  roared  with  mock  laugli- 


TESTING  TIME  165 

ter.  As  the  laughter  continued  the  excited  Texan  exclaimed, 
"Let  the  Border  State  Senators  take  notice  of  the  mockery  with 
which  southern  rights  are  denied.  .  .  .  Not  only  do  you  spurn 
our  constitutional  rights,  you  laugh  at  us  for  demanding  them. 
Sirs,  we  will  no  longer  submit ;  ...  we  will  quietly  withdraw 
from  the  constitutional  compact  and  establish  a  government 
for  ourselves  and,  if  you  then  persist  in  your  attempt,  we  will 
leave  it  to  the  Ultima  ratio  regum  and  the  Southern  States  will 
settle  that  question, 

Where  the  battle's  wreck  is  thickest 
And  death's  brief  pang  is  quickest, 

and  when  you  laugh  at  these  impotent  threats,  as  you  regard 
them,  I  tell  you  Cotton  is  King  .  .  .  and  there  is  no  crowned 
head  of  Europe  that  does  not  bow  the  knee  in  fealty  and 
acknowledge  allegiance  to  that  monarch.  .  .  ."  (Long  and 
continued  applause  in  the  gallery.)  "South  Carolina  has  laid 
her  hands  on  the  pillars  and  she  will  shake  it  till  it  totters 
first  and  then  topples."  During  this  speech  of  Wigfall's  the 
galleries  almost  took  possession  of  the  Senate,  as  the  Vice- 
president  half-heartedly  rapped  for  order.  Amidst  such  tur- 
bulent scenes  December  18  arrived.  On  that  day  South 
Carolina  was  "laying  hands  on  the  pillars  of  the  Union";  a 
reign  of  terror  existed  in  southern  cities,  northern  men  fleeing 
for  their  lives.  On  that  day  also  Andrew  Johnson  got  the 
floor  and  addressed  the  Senate. 

"Mr.  President,"  he  began,  as  the  galleries,  brilliant  with 
the  elite  and  chivalry  of  the  South,  looked  down  with  hate  and 
scorn  upon  him,  "I  am  opposed  to  Secession."  ^^  "No  state 
has  the  right  to  secede  from  this  Union  without  the  consent  of 
the  other  states  which  ratified  the  compact.  ...  If  the  doc- 
trine of  Secession  is  to  be  carried  out  upon  the  mere  whim  of  a 
state  this  government  is  at  an  end,"  he  thundered.  "It  is  no 
stronger  than  a  rope  of  sand,  its  own  weight  will  crumble  it 
to  pieces  and  it  cannot  exist.  If  a  state  may  secede  why,  as 
Madison  asks,  may  not  other  states  combine  and  eject  a  state 
from  the  Union?  .  .  .  South  Carolina  if  she  succeeds  might 

23  S.  S.  Cox,  Three  Decades,  p.  70. 


166  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

and  will  negotiate  with  a  foreign  power.  .  .  .  Both  sides  in 
this  contest  are  wrong,  sir.  The  North  is  wrong  in  enacting 
so-called  liberty  bills,  in  the  teeth  of  the  Constitution  and 
United  States  Statutes.  Vermont  has  such  a  law."  Here  Col- 
lamer  of  Vermont  entered  a  mild  denial,  but  Johnson  read  the 
Statutes  of  1850  and  of  1858  which  made  it  a  felony  in  Ver- 
mont to  return  a  run-away  slave  to  its  master.  CoUamer  sub- 
sided. 

"The  South  is  equally  wrong,"  Johnson  continued.  "Flor- 
ida, Louisiana  and  Texas,  bought  and  paid  for  by  the  United 
States,  are  now  endeavoring  to  back  out  of  the  contract."  ^* 
.  .  .  **Will  not  Louisiana  and  Mississippi  close  the  mouth  of 
the  great  river  and  what  then  will  become  of  the  Northwest.'' 
.  .  .  Florida  and  Louisiana  were  territories  before  they  were 
states  and  if  they  withdraw  from  the  Union,  what  condition  will 
they  assume  on  such  withdrawal?  Will  they  be  states  or  mere 
territories?"  Senators  Slidell,  Yulee,  Wigfall  and  others  here 
interrupted  and  indeed  interfered  so  often  with  Johnson's 
speech,  badgering  and  hectoring  him,  it  was  two  days  before 
he  could  conclude.  Finally  Wigfall  in  disgust  turned  to 
Yulee  and  said,  "Let  him  alone!" 

"What  then  is  the  issue?"  Johnson  went  on  with  scorn  and 
emphasis,  but  still  claiming  to  be  a  part  of  the  South.  "It  is 
this  and  only  this,  we  are  mad  because  Mr.  Lincoln  has  been 
elected  President  and  we  have  not  got  our  man.  If  we  had 
got  our  man  we  should  not  be  for  breaking  up  the  Union,  but 
as  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  we  are  for  breaking  up  the  Union ! 
I  say,  no,  let  us  show  ourselves  men  and  men  of  courage.  .  .  . 
What  sort  of  a  slave-holding  nation  is  proposed  to  be  formed 
anyway?  If  it  is  based  upon  the  aristocratic  laws  of  South 
Carolina  it  would  be  a  mere  slave-holding  aristocracy.  .  .  . 
The  voice  of  South  Carolina,  like  that  of  Sempronius,  is  still 
for  war  but  when  the  battle  comes  Tennessee,  the  quiet  Lucius, 
will  be  found  doing  the  fighting.  .  .  .  Am  I  to  be  so  great  a 
coward  as  to  retreat  from  duty  ?  No,  sirs !  Here  I  will  stand 
and  meet  the  encroachments  upon  the  institutions  of  my  coun- 
try at  the  threshold.  Shall  I  desert  the  citadel  and  let  the 
2*  Second  Session  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  Part  I,  pp.  116-143. 


TESTING  TIME  167 

enemy  come  in  and  take  possession?  No!  Instead  of  laying 
hold  of  the  columns  of  this  fabric  and  pulling  it  down,  though 
I  may  not  be  much  of  a  prop,  I  will  stand  with  my  shoulders 
supporting  the  edifice  as  long  as  human  effort  can  do  it. 
Though  I  fought  against  Lincoln  I  love  my  country;  I  love 
the  Constitution.  Let  us  therefore  rally  around  the  altar  of 
our  Constitution  and  swear  that  it  and  the  Union  shall  be  saved 
as  'Old  Hickory'  Jackson  did  in  1832.  Senators,  my  blood, 
my  existence,  I  would  give  to  save  this  Union." 

How  did  the  man  make  so  bold  a  speech?  How  dared  he 
stand  in  that  presence  and  deliver  such  an  utterance?  At  all 
events,  no  sooner  were  the  words  spoken  than  they  swept  the 
country.  North  and  South  were  alike  astounded.  The  best 
politician  in  America,  his  enemies  declared,  had  deserted  the 
South  and  joined  the  Union.  Surely  the  North  must  stand  a 
chance  to  win  if  Andy  Johnson,  the  wily  old  politician,  had 
picked  her  out  as  a  winner.  Why,  sixty  days  before  he  was 
stumping  Tennessee  for  Breckinridge  and  Lane,  now  he  was 
a  "Lincolnite."  Senator  Green  called  the  speech  infamous. 
Senator  Brown  called  it  damnable.  The  New  York  Herald 
said  that  it  was  "the  talk  of  every  circle  in  Washington  and 
was  uniformly  condemned  by  southern  men."  Senator  Cling- 
man  declared  that  until  that  speech  the  North  was  paralyzed 
and  afraid.  As  Johnson  left  the  Senate  chamber  his  southern 
associates  refused  to  recognize  him.^^  Scowls  and  hisses 
greeted  him  on  every  side.^^  As  he  walked  down  the  avenue 
towards  his  rooms  in  the  Kirkwood  House,  insults  and  in- 
dignities were  offered  to  him. 

Soon  the  expected  attack  on  him  began  in  the  Senate. 
Jefferson  Davis  opening  up  on  "the  southern  traitor,"  and 
seeking  to  destroy  him  at  home,  called  Johnson  the  "ally  of 
Ben  Wade,"  the  hated  Ohio  abolitionist.  "Men  of  that  class," 
Senator  Davis  intimated,  "are  but  miserable  recreants  nailed 
to  the  cross."  Ridiculing  the  idea  which  Johnson  had  sug- 
gested that  the  city  of  Washington  might  be  besieged  by  the 
army  of  the  seceding  states,  Davis  said  he  was  "glad  the  school 

25  New  York  Herald,  December  20,  1860. 

26  Savage,  p.  226. 


168  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

girls  of  Washington  can  still  turn  out  and  walk  the  streets  in 
safety  without  the  danger  from  Johnson's  imaginary  army." 
Senator  Lane  followed,  charging  that  Andrew  Johnson  had 
never  accomplished  anything  in  life,  that  he  "knows  nothing 
except  the  Homestead  bill,"  .  .  .  that  he  had  "always  acted 
with  the  North  and  against  the  South."  The  idea  of  coercing 
a  sovereign  state  was  monstrous.  Wigfall  charged  that  John- 
son did  not  represent  true  southern  sentiment.  In  the  last 
campaign  he  was  false  to  the  South;  his  speech  at  Memphis 
was  treasonable.  "In  that  campaign,"  Wigfall  exclaimed,  "did 
Johnson  declare  that  if  Lincoln  were  elected  President  the 
South  should  secede.?  He  did  not;  on  that  subject  his  lips 
were  sealed.  But,  sir,  I  did  then  and  I  do  now  so  declare." 
Benjamin,  more  diplomatic,  endeavored  to  coax  Johnson  back 
into  the  ranks.  "The  Senator,"  so  Benjamin  urged,  "has  been 
unfortunate  in  the  impression  his  speech  has  created  upon  the 
country.  Surely,  he  did  not  mean  to  imply  that  a  sovereign 
state  could  be  coerced?"  To  these  attacks  Andrew  Johnson  in- 
terposed no  interruptions,  but  sat  quietly  in  his  seat. 

Meanwhile  the  influence  of  that  December  18  speech  was 
covering  the  land  from  New  York  City  to  San  Francisco. 
Senator  Clingman  of  North  Carolina  afterwards  charged  that 
Johnson's  speech  brought  on  the  Civil  War  and  was  the  most 
effective  speech  ever  made  on  any  subject.  Alexander  Ste- 
phens considered  that  it  hardened  and  solidified  the  North. 
Senator  Simon  Cameron  called  Andrew  Johnson  the  "lion- 
hearted"  Johnson. "'^  Johnson  was  now  Seward's  "noble 
friend."  Letters  from  everywhere  came  pouring  in  to  con- 
gratulate and  to  encourage  "the  only  Union  Senator  from  the 
South."  Mechanics  and  laborers  especially  blessed  his  name. 
A  Baltimore  laborer  wrote  that  "the  poor  working  man  will 
no  doubt  be  called  on  to  fight  the  battles  of  tlie  rich."  An 
opponent  from  Memphis  declared  that  "it  was  labor  that 
achieved  our  independence  and  the  laborers  are  ready  to  main- 
tain it."  Tlie  New  York  W^orking  Man's  Association  voted  a 
resolution  of  thanks.  An  illiterate  old  mountaineer  wrote  that 
he  wanted  some  "publick  dociments"  .  .  .  "to  set  the  people 

27  Johnson  MS.  No.  1057. 


TESTING  TIME  169 

rite  in  this  section,  so  I  want  to  be  poasted  as  how  things  is 
going  on  at  Washington."  A  hundred  men  from  Jacks- 
borough  wrote  as  follows :  ^^ 

Jacksborough,  Tenn.,  May  2nd  1861. 
Hon  Andrew  Johnson : 
Sir, 

As  old  friends,  and  enemies,  in  a  political  point  of  view,  we  now 
address  you  as  political  friends  assuring  you  that  we  are  with 
you  in  heart  and  feeling  in  your  efforts  to  save  the  government 
from  overthrow,  and  transmit  to  posterity  the  blessings  of  liberty. 
And  it  is  our  desire  you  should  make  this  in  your  appointment. 
Come  to  Jacksboro  and  address  the  people  on  the  great  question 
of  Union  and  Liberty,  or  Disunion  and  Despotism. 

We  ask  you  to  come,  with  all  the  power  and  force  of  the  English 
language,  with  Super  added  emphasis  to  the  word  COME  ! 
Yours  Truly  &c 

P.S.  We  could  have  got  any  amount  of  signatures  but  time 
will  not  permit. 

The  Minnesota  legislature  sent  resolutions  of  endorsement 
and  commendation,  signed  by  the  Speaker  of  the  House  and 
the  President  of  the  Senate.  Copies  of  the  speech  were  ea- 
gerly demanded.  The  Gazette  at  Chattanooga  had  received 
orders  for  a  thousand  copies ;  H.  M.  Watterson  desired  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  copies;  a  New  York  Senator  wished  a  half 
dozen  speeches;  Montgomery  Blair  called  for  five  hundred 
speeches  in  Maryland;  the  Cincinnati  Times  eulogized  the 
speech;  Benjamin  Rush  from  Philadelphia  urged  that  the 
speech  be  scattered.  Scores  compared  Andrew  Johnson  with 
"Old  Hickory"  Jackson.  A  Nashville  man  who  had  been  John- 
son's political  opponent  ordered  five  hundred  copies  at  his 
own  expense,  likening  Johnson  to  "fiery,  faulty  Andy  Jack- 
son." Many  declared  he  would  mount  higher  and  higher,  that 
in  1864<  he  would  supplant  Douglas  and  be  President  of  the 
United  States.^^  Southern  sympathizers  were  quite  as  abusive 
as  the  Unionists  were  friendly.  He  was  called  "a  Tom  Thumb 
trying  to  wield  the  sword  of  General  Scott."     It  was  charged 

28  Johnson  MS.,  Vol.  II,  p.  2358. 

29  These  letters  may  be  found  in  Volumes  I,  II  and  III  of  the  Johnson  MSS., 
the  numbers  ranging  from  579  and  thence  onward.  They  fill  nearly  three 
volumeg. 


170  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

that  but  for  his  speech  the  North  would  have  accepted  the 
Crittenden  Amendment  and  that  it  would  have  been  adopted 
by  Congress.  He  was  burned  in  effigy  in  Memphis,  in  Lynch- 
burg, in  Nashville;  and,  as  Wigfall  boastfully  declared,  "I 
know  not  how  many  other  places."  ^° 

Letters  from  home  were  specially  encouraging.  Sam  Milli- 
gan  advised  that  he  was  burnt  in  Memphis  and  Nashville  and 
they  tried  to  burn  him  in  Knoxville  but  the  Union  men  pre- 
vented it.  "All  the  Whigs  are  for  you."  Writing  again, 
Milligan  said  that  "the  Whig  papers  copied  the  speech  but  the 
Democratic  papers  called  it  infamous  and  refused  to  publish 
it."  .  .  .  "In  certain  quarters  they  are  giving  you  thunder," 
Milligan  wrote.  "All  you  or  any  one  else  were  ever  hurt  by 
being  burned  in  effigy  amounts  to  nothing.  When  you  and  I 
are  gone  and  I  fear  our  government  too  and  the  Constitution 
under  which  we  live  torn  in  pieces,  the  doctrines  of  that  speech 
will  remain  unchanged  and  its  wholesome  teachings  will  be  seen 
in  stronger  light  than  the  burning  fires  of  the  author's  effigy." 
Robert  Johnson  was  delighted  at  his  father's  course,  and  con- 
gratulated him  for  not  changing  his  mind  on  the  Union. 
Blackstone  McDaniel,  full  of  enthusiasm,  suggested  that  "that 
dam  fool  *Crow'  Ramsay  ought  by  all  means  be  turned  out  of 
office."  From  far  away  Texas,  brother  Bill  Johnson  wrote, 
"as  a  brother  to  a  brother,"  and  "cussed  out  Texas,"  declaring, 
"I  am  against  Secession  but  am  going  to  vote  for  it  and  let  the 
slaveowners  fight  it  out." 

Early  in  January  Senator  Seward  delivered  a  prepared  ad- 
dress.^^  The  substance  of  this  speech  was  that  nothing  rash 
should  be  done,  "that  we  should  sit  on  the  bank  till  the  rising 
tide  of  Secession  flows  by."  Of  this  address  it  has  been  de- 
clared that  it  was  as  patriotic  and  as  important  a  speech  as  has 
ever  been  delivered  in  the  walls  of  the  capitol.^-  That  it  was 
patriotic  no  one  can  deny,  but  in  com])arison  with  Andrew 
Johnson's  speech  of  a  month  earlier,  can  it  be  called  important.'* 
The  "Georgia"  idea,  which  Seward  approved,  that  the  south- 

•fo  Johnson  MS.  No.  085. 

^1  Covf/rrN.iional  (llohc,  p.  .341;  Bancroft,  Seward,  Vol.  IT,  j).  210. 

82  Howe,  History  of  Secession,  p.  496. 


TESTING  TIME  171 

ern  states  would  play  a  child's  game — withdraw  from  the 
Union,  organize  a  Confederacy,  elect  a  President,  Congress  and 
courts  and  get  fully  under  way,  and  then  return  again  into 
the  Union — seems  fanciful.  The  North  would  certainly  not 
yield  more  than  the  Crittenden  Amendment  and  this  the  South 
had  already  rejected.^ ^  If  the  Union  was  worth  preserving, 
the  occasion  needed  a  man  in  the  halls  of  Congress,  as  it  needed 
one  in  the  White  House.  In  Congress  that  man  was  Andrew 
Johnson,  the  most  indomitable,  the  most  thorough-going  and 
the  most  determined  individual  of  his  age.  In  the  White 
House  the  man  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  Democratic  revo- 
lution, begun  by  Andrew  Jackson,  it  must  be  admitted,  was 
bearing  fruit.  The  destiny  of  the  state  was  passing  into  the 
keeping  of  the  rank  and  file — the  "Rail-splitter"  and  the 
"Tailor." 

On  January  21,  1861,  Jefferson  Davis  withdrew  from  the 
Senate,  delivering  a  farewell  message  which  brought  tears  to 
many  eyes.  Shortly  afterwards  Benjamin  likewise  departed 
for  his  home  in  New  Orleans.  On  February  5  Andrew  Johnson 
charged  in  the  Senate  that  Davis,  Lane,  Benjamin  and  Wig- 
fall  had  attacked  him  by  preconcert.  "The  scene  was  pretty 
well  gotten  up  and  was  acted  out  admirably,"  he  asserted. 
"The  plot  was  executed  to  the  very  letter."  He  then  proceeded 
to  show  that  since  the  election  of  Lincoln,  Benjamin  had 
lauded  the  Union,  praising  it  to  the  skies.  In  fact,  Benjamin, 
in  a  public  speech  in  November  1860  had  referred  to  those  who 
would  attack  it  as  "silly  savages  who  let  fly  their  arrows  at  the 
sun  in  the  vain  hope  of  piercing  it!  and  still  the  sun  rolls  on 
unheeding  in  its  eternal  pathway,  shedding  light  and  anima- 
tion upon  all  the  world."  To  Davis  and  Lane,  who  had  charged 
that  he  was  disloyal  to  the  South  and  an  ally  of  Ben  Wade, 
Johnson  retorted  that  he  was  an  ally  of  any  man  who  stood 
for  the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  He  likewise  showed  that 
Davis  and  Lane  had  been  inconsistent  in  this  matter.  In  May 
1860  they  had  voted  that  no  legislation  was  needed  to  protect 
slavery  in  the  territories.     Yet  they  were  now  going  to  secede 

33  Rhodes  concludes  otherwise,  but  Secession  in  the  Far  South,  I  think,  was 
inevitable  after  Lincoln's  election. 


172  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

because  Congress  would  not  do  what  they  said  was  necessary 
to  be  done.^*  Johnson  concluded  his  speech  on  February  5. 
The  next  day  but  one,  Wigfall  rose  to  reply.  Never  before 
were  more  vituperative  or  bitter  words  spoken  in  the  Senate. 

Davis,  Lane  and  Benjamin  had  hurled  tufts  of  grass;  Wig- 
fall  let  fly  stones,  rocks,  and  boulders.  If  Johnson  could  not  be 
stopped  by  argument  he  must  be  destroyed  by  abuse.  De- 
nouncing Johnson  as  a  "Black  Republican,"  "a  renegade 
Southerner,"  "a  Helperite,"  in  fact  "more  treasonable  than 
Helper,"  Wigfall  took  up  Johnson's  argument  that  Alabama, 
as  a  people  and  not  as  a  state  in  1819  adopted  the  Constitution 
and  was  bought  and  paid  for  by  the  United  States  govern- 
ment. "Shame,  where  is  thy  blush!"  he  exclaimed.  "Why,  my 
cheeks  would  burn  with  shame  if  I  would  attempt  to  palm  off 
a  fraud  of  this  kind  on  the  people  I  represent."  Quoting 
^sop's  Fable,  that  the  bugler  blowing  the  horn  for  peace  was 
the  first  to  be  put  to  death,  he  asserted  that  Johnson  could  not 
raise  the  issue,  "that  slaveholding  is  not  sound  except  at  the 
risk  of  his  neck,  in  the  South.  Why,  sirs,"  he  went  on,  "his 
speech  was  offensive  to  every  southern  state-rights  man,  to 
every  southern  Democrat,  and  caused  his  effigy  to  be  shot, 
burned,  to  be  hung  in  his  state  I  do  not  know  how  many  times." 

Flouting  the  suggestion  that  Andrew  Johnson  was  to  be 
another  Andrew  Jackson,  he  spurned  the  very  thought.  "How 
it  maddens  me  to  see  a  popinjay  speak  of  guns  and  drums 
and  wounds.  After  six  weeks  he  attacks  the  noble  Davis,  no 
longer  here  to  reply;"  .  .  .  like  the  jackal  "he  preys  on  the 
carcass  his  royal  master  has  left."  If  he  had  dared  "to  vilify 
the  Senator  from  Mississippi  to  his  face  the  reply  would  have 
been,  'Lord  Angus,  thou  hast  lied,'  to  prince  or  peasant  or 
plebeian."  At  this  point  the  Senate  could  sit  quiet  and  sub- 
mit no  longer.  It  broke  up  in  disorder  and  confusion.  Finally 
order  was  somewhat  restored  when  the  intrepid  Texan  resumed. 
"A  mousing  owl,  striking  at  the  proud  eagle!"  he  shouted. 
"The  vilest  of  Republicans,  the  reddest  of  Reds,  a  sans-culotte, 
for  four  years  past  he  has  been  trying  to  please  the  North  with 
his  Homestead  and  other  bills.    When  war  comes  he'll  not  be  in 

34  Savage,  p.  224. 


TESTING  TIME  173 

the  breach,  he'll  not  take  up  arms.  In  truth  when  Tennessee 
adopts  the  ordinance  of  secession  he  will  have  sworn  to  sup- 
port any  constitution  the  last  time  during  his  natural  life." 

Senator  Wigfall  resumed  his  seat.  The  expected  had  hap- 
pened, a  tornado  had  swept  the  Senate.  No  man  had  yet  es- 
caped who  attacked  the  institution  of  slavery.  Johnson  was  to 
go  the  way  of  all  others  who  had  assailed  it.  Broderick  fell 
at  the  hands  of  Terry,  Sumner  at  the  hands  of  Brooks.  A  chal- 
lenge to  fight  a  duel  would  perhaps  follow.  Clingman  had 
challenged  Yancey,  Branch  had  challenged  Grow,  Prior  had 
challenged  Potter,  Barksdale  had  challenged  Burlingame,  in 
each  case  the  controversy  arising  out  of  slavery.  As  Wigfall 
had  denounced  Johnson,  so  Barksdale  had  denounced  Love  joy. 
Foote  had  presented  his  derringer  at  Benton's  breast.  On 
more  than  one  occasion  scores  of  southern  Congressmen  had 
surrounded  Northerners,  while  weapons  gleamed,  and  men 
held  their  breath.  Such  scenes  authorized  Hammond  to  write 
to  Lieber,  "Every  Congressman  is  armed  with  a  pistol  or  a 
bowie  knife,  some  with  both." 

The  New  York  Herald  of  February  8  declared  that  a  duel 
would  take  place  between  Wigfall  and  Johnson.  But  John- 
son sent  no  challenge  to  Wigfall.  His  courage  did  not  have  to 
be  bolstered  by  a  duel,  it  had  been  tested  before.  Besides,  he 
had  work  on  his  hands.  In  a  moment  the  United  States  seemed 
to  have  turned  to  him  as  its  savior.  His  mail  grew  to  immense 
proportions.  Letters,  telegrams,  resolutions  of  endorsement, 
invitations  to  speak,  were  pouring  in  upon  him.  "Thousands 
in  New  England  mention  your  name  with  benediction,"  a 
broker  wrote  Senator  Johnson. ^^  The  citizens  of  Cincinnati 
invited  him  and  Crittenden  to  address  them.^^  People  began 
to  crowd  his  rooms  at  the  hotel  and  to  seek  him  out.  Charles 
Francis  Adams  called  and  "was  impressed  with  his  dignity," 
his  "quiet  composure"  and  "the  neat  clothes"  he  wore.  "Who 
is  this  fellow  Johnson  anyway  .'*"  some  one  inquired.  "Is  he  the 
famous  Cave  Johnson,  Congressman  from  Tennessee?"  "Not 
a  bit  of  it,"  was  the  reply.  "There  isn't  any  'cave'  in  Andy 
Johnson." 

35  Johnson  MS.,  February  26. 

36  Johnson  MS.  No.  1417.  See  Appendix  "A"  for  the  copy  of  Governor 
Hicks'  letter  to  Senator  Johnson. 


CHAPTER  II 
LION-HEART 

During  the  last  days  of  February  Lincoln  arrived  in  Wash- 
ington and  took  rooms  at  the  Willard  Hotel,  half  a  mile  or 
more  from  the  Capitol.  Though  divinely  appointed  to  save 
the  Union,  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  that  time,  had  not  found  himself. 
Either  he  did  not  know  the  seriousness  of  affairs  or  he  was 
putting  up  a  bold  front.  On  his  way  to  Washington  he  had 
made  several  inconsequential  and  unsatisfactory  speeches. 
"There  is  no  crisis  but  an  artificial  one,"  he  had  said  at 
Columbus.  "There  is  nothing  going  wrong."  ^  But  when  he 
arrived  in  Baltimore  he  had  a  rude  shock.  As  he  passed 
through  that  city  his  life  was  in  danger.  Everything  was 
going  wrong;  America  did  not  know  her  o\\ti  mind.  Each 
day  brought  distressing  news.  South  Carolina  had  been 
joined  in  secession  by  Mississippi  and  other  states,  and  the 
Crittenden  Amendment  was  practically  dead.  It  had  been 
killed  by  the  manifesto  of  December  14,  and  by  a  combination 
of  Secessionists  and  Abolitionists — Benjamin  and  five  other 
secession  Southerners  combining  with  Wade,  Sumner,  Thad 
Stevens  and  other  unyielding  Abolitionists. 

Toombs,  wiring  the  Georgia  Legislature,  shouted,  "War! 
War !  War !"  The  much  touted  Peace  Conference,  which  Vir- 
ginia had  suggested,  ended  in  nothing.  The  discussions  served 
but  to  show  how  wide  apart  Southerners  and  Northerners  were 
on  the  extension  of  slavery.  President  Buchanan  was  beside 
himself.  "Either  a  fool  or  an  idiot,"  the  New  York  Herald  of 
December  24)  had  declared ;  "drawing  Secession  to  a  head  like  a 
milk  and  bread  poultice."  In  January  Postmaster-General 
Blair  had  threatened  to  leave  the  cabinet  unless  Fort  Sumter 
was  garrisoned ; '  and  the  President  had  dispatched  the  Star 

1  Rhodes,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  304. 

2  Gideon  Welles,  Diary,  Vol.  IT,  p.  1.3. 

174 


LION-HEART  175 

of  the  West,  a  side-wheel  merchant  steamship  with  provisions 
for  that  fort.  The  gallant  Anderson,  without  orders  from  the 
President,  had  previously  removed  his  small  force  from  Fort 
Moultrie  to  Sumter,  a  much  stronger  position,  determined  to 
strike  a  blow  for  the  Nation's  life.  This  change  of  base  had 
incensed  the  South  Carolina  government.  It  likewise  raised 
an  issue  of  veracity  as  to  who  had  dared  order  the  seizure  of 
property  belonging  to  a  sovereign  state.  Before  the  boat  left 
port,  Jacob  Thompson,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  Wigfall, 
a  United  States  Senator,  had  not  thought  it  disloyal  to  the 
government  they  served  to  notify  the  Charleston  people  that 
provisions  were  on  their  way  and  to  look  out  for  the  incoming 
steamer.  Consequently,  when  the  Star  of  the  West  arrived  off 
Charleston  harbor  everything  was  in  readiness  for  a  fight. 
But  the  "tub,"  being  unarmed,  withdrew  and  limped  back  to 
New  York,  after  a  few  shots  had  passed  over  her  bow.  No  one 
was  killed  in  this  engagement,  as  Major  Anderson  from  Sum- 
ter did  not  fire  in  return.  Had  an  engagement  then  taken 
place  no  doubt  the  Civil  War  would  have  begun  in  January 
instead  of  April.  Both  sides  were  sparring  for  position,  each 
anxious  to  force  the  other  to  strike  the  first  blow.  The  abor- 
tive attempt  to  reenforce  Sumter  did  not  greatly  arouse  the 
North. 

January  2  Buchanan  plucked  up  courage  to  remove  Floyd, 
Secretary  of  War,  actively  cooperating  with  the  Confederacy. 
Joseph  Holt,  a  staunch  Unionist  from  Kentucky,  was  ap- 
pointed in  his  stead.  It  was  then  that  Wigfall  wired  to  South 
Carolina,  "It  means  war ;  cut  off  supplies  from  Anderson  and 
take  Sumter  as  soon  as  possible."  On  February  8  a  pro- 
visional Confederate  government  was  formed  at  Montgomery, 
Alabama,  composed  of  South  Carolina,  Mississippi,  Florida, 
Alabama,  Georgia  and  Louisiana.  Jefferson  Davis  was  elected 
President  and  Alex  Stephens  Vice-president.  Walker,  Con- 
federate Secretary  of  War,  was  boasting  that  Washington 
would  be  occupied  by  Confederate  troops  before  May  1,  a 
boast  repudiated  by  Davis,  as  he  was  expecting  peaceful  se- 
cession. Nearly  all  southern  Congressmen  had  resigned  and 
departed  for  their  homes.     Confidence  in  the  new  government 


176  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

was  above  par ;  in  the  old  government  it  was  a  vanishing  quan- 
tity. "Let  South  Carolina  go  over  a  Bridge  of  Gold,"  the  de- 
lighted abolitionists  were  saying.^  Alone  in  his  opinion,  the 
optimistic  Seward,  soon  to  be  Secretary  of  State,  was  more 
optimistic  than  ever.  "In  sixty  days  all  will  be  well,"  he  cheer- 
ily declared.  And  yet  every  one  knew  this  was  not  the  case, 
and  that  Seward's  wish  was  father  to  the  thought.  In  truth, 
the  Far  South  was  gone  from  the  Union  and  gone  forever. 
Prior  to  the  firing  on  the  old  flag  at  Sumter,  most  of  the 
northern  states  were  unwilling  to  stand  for  war  on  their  south- 
ern brothers.* 

The  situation  in  the  Border  States  before  April  15  was  more 
hopeful  for  the  Union.  Yet  southern  fire-eaters  knew  they 
held  the  cards.  At  any  moment  they  could  drive  the  Border 
States  into  line.  "Sprinkle  a  little  blood  in  their  faces,"  a 
turbulent  Southerner  had  suggested.  "Blood  is  all  that  is 
necessary."  He  knew  that  when  fighting  began,  no  matter 
when  or  by  whom  started,  the  South  would  rush  together  as 
one  man.  The  outlook  in  Tennessee  was  still  favorable  to  the 
Union.  Though  the  legislature,  cooperating  with  Governor 
Harris,  had  ordered  an  election  to  vote  "for"  or  "against"  con- 
vention, on  February  8  the  convention  was  defeated  by  a  vote 
of  54,156  for  and  67,369  against.  Early  in  the  session  Robert 
Johnson,  a  member  of  the  Tennessee  legislature,  wrote  his 
father  that  a  resolution  had  been  offered  requesting  his  resigna- 
tion as  Senator  but  that  it  had  been  dropped.^  In  January 
Senator  Johnson  wrote  to  his  son,  Robert,  that  probably  the 
Crittenden  Amendment  would  pass  Congress  and  the  j'^oung 
patriot  was  correspondingly  happy.*'  "All  is  well  and  you 
need  not  come  home,"  Robert  replied;  but  added  that  his 
brother,  Charles,  had  been  on  a  spree  again.*'"'  Many  were 
urging  Senator  Johnson  to  come  to  Tennessee,  stating  that 

3  Moore,  p.  262. 

4  V.  S.  (jlraiit,  Mcmoirfs,  p.  227. 

0  Johnson  MS.  No.  749 ;  the  resolution  was  adopted  in  May,  2nd  Extra  Ses- 
Bion,  p.  I.'j7. 

6  Johnson  MS.  No.  761. 

61  Charles  Johnson,  now  a  praeticinf!:  ])hysieian,  was  a  lovable  character,  a 
musician  of  talent,  and,  though  like  many  young  men  addicted  to  drink,  the 
idol  of  his  mother's  heart. — J.  S.  Jones,  Address. 


LION-HEART  177 

intimidations  had  been  used  in  the  February  election/  Neill 
S.  Brown,  former  Governor,  wrote,  congratulating  John- 
son on  the  February  elections.^  Belligerent  old  Blackstone 
McDaniel  wrote  "there  is  a  dam'  Secession  postmaster  by  the 
name  of  Gordon  holding  on,  turn  him  out."  But  even  in  Ten- 
nessee the  secessionists  were  so  active  the  conservatives  were 
intimidated.  It  was  manifest  that  in  a  short  time  a  new  elec- 
tion would  be  called  to  vote  for  another  convention.  Many 
peace-loving  Whigs  were  joining  the  secession  Democrats  and 
catching  the  fever.  Some  were  like  Colonel  Gentry,  Johnson's 
old  opponent  for  Governor.  Colonel  Gentry,  explaining  his 
course  in  quitting  the  Union  and  joining  the  Confederacy,  de- 
clared that  he  never  had  the  least  idea  of  doing  so.  "I  was 
always  a  Union  man,"  he  declared,  "but  one  day  a  wheezy  old 
side-wheel  steamer,  labeled  Secession,  came  puffing  along  and 
hove  up  at  the  wharf.  As  every  one  else  was  j  umping  aboard  I 
jumped  too ;  and  all  hands  went  to  hell  together." 

As  a  last  effort  for  peace  the  gallant  Crittenden  determined 
to  let  the  people  of  the  United  States  vote  on  his  proposed 
amendment.  That  is,  he  would  call  a  national  plebiscite.  As 
southern  fire-eaters  and  northern  fanatics  had  joined  hands 
and  smothered  his  measure  in  the  committee,  he  would  carry 
the  same  over  their  heads  directly  to  the  floor  of  Congress. 
He  hoped  thereby  to  have  an  election  ordered.  But  the  ex- 
tremes, North  as  well  as  South,  again  blocked  his  pathway. 
In  the  Senate  Clark  of  New  Hampshire  offered  an  insidious 
resolution  to  the  effect  that  the  Constitution  itself  furnished 
sufficient  guarantees  for  the  protection  of  slavery.  This  reso- 
lution was  adopted  by  one  vote  and  Crittenden's  patriotic 
labors  came  to  naught.  Six  southern  Senators  sat  by  and 
refused  to  vote  on  the  Clark  substitute.  One  of  these  was 
Senator  Benjamin.  Andrew  Johnson,  whose  seat  was  near 
Benjamin's,  spoke  out  and  said,  "Senator  Benjamin,  why 
don't  you  vote.'"'  Benjamin  tartly  replied  that  it  was  none 
of  Johnson's  business.  "Vote,  sir!  Vote,"  said  Johnson, 
"and  show  yourself  an  honest  man." 

7  Johnson  MS.  JS'o.  986. 

8  Ibid.,  No.  1073. 


178  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

While  affairs  were  in  this  chaotic  condition,  and  the  Union 
apparently  tottering  to  its  fall,  Andrew  Johnson  was  busy 
preparing  himself  to  strike  a  blow  for  his  country.^  It  was 
March  2  and,  though  Congress  would  adjourn  on  the  fourth, 
Johnson  was  determined  to  rouse  the  patriotism  of  America. 
Whether  in  New  England  or  the  great  West,  in  the  eastern 
cities  or  on  the  plains,  in  the  Border  States  or  elsewhere,  he 
had  a  message  for  the  plain  man,  and  as  usual  he  would  go  over 
the  heads  of  the  leaders  and  appeal  directlj^  to  the  people.  The 
Union  was  in  danger.  The  issue  was  not  well  defined.  The 
leaders  were  blinding  the  people's  eyes.  The  old  shibboleth, 
"a  state  cannot  be  coerced,"  was  being  twisted  so  as  to  befog 
and  anger  the  masses  and  disrupt  the  Union.  Northern  aboli- 
tionist and  southern  fire-eater  were  in  accord.  The  pacifist, 
the  Copperhead  and  the  "dough-face"  were  playing  into  the 
hands  of  ambitious  Southerners.  If  steps  were  not  taken  to 
arrest  the  progress  of  secession,  in  sixty  days,  there  would  be 
no  Union.  The  Confederacy  would  be  so  firmly  established 
nothing  could  overthrow  it. 

To  galleries  filled  with  spectators.  Senator  and  General  Lane 
of  Oregon,  a  gallant  ofiicer  in  the  IMexican  War  and  a  Vir- 
ginian by  birth,  had  just  concluded  a  spirited  attack  on 
Andrew  Johnson.  Seizing  upon  Johnson's  illustration  that 
if  President  Washington,  with  force  and  arms,  had  put  down 
the  Pennsylvania  whiskey  rebellion,  why  should  not  President 
Buchanan  put  down  the  South  Carolina  rebellion.  General 
Lane  exclaimed,  "My  God,  Mr.  President,  what  can  I  say  to 
a  man  who  likens  the  secession  of  a  state  to  a  whiskey  rebel- 
lion.'' One  whose  mind  cannot  discover  the  difference  between 
a  local  affair  such  as  the  whiskey  rebellion  and  the  secession  of 
a  great  state  is  triumphantly  ignorant  and  exultingly  stupid. 
.  .  .  Why,  such  a  man  never  had  a  correct  idea  in  his  head. 
.  .  .  Why,  sirs,  his  December  speech  has  so  encouraged  the 
North  and  the  Black  Republicans  it  has  prevented  peace  and 
peaceful  Secession;  that  infamous  speech  has  been  scattered 
broadcast  all  over  the  country,  and  its  author,  Andrew  John- 

oGeo.  W.  Julian,  Recollections,  p.  189;  Johnson  M8.  No.  1301,  Johnson  va3 
in  daily  conference  with  Secretary  Stanton. 


LION-HEART  179 

son,  is  now  the  noble  friend  of  Seward,  the  New  York  aboli- 
tionist, forsooth.  ...  A  tyro  understands  a  state  cannot  be 
coerced.  .  .  .  Would  you  forcibly  hold  the  South  in  the  Union, 
put  her  in  the  same  relation  to  the  Union  that  Ireland  occu- 
pies to  England,  Greece  to  Turkey,  Italy  to  Austria,  Poland 
to  Russia,  the  Netherlands  to  Spain?  .  .  .  Sir,  like  Esau, 
Andrew  Johnson  has  sold  his  birthright."  ^^ 

As  soon  as  Lane  concluded,  Johnson  dashed  into  the  fight, 
charging  that  there  was  a  conspiracy  against  him,  a  con- 
spiracy joined  in  by  sundry  Senators,  by  Davis,  Benjamin, 
Wigfall,  and  by  Lane,  by  dis-Unionists  from  everywhere.^^ 
"Sir,  it  must  be  apparent,  not  only  to  the  Senate,  but  to  the 
whole  country,"  he  declared,  "that,  either  by  accident  or  by  de- 
sign, there  has  been  an  arrangement  that  any  one  who  appeared 
in  this  Senate  to  vindicate  the  Union  of  these  states  should  be 
attacked.  Why  is  it  that  no  one  in  the  Senate  or  out  of  it,  who 
is  in  favor  of  the  Union  of  these  states,  has  made  an  attack 
upon  me.^^  Why  has  it  been  left  to  those  who  have  taken  both 
open  and  secret  ground  in  violation  of  the  Constitution,  for 
the  disruption  of  the  Government  ?  Why  has  there  been  a  con- 
certed attack  upon  me  from  the  beginning  of  this  discussion 
to  the  present  moment,  not  even  confined  to  the  ordinary 
courtesies  of  debate  and  of  senatorial  decorum.''  It  is  a  ques- 
tion which  lifts  itself  above  personalities.  I  care  not  from 
what  direction  the  Senator  comes  who  indulges  in  personalities 
towards  me ;  in  that,  I  feel  that  I  am  above  him,  and  that  he 
is  my  inferior." 

As  Johnson  vigorously  uttered  this  last  sentence  the  gal- 
leries, filled  at  last  with  Unionists,  broke  into  loud  applause. 
The  presiding  officer  rapped  with  his  mallet  and  ordered  the 
galleries  cleared.  After  some  debate  Johnson  began  where  he 
had  left  off.  "Mr.  President,"  he  boldly  went  on,  "I  was 
alluding  to  the  use  of  personalities.  They  are  not  arguments ; 
they  are  the  resort  of  men  whose  minds  are  low  and  coarse.  I 
have  presented  facts  and  authorities  and  upon  them  I  have 

10  I  abridge  these  speeches  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  but  retain  the  language 
as  far  as  possible. 

11  Savage,  p.  409;  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  Second  Session,  Part  II,  p.  1351. 


180  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

argued;  from  them  I  have  drawn  conclusions;  and  why  have 
they  not  been  met?  Why  abandon  the  great  issues  before  the 
country  and  go  into  personahties  ?  In  this  discussion  I  shall 
act  upon  the  principle  laid  down  in  Cowper's  Conversation 
where  he  says: 

"  'A  moral,  sensible  and  well-bred  man 
Will  not  affront  me;  and  no  other  can.' 

"But  there  are  men  who  talk  about  cowardice,  cowards  and 
all  that  kind  of  thing;  and  in  this  connection  I  will  say  once 
for  all,  that  these  two  eyes  never  looked  upon  any  being  in  the 
shape  of  mortal  man  that  this  heart  of  mine  feared." 

As  Johnson  uttered  the  words  "these  two  eyes,"  a  spectator 
in  the  gallery  thus  describes  the  scene:  "Johnson  here  rose 
to  full  height,  pointing  with  two  right  fingers  at  Lane,  and 
smote  his  breast  with  a  blow  that  reverberated  through  the 
Senate  chamber."  .  .  .  "Sir,"  he  then  went  on,  "have  we 
reached  a  point  of  time  in  which  we  dare  not  speak  of  treason  .f* 
Our  forefathers  talked  about  it;  they  spoke  of  it  in  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  country ;  they  have  defined  what  treason  is.  Is 
it  an  offense,  is  it  a  crime,  is  it  an  insult  to  recite  the  Constitu- 
tion that  was  made  by  Washington  and  his  compatriots  .?* 
What  does  the  Constitution  define  treason  to  be?  Treason 
shall  consist  only  in  levying  war  against  the  United  States, 
and  adhering  to  and  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  their  enemies. 
Who  is  it  that  has  been  engaged  in  conspiracies?  Who  is  it 
that  has  been  engaged  in  making  war  upon  the  United  States? 
Who  is  it  that  has  fired  upon  our  flag?  Who  is  it  that  has 
given  instructions  to  take  your  arsenals,  to  take  your  forts, 
to  take  your  dock-yards,  to  seize  your  custom-houses,  and  rob 
your  treasuries?  Show  me  who  has  been  engaged  in  these 
conspiracies ;  show  me  who  has  been  sitting  in  tliese  nightly  and 
secret  conclaves  plotting  the  overthrow  of  the  Government; 
show  me  who  has  fired  upon  our  flag,  has  given  instructions 
to  take  our  forts  and  our  custom-houses,  our  arsenals  and  our 
dock-yards,  and  I  will  show  you  a  traitor !" 

When  Johnson  plumped  out  the  word  "traitor,"  bedlam 
broke  loose.    Senator  Clingman  in  an  angry  voice  rebuked  the 


LION-HEART  181 

gallery.     "Why,  the  Senate  chamber  is  becoming  but  a  the- 
ater," he  sneered.    Douglas  replied  that  the  Senator  seemed  to 
want  applause  for  dis-Union  but  not  for  Union.^-     Bigler  of 
Pennsylvania  declared  that,  on  his  soul,  if  he  had  been  in  the 
gallery  he  should  have  joined  in  the  applause.     Senator  Bay- 
ard was  for  law  and  order  and  for  the  people,  but  against 
popular  clamor.     Senator  Rice  said  a  word  for  the  galleries. 
They  had  come  to  hear  and  they  ought  to  be  permitted  to  stay. 
The  Chair  on  motion  ordered  the  galleries  cleared.     Senator 
Bayard  insisted  that  the  order  be  carried  out.     Douglas  ap- 
pealed from  the  Chair's  ruling  to  the  Senate.     Bayard  called 
for  the  ayes  and  noes.     A  motion  to  recess  was  made.     Then 
a  motion  to  adjourn."    During  this  senatorial  tangle  Johnson 
stood  his  ground  while  Lane  nervously  walked  to  and   fro 
in  the  aisles,  his  hands  clasped  behind,  exclaiming,  "Let  the 
galleries  hear,  they  can't  move  me  if  all  were  armed.     I  am 
for  the  right ;  any  other  Union  except  with  each  state  having 
full  right  is  an  insult.     I  have  nothing  to  fear."     Bright,  a 
Senator  from  Indiana,  joined  in  with  those  who  would  cut 
Johnson  off.    At  length  the  motion  of  Douglas  to  suspend  the 
order  to  clear  the  galleries  prevailed  and  Johnson  resumed  his 
speech — ^hammer   and  tongs,  the  galleries  now  standing   on 
tiptoe. 

Lane's  reference  to  Johnson's  "triumphant  ignorance  and 
exulting  stupidity"  the  latter  turned  with  fine  effect.  "What- 
ever may  be  the  character  of  my  mind,"  said  he,  "I  have  never 
obtrusively  made  it  the  subject  of  consideration.  I  may, 
nevertheless,  have  exhibited  now  and  then  the  exulting  stupidity 
and  triumphant  ignorance  of  which  the  Senator  has  spoken. 
Great  and  magnanimous  minds  pity  ignorance.  The  Senator 
from  Oregon,  rich  in  intellectual  culture,  with  a  mind  com- 
prehensive enough  to  retain  the  wisdom  of  ages,  and  an  elo- 
quence to  charm  a  listening  Senate,  deplores  mine;  but  he 
should  also  be  considerate  enough  to  regard  my  humility.    Un- 

12  Second  Session  Thirty-sixth  Congress,  Part  II,  p.  1351. 

13  Twelve  columns  of  the  Globe  are  filled  with  the  discussions  of  the  mo- 
tion to  clear  the  gallery,  indulged  in  by  Senators  Doolittle,  Douglas,  Clingman, 
Bright,  Crittenden,  Bayard,  Bragg,  Bigler,  Mason,  Baker,  Collamer,  Rice, 
Grimes,  Clark,  Trumbull,  Hale,  Thompson,  Kennedy,  Fessenden,  and  Johnson 
of  Arkansas. 


182  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

pretending  in  my  ignorance,  I  am  content  to  gaze  at  his  lofty 
flights  and  glorious  daring  without  aspiring  to  accompany  him 
to  regions  for  which  my  wings  have  not  been  plumed  nor  my 
eyes  fitted.  Gorgeously  bright  are  those  fair  fields  in  which  he 
revels.  To  me,  alas !  his  heaven  appears  but  as  murky  regions, 
dull,  opaque,  leaden.  My  pretension  has  been  simply  to  do  my 
duty  to  my  State  and  to  my  country. 

"The  Senator  has  not  discovered  that  I  ever  introduced  or 
projected  any  great  measure  except  the  Homestead.  I  infer 
that  he  is  now  opposed  to  the  homestead  policy.  It  has  been 
an  object  long  near  my  heart  to  see  every  head  of  a  family 
domiciliated.  Less  gifted  than  the  Senator  from  Oregon,  I  did 
not  perceive  that  when,  in  the  Senate,  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  before  the  people,  I  advocated  a  measure  that 
I  thought  had  a  tendency  to  alleviate  and  ameliorate  the  con- 
dition of  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  I  was  incurring  the  cen- 
sure that  is  due  to  a  crime.  Lamentably  devoid  of  his  wisdom, 
if  I  had  succeeded  in  accomplishing  the  great  object  I  contem- 
plated, the  measure  of  my  ambition  would  have  been  full.  I 
have  labored  for  it  long ;  I  labor  still.  In  1846  in  the  House  it 
had  few  friends,  in  1852  it  received  two-thirds  vote  of  the 
House ;  it  came  to  the  Senate  and  during  the  last  session  forty- 
four  Senators  were  for  it  and  only  eight  against.  The  Senator 
from  Oregon  himself,  though  he  doubted  and  wavered,  recorded 
his  vote  for  it ;  but  he  is  opposed  to  it  now.  I  think  it  was  one 
of  the  best  acts  of  his  life ;  and  if  it  had  succeeded,  I  think  it 
would  have  been  better  for  the  country.  He  intimates  that  I 
have  been  acting  with  Senators  who  are  not  so  intensely  south- 
ern as  he  pretends  to  be.  Sir,  look  at  his  course  this  morning, 
wlio  is  trying  to  defeat  peace  measures,  to  eject  the  olive 
branch,  why  does  he  not  stand  with  his  noble  colleague  when 
this  measure  of  peace  is  presented  to  the  country?  He  refers 
to  my  State  of  Tennessee,  he  seems  exceedingly  solicitous  about 
Tennessee ;  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  on  twelve  o'clock  Mon- 
day next,  or  a  few  minutes  before,  when  the  hand  of  the  dial 
is  moving  round  to  mark  that  important  point  of  time  when 
his  term  of  office  shall  expire,  instead  of  tliinking  about  tlic 


LION-HEART  183 

action  of  my  State,  he  may  soliloquize  in  the  language  of 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  and  exclaim : 

"'Nay,  then,  farewell! 
I  have  touch'd  the  higliest  point  of  all  my  greatness ; 
And,  from  that  full  meridian  of  my  glory 
I  haste  now  to  my  setting ;  I  shall  fall 
Like  a  bright  exhalation  in  the  evening, 
And  no  man  see  me  more.' 

"Yes,  Mr.  President,  I  have  alluded  to  treason  and  traitors, 
and  shall  not  shrink  from  the  responsibility  of  having  done  so, 
come  what  will;  and  while  I,  her  humble  representative,  was 
speaking,  Tennessee  sent  an  echo  back,  in  tones  of  thunder, 
which  has  carried  terror  and  dismay  through  the  whole  camp 
of  conspirators.  I  have  been  held  up,  and  indirectly  censured, 
because  I  have  advocated  those  measures  that  are  sometimes 
called  demagogical.  I  would  to  God  that  we  had  a  few  more 
men  here  who  were  for  the  people  in  fact,  and  who  would  leg- 
islate in  conformity  with  their  will  and  wishes.  Certain  men, 
having  signally  failed  in  being  President  and  Vice-president 
of  the  United  States  as  the  people  have  decided  against  them, 
have  reached  the  precise  point  of  time  at  which  the  Govern- 
ment ought  to  be  dissevered  and  broken  up.  It  looks  a  little 
that  way.  And  how  has  Secession  been  brought  about  except 
by  usurpation?  A  reign  of  terror  has  been  inaugurated,  the 
freemen  of  the  country  have  not  been  heard,  the  voice  of  the 
people  has  been  suppressed.  I  suppose  it  is  demagogism  to 
talk  of  the  people  but  I  say  they  too  have  been  overslaughed, 
borne  down,  and  tyranny  and  usurpation  have  triumphed. 
It  was  so  with  Louisiana ;  so  with  Mississippi ;  with  Alabama ; 
with  Georgia. 

"In  some  of  those  states,  even  the  flag  of  our  country  has 
been  changed.  One  state  has  a  palmetto,  another  has  a  pelican, 
and  another  has  the  rattlesnake  run  up  instead  of  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,  On  a  former  occasion,  I  spoke  of  the  origin  of  se- 
cession ;  and  I  traced  its  early  history  to  the  garden  of  Eden, 
when  the  serpent's  wile  and  the  serpent's  wickedness  beguiled 
and  betrayed  our  first  mother.  After  that  occurred,  and  they 
knew  light  and  knowledge,  when  their  Lord  and  Master  ap- 


184.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

peared,  they  seceded,  and  hid  themselves  from  his  presence. 
The  serpent's  wile  and  the  serpent's  wickedness  first  started 
secession ;  and  now  secession  brings  about  a  return  of  the 
serpent.  Yes,  sir ;  the  wily  serpent,  the  rattlesnake,  has  been 
substituted  as  the  emblem  on  the  flag  of  one  of  the  seceding 
states;  and  that  old  flag,  the  Stars  and  the  Stripes,  under 
which  our  fathers  fought,  and  bled,  and  conquered,  and 
achieved  our  rights  and  our  liberties,  is  pulled  down  and  trailed 
in  the  dust.  Will  the  American  people  tolerate  it?  They  will 
be  indulgent ;  time,  I  think,  is  wanted ;  but  they  will  not  sub- 
mit to  it. 

"A  word  more  in  conclusion.  Give  the  Border  States  that 
security  which  they  desire,  and  the  time  will  come  when  the 
other  states  will  come  back ;  when  they  will  be  brought  back — 
how?  Not  by  the  coercion  of  the  Border  States,  but  by  the 
coercion  of  the  people ;  and  those  leaders  who  have  taken  them 
out  will  fall  beneath  the  indignation  and  the  accumulating 
force  of  that  public  opinion  which  will  ultimately  crush  them. 
The  gentlemen  who  have  taken  those  states  out  are  not  the  men 
to  bring  them  back. 

"I  have  already  suggested  that  the  idea  may  have  entered 
into  some  minds:  If  we  cannot  get  to  be  President  and  Vice- 
president  of  the  whole  United  States,  we  may  divide  the  Gov- 
ernment, set  up  a  new  establishment,  have  new  offices,  and 
monopolize  them  ourselves  when  we  take  our  states  out.  Here 
we  see  a  President  made,  a  Vice-president  made,  cabinet  officers 
appointed,  and  yet  the  great  mass  of  the  people  not  consulted, 
nor  their  assent  obtained  in  any  manner  whatever.  The  people 
of  the  country  ought  to  be  aroused  to  this  condition  of  things ; 
they  ought  to  buckle  on  their  armor;  and,  as  Tennessee  has 
done,  God  bless  her !  by  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise,  by 
going  to  the  ballot-box  under  a  new  set  of  leaders,  repudiate 
and  put  dowTi  those  men  who  have  carried  these  states  out  and 
usurped  a  government  over  their  heads.  I  trust  in  God  that 
the  old  flag  of  the  Union  will  never  be  struck.  I  hope  it  may 
long  wave,  and  that  we  may  long  hear  the  national  air  sung: 

"  *The  star-spangled  banner,  long  may  it  wave, 

O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave.' 


LION-HEART  185 

"Long  may  we  hear  Hail  Columbia,  that  good  old  national 
air;  long  may  we  hear,  and  never  repudiate,  the  old  tune  of 
Yankee  Doodle!  Long  may  wave  that  gallant  old  flag  which 
went  through  the  Revolution,  and  which  was  borne  by  Ten- 
nessee and  Kentucky  at  the  battle  of  New  Orleans.  And  in  the 
language  of  another,  while  it  was  thus  proudly  and  gallantly 
unfurled  as  the  emblem  of  the  Union,  the  Goddess  of  Liberty 
hovered  around,  when  'the  rockets'  red  glare'  went  forth 
through  the  heavens,  indicating  that  the  battle  was  raging,  and 
the  voice  of  the  old  chief  could  be  heard  rising  above  the  din  of 
the  storm,  urging  his  gallant  men  on  to  the  stern  encounter, 
and  watched  the  issue  as  the  conflict  grew  fierce,  and  the  result 
was  doubtful ;  but  when,  at  length,  victory  perched  upon  your 
standard,  it  was  then,  from  the  plains  of  New  Orleans,  that  the 
Goddess  made  her  loftiest  flight,  and  proclaimed  victory  in 
strains  of  exultation.  Will  Tennessee  ever  desert  the  grave 
of  him  who  bore  it  in  triumph,  or  desert  the  flag  that  he  waved 
with  success.?  No,  never!  she  was  in  the  Union  before  some  of 
these  states  were  spoken  into  existence;  and  she  intends  to  re- 
main in,  and  insist  upon — as  she  has  the  confident  belief  that 
she  shall  get — all  her  constitutional  rights  and  protection  in  the 
Union,  and  under  the  Constitution  of  the  country."  Here  the 
galleries  broke  forth  again,  and  the  presiding  officer  ordered 
them  cleared.  Johnson  then  said :  "I  have  done."  As  the  grim 
old  warrior  spoke  these  last  words,  "I  have  done,"  the  applause 
was  renewed  and  was  louder  and  more  general  than  before. 
Hisses  were  succeeded  by  applause.  Cheers  were  given  and 
reiterated.  "Such  a  scene  was  never  witnessed  in  the  Senate 
chamber  before."  Johnson  had  called  a  spade  a  spade.  To  his 
untutored  mind  Davis  was  a  traitor  and  a  conspirator  and  the 
crowd  had  agreed  with  him.  Grinnell  of  Iowa,  a  spectator 
in  the  gallery,  jumped  to  a  bench,  waved  his  hat  and  shouted, 
"Three  cheers  for  the  Union  and  for  Andy  Johnson  of  Ten- 
nessee!" The  galleries  joined  in  the  demonstration.  The  pre- 
siding officer  pounded  his  desk  and  ordered  the  arrest  of  the 
offenders.  Charles  Aldrich,  also  a  spectator  in  the  galleries, 
jumped  to  his  feet,  and  yelled  back,  "Arrest  and  be  damned! 
We  are  ready  to  go  now." 


186  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

To  fully  appreciate  such  a  scene  this  must  be  remembered : 
southern  fire-eaters,  such  as  Wigfall  and  Iverson,  had  been 
mocking  and  bullying  the  Senate  and  deriding  the  Union  until 
conditions  were  intolerable.  "Gentlemen  of  the  Republican 
party,"  Wigfall  had  sneered  a  few  hours  before,  "the  old 
Union  is  dead.  .  .  .  The  only  question  that  concerns  any  one 
to-day  is  as  to  its  burial.  Shall  we  have  a  decent  Christian 
funeral  or  an  Irish  wake ;  it  is  for  you  to  decide."  Johnson 
had  undertaken  to  answer  these  taunts  and  his  speech  came 
like  sunshine  after  a  tempest.  Of  this  occasion  Senator  Harlan 
of  Iowa  affirmed:  "I  never  saw  anything  to  approach  it,  nor 
do  I  believe  it  has  ever  been  equaled  in  this  country."  ^* 

In  fact,  it  seemed  as  if  every  Union  man.  North  or  South, 
was  anxious  to  extend  the  glad  hand  to  Andrew  Johnson.  He 
was  compelled  to  employ  a  special  clerk  to  look  after  his  mail. 
Benjamin  Rush  urged  that  Johnson's  speech  and  the  speech  of 
Senator  Baker  of  Oregon  should  be  printed  together,  circu- 
lated, and  preserved.^^  Newspapers  throughout  the  North 
were  asking  for  sketches  and  photographs.  Johnson  was 
elected  a  member  of  various  societies  and  clubs  in  Kentucky, 
Philadelphia  and  elsewhere.  Open  letters  were  addressed  to 
him  in  the  New  York  papers.  Boston  invited  him  to  address 
the  citizens.  LittelPs  Living  Age  copied  complimentary  verses 
from  the  New  York  Advertiser;  E.  Little  of  New  York  wrote: 
"Your  voice  in  the  Senate  sounds  like  a  trumpet  of  defiance  to 
treason  and  it  is  paralyzed  before  us!  Let  us  hear  it  again, 
brave  and  faithful  Senator!  Marshal  the  patriot  host  and 
lead  us  to  the  rescue  of  our  insulted  nationality."  Enthusiastic 
patriots  from  New  York  and  Philadelphia  declared  that  they 
were  in  ecstasy  while  they  read  his  last  speech.^'''  The  New 
York  Times  of  March  4  referred  to  Johnson  as  "the  great- 
est man  of  the  age."  Others  who  had  formerly  been  friends 
wrote  and  warned  him  that  he  could  not  ride  on  the  trains,  that 
resistance  to  the  Confederacy  would  not  be  tolerated.  In  Ten- 
nessee his  old  friend,  John  L.  Hopkins,  who  had  been  ap- 

^*  Magazine  of  A7ncri('nn  TTiafory,  Vol.  XXV,  p.  47:  Johnson's  speech  made 
him  Vice-presidont  and  President  of  the  United  States. 
10  Johnson  MR.  No.  20S5. 
10  Johnson  MSS.  Nos.  22G5-2310,  2325-2n26. 


LION-HEART  187 

pointed  United  States  Attorney  by  Lincoln,  refused  to  serve 
under  a  Black  Republican.  On  the  other  hand,  Blackstone 
McDaniel,  on  the  recommendation  of  Sam  Milligan,  accepted 
the  position  of  United  States  Marshal.  Both  Milligan  and 
McDaniel  recommended  that  none  but  Union  men  be  appointed 
to  office.  Johnson  had  now  become  Mr.  Lincoln's  agent  in 
naming  the  officers  for  Tennessee,  and  the  sole  authority  on 
southern  affairs. 


CHAPTER  III 
FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE 

With  a  divided  North  on  his  hands  Lincoln's  task  was  deli- 
cate and  difficult.  He  knew  not  which  way  to  turn.  Being 
both  wise  and  cautious,  however,  he  concluded  that  the  first 
thing  was  to  get  the  lay  of  the  land,  and  not  to  formulate  a 
policy  till  he  knew  all  the  facts.  One  thing  at  least  was  clear, 
he  must  play  for  time,  and  by  no  means  was  he  to  offend  the 
Border  States.  Then,  too,  he  must  hold  in  line  northern  Union 
Democrats,  such  as  Douglas  and  Pugh,  and  southern  Whigs, 
such  as  Bell,  Gilmer  and  Stephens.  Andrew  Johnson's  bold, 
defiant  utterances,  though  cheering  and  stimulating,  were  pre- 
mature and  rather  warlike.  Lincoln  would  wait  for  a  united 
North  and  he  would  put  the  South  in  the  wrong  by  making  her 
the  aggressor.  As  to  succoring  the  Charleston  forts,  Seward 
might  toll  that  matter  along,  encouraging  the  South  Carolina 
Commissioners  to  think  the  forts  would  be  evacuated.  At  the 
right  time  he  could  fortify  or  evacuate  as  the  state  of  the 
country  demanded.^ 

Secretary  Stanton  who,  in  Buchanan's  cabinet,  had  been  a 
tower  of  strength  for  the  Union,  was  now  in  opposition.  He 
had  been  left  out  of  the  Lincoln  cabinet  and  was  pouting. 
Double-faced,  tyrannical  and  with  an  inordinate  desire  for 
office,  this  strange  man  set  about  undermining  Lincoln's  ad- 
ministration. Almost  daily  he  was  writing  to  Buchanan,  his 
old  chief,  belittling  Lincoln  and  lauding  Buchanan  and  the 
Buchanan  administration."  His  pet  term  for  Lincoln  was  "a 
gorilla."  "Why  should  Paul  du  Chaillu  have  to  go  to  Africa 
for  an  ape.?"  he  asked.  "He  has  a  better  specimen  in  Wash- 
ington." ^ 

1  Rhodes,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  345;  Douglas  states  that  Lincoln  promised  to  evacuate, 
but  Rhodes  discounts  this  statement.     Douglas  recommended  evacuation. 

2  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  563. 

3  Welles,  Vol.  I,  XXXI ;  D.  M.  DeVVitt,  Impeachment,  p.  260.  Subsequently 
Stanton  became  the  "Great  War  Secretary"  under  Lincoln — perhaps  the  most 
efficient  officer  in  Lincoln's  cabinet. 

188 


'  >  ^   /^Y^^^^yi^  ^y^^,    ^/--c^.  yVW 


tM^.*^^  ^^-^   ^^"  -^&s::::>  /^/s-^  -^^js^ 

U^A/^t^/U-e^-    '1!^    y^/^H^-t^i^  ^/fi^.-^^<' ^'^^-u^--^  d!^^ 
A  Tlireatening  Letter  Sent  to  Aiuh-ew  Johnson  in  1861 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  189 

To  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  therefore,  Mr.  Lincoln  ad- 
dressed himself.  His  inaugural  was  a  marvelous  exhibition  of 
love  and  charity.  In  it  he  poured  out  his  feelings  to  America. 
He  besought  her  sons  to  be  at  peace  and  to  stand  for  a  united 
country.  But  even  this  liberal  state  paper  failed  to  give  gen- 
eral satisfaction.  The  New  York  Herald  declared  that  it  was 
"crafty  and  cunning"  and  suggested  that  Lincoln  "had  better 
to  have  told  a  funny  story  and  let  it  go  at  that."  *  To  the 
Radicals  it  was  much  too  conservative — to  the  Conservatives  it 
was  too  radical.  In  the  South  it  was  interpreted  to  mean  war. 
If  the  South  Carolina  forts  were  to  be  occupied  and  held  by 
the  United  States  the  Confederacy  would  be  at  an  end.  To  this 
the  secession  government  naturally  objected.  What  right 
had  a  foreign  country  to  own  a  fort  in  the  sovereign  state 
of  South  Carolina  .f* 

As  soon  as  the  Senate  adjourned  Johnson  hastened  home 
to  Tennessee  and  he  was  badly  needed.  His  December,  his 
February,  and  his  March  speeches,  characterizing  the  leaders 
in  secession  as  traitors,  had  been  broadcasted  over  the  land. 
They  were  the  topic  of  general  conversation.  His  journey 
home  lay  through  Virginia.  In  Lynchburg  and  at  other  places 
along  the  route,  as  the  cars  stopped  and  it  became  known  that 
Johnson,  the  traitor,  was  aboard,  crowds  of  toughs  rushed 
into  the  train,  insulting  and  ridiculing  him.  Once  an  attempt 
was  made  to  assault  him  but,  being  well  armed,  he  protected 
himself.  Full  well  he  understood  what  was  coming  to  him  in 
the  South.  Before  leaving  Washington  he  had  received  warn- 
ings and  threats  of  which  the  following  is  a  sample : 

State  of  Mississippi,  Feb.  3,  1861. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  have  a  mulatto  slave  remarkable  for  his  impudence.  This 
you  know  is  often  the  case  with  Africans  having  Anglo  Saxon 
blood.  Witness  the  case  of  Hannibal  Hamlin.  As  a  means  of 
humiliating  my  slave  it  has  been  recommended  to  me,  to  send  him 
to  Washington  City,  with  a  Cowhide,  and  instruct  him  to  give 
your  back  &  shoulders  some  marks  of  his  attention,  with  the  in- 
strument aforesaid.  It  is  thought  that  Coming  in  Contact  with 
you,  will  so  effectually  disgrace  him,  that  the  effect  on  him  will  be 
so  humiliating,  that  he  will  make  a  good  obedient  slave. 

4  New  York  Herald,  March  5,  1861. 


190  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Thinking  the  suggestion  a  Good  One,  I  have  concluded  to  try 
the  experiment.  If  he  shall  happen  to  wound  you  badly  in  the  en- 
counter, employ  Senator  Sumner  to  send  daily  bulletins  of  your 
condition  to  your  friends  about  ^ 

Grand  Junction. 

Face  of  envelope  reads:     Hon.  Andrew  Johnson 

U.   S.   Senate 
Washington,  D.  C. 
Endorsed:  Signed  Grand  Junction 
Threatened  assault 
From  Mississippi 
Attended  to. 

After  receiving  this  letter  it  must  have  been  refreshing  for 
Senator  Johnson  to  open  his  mail  and  get  a  word  of  encourage- 
ment from  a  Tennessee  "mudsill."  In  halting  w^ords  and  in 
wretched  penmanship  many  letters  such  as  the  following  came : 

Cleveland  Tennessee 
Feb.  the  17th  1861. 
Hon.  Andrew  Johnston  Dear  Sir 

exciting  election  Has  past  of  which  you  have  Seen  and  I  will 
assure  you  your  Speach  that  you  Dilivered  In  Congress  was  a 
Standerd  your  name  was  Mentioned  in  the  Short  canvass  a  Million 
of  times  and  the  More  it  was  Mention  the  Brighter  it  Shind — a  few 
More  Such  Speach  wont  Leave  a  Disunion  Man  in  Tennessee  ex- 
cept a  few  Small  pollitions  as  Such  as  John  Croizen  and  Bill  Swan 
of  Knoxville  Tennessee.  We  have  grate  confidence  in  the  Dcli- 
gates  that  is  in  conference  at  Washington  at  presant  Sir  the 
corse  that  you  Have  taken  in  the  presant  Congress  is  Rich  your 
name  Grows  Higher  and  Higher  with  the  Masses  a  letter  from 
you  would  be  a  Rich  presant  to  an  old  freind  of  your  on  the  State 
of  the  fairs  of  our  belove  country  if  you  Have  any  thing  that  is 
favoring  a  compromis  Let  me  know 

Your  Obedt  Servant 

A.  A.  Clingan  ® 

Arriving  in  Tennessee  Johnson  traveled  about,  speaking  in 
behalf  of  the  Union.  The  crowds  were  often  belligerent.  "At 
one  point  an  attempt  was  made  to  belittle  and  degrade  him  by 

5  Johnson  MS.,  Vol.  VI,  p.  869. 
c  Ihid.,  Vol.  V,  p.  1008. 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  191 

pulling  his  large  and  conspicuous  nose."  The  assailant  failing 
in  his  effort  and  "noticing  that  Senator  Johnson  was  assuming 
a  threatening  attitude,  made  a  rapid  stride  for  the  car  door. 
Others  crowded  around  Johnson,  jeering  and  insulting  him, 
when  a  shot  from  his  pistol  plowed  its  way  through  the  door- 
sill  as  the  train  hastened  away  on  its  journey."  '^ 

In  West  and  Middle  Tennessee  a  new  political  alignment  had 
taken  place.  The  Democrats  were  against  Johnson  and  for 
Secession,  while  the  Whigs  were  for  him  and  for  the  Union. 
He  must  therefore  join  forces  with  his  old  political  enemies — 
John  Bell,  Horace  Maynard,  Gentry,  Nelson  and  even  the 
"Fighting  Parson,"  old  line  Whigs.  At  his  home  in  Greene- 
ville  he  was  delighted  to  find  unity  in  his  own  household — wife, 
children,  sons-in-law,  all  were  standing  behind  him.  On  mo- 
mentous occasions  it  was  his  custom  to  consult  his  wife  and 
daughter,  Martha;  and  now  they  agreed  with  him  in  his 
determined  course.  They  were  for  the  Union.  Truth  to  say, 
Mrs.  Eliza  Johnson  was  as  much  of  a  Democrat  as  Johnson 
himself.  She  it  was  who  constantly  urged  him  on  in  his  fight 
for  the  laboring  man.^  Though  nervous  now  lest  her  husband 
should  be  slain,  because  of  his  stand  for  the  Union,  she  never- 
theless urged  him  to  fight  on  and  never  to  quit.  The  February 
election,  Union  or  dis-Union  being  the  issue,  had  been  an  ex- 
citing affair,  but  the  Whig  leaders  had  fought  a  good  fight  and 
had  won.  Generally  throughout  the  State,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
Democrats  were  Secessionists,  but  Johnson's  old  friends,  in 
Greeneville,  to  a  man,  and  regardless  of  politics,  were  for  the 
Union.  McDaniel,  Milligan,  Park,  Self  and  the  old  tailor-shop 
crowd  were  adamant.  Governor  Harris,  W.  C.  Witthorne, 
Gustavus  Henry  and  other  Democratic  orators  had  been  power- 
less to  detach  Tennessee  from  her  ancient  moorings.  She  was 
determined  to  abide  in  the  ship. 

Presently  distressing  news  came.  Sumter  had  been  fired 
on.  The  first  blow  had  been  struck.  War  had  begun. 
Charges  were  made  that  Seward  and  Lincoln  had  not  kept  faith 
with  the  South  Carolina  Commissioners.     They  had  promised 

7  Journal  and  Tribune,  May  23,  1923. 

8  Famous  Loves  of  Famous  Americans,  Gloie-Democrat,  April  28,  1914. 


192  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

not  to  reenforce  Fort  Sumter,  nevertheless  they  had  sent  troops 
and  provisions.  In  this  matter  perhaps  Seward  broke  his  word. 
Therefore,  on  ethical  grounds,  the  forts  ought  not  to  have  been 
fortified.  On  the  other  hand,  should  the  Union  have  been 
dissolved  to  enable  Seward  "to  keep  faith  with  Sumter".''  Any- 
way, Lincoln  did  not  think  so.  In  the  South  the  charge  was 
everywhere  made  that  Lincoln  and  Seward  had  changed  front, 
and  the  reason  for  this  change  of  front  was  two-fold.  First, 
the  speeches  of  Andrew  Johnson  in  the  Senate — discordant  and 
belligerent,  encouraging  the  North,  dividing  the  South  and 
detaching  the  Border  States.  And  second,  an  assembly  of 
seven  Governors  from  seven  northern  states  who,  by  their 
"mischievous  machinations  caused  Mr.  Lincoln  to  change  his 
purpose  as  to  the  evacuation  of  Fort  Sumter  and  caused  him 
to  fail  to  'keep  faith  as  to  Fort  Sumter.'  This  was  the  con- 
spiracy which  inaugurated  the  war.  It  was  a  conspiracy  well 
typified  by  the  Seven-headed  Beast  in  the  Apocalypse !"  ° 
Whatever  caused  the  Lincoln  administration  to  change  it 
finally  did  so.  It  concluded  Avith  Andrew  Johnson  that  the 
men  who  seized  United  States  forts  and  seized  arsenals  were 
traitors  and  should  be  dealt  with  accordingly.  Nothing  except 
war  was  left,  if  the  life  of  the  nation  was  to  be  preserved. 

The  most  terrible  moment  in  the  history  of  the  United  States 
was  the  firing  on  the  flag  at  Sumter  and  Lincoln's  call  for 
troops.  In  the  South  the  "call"  was  interpreted  to  mean 
coercion  and  invasion ;  in  the  North,  the  Sumter  episode  Avas 
an  insult  to  Old  Glory.  The  South  was  now  fighting  against 
invaders,  for  home  and  for  fireside.  The  Nortli  was  figliting 
to  protect  the  flag.  Z.  B.  Vance,  the  North  Carolina  Union 
patriot,  on  April  15  was  addressing  a  multitude.  He  was  be- 
seeching them  to  abide  in  the  ship.  Both  hands  were  extended 
to  Heaven  in  prayer.  A  messenger  boy  was  seen  running  to- 
ward the  crowd  with  a  piece  of  yellow  paper  in  his  hand.  It 
was  a  telegram  announcing  that  Lincoln  had  called  for  75,000 
troops.  "When  these  two  arms  fell  by  my  side,"  afterwards 
Vance  sadly  declared,  "they  fell  by  the  side  of  a  Secessionist." 
Thousands  of  other  southern  leaders  believed  as  Andrew  John- 

0  Stephens,  ^yar  Between  Utatcs,  Vol.  II,  p.  84. 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  193 

son  did,  and  would  perhaps  have  done  as  he  did,  remained  in 
the  Union,  but  a  certain  loyalty  to  caste  forbade.  It  had  been 
taught,  and  was  believed  in  the  South,  that  the  North  was 
bullying  the  southern  states.  What  right  had  the  North  to 
teach  morals  to  the  South?  Slavery  was  a  southern,  not  a 
northern,  institution.  When  Southerners  got  ready  they 
would  free  the  negroes,  without  advice  or  orders  from  the 
North.  Was  the  South  a  coward.?  Was  she  going  to  free  her 
negroes  under  compulsion.'*  Would  any  one  be  so  base  as  to 
desert  her  ? 

Now  Andrew  Johnson  had  no  such  thoughts  as  these,  no  such 
scruples.  The  social  pull,  the  tug  of  noblesse  oblige — stronger 
to  the  aristocrat  than  death  itself — did  not  move  Johnson. 
The  much  overworked  idea  of  the  sacredness  of  slavery,  the 
aura  which  was  supposed  to  encircle  the  head  of  a  slave  civili- 
zation— was  to  him  a  sham  and  a  fraud.  Out  of  slavery 
had  developed  an  aristocratic  leadership.  Such  civilization 
spurned  the  mechanic  and  regarded  the  poor  white  man  as 
but  a  mudsill,  a  fit  foundation  for  the  aristocrat  to  build  upon. 
"Vigor,"  "docility,"  "fidelity,"  these  were  all  that  were  re- 
quired of  poor  whites.  Away  with  the  aristocrat,  therefore,  and 
down  with  his  proud  scornful  ways!  Away  with  slavery,  the 
breeder  of  aristocrats !  Up  with  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  symbol 
of  free  labor  for  free  men ! 

To  Lincoln's  call  for  troops  Governor  Harris  made  a  spir- 
ited reply :  "Tennessee  will  not  furnish  a  man  for  purposes  of 
coercion,  but  50,000,  if  necessary,  for  the  defense  of  our 
rights  and  those  of  our  southern  brothers."  Thus  the  proud 
Tennessean  made  reply.  No  truer,  no  braver  man  than 
Governor  Harris.  In  making  this  reply  he  was  but  standing 
by  his  State.  He  was  doing  his  best  to  protect  her  honor  he 
imagined  and  to  preserve  her  from  internecine  warfare. 
Forthwith  the  Governor  called  the  legislature  in  special  session 
and  ordered  another  election  for  June  8.  He  also  seized  the 
reins  of  government,  assumed  the  dictatorship  and  made  an 
alliance  with  the  Confederacy.  Dealing  with  this  great  ques- 
tion, Johnson  and  Harris,  each  in  his  own  way,  was  serving 
the  State  as  best  he  could,  and  doing  his  duty  as  he  saw  it.    If 


194  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Tennessee  must  fight  let  her  fight  strangers  and  not  kindred, 
was  Harris'  thought;  and  this  was  likewise  the  thought  of 
Robert  E.  Lee.  Men  like  Lee  and  Harris  would  not  draw  the 
sword  against  their  native  States.  Not  so  with  Johnson.  In 
some  inscrutable  way  wisdom  had  been  given  to  this  plain  man. 
He  saw  what  others  failed  to  see.  He  did  what  others  failed 
to  do.  He  had  the  vision  of  a  united  country,  a  great  country 
stretching  from  sea  to  sea — ^not  a  few  scattered,  distracted  and 
broken  states.  Therefore,  plunging  into  the  fight  and  taking 
the  stump,  during  the  months  of  April  and  May,  he  waged  re- 
lentless warfare  on  Secessionists  and  on  Secession.  "Hell-born 
and  hell-bound,"  he  called  them.  Far  to  the  west  he  could  not 
go.  There  he  would  have  been  shot  as  an  outlaw.  But  in  the 
mountain  counties  and  in  portions  of  Middle  Tennessee  he 
spoke  night  and  day.  Johnson  was  now  "simply  god-like," 
says  Judge  Temple.  He  spoke  as  one  inspired.  The  con- 
spiracy of  Davis,  Slidell  and  Yancey,  Johnson  denounced. 
Governor  Harris  he  denounced  also  as  a  traitor  and  a  despot — 
"taking  Tennessee  out  of  the  Union  before  the  people  could  be 
heard."  "What  is  the  oppression  of  the  North  upon  the 
South,"  he  asked,  "the  aggression  on  southern  rights,  as  com- 
pared with  this  act  of  tyranny  and  oppression  by  Governor 
Harris?  .  .  .  The  people  of  Tennessee  are  to  be  handed  over 
to  the  Confederacy  like  sheep  in  the  shambles,  bound  hand  and 
foot,  to  be  disposed  of  as  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  cohorts 
may  think  proper.  .  .  .  Money  has  been  appropriated,"  he 
charged,  "to  enable  him  to  carry  out  his  diabolical  and  nefari- 
ous scheme,  depriving  the  people  of  their  rights,  disposing  of 
them  as  stock  in  the  market.  .  .  .  Talk  about  slaves  and 
slavery,  but  when  a  slave  changes  his  master  he  has  the  privi- 
lege of  choosing  his  next  master ;  in  this  instance  the  people  of 
a  free  state  have  not  been  allowed  the  power  or  privilege  of 
choosing  the  master  they  desire  to  serve." 

At  many  of  the  speakings  T.  A.  R.  Nelson  of  Knoxville 
joined  in  the  canvass.  Judge  Nelson  was  slightly  lame.  He 
was  a  Union  Wliig  and  a  man  of  moving  fiery  eloquence,  and 
greatly  beloved.  He  made  a  fit  com])anion  for  Johnson — as 
Whig  and  Democrat  were  thus  drawn  together.    Horace  May- 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  195 

nard,  likewise,  was  on  the  stump,  and  Parson  Brownlow.  But 
the  number  of  Unionists,  among  the  leaders,  had  fearfully 
dwindled  since  the  fall  of  Sumter.  Everywhere  excitement  ran 
high  and  the  blood  of  men  was  at  fever  heat.  Secession  speak- 
ers under  Gustavus  Henry  flooded  the  mountains.  There  was 
speaking  on  every  stump.  East  Tennessee  was  a  great  stake — 
at  every  cost  it  must  be  held  for  the  Confederacy.  Virginia 
had  already  seceded.  East  Tennessee  and  Southwest  Virginia 
were  the  "hog  and  hominy  section"  of  the  South — the  granary. 
The  main  line  of  railroad,  from  West  to  East,  passed  through 
East  Tennessee,  through  Greeneville,  Jonesboro,  Johnson 
City,  and  Bristol.  Cut  this  road  and  a  wedge  would  be  driven 
into  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy.  Daily,  soldiers  were  passing 
through  East  Tennessee,  over  the  Virginia  and  Tennessee 
railroad,  on  the  way  to  Richmond.  Trains  loaded  with  pro- 
visions and  supplies  were  likewise  transported.  If  Andrew 
Johnson's  efforts  to  hold  East  Tennessee  succeeded  it  would 
result  in  cutting  this  artery  and  crippling  the  southern  cause. 
His  treachery  was  therefore  double-dyed.  He  was  an  outlaw 
and  should  be  treated  as  such.  Constantly  his  life  was  in 
danger.  But  for  the  warnings  of  friends  he  would  no  doubt 
have  met  his  death. 

At  Rogersville  an  immense  crowd  from  Hawkins  and  the 
surrounding  counties  had  gathered.  Here  the  Union  senti- 
ment was  overwhelming  and  the  Court  House  was  full  of  armed 
men.  Johnson  was  addressing  the  crowd  and  excitement  was 
running  high.  Suddenly  Captain  Fulkerson  of  the  "Hawkins 
Boys"  marched  to  the  door  of  the  court  room,  at  the  head  of 
his  company.  Shoving  his  way  through  the  packed  crowd,  the 
Captain  ordered  the  speech  to  stop.  The  air  was  charged  "as 
with  an  electric  thrill,"  says  an  auditor.  Johnson  raised  his 
right  hand  for  silence,  and  pointing  his  finger  at  the  Captain, 
said :  "Captain  Fulkerson,  I  have  been  a  Democrat  all  my  life 
and  accustomed  to  the  rule  of  the  majority;  if  a  majority  of 
this  crowd  want  me  to  stop  speaking  I  will  stop,  but  if  a  ma- 
jority want  me  to  continue  I  will  speak  on,  regardless  of  you 
and  your  company."  Without  giving  the  Captain  time  to 
reply  Johnson  asked  those  of  the  crowd  who  favored  the  speak- 


196  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

ing  to  follow  him  to  the  right  side  of  the  Court  House  and 
those  opposed  to  go  to  the  left.  A  large  majority  pressed  to 
the  right,  the  Captain  saw  the  complexion  of  the  crowd  and, 
turning  and  walking  out  of  the  court  room,  led  his  company 
away  from  the  scene/" 

A  pathetic  incident  occurred  on  June  7,  the  day  before  the 
election,  illustrating  how  danger  draws  together  bitter  enemies. 
On  that  day  the  "Fighting  Parson'*  saved  the  life  of  Andrew 
Johnson.  On  June  7  Johnson  spoke  at  Kingston,  a  small  place 
off  the  railroad.  That  afternoon  he  had  engaged  passage  on 
a  public  hack  for  Louden.  From  Louden  he  was  to  take  the 
cars  next  morning  for  Knoxville  and  Greeneville.  There  was 
only  one  train  a  day  over  the  Virginia  and  Tennessee  railroad. 
A  son  of  Parson  Brownlow  happened  to  mention  to  his  father 
that  on  the  incoming  train  Imo  thousand  Confederate  soldiers 
were  expected.  Brownlow,  Sr.,  knowing  that  Johnson  was  to 
be  on  this  train  and  that  his  life  was  not  worth  a  pin's-value  if 
he  was,  dispatched  his  son,  posthaste.  He  must  stop  Johnson 
before  he  boarded  the  train  and  bring  him  through  the  country. 
Young  Brownlow,  afterwards  an  editor,  writing  of  this  trip, 
told  how  Johnson  thanked  him  for  his  trouble.  The  stern 
old  fighter  swore  a  bloody  oath:  He  would  be  damned  if  he 
would  be  driven  "from  traveling  on  the  railroad  by  the  damn 
traitors  of  the  Cotton  States."  Finally  Nelson  and  Trigg 
prevailed  on  Johnson  not  to  take  the  train,  not  needlessly  to 
risk  his  life.  East  Tennessee  would  need  his  services  in 
Washington.  The  result  was  Johnson  yielded  and  he  and 
young  Brownlow  jogged  along,  over  forty  miles  of  muddy 
roads,  till  they  reached  Knoxville.  It  developed  that  two 
desperadoes,  serving  the  Confederate  government  and  living  in 
Knoxville,  one  a  Spaniard,  named  Columbus  Carlos,  and  the 
other  named  William  Parker,  had  gone  to  Louden  to  incite 
the  soldiers  to  take  Johnson's  life.^^ 

At  the  June  election  Tennessee  was  taken  out  of  tlie  Union. 
East  Tennessee,  however,  M'ent  strong  against  Secession  and 
for  the  Old  Flag.    But  chaos  and  confusion  at  once  set  in.    All 

'io  Johnson  M8,  at  Greeneville. 
11  Jbid, 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  197 

government  was  gone.  There  was  neither  a  United  States 
nor  a  Confederacy  to  uphold  the  law.  Every  man's  hand  was 
raised  against  his  neighbor.  Johnson  became  a  marked  man. 
His  mail  was  rifled — his  name  forged  to  letters.  A  wealthy 
banker  in  Boston,  named  Amos  Lawrence,  had  "sent  Andrew 
Johnson  a  thousand  dollars  of  Yankee  money  and  this  he  had 
used  in  the  election."  Such  was  the  charge  made  to  discredit 
Johnson  and  to  break  him  down.  The  letters  to  Mr.  Lawrence, 
soliciting  money  and  purporting  to  be  signed  by  Johnson,  were 
soon  shown  to  be  forgeries.  In  a  moment  the  State  of  Ten- 
nessee had  left  the  United  States  and  become  a  Confederate 
state.  The  efforts  of  many  loyalists  aided  by  Johnson,  to  form 
an  independent  state  of  East  Tennessee  failed.  But  the  fa- 
mous Knoxville-Greeneville  Convention  was  organized  to  effect 
this  purpose  and  survived  for  a  year  or  more.  Soon  the  Con- 
federate Government  began  the  work  of  conscription.  The 
loyal  Unionists  resisted  the  conscription  officers.  Many  fled 
to  the  mountains,  some  went  over  into  Kentucky  and  Ohio. 
Cumberland  Gap  was  filled  with  refugees.  From  the  tall  peaks, 
round  about,  sadly  and  sorrowfully,  these  brave  men  looked  to- 
wards Tennessee  and  their  little  homes  in  the  valley.  Many 
of  them  were  abolitionists  and  owned  no  slaves.  All  were 
opposed  to  the  war.  Yet  they  were  compelled  to  fight.  They 
were  hunted  down  like  wild  beasts.  The  iron  entered  into  their 
souls — 35,000  of  them  joined  the  Union  army.  Of  this  number 
13,000  were  old  Andy  Johnson  Democrats — ^his  personal  fol- 
lowers. These  13,000  to  a  man  followed  him  into  the  Union 
army. 

Parson  Brownlow  was  cast  into  prison.  His  paper,  the 
Knoxville  Whig,  was  destroyed.  On  Sunday,  December  22, 
1861,  in  his  prison-cell  the  Parson  wrote  in  his  Diary: 
"Brought  in  old  man  Wampler,  a  Dutchman  70  years  of  age, 
from  Greene  County,  charged  with  being  an  Andrew  John- 
son man  and  talking  Union  talk."  Nelson,  just  elected  to  the 
United  States  Congress,  was  captured  on  his  way  North  and 
sent  to  Richmond.  There  he  was  lionized  by  the  Confederates, 
and  finally  turned  loose  on  a  promise  to  fight  the  Confederacy 
no  more.      Searching  parties  were  scouring  the  mountains. 


198  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

looking  for  Dr.  Charles  Johnson,  who  was  recruiting  for  the 
Union.  Robert  Johnson,  having  raised  a  regiment  and  been 
elected  Colonel  of  the  first  Tennessee  Cavalry,  was  an  object  of 
Confederate  search.  Dan  Stover,  now  a  Colonel  and  in  the 
mountain-fastnesses  of  Tennessee,  was  leading  the  mountain 
boys — tearing  up  railroad  tracks,  burning  railroad  bridges, 
doing  the  Confederacy  all  the  damage  he  could.  "The  Chiefs 
of  the  Bridge-Burners"  he  and  Colonel  Carter  were  called. 
Judge  Patterson  was  in  jail.  "Shall  I  hang  the  traitor?"  his 
captor  was  wiring  to  headquarters.  Jails  were  filled  with 
Unionists.  Sundry  bridge-burners  were  hung.  Many  Union- 
ists were  shipped  to  the  Far  South ;  houses  were  burned,  crops 
abandoned.  Able-bodied  Unionists  who  did  not  escape  were 
captured  and  sent  to  the  Confederate  army.  Only  old  men, 
women  and  children  remained  at  home.  Despair  reigned.  As 
in  Italy,  when  Guelph  and  Ghibelline  cut  each  other's  throats, 
so  in  the  fair  regions  of  East  Tennessee.  Finally  the  Con- 
federate army  moved  into  the  country  and  took  possession. 

Soon  after  the  election  Andrew  Johnson  received  the  follow- 
ing letter : 

Memphis,  June  19th  1861. 
Andrew  Johnson  Esq^ 

Late  U.  S.  Senator  &c 
Greenville,  Tenn. 
Sir: 

The  patriotic  sense  of  all  this  portion  of  Tennessee  being  fully 
developed,  and  that  of  the  whole  State  becoming  rapidly  right, 
it  has  become  dangerous  to  the  persons  of  Traitors  to  remain 
longer  within  her  borders.  I  therefore  take  the  liberty  of  warn- 
ing you,  in  the  language  of  your  friend  Lincoln  at  Washington, 
"to  disperse  in  twenty  days";  and  I  suggest  further,  that  your 
personal  safety  might  require  you  to  leave  much  sooner. 

Our  own  self  respect  as  gentlemen  and  freeman,  as  well  as  a 
proper  regard  for  the  purity  of  our  Commonwealth  and  the 
respectability  of  our  State  Sovereignty  imperatively  require  that 
you  should  leave  Tennessee  at  once  and  forever.  You  can  prob- 
ably find  a  Congenial  home  and  associations  among  your  NoT*th- 
ern  Allies. 

Yours  Jno.  R.  McClanahan 

of  the  Memphis  Appeal" 

^i  Johnson  M8.,  Vol.  II,  p.  2394. 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  199 

With  this  letter  in  hand,  coming  from  the  highest  source,  what 
was  Johnson  to  do  ?  Was  he  to  submit  or  was  he  to  fight  to  the 
death,  leaving  home  and  wife  and  children?  Not  a  moment  did 
he  hesitate. 

Bidding  adieu  to  wife  and  little  ones,  Johnson  left  home 
and  became  a  "fugitive  from  tyranny."  Escorted  by  three 
brave  men,  Colonel  Carter,  Captain  McLelland,  and  Rev- 
erend J.  P.  Holtsinger,  he  started  off  by  the  country  road, 
unable  to  travel  by  rail.  He  was  headed  for  Cumberland  Gap. 
On  the  way  he  was  several  times  fired  upon  from  ambush,  but 
escaped.  He  seemed  to  have  a  charmed  life.  At  the  home  of 
his  old  friend,  John  Park,  the  cavalcade  stopped  for  a  mo- 
ment. Johnson  spoke  words  of  encouragement ;  he  assured  his 
old  friend  that  "retribution  would  certainly  come."  He  placed 
his  hands  on  the  head  of  young  James  Park  and  blessed  the  lad. 
He  besought  him  to  do  as  his  father  had  done,  "to  stand  up  for 
his  country  and  never  to  desert  the  Old  Flag."  "  The  little 
band  moved  on.  Presently  they  reached  Cumberland  Gap. 
Here  Johnson  was  likewise  fired  upon.  From  the  summit  of 
the  Cumberland  mountains  his  eyes  wandered  towards  Greene- 
ville  and  his  old  home — alas,  he  was  not  to  see  them  again  in 
eight  terrible  years.  In  a  few  months  likewise  the  sorrowing 
women  and  the  children  were  to  be  turned  out  of  home  and 
into  the  streets.    In  Tennessee  war  was  war. 

Johnson's  destination  was  Washington  City.  He  was 
hastening  to  headquarters  to  put  the  facts  before  President 
Lincoln  and  to  arrange  for  an  army  to  be  sent  into  East  Ten- 
nessee. With  a  Union  army  at  Knoxville,  the  Knoxville- 
Greeneville  convention  would  function.  There  would  then  be 
no  trouble  in  organizing  the  new  state,  as  West  Virginia  was 
organized  from  Virginia.^* 

On  his  way  North  the  people  crowded  around  him.  His 
fight  for  the  Union,  the  dangers  and  trials  he  had  undergone, 
and  his  expulsion  from  home  had  made  him  an  object  of  curi- 
osity, wonder  and  admiration.^***^    In  a  speech  at  Lexington,  on 

13  The  facts  above  set  out  I  gathered  from  James  Park,  the  lad  on  whose 
head  Johnson  placed  his  hands  that  terrible  June  day. 

14  0.  P.  Temple,  East  Tennessee  and  the  Civil  War,  p.  160. 
14a  Frank  Moore,  Chapter  II;   Savage,  p.  241. 


200  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

June  18,  he  denounced  the  doctrine  of  Secession.  "Secession 
is  a  heresy,"  he  declared,  "a  fundamental  error,  a  political  ab- 
surdity, an  odious,  an  abominable  doctrine.  .  .  .  Making  war 
upon  everything  that  tends  to  promote  and  ameliorate  the 
condition  of  mankind.  It  is  disintegrate,  universal  dissolve- 
ment."  On  the  nineteenth  a  general  reception  at  Cincinnati 
was  tendered  him.  "Have  we  a  government  in  the  United 
States?"  he  asked,  "or  only  a  pretext  of  a  government?  If 
it  is  a  government  its  authority  should  be  asserted  so  as  to  let 
the  civilized  world  know  that  it  is  a  government.  Let  us  dispel 
the  delusion  under  which  we  have  been  laboring  since  our  gov- 
ernment was  founded  in  1789 — that  ours  is  an  ephemeral  gov- 
ernment, that  we  imagined  we  had  a  government  but  when  the 
test  came  it  frittered  away  between  our  fingers  and  quickly 
faded  in  the  distance."  .  .  .  "Rewards  are  out  for  my  capture, 
I  am  told.  Officers  with  warrants  are  hunting  me  dowTi,  but  I 
am  no  run-a-way,  no  fugitive — except  a  fugitive  from  tyranny, 
and  I  thank  God  the  country  in  which  I  live  is  with  me.  .  .  . 
On  June  8  the  county  of  Greene  gave  two  thousand  seven 
majority  against  the  odious,  diabolical,  nefarious,  hell-born 
and  hell-bound  doctrine  called  Secession." 

The  New  York  Herald  of  June  22  announced  that  Andrew 
Johnson,  "that  staunch  and  fearless  United  States  Senator," 
had  run  the  gauntlet  and  was  safe  in  Cincinnati,  Ohio.^^  When 
he  arrived  in  Washington  reporters  called  and  interviewed  him. 
News  from  Tennessee  M^as  eagerly  sought.  "What  is  happen- 
ing to  the  'Fighting  Parson,'  is  he  still  in  jail?"  every  one  was 
asking.  "Would  Horace  Maynard  be  elected  to  Congress  in 
August,  or  be  put  in  jail  or  be  forced  to  run  away,  as  Johnson 
had  been?"  Calling  on  the  President,  Johnson  unbosomed 
himself  to  Lincoln.  He  told  of  the  trials,  the  deprivations,  and 
sufferings  of  the  people  of  East  Tennessee,  described  the  value 
of  that  section  to  the  Union  cause,  set  forth  the  valor  and 
heroism  of  his  people,  and  pointed  out  tlieir  services  as  fighters 
if  they  only  had  arms  and  munitions.  ]\Ir.  Lincoln  was  greatly 
impressed  with  Johnson's  recital  of  conditions.  In  fact,  it  be- 
came Lincoln's  "cherished  plan"  to  throw  an  army  from  Ken- 

^^  Johnson  M88.  Nos.  2399  and  2776. 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  201 

tuclcy  into  East  Tennessee  and  thereby  cut  the  Confederacy  in 
twain/^  Military  operations  in  Washington,  so  far  as  Ten- 
nessee was  concerned,  were  turned  over  to  Johnson.  He  busied 
himself  at  the  Postoffice  Department  and  at  the  War  Depart- 
ment. Postmaster  General  Blair  declared  that  it  was  John- 
son's "prerogative  to  lead  in  Tennessee  matters."  Cameron, 
Secretary  of  War,  assured  him  that  his  applications  for  arms 
and  munitions  for  Tennessee  had  been  duly  filed.^''  The  army 
to  defend  the  Cumberland  Gap,  indeed,  was  now  spoken  of  as 
the  Andrew  Johnson  army.^^  Secretary  Chase  wrote  Senator 
Johnson  that  "our  great  and  good  friend  Lincoln  expressed  the 
strongest  wish  to  gratify  you  and  to  approve  the  order  for 
arms,"  and  that  he  wrote  "approved  A.  Lincoln"  on  the 
order. 

Funds  poured  in  from  the  North  to  relieve  the  distress  in 
East  Tennessee.^^  From  Pittsburgh,  from  New  York,  from 
Boston  and  from  other  places  assistance  was  furnished.  A  war- 
rant on  the  treasury  for  the  sum  of  $100,000.00  was  drawn  at 
Johnson's  instance.  Envelopes  of  patriotic  design  contained 
letters  of  praise,  of  cheer,  and  of  substantial  aid.  On  these 
envelopes  flags,  bunting  and  other  patriotic  symbols  appeared. 
There  were  also  snatches  of  verse ;  buglers  on  horseback ;  pic- 
tures of  George  Washington  and  of  the  Capitol.  At  this  time 
Andrew  Johnson  remitted  $1,800.00  to  Amos  Lawrence,  as  it 
was  not  then  needed.^"  He  was  elected  a  guest  of  the  Loyal 
Society  of  Indiana,  invited  to  come  and  live  with  various 
people,  "to  share  their  homes  and  hearthstones."  '^  Return 
J.  Meigs,  an  old  friend  from  Nashville,  living  on  Long  Island, 
and  a  fugitive  from  Tennessee,  offered  "to  divide  his  shelter 
and  his  bed"  with  Johnson;  patriotic  citizens  from  Philadel- 
phia, Chicago,  Brooklyn,  Cambridge,  wrote  inviting  him  "to 
spend  the  entire  summer"  with  them.-^ 

In  the  midst  of  scenes  like  these  there  also  came  heart-rend- 

16  J.  W.  Fertig,  Secession,  etc.,  p.  30. 

17  Johnson  MSS.  Nos.  2776  and  2538. 
i8/6id.,  Nos.  2473,  2538,  2776. 

19  Johnson  MS.  No.  2468. 

20  Ihid.,  No.  2666. 

21  Johnson  MSS.  Nos.  2666  and  2740. 

22  Ibid.,  Nos.  2528b,  2860  and  2862. 


202  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

ing  letters  from  the  East  Tennessee  fugitives.  They  were  with- 
out food,  shelter  or  clothes ;  the  United  States  army  had  not 
come  as  promised.  Oppressed,  living  in  mountain  caves  like 
wild  beasts,  they  asked  was  not  succor  ever  coming.'^  -^  Some  of 
the  East  Tennessee  soldiers  were  growing  suspicious.  From 
his  family,  imprisoned  in  Greeneville,  no  word  had  come  to 
Johnson ;  he  knew  not  whether  wife,  daughters  and  grand- 
children were  living  or  dead.  Judge  Patterson,  of  course,  was 
fast  in  jail;  but  as  to  Colonel  Dan  Stover,  Colonel  Robert 
Johnson  and  Dr.  Charles  Johnson,  somewhere  on  the  confines 
of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  God  only  knew  what  had  become 
of  them. 

Thus  passed  the  trying  days  of  war.  Johnson  was  straining 
every  nerve  to  cripple  the  Confederacy,  to  strengthen  the 
Union  and  to  relieve  the  loyal  people  of  the  South.  He 
was  not  only  a  Senator  but  a  commissary,  a  fiscal  agent,  a 
relief  society,  a  comforter  of  his  people.  And  bitter  as  was 
the  cup,  he  never  lost  faith.  This  most  unnecessary  war  was 
the  crime  of  southern  leaders,  not  of  the  people,  he  insisted. 
By  these  leaders  secession  had  been  planned  for  years.  He  saw 
it  all,  now.  The  people  had  been  deceived.  "Conscious 
traitors"  were  criminals  and  should  be  dealt  with  as  such.  As 
for  the  plain  people  they  were  not  at  fault.  "His  faith  in  the 
people  never  wavered."  "* 

Early  in  October  Johnson  left  Washington  City  on  a  speak- 
ing tour.  First  he  visited  Camp  Dick  Robinson  in  Kentucky 
where  the  First  and  Second  Tennessee  Union  Infantry  regi- 
ments were  encamped.  These  regiments  were  made  up  largely 
of  East  Tennessee  Unionists — refugees  from  home,  Johnson's 
friends  and  supporters.  From  Camp  Dick  Robinson  he 
crossed  over  into  Ohio,  everywhere  urging  the  people  to  rally 
around  the  Old  Flag.  At  Columbus,  Ohio,  to  an  immense 
crowd,  he  described  the  emotions  that  swelled  in  his  bosom 
while  he  was  visiting  Camp  Dick  Robinson  and  mingling  with 

23  Johnson  MS.  No.  3058. 

24  Judge  Temple  claima,  and  no  doubt  correctly,  that  the  first  meeting  of 
the  Knoxville-Creeneville  Convention  in  December  1860,  and  the  support  of 
the  ]y\n\n  people,  encouraged  Andrew  Johnson  to  make  hi^  December  18,  18G0, 
speech. 


FIGHT  FOR  TENNESSEE  203 

the  Tennessee  refugees  and  witnessing  their  distress  and  suffer- 
ings. 

"The  other  day,"  he  said,  "when  I  stood  in  the  presence  of 
two  thousand  Tennesseans,  exiled  Kke  myself  from  the  homes 
of  comfort  and  the  families  of  their  love,  I  found  that  my 
manhood  and  sternness  of  mind  were  all  nothing,  and  that  I 
was  only  a  child.  There  they  were,  my  friends  and  fellow- 
citizens  of  my  beloved  State,  gathered  upon  the  friendly  soil 
of  Kentucky,  from  the  tender  stripling  of  sixteen  to  the  gray- 
haired  father  of  sixty,  all  mourning  the  evil  that  has  befallen 
our  land  and  our  homes,  but  all  seeking  for  arms  wherewith 
to  go  back  and  drive  the  invader  from  our  fields  and  hearth- 
stones. I  essayed  to  speak  to  them  words  of  counsel  and  en- 
couragement, but  speech  was  denied  me.  I  stood  before  them 
as  one  dumb.  If  it  be  true  that  out  of  the  fullness  of  the  heart 
the  mouth  speaketh,  it  is  also  true  that  the  heart  may  be  too 
full  for  the  utterance  of  speech.  And  such  were  ours — two 
thousand  of  us  exiled  Tennesseans,  and  all  silent  as  a  city  of 
the  dead!  But  there  was  no  torpor  there.  There  were  the 
bounding  heart  and  throbbing  brain ;  there  were  the  burning 
cheek  and  the  blazing  eye ;  all  more  eloquent  than  ever  were  the 
utterings  of  human  speech.  Each  of  that  throng  of  exiles, 
who  had  wandered  among  the  mountains  and  hid  in  their 
caverns,  who  had  slept  in  the  forest  and  squeezed  themselves, 
one  by  one,  through  the  pickets  of  the  invader,  each  one  was 
now  offering  comfort  and  pledging  fidelity  to  the  other. 
Youth  and  age  were  banded  together  in  a  holy  alliance  that 
will  never  yield  till  our  country  and  our  flag,  our  government 
and  our  institutions  are  bathed  in  the  sunlight  of  peace,  and 
consecrated  by  the  baptism  of  patriotic  blood. 

"There  were  their  homes,  and  there,  too,  is  mine — right  over 
there.  And  yet  we  were  homeless,  exiled !  And  why  ?  Was  it 
for  crime .-^  Had  we  violated  any  law.?  Had  we  offended  the 
majesty  of  our  Constitution  or  done  wrong  to  any  human 
being.''  Nay,  none  of  these.  Our  fault,  and  our  only  fault, 
was  loving  our  country  too  well  to  permit  its  betrayal.  And 
for  this  the  remorseless  agents  of  that  'sum  of  villanies,'  Se- 
cession, drove  us  from  our  families  and  firesides,  and  made  us 


^04.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

exiled  wanderers.  But  the  time  shall  soon  come  when  we 
wanderers  will  go  home!  Depend  upon  it,  my  friends,  this 
monstrous  iniquity  cannot  long  exist.  Some  bolt  of  Heaven's 
righteous  vengeance,  'red  with  uncommon  wrath,  will  blast  the 
traitors  in  their  high  estate.'  But  whatever  they  may  do — 
though  they  may  ravage  our  State  and  make  desolate  our 
homes,  though  they  convert  the  caves  of  our  mountains  into 
sepulchers  and  turn  our  valleys  and  plains  into  graveyards, 
there  is  still  one  thing  they  cannot  do — they  never  can,  while 
God  reigns,  make  East  Tennessee  a  land  of  slaves."  -^ 

25  Moore,  Rehellion,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  13:  "Johnson's  able  and  patriotic  speeches 
in  the  fall  of  1861  created  immense  enthusiasm." 


CHAPTER  IV 
SENATORIAL  WHIP 

Heretofore  Senator  Johnson  had  been  in  the  minority,  a 
free  lance  and  a  man  without  a  political  party.  But  with 
the  breaking  out  of  war  he  stepped  to  the  front,  and  disputed 
the  leadership  of  the  Senate  with  Collamer,  Sumner,  Fessen- 
den  and  Hale.  In  matters  pertaining  to  the  war  in  Tennessee 
and  the  West  his  wish  became  a  command. 

On  April  15  Lincoln  had  called  for  75,000  troops  to  sup- 
press insurrectionary  combinations;  on  the  19th  and  27th 
issued  proclamations  setting  on  foot  a  blockade  of  southern 
ports ;  on  the  27th  authorized  the  Commanding  General  to  sus- 
pend the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  between  Washington  and  Phil- 
adelphia ;  on  May  1  called  for  42,034  volunteers.  Under  these 
proclamations  action  had  been  taken,  arrests  made  on  sus- 
picion and  without  legal  authority.  In  Border  States,  par- 
ticularly, the  people  were  in  an  uproar.  On  April  22  the  Sixth 
Massachusetts  Regiment,  passing  through  Baltimore  to  Wash- 
ington, were  attacked  by  a  mob  and  several  lives  were  lost. 
Baltimore,  a  city  with  southern  sympathy,  was  in  a  frenzy, 
Washington  in  danger  of  capture.  It  was  agreed  by  the 
Washington  and  Baltimore  authorities  that  no  more  troops 
should  pass  through  the  latter  city  but  should  go  around  it. 
Hundreds  of  secessionists  in  Maryland  were  cast  into  prison, 
without  judge  or  jury.  The  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  a  dead 
letter.  Civil  officers,  being  powerless  to  over-ride  the  military, 
returned  such  writs  "unexecuted  for  lack  of  power  to  enforce." 
Mr.  Lincoln,  now  "a  military  dictator,"  as  his  enemies  charged, 
declared  he  was  not  going  to  give  up  the  government  "till  he 
had  played  his  last  card."  Finally  he  could  play  a  lone  hand 
no  longer  and  called  a  special  session  to  meet  July  4. 

In  the  Senate  Andrew  Johnson  took  an  active  part,  pleading 

205 


206  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

for  the  loyalists  of  the  South.  "The  loyal  citizens  of  the 
rebellious  states,"  he  said,  debating  a  resolution  of  his  to 
send  arms  to  the  Tennessee  mountaineers,  "feel  that  the  United 
States  should  protect  them  against  invasion  and  should  guar- 
antee a  Republican  form  of  government."  ^  Without  verbiage, 
circumlocution  or  controversy,  the  Senator  spoke  seldom  but 
his  soul  was  aglow  for  his  country.  He  was  as  anxious  to  put 
down  the  Rebellion  as  Lincoln  himself.  And  this  the  Senate 
understood  and  appreciated.  Senator  Wilson  called  up  John- 
son's bill  No.  38  to  appropriate  a  blank  sum,  the  amount  not 
named,  to  transport  arms  and  ammunition  to  southern  loy- 
alists and  asked  Johnson  what  amount  he  suggested.  "Two 
million  dollars  to  begin  with,"  Johnson  replied.  This  was 
"entirely  satisfactory"  to  Wilson  and  his  committee  and  the 
resolution  was  adopted  unanimously. 

When  a  joint  resolution  was  offered  to  endorse  President 
Lincoln's  acts,  during  the  recess  of  Congress,  an  acrimonious 
debate  broke  out.  Indeed  the  President's  course  in  suspending 
the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  never  endorsed  by  Congress,  and 
other  acts  could  only  be  endorsed  by  tacking  amendments  of 
endorsement  to  various  bills  to  increase  the  pay  of  private 
soldiers.  Though  Congress  was  sympathetic  with  the  Presi- 
dent, voting  men  and  money  as  he  called  for  them,  it  was 
averse  to  approving  acts  in  violation  of  the  Constitution.  At 
this  period  but  for  the  fortitude  of  President  Lincoln,  sus- 
tained by  loyal  men  like  Andrew  Johnson,  the  Union  would 
undoubtedly  have  gone  to  pieces. 

On  July  22  Senator  Johnson  offered  a  resolution  the  im- 
portance of  which  cannot  be  over-stated.  It  is  the  foundation 
of  Johnson's  subsequent  conduct.  No  understanding  of  the 
object  of  the  war,  as  it  appeared  to  Lincoln  or  to  Johnson,  is 
possible  without  a  knowledge  of  this  resolution.  Indeed  it  runs 
the  dividing  line  between  Stevens  and  Sumner,  fighting  for 
Abolition,  and  Lincoln  and  Johnson,  fighting  for  the  life 
of  the  Union.  "The  present  deplorable  Civil  war,"  Johnson's 
resolution  reads,  "has  been  forced  upon  the  country  by  the  dis- 
Unionists  of  the  Southern  States,  now  in  revolt  against  the 

''^  First  iSesaion  Thirti/scvcnth  Congress,  Part  I,  p.  21G. 


SENATORIAL  WHIP  207 

Constitutional  government  and  in  arms  around  the  Capital; 
in  this  National  emergency  Congress,  banishing  all  feeling  of 
mere  passion  or  resentment,  will  recollect  only  its  duty  to  the 
whole  country ;  this  war  is  not  prosecuted  upon  our  part  in  any 
spirit  of  oppression,  nor  for  any  purpose  of  conquest  or  sub- 
jugation, nor  for  the  purpose  of  over- throwing  or  interfering 
with  the  rights  or  established  institutions  of  those  states,  but 
to  defend  and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution  and 
all  laws  made  in  the  pursuance  thereof,  and  to  preserve  the 
Union,  with  all  the  dignity,  equality  and  rights  of  the  several 
states  unimpaired,  and  as  soon  as  these  objects  are  accom- 
plished the  war  ought  to  cease."  Other  resolutions  on  the  sub- 
ject were  offered  and  discussed;  one  totally  different  from 
Johnson's,  by  Breckinridge,  late  candidate  for  President,  now 
Senator  from  Kentucky.  Breckinridge's  resolution  provided 
that  all  United  States  troops  should  be  withdrawn  from  tlie 
South. 

In  his  message  to  the  special  session  Lincoln  had  used  lan- 
guage so  plebeian  that  Johnson  himself  might  have  written  it. 
"The  plain  man  in  the  South,"  President  Lincoln  asserted, 
"had  he  known  the  facts,  would  have  opposed  the  war ;"  and  in 
*'no  state  except  South  Carolina  would  the  people,  except  by 
coercion,  have  left  the  Union."  Of  this  message  Copperheads 
and  Conservatives  were  alike  critical  and  censorious.  The 
New  York  Times  on  July  5  declared  that  there  "was  never  a 
message  less  important."  At  an  earlier  date  President  Lincoln 
had  used  words  quite  as  suggestive  of  Andrew  Johnson's  doc- 
trine of  government.  "This  is  essentially  the  people's  contest," 
he  had  declared.  .  .  .  "On  the  side  of  the  Union  it  is  a 
struggle  for  maintaining  in  the  world  that  form  and  substance 
of  government,  whose  leading  object  is  to  elevate  the  condition 
of  men ;  ...  to  lift  artificial  weights  from  all  shoulders ;  .  .  . 
to  clear  the  paths  of  laudable  pursuit  for  all;  ...  to  afford 
all  an  unfettered  start  and  a  fair  chance  in  the  race  of  life. 
.  .  .  Yielding  to  partial  and  temporary  departures  from 
necessity,  this  is  the  leading  object  of  the  Government  for 
whose  existence  we  contend."  How  cheerfully  Andy  Johnson 
could  enlist  under  "Abe"  Lincoln's  banner. 


208  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

While  resolutions  and  proclamations  were  discussed  in  Con- 
gress the  Civil  War  was  getting  under  way.  In  June  and  July- 
General  George  B.  McClellan  had  won  a  few  minor  victories 
in  Virginia  and  the  North  was  much  elated.  There  was  a  de- 
mand that  the  government  run  the  Confederates  under  Beaure- 
gard from  the  gates  of  Washington  and  put  an  end  to  the 
war.  McDowell,  in  command  of  the  Union  forces  around  the 
Capital,  was  loath  to  engage  in  a  fight.  The  Confederate  Gen- 
eral Joseph  E.  Johnston  might  break  away  from  the  Valley  of 
Virginia,  he  feared,  and  j  oin  forces  with  Beauregard  and  prove 
too  strong.  General  Scott,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Union 
forces,  though  not  urging  a  fight,  promised  that  he  would  "ar- 
range to  hold  Johnston  off";  if  Johnston  moved  toward 
Beauregard  he  would  "have  General  Patterson  at  his  heels." 
Thus  in  response  to  a  precipitate  demand  for  a  fight  the  first 
great  battle  of  the  war  took  place — the  battle  of  Bull  Run. 
Johnston,  eluding  Patterson,  joined  Beauregard  and  the 
Union  forces  were  utterly  routed.  Pell-mell  they  rushed  back 
into  Washington.  With  blanched  cheeks  Senators  and  Con- 
gressmen, out  on  a  holiday  to  witness  the  triumph  of  Union 
arms,  scampered  back  to  their  homes,  wiser  men." 

It  was  now  clear  that  southern  troops  under  trained  officers 
like  R.  E.  Lee,  Johnston,  and  the  redoubtable  Stonewall  Jack- 
son were  going  to  fight  to  the  last  ditch.  That  the  country  was 
in  for  a  four  years'  war.  Washington  City  was  in  a  panic. 
The  New  York  Times  of  July  26  and  27  declared  the  Capital 
was  in  imminent  danger.  Debates  in  Congress  reflected  the 
general  terror.  Border  State  Congressmen  were  for  com- 
promise and  peaceful  secession,  a  course  nearly  all  northern 
Democrats  favored.  Senator  Polk  of  Missouri  and  Senator 
Powell  of  Kentucky  bitterly  denounced  the  dictatorship  of  Lin- 
coln. They  charged  him  with  precipitating  a  "cruel,  useless 
and  bloody  war";  he  was  "a  dictator  violating  the  Constitu- 
tion."   Only  Congress,  they  maintained,  could  declare  war. 

On  July  16  J.  C.  Breckinridge,  speaking  on  the  resolution 
to  endorse  Lincoln's  war  measures,  asked  "how  was  it  possible 

2  Cox,  Three  Decades,  p.  156. 


SENATORIAL  WHIP  209 

for  the  legislative  department  to  make  the  unconstitutional 
acts  of  the  Executive  constitutional  and  valid?"  ^  Breckinridge 
quoted  Webster  and  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  "A  President  has  no 
power  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.^*  .  .  .  "The  Su- 
preme Court,"  Breckinridge  exclaimed,  "has  just  held,  through 
its  Chief  Justice,  that  this  could  not  be  done.  .  .  .  There 
stands  the  opinion,  unanswerable ;  and  it  will  add  to  the  Chief 
Justice's  renown.  ...  In  the  name  of  the  people  I  represent  I 
protest,"  he  went  on.  "Jails  are  filled  with  victims  unable 
to  get  out  because  we  have  no  civil  law ;  our  country  is  a  mere 
despotism.  .  .  .  These  resolutions  do  not  state  the  facts ;  .  .  . 
the  South  is  not  the  aggressor,  the  North  is  the  aggressor ;  this 
war  is  waged  by  the  North.  ...  So  far  from  resolutions  being 
passed  ratifying  and  approving  the  President's  acts,  I  think 
the  Chief  Executive  of  the  country,  and  I  have  a  right,  in  my 
place  to  say  it,  Sir,  should  be  rebuked  by  the  vote  of  both 
houses  of  Congress."  Thus  were  the  Democrats,  even  the  gal- 
lant Breckinridge  and  others,  obstructing  Lincoln's  efforts  to 
preserve  the  Union. 

One  day  while  such  utterances  were  ringing  through  the 
halls  and  corridors  of  Congress,  encouraging  the  new  Con- 
federate government,  Senator  Baker  of  Oregon,  Colonel  of 
a  Union  regiment,  "in  blue  fatigue  cap  and  riding  whip  in 
hand,  came  from  his  camp  and  took  his  seat  in  the  Senate 
chamber."  Unbuckling  his  sword,  he  laid  it  on  the  desk  and 
sat  in  meditation,  while  the  speech  of  Breckinridge  continued. 
"Why  coerce  the  South,"  Breckinridge  was  saying.  "Why 
endeavor  to  whip  her  back  into  the  Union.'*  Will  you  whip 
her  back  into  love  and  fellowship  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet?" 
Breckinridge  closed  and  Baker  rose  to  reply.  "Suppose,"  said 
Colonel  Baker,  "a  Senator,  with  the  Roman  purple  flowing  over 
his  shoulders  had  risen  in  his  place  and  declared  that  Hanni- 
bal's cause  was  just  and  Rome's  wrong?"  "He  would  have 
been  hurled  from  the  Tarpeian  Rock !"  Fessenden,  the  coolest 
Senator  of  them  all,  broke  in.  Colonel  Baker — resuming — 
asked,  "How  could  courts  and  juries  fight  a  war?     War  is  a 

3  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  First  Session,  p.  138. 


210  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

one  man's  job;  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President  and  not  of  Con- 
gress to  put  down  this  insurrection."  * 

John  Sherman,  Senator  from  Ohio,  declared,  "It  is  better 
that  all  we  have  should  perish,  and  j^ou  and  I  and  all,  than  this 
noble  country  of  ours."  Senator  Doolittle  was  "unable  to  see 
why  the  President's  call  for  troops  was  unconstitutional. 
"Answer  me  this,  sirs,"  he  said,  "with  thirty  thousand  men 
under  arms  in  Virginia,  less  than  thirty  miles  away,  cannot  I 
as  an  individual,  not  as  an  executive,  call  a  hundred  thousand 
men  if  necessary  to  go  out  and  suppress  this  rebellion  or  even 
take  the  lives  of  the  rebels.^"  In  the  Senate  Chamber  the  only 
member  from  a  seceding  state  was  Andrew  Johnson  of  Ten- 
nessee. All  others  were  gone.  But  a  different  man  he  was 
from  heretofore.  A  fugitive  from  home  and  from  State,  an 
implacable  foe  to  secession  and  to  the  Confederacy,  the  gaze  of 
the  nation  was  upon  Andrew  Johnson.  He  had  fought,  he  had 
suffered,  as  no  other  American,  to  save  the  life  of  the  republic. 
Peculiarities  of  speech,  repetition,  personal  controversies,  these 
were  overlooked,  in  fact  had  disappeared.  His  utterances  were 
now  short,  direct  and  to  the  point.  Neither  force  nor  threats 
had  swerved  him,  nor  had  the  lust  of  power  or  place  seduced 
him.  Home,  wife,  children  had  been  surrendered  in  behalf  of 
the  Union.     Everything,  he  had  abandoned  for  country. 

Jolinson's  resolution,  declaring  the  objects  of  the  war,  was 
treated  by  the  Senate  with  unusual  deference ;  Senators  "would 
follow  him  wheresoever  he  led."  They  proposed  to  adopt  the 
resolution  just  as  it  came  from  his  hands. °  Senator  Clark  of 
New  Hampshire  might  not  like  the  wording  of  the  resolution, 
"but  if  it  suits  the  honorable  Tennessean,"  he  declared,  "and 
his  people  I  am  for  it."  Senator  Howe  declared  that  "when 
Senator  Johnson  gives  expression  to  his  sentiments  he  gives 
expression  to  my  own."  Doolittle  and  the  West  Virginia  Sen- 
ators objected  to  the  word  "subjugation"  in  the  resolution. 
But  Johnson  insisted  that  it  remain  and  tlie  objection  was 
witlidrawn.     Certain  Senators  objected  to  the  words,  "in  arms 

*  A^neriran  Ornlnru,  Vol.   IV,   "Insurrection  and   Sedition   J5ill,"  S.   li.   .'J.'}; 
I5Iiiine.  Vol.  T.  p.  llAh. 
GBliiine,  Vol.   II,  p.  .'J.'JO, 


SENATORIAL  WHIP  211 

around  the  capital,"  but  these  words  were  also  retained,  John- 
son exclaiming,  "Why,  sirs,  we  heard  the  guns  last  Sunday 
roaring  around  the  capital.  ...  In  fact,  we  are  pretty  near 
having  some  in  the  capitol  who  are  against  the  government — 
almost  in  this  chamber." 

Senators  opposing  Johnson  conceded  his  courage  and  genu- 
ine worth  and  spoke  in  terms  of  high  praise.  Senator  Harris 
of  New  York,  in  reply  to  Johnson,  said  of  him,  "He  is  a  man  to 
whom  my  heart  goes  out  in  warmer  and  more  gushing  sym- 
pathy than  to  any  other  man  on  this  floor."  Senators  who 
loved  the  Union  most  admired  Senator  Johnson  most,  dis- 
covering in  him  "a  spirit  noble,  lofty,  patriotic  and  self-sacri- 
ficing." The  distinguished  Senator  Saulisbury  declared  that 
he  esteemed  Johnson  much  and  always  had.^  And  the  new  and 
untried  position  of  leadership  Senator  Johnson  filled  most 
acceptably.  A  sense  of  responsibility  now  steadied  and  sobered 
him  and  the  desire  to  save  his  country,  his  home  and  his  family 
made  him  wise  and  strong. 

On  July  27  Andrew  Johnson  got  the  floor  on  his  resolution 
declaring  and  defining  the  objects  of  the  war:  The  war  is  to 
be  waged  not  for  oppression  nor  for  conquest,  not  to  overthrow 
or  establish  institutions,  but  to  maintain  the  Constitution  and 
preserve  the  Union  with  the  rights  of  the  states  unimpaired. 
When  these  things  are  done  the  war  ought  to  cease.  In  offer- 
ing this  resolution  two  thoughts,  as  we  have  seen,  dominated 
Andrew  Johnson.  First,  to  destroy  the  Southern  Confederacy. 
Death  he  would  gladly  suffer  rather  than  see  Tennessee,  and 
his  home,  in  a  slave-holding,  oligarchical  empire,  such  as  he 
feared  would  be  established.  His  resolution  would  solidify  the 
Border  States.  And  second,  to  restore  the  United  States 
government  under  the  Constitution  of  the  fathers.  Slavery 
was  secondary.  In  truth,  if  the  Union  was  restored,  on  Lin- 
coln's platform,  slavery  would  be  outlawed  anyway.  Either 
way,  therefore,  slavery  would  soon  be  gotten  rid  of.  Probably 
"the  sable  sons  of  Africa  would  pass  into  freedom  by  the  gate- 
way of  colonization,"  as  Johnson  had  said  in  his  speech  on  the 
annexation  of  Texas. 

^Second  Session  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  Part  I,  p.  645. 


212  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

On  the  resolutions  of  endorsement  of  Lincoln,  Johnson  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  ultra-Unionists.  "Not  until  your 
forts  were  surrendered,"  said  he,  addressing  the  Senate,  and 
"not  until  the  President  of  the  so-called  Southern  Confederacy 
was  authorized  to  call  out  the  entire  militia,  naval,  and  mili- 
tary forces,  one  hundred  thousand  strong,  did  President  Lin- 
coln call  for  seventy-five  thousand  men  to  defend  this  capitol." 
.  .  .  "Are  we  for  the  Government,  or  are  we  against  it  ?  That 
is  the  question.  .  .  .  With  your  forts  taken,  your  men  fired 
upon,  your  ships  attacked  at  sea,  and  one  hundred  thousand 
men  called  into  the  field  by  the  so-called  Southern  Confederacy, 
Senators  talk  about  the  enormous  call  of  President  Lincoln  for 
seventy-five  thousand  men  and  the  increase  he  has  made  of  the 
army  and  navy!  Mr.  President,  it  all  goes  to  show,  in  my 
opinion,  that  the  sympathies  of  Senators  are  with  the  one 
Government  and  against  the  other.  Admitting  that  there  was 
a  little  stretch  of  power ;  admitting  that  the  margin  was  pretty 
wide  when  the  power  was  exercised,  the  query  now  comes: 
Are  you  willing  to  sustain  the  Government?  .  .  .  Senators 
complain  of  the  violation  of  the  United  States  Constitution. 
Have  you  heard  any  intimation  of  complaint  from  those  Sen- 
ators about  this  Southern  Confederacy — this  band  of  traitors 
to  their  country  ?  Have  you  heard  any  complaint  about  viola- 
tions of  constitutional  law  on  the  other  side?  Oh,  no!  .  .  . 
But  we  must  stand  still ;  our  Government  must  not  move  while 
they  are  moving,  with  a  hundred  thousand  men.  While  they 
are  reducing  our  forts,  and  robbing  us  of  our  property,  we 
must  stand  still;  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  must  not  be 
violated!  .  .  .  When  our  enemies  are  stationed  in  sight  of 
the  capitol,  there  is  no  alarm,  no  scare,  no  fright.  Some 
of  us  would  not  feel  so  very  comfortable  if  the  rebels  were  to 
get  this  city.  I  do  not  think  I  could  sleep  right  sound  if  they 
were  in  possession  of  it.  I  do  not  believe  there  would  be  much 
quarter  for  me !  Let  us  look  at  the  question  plainly  and  fairly. 
Suppose  the  rebels  advance  on  the  city  to-night;  subjugate 
it;  depose  the  existing  authorities;  expel  the  present  Govern- 
ment ;  what  kind  of  government  have  you  then  ? 

"How  eloquent  my  friend  Breckinridge  was  upon  Constitu- 


SENATORIAL  WHIP  213 

tions !  He  told  us  the  Constitution  was  the  measure  of  power, 
and  that  we  should  feel  constitutional  restraints ;  and  yet  when 
your  Government  is  perhaps  within  a  few  hours  of  being  over- 
thrown, and  the  law  and  Constitution  trampled  under  foot, 
there  are  no  words  of  rebuke  for  those  who  are  endeavoring  to 
accomplish  such  results."  .  .  .  "No,  sirs,"  said  Johnson,  "it 
is  not  Lincoln  but  Davis  who  is  overthrowing  our  Government 
and  making  of  it  a  despotism.  And  what  is  Davis'  objective, 
what  is  he  driving  at?  He  proposes  to  erect  a  slave  oligarchy. 
.  .  .  Russell  of  the  London  Times,  traveling  through  the 
Southern  States,  correctly  sizes  up  the  would-be  Secession 
leaders.  .  .  .  Thej^  despise  a  republic.  What  they  want  is  a 
monarchy  like  England,  not  a  republic  like  the  L^nited  States. 
.  .  .  Toombs  has  declared  for  a  monarchy  and  so  have  scores 
of  southern  newspapers."  Johnson  continued,  "If  we  had  had 
ten  thousand  stand  of  arms  and  ammunition  in  East  Tennessee, 
when  the  contest  commenced,  we  should  have  asked  no  further 
assistance.  We  have  not  got  them.  Our  population  is  homo- 
geneous, industrious,  frugal,  brave,  independent ;  but  how  pow- 
erless, and  oppressed  by  usurpers.  You  may  be  too  late  in  com- 
ing to  our  relief ;  they  may  trample  us  under  foot ;  they  may 
convert  our  plains  into  graveyards,  and  the  caves  of  our 
mountains  into  sepulchers ;  but  they  will  never  take  us  out  of 
this  L'nion,  or  make  us  a  land  of  slaves — no,  never !  We  in- 
tend to  stand  as  firm  as  adamant,  and  as  unyielding  as  the 
mountains  that  surround  us.  Yes,  we  will  be  as  fixed  and  as 
immovable  as  are  they  upon  their  bases.  We  will  stand  as  long 
as  we  can;  and  if  we  are  overpowered  and  liberty  shall  be 
driven  from  the  land,  we  intend  before  she  departs  to  take  the 
flag  of  our  country,  with  a  stalwart  arm,  a  patriotic  heart,  and 
an  honest  tread,  and  place  it  upon  the  summit  of  the  loftiest 
and  most  majestic  mountain.  We  intend  to  plant  it  there, 
to  indicate  to  the  inquirer  in  after  times,  the  spot  where  the 
Goddess  of  Liberty  lingered  and  wept  for  the  last  time  before 
she  took  her  flight  from  a  people  once  prosperous,  free  and 
happy.  .  .  . 

"We  ask  the  Government  to  come  to  our  aid.    We  have  con- 
fidence in  the  integrity  and  capacity  of  the  people  to  govern 


2U  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

themselves.  We  have  lived  entertaining  these  opinions;  we 
intend  to  die  entertaining  them.  .  .  .  The  battle  has  com- 
menced. The  President  has  placed  it  upon  the  true  ground. 
It  is  an  issue  on  the  one  hand  for  the  people's  Government,  and 
its  overthrow  on  the  other.  .  .  .  We  have  commenced  the 
battle  of  freedom.  It  is  freedom's  cause.  We  are  resisting 
usurpation  and  oppression.  We  will  triumph;  we  must  tri- 
umph. Right  is  with  us.  A  great  and  fundamental  principle 
of  right,  that  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  things,  is  with  us. 
We  may  meet  with  impediments,  and  with  disasters,  and  here 
and  there  a  defeat;  but  ultimately  freedom's  cause  must 
triumph,  for — 

"  'Freedom's  battle  once  begun. 

Bequeathed  from  bleeding  sire  to  son, 
Though  baffled  oft,  is  ever  won.' 

"Yes,  we  must  triumph.  Though  sometimes  I  cannot  see  my 
way  clear  in  matters  of  this  kind,  as  in  matters  of  religion, 
when  my  facts  give  out,  when  my  reason  fails  me,  I  draw 
largely  upon  my  faith.  My  faith  is  strong,  based  on  the 
eternal  principles  of  right,  that  a  thing  so  monstrously  wrong 
as  this  rebellion  cannot  triumph.  Can  we  submit  to  it.?  Is 
the  Senate,  are  the  American  people,  prepared  to  give  up  the 
graves  of  Washington  and  Jackson,  to  be  encircled  by  a  com- 
bination of  traitors  and  rebels?  ...  I  say,  let  the  battle  go 
on — until  the  Stars  and  Stripes  shall  again  be  unfurled  upon 
every  cross-road,  and  from  every  house-top.  Let  the  Union 
be  reinstated;  let  the  law  be  enforced;  let  the  Constitution  be 
supreme.  .  .  . 

"If  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  were  to  give  up  the 
tombs  of  Washington  and  Jackson,  some  Peter-the-Hermit 
would  arise  and  appeal  to  the  people.  He  would  point  to  the 
tombs  of  Washington  and  Jackson  in  the  possession  of  those 
who  are  worse  than  the  infidel  and  the  Turk,  who  hold  the  Holy 
Sepulcher,  and  urge  their  recapture.  I  believe  the  American 
people  would  redeem  the  graves  of  Washington  and  Jackson 
and  Jefferson,  lying  within  the  limits  of  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy. .  .  .  Do  not  talk  about  Republicans  now;  do  not 
talk  about  Democrats  now ;  do  not  talk  about  Whigs  or  Amer- 


SENATORIAL  WHIP  215 

icans  now;  talk  about  your  country  and  the  Constitution  and 
the  Union.  Save  that;  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  Govern- 
ment; once  more  place  it  erect  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth." 

The  influence  of  this  speech  of  Johnson's,  as  that  of  his 
former  Union  speeches,  was  great.  Often  during  its  delivery 
the  galleries  applauded  so  loud  and  long  the  Vice-president 
ordered  them  cleared.  When  Johnson  said,  "God  being  willing 
and  whether  traitors  be  few  or  many  I  intend  to  fight  them  to 
the  end,"  Jefferson  Davis'  idea  that  there  might  be  a  peaceful 
Secession  or  a  compromise  vanished  into  thin  air.  The  North 
was  awakened  to  dutj'^  at  last.  Johnson's  resolutions  passed  the 
Senate  by  a  vote  of  35  to  5. 

The  special  session  adjourned  in  August.  During  the  vaca- 
tion Johnson  was  busy  making  speeches  for  the  Union,  and 
also  with  the  affairs  of  East  Tennessee.  That  great  State  was 
entering  upon  a  scene  of  desolation  not  equaled  anywhere.  The 
regular  session  of  Congress  met  in  December.  On  the  nine- 
teenth instant  a  joint  select  "Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the 
War"  was  appointed.  It  consisted  of  Senators  Wade,  Chand- 
ler and  Andrew  Johnson,  and  of  Congressmen  Covode,  Odell, 
Gooch  and  Julian.  This  committee  occupied  much  of  John- 
son's time  until  the  following  February.  He  then  went  to 
Tennessee  as  Military  Governor. 

Before  quitting  the  Senate  Johnson  was  as  eager  in  the 
cause  of  the  Union  as  a  youth  of  eighteen.  No  one  can  con- 
template the  days  of  1861  and  not  feel  that  Johnson  knew  the 
lay  of  the  land  better  than  any  of  his  associates.  The  ex- 
pulsion of  Senator  Bright  is  a  point  in  hand,  but  for  Johnson 
Bright  might  have  escaped  punishment.  When  Johnson,  how- 
ever, told  the  Senate  that  Bright — who  it  will  be  recalled  was 
Johnson's  friend,  presenting  him  in  1857  to  the  Senate — was 
at  heart  a  rebel,  it  was  all  up  with  the  Senator  from  Indiana. 
"On  December  19  last,"  said  Johnson,  "when  I  raised  my  feeble 
voice  for  the  Union,  where  was  Senator  Bright?  .  .  .  With  a 
bevy  of  Confederates  he  stood,  with  frowns  and  scowls  and 
expressions  of  indignation  and  contempt  for  me;  as  cold  as 
an  iceberg — he  gave  me  no  look  of  recognition."    By  a  vote  of 


216  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

32  to  14  Bright  was  expelled  from  the  Senate.     His  offense 
was  the  authorship  of  the  following  remarkable  epistle : 

Washington,  March  1st  1861. 
My  dear  Sir  : 

Allow  me  to  introduce  to  your  acquaintance  my  friend  Thos. 
B.  Lincoln  of  Texas.  He  visits  your  Capitol  mainly  to  dispose  of 
what  he  regards  a  great  improvement  in  firearms.  I  recommend 
him  to  your  favorable  consideration  as  a  gentleman  of  first  re- 
spectability and  reliable  in  every  respect. 

Very  truly  Yours, 

Jesse  D.  Bright. 
To  his  Excellency  Jefferson  Davis 
President  of  the  Confederate  States 
(December  16—1861) 

Every  scrap  of  news  favorable  to  the  Union,  in  those  early 
days  of  war,  Johnson  gathered  and  sent  to  the  clerk's  desk  to 
be  read.'^  He  wished  every  one  to  be  doing  something — if  they 
could  not  fight  let  them  cheer  and  huzza.  At  his  urgent  re- 
quest $10,000  were  voted  to  celebrate  Washington's  Birthday 
and  to  awaken  the  people  to  a  patriotic  sense  of  duty.  When 
news  of  Federal  naval  victories  in  January  and  February 
reached  Washington,  he  was  beside  himself  with  joy,  offering 
a  resolution  of  thanks  "to  the  brave  officers  and  sailors  who 
carried  the  flag." 

Grimes  and  Fessenden  objected;  the  news  was  not  authentic, 
they  urged;  and  it  would  be  better  to  let  Congress  attend  to 
its  own  business.  Fessenden,  in  fact,  thought  such  resolutions 
inept,  "unless  our  minds  are  so  upset  by  the  news  we  cannot  do 
business."  Johnson  admitted  that  was  precisely  his  case.  "I 
am  free  to  say  I  am  pretty  much  that  way,"  he  said,  and  the 
resolution  was  passed.^  The  capture  of  New  Bern,  Elizabeth 
City  and  other  Confederate  ports  had  stirred  his  patriotic 
blood;  he  could  hear  Farragut,  the  gallant  Tennessean,  in 
Mobile  Bay  thundering,  "Steam  ahead! — Damn  the  torpe- 
does !"  and  he  could  catch  visions  of  a  reunited  country. 

1  Thirty -seventh  Congress,  Second  Session,  Part  I,  p.  738. 
8  lUd.,  p.  846. 


CHAPTER  V 
MILITARY  GOVERNOR 

At  the  August  elections  the  Confederates  conceded  the  elec- 
tion of  two  Union  Congressmen  from  East  Tennessee,  T.  A.  R. 
Nelson  and  Horace  Maynard.  Shortly  after  his  election  Nel- 
son was  captured  on  his  way  to  Washington.  Maynard,  how- 
ever, was  duly  seated  as  a  Representative  from  the  State  of 
Tennessee.  This  action  of  Congress  was  in  line  with  the  reso- 
lutions of  July.  Tennessee  had  not  been  out  of  the  Union 
and  could  not  get  out.  Maynard,  a  native  of  Massachusetts, 
had  represented  a  Tennessee  district  in  Congress  for  some 
years.  His  judgment  was  sound,  he  had  been  a  Henry  Clay 
Whig  and  he  was  devoted  to  the  Union.  Tall,  and  of  swarthy 
complexion,  with  long  black  hair,  he  seemed  of  Indian  extrac- 
tion. Hastening  to  Washington,  Maynard  sought  out  Andrew 
Johnson,  his  old  political  opponent.  The  two  straightway 
went  to  the  President,  as  Johnson  had  already  done.  They 
wished  arms  for  East  Tennessee  and  they  requested  that  a 
Union  army  be  sent  to  protect  the  loj^al  citizens  of  that  section. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  impressed  with  the  importance  of  comply- 
ing with  their  request  and  of  saving  East  Tennessee  to  the 
Union.  Going  to  the  War  Department,  he  left  a  memorandum 
as  follows:  "On  or  about  the  fifth  of  October  (the  exact  date 
to  be  determined  hereafter)  I  wish  a  movement  made  to  seize 
and  hold  a  point  on  the  railroad  connecting  Virginia  and  Ten- 
nessee, near  the  mountain  pass  called  'Cumberland  Gap.'  " 
This  suggestion  of  Lincoln  was  forwarded  to  General  Buell  in 
Kentucky,  but  he  temporized.  Promising  to  obey  orders,  he 
finally  notified  the  President  it  was  impossible  to  do  so.  To 
seize  and  hold  a  position  within  the  enemy's  line  would  violate 
the  first  rule  of  warfare.  The  President,  however,  was  not 
satisfied  with  General  Buell's  decision.  He  agreed  with  John- 
son and  Maynard  that  East  Tennessee  could  be  held  if  the 

217 


218  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

loyal  mountaineers  were  supplied  with  arms  and  backed  up 
by  an  army.  On  December  7  Johnson  and  Maynard  wired 
General  Buell  as  follows:  "We  have  just  had  interviews  with 
the  President  and  General  McClellan,  and  find  they  concur 
fully  with  us  in  respect  to  the  East  Tennessee  expedition.  Our 
people  are  oppressed  and  pursued  as  beasts  of  the  forest.  The 
Government  must  come  to  their  relief.  We  are  looking  to  you 
with  anxious  solicitude  to  move  in  that  direction."  To  this 
telegram  General  Buell  gave  an  encouraging  reply,  but  did 
nothing.  Johnson  and  Maynard  wrote  bitter  letters  to  Buell 
complaining  of  his  delay.  On  December  20  the  War  Depart- 
ment asked  General  Buell  if  he  needed  more  regiments.  To 
this  he  replied  that  he  was  not  willing  to  say  that  he  did.  Gen- 
eral McClellan  and  Mr.  Lincoln  continued  to  press  the  matter 
of  relieving  East  Tennessee  upon  Buell's  consideration.  On 
December  29  General  McClellan  telegraphed  Buell,  "Johnson, 
Maynard,  etc.,  are  again  becoming  frantic,  and  have  President 
Lincoln's  sympathy  excited — better  get  the  East  Tennessee 
arms  and  clothing  in  position  for  distribution  as  soon  as 
possible."  General  Buell  replied  that  he  would  need  more 
troops  in  Kentucky.  On  January  4  the  President  took  a  hand, 
sending  the  following  telegram  to  Buell:  "Have  arms  gone 
forward  for  East  Tennessee  .^^  Please  tell  me  the  progress  or 
condition  of  the  movement  in  that  direction.  Answer."  To 
this  telegram  General  Buell  wrote  that  as  long  as  the  Con- 
federate line  from  Columbus  to  Bowling  Green  held  it  was 
dangerous  to  seize  Knoxville.  Thereupon  President  Lincoln 
sent  the  following  wire :  "Your  dispatch  of  yesterday  has  been 
received  and  it  disappoints  and  distresses  me — my  dispatch, 
to  which  yours  is  an  answer,  was  sent  with  the  knowledge  of 
Senator  Johnson  and  Representative  Maynard,  of  East  Ten- 
nessee, and  they  will  be  upon  me  to  know  the  answer  which 
I  cannot  safely  show  them.  They  would  despair ;  possibly  re- 
sign to  go  and  save  their  families  somehow,  or  die  with  them. 
Yours  very  truly,  A.  Lincoln." 

This  wire  of  President  Lincoln's  was  followed  by  another 
dispatch  to  Buell  from  General  McClellan,  urging  immediate 
action.    To  McClellan's  telegram  General  Buell  sent  rather  a 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  219 

dubious  answer.  The  result  of  the  matter  was  that  on  Febru- 
ary 1  General  Buell  wrote  that  the  scheme  could  not  be  car- 
ried out  as  it  would  take  at  least  30,000  men  for  East  Tennessee 
and  thousands  of  wagons. 

General  George  H.  Thomas,  however,  concurring  with  Lin- 
coln, undertook  to  capture  Knoxville.  The  plan  as  developed 
was  for  General  S.  P.  Carter,  Colonel  Dan  Stover  and  the 
Tennessee  Bridge-Burners,  on  the  night  of  November  8,  to 
burn  the  railroad  bridges.  At  the  same  time  General  Thomas 
was  to  march  south  from  Kentucky  and  join  the  loyal  Ten- 
nesseans.  On  the  night  mentioned  Carter  and  Stover  did  their 
work  well,  burning  several  bridges;  but  General  Sherman 
and  General  Buell  refused  to  permit  the  army  to  advance 
within  the  enemy's  territory,  as  long  as  the  Confederate  line 
remained  intact.^ 

The  situation  in  East  Tennessee  was  daily  growing  more 
desperate.  To  add  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  mountaineers 
their  Western  brethren  had  become  exasperated;  they  could 
not  understand  why  East  Tennessee  was  holding  back  from 
the  Confederacy  and  was  so  obstinate.  As  early  as  May  30, 
while  the  Greeneville-Knoxville  Convention  was  meeting  in 
Knoxville  and  taking  steps  to  organize  a  new  state,  a  Con- 
federate army  was  standing  almost  at  the  convention  door  with 
bayonets  fixed.  This  famous  convention,  of  which  Robert  and 
Charles  Johnson  were  members  from  Greene  county,  would 
have  carried  out  its  plan,  no  doubt,  of  forming  a  new  state  but 
for  the  interference  of  the  Confederate  troops.  After  its 
second  meeting  in  Greeneville  the  convention  adjourned  to  meet 
again  at  the  call  of  any  one  of  its  officers,  but  war  prevented. 
No  meeting  was  again  held  for  three  years.  The  stoutest 
Union  men  had  joined  the  Confederacy.  John  Bell,  George 
W.  Jones,  Governor  Neill  S.  Brown,  all  had  left  the  Union. 
The  gallant  General  Zollicoffer,  staunchest  of  Union  men 
hitherto,  wrote  with  a  sad  heart:  "We  must  not,  we  cannot 
stand  neutral  and  see  our  southern  brothers  butchered."  In 
these  words  General  Zollicoffer  voiced  the  sentiment  of  the 
militant  and  heroic  South.     East  Tennessee  was  Zollicoffer's 

1  0.  p.  Temple,  East  Tennessee  and  the  Civil  War,  p.  378. 


220  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

home  and  thither  he  was  sent  to  win  the  mountaineers  to  Se- 
cession, but  he  made  little  progress. 

After  Congress  adjourned  Washington  Cit}'^  became  Andrew 
Johnson's  headquarters.  But  he  was  constantly  on  the  go — 
speaking  in  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Kentucky.  Notices  of  writs  of 
execution,  issued  by  the  Confederate  courts  and  served  on  his 
property,  were  received  by  him.  The  following  is  a  copy  of 
the  finding  of  the  court  in  the  case  of 

Confederate  States  of  America  1 

vs.  >     Judgment. 

The  Estate  of  Andrew  Johnson,  an  alien  enemy.  J 

After  reciting  the  facts  the  court  adjudged  Andrew  John- 
son to  be  an  alien  enemy.  It  likewise  decreed  that  "all  the 
property  rights  and  credits  belonging  to  him,  either  at  law  or 
in  equity,  are  hereby  sequestrated  under  the  acts  of  Congress 
.  .  .  and  the  receiver  is  directed  to  proceed  to  dispose  of  the 
same  as  provided  by  law." 

A  New  York  attorney,  Lorenzo  Sherwood,  wrote  a  letter 
making  suggestions  to  Senator  Johnson:  "Why  do  you  not 
offer  resolutions  in  Congress  boldly  affirming  that  this  war  will 
free  the  poor  white  man.'^  There  is  a  great  deal  of  mawkish 
sensibility  over  the  negro.  ...  It  is  the  poor  white  man,  in 
shirt  sleeves,  who  must  be  protected  from  the  Southern 
oligarchy."  Accompanying  the  letter  was  a  set  of  resolutions 
carrying  out  Mr.  Sherwood's  suggestions." 

In  the  fall  of  1861,  and  the  winter  of  1862,  the  situation  in 
East  Tennessee  had  become  hopeless.  No  Union  army  had 
been  sent  and  the  Confederacy  had  raised  thousands  of  troops, 
many  of  whom  were  now  in  East  Tennessee.  By  September 
1st  22,000  troops  had  been  raised  in  Tennessee,  18,000  had 
come  over  from  Mississippi,  and  14,000  had  been  requested 
from  Richmond.  Five  millions  of  dollars  had  been  expended  in 
equipping  the  troops.  General  Pillow  was  in  command.  The 
Confederate  army,  cooperating  with  conscription  officers  dur- 
ing the  fall,  created  such  terror  Union  men  fled  from  their 
homes,  seeking  the  mountain  heights.  Every  gap  and  pass 
seemed   to    be   guarded   by   the    vigilant    Confederates,   yet 

2  Johnson  MSS.  Nos.  2974  and  2911. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  221 

thousands  eluded  the  guards  and  joined  the  Union  army. 
Hundreds  of  Unionists  were  in  jail,  their  offense  being  that 
they  were  for  the  Union. 

On  January  18,  1862,  however.  General  G.  H.  Thomas,  one 
of  the  safest,  and  judged  by  results,  the  most  successful  of 
Union  Generals,  with  a  superior  force  shattered  the  Confed- 
erate line  at  Mill  Springs,  defeating  and  slaying  General  Zolli- 
coffer.  At  that  time  General  Grant,  serving  under  General 
Halleck,  was  in  command  of  an  army  at  Cairo  on  the  INIissis- 
sippi,  a  few  miles  north  of  the  Confederate  line  of  defense. 
General  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  the  pride  of  the  South,  had  forti- 
fied Forts  Henry  and  Donelson  to  prevent  Union  gunboats 
from  running  up  the  Tennessee  and  Cumberland  rivers  and 
cooperating  with  the  land  forces. 

In  the  first  days  of  February,  however,  Grant — the  sledge- 
hammer of  the  North — moved  with  gunboats  and  transports 
filled  with  troops,  up  the  Tennessee  river  and  on  the  way  to 
Fort  Henry.  On  February  6  Fort  Henry  surrendered.  Most 
of  the  Confederate  troops,  however,  escaped  to  Fort  Donelson, 
ten  or  twelve  miles  away  on  the  Cumberland  river.  On  Febru- 
ary 16  Federal  gunboats  and  transports,  having  steamed  up 
the  Ohio  and  Cumberland  rivers,  in  conjunction  with  land 
forces  under  Grant,  invested  Fort  Donelson.  General  Floyd, 
President  Buchanan's  Secretary  of  War,  fled  for  his  life.  He 
feared  he  would  be  shot  as  a  traitor  to  the  Union.  General 
Buckner  assumed  responsibility  and  surrendered  the  fort.  The 
Confederate  defenses  were  destroyed,  the  Confederate  army 
was  cut  in  twain.  Colonel  Forrest  refused  to  surrender  how- 
ever and  escaped  with  liis  cavalry.  Nashville,  the  capital,  only 
a  few  score  miles  away,  was  open  to  the  Union  forces.  The 
Confederate  legislature  adjourned  from  Nashville  to  Memphis. 
General  Grant  advanced  up  the  Cumberland  river  and  General 
Buell  soon  occupied  Nashville.  The  Confederate  government 
in  Tennessee  had  come  to  an  end.  Some  six  months  it  had  lived 
and  then  it  expired,  hammered  to  death  by  Union  troops,  many 
of  whom  were  East  Tennessee  boys.  But  the  whole  of  East 
Tennessee  was  still  held  by  the  Confederacy.  In  fact,  only 
such  portions  of  Western  and  Middle  Tennessee  were  under 


222  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Union  control  as  Federal  gunboats  on  the  rivers  and  massed 
troops  could  protect.  The  body  of  the  people  of  Tennessee 
were  still  hostile  to  the  old  Government.  The  Confederacy 
was  determined  that  Buell's  troops  in  Nashville  should  be 
driven  out  at  all  hazards.  The  Confederate  flag  must  fly  over 
Tennessee's  capital  again.-^ 

Before  the  fall  of  Donelson  General  Floyd  had  demanded 
of  Grant  the  terms  he  would  require  for  the  surrender  of  the 
fort.  "Unconditional  surrender,"  Grant  replied.  When  these 
words,  "unconditional  surrender,"  were  flashed  to  the  North, 
with  the  news  that  15,000  Confederates  had  been  captured,  the 
Confederate  line  broken,  and  Tennessee  was  no  longer  under 
foreign  flag,  no  two  men  were  happier,  we  may  be  sure,  than 
President  Lincoln  and  Andrew  Johnson.^  The  Border-State 
policy  was  vindicated;  the  way  to  whip  the  South  had  been 
discovered :  Flank  her,  attack  her  in  the  rear.  The  failure  to 
pursue  this  course  in  the  East  had  resulted  in  defeat.  The 
war  in  Virginia,  under  McClellan  and  others,  had  gone  badly 
for  the  Union.  No  frontal  attack  could  overcome  the  in- 
vincible Army  of  Northern  Virginia. 

Forthwith  President  Lincoln  set  about  winning  Tennessee 
back  into  the  Union.  This  he  would  do  not  only  with  military 
rule  but  also  by  civil  government,  as  far  as  possible.  Sending 
for  Andrew  Johnson,  President  Lincoln  urged  him  to  go  to 
Tennessee  to  act  as  Military  Governor  and  Brigadier-General, 
and  to  restore  the  State  to  the  Union.  Not  a  moment  did  the 
heroic  man  hesitate.  The  ease  and  comfort  of  Washington 
life  he  was  wilhng  to  sacrifice  to  serve  his  country.  The 
terrors  of  an  armed  camp,  the  threats  and  hatred  of  an  im- 
placable foe,  all  these  he  would  face  in  an  effort  to  save  the 
Union.    "This  act  of  self-sacrifice  gave  him  unexampled  popu- 

2a  Rhodes,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  600. 

3  In  reply  to  criticisms  of  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  for  evacuating 
Bowling  Green  and  failing  to  destroy  Grant  at  Shiloh,  his  son  William 
Preston  Johnston  declared  that  "The  army  of  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston 
had  been  weakened  by  the  necessity  of  keeping  thousands  of  troops  in  East 
Tennessee  to  overawe  the  I^nion  population  of  this  section  so  as  to  guard  the 
only  line  of  railroad  communication  between  Tennessee  and  Virginia";  and 
that  "East  Tennessee,  like  a  wedge,  penetrated  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy, 
flanked  and  weakened  General  Johnston's  line  of  defense,  requiring  constant 
vigilance  and  repression." — Century,  February  1885;  Johnson  M8. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  223 

larity  at  the  North."  *  Accepting  the  position  tendered  him 
by  the  President  and  resigning  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  the 
new  MiHtary  Governor,  early  in  ]\Iarch  1862,  in  compaiiy 
with  Horace  Maynard  and  Emerson  Etheridge,  set  out  for 
Nashville,  Tennessee.  The  Senate  had  confirmed  his  ap- 
pointment under  a  commission  with  ample  powers  to  crush 
rebellion  and  restore  Tennessee  to  the  Union.  In  fact,  it 
might  be  said  that  Andy  Johnson  had  become  the  executive, 
legislative  and  judicial  functionary  of  the  State  of  Tennessee. 
Among  other  duties  he  levied  taxes,  took  control  of  railroads, 
built  a  seventy-five  mile  railroad  from  Nashville  to  the  Ten- 
nessee river,  thereby  connecting  the  capital  with  the  gun- 
boats, issued  military  proclamations,  put  violent  Secessionists 
in  jail,  without  court  or  jury,  ordered  elections,  declared  the 
civil  law  enforced,  here  and  there,  and  appointed  sundry  offi- 
cers.^ Besides  this  he  had  free  hand  to  draw  on  the  United 
States'  Treasury  for  funds  as  they  were  needed.  ]\Ir.  Lincoln, 
implicitly  trusting  liis  Brigadier-General,  asked  no  questions 
except  that  he  hold  Tennessee  in  the  Union.  Missouri  was  a 
safe  and  loyal  state,  and  so  were  Kentucky  and  INIaryland  and 
West  Virginia.  Tennessee,  however,  the  most  unruly,  the 
most  warlike  of  the  Border  States,  needed  attention.  Could 
Andrew  Johnson  ride  the  fiery  steed,? 

Now,  long  before  the  fall  of  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson  it 
was  felt  in  Tennessee  that  the  indomitable  Johnson,  with  a 
Union  army,  was  going  to  swoop  down  and  capture  Nashville. 
In  September  1861  General  Beauregard  wrote  Jefferson  Davis 
that  "Andrew  Johnson  has  secured  10,000  muskets  for  East 
Tennesseans."  The  papers  in  Tennessee  were  filled  with 
threats  and  accounts  of  what  would  happen  to  Johnson  on  his 
arrival.*'  Assistant  Secretary  of  War  Scott  wrote  Stanton  that 
Johnson  would  certainly  be  killed  if  he  went  to  Tennessee  as 

4  Blaine,  Twenty  Years,  Vol.  II,  p.  7. 

5  This  road  was  built  with  the  approval  of  Stanton,  who  was  now  Lincoln's 
War  Secretary;  in  the  charges  against  Johnson,  during  the  impeachment 
investigation,  the  building  of  this  road  was  included.  In  June  1864  John- 
son wrote  Lincoln  introducing  Michael  Burns,  president  of  this  railroad. 
August  3,  1864,  Lincoln  wrote  on  the  back:  "Hon.  Sec.  of  War,  please  see  and 
hear  bearer,  Mr.  Burns." — Letter  in  Mrs.  W.  W.  Dismukes'  possession. 

6  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  Vol.  I,  p.  43;  Johnson  M8S.  JS'os.  51  and  1023; 
C,  R.  Hall,  MiHtary  Governor  of  Tennessee,  p.  39. 


^24.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Military  Governor/  The  Tennessee  papers  were  "delighted  at 
the  indignities  offered  to  Governor  Johnson"  the  year  before 
and  they  were  glad  that  "some  elderly  men  at  Bedford  county, 
Virginia,  prevented  a  mob  from  hanging  him  and  left  it  to 
Tennessee  to  deal  with  him."  .  .  .  "Tennessee  would  do  the 
proper  thing  by  Andrew  Johnson."  ^  On  September  30,  1861, 
the  Memphis  Avalanche  contained  a  peculiar  item:  "Yesterday 
a  procession  of  several  hundred  stout  negro  men,"  it  boasted, 
"marched  through  the  streets  of  Memphis,  in  military  order, 
under  the  command  of  Confederate  officers.  A  merrier  set 
never  was  seen,  shouting  for  Jeff  Davis  and  singing  war  songs. 
They  were  going  to  dig  trenches  to  inter  carcasses  of  Aboli- 
tionists and  other  Paul  Prys,  no  doubt." 

Arriving  in  Nashville,  about  March  12,  the  new  Military 
Governor  took  possession  of  the  deserted  State  House,  over 
which,  some  years  ago,  he  had  presided  as  civil  Governor.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  first  experiment  in  State  Reconstruction  had  begun. 
Tennessee  had  been  a  wayward  sister,  Lincoln  concluded,  but 
she  had  not  got  out  of  the  Union.  From  June  8,  1861,  to 
February  1862  certain  misguided  individuals  had  "thrown  the 
State  out  of  proper  relations  to  the  Union,"  but  this  was  the 
action  of  individuals  and  not  of  the  government.^  The  State 
of  Tennessee,  being  an  entity,  had  no  power  to  get  out  of  the 
Union.  The  night  of  his  arrival  Andrew  Johnson  addressed 
the  people  of  Nashville  in  a  conciliatory  speech.  On  the  eight- 
eenth of  the  month  he  issued  an  "Address  to  the  People  of  Ten- 
nessee," thousands  of  copies  of  which  were  printed  and  cir- 
culated. In  words  wise  and  temperate  he  invited  the  sons  of  the 
state  to  come  back  into  the  Union,  promising  amnesty  and 
pardon  to  all  except  "conscious  leaders  in  treason,"  and  adduc- 
ing weighty  reasons  why  they  should  do  so.^°  Quite  a  number 
of  prominent  men  accepted  the  invitation.  Governor  Johnson 
was  delighted  to  shake  the  hand  of  ex-Governor  Campbell,  ex- 
Governor  Neill  S.  Brown,  W.  H.  Polk,  brother  of  President 
Polk,  and  Bailie  Peyton.    Governor  Brown  had  several  sons  in 

7  Stanton  MS.,  March  4,  1862;  Memphis  Avalanche,  April  25,  1861. 

8  Johnson  MS.  at  Grconevillp. 

oj.  VV.  Burposs.  J'rvonNlniclion,  ]».  8. 
10  Sec  Appendix  "A"  for  this  address. 


INIILITARY  GOVERNOR  225 

the  Confederate  army  and  the  local  papers  announced  that 
his  youngest  son  "was  going  to  disinherit  his  father  for  going 
into  the  Lincoln  government."  But  most  of  the  leaders  refused 
to  return  to  their  allegiance,  and,  as  for  the  Confederate  gov- 
ernment, "it  was  but  beginning  to  fight."  The  press  and  the 
clergy  were  specially  rebellious  and  so  were  all  civil  officers 
of  the  Confederacy.  It  was  important  that  the  city  govern- 
ment of  Nashville  should  be  loyal  to  the  Union.  The  Gov- 
ernor therefore  required  the  council  to  come  forward  and  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance.^^  This  they  refused  to  do  and  the  Gov- 
ernor dismissed  them,  putting  loyal  men  in  their  place.  Six 
ministers  likewise  refused  to  take  the  oath.  The  Governor 
ordered  the  last  mother's  son  of  them  to  jail.  A  Judge  with 
secession  proclivities  was  elected;  Johnson  gave  him  his  cer- 
tificate and  then  put  him  in  jail,  also.  Other  Confederates, 
refusing  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  were  expatriated,  to 
be  treated  as  spies  if  they  returned.  The  Nashville  Times,  a 
belligerent  Confederate  paper,  was  suspended  under  the  Gov- 
ernor's restrictions.^^ 

There  was  much  destitution  among  the  wives  and  children  of 
Confederate  soldiers.  To  support  these  dependent  ones  Gov- 
ernor Johnson  levied  large  assessments  on  wealthy  Secession- 
ists. The  sums  thus  collected,  running  into  the  thousands,  he 
distributed  among  the  poor  and  needy  and  destitute.  The 
lowest  office  and  the  highest  he  filled  with  Union  men.  As  far 
as  he  could,  he  discharged  the  disloyal.  With  a  heavy  hand 
he  came  doAMi  upon  "conscious  traitors,"  but  to  the  humble 
man  and  to  the  ignorant  he  was  tender  and  merciful.  Incidents 
of  a  humorous  character  as  well  as  the  pathetic  demanded  his 
attention.  One  day  a  woman  of  immense  size,  wife  of  one  of 
the  wealthiest  and  most  prominent  Secessionists  in  Tennessee, 
came  in  to  ask  a  pass  that  she  might  visit  her  husband  in  a 
northern  prison.  Turning  to  his  secretary,  the  Governor  said, 
"Make  out  a  pass  for  this  woman  to  leave  Nashville  over 
the  Granny  White  Pike." 

"And  return,"  added  the  giantess. 

11  J.  W.  Fertig,  p.  38. 

12  New  York  Times,  March  26,  1862. 


226  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

"We  don't  want  you  to  return,"  said  the  Governor. 

The  lady  was  furious,  exclaiming,  "Andrew  Johnson — do — 
you — know — what — I — ought — to — do?  I  ought  to  take  you 
across  my  knee  and  give  you  the  biggest  spanking  you  ever 
had  in  your  life." 

"Madam,"  the  Governor  replied,  "it  would  take  the  whole 
Union  army  to  spank  you." 

After  she  had  received  her  pass  to  go  and  return,  Johnson 
said  to  his  Secretary :  "If  her  husband  had  any  sense  of  grati- 
tude, he'd  send  me  a  letter  of  thanks  for  sending  him  to  a 
northern  prison." 

On  another  occasion  a  famous  beauty  of  the  region,  a  rich 
widow,  named  Mrs.  Carter,  of  Franklin,  called  to  see  the  Gov- 
ernor. Mrs.  Carter  was  constantly  asking  for  a  pass  between 
Franklin  and  Nashville.  Now  if  there  was  one  thing  more 
irresistible  with  the  Governor  than  another  it  was  a  pretty 
woman.  One  day  she  came  in  and  said  she  wished  a  permit  to 
carry  home  six  barrels  of  salt — salt  being  a  very  scarce  article 
in  the  South.     The  request  was  granted. 

"Give  Mrs.  Carter  the  permit  for  six  barrels  of  salt,"  said 
the  Governor,  to  his  Secretary,  "they  won't  be  of  much  service 
to  the  Confederacy.    Besides,  Mrs.  Carter  is  a  lovely  woman." 

About  a  month  afterward  the  lady  came  back  for  twelve 
more  barrels  of  salt,  explaining  that  she  owned  nearly  a  hun- 
dred slaves  and  was  salting  down  pork  and  beef.  The  Gov- 
ernor was  again  consulted.  "Mrs.  Carter  is  a  lovely  woman," 
said  he,  "but  she  can  have  a  permit  for  only  six  barrels.  .  .  . 
You  might  tell  her  gently  that  she  won't  have  to  feed  her  slaves 
much  longer."  When  the  Governor's  message  was  delivered, 
Mrs.  Carter,  in  her  coyest  manner,  wished  to  know  if  two 
permits  might  not  be  made  out,  each  for  six  barrels.  Mrs. 
Carter  being  a  lovely  woman.  Governor  Johnson  ordered  that 
the  two  permits  be  made  out. 

In  April  186S  General  E.  Kirby  Smith  issued  an  order  that 
Mrs.  Andrew  Johnson,  Mrs.  Horace  Maynard,  Mrs.  W.  G. 
Brownlow  and  Mrs.  Colonel  Carter,  and  their  families,  leave 
their  homes.  Nothing  better  shows  the  liorror  of  the  brothers' 
war   than   this   order  of   so  gallant   and  humane   an  officer. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  227 

"Madam" — the  order  served  on  the  Johnson  family  reads — 
"by  Major  E.  Kir  by  Smith  I  am  directed  to  respectfully  re- 
quire that  you  and  your  family  pass  beyond  the  lines  of  the 
Confederate  army,  through  Nashville  if  you  please,  in  thirty- 
six  hours.  Passports  will  be  granted  you  at  this  office."  Mean- 
while Governor  Harris  from  his  camp  in  Memphis  was  firing 
the  southern  heart.  In  a  stirring  call  to  his  people,  he  ex- 
claimed, "Tennesseans,  follow  me!  Shall  the  black  banner 
of  subjugation  wave  in  triumph  over  your  altars  and  your 
homes.?  By  the  memory  of  your  glorious  dead,  by  the  sacred 
names  of  your  wives  and  children,  by  our  own  faith  and  man- 
hood, No."  " 

But  Johnson,  the  Union  Governor,  met  words  with  words, 
blows  with  blows.  When  guerrilla  bands,  under  Forrest  and 
Morgan,  swarmed  through  the  State,  "arresting  Unionists  and 
maltreating  and  plundering  them,"  he  issued  a  proclamation  of 
retaliation — "In  every  instance  in  which  a  Union  man  is  ar- 
rested and  maltreated  by  marauding  bands,"  the  Governor 
proclaimed,  "five  or  more  rebels,  from  the  most  prominent  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood,  shall  be  arrested,  imprisoned  and 
otherwise  dealt  with  as  the  nature  of  the  case  may  require.  .  .  . 
This  order  will  be  executed  in  letter  and  spirit  and  all  citizens 
are  hereby  warned,  under  heavy  penalties,  from  entertaining, 
receiving  or  encouraging  such  persons  so  banded  together,  or 
in  anywise  connected  therewith." 

When  Morgan's  men  entered  the  town  of  Pulaski  and  dam- 
aged and  seized  property  of  Unionists,  Johnson  levied  a  fine 
on  the  place  to  compensate  for  such  damages.  "It  is  well 
known,"  Johnson  announced,  "that  such  bands  only  go  and 
remain  in  places  where  they  have  sympathizers."  ^*  When  he 
put  the  "assumed  ministers  of  Christ"  in  jail  because  they 
"were  corrupting  the  female  mind"  with  treason;  poisoning 
and  "changing  them  into  fanatics,"  he  ordered  that  "no  vis- 
itors be  admitted  to  comfort  and  lionize  them,  and  that  no 
special  favors  be  granted  them."  ^^ 

Sometimes  the  Governor  tried  to  work  a  bluff  on  the  Con- 

13  Johnson  MS. 

14  Ibid.,  No.  4525. 

15  Ibid.,  No.  5281. 


228  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

federates,  and  frighten  them  back  into  the  Union  by  threats 
of  confiscating  their  lands/®  "Who  has  not  heard  of  the  great 
estates  of  Mack  Cockrill,  situated  near  this  city,"  he  exclaimed, 
one  October  night  in  1864,  to  thousands — laborers,  mechanics, 
wandering  slaves,  and  not  a  few  slave-owners — "estates,  whose 
acres  are  numbered  by  the  thousand,  whose  slaves  were  once 
counted  by  the  score?  And  of  Mack  Cockrill,  their  possessor, 
the  great  slave-owner  and,  of  course,  the  leading  rebel,  who 
lives  in  the  very  wantonness  of  wealth,  wrung  from  the  sweat 
and  toil  and  stolen  wages  of  others,  and  who  gave  fabu- 
lous sums  to  aid  Jeff  Davis  in  overturning  this  Govern- 
ment? .  .  . 

"Who  has  not  heard  of  the  princely  estates  of  General  W.  D. 
Harding,"  he  proceeded,  amidst  shouts  of  approval,  "who,  by 
means  of  his  property  alone,  outweighed  in  influence  any  other 
man  in  Tennessee,  no  matter  what  were  that  other's  worth,  or 
wisdom,  or  ability.  Harding,  too,  early  espoused  the  cause  of 
treason  and  made  it  his  boast  that  he  had  contributed,  and  di- 
rectly induced  others  to  contribute,  millions  of  dollars  in  aid 
of  that  unholy  cause.  ...  It  is  wrong  that  Mack  Cockrill  and 
W.  D.  Harding,  by  means  of  forced  and  unpaid  labor,  should 
have  monopolized  so  large  a  share  of  the  lands  and  wealth  of 
Tennessee ;  and  I  say  if  their  immense  plantations  were  divided 
up  and  parceled  out  amongst  a  number  of  free,  industrious, 
and  honest  farmers,  it  would  give  more  good  citizens  to  the 
Commonwealth,  increase  the  wages  of  our  mechanics,  enrich  the 
markets  of  opr  city,  enliven  all  the  arteries  of  trade,  improve 
society,  and  conduce  to  the  greatness  and  glory  of  the  State. 

"The  representatives  of  this  corrupt,  and  if  you  will  permit 
me  almost  to  swear  a  little,  this  damnable  aristocracy,  taunt  us 
with  our  desire  to  see  justice  done,  and  charge  us  with  favoring 
negro  equality.  Of  all  living  men  they  should  be  the  last  to 
mouth  that  phrase;  and,  even  when  uttered  in  tlieir  hear- 
ing, it  should  cause  their  cheeks  to  tinge  and  burn  with  shame. 
Negro  equality,  indeed!  Why,  pass  any  day  along  the  side- 
walks of  High  Street  where  these  aristocrats  more  particularly 
dwell, — these  aristocrats,  whose  sons  are  now  in  the  bands  of 

18  Moore,  Life,  p.  XXXVIII. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  229 

guerillas  and  cut-throats  who  prowl  and  rob  and  murder 
around  our  city, — pass  by  their  dwellings,  I  say,  and  you  will 
see  as  many  mulatto  as  negro  children,  the  former  bearing  an 
unmistakable  resemblance  to  their  aristocratic  owners."  .  .  . 
"Thank  God,"  he  exclaimed,  "the  war  has  ended  all  this  .  .  . 
a  war  that  has  freed  more  whites  than  blacks.  .  .  .  Suppose 
the  negro  is  set  free  and  we  have  less  cotton,  we  will  raise  more 
wool,  hemp,  flax  and  silk.  ...  It  is  all  an  idea  that  the  world 
can't  get  along  without  cotton.  And,  as  is  suggested  by  my 
friend  behind  me,  whether  we  attain  perfection  in  the  raising 
of  cotton  or  not,  I  think  we  ought  to  stimulate  the  cultivation 
of  hemp  (great  and  renewed  laughter)  ;  for  we  ought  to  have 
more  of  it  and  a  far  better  material,  a  stronger  fiber,  with 
which  to  make  a  stronger  rope.  For,  not  to  be  malicious  or 
malignant,  I  am  free  to  say  that  I  believe  many  who  were 
driven  into  this  Rebellion,  are  repentant ;  but  I  say  of  the  lead- 
ers, the  instigators,  the  conscious,  intelligent  traitors,  they 
ought  to  be  hung."     (Cheers  and  applause.) 

On  the  stump  and  in  the  field  Andrew  Johnson  went  forward 
in  his  fight  to  crush  the  rebellion  and  restore  the  Union.  Not 
many  miles  from  Nashville  the  Confederate  army  was  still 
quartered,  Morgan  and  Forrest,  the  most  dreaded  of  Con- 
federate raiders,  were  dashing  here  and  there.  Often  they 
rode  within  a  few  miles  of  the  gates  of  Nashville.  Fighting 
between  the  Union  forces,  in  and  around  Nashville,  and  the 
Confederates  was  of  frequent  occurrence.  The  citizens  of 
Nashville  expected,  at  any  moment,  Johnson  would  be  captured 
and  executed.  While  he  was  penned  in  Nashville,  what  a  scene 
was  enacted  throughout  Tennessee!  The  battles  of  Donelson 
and  of  Shiloh  were  fought  and  Albert  Sidney  Johnston  killed. 
Chickamauga,  perhaps  the  bloodiest  twenty-four  hours  of  the 
war,  was  also  fought.  Widow  Hunt's  mill-pond,  at  the  foot  of 
Snodgrass  Hill,  ran  red  with  the  blood  of  American  heroes. 
Battles  around  Chattanooga,  the  "Battle  above  the  Clouds," 
and  "Murfreesboro"  and  "Nashville" — all  marked  the  valor 
of  the  American  soldier.  Tennessee  had  become  the  cockpit  of 
America.  On  her  devoted  soil  seven  hundred  engagements  are 
said  to  have  taken  place,  of  which  one  hundred  might  be  desig- 


230  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

nated  as  battles.  Over  at  Greeneville,  Andy  Johnson's  home, 
a  secession  paper,  called  the  Tri-Weekly  Banner,  was  preach- 
ing a  strange  doctrine.  On  July  11,  1862,  it  made  the  follow- 
ing announcement: 

"From  Cumberland  Gap  we  learn,  from  a  gentleman  who 
arrived  here  a  day  or  so  ago,  from  this  important  position,  that 
the  Yankee  army  had  all  skedaddled  from  there  and  gone  to 
parts  unknown."  The  Daily  Register  from  the  neighboring 
town  of  Knoxville,  on  July  29,  1862,  announced  that  Andy 
Johnson  and  his  General  Dumont  "both  slept  upon  the  cars 
in  anticipation  of  Stearnes'  arrival  at  Nashville  in  order  to  take 
an  early  start  for  safer  quarters,  near  'Abraham's  bosom.'  " 
This  paper  likewise  stated  that  one  or  two  of  the  officers  "have 
already  laid  claim  to  Andy's  scalp,  when  the  army  reaches 
Nashville." 

The  women  of  Nashville,  as  with  all  women  in  times  of 
war,  were  braver  than  the  men.  They  would  not  yield  an 
inch.  By  them  the  fighting  spirit  was  kept  at  white  heat.  But 
for  the  women,  whom  a  Union  General  called  the  "pouters," 
there  would  have  been  little  trouble;  "the  men  would  have 
grounded  arms  and  come  back  into  the  Union."  ^^ 

Soon  after  Johnson's  arrival  in  Nashville  "Fighting  Par- 
son" Brownlow  came  down  from  the  North,  whither  he  had 
fled  the  fall  before.  While  in  the  North  he  had  written  and 
published  a  book  called  Parson  Brownlow's  Booh,  giving  a 
graphic  account  of  the  fight  to  save  the  Union  in  Tennessee. 
He  and  Governor  Johnson  had  not  spoken  to  each  other  in 
twenty-five  years ;  they  had  been  as  bitter  and  uncompromising 
as  Whig  and  Democrat  ever  got  to  be.  Arriving  at  Nashville, 
the  Parson  hastened  to  the  capitol.  He  wished  to  see  his 
ancient  enemy.  They  were  fellow  sufferers  now.  Hunted,  per- 
secuted, fleeing  for  their  lives,  a  price  set  on  their  heads,  their 
families  turned  out  in  the  streets,  they  now  had  a  common  tie. 
Meeting  in  the  Governor's  office,  they  spoke  not  a  word,  but  fell 
into  each  other's  arms  and  wept  like  disconsolate  women.^® 

In  October  1862  the  Governor's  family  also  arrived  at  Nash- 

iTReid,  Afte^  the  IFar,  p.  46. 

18  Temple.    Chapter  on  "VV.  G.  Brownlow." 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  231 

ville.  Suffering,  exposure  and  anxiety  had  told  on  the  noble 
mother  of  the  family.  She  was  now  in  the  first  stages  of  con- 
sumption and  so,  likewise,  was  little  eight-year-old  Andy,  called 
Frank.  Colonel  Dan  Stover  in  a  few  months  was  to  die  of  the 
same  disease.  But  now  the  family  Avere  together  in  Nashville 
again.  Their  son,  Charles,  and  their  other  son,  Robert,  would 
run  in  and  out  from  their  duties  in  the  camp  and  visit  father 
and  mother  in  the  Capitol.  The  thread  of  family  life  was 
taken  up  again.  The  boj^s  were  now  a  comfort  to  their  parents. 
Colonel  Robert  Johnson,  in  fact,  was  a  much  loved  officer  of 
the  First  Tennessee  Cavalry.  He  was  perhaps  the  first  man  to 
lead  a  Tennessee  Regiment  over  the  Kentucky  line  and  into  his 
home  state.^^  As  the  First  Tennessee  Cavalry  crossed  over 
from  Kentucky  into  their  native  state  the  boys  broke  into 
tremendous  cheering.  "Colonel  Robert  Johnson  mounted  a 
stump  and  made  a  short,  characteristic  and  eloquent  speech. 
The  boys  sang  a  medley,  the  chorus  being : 

"  'Somebody  is  after  Van — y 
Somebody  is  there  I  know 
It  surely  is  old  Sigel 
For  I  hear  his  cannon  roar.'  "  ^^ 

The  eyes  of  the  nation  were  now  on  Tennessee,  on  Nashville, 
and  on  Andrew  Johnson.  The  New  York  Herald  sent  a  special 
correspondent.  Arriving  at  Nashville  in  April  1862,  he  im- 
mured himself  within  the  walls  and  for  six  months  kept  a 
diary  of  what  took  place.  The  importance  of  holding  East 
Tennessee  had  become  more  and  more  apparent.  To  the 
Confederates  the  capture  of  this  strategic  position  meant  that 
troops  and  provisions  from  the  South,  going  to  the  battlefields 
of  Virginia,  must  pass  a  circuitous  route  through  Augusta, 
Georgia,  and  the  Carolinas,  instead  of  moving  directly  through 
Knoxville  and  Bristol. 

Following  his  old  tactics,  Governor  Johnson  determined  to 
take  the  question  of  the  Union  to  the  people  of  Tennessee — 
to  stump  the  State  for  the  Union.  But,  as  he  went  from  place 
to  place,  guerilla  bands  lay  in  wait  for  him.     At  one  point 

19  Union,  January  29,  1863. 

20  Johnson  MS.,  Greeneville. 


232  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

seven  Unionists  were  killed  by  the  guerillas.  At  another,  four 
were  slain.  The  railroad  track  was  torn  up  and  the  train  on 
which  Johnson  was  traveling  narrowly  escaped  destruction. 
Minnesota  and  Michigan  regiments  escorted  him  to  the  trains, 
acting  as  a  bodyguard.  When  the  Sixty-ninth  Ohio  regiment, 
under  Colonel  Campbell,  arrived  in  Nashville,  Governor  John- 
son delivered  a  patriotic  address.  Leading  Tennesseans  par- 
ticipated in  the  reception.  W.  B.  Stokes,  Bailie  Peyton  and 
others  sat  upon  the  platform.  At  Murfreesboro,  Columbia, 
Shelbyville  and  Nashville  "the  great  old  commoner"  rose  to 
heights  of  popular  oratory.  "While  he  was  depicting  the 
sufferings  and  agony  of  the  loyal  people  of  his  State,"  as  the 
Herald  reporter  wrote,  "strong  men  shook  with  emotion  and 
cried  as  distressed  children."  "What  confidence  should  Ten- 
nesseans have  in  Jeff  Davis?"  Johnson  exclaimed.  "In  secret 
session,  the  people  of  Tennessee  were  lashed  to  the  car  of  his 
hybrid  despotic  government.  .  .  .  Tennesseans  are  now  in  the 
dungeons  of  Alabama,  bound  in  irons  and  fed  on  rotten  meat 
and  diseased  bones.  .  .  .  No  sound  comes  to  cheer  them;  no 
sound  to  relieve  them  of  their  sad  and  weary  confinement,  save 
the  clanking  of  the  chains  that  confine  them.  .  .  .  What  sin, 
what  crime,  what  felony,  have  they  committed  ?  None !  None ! 
In  the  name  of  God,  none,  except  they  love  the  flag  of  their 
country  (great  applause).  .  .  .  What  do  the  Secessionists 
propose  to  do.^  They  are  ready  for  a  return  to  a  monarchy 
and  the  establishment  of  an  aristocracy  that  should  control  the 
masses.  .  .  .  Are  you  willing,"  he  asked,  "to  quail  before 
treason  and  traitors  and  surrender  the  best  Government  the 
world  ever  saw.^^"  (Cries  of  "Never,  never.")  "If  the  Union 
goes  down,"  he  continued,  "we  go  down  with  it.  There  is  no 
other  fate  for  us.  Our  salvation  is  the  Union  and  nothing  but 
the  Union.  The  only  inquiry  must  be.  Are  you  for  the  Union 
and  willing  to  swear  that  the  last  drop  of  your  blood  should 
be  poured  out  in  its  defense?"  (Applause  long  continued.) 
.  .  .  "The  Confederates  went  to  my  home  while  my  wife  was 
sick,  my  child,  eight  years  old,  consumed  with  consumption. 
They  turned  her  and  the  child  into  the  streets,  converted  my 
house,  built  with  my  hands,  into  a  hospital  and  barracks. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  233 

My  servants  they  confiscated.  It  was  with  much  suffering  my 
wife  and  httle  boy  were  able  to  reach  the  house  of  a  relative, 
many  miles  distant.  Call  you  this  Southern  rights?  If  so, 
God  preserve  me  from  another  such  infliction."  The  audience 
was  silent  as  a  tomb,  as  the  Governor  related  this  portion  of 
his  personal  experience,  and  the  sensation  was  profound. 

On  his  visit  to  the  camps  he  addressed  the  soldiers  and  de- 
clared, "Never  shall  we  surrender  the  cause  we  are  fighting  for. 
...  If  it  were  my  destiny,"  he  exclaimed,  "to  die  in  the  cause 
of  liberty  I  would  die  upon  the  tomb  of  the  Union,  the  Amer- 
ican flag  as  my  winding  sheet."  "^  .  .  .  "This  is  the  people's 
Government,  they  received  it  as  a  legacy  from  Heaven,  and 
they  must  defend  and  preserve  it,  if  it  is  to  be  preserved  at  all. 
I  am  for  this  Government  above  all  earthly  possessions  and  if 
it  perish  I  do  not  want  to  survive  it.  I  am  for  it  though  slav- 
ery should  be  struck  from  existence — I  say,  in  the  face  of 
Heaven,  Give  me  my  Government  and  let  the  negro  go !"  ^^ 

In  January  1863  a  great  sorrow  came  to  the  Johnson  fam- 
ily, when  their  son  Charles  was  thrown  from  a  horse  and  killed. 
Despite  his  dissipated  ways  Dr.  Charles  Johnson  was  the 
favorite  son.  His  mother  never  fully  recovered  from  the  shock 
of  his  death;  the  affection  between  her  and  her  son  Charles 
was  almost  supreme.  Some  time  previous  to  this  sad  event, 
General  Grant,  the  hero  of  Donelson,  called  on  General  John- 
son and  was  given  a  right  royal  reception.  Johnson  impressed 
Grant  as  "a  short  stocky  man  with  smooth  face,  swarthy  com- 
plexion and  an  air  of  obstinate  determination."  ^^ 

Carl  Schurz  also  called  and  a  contrast  it  was  when  the  two 
men  met — Johnson,  a  Cromwell,  fearless,  inflexible,  a  man  of 
destiny;  Schurz,  "a  citizen  of  nowhere  and  of  everywhere," 
"playing  the  piano  and  singing,  'I  love  thee,  oh,  I  love  thee !'  " 
Or,  as  he  described  himself,  "sitting  on  the  fence  with  clean 
boots  watching  for  a  nice  place  to  jump."  ^*    Though  Johnson 

21  This  speech  was  received  with  vociferous  applause  and  at  its  conclusion 
the  soldiery  and  citizens  joined  in  singing  "Hallelujah,"  with  a  grand  chorus 
and  thrilling  effect.' — Glenn's  Diary. 

22  I  am  indebted  to  Savage's  Life,  of  Johnson  for  much  of  this  chapter. 

23  Schouler,  .Vol.  VI,  p.  448. 

24  Taylor-Trotivood  Magazine,  September  1908;  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz, 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  329. 


234.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

was  quite  sober,  at  the  time  of  the  call,  he  was  "so  dignified  and 
so  well  groomed,"  Schurz,  as  he  afterward  recorded,  "concluded 
he  had  been  on  a  spree,"  and  "had  gotten  himself  up  for  the 
occasion."  At  this  time  the  reporter  of  the  New  York  Herald 
was  writing  that  Johnson  was  "a  model  of  abstemiousness," 
"was  working  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  a  day,"  was  literally 
"sleeping  on  a  bed  of  revolvers  and  bayonets,"  and  "had  raised 
twenty-five  regiments  of  Union  troops."  .  .  .  "He  is  drinking 
about  as  much  stimulant  as  a  clergyman  at  a  sacrament."  -^ 
In  fact,  Andrew  Johnson  was  never  more  in  earnest  than  when 
Nashville  was  besieged.  He  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would 
not  be  taken  alive,  that  before  he  would  suffer  Nashville  to  be 
surrendered  he  would  burn  every  house  in  the  town.  So 
courageous  and  efficient  was  he  his  critics  complained  of  his 
influence  with  the  President.  They  declared  that  Johnson's 
"sturdy  patriotism  and  brutal  energy  gave  him  influence  with 
President  Lincoln."  ^^ 

As  to  whether,  from  a  military  point  of  view.  East  Tennessee, 
after  the  death  of  Zollicoffer,  could  have  been  held  by  the 
Union  army,  experts  differ.  At  all  events,  Andrew  Johnson's 
unalterable  conviction  was  that  East  Tennessee  could  be  held. 
His  energetic  letters  to  Washington  so  impressed  the  War 
Department  that  Lincoln,  Stanton,  and  the  North  generally 
were  eager  for  the  movement  on  Knoxville.  Undoubtedly  the 
loyal  mountaineers  of  twenty-five  East  Tennessee  counties 
would  have  opened  their  cribs  and  smoke  houses  to  a  Union 
army.  There  seems  no  reason  why  "the  richest  grain  field  in 
the  South  except  the  valley  of  Virginia  should  not  have  fur- 
nished wheat  and  corn,  hay,  beef  and  bacon,  as  well  as  horses 
and  mules  for  a  Union  army,  as  it  did  for  the  Confederate 
army."  .  .  .  "From  June  1861  to  September  1863  more  than 
ten  thousand  Confederates,  located  in  Tennessee,  were  sup- 
plied from  this  region  and  there  were  large  shipments  of  pro- 
vision and  forage  to  armies  in  other  sections."  ^"  As  time 
passed,  and  the  Confederates  fortified  the  mountains  and  Buell 

25  Savage,  p.  278. 

2cRhodis,  Vol.  IV,  p.  183. 

27  East  Tennessee  and  the  Civil  War,  p.  454. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  235 

remained  inactive,  Johnson's  indignation  exceeded  bounds. 
Buell  was  a  traitor,  he  declared,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  must  remove 
him.  On  March  29,  1862,  Johnson  wrote  from  Nashville  to 
Stanton,  Secretary  of  War : 

"Sir, — This  place  as  I  conceive  has  been  left  almost  defenseless 
by  General  Buell.  There  are  a  few  regiments  left  in  detached 
positions  without  a  single  piece  of  artillery.  There  are  one  or 
two  regiments  at  Camp  Chase,  Ohio,  and  one  at  Lexington,  Ken- 
tucky, that  might  be  forwarded  to  this  point.  In  addition  to  these 
forces  here,  there  should  be  one  brigade  complete.  In  this  opinion 
Brigadier-General  Dumont,  left  in  command,  fully  concurs." 

A.  Johnson,  Military  Governor. 

At  length  Governor  Morton  of  Indiana  likewise  charged 
that  Buell  was  a  traitor  and  many  other  prominent  men,  in- 
cluding Tod,  Governor  of  Ohio,  and  Yeates,  Governor  of 
Illinois.  The  soldiers  under  Buell  joined  in  the  charge.  Gen- 
eral Buell  was  therefore  removed  by  the  President.^^  But  so 
difficult  was  the  task  of  taking  Knoxville  and  so  slow  were  the 
Union  armies  in  reaching  Tennessee  it  was  not  till  the  fall  of 
1864j  Rosecrans  entered  that  city.  The  scenes  of  joy  as  Gen- 
eral Rosecrans  entered  Knoxville  exceed  belief.  By  the  tens 
of  thousands  people  gathered  from  mountain  and  cove — 
fathers,  mothers,  brothers,  sisters,  torn  from  each  other  for 
three  long  weary  years,  were  now  re-united.  "Glory  to  God, 
Glory  to  God,"  was  on  every  lip.  Rosecrans  was  not  a  con- 
queror, but  a  deliverer.  "The  officer  in  charge  reported  that 
he  had  often  heard  of  tears  of  joy  but  never  before  had  wit- 
nessed such  a  sight."  .  .  .  "Colonel  Littrell,  Mayor  of  the 
city,  brought  forth  the  Old  Flag.  As  it  was  unfurled  the 
crowds  yelled  with  a  perfect  fury  of  delight."  "^ 

On  three  occasions  it  was  determined  by  the  military 
authorities  of  Nashville  that  the  city  would  eventually  have 
to  be  evacuated.  Tennessee  could  not  be  held  by  the  Union 
forces  at  the  expense  of  larger  movements.  In  1862  when  Gen- 
eral Bragg  invaded  Kentucky  every  Union  troop  was  required 
to  halt  that  invasion  and  Nashville  was  left  open  to  attack.    At 

28  Buell  was  generally  endorsed  by  the  army  officers. — Force,  Sherman,  p. 
193;  Rhodes,  Vol.  IV,  p.  174. 

29  East  Tennessee  and  the  Civil  War,  p.  479. 


236  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

another  time  it  was  likewise  exposed,  Morgan,  like  a  whirl- 
wind, swept  through  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  and  Union  troops 
left  Tennessee  in  pursuit.  From  September  15  to  November 
14),  1862,  Nashville  was  in  a  state  of  complete  siege — cut  off 
from  the  outside  world.  It  was  then  Andrew  Johnson  grew  to 
a  hero's  stature.  The  capitol  building  at  Nashville,  then 
called  Fort  Johnson,  was  fortified,  and  in  the  cupola  the  Gov- 
ernor and  his  staif  often  slept  without  removing  their  clothing. 
"By  his  wise  and  energetic  measures,"  said  the  correspondent, 
"Johnson  inspired  every  one  with  confidence  and  courage." 
On  November  5, 1862,  a  concerted  attack  on  the  city  was  made, 
Morgan  and  Forrest  in  command.  It  was  reported  that  50,000 
Confederate  troops  under  Breckinridge  were  near  at  hand.  As 
the  Confederates  approached  the  city  Johnson  and  his  staff 
ascended  the  cupola  of  the  capitol  and  watched  the  battle  line, 
surging  and  wavering  to  and  fro.  Presently  the  Union  troops 
gave  way  and  fell  back  towards  the  city.  All  was  despair. 
Nashville  must  capitulate  and  surrender.  But  not  so.  From 
his  place,  in  the  dome  of  the  capitol,  the  lion-hearted  Johnson 
thundered  out,  "I  am  no  military  man  but  any  one  who  talks 
of  surrender  I  will  shoot."  What  appeared  to  be  a  repulse 
proved  a  ruse  of  General  Negley,  the  Union  commander.  The 
Union  troops  rallied,  the  Confederates  were  repulsed,  and,  "for 
a  third  time  the  city  was  saved  by  the  inflexible  firmness  of 
Governor  Johnson."  ^° 

The  diary  of  Glenn,  the  imprisoned  correspondent  of  the 
Herald  is  moving  and  exciting : 

^'October  21,  1862. — Days,  weeks,  nay,  months,  roll  round, 
and  there  seems  to  be  no  change  for  the  better  in  this  important 
city.  Cut  off  from  communications  with  the  outer  world,  our 
supplies  have  become  exhausted.  We  are  deprived  of  almost 
all  articles  of  luxury  and  even  comfort,  and  are  subject  to  the 
ill-disguised  sneers  and  taunts  of  Union  haters.  Rebel  hosts 
are  reported  to  be  menacing  us.  Governor  Johnson's  wise  and 
energetic  measures,  coupled  with  the  activity  of  General  Neg- 
ley, inspire  courage  and  confidence  among  Union  men.     We 

30 1  have  made  free  use  of  the  diary  of  Mr.  Glenn,  reporter  of  the  New 
York  Herald.    From  the  cupola  tine  views  of  the  battlefields  may  be  had. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  237 

hear  that  Breckinridge  is  around  us  with  fifty  thousand  men; 
that  Anderson,  mortified  at  his  defeat  at  Lavergne,  declares 
that  he  can  and  will  capture  the  city;  and  Forrest,  incensed 
from  the  same  cause,  roughly  swears  that  he  will  have  Nash- 
ville at  all  hazards,  if  he  falls  himself  at  the  first  fire.  But 
those  who  are  in  the  confidence  of  Governor  Johnson  know 
that  the  enemy,  if  they  should  capture  the  city,  will  achieve  an 
empty  triumph,  amid  blackened  and  crumbling  ruins.  The 
coolness  and  calmness  of  the  Governor  amid  these  trying  scenes 
are  beyond  all  praise.  He  does  all  he  can  to  preserve  order; 
but,  notwithstanding  this,  midnight  assassinations  are  frequent. 
There  were  six  murders  one  night  recently.  The  other  day 
a  party,  belonging  to  an  Illinois  regiment,  broke  down  the 
door  of  a  room  in  which  were  a  Secessionist  and  his  mistress. 
The  Secessionist  shot  and  killed  two  of  the  Illinoisians,  The 
exasperation  of  their  comrades  cannot  be  portrayed.  A  rope 
was  procured,  and  the  nearest  lamp  post  would  have  witnessed 
the  unfortunate  man's  end  but  for  the  interference  of  Colonel 
Stanley  and  a  strong  detachment  of  soldiers.  Amid  the  wild- 
est excitement  he  was  taken  before  Governor  Johnson's  Provost 
Marshal,  Colonel  Gillem,  at  the  capitol,  and  secured  against 
the  results  of  mob  violence.  Although  the  act  was  calculated  to 
lessen  Governor  Johnson's  popularity  with  the  troops,  he  un- 
hesitatingly endorsed  the  conduct  of  Colonel  Gillem,  declaring 
that  there  was  a  legal  and  proper  way  to  punish  the  offender, 
and  so  long  as  he  had  the  power  he  would  see  it  enforced. 
These  facts  are  mentioned  to  show  Governor  Johnson's  sense 
of  justice  and  his  determination  to  exercise  it  under  the  most 
trying  circumstances. 

"November  4. — The  enemy  have  made  several  attempts  to 
drive  in  our  pickets,  without  material  loss  on  either  side.  A 
rebel  siege  train  has  arrived  at  the  Lunatic  Asylum,  about  three 
miles  from  the  city,  where  the  enemy  have  thrown  up  intrench- 
ments.  A  rebel  attempt  to  capture  the  city  by  a  coup  de  main 
in  the  rear  has  been  thwarted  by  the  timely  action  of  General 
Negley. 

"Great  activity  prevails  at  the  capitol.  Governor  Johnson, 
with  his  private  secretary,  Mr.  Browning ;  one  of  his  aides,  Mr. 
Lindsley;   Provost   Marshal   Gillem;   Captain   Abbott,   First 


2S8  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Tennessee  Battery ;  Assistant  Provost  Marshal  B.  C.  Truman ; 
Volunteer  Aid  Mr.  Glenn,  together  with  the  officers  of  the 
Governor's  bodyguard,  the  First  Tennessee  infantry,  under 
command  of  Colonel  Gillem,  are  on  duty  night  and  day  at  the 
Governor's  room,  ready  for  any  ser\ace  that  the  Governor  may 
require.  .  .  .  All  hands  are  engaged  in  cleaning  firearms, 
sharpening  cutlasses,  etc.  Four  Rodman  guns  have  been 
placed  in  position  to  defend  the  capitol,  which  is  also  pro- 
tected by  lines  of  earthworks  and  breastworks  of  cotton  bales. 
The  capitol  will  be  defended  to  the  last  extremity.  The  cool 
and  determined  demeanor  of  Governor  Johnson  is  the  ad- 
miration of  all. 

"November  5. — The  enemy  made  two  attacks  on  Nashville 
to-day.  One  attack  was  made  by  Morgan,  on  the  Edgefield 
side  of  the  river,  with  a  view  probably  of  destroying  the  new 
railroad  bridge.  Morgan  was  repulsed  with  considerable  loss. 
About  the  same  time  the  enemy  under  Forrest  approached  the 
city  by  four  routes,  viz. :  the  Franklin,  Murfreesboro,  Lebanon 
and  Nolansville  pikes.  They  were  in  great  strength,  and  seemed 
bent  on  capturing  the  city.  General  Negley  and  Governor 
Johnson  determined  they  should  not.  Fort  Negley  prepared 
to  welcome  them,  with  the  Tenth  Illinois  as  a  garrison.  Forts 
Browning  and  Lindsley  and  the  two  enfilading  works,  known 
as  Forts  Truman  and  Glenn,  were  garrisoned  by  the  gallant 
Nineteenth  Illinois  and  detachments  of  other  regiments.  Fort 
Andrew  Johnson  (the  capitol)  was  garrisoned  by  the  First 
Tennessee,  Colonel  Gillem,  with  a  reserve  of  artillery  under 
command  of  Captain  Abbott,  of  the  First  Tennessee  battery. 
Governor  Johnson  and  staff,  including  the  writer,  took  position 
in  the  cupola  of  the  capitol,  and  had  a  splendid  view  of  the 
conflict  going  on  about  two  miles  distant."  Presently,  as  I 
have  said  above,  the  Confederates  were  repulsed,  the  siege 
raised  and  Nashville  ceased  to  be  the  center  of  rebel  attack. 

Andrew  Johnson's  office  as  Military  Governor  was  anom- 
alous. How  could  a  Military  Governor,  wholly  dependent  on 
the  army,  function  side  by  side  with  a  General  in  charge  of 
such  army?  In  fact  he  could  not,  without  constant  friction. 
But  Military  Governor  Johnson  was  unwilling  to  take  a  sub- 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  239 

ordinate  place — he  was  to  be  the  real  Governor  or  nothing.^"* 
One  by  one  those  opposing  him  were  turned  out  by  the  Wash- 
ington authorities,  General  Buell,  Captain  Greene,  Postmaster 
Lellyet,  General  Rosecrans,  Colonel  Truedail,  the  latter 
charged  by  Johnson  with  speculating  in  cotton  against  the 
Government. 

When  Major  Stearns  came  down  to  organize  negro  troops 
the  Governor,  thinking  enlistment  of  troops  was  to  be  taken 
from  his  hands,  wrote  Secretary  Stanton  that  the  matter  ought 
to  be  left  ''to  the  General  commanding  and  to  the  Military 
Governor  Jolmson."  ^"^  Stanton  promptly  acceded  to  John- 
son's demands.  ''Upon  your  judgment  in  matters  relating 
to  the  State  of  which  you  are  Governor,"  Stanton  wrote,  "the 
department  relies,  in  respect  to  whatever  relates  to  the  people, 
whether  white  or  black,  bond  or  free."  "-  Another  complain- 
ant, Captain  Dickson,  was  severeh*  rebuked  by  the  War  De- 
partment :  ''The  ^Military  authorities,"  Secretary  Stanton  tele- 
graphed the  captain,  ''had  no  right  to  interfere  with  the  ques- 
tions wliich  belonged  to  General  Johnson,  in  whose  discretion 
and  judgment  the  department  has  full  confidence."  Ere  long 
Mr.  Lincoln  put  Johnson  in  charge  of  amnesty  in  Tennessee. 
Governor  Johnson  appointed  ex-Governor  Campbell,  Com- 
missioner of  Pardons,  and  many  releases  were  arranged  for.^^ 
It  would  serve  no  useful  purpose  to  set  forth  in  greater  detail 
the  struggles  through  which  the  Governor  went  before  Ten- 
nessee had  reconstructed  herself,  or  to  describe  the  many  du- 
ties he  performed.  Suffice  it  to  say,  Governor  Johnson  handled 
millions  of  dollars  and  accounted  for  the  last  penny,  coming 
out  of  liis  office  poorer  than  he  went  in.  In  Tennessee  civil 
war  was  at  its  worst.  Davis  confiscated  the  property  of 
L^nionists  and  Lincoln,  through  Governor  Johnson,  confis- 
cated the  property  of  Secessionists.  Cities,  towns,  and  coun- 
ties would  be  over-run  and  devastated  by  a  Confederate  army 
to-day  and  by  a  L^nion  army  to-morrow.  Each  side  vied  with 
the  other  in  acts  of  terror  and  outrage.  The  Unionist  pe- 
sos Hall.  Military  Governor,  pp.  68-70. 
Si  Johnson  MSS.  Xos.  74,  75. 
3- Johnson  MS.  Xo.  7481. 
33  Hall,  p.  194. 


240  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

garded  the  Confederate  as  a  rebel,  destroying  "the  best  gov- 
ernment under  Heaven" ;  the  Confederate  regarded  the  Union- 
ist as  a  traitor  to  the  South,  and  both  were  equally  honest. 
But  for  gifts  of  food,  clothing,  and  money  from  the  North, 
East  Tennessee  would  have  gone  naked  and  perished.  In  that 
distracted  land  there  was  no  business  but  war.  Try  as  he 
might,  the  Governor  could  not  restore  order  and  civil  govern- 
ment in  such  conditions.  He  could  not  organize  a  civil  gov- 
ernment sooner  than  he  did.  Temple  and  others,  criticizing 
him  in  this  matter,  have  been  "hardly  just  to  Johnson.  .  .  . 
No  one  who  knew  the  conditions  could  justly  have  charged 
the  Governor  with  unnecessary  delay."  ^* 

By  August  1863  the  Union  party  in  Tennessee  had  split 
asunder.  Radicals  and  Conservatives  were  lined  up  against 
each  other.  Emerson  Etheridge,  a  Union  man  differing  with 
Governor  Johnson  as  to  the  test  oath  and  the  manner  of  or- 
ganizing the  State,  set  on  foot  a  general  election.  Ex-Gov- 
ernor Campbell  was  declared  elected  civil  Governor.  Eth- 
eridge thereupon  went  to  Washington  to  get  the  President  to 
recognize  Campbell.  His  mission  failed,  of  course.  I.  G. 
Harris,  Confederate  Governor,  was  understood  to  be  the  power 
behind  this  movement.  The  dread  of  both  Lincoln  and  John- 
son was  that  the  people  of  Tennessee,  at  an  election,  would  vote 
against  the  war,  thereby  recognizing  the  Confederacy  and 
peaceful  secession.  Governor  Johnson  was  doing  all  in  his 
power  to  bring  the  plain  man  from  the  Confederacy  back  again 
into  the  Union ;  and  "Avas  disposed  to  smooth  tlie  path  for 
the  return  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  disaffected."  ^^  He  be- 
lieved that  the  masses  at  heart  were  Unionists ;  and  yet  "he 
dared  not  make  a  speech  in  any  place  ten  miles  distant  from 
a  Federal  encampment." 

After  November  1863,  when  the  Confederate  army  under 
Bragg  was  routed  at  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary 
Ridge  and  driven  into  Georgia,  President  Lincoln  tliought 
surely  the  time  had  come  to  restore  civil  government.  He 
therefore  telegraphed  Governor  Johnson  to  that  effect.  But 
he  added  some  precautionary  words:  "The  Avholc  struggle  for 

34  Hall,  p.  210. 
snjbid.,  p.  102. 


MILITARY  GOVERNOR  241 

East  Tennessee,"  lie  wired,  "will  have  been  fruitless  to  both 
State  and  Nation  if  it  so  ends  that  Governor  Johnson  is  put 
down  and  Governor  Harris  is  put  up."  It  required  much 
caution  to  do  what  the  President  requested.  Despite  a  vig- 
orous campaign  by  the  Governor  the  masses  of  the  people 
adhered  to  the  Confederacy.  In  truth,  only  a  decided  Union 
victory  and  the  departure  of  the  Confederate  armies  could 
restore  Tennessee.  The  middle  and  western  sections  were  as 
devoted  to  the  southern  cause  as  the  eastern  section  was  to  the 
Union.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  civil  government  was  not  restored 
until  more  than  a  year  after  the  defeat  of  Bragg's  army.  The 
reason  for  this  was  partly  because  of  internal  dissensions 
among  the  Unionists.  Some  of  these  insisted  that  the  polls  be 
thrown  wide  open,  without  an  iron-clad  oath ;  others  opposed 
the  method  of  calling  the  convention  and  insisted  that  only  a 
legislature  could  do  this.  Johnson's  fight  in  this  matter  was 
almost  as  severe  as  his  fight  with  real  enemies.  In  these  con- 
tests the  Governor  was  no  doubt  harsh,  stern  and  thorough- 
going. But  no  other  course  seemed  possible.^*^  Both  he  and 
the  President  were  in  constant  dread  of  an  adverse  vote  by  the 
people.  Certainly  the  Military  Governor  could  not  afford 
to  have  himself  voted  an  interloper. 

On  November  12, 1864,  the  East  Tennessee  Union  Executive 
Committee,  which  had  been  formed  by  the  Knoxville-Greeneville 
convention  of  1861,  called  a  convention,  to  meet  in  Nashville 
on  December  19,  1864,  and  name  a  ticket  for  a  convention. 
Almost  immediately,  however,  ill-fated  East  Tennessee  was 
again  over-run  by  the  Confederates.  Breckinridge  surprised 
and  defeated  General  Gillem,  a  man  unacquainted  with  the  art 
of  war.  Knoxville  passed  into  Confederate  hands.^^  The 
misery  and  want  of  East  Tennessee  were  now  sickening  to  the 
heart.  But  preparations  for  the  convention  went  forward.  It 
was  to  be  "a  meeting  of  Tennessee  loyalists,"  the  call  disclosed, 
"to  restore  the  State  to  its  once  honored  status  in  the  Amer- 
ican Union."  When  December  19  came,  however,  General 
Hood  was  thundering  at  the  gates  of  Nashville  and  the  con- 
vention was  postponed  until  January  8,  1865.     By  that  date 

seihid.,  p.  214. 

37  Johnson  MS.  No.  1357. 


242  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Hood  had  been  driven  out  of  West  Tennessee  by  General 
Thomas,  and  Breckinridge  out  of  East  Tennessee  by  Rose- 
crans.  The  only  enemy  the  Unionists  of  Tennessee  now  had 
in  their  midst  was  themselves. 

The  convention  met  on  the  day  appointed  and  wrangled  over 
the  details.  Some  attacked  the  call  of  the  convention.  The 
Radicals  replied  that  the  people  of  the  State  had  the  right, 
in  a  crisis,  to  meet  of  their  own  motion.  At  length  four  amend- 
ments were  prepared  and  submitted  to  the  meeting.  In  sub- 
stance they  provided  (1)  that  slavery  should  be  abolished; 
(2)  that  no  right  of  property  in  man  should  exist;  (3)  that 
certain  officers  should  be  appointed  by  the  Governor,  with  the 
consent  of  the  Senate,  and  (4)  that  all  citizens,  who  had  borne 
arms  for  the  United  States  should  be  allowed  to  vote;  color 
should  not  disfranchise  any  person,  who  was  a  competent  wit- 
ness in  the  courts. 

The  first  and  second  amendments  were  adopted  but  the  last 
two  provoked  long  and  bitter  discussion.  It  was  feared  that 
the  convention  would  not  be  called.  But  the  Radicals  had 
Governor  Johnson  in  reserve.  He  was  "their  final  thunder- 
bolt." When  the  decisive  moment  to  launch  this  thunderbolt 
came  the  Governor,  who  had  taken  no  active  part  in  the  pro- 
ceedings, Avas  invited  to  address  the  convention.^^  His  speecli 
was  magnificent.  "It  would  not  be  an  overstatement  to  say 
that  never  did  a  political  speech  bring  more  decisive  results. 
Opposition  immediately  dissolved  and  disappeared  and  the 
radical  plan  was  put  through,  with  slight  modification  and  with 
little  further  deliberation."  ^" 

Thus,  during  three  years  did  Andrew  Johnson  ride  the  whirl- 
wind. "When  the  loyalists  of  Tennessee  were  perplexed,  and 
also  demoralized,  he  stood  firmly  and  saw  clearly,  and  by  these 
merits  won  the  confidence  of  Lincoln  and  Stanton,  and  was  thus 
able  to  hold  tlie  leadership,  overcome  all  opposition,  and  com- 
mand the  course  of  events."  '^^ 

38  Hall,  p.  167. 

40  Jbid.,  p.  222.  Slavery  in  Tennessee  was  not  abolished  by  Lincoln's  Procla- 
mation, becaiiso  .Tohnaon  requested  it  be  not,  besides  the  cession  of  Tennessee 
to  the  Union  (December  12,  178!)),  deprived  Congress  of  the  right  to  emanci- 
pate slaves. 


CHAPTER  VI 
LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON 

"No  man  has  a  right  to  judge  Andrew  Johnson  in  any 
respect,"  said  Lincoln  on  one  occasion,  "who  has  not  suffered 
as  much  and  done  as  much  as  he  for  the  Nation's  sake."  ^  Now 
in  June  1864,  when  Lincohi  spoke  these  words,  no  one  knew 
better  than  he  whereof  he  spoke.  Two  years  before  he  had 
taken  Johnson  from  a  bomb-proof  seat  in  the  Senate  and 
transferred  him  to  the  enemy's  country.  During  that  time  the 
two  men  had  been  in  almost  daily  communication  and  a  com- 
mon understanding  had  arisen  between  them. 

Totally  unlike  in  mental  equipment  and  in  physical  pro- 
portions, Lincoln  and  Johnson  were  nevertheless  bound  to- 
gether during  the  Civil  War  with  hoops  of  steel.  They  first 
became  acquainted  in  1847,  when  Lincoln  was  a  Whig  Con- 
gressman from  Illinois,  and  Johnson  a  Democratic  Congress- 
man from  Tennessee.  As  they  were  men  of  small  means  they 
set  up  no  establishments  in  Washington,  nor  did  their  wives 
accompany  them  during  the  session  of  Congress.  Small  rooms 
at  a  boarding  house  and  "a  mess  together  on  Capitol  Hill" 
were  the  best  they  could  afford.^  Now  a  Whig  Congressman 
who  voted  forty-two  times  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  as  Lincoln 
did,  and  a  Democratic  Congressman  who  voted  forty-two  times 
against  that  measure,  as  Johnson  did,  were  not  likely  to  be  very 
intimate.  In  fact,  they  seem  to  have  had  little  acquaintance  at 
that  time,  certainly  no  intimacy. 

But  in  March  1861,  when  they  next  came  together,  they 
had  a  common  purpose,  the  task  of  saving  the  Union.'^  Scarcely 
had  President  Lincoln  arrived  in  Washington  when  Senator 
Johnson's  bugle  note  sounded  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and 

1  Li/e  and  Services  of  Andrew  Johnson  (anonymous),  p.  209. 

2  Tarbell,  Lincoln,  Vol.  II,  p.  2. 

3  Julian,  Recollections,  p.  221. 

243 


244  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

throughout  the  land.  "Show  me  the  man  who  fires  on  our 
flag  and  I  will  show  you  a  traitor,"  Andy  Johnson  was  thunder- 
ing on  that  March  day.  Before  the  nation's  consciousness  was 
aroused  and  when  it  seemed  that  President  Lincoln  was  with- 
out friends,  there  was  one  southern  man  at  least  unafraid,  one 
to  whom  Lincoln  could  tie.  And  from  the  day  of  that  speech 
Andrew  Johnson  dwelt  in  the  heart  of  Abraham  Lincoln.^  At 
a  flag-raising  at  the  capitol  in  June  following,  Lincoln  in- 
sisted that  Johnson  should  be  present  and  make  one  of  his 
patriotic  speeches.^  During  the  dark  days  of  July,  after  Bull 
Run  was  fought  and  lost  and  Washington  was  trembling  for 
its  life,  Johnson  was  chosen  by  Congress  to  serve  as  a  member 
of  the  important  committee  of  seven  on  the  conduct  of  the 
war.  This  committee  often  met  with  Lincoln  and  his  cabinet, 
and  urged  a  more  vigorous  campaign.'' 

Strong  men  in  the  North,  moved  by  Johnson's  fight  for  the 
Union,  were  urging  President  Lincoln  to  send  him  as  Ambassa- 
dor to  England.  In  February  1862  Fort  Donelson  was  cap- 
tured by  Grant,  and  the  way  opened  for  civil  government  in 
Tennessee.  In  that  happy  hour  no  other  name,  except  that 
of  Andrew  Johnson,  came  to  Lincoln  to  serve  as  Military 
Governor.  Well  did  Lincoln  know  that  if  the  Civil  War  was 
won  the  plain  people  must  win  it.  Who  better  typified  this 
class  than  Andy  Johnson,  the  Tennessee  tailor,  mouthpiece 
of  the  mechanic  and  the  artisan?  Often  in  1863  and  1864 
Governor  Johnson  would  run  up  from  Nashville  to  Washing- 
ton and  confer  with  Lincoln,  discussing  Tennessee  affairs  and 
the  conduct  of  the  war.^ 

In  September  1862,  after  the  battle  of  Antietam  had  forced 
General  Lee  out  of  Maryland,  and  Lincoln  had  issued  his 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  Johnson  was  consulted  and  his 
advice  followed.^  Johnson  advised  Lincoln,  perhaps  unwisely 
as  the  sequel  showed,  that  it  was  best  not  to  include  all  negroes 

4  Blaine,  Tioenty  Years,  Vol.  II,  p.  4;   Dunning  characterizes  Blaine's  book 
as  "useful  but  untrustworthy." — \V.  A.  Dunning,  Essays,  p.  145. 
B  Johnson  MS. 
0  Julian,  op.  cit.,  p.  203. 

T  Ihid.,  p.  204;  Nicolay  and  Hay.  Lincohi,  Vol.  V.  p.  00. 
8  Moore,  Life  of  Johnson,  Chap.  XXVIII;  Blaine,  Ticeniy  Years,  Vol.  II,  p.  7. 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  245 

in  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  but  only  those  engaged  in 
actual  warfare.  He  suggested  that  the  Emancipation  Proc- 
lamation was  a  war  measure  and,  in  issuing  it,  the  President 
was  acting  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army.  Therefore, 
it  could  only  operate  in  war  territory.  He  also  advised  that  to 
free  the  slaves  in  Border  States  would  give  offense  to  the  loy- 
alist slave-owners.  As  to  Tennessee,  she  ought  to  have  the 
honor  of  freeing  her  own  negroes  without  coercion  by  the 
general  Government.  Under  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation about  one-twentieth  of  the  slaves,  that  is  to  say  about 
200,000,  were  manumitted.  Other  slaves,  those  not  in  the 
actual  war  zone,  were  not  affected  thereby.^ 

On  the  one  absorbing  proposition,  that  the  war  should  be 
fought  to  a  finish  and  peaceful  Secession  should  never  be 
thought  of,  Lincoln  and  Johnson  were  in  accord,  as  they  were 
on  the  conduct  of  the  war  itself.  Each  agreed,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  the  Border  States  were  necessary  to  the  existence  of 
the  Union,  and  should  be  held  at  every  cost.  Each  likewise 
agreed  that  the  freeing  of  the  negro  was  a  matter  secondary  to 
the  salvation  of  the  Union.  And  when  three  hundred  and  odd 
thousand  Border  State  soldiers  joined  Grant,  Sherman  and 
Thomas,  the  wisdom  of  Lincoln's  course  was  verified.  Had  not 
the  Border  States  remained  in  the  Union,  would  Sherman  have 
been  able  to  march  to  the  sea?  Upon  this  record  of  Andrew 
Johnson,  were  not  Lincoln  and  his  great  War  Secretary  Stan- 
ton correct  when  they  asked,  "What  man  In  America  has  done 
more  for  the  Nation's  life  than  Andrew  Johnson  ?"  But  for  the 
battles  fought  on  the  soil  of  Tennessee, — Mill  Springs,  Shiloh, 
Donelson,  Chattanooga,  Lookout  Mountain,  Franklin,  Nash- 
ville,— would  the  morale  of  the  Confederacy  have  been  de- 
stroyed.'' It  was  Sherman's  March  and  Sheridan's  route  of 
General  Early,  in  the  Valley,  that  overthrew  the  Confederacy. 
In  January  1865,  when  Vance,  War  Governor  of  North  Caro- 
lina, read  that  Sherman's  March  met  no  resistance  in  Georgia, 
he  urged  that  jfighting  cease.  As  no  bridge  was  burned,  no 
road  blocked,  no    provisions  destroyed  and  there  was  passive 

9  A.  H.  Stephens,  War  Between  the  States,  Vol.  II,  Appendix;  Jones,  Life  of 
Johnson,  p.  88. 


246  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

submission  by  the  people  "the  will  to  fight  is  gone,"  said  Vance. 
Every  gun  fired  thereafter  was  murder ;  and  this  plight  of  the 
Confederacy  was  a  condition  which  border  warfare  had  created. 
In  fact,  the  war  was  won  in  the  West  and  not  in  Virginia. 

Lincoln's  letters  to  Johnson,  while  INIilitary  Governor,  were 
hearty  and  cordial.  Johnson  was  his  "good  friend."  Lincoln 
spoke  of  him  as  "wise  and  patriotic."  On  September  11,  1863, 
Lincoln  wrote  the  Governor,  "I  see  you  have  decided  in  favor  of 
emancipation  in  Tennessee,  for  which  God  bless  you.  Get 
emancipation  in  your  new  State  Constitution  and  there  will  be 
no  such  word  as  fail."  ^^  Another  letter  written  September  19, 
1863,  Avas  full  of  endorsement  of  Johnson's  plans.  During  the 
summer  of  1861  Johnson  had  constantly  furnished  Lincoln 
with  information  as  to  Tennessee  affairs,  and  Lincoln,  reply- 
ing to  Johnson's  request  for  arms,  had  said  he  hoped  "such 
arrangements  would  be  satisfactory  to  him."  ^^ 

As  time  passed  it  became  certain  that  the  State  of  Tennessee 
would  return  to  the  Union.  It  was  then  the  people  came  to 
the  parting  of  the  ways.  Those  who  had  never  left  the  Union, 
such  men  as  Brownlow  and  Maynard,  became  "radicals." 
Nothing  short  of  an  iron-clad  oath  would  suit  these  fiery 
Unionists.  They  would  exclude  from  the  polls  all  rebels,  in 
fact  exclude  every  one  except  Union  soldiers  in  West  and 
Middle  Tennessee.  While  Governor  Johnson  favored  a  vig- 
orous test  oath,  he  would  not  shut  out  such  rebels  as  had  become 
repentant  and  were  willing  "to  come  back  home."  When  this 
question  was  put  up  to  President  Lincoln  he  approved  John- 
son's plan.  "I  have  seen  Andrew  Johnson's  plan,"  he  wrote, 
"and  I  approve  of  the  same.  You  had  better  stick  to  it."  In 
the  midst  of  worries  and  perplexities  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no 
trouble  with  Governor  Johnson.  At  all  times  Lincoln  and 
Stanton  "listened  to  Johnson  and  Johnson  had  his  way  with 
them."  '^ 

Though  Andrew  Johnson  held  the  toughest  and  the  most 
disagreeable  job  of  the  war  he  acquitted  himself  so  well  Stan- 

10  Nicoluy  and  Hay,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  VII,  ]).  441. 

11  C  n.  llall.  Andrcio  Johnson,  Military  Oovcrnor,  p.  70,  Nicolay  and  Hay, 
Vol.  VII,  p.  441. 

12  Hall,  op.  cit.,  p.  G8;  Johnson  US.  No.  4944. 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  247 

ton,  "the  Iron  Secretarj',"  was  full  of  praise  of  him.  "This 
department  called  you  from  the  comparatively  safe  and  easy 
duties  of  civil  life,"  Stanton  wrote  Johnson  in  1865,  "to  place 
you  in  front  of  the  enemy."  "In  a  position  of  personal  toil  and 
danger,  perhaps  more  hazardous  than  was  encountered  by  any 
other  citizen  or  military  officer  of  the  United  States,  you  have 
maintained  yourself.  Through  unparalleled  trials  you  have 
gallantly  periled  all  that  is  dear  to  man  on  earth.  .  .  .  Your 
services  have  been  patriotic  and  able,  you  have  been  worthy 
of  the  confidence  of  the  Government,  and  the  thanks  of  the 
department  are  extended  to  you."  " 

In  1861  and  1862  the  war  situation  seemed  dark  indeed  for 
the  L^nion.  Stonewall  Jackson  and  Early  were  chasing  Pope, 
Burnside,  and  Banks  here  and  there,  and  INIcClellan  was  un- 
equal to  Lee.  In  that  hour  Lincoln  said  to  Speaker  Colfax, 
"Andrew  Johnson  has  never  embarrassed  me  in  the  slightest 
degree."  ^*  L^ndoubtedly  it  was  the  stubborn  Johnson  who 
held  Tennessee  in  line,  and  it  was  Missouri,  Tennessee,  Ken- 
tucky, Marjdand  and  West  Virginia  that  broke  the  backbone 
of  the  Secession  movement,  and  gave  courage  to  the  flagging 
cause  in  Virginia. ^^  By  holding  the  Border  States  Lincoln  was 
expecting  to  build  a  wall  around  the  Confederacy  and  then  to 
choke  it  to  death.  If  Lincoln's  plan  of  holding  these  states 
in  the  L^nion  succeeded,  one  could  start  in  Maryland,  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard,  and  travel  on  Union  territory  through 
Marjdand,  West  A''irginia,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  and  Louisi- 
ana, to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  After  the  battles  of 
Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge,  Lincoln  issued  the 
following  proclamation : 


^'Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  D.  C, 
"Dec.  7,  1863 
"Reliable  information  being  received  that  the  insurgent  force  is 
retreating  from  Eastern  Tennessee,  under  circumstances  render- 
ing it  probable  that  the  Union  forces   cannot  hereafter  be  dis- 
lodged from  that  important  position ;  and  esteeming  this  to  be  of 

13  War  of  the  Rebellion,  Ser.  Ill,  Vol.  IV,  Serial  No.  125,  p.  1221. 

14  Johnson  MS.  >«o.  4044. 

15  Temple,  East  Tennessee  and  the  Civil  War,  p.  203. 


248  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

high  national  consequence,  I  recommend  that  all  loyal  people  do, 
on  receipt  of  this  information,  assemble  at  their  places  of  worship, 
and  render  special  homage  and  gratitude  to  Almighty  God  for  this 
great  advancement  of  the  national  cause. 

"A.  Lincoln"  ^^ 


Little  wonder  a  disappointed  abolition  preacher,  returning 
from  an  interview  with  Lincoln,  declared  that  the  President 
"would  like  to  have  God  Almighty  on  his  side  but  must  have 
Kentucky." 

During  the  siege  of  Nashville  an  incident  occurred  that  gave 
Mr.  Lincoln  a  hearty  laugh.  It  seems,  according  to  Lincoln 
who  dressed  up  and  told  the  story,  that  a  fighting  INIethodist 
parson,  named  Granville  Moody,  had  been  marooned  in  Nash- 
ville during  the  siege.  One  day,  when  everything  seemed  lost, 
the  Parson  sought  comfort  in  the  Governor's  office.  As  he 
entered  the  Governor  was  walking  to  and  fro,  greatly  excited. 
"Moodj'^j"  the  Governor  exclaimed,  turning  on  the  Parson, 
"we  are  sold  out !  Buell  is  a  traitor !  He  is  going  to  evacuate 
the  city,  and  in  forty-eight  hours  we'll  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
rebels."  As  the  Governor  spoke,  he  continued  to  pace  up  and 
down,  like  a  caged  lion.  Presently  he  halted  and  turned  to  the 
Parson  again,  "Moody,  can  you  pray?"  he  queried.  "As  a  min- 
ister of  the  gospel,  sir,  that  is  my  business,"  said  the  Parson. 
"Well,  Moody,  I  wish  you  would  pray,"  said  the  Governor 
and  the  two  went  down  on  their  knees.  The  prayer  became 
warmer  and  warmer.  Johnson  in  Methodist  style  responded 
"Amen!  Amen!"  and  crawling  on  his  hands  and  knees  to  the 
Parson's  side,  put  his  arms  around  him.  After  a  while  the 
prayer  ended  with  another  hearty  "Amen !"  The  two  penitents 
rose,  and  Johnson,  taking  a  long  breath,  said,  "Well,  Moody, 
I  feel  better !"  Then  turning,  as  if  he  had  forgotten  something, 
he  added,  "Oh,  Moody,  don't  think  I  have  become  a  religious 
man  because  I  asked  j^ou  to  pray.  I'm  sorry  to  say  I'm  not 
religious  and  never  pretended  to  be  and  no  one  knows  that 
better  than  you,  INIoody.  But  tliere  is  one  tiling  about  it — I  do 
believe  in  God  Almighty  and  in  trutli,  and  I'll  be  damned  if 

10  Savagp,  op.  cit.,  p.  282. 


CHURCH        ST. 


RR  or  DEPOT    ST 


®^        S 


SUMMER   ST. 


10 


M'^KEE       ST 


[6RJ    II 12 


S^ 


2 


LEGEND 


1  Andrew  Johnson  Monument 

2  JoVinson  Home 

3  Johnson  Tailor  Shop 

4  Where  General  Morgan  fell 

5  Old  Williams  Home 

6  Court  House 

7  Post  Office 

8  Library 

9  •■BigHilVor'Hi^KHili: 

10  Johnson  Highway 

11  National  Kiffhwav 
120ldMUl  -^ 


Map  of  Greeneville,  Teim. 
Star  marks  spot  where  General  Morgan  fell. 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  249 

Nashville  sliall  be  surrendered!"  And  Nashville  was  not  sur- 
rendered.^'' 

On  September  4,  1864,  a  messenger  rushed  into  the  White 
House,  from  the  War  Department,  with  news  for  President 
Lincoln:  General  John  H.  Morgan,  the  noted  Confederate 
raider,  was  dead — killed  by  Andrew  Johnson's  bodyguard  and 
under  circumstances  dramatic  and  tragic.  A  few  weeks  before 
Governor  Johnson  had  procured  from  President  Lincoln  an 
order  promoting  Colonel  A.  C.  Gillem  of  the  Governor's  Guards 
to  Brigadier-General.  The  Governor's  plan  was  to  organize 
a  separate  unit  for  the  purpose  of  capturing  Morgan.  Gen- 
eral Gillem  was  to  be  in  command.  Accordingly,  during  the 
first  days  of  September  1864  Gillem  and  his  troop  of  cavalry 
set  out  from  Nashville  for  the  Tennessee  mountains.  On 
September  3  they  reached  Bull's  Gap,  fifteen  or  twenty  miles 
from  Greeneville,  and  went  into  camp.  That  night  an  East 
Tennessee  Union  lad,  some  twelve  or  fourteen  years  old,  slipped 
into  headquarters  and  called  for  the  General.  The  name  of 
this  young  boy  was  James  Leady.  Riding  a  mule  with  a  sack 
of  corn  on  its  back  and  pretending  that  he  was  going  to  the 
mill,  the  lad  had  nearly  passed  the  Confederate  out-posts  when 
he  was  captured.  He  rendered  first  one  excuse  and  then  an- 
other and  at  length  was  turned  loose  to  make  his  way  to  Union 
headquarters.  Breathless  he  told  his  story.  Morgan,  the 
raider,  and  his  men  were  certainly  in  Greeneville,  and  no  doubt 
about  it — Morgan  was  right  over  at  Dr.  Alex  Williams'  and 
the  town  was  full  of  rebels.  As  General  Gillem  listened  to  this 
story  he  shook  his  head.  His  Lieutenant-Colonel,  W.  G. 
Brownlow,  however,  knowing  the  loyalty  of  the  mountain  folk, 
offered  to  back  the  boy  with  his  life.  A  night  attack  was 
agreed  upon. 

The  night  of  September  4  was  dark  and  stormy.  About 
midnight  a  storm  swept  over  the  mountains.  The  lightnings 
played  and  the  thunders  rolled.  At  five  o'clock  in  the  morning 
Gillem's  men,  after  a  fifteen-mile  march,  burst  into  the  town, 
breaking  through  the  Confederate  pickets  stationed  on  High 

17  Jones,  op.  cit.,  p.  83;  "Siege  of  JS'ashville"  in  Campaigns  of  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee,  p.  275. 


250  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Hill.  Rushing  up  Water  Street  and  on  by  the  A.  Johnson 
tailor  shop,  they  poured  into  Depot  and  Church  streets,  cross- 
ing Main  Street  and  thence  on  to  Irish  Street.  Main  Street, 
Railroad  Street,  Irish  Street  and  Church  Street  were  filled 
with  Union  troopers  and  the  Williams'  house  was  surrounded. 
As  the  gray  dawn  was  breaking  the  hoofs  of  horses  rattled  on 
the  pavements.  Carbines  cracked,  men  ran  hither  and  yon, 
confusion  reigned.  Morgan  was  awakened  by  the  screams  of 
the  women  of  the  Williams  household. 

"The  enemy  are  upon  you!"  they  shouted.  "The  house  is 
surrounded  by  the  enemy."  Throwing  his  military  coat  about 
him,  the  gallant  son  of  Kentucky  slipped  out  the  back  door, 
a  pistol  in  each  hand — dodged  from  tree  to  tree,  looking  for 
a  way  of  escape.  Reaching  the  large  scuppernong  arbor,  some 
two  hundred  feet  from  Depot  Street,  he  crouched  close  to 
the  ground.  The  bushes  and  leaves  rattled  and  shook;  prob- 
ably he  exposed  himself  to  view.  In  an  instant,  "Crack, 
crack!"  went  a  rifle  in  the  hands  of  Andrew  J.  Campbell,  an 
Irish  Sergeant  of  Company  G,  Thirteenth  Tennessee  Cavalry. 
The  noble  trooper  fell  dead.  The  sturdy  Irish  Sergeant, 
astride  his  horse  on  Depot  Street,  obe3ang  orders,  had  shot 
to  kill.  "Morgan  must  be  captured  dead  or  alive,"  was  the 
command.  For  his  courage  and  daring  Campbell  was  pro- 
moted by  General  Andrew  Johnson  to  a  Lieutenancy.  By  a 
strange  coincidence  the  spot  where  the  fierce  INIorgan  fell  was 
only  two  blocks  north  of  the  confiscated  and  deserted  home  of 
Andrew  Johnson.  A  few  days  later  Lincoln  issued  a  proclama- 
tion of  thanksgiving  and  prayer,  because  it  had  "pleased  Al- 
mighty God  to  recently  vouchsafe  great  triumphs  to  the  na- 
tional arms  in  the  capture  of  Mobile  Bay,  Weldon  Railroad, 
and  Atlanta,  and  the  killing  of  the  marauder,  John  ISIorgan, 
and  the  defeat  and  rout  of  Wheeler  and  his  raiders."  ^'' 

As  Lincoln  contemplated  Andrew  Johnson  during  these 
years  of  war  and  persecution  he  was  no  doubt  amazed  and  awe- 
struck. How  could  a  human  being  endure  what  he  endured? 
Of  the  public  men  of  Tennessee  if  not  of  the  South  he  stood 

18  This  account  I  get  from  living  witncaees  and  from  various  written 
sourccH.     I  ihiiik  it  is  accurate. 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  251 

alone.  Defying  the  Secessionists,  he  had  gone  into  their  midst 
and  dared  them  to  do  their  worst.  T.  A.  R.  Nelson  and  Temple 
were  over-run  and  silenced ;  Sam  Milligan  remained  quietly  at 
home;  so  did  McDaniel,  Lewis  Self,  and  Johnson's  other 
Greeneville  friends;  Horace  Maynard  was  not  a  son  of  Ten- 
nessee but  of  Massachusetts.  Alone  at  the  President's  request 
the  Greeneville  tailor  had  dared  all,  suffered  all,  sacrificed  all, 
for  country.  A  seat  in  the  Senate,  he  resigned ;  the  chances  of 
capture  and  certain  death,  if  captured,  he  underwent.  His 
estate,  including  eight  slaves,  was  confiscated  and  sold;  from 
his  wife  and  children  he  was  separated ;  disease  and  death  in- 
vaded his  household.  The  taunts  and  jeers  of  the  people  of 
Tennessee  and  of  the  South  were  heaped  upon  him,  and  of 
these  facts  Abraham  Lincoln  was  aware.  Johnson's  nervous 
strain  must  have  been  almost  unbearable,  yet  he  went  his  in- 
domitable way.  Nor  did  he  repine  or  play  the  martyr  or  sulk 
in  his  tent.  His  faith  in  the  people  never  wavered.  Though 
he  despised  conscious  traitors  and  leaders  in  rebellion,  the  rank 
and  file  he  pitied,  encouraged  and  succored.  No  doubt  if  he 
could  have  laid  hands  on  Jeff  Davis  or  John  Slidell  or  Iverson 
they  would  have  fared  badly. 

And  yet  Andrew  Johnson  bore  his  troubles  no  more 
heroically  than  his  wife  and  daughters  bore  theirs,  unprotected 
in  their  Greeneville  home  and  surrounded  by  spies  and  ene- 
mies. These  women  were  as  loyal  to  the  Union  as  though  they 
carried  a  musket.  In  1862  when  Union  troops,  under  General 
Orlando  B.  Wilcox,  had  chased  the  Confederates  out  of  Greene- 
ville, Mrs.  Johnson  placed  her  home  at  the  General's  disposal. 
In  the  early  morning  the  colored  maid  passed  through  his 
room  and  opened  a  trap  door.  She  went  to  the  cellar  below, 
when  the  General  received  a  greeting  "in  various  tongues  of 
pigs,  fowls  and  puppies."  Whether  his  breakfast  that  morn- 
ing "was  pig,  puppy  or  duck"  the  General  never  knew.  The 
bed  he  slept  on  also  attracted  the  General's  attention.  Raised 
high  in  the  air  by  wheat  and  corn  stored  beneath  the  mattress, 
it  presented  a  two-story  appearance.^^ 

In  January  1864^  Johnson  spoke  to  the  people  of  Nashville, 

19  This  incident  furnished  by  Colonel  Eeeves. 


252  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

urging  them  to  return  to  their  allegiance  and  follow  "Old  Abe.'* 
"Abraham  Lincoln  is  an  honest  man,"  he  said,  "and  is  going 
to  put  down  this  infernal  rebellion.  He  is  for  a  free  govern- 
ment and  I  stand  by  him.  ...  As  for  the  negro  I  am  for 
setting  him  free  but  at  the  same  time  I  assert  that  this  is  a 
white  man's  government.  ...  If  whites  and  blacks  can't  get 
along  together  arrangements  must  be  made  to  colonize  the 
blacks.  .  .  .  They  tell  you  cotton  is  king,  but  I  say  'No,'  bread 
and  meat  are  king !  If  we  look  over  in  Rebeldom  now  we  will 
find  that  a  little  bread  and  meat  would  be  more  acceptable  than 
cotton.  ...  In  1843,  when  I  was  candidate  for  Governor,  it 
was  said,  'That  fellow  Johnson  is  a  demagogue,  is  an  Aboli- 
tionist.' .  .  .  Because  I  advocated  a  white  basis  for  represen- 
tation— apportioning  members  of  Congress  according  to  the 
number  of  qualified  voters,  instead  of  embracing  negroes,  they 
called  me  an  Abolitionist.  .  .  .  What  do  we  find  to-day? 
Right  goes  forward ;  truth  triumphs ;  j  ustice  is  supreme ;  and 
slavery  goes  down.  The  time  has  come  when  the  tyrant's  rod 
shall  be  broken  and  the  captives  set  free.  Why  this  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  leaders  in  the  rebellion  against  Abraham 
Lincoln?"  he  asked.  "It  is  because  Lincoln  is  a  Democrat  in 
principle ;  he  is  for  the  people  and  for  free  government  and  he 
rose  from  the  masses." 

Soon  after  Johnson's  appointment  as  Governor  conditions 
seemed  favorable  for  Military  Governors  in  North  Carolina, 
Arkansas  and  Louisiana.  Federal  gunboats  having  captured 
Roanoke  Island,  Elizabeth  City  and  New  Bern  in  North  Caro- 
lina, and  New  Orleans  and  other  places  in  Louisiana  and 
Arkansas,  in  the  spring  and  early  summer  of  1862,  Governors 
for  these  states  were  appointed.  But  as  the  prospects  of  vic- 
tory seemed  sure  Congress  began  to  ask,  what  shall  be  done 
with  the  Seceding  States  ?  Sliall  they  come  back  without  more 
ado  or  shall  they  be  reconstructed?  Sunmer,  Stevens  and  other 
Radicals  were  bringing  forward  the  "state  suicide"  doctrine 
and  the  theory  that  the  rebel  states  liad  lapsed  into  a  territorial 
condition.  That  is,  they  insisted  tliat  tlie  Crittenden-Johnson 
resolutions  should  be  repudiated.  Andrew  Jolmson  considered 
this  course  treachery.     The  idea  of  changing  the  principle  on 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  253 

which  the  war  was  begun,  and  had  been  fought,  was  to  him  un- 
thinkable. 

Johnson,  therefore,  wrote  Montgomery  Blair,  Postmaster- 
General,  "I  hope  the  President  will  not  be  led  to  make  terri- 
tories out  of  the  rebellious  states."  ^"  In  this  Lincoln  concurred 
with  Johnson  and  refused  to  follow  Sumner  and  Stevens.  Lin- 
coln's famous  ten  per  cent,  government  proclamation  is  dated 
December  8,  1863:  "If  one-tenth  of  the  qualified  voters,  as 
shown  by  the  Presidential  election  of  1860,  take  an  oath  of 
fealty  to  the  Constitution  and  obedience  of  acts  of  Congress 
and  of  the  proclamations  of  the  President  as  to  slaves  and  shall 
reestablish  state  governments  such  shall  be  recognized  as  the 
true  government  of  the  state."  "^  This  was  Lincoln's  well- 
known  "Louisiana  plan,"  substantially.  When  the  Radicals 
in  Congress  attacked  this  conciliatory  policy  it  gave  Johnson 
much  concern.  Though  the  Union  was  safe,  Johnson  was  be- 
ginning to  inquire  as  to  the  future  of  the  Constitution.  As  the 
Union  was  the  child  of  the  Constitution  and  each  necessary  to 
the  national  life,  if  the  radicals  destroyed  the  Constitution 
the  government  would  end  in  centralization.  Though  the 
Wade-Davis  bill,  attacking  Lincoln's  "Louisiana  Plan,"  passed 
both  Senate  and  House,  it  was  defeated  by  a  "pocket  veto." 

The  administration  of  Governor  Johnson,  by  the  year  1864, 
was  attracting  universal  attention.  In  the  North  he  was 
lauded;  in  the  South,  bitterly  denounced.  Lincoln  and  Stan- 
ton, as  we  have  seen,  endorsed  his  vigorous  policy.  Lincoln, 
who  managed  men  by  diplomacy,  and  Johnson,  who  drove  them 
by  force,  were  now  agreed  that  force  was  necessary. ^^  Lin- 
coln's only  fear  was  that  Governor  Johnson  had  been  high- 
handed and  tyrannical,  as  the  Confederates  were  charging. 
If  he  had  not  been  a  tyrant,  Lincoln  proposed  to  honor  him  as 
he  had  never  honored  another,  he  was  going  to  name  Johnson 
as  his  next  running-mate.  Sundry  visitors  came  to  Nashville 
while  Johnson  was  Governor,  but  no  one  so  vital  to  Andrew 
Johnson's  future  as  General  Daniel  E.  Sickles.     In  the  spring 

20  McPherson,  Political  History,  p.  199. 

aiNicolay  and  Hay,  Vol.  IX,  p.  Ill;  Rhodes,  Vol.  IV,  p.  484. 

22  Hayes,  Life  of  Lamar,  p.  139. 


254  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

of  1864  Sickles  was  sent  to  Tennessee  by  Lincoln  to  investigate 
the  Governor's  record.  The  President's  object,  however,  was 
not  disclosed  to  the  General.  After  reflection  Lincoln  had 
concluded  that  Andrew  Johnson  was,  of  all  others,  the  man  to 
run  on  the  ticket  with  him  for  Vice-president.  The  Union 
was  going  to  pieces  and  Johnson  would  strengthen  the  ticket 
and  bring  in  a  new  element  of  voters. 

Lincoln  first  thought  of  General  B.  F.  Butler  as  a  running 
mate,  but  soon  changed  to  Johnson.  Several  reasons  induced 
him  to  turn  to  Governor  Johnson.  A  candidate  on  the  ticket 
from  a  seceding  state  would  impress  England  and  Europe  that 
the  South  itself  was  split  and  divided  and  that  the  national  life 
was  in  no  danger.  Besides,  Johnson  was  a  life-long  Democrat 
from  a  Border  State.  He  had  been  a  staunch  Union  man 
from  the  start  and  was  a  well  recognized  labor  leader.  In  fine, 
Johnson  "had  the  goods"  and  unless  he  had  been  a  military 
tyrant  would  make  an  ideal  candidate.  The  ticket  of  Lincoln 
and  Johnson  would  not  be  sectional  and  would  represent  the 
body  of  the  people.  Hannibal  Hamlin  of  Maine  had  made  a 
satisfactory  Vice-president,  but  he  had  been  a  Democrat  only  a 
short  time  and  was  from  the  North.  Other  names  were  con- 
sidered, Dickinson  of  New  York  and  Joseph  Holt  of  Ken- 
tucky. After  an  investigation  of  Governor  Johnson  in  Nash- 
ville Sickles  reported  to  the  President  that  his  record  was  good 
and  that  he  had  been  no  more  stringent  than  the  circumstances 
required. 

Thereupon  Mr.  Lincoln  quietly  set  to  work  to  have  Johnson 
placed  on  the  ticket  with  him ;  he  informed  a  few  friends  that 
he  wislied  Governor  Johnson  for  Vice-president,  and  not  Han- 
nibal Hamlin.  The  National  Union  Convention  met  in  Bal- 
timore on  June  6,  and  Congressman  Pettis,  one  of  the  dele- 
gates, called  by  tlie  White  House  on  his  way  to  the  Baltimore 
convention.  "Whom  do  you  desire  put  on  the  ticket  with  you 
as  Vice-president.?"  Pettis  asked  President  Lincoln.  "Gov- 
ernor Johnson  of  Tennessee,"  Lincoln  replied,  leaning  for- 
ward and  ansM'ering  in  a  low  but  distinct  tone  of  voice.  I 
will  run  ahead  of  the  story  and  state  that  it  was  not  till  Sep- 
tember 1889  that  Vice-president  Hamlin  learned  that  Lincoln 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  255 

had  made  choice  of  Andrew  Johnson  in  1864!  in  preference  to 
himself.  Judge  Pettis  in  1889  received  a  letter  from  Hamlin 
in  which  the  latter  said,  "Undoubtedly  Lincoln  was  alarmed 
about  his  reelection  and  had  changed  his  position ;  .  .  .  I  was 
really  sorry  to  be  disabused."  ^^ 

At  the  Baltimore  convention  Lincoln  was  nominated  with- 
out open  opposition,  though  many  of  the  leaders  w'ere  dissatis- 
fied. Radicals  opposed  the  policy  of  Mr.  Lincoln  because  of 
his  ten  per  cent,  government  proclamation  and  really  favored 
the  nomination  of  an  out  and  out  Abolitionist.  At  that  time 
John  C.  Fremont  was  in  the  field,  as  the  nominee  of  the  Aboli- 
tionists, for  President,  and  if  he  had  been  a  less  erratic  man 
would  have  given  Lincoln  trouble.  The  political  situation  was 
also  complicated  because  the  war  in  Virginia  was  going  badly 
for  the  Union ;  General  Grant  was  making  little  progress  to- 
ward the  capture  of  Richmond,  and  Jubal  Early  with  his 
cavalry  force  was  soon  to  dash  entirely  around  the  Capitol,  at 
Wasliington.  Lincoln  was  almost  sure  that  he  would  be  de- 
feated in  November  and  the  Union  would  go  to  pieces.  These 
fears  he  expressed  in  a  private  memorandum  written  some 
time  in  August  1864.  "This  morning,"  Lincoln  wrote,  "as  for 
some  days  past  it  seems  exceedingly  probable  that  this  Admin- 
istration will  not  be  reelected.  Then  it  will  be  my  duty  to  co- 
operate with  the  President-elect  so  as  to  save  the  Union, 
between  the  election  and  the  inauguration,  as  he  will  have 
secured  his  election  on  such  grounds  that  he  cannot  possibly 
save  it  afterwards."    Signed,  Lincoln. 

Despite  secret  opposition  and  the  disgust  of  Radicals  Mr. 
Lincoln's  conciliatory  policy  prevailed  at  the  National  Union 
Convention  in  Baltimore :  The  Border  States  were  to  be  further 
conciliated,  the  South  invited  back  into  the  Union,  and  sec- 
tionalism and  party  spirit  done  away.  To  this  end  everything 
must  bend.  The  convention  was  called  to  meet  in  Baltimore,  a 
southern  city ;  a  mild  platform  was  adopted ;  Rev.  Dr.  Breck- 
inridge, a  Border  State  War  Democrat,  presided.  The  party 
name  was  changed.     In  his  opening  address  the  presiding  offi- 

-3  Globe  Democrat,  November  15,  1801.  For  an  account  of  Lincoln's  con- 
ferences with  McClure,  Cameron  and  others,  see  McClure,  Lincoln,  p.  471. 


256  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

cer  let  it  be  known  that  if  the  convention  was  to  be  a  Republi- 
can convention,  or  a  party  affair,  he  wished  it  understood  he 
would  not  preside.  The  sole  object  in  view  must  be  the  resto- 
ration of  the  Union,  he  insisted.  Along  the  same  line  Mr. 
Tremain,  a  Democrat  from  New  York  who  presented  Dickin- 
son's name  for  Vice-president,  also  spoke.  Mr.  Tremain  de- 
clared that  it  had  been  well  said  by  the  temporary  and  by  the 
permanent  chairman  that  "we  meet  here  not  as  Republicans; 
...  if  we  meet  as  Republicans  I  have  no  place  in  this  con- 
vention.   I  have  been  a  lifelong  Democrat." 

During  previous  campaigns  the  organization  had  been  called 
the  Republican  party,  henceforth  it  Avas  to  be  known  as  the 
National  Union  party."*  Under  such  circumstances  Lincoln 
was  nominated  for  President  and  Johnson  for  Vice-president. 
The  fight  in  the  convention  arose  when  the  Border  States  dele- 
gates sought  admittance.  The  motion  to  admit  was  granted 
and  the  delegates  were  seated.  C.  M.  Allen,  a  delegate  from 
Indiana,  presented  the  name  of  Andrew  Johnson  for 
Vice-president.  Horace  Maynard  seconded  the  nomination. 
"V^hen  Andrew  Johnson  sees  your  resolutions,"  said  INIaynard, 
"he  will  adhere  to  those  sentiments  and  to  the  doctrines  therein 
set  forth  as  long  as  his  reason  remains  unimpaired  and  as  long 
as  breath  is  given  him  by  his  God."  "^  "Fighting  Parson" 
Brownlow,  another  delegate  from  Tennessee,  then,  and  at  no 
other  time  supporting  Johnson,  was  a  tower  of  strength.  The 
nomination  of  Johnson  was  brought  about  by  the  State  of  New 
York.  As  the  choice  of  Vice-president  lay  between  Johnson 
and  Dickinson,  the  latter  a  citizen  of  New  York,  and  the  selec- 
tion of  Dickinson  meant  the  defeat  of  Seward  for  Secretary  of 
State,  the  New  York  delegation  gave  Johnson  a  majority  of 
its  votes. 

On  the  first  ballot  Johnson  received  two  hundred  votes,  Ham- 
lin one  hundred  and  fifty,  Dickinson  one  hundred  and  eight, 
scattering  sixty-one.  Before  the  result  was  announced  all  dele- 
gates  but   twenty-six   went   to   Johnson   and   the   result   was 

24  Professor  Dunning,  American  Uistorical  Review,  Vol.  II,  p.  575. 
23  Jones,  Life  of  Johnson,  p.  120. 


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LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  257 

unanimous.^^  When  Thad  Stevens  heard  of  the  nomination  of 
Johnson,  he  sneeringly  asked,  "Can't  the  Republican  party 
find  some  one  for  Vice-president  without  going  into  a  damned 
little  rebel  Territory  to  pick  him  out?"  The  New  York  World 
and  other  Copperhead  papers  declared  that  the  ticket  was 
composed  of  "Gawks,  rail-splitters  and  tailors."  Blaine,  how- 
ever, took  a  different  view  of  the  matter.  "The  choice  of 
Andrew  Johnson  for  Vice-president,"  said  Blaine,  "tended  to 
nationalize  the  Republican  party  and  thus  give  it  great  popu- 
larity throughout  the  nation."  Andy  Johnson's  comment  on 
his  nomination  was  characteristic.  "What  will  the  aristocrats 
do  with  a  rail-splitter  for  President  and  a  tailor  for  Vice- 
president?"  he  wanted  to  know. 

In  his  letter  to  the  committee  of  notification  Johnson  ac- 
cepted the  nomination,  planting  himself  firmly  on  the  reso- 
lutions of  the  convention.  Those  resolutions  expressed  a 
determination  "not  to  compromise  with  the  rebels  or  to  offer 
them  any  terms  of  peace  except  such  as  may  be  based  upon  an 
^unconditional  surrender.'  "  "It  is  the  highest  duty  of  every 
American  citizen,"  the  Resolutions  declared,  "to  maintain, 
against  all  their  enemies,  the  integrity  of  the  Union  and  the 
paramount  authority  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the 
United  States ;  and  that,  laying  aside  all  differences  of  political 
opinions,  we  pledge  ourselves,  as  Union  men,  animated  by  a 
common  sentiment  and  aiming  at  a  common  object,  to  do  every- 
thing in  our  power  to  aid  the  Government  in  quelling,  by 
force  of  arms,  the  Rebellion  now  raging  against  its  authority, 
and  to  bring  to  the  punishment  due  to  their  crimes  the  rebels 
and  traitors  arrayed  against  it." 

In  1864),  as  we  have  seen,  the  Union  men  of  Tennessee  split 
to  pieces,  some  of  them  coming  out  for  McClellan  for  President 
against  Lincoln  and  on  a  platform  which  declared  that  the  war 
was  a  failure.  These  men  named  an  electoral  ticket  with  the 
following  electors:  ex-Governor  William  B.  Campbell,  T.  A. 
R.  Nelson,  J.  T.  P.  Carter,  John  Williams,  A.  Blizzard,  Henry 
Cooper,  Bailie  Peyton,  John  Lellyet,  Emerson  Etheridge  and 

26  Rhodes,  Vol.  IV,  p.  470;  Rhodes  asserts  that  "a  severe  scrutiny  of  John- 
son's personal  character  would  have  prevented  his  nomination." 


258  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

John  B.  Perryman.  Governor  Johnson  was  disappointed  at 
the  conduct  of  men  who  had  recently  been  cooperating  with 
him.  Their  course,  however,  was  inevitable  as  they  were  not 
yet  ready  to  make  the  final  plunge  against  the  South.  Gov- 
ernor Johnson,  scenting  treason,  prepared  an  oath  which  must 
be  taken  before  one  could  participate  in  the  election.  He  was 
determined  that  Lincoln  and  Johnson  should  not  be  defeated 
in  Tennessee  by  disloyal  votes;  and  one  must  conclude,  after 
reading  Johnson's  oath,  that  he  accomplished  his  purpose. 

The  elector  was  required  to  swear  he  would  support  the  Con- 
stitution and  defend  it  against  the  assaults  of  its  enemies ;  that 
he  was  "an  active  friend  of  the  Government  and  ardently  de- 
sired the  suppression  of  the  rebellion ;"  that  he  "sincerely  re- 
joiced in  the  triumph  of  the  armies  and  navies  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  the  defeat  and  overthrow  of  the  armies,  navies, 
and  of  all  armed  combinations  of  the  so-called  Confederate 
States ;"  that  he  would  "cordially  oppose  all  armistices  or  nego- 
tiations for  peace  with  rebels  in  arms  until  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  and  all  laws  and  proclamations  made  in  pur- 
suance thereof  should  be  established  over  all  the  people  of  every 
State  and  Territory  embraced  within  the  National  Union,"  and 
that  he  would  "heartily  aid  and  assist  the  loyal  people  in  what- 
ever measures  might  be  adopted  for  the  attainment  of  those 
ends;"  and  further,  that  he  took  the  oath  "freely  and  volun- 
tarily and  without  mental  reservation — so  help  me,  God." 

Naturally  the  electors  for  McClellan  objected  to  this  oath. 
The  Governor,  however,  was  obdurate.  The  McClellan  crowd 
hastened  to  Washington  to  put  the  matter  up  to  the  President. 
After  reading  the  oath  and  their  protest  to  President  Lincoln, 
the  committee  insisted  he  call  down  liis  high-handed  Military 
Governor.  When  the  committee  had  finished  Lincoln  took  a 
hand.  "May  I  inquire,"  said  he,  "how  long  it  took  you  and 
the  New  York  politicians  to  concoct  that  paper?"  The  com- 
mittee stammered  that  "the  paper  was  concocted  in  Nashville." 
"Well,"  said  Lincoln,  "I  expect  to  let  the  friends  of  George  B. 
McClellan  manage  their  side  in  their  own  way  and  I  will  man- 
age my  side  in  my  way."  In  a  few  days  the  President,  at  the 
request  of  the  committee,  wrote  an  open  letter.    He  had  noth- 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  259 

ing  to  do  with  Tennessee  matters,  he  said.  He  lauded  Gov- 
ernor Johnson  as  "a  loyal  citizen  of  Tennessee,"  and  assured 
the  committee  that  if  they  would  be  peaceable  and  loyal  Gov- 
ernor Johnson  would  not  molest  them  but  would  protect  them 
against  violence  as  far  as  in  his  power.  The  McClellan  boom 
thereupon  burst.  The  electors  withdrew  their  names,  and  in 
November  Lincoln  and  Johnson  carried  the  State  by  an  esti- 
mated majority  of  twenty-five  thousand.^'^ 

In  the  fall  of  1864,  whenever  political  meetings  were  held 
scenes  of  wild  disorder  occurred.  With  pistols,  clubs,  and 
stones.  Radicals  broke  up  Conservative  meetings  and  Con- 
servatives dispersed  Radical  meetings.  Governor  Johnson  was 
now  the  object  of  more  bitter  attack  on  the  part  of  the  rebels 
than  ever  before,  but  his  friends  came  to  his  rescue.  On  the 
night  of  October  24  a  torchlight  procession  in  his  honor  was 
staged.  Thousands  of  people  lined  the  streets  of  Nashville — 
mostly  laborers,  mechanics,  and  slaves.  As  Andy  Johnson  rose 
at  the  south  entrance  of  the  beautiful  Capitol  to  address  that 
mottled  assemblage,  the  poverty-stricken  condition  of  the  poor 
southern  whites,  under  years  of  slavery,  rushed  in  upon  him 
— lords  and  overlords,  masters  and  slaves,  but  no  place  for 
the  poor  white.  In  that  highly  organized  society  the  poor 
white  had  been  but  a  mud-sill,  a  something  upon  which  a  civ- 
ilization for  the  few  might  be  built.  Johnson's  early  life 
rose  before  him  and  he  recalled  the  slurs,  insults,  threats  and 
sufferings  of  later  days.  "What  crime  have  I  committed  to 
merit  such  treatment?"  he  asked,  addressing  the  crowd.  "Has 
not  my  life  been  devoted  to  uplifting  my  fellow  man,  and  to 
improving  the  general  average?  As  the  least  of  you,  my 
countrymen,  have  I  not  conducted  myself?  Does  my  fight  to 
save  the  Union  deserve  rebuke  ?  Perhaps  as  Military  Governor 
I  may  have  'appeared  to  be  brandishing  a  club  to  frighten 
the  people  into  submission,'  but  is  that  not  necessary?  How 
else  can  rebellion  be  crushed?" 

As  Johnson's  wrath  kindled,  indignation  vexed  him  like  a 

27  Returns  from  the  November  election  were  meager  but  Lincoln  and  John- 
son carried  Memphis  by  a  majority  of  about  twelve  hundred  and  the  Tenth 
Tennessee  Regiment  by  a  majority  of  eight  hundred.  On  this  basis  the 
majority  in  the  State  would  be  as  above  given. 


260  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

thing  that  was  raw,  and  he  proceeded  to  depict  the  evils  of  slav- 
ery and  to  point  out  the  increase  of  mulatto  children  in  Ten- 
nessee, "bearing  a  resemblance  to  their  masters."  Presently 
he  came  to  the  impulse  of  his  life,  the  elevation  of  the  masses. 
"Would  to  God,"  he  exclaimed,  recurring  to  Old  Testament 
imagery  in  which  he  so  much  delighted,  "that  some  Moses 
might  arise  to  lead  you  from  the  land  of  bondage  to  the  prom- 
ised land  of  freedom."  "You  will  be  our  Moses !"  shouted  the 
excited  crowd.  "Well,  then,"  the  Governor  answered  back, 
"humble  and  unworthy  as  I  am,  if  no  better  shall  be  found,  I 
will  indeed  be  your  Moses,  and  lead  you  through  the  Red  Sea 
of  war  and  bondage  to  a  fairer  state  of  liberty  and  peace." 
Extravagant  words  to  be  sure.  To  be  read,  however,  in  the 
light  of  letters  Johnson  had  been  writing  to  his  consumptive 
wife  and  family  at  Greeneville.  "My  mind  is  tortured  and  my 
body  exhausted,"  he  wrote  his  wife.  "Sometimes  I  feel  Hke  giv- 
ing all  up  in  despair,  but  this  will  not  do.  We  must  hold  out  to 
the  end ;  this  rebellion  is  wrong  and  must  be  put  down,  let  cost 
what  it  may  in  the  life  and  treasure.  I  intend  to  appropriate 
the  remainder  of  my  life  to  the  redemption  of  my  adopted 
home.  East  Tennessee,  and  you  and  Mary  must  not  be  weary ; 
it  is  our  fate  and  we  should  be  willing  to  bear  it  cheerfully."  ^® 
Critics,  seated  in  easy  chairs,  have  spoken  harshly  of  this 
speech  of  Johnson,  on  that  weird  October  night,  and  undoubt- 
edly his  words  were  bitter.  Were  they  not,  however,  in  keep- 
ing with  every  act  of  his  life?  Did  he  not  aspire  to  be  the 
Moses  of  the  mechanic  and  of  humble  folk  everywhere?  The 
idea  of  dividing  out  the  lands  of  rebels,  which  the  Governor 
often  threatened,  was  but  war  hysteria,  the  aftermath  of  every 
great  conflict.  Nothing  more  than  a  gesture.  Nor  was  he 
primarily  fighting  for  the  enslaved  blacks;  slavery  was  not 
uppermost  in  his  mind.  Like  Lincoln  he  favored  emancipation 
in  order  to  save  the  Union  and  to  free  the  white  man  and  no 
further.^"  "Damn  tlie  negroes,"  he  once  said  when  charged 
with  race  equality.    "I  am  fighting  those  traitorous  aristocrats, 

ssHnll,    Military    Governor,    p.    155. 

2B  Johnson's  speech  to  a  Virginia  delegation  in  April  1805;  Julian,  Political 
Recollections,  p.  243. 


LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  261 

their  masters."  ^°  During  the  campaign  of  1864  Johnson  went 
into  Ohio  and  canvassed  the  State  with  John  Sherman,  "mak- 
ing patriotic  speeches  to  great  audiences.  .  .  .  His  arraign- 
ment of  the  slave  autocracy  of  the  South  was  very  effective."  ^^ 
Whether  in  Tennessee  or  elsewhere  the  people  flocked  around 
the  much-talked-of  man  and  heard  him  depict  the  dangers 
of  electing  McClellan  President.  Such  a  calamity,  he  declared, 
would  end  the  war,  permanently  establish  slavery,  and  degrade 
honest  labor. 

At  the  North  the  ticket  of  Lincoln  and  Johnson  was  a  draw- 
ing card.  In  primitive  cartoons  "Ole  Abe"  would  be  exhibited 
splitting  rails  to  mend  the  national  fences.  "Andy"  would  be 
seen  sewing  up  the  torn  garment  of  the  Constitution.  One 
cartoon  was  very  effective.  It  was  called  "The  Rail-Splitter 
and  Tailor,  repairing  the  Union."  On  a  table  there  was  a 
large  covered  globe  with  the  cover,  a  map  of  the  Union,  rent 
and  torn.  Andy  was  sitting  on  top  of  the  globe,  busy  with  his 
needle  and  shears,  while  Abe  was  prizing  the  rent  together. 
"Take  it  quietly.  Uncle  Abe,"  Andy  was  saying.  "I  will  draw 
it  closer  than  ever  and  the  good  old  Union  will  be  mended."  ^" 
At  the  polls  the  combination  of  the  rail-splitter  and  the  tailor 
proved  irresistible,  capturing  213  electoral  votes  out  of  a  total 
of  234<.  Every  state  except  Delaware,  Kentucky  and  New 
Jersey  went  for  the  National  Union  ticket.^^ 

At  the  February  election,  Tennessee  ratified  the  action  of 
her  Constitutional  Convention.  Thereby  she  liberated  her 
slaves,  placing  herself  in  position  to  come  back  into  the  Union, 
as  Johnson  had  suggested  to  Lincoln  would  be  the  case.  This 
result  gave  Governor  Johnson  much  pleasure  and  he  would 
share  it  with  his  chief  at  Washington.  "Thank  God  the 
tyrant's  rod  has  been  broken,"  he  wired  President  Lincoln, 
as  soon  as  the  result  was  known.^* 

30  Palmer,  Recollections,  p.  127. 

31  John  Sherman,  Recollections,  Vol.  I,  p.  348. 

32  Great  Debates,  Vol.  VI,  p.  199,  N.  Y.  Society  collection. 

33  General  Sherman  and  General  Sheridan  really  carried  the  election,  at  that 
very  time  having  routed  the  Confederates  in  Georgia  and  in  the  Valley  of 
Virginia,  practically  ending  the  war. 

34  0.  R.  Series  III,  Vol.  IV,  p.  1050.  The  vote  for  ratification  was  25,293, 
and  against  ratification,  48.  On  April  3,  the  legislature  met  and  elected  John- 
son's son-in-law,  Patterson,  and  G.  S.  Fowler  to  the  United  States  Senate. 
— Annual  Encyclopcedia  for  1865,  p.  778;  Fertig,  Secession  in  Tennessee,  p.  54. 


262  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

But  no  human  being  could  endure  Johnson's  labors  without 
a  collapse.  Four  years  of  fighting  had  produced  a  tortured 
mind  and  a  disordered  body.  The  iron  man  could  fight  no 
longer.  Shortly  after  the  campaign,  in  which  he  had  taken 
so  active  a  part,  he  fell  ill  of  fever.  Unable  to  attend  the 
inauguration  of  President  Lincoln,  he  wrote  to  W.  Hickey, 
Chief  Clerk  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate,  to  know  if  it  were 
possible  for  him  to  take  the  oath  in  Tennessee,  and  whether  a 
Vice-president  had  theretofore  failed  to  attend  an  inaugura- 
tion. In  reply  the  Clerk  sent  a  list  of  the  Vice-presidents  who 
had  been  sworn  in  after  the  inauguration  of  the  President : 

John  Adams,  March  4,  1793;  sworn  in  December  2,  1793. 
George  Clinton,  March  4,  1809;  sworn  in  May  22,  1809. 
Elbridge  Gerry,  March  4, 1813 ;  sworn  in  May  24,  1813. 
David  Tompkins,  March  4,  1821 ;  sworn  in  December  28,  1821. 
Martin  Van  Buren,  March  4,  1833  ;  sworn  in  December  16,  1833. 
William  R.  King,  March  4,  1853 ;  died  before  December.^^ 

Mr.  Lincoln,  doubtless  learning  that  Johnson  did  not  intend 
to  be  present  at  the  inaugural  exercises,  wrote  him  and  also 
wired,  requesting  that  he  come  to  Washington  on  the  fourth 
of  March  if  possible.  With  this  request  the  Vice-president 
elect  complied,  setting  out  from  Nashville  five  or  six  days  be- 
fore the  inauguration  and  arriving  at  the  Capitol  about  March 
the  first.^®  Before  leaving  Nashville,  the  Governor  issued  a 
friendly  letter  to  the  people  of  Tennessee,  filled  with  sound 
advice.     (See  Appendix  "B"  for  this  letter.) 

35  Johnson  MS. 

^^  Taylor-Trot irood  Magazine,  September  1908;  Lincoln's  letter  is  set  out  iu 
Nicolay  and  Hay's  Life. 


CHAPTER  VII 
VICE-PRESIDENT 

On  a  certain  occasion  it  was  said  of  Martin  Luther  that  he 
was  not  a  nice  man ;  the  obvious  reply  was,  "No,  and  he  did  not 
have  a  nice  job."  So  might  it  be  said  of  the  job  of  Andrew 
Johnson,  when  he  set  himself  against  southern  tradition,  defied 
southern  chivalry,  ridiculed  caste,  lauded  the  mechanic,  and 
placed  himself  on  the  side  of  manual  labor.  According  to  ac- 
cepted standards,  he  was  not  then  in  accord  with  "good  form," 
nor  engaged  in  a  nice  business.  The  hand  of  little  employment 
hath  the  daintier  sense.  But  an  emergency  had  called  for 
an  absolute  man,  and  in  the  fires  of  civil  war  the  timid  had 
had  no  place.  As  General  Sherman  remarked,  "You  cannot 
make  an  omelette  without  breaking  eggs."  Whether  or  not 
some  other  Southerner  could  have  played  the  part  of  Andrew 
Johnson  is  beside  the  question ;  the  fact  remains  that  no  other 
prominent  southern  official  did.  Out  of  a  population  of  about 
eight  or  ten  million  he  has  the  distinction  of  standing  alone. 
And  he  has  the  greater  distinction,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  of 
being  Abraham  Lincoln's  choice  for  running  mate  in  the 
greatest  crisis  of  our  history. 

Arriving  in  Washington  about  March  1,  Andrew  Johnson 
registered  at  the  Kirkwood  House,  a  hotel  four  or  five  stories 
high,  situated  in  the  heart  of  the  city  at  the  corner  of  the 
Avenue  and  Tenth  Street.  The  Hotel  Raleigh  now  covers  the 
same  lot.^  His  rooms  consisted  of  a  reception  room  and  sleep- 
ing apartments  and  were  on  the  second  floor,  in  the  most  pub- 
lic part  of  the  house."  Washington,  expecting  daily  to  hear  of 
the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy,  was  supremely  happy ;  she  had 
on  her  gala  clothes.     Sherman  had  taken  Atlanta,  marched 

1  Bryan,  History  of  the  National  City,  p.  445. 

2  Attorney  Doster's  address  in  the  "Assassination  Trial,"  June  23,  1865. 

263 


264j  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

through  to  the  sea  and  was  thundering  on  his  northward  course 
to  smash  Joseph  E.  Johnston.    Petersburg  was  under  siege. 

Amidst  these  auspicious  surroundings,  March  4th,  inaugu- 
ration day  arrived, — typically  cold  and  raw.  The  exercises 
took  place  on  the  south  front  of  the  capitol  and  Chief  Justice 
Chase  administered  the  oath  to  President  Lincoln,  now  the 
acknowledged  leader  and  hope  of  the  nation.  His  address  de- 
lighted the  admiring  and  enthusiastic  thousands  who  hailed 
him  as  Father  Abraham.  Even  in  the  flesh  a  halo  had  gath- 
ered about  the  brow  of  him  who  had  piloted  the  ship  safely  into 
harbor.  In  the  Senate  chamber  an  hour  earlier  the  simple 
exercises  of  swearing  in  the  Vice-president  took  place.  The 
oath  was  administered  by  the  Chief  Justice.  Vice-president 
Andrew  Johnson  rose  to  address  the  Senate  and  the  dis- 
tinguished array  of  visitors,  cabinet  officers,  judges,  con- 
gressmen, diplomats,  representatives  of  foreign  governments, 
scholars  and  savants.  It  was  observed  that  the  Vice-president 
had  no  manuscript  in  his  hand.  Evidently  he  was  going  to 
speak  ex  tempore,  to  take  the  matter  to  the  people,  as  down 
in  Tennessee. 

In  substance  the  Vice-president  declared  that  he  wished  it 
well  understood  that  he  was  but  an  humble  man  and  a  plebeian 
and  that  but  for  the  plain  people  that  occasion  would  never 
have  been.  He  himself  had  risen  from  the  humblest  walks,  and 
his  life  illustrated  the  strength  and  the  glor}'^  of  our  Govern- 
ment. "Here  even  the  humblest  has  a  chance  with  the  might- 
iest," he  affirmed.  "In  fact,  you,  Mr.  Secretary  Stanton,  and 
you,  Mr.  Secretary  Welles,  and  you,  Mr.  Chief  Justice  Chase, 
owe  what  you  are  or  will  ever  be,  to  the  people."  He  did  not 
claim  to  be  wise  or  learned,  he  went  on.  In  fact  he  knew  little 
about  parliamentary  law  and  as  Vice-president  would  have  to 
depend  on  the  indulgence  of  the  Senate.  More,  in  this  wretched 
stump-oratory  vein,  he  spoke,  to  the  disgust  of  the  cultured 
and  critical  audience.  Impatience  and  disappointment  were 
on  every  face.  It  was  plain  that  Johnson  was  disguised  in 
stimulants.  That  which  would  have  been  but  a  poor  speech  at 
a  crossroads  gathering  was  entirely  out  of  place  on  a  dignified 
occasion. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  265 

As  this  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  unfortunate  "drunks"  a 
mortal  ever  indulged  in,  furnishing  the  theme  of  endless  ora- 
tory, verse  and  self-righteous  sermonizing,  I  trust  I  may  be 
allowed  to  say  a  word  for  the  unhappy  offender.  That  the 
speech  was  in  execrable  taste  none  can  deny.  It  was  no  occa- 
sion for  "climbing  Jacob's  ladder"  and  discoursing  on  the 
millennial  dawn  when  "Democracy  and  Theocracy  would  meet." 
Yet  when  Johnson  declared  that  the  people  were  above  presi- 
dents, cabinets  and  judges  he  was  running  true  to  form.  In 
vino  Veritas.  Moreover,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had  just  arrived 
from  Tennessee,  a  weary  and  a  sick  man.  He  came  to  the 
Capitol  that  morning  in  the  carriage  with  the  retiring  Vice- 
president,  Hannibal  Hamlin,  and  before  leaving  the  hotel  had 
taken  no  stimulants.  On  the  way  to  the  capitol  he  told  Mr. 
Hamlin  that  he  was  ill  and  his  physician  had  prescribed 
whiskey.  Hamlin  found  a  flask  of  brandy  and  the  result  was 
Johnson  made  a  spectacle  of  himself.^ 

In  a  few  days  Vice-president  Johnson,  in  company  with  his 
friend  Preston  King,  went  out  to  Silver  Spring,  Maryland,  the 
home  of  Frank  Blair.  Here  he  remained  till  the  special  session 
adjourned  on  the  eleventh  of  March.  Colonel  McClure  inti- 
mates that  the  Vice-president  was  forbidden  to  preside  over  the 
Senate,  but  the  record  does  not  confirm  the  suggestion.  A 
caucus,  however,  was  held  and  some  of  the  Senators  discussed 
the  question  of  asking  him  to  resign.  Shortly  afterwards  a 
resolution  was  offered  in  the  Senate  prohibiting  whiskey  in  the 
restaurants.*  Vice-president  Johnson  was  so  concerned  about 
the  incident  that,  from  a  bed  of  fever,  he  had  his  secretary 
write  to  the  Senate  reporter  asking  for  a  verbatim  copy  of  his 
remarks.  He  does  not  seem,  however,  to  have  given  out  any 
public  statement  or  to  have  rendered  any  excuses  or  apologies, 
or  even  to  have  alluded  to  the  occurrence.  Johnson  was  neither 
an  apologist  nor  a  conciliator.^ 

Shortly  after  the  swearing  in  of  Vice-president  Johnson, 

^Century,  Vol.  LXXXV,  p.  199,  article  by  General  Henderson;  LittelVs, 
Vol.  LXXXIV,  p.  13. 

*  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power,  Vol.  II,  p.  478;  Life  and  Services  of 
Andreio  Johnson,  p.  129;  Ward  Hill  Lamon,  Recollections  of  Lincoln,  p.  1; 
"Vice-President  Johnson"  in  Southern  Historical  Review,  Vol.  IX,  1905. 

5  Johnson  MS.  No.  24,489. 


W6  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Secretary  McCuUoch  called  on  President  Lincoln  and  referred 
to  Johnson's  unfortunate  speech,  intimating  that  Johnson  was 
disguised  in  stimulants.  "Oh,  well,"  said  Lincoln,  "don't  you 
bother  about  Andy  Johnson's  drinking.  He  made  a  bad  slip 
the  other  day,  but  I  have  known  Andy  a  great  many  years,  and 
he  ain't  no  drunkard."  ^  "For  six  weeks  after  Johnson  became 
President,"  Secretary  McCulloch  writes,  "he  occupied  a  room 
adjoining  mine  and  communicating  with  it  in  the  Treasury 
Department.  The  President  was  there  every  morning  before 
nine  o'clock  and  he  rarely  left  it  before  five.  There  was  no 
liquor  in  his  room.  It  was  open  to  everybody.  For  nearly 
four  years  I  had  daily  intercourse  with  him,  frequently  at 
night,  and  I  never  saw  him  when  under  the  influence  of  liquor. 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  whatever  may  have  been  his 
faults,  intemperance  was  not  among  them."  "^ 

Returning  to  Washington  from  Silver  Spring  improved  in 
health,  the  Vice-president  took  part  in  the  closing  scenes  of  the 
war.  He  had  been  on  the  firing  line  in  Tennessee  for  four 
years  and  he  had  been  a  refugee  and  an  outlaw  for  five  years ; 
war  hysteria  therefore  gripped  him.  The  hemp  rope  which  he 
had  twisted  down  in  Tennessee,  tight  and  strong  for  hanging 
conscious  traitors,  he  had  brought  along  with  him  to  Wash- 
ington. He  made  no  concealment  of  the  fact  that  treason 
should  be  made  odious.  Everywhere  he  advocated  a  vigorous 
policy  and  the  hanging  of  Jeff  Davis  and  the  leading  rebels 
in  short  order.  It  must  be  noted,  however,  that  these  broad 
threats  were  made  in  March  and  early  in  April  1865.  John- 
son, at  that  time,  was  Vice-president  and  clothed  with  no  au- 
thority in  the  premises.^ 

Soon  the  ill-starred  Confederacy  fell;  on  Sunday,  April  2, 
1865,  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  cabinet  fled  from  Richmond  and 
the  Confederacy  was  no  more.    On  the  ninth  Andrew  Johnson, 

0  McCulloch,  p.  373;  Taylor-Trotwood  Magazine,  September  1908. 

7  I  have  dealt  with  the  Hubjeet  of  Johnson's  intemperance  at  some  length  in 
Part  Til,  Chap.  IT,  "Swinging  Kound  the  Circle";  see  also  a  collection  of 
the  authorities  on  this  subject  by  Schouler  in  his  Histoi-y  of  the  United 
States,  Vol.  VIT,  pp.  1-10. 

« The  Radicals  afterwards  used  these  utterances  as  though  Johnson  were 
then  President. — Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  Chap.  1. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  267 

at  the  request  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  joined  the  presidential  party  for 
a  visit  to  Richmond,  the  capital  of  the  Confederacy. 

With  the  firing  of  guns  and  with  patriotic  speeches  by 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  on  April 
14,  the  fourth  anniversary  of  the  fall  of  Sumter,  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  were  again  raised  over  that  historic  fort.  That  after- 
noon Andrew  Johnson  spent  in  the  Vice-president's  rooms  at 
the  capitol.  In  the  evening  he  and  ex-Governor  Farwell  of 
Wisconsin,  also  a  guest  at  the  Kirkwood  House,  conversed  for 
a  short  time.  Presently  the  ex-Governor  went  to  Ford's  The- 
ater, about  two  blocks  away,  to  see  Laura  Keene  in  "Our  Amer- 
ican Cousin."  It  was  understood  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would 
attend  this  play.  The  Vice-president  retired  early.  A  des- 
perate character,  named  Atzeroth,  assigned  to  murder  John- 
son, it  may  be  stated,  had  taken  room  No.  126,  in  the  Kirkwood 
House.  In  about  two  hours,  and  after  the  Vice-president  was 
in  bed  asleep,  a  vigorous  knocking  was  heard  at  his  door.  It 
was  Governor  Farwell.  Greatly  excited,  having  run  with  all 
speed  from  the  theater,  he  called  out  and  said  he  had  an  urgent 
message  and  must  see  Johnson  at  once.  The  Vice-president 
opened  the  door,  and  the  ex-Governor  rushed  in.  "Some  one 
has  shot  and  murdered  the  President,"  he  exclaimed.  The  two 
men  almost  beside  themselves,  clung  to  each  other  for  support.^ 
Five  hundred  people  soon  gathered  in  the  hotel.  A  number  of 
friends  were  admitted  to  the  Vice-president's  rooms.  Johnson 
despatched  Farwell  to  ascertain  the  President's  condition.  In 
a  short  while  he  returned.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  a  dying  condi- 
tion. Secretary  Seward  had  been  assaulted.  There  was  a  plot 
to  murder  the  Vice-president  and  all  the  heads  of  the  depart- 
ments. The  excitement  was  indescribable.  Against  the  re- 
monstrance of  friends  the  Vice-president  insisted  on  going  to 
President  Lincoln's  bedside.  Accompanied  by  Major  O'Bierne, 
Andrew  Johnson  left  his  apartments  and  made  his  way 
through  vast  crowds  to  the  deathbed.  Here  he  found  that  the 
President  was  beyond  hope.  The  little  dwelling  in  front  of 
Ford's  Theater,  whither  he  had  been  hastily  carried,  was 
crowded  with  relatives  and  with  cabinet  officers.    The  weeping 

9  Testimony  of  Governor  Farwell  in  the  Surratt  trial. 


268  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

and  terror-stricken  populace  filled  the  streets.  After  gazing 
upon  the  pale  face  of  his  chieftain,  whom  he  loved  and  served 
so  well,  Johnson  returned  to  his  hotel/° 

Early  next  morning,  Saturday  April  15,  Secretaries  McCuI- 
loch  and  Speed  came  to  the  Kirkwood  and  officially  notified 
Andrew  Johnson  of  the  death  of  Lincoln  and  of  his  ascension 
to  the  Presidency.  The  written  notification  was  signed  by 
McCulloch,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  Stanton,  Secretary  of 
War;  Weeks,  Secretary  of  the  Navy;  Dennison,  Postmaster 
General;  Usher,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  Speed,  At- 
torney-General, Secretary  Seward,  having  been  injured  in  a 
fall  and  wounded  by  one  of  the  assassins,  was  too  unwell  to  sign 
his  name.  At  Johnson's  request,  the  oath  of  office  was  admin- 
istered at  the  hotel.  About  eleven  o'clock  on  Saturday,  in  the 
parlors  of  the  Kirkwood,  Chief  Justice  Chase,  in  the  presence 
of  McCulloch,  Speed,  Foote,  Hale,  Francis  P.  Blair,  Sr.,  and 
son,  Montgomery  Blair  and  others,  administered  the  oath.^^ 
Andrew  Johnson  impressively  kissed  the  book  at  the  twenty-first 
verse  of  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Ezekiel.  The  ceremony  ended. 
The  Greeneville  tailor  was  President  of  the  United  States. 
Chief  Justice  Chase  extended  his  hand.  "You  are  President,"' 
he  solemnly  declared.  "May  God  support,  guide  and  bless 
you  in  your  administration."  The  President  spoke  a  few 
simple  words.     He  was  almost  overwhelmed  by  the  sad  event 

10  American  Historical  Review,  Vol.  XXIX,  p.  515:  "Andrew  Johnson  was 
present  a  short  while  at  Lincoln's  bedside";  Chronicle,  August  26,  1865:  "D. 
Massey,  a  witness,  talked  with  Andrew  Johnson  a  half  hour  after  he  returned 
from  the  deathbed";  National  Intelligencer,  edition  two-thirty  o'clock  A.M., 
April  15:  "The  Vice-president  has  been  to  see  Lincoln,  but  all  company  except 
the  family,  the  cabinet  and  a  few  friends  have  been  excluded."  Senator  Sum- 
ner wrote  to  John  Bright,  "About  two  p.m.,  the  Vice-president  called  at  the 
dying  President's  bedside";  Pierce,  Sumner,  Vol.  IV,  p.  241.  The  drawing 
of  Lincoln's  deathbed  scene  has  Andrew  Johnson  in  the  group  of  attendant 
mourners;  Washington  Star,  April  16:  "Andrew  Johnson  was  at  the  Presi- 
dent's bedside";  J.  S.  Jones,  Life  of  Johnson,  to  the  same  effect;  ditto,  Savage, 
Life.  On  the  contrary,  in  Barton,  Life  of  Lincoln,  Vol.  II,  p.  343.  it  is 
stated  that  Johnson  was  not  present,  and  that  the  artist  was  mistaken.  In 
Stewart,  Reminiscences,  p.  194,  it  is  said  that  Andrew  Johnson  had  been  drunk 
a  month,  was  "in  with  the  conspirators,"  "did  not  know  of  the  President's 
death  until  seven  or  eight  o'clock  next  day,"  when  Stewart,  Stanton,  Chief 
Justice  Chase  and  Foote  woke  him!  That  Stewart  went  to  Johnson's  rooms 
at  the  Kirkwood  House,  roused  him  from  a  drunken  sleep,  took  him  to  the 
White  House  and  Stanton  sent  for  a  tailor,  a  barber  and  a  docfor!  It  may 
be  here  stated  that  Johnson  did  not  occupv  the  White  House  until  May  25. 

n  Rhodes,  Vol.  V,  p.  150. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  269 

which  had  so  recently  occurred,  he  said.  As  to  an  indication 
of  his  poHcy,  he  went  on  to  declare,  that  would  develop  as  the 
administration  progressed.  He  could  offer  no  assurances  for 
the  future  but  his  past  life,  one  of  toils  and  labors.  He  hoped 
"that  the  present  perils  will  bring  about  greater  freedom  for 
the  masses.  .  .  .  Toil  and  a  hearty  advocacy  of  the  principles 
of  the  free  government  have  been  my  lot.  .  .  .  The  duties 
have  been  mine,"  he  declared,  "the  consequences  are  God's." 
Craving  "the  encouragement  and  support  of  all  who  were  pres- 
ent" and  feeling  that  "all  patriots  and  lovers  of  right,  all  who 
are  in  favor  of  a  free  government  for  a  free  people"  would  hold 
up  his  hands,  "he  favorably  impressed  all  who  were  present." 
On  this  solemn  occasion  he  was  "calm  and  self-possessed"  and 
his  manner  indicated  that  he  was  "grief  stricken."  ^-  The 
daily  papers  were  greatly  gratified  "at  the  manner  in  which 
the  new  President  was  conducting  himself."  ^^ 

A  cabinet  meeting  was  held  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  the  same  day.  The  President  stated  that  he 
wished  to  carry  out  the  policy  of  his  predecessor.^*  He  there- 
fore earnestly  requested  each  member  of  the  cabinet  to  continue 
in  office.  So  anxious  was  he  to  pursue  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy,  he 
at  once  tendered  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Interior  to  James 
Harlan.  Secretary  Usher  had  signified  his  desire  to  resign  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  spoken  of  Harlan  for  the  position.  At  this 
first  meeting  of  the  cabinet,  as  ever  afterwards,  Johnson  was 
"patient,  courteous  and  considerate,"  deporting  himself  ad- 
mirably, or,  as  Sumner  said,  "His  manners  were  excellent,  even 
sympathetic."  As  the  White  House  was  still  occupied  by  Mrs. 
Lincoln  and  her  family,  the  President  was  assigned  rooms  in 
the  Treasury  building,  next  to  Secretary  McCulloch,  where  he 
remained  until  May  25.  At  that  time  he  and  his  family  moved 
into  the  White  House. 

On  May  26  the  last  Confederate  army,  under  General  E. 
Kirby  Smith,  surrendered  and  the  Civil  War  ended.  Three 
days  before  a  grand  military  review  of  the  armies  under  Grant 

12  McCulloch,  p.  376. 

13  Evening  Star,  April  15,  1865. 

14  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.   74. 


270  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

and  Sherman  took  place  in  Washington — a  scene  perhaps 
transcending  in  grandeur  anything  before  witnessed  in  the 
country.  President  Johnson  and  other  officials  reviewed  the 
parade.  The  great  armies  were  disbanded  and  melted  away 
into  the  body  politic.  At  once  delegations  from  everywhere 
began  to  pour  into  Washington,  bent  on  interviewing  the 
President  and  offering  suggestions.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
called.  Radicals  like  Wade,  Sumner  and  Chase  undertook  to 
formulate  a  policy  for  the  reorganization  of  the  Southern 
States  and  of  emancipation  and  negro  suffrage.  War  Demo- 
crats were  thick  around  the  White  House ;  Reverdy  Johnson  of 
Maryland,  General  F.  P.  Blair  and  his  son  Montgomery  Blair, 
Preston  King  of  New  York,  were  sure  of  the  President's  ear. 
Liberal  Republicans,  Dixon,  Doolittle  and  others,  offered  sug- 
gestions. From  the  conquered  and  prostrate  South  came  scores 
of  delegations  composed  of  old  line  Whigs  and  Union  men  gen- 
erally, pleading  for  mercy  and  a  restored  Union  and  a  speedy 
admission  into  the  affairs  of  government.  In  truth,  all  sorts 
and  conditions,  except  original  Secessionists  and  northern 
Copperheads,  frequented  the  White  House.  To  these  diver- 
gent and  conflicting  interests  the  President  gave  due  attention. 

Without  exception,  however,  he  declined  to  commit  himself 
to  any  line  of  policy ;  his  policy  "would  unfold  page  by  page." 
"In  regard  to  my  future  course,"  he  declared  to  an  Illinois 
delegation,  "I  will  now  make  no  pledges,  no  promises."  He 
would  impress  one  fact,  however,  on  all:  "I  was  sprung  from 
the  people  and  every  pulsation  of  the  popular  heart  finds  an 
immediate  answer  in  my  own."  As  to  treason  and  traitors,  he 
never  failed  to  declare  that  the  former  was  a  crime  and  that 
"conscious  traitors" — the  "head  devils" — should  be  punished. 
The  murderer  of  President  Lincoln  should  suffer  the  severest 
penalty,  "that  is  the  response  that  swells  in  every  bosom." 

Having  no  aptitude  for  diversions  or  sports,  the  President 
devoted  himself  to  his  daily  tasks.  This,  indeed,  was  also  his 
pleasure.  He  did  not  attend  the  theaters,  he  was  not  fond  of 
society,  and  with  difficulty  was  prevailed  upon  by  his  asso- 
ciates to  go  on  week-end  excursions  down  the  Potomac.  His 
daily  routine  was  a  full  one.     Rising  at  six,  he  would  read  the 


VICE-PRESIDENT  271 

newspapers  till  breakfast  at  seven-thirty.  After  breakfast  he 
would  begin  the  labors  of  the  day.  Bundles  of  letters  were  to 
be  read  and  replies  dictated,  applications  for  appointments 
considered.  Promotion  and  discharges  from  the  army  and 
navy,  political  advice,  petitions  for  executive  clemency  and 
innumerable  other  subjects  engaged  his  attention.  Before  these 
matters  were  half  completed  visitors  commenced  to  flock  into 
the  anterooms  and  thrust  their  cards  upon  him.  "Pardon  seek- 
ers swarmed  on  every  hand ;  former  owners  of  confiscated  prop- 
erty paced  up  and  down  before  his  rooms,  and  females  with  in- 
describable effrontery  insisted  upon  immediate  audiences." 
The  more  important  business  disposed  of,  "visitors  were  ad- 
mitted one  by  one,  and  the  President  submitted  himself  to  the 
artesian  process."  At  three  o'clock  or  thereabout  the  doors 
of  his  apartment  were  opened  and  the  whole  crowd  admitted. 
*'At  such  times  Colonel  Robert  Johnson  or  Colonel  Brown 
would  stand  near  the  President  and  take  memoranda  as  dic- 
tated by  him."  The  whole  scene  resembled  a  dense  throng  "at 
the  post-office  window.  .  .  .  The  President's  manner  at  such 
times  was  always  pleasant  and  gave  confidence  to  the  most 
timid.  His  decisions  were  quick  and  every  individual  who  laid 
his  case  before  him  learned  in  half  a  dozen  courteous  words  the 
final  decision.  .  .  .  When  all  had  been  listened  to  and  the 
halls  were  once  more  empty  the  President  turned  again  to  the 
papers  on  his  table."  At  four  o'clock  dinner  was  served. 
After  dining,  he  returned  to  his  office  where  he  remained  until 
eleven  o'clock.  In  addition  to  all  these  duties,  "distinguished 
visitors  constantly  presented  themselves.  Representatives  of 
foreign  courts.  Governors,  Senators,  Generals,  and  hundreds 
of  lesser  magnitude  must  be  received,  each  having  some  im- 
portant subject  requiring  care  and  deliberation,  while  over  all 
towers  the  great  and  ever-present  problem  of  reconstruc- 
tion." ^' 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  the  President  was  resolved  to  take  the 
people  into  his  confidence.  To  this  end  he  changed  the  rules 
so  that  each  day,  from  ten  to  three  except  on  Tuesdays  and 
Fridays,  the  public  might  call  and  transact  business.     The 

15  Washington  Star,  November  14,  1865,  "A  President's  Busy  Day." 


272  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

natural  result  was  that  by  October,  "hundreds  of  pardon- 
seekers  were  crowding  the  anteroom  and  by  March  1866  the 
crowds  had  simply  inundated  the  entire  establishment,  the  press 
of  those  imposing  on  the  President's  patience  being  unprece- 
dented." " 

The  Southern  States  engaged  much  of  the  President's  time. 
During  the  first  month  of  his  administration  he  issued  a  procla- 
mation removing  trade  restrictions  in  the  seceding  states;  on 
May  29  an  amnesty  proclamation  was  issued.  "To  all  persons 
engaged  in  rebellion  amnesty  and  pardon,  with  restitution  of 
rights  of  property,  except  slaves"  was  granted,  provided  they 
took  the  oath  prescribed.  This  oath  provided  that  the  affiant 
would  support  the  Constitution  and  all  laws  with  refer- 
ence to  emancipation.  Certain  classes  of  Confederates,  how- 
ever, were  excepted  from  the  proclamation :  Civil  or  diplomatic 
officers  of  the  Confederacy  who  left  judicial  stations  under  the 
United  States ;  officers  above  the  rank  of  Colonel ;  United  States 
Congressmen  who  left  their  seats  in  Congress ;  those  who  re- 
signed the  United  States  army  or  navy ;  those  who  treated  pris- 
oners unlawfully;  those  absent  from  the  United  States  aiding 
rebellion;  military  and  naval  officers  who  were  educated  at 
West  Point;  Governors  of  seceding  states;  citizens  who  left 
the  United  States  and  went  into  the  Confederacy  to  aid  re- 
bellion ;  those  destroying  commerce  on  the  high  seas  or  making 
raids  in  the  Confederacy;  prisoners  of  war  or  under  bonds  as 
such ;  those  voluntarily  participating  in  rebellion  and  the  esti- 
mated value  of  whose  property  was  over  $20,000.00 ;  those  who 
had  not  kept  their  former  amnesty  oath. 

At  the  end  of  this  proclamation  was  appended  a  paragraph 
providing  that  special  application  might  be  made  to  the  Presi- 
dent by  persons  belonging  to  the  excepted  classes  and  that 
clemency  would  be  liberally  extended.  The  provision  that  rebels 
wortli  above  $20,000.00  sliould  be  excluded  created  much  com- 
ment in  the  South.  This  was  President  Johnson's  own  idea,  it 
not  having  been  included  in  Lincoln's  amnesty  Proclamation 
of  1863.  "President  Johnson  is  wreaking  his  vengeance  on 
rich  slave-holding  aristocrats,"  it  was  charged.  But  there  was 
10  Esther  Singleton,  Story  of  Ihc  While  Uoimc,  Vol.  II,  p.  101. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  273 

a  reason  for  this  exception,  the  President  concluded.  But  for 
this  provision  there  would  be  no  punishment  for  "conscious 
rebels" — for  the  leaders  in  rebellion.  This  the  President  ex- 
plained to  a  Virginia  delegation  which  called  and  urged  its 
repeal.  To  one  of  this  delegation  the  President  justified 
excepting  from  the  amnesty  provisions  persons  worth  above 
$20,000.00.  He  asked  the  delegate  if  he  did  not  know  "that 
men  aided  the  rebellion  according  to  the  extent  of  their 
pecuniary  means."  The  delegate  replied,  "No,  I  do  not  know 
it."  Thereupon  the  President  rejoined,  "Why,  yes,  you  do. 
You  know  perfectly  well  it  was  the  wealthy  men  of  the  South 
who  dragooned  the  people  into  Secession."  Though  the  execu- 
tive mansion  was  always  crowded  with  pardon  seekers,  the 
President  carefully  investigated  each  case  and  administered 
his  high  prerogative  with  care."  ^^ 

As  month  after  month  passed  and  the  President  discovered, 
from  intercourse  with  the  visiting  delegation,  that  the  South- 
erners were  on  their  knees  and  repentant  and  that  the  Union 
element  was  in  the  ascendant  and  the  Secessionists  in  the  dis- 
card, he  grew  more  lenient.  Some  are  disposed  to  credit  Mr. 
Seward  with  softening  the  heart  of  President  Johnson.  No 
doubt  the  influence  of  Secretary  Seward  was  potent.  But, 
after  all,  Johnson  was  a  southern  man  and  "loved  the  south- 
ern people."  After  becoming  President  and  after  a  full  in- 
vestigation, he  had  become  convinced  that  the  southern  people 
had  undergone  a  complete  change  of  mind.  As  Judge  Frost  of 
South  Carolina  in  June  1865  expressed  it,  "Certain  delusions 
have  been  dispelled  by  the  Revolution ;  among  them  that  slav- 
ery is  an  element  of  political  strength  and  moral  power" — 
another  delusion,  viz.,  "that  cotton  is  king"  had  likewise  van- 
ished in  mist.  "We  are  to  come  back  with  these  notions  dis- 
pelled and  with  a  new  system  of  labor,"  said  Frost.  Thus 
Johnson  came  to  realize  that  in  the  South  the  principles  for 
which  he  had  contended  had  conquered,  that  the  war  had  liber- 
ated poor  southern  whites  as  well  as  blacks.  A  more  control- 
ling thought  undoubtedly  came  to  the  President :  Not  only  had 

17  Rhodes,  not  a  friendly  critic  agrees,  Vol.  V,  p.  535,  that  Johnson  "wisely 
exercised  the  pardoning  power." 


274}  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  Soutli  changed  her  mental  attitude  but  she  was  now  pros- 
trate and  in  actual  want. 

Her  railroads  were  torn  up  or  worn  out,  her  public  buildings 
and  colleges  in  ruins,  her  banks  broken  and  closed,  her  com- 
merce destroyed,  farms  groAvn  up  in  weeds  and  briers,  ditches 
stopped,  plantations  abandoned.  Much  more  than  this,  her 
morale  was  gone.  Millions  of  slaves  were  roaming  over  the  land 
idle  and  vicious,  "trying  out  their  new  freedom."  The  South's 
vast  social,  economic  and  industrial  system  was  disrupted.  In 
a  word,  such  was  the  desolation  in  the  South,  there  would  have 
been  much  loss  of  life  but  for  Government  aid.  Four  million 
slaves,  valued  at  two  billion  dollars,  had  been  liberated.  Bonds 
and  other  securities  to  fully  as  large  an  amount  had  been 
rendered  worthless. ^^  Instances  of  individual  suffering  were 
heart-rending.  "White  families  of  widows  and  children  were 
often  found  wandering  through  the  woods  without  food  or  shel- 
ter." In  one  instance  a  large  landowner,  one  distinguished  for 
generations,  was  now  penniless,  "his  slaves  all  gone  and  he  the 
scion  of  the  family  stands  on  the  corner  of  the  old  homestead 
and  peddles  molasses  by  the  quart  and  tea  by  the  pound  to 
former  slaves  to  gain  a  little  bread."  ^^ 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  had  been  killed, 
wounded  and  maimed  and  there  was  general  demoralization 
from  the  letting  down  of  social  standards.  With  facts  such 
as  these.  President  Johnson  was  eager,  at  the  earliest  moment, 
to  restore  the  land  of  his  birth  to  its  place  in  the  nation. 

Those  wlio  had  wrought  desolation  he  still  maintained  should 
be  punished.  Meanwhile  Jefferson  Davis  was  held  as  a  pris- 
oner at  Fort  Monroe  and  General  Miles,  his  jailer,  was  un- 
usually harsh  and  cruel.  Miles  had  put  the  rebel  chieftain 
in  irons.  He  kept  Mr.  Davis  in  a  dark  casement,  a  light  burn- 
ing in  his  room,  and  a  sentinel  watching  every  movement.  Of 
this  treatment,  however,  President  Johnson  had  no  knowledge 
until  the  last  of  May.  Such  matters  were  under  the  super- 
is  Fleming,  Reconstruction,  p.  64;  Piko,  Prostrate  South,  p.  117;  The  Sequel 
of  Appomattox,  p.  3;  DuBois,  Reconstruction,  American  Uistorical  Review, 
Vol.  XV,  p.  784. 
10  Pike,  op.  cit. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  275 

vision  of  the  War  Department.""  On  May  28  it  came  to  the 
President's  attention,  for  the  first  time,  that  Mr.  Davis  was  in 
irons.  At  once  the  President  communicated  with  General 
Miles,  asking  if  Davis  was  in  irons  and  if  so,  why?  The  Gen- 
eral answered  that  the  doors  of  the  cell  were  made  of  wood  and 
that  irons  were  necessary.  The  President  at  once  ordered  the 
irons  removed.  He  also  dispatched  Secretary  McCulloch  to 
Davis  to  investigate  and  report  his  condition.  Though  Presi- 
dent Johnson  regarded  Davis  as  "the  head  devil  of  Secession 
and  the  one  above  all  others  that  ought  to  be  hung,"  neverthe- 
less he  insisted  that  he  ought  not  to  be  brutally  treated  while 
in  prison.^^  To  Mrs.  Jefferson  Davis  the  President  was  as 
courteous  and  considerate  as  the  nature  of  the  case  allowed. 
On  June  17,  1865,  she  wired  him  for  permission  to  go  North. 
The  request  was  granted.  On  September  4,  having  heard  that 
Mr.  Davis  was  afflicted  with  carbuncles,  she  was  allowed  to 
visit  him.  On  September  13  she  wrote  to  President  Johnson 
expressing  thanks.  "You  have  refused  no  reasonable  request," 
she  declared.  Mr.  Davis,  himself,  however,  was  implacable. 
To  the  last  he  refused  to  apply  for  a  pardon.--  "I  have  done 
nothing  wrong,  why  should  I  seek  pardon?"  he  asked.  Indeed, 
in  the  1880's,  speaking  of  his  course  in  the  Civil  War,  he  said 
that  "considering  all  the  blood  that  was  shed  and  all  the 
treasure  spent,"  he  would  do  the  same  thing  over  again. 

In  1865,  if  Johnson  could  have  done  so,  he  would  have  hung 
the  President  of  the  Confederacy.^^  When  Attorney-General 
Speed  advised  that  Jefferson  Davis  could  not  be  tried  by  mili- 
tary court-martial  ^*  the  President  consulted  General  B.  F. 
Butler,  at  that  time  a  favorite  of  the  North.  Butler  devised 
an  original  scheme.  Davis  should  be  tried  by  court-martial  for 
treason  and  sentenced  to  be  hung.    The  President  should  then 

20  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  37.  Oberholtzer  lays  a  part  of  the  blame  of  Davis' 
treatment  on  the  President. — Craven,  Prison  Life,  p.  25 ;  Oglesby,  Shackling  of 
Davis,  p.  13. 

21  McCulloch,  p.  410;  O.  R.,  Part  VII,  p.  904,  etc. 

22  In  1869  President  Johnson  suggested  that  Davis  make  application.  He 
would  not,  dying  as  he  had  lived,  an  unrepentant  "rebel." — Professor  W.  E. 
Dodd,  Life  of  Davis,  p.  369.  In  contrast  General  Lee  applied  for  pardon,  at 
once. 

23  Century  Magazine,  January  1913. 

24  McCulloch,  p.  408. 


276  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

recognize  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  permit  Davis  to  take 
the  case  to  the  Supreme  Court.  If  the  Court  held  that  the 
miHtary  commission  had  jurisdiction,  Davis  would  be  executed, 
otherwise  he  would  be  discharged.^^ 

President  Johnson  went  so  far  in  his  effort  to  punish  con- 
scious traitors  he  asked  Grant  if  Lee  could  not  be  punished. 
Grant  replied  that  Lee  was  a  paroled  prisoner  and  therefore 
could  not  be  tried.  The  President  did  not  further  press  the 
matter.  At  first  General  Lee  was  included  with  Davis  in  the 
same  bill  of  indictment,  but  to  the  credit  of  the  United  States 
government  a  nol.  pros,  was  entered  as  to  General  Lee  and  he 
was  never  molested.  President  Johnson  lauded  General  Lee's 
conduct  after  the  war.  He  would  hold  Lee  up  as  an  example 
to  rebellious  and  disloyal  Southerners,  deserting  the  South  and 
fleeing  to  other  lands.  "Why  didn't  you  do  like  General  Lee  ?" 
he  said  to  a  belligerent  southern  woman.  "General  Lee  is  not 
fleeing  from  the  South."  ^°  No  one  more  appreciated  the  mag- 
nanimity of  Lee  after  Appomattox  than  President  Johnson. 
Lee's  patriotic  course  at  Appomattox  was  indeed  winning  all 
hearts.  On  April  9,  for  the  last  time,  mounted  on  old  "Trav- 
eler," Lee  rode  down  the  thin  gray  line.  Thousands  of  brave 
Union  troops  stood  at  attention,  doing  honor  to  their  gallant 
foe.  To  his  ragged  veterans  Lee  turned  and  said  farewell: 
"Men,  I  have  done  the  best  I  could  for  you,"  he  said,  "but  we 
have  been  defeated.  You  have  made  good  soldiers  and  now  you 
will  make  good  citizens — when  you  reach  home  remember  the 
war  is  over  and  the  United  States  is  our  country."  A  few 
months  later,  when  President  of  Washington  and  Lee  LTniver- 
sity,  Lee  was  writing  to  the  southern  people,  endorsing  Andrew 
Johnson  and  his  administration.  "Every  one  approves  of  An- 
drew Johnson's  policy,"  Lee  wrote  to  a  friend." 

2a  Ben.  Butler's  Book,  April  18G5. 

2(i  Harper's  Magazine,  Vol.  CXX,  p.  179. 

27  Jones,  Life  of  Lee,  p.  21G;  Rhodes,  Vol,  VI,  p.  72. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT 

While  President  Johnson  was  busy  with  executive  duties,  the 
War  Department  had  been  busy  running  down  and  trying  the 
assassins  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  After  murdering  Lincoln  at  Ford's 
Theater  on  April  14,  John  Wilkes  Booth  jumped  upon  the 
stage  and  mock-heroically  exclaimed,  *'Sic  semper  tyrannis." 
In  the  excitement,  though  his  leg  was  caught  in  the  drapery 
and  broken,  he  made  his  escape,  crossing  the  Long  Bridge  and 
reaching  Dr.  Mudd's  twelve  miles  away  in  Maryland.  Next 
day  the  War  Department  got  on  the  trail  and  arrested  eight 
persons,  David  E.  Herold,  Edward  Spengler,  Lewis  Payne, 
Michael  O'Loughlin,  Samuel  Arnold,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  and 
Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd.  John  H.  Surratt,  though  suspected, 
escaped  to  Europe. 

On  April  27  Booth  and  Herold  were  surrounded  in  a  barn 
on  the  Virginia  side  and  Booth  was  shot  to  death  by  Burton 
Corbett.  Corbett  was  First  Sergeant  of  his  company,  an  ec- 
centric gloomy  personage,  who  afterwards  killed  himself,  first 
shooting  up  a  state  legislature.  When  called  to  account  for 
killing  Booth,  he  replied,  "Colonel,  Providence  directed  me!" 
Booth's  body  was  wrapped  in  a  blanket  and  taken  to  Washing- 
ton. When  it  reached  there  "Dr.  John  Frederick  May  exam- 
ined it.  He  recognized  Booth's  features  and  also  a  scar  on  his 
neck,  the  result  of  an  operation  the  doctor  had  performed."  ^ 
The  body  was  secretly  buried  under  the  old  penitentiary.  In 
Booth's  pockets  were  found  various  articles — a  pipe,  a  spur,  a 
compass,  and  a  diary.  Four  years  later  President  Johnson 
gave  Edwin  Booth,  brother  of  John  Wilkes,  leave  to  remove 
Booth's  body.  One  midnight  in  February  1869  Edwin  Booth 
and  the  family  dentist  went  to  the  grave  and  exhumed  the  body 
and  thoroughly  identified  it.  There  were  gold  fillings  in  the 
teeth  which  the  dentist  knew  to  be  his  work.    The  long  raven- 

1  Lincoln  Obsequies,  in  Library  of  Congress,  p.  97. 

277 


278  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

black,  curly  locks  were  unmistakable.  Edwin  Booth  buried 
the  bones  of  his  mad  brother  in  the  Booth  burial  ground  in 
Baltimore."  As  late  as  1925  it  was  claimed  that  Wilkes  Booth 
was  not  captured  or  killed.  Some  other  body  had  been  passed 
off  for  his ;  and  Booth  escaped  and  lived  to  be  seventy  years  old. 
In  fact  a  "body  of  Booth,"  carefully  embalmed,  was  exhibited 
to  the  public !  ^ 

John  Wilkes  Booth,  son  of  an  English  tragedian,  was  a  vio- 
lent, emotional,  half-crazy  Southerner,  living  in  Baltimore. 
He  originated  the  assassination  plot,  giving  to  each  conspir- 
ator his  part.*  Booth's  part  was  to  kill  Lincoln.  To  acquaint 
his  associates  with  the  place  where  the  murder  was  to  occur,  he 
accompanied  them,  a  few  days  in  advance,  to  Ford's  and  looked 
it  over.    He  himself  had  often  acted  there.    To  Payne  he  gave 

2  Washington  Star,  January  5,  1907 ;  Benn.  Pittman,  The  Assassination  of 
President  Lincoln,  p.  197;  Oldroyd,  Assassination  of  Lincoln,  p.  209. 

3  Two  accounts  of  Booth's  escape  and  later  life  have  been  written:  1.  Bates, 
Finis  L.  Escape  and  suicide  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  assassin  of  President 
Lincoln.  Memphis,  Pilcher  Printing  Co.,  1907,  309  p.  The  author  claims  that 
John  Wilkes  Booth  was  not  killed  at  the  Garrett  house  in  Virginia  in  1S65, 
but  that  he  was  living  under  the  name  of  John  St.  Helen  at  Glenrose  Mills, 
Texas,  1872-1877,  and  committed  suicide  at  Enid,  Oklahoma,  in  1903  as  David 
E.  George.  2.  Oklahoma  the  Mecca  for  men  of  mystery;  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
escape  and  wanderings  until  final  ending  of  the  trail  by  suicide  at  Enid, 
Oklahoma,  January  12,  1903.  [Oklahoma  City,  1922]  144  p.  (Travelers  series, 
number  seven.) 

An  official  statement  in  the  matter  is  that  to  be  found  in  v.  46.  pt.  3  of  the 
series  bearing  the  title:  "The  war  of  the  rebellion:  a  compilation  of  the 
official  records,"  Washington.  Government  printing  office,  1894.  The  follow- 
ing is  copied  from  p.  989  of  that  volume: 

Headquarters  Middle  Military  Division, 
Washington,  D,  C,  April  27,  1865. 
Bvt.  Maj.  Gen.  W.  H.  Emory,  Cumberland,  Md.: 
The  following  is  sent  for  your  information: 

War  Department, 
Washington,  April  27,  1865—0:35  A.M. 
Major-General  Dix, 

New  York. 
J.  Wilkes  Booth  and  Horold  were  chased  from  the  swamp  in  Saint  Mary's 
County,  Md. :  pursued  yesterday  morning  to  Garrett's  farm,  near  Port  Royal, 
on  the  Rappahannock,  by  Colonel  Baker's  force.  The  barn  in  which  they  took 
refuge  was  fired.  Booth,  in  making  his  escape,  was  shot  through  the  head 
and  killed,  lingering  about  three  hours,  and  Herold  captured.  Booth's  body 
and  Herold  are  now  here. 

Edwin  M.  Stanton, 
Secretary  of  War. 
By  command  of  Major-General  Hancock: 

Duncan  S.  Walkeb, 

Assistant  Adjutant-General. 
(Same  to  Brevet  Major-General  Torbert,  Winchester,  Va.,  and  Brigadier- 
General  Stevenson,  Harper's  Ferry,  W.  Va.) 

4  DeUitt,  Assassination,  p.  40. 


THE  EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT      279 

the  task  of  murdering  Seward;  Atzerodt  was  to  kill  Andrew 
Johnson;  O'Loughlin  was  to  kill  Grant;  Herold  was  to  show 
Payne  the  Seward  residence  and  then  assist  Atzerodt.  The 
guilt  of  Payne,  Atzerodt  and  Herold  was  beyond  dispute,  as 
each  knew  of  the  plot  to  kill  and  participated  in  it ;  but  Mrs. 
Surratt's  guilt  was  more  than  doubtful.  Payne  murderously 
assaulted  Seward ;  Herold  and  Atzerodt  that  night  rode  wildly 
around  the  city  on  horseback.  Herold  afterwards  accompanied 
and  assisted  Booth  in  his  flight.  Earlier  in  the  night  Atzerodt 
had  engaged  room  No.  126  at  the  Kirk  wood  House,  deposited 
his  weapons  in  the  room,  and  looked  over  the  sturdy  man 
whom  he  was  assigned  to  murder.     But  he  went  no  further. 

One  fact  must  be  kept  in  mind.  There  had  once  been  a  plot 
to  abduct  Lincoln,  and  carry  him  off  to  Richmond  but  not  to 
murder  him.  This,  as  Booth  thought,  would  end  the  war. 
This  plot  failed  because  the  conspirators  could  find  no  favor- 
able opportunity.  Several  times  they  had  followed  Lincoln's 
carriage  but  the  President  happened  not  to  be  an  occupant. 
The  reason  Booth  reorganized  his  band  to  kill  Lincoln  was  this : 
On  April  11  President  Lincoln  declared  in  his  last  speech  that 
he  favored  the  more  intelligent  negroes  and  negro  soldiers  vot- 
ing. Booth  was  present  and  said  to  a  companion,  "That  is  the 
last  speech  Lincoln  will  ever  make."  At  once  he  set  about  to 
murder  Lincoln.  Now  with  this  change  of  plan  Arnold  and 
O'Loughlin  were  not  acquainted ;  on  the  fourteenth  Arnold  was 
at  work  at  Fortress  Monroe,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  plot  to 
kill.  He  had,  however,  been  connected  with  the  plot  to  abduct. 
The  evidence  against  O'Loughlin  was  slight.  Though  he  knew 
of  the  plot  to  abduct,  he  did  not  know  he  was  expected  to  kill 
Grant,  and  his  only  connection  with  the  murder  was  that  he 
happened  to  be  in  Washington  on  Thursday  and  Friday  of  the 
fatal  week. 

Spengler,  however,  and  Dr.  Mudd  were  implicated  as  acces- 
sories after  the  fact.  Spengler  tried  to  hinder  the  pursuit  of 
Booth  and  to  prevent  his  identification.  Dr.  Mudd  set  Booth's 
leg  the  night  of  the  fourteenth  when  he  and  Herold  fled  from 
Washington.  The  Doctor  was  a  Union  man.  He  and  Booth 
were  slightly  acquainted,  and  yet  he  claimed  not  to  have  recog- 


280  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

nized  Booth  that  night  or  the  next  morning.  For  his  services 
in  setting  the  broken  leg  the  Doctor  was  paid  twenty-five  dol- 
lars. When  he  cut  the  boot  from  Booth's  broken  leg,  inside 
the  boot  he  saw  written,  "John  Wilkes  ."  Next  morn- 
ing, April  15,  the  wounded  actor  called  for  a  razor  and  shaved 
off  his  mustache ;  he  also  put  on  false  whiskers.  These  facts. 
Dr.  Mudd  asserted,  he  learned  from  his  wife.  At  first  it  was 
thought  John  H.  Surratt  assaulted  Seward,  but  afterwards 
Seward's  bellboy  identified  Payne  as  the  assailant. 

We  now  come  to  Mrs.  Surratt's  connection  with  this  affair. 
Unfortunately  for  her,  since  October  1864  she  had  run  a 
boarding  house  in  Washington,  at  602  H  Street  N.  W.,  near 
the  Capitol.  She  also  owned  a  tavern  at  Surrattsville,  Mary- 
land, about  twelve  miles  distant  from  Washington.  Boarding 
with  her  in  Washington  were  several  of  the  conspirators,  in- 
cluding one  Weicliman,  who  afterwards  became  the  chief,  if  not 
the  only,  witness  against  her.  Booth  did  not  board  with  INIrs. 
Surratt,  but  at  the  National  Hotel.  The  evidence  of  Mrs. 
Surratt's  guilt  hardly  amounted  to  a  scintilla.  Though  she  ran 
the  boarding  house,  where  one  or  more  of  the  conspirators  and 
the  man  Weichman  boarded,  and  though  her  son  John  was  im- 
plicated in  the  plot  to  abduct  Lincoln,  yet  the  evidence  of  her 
guilt  extended  little  further.  This  evidence  may  be  sum- 
marized as  follows:  Two  days  after  the  murder  and  while  the 
police  were  searching  her  home,  a  shocking  looking  fellow,  dirty 
and  disguised,  came  in  with  a  pickax  on  his  shoulder.  He  had 
come  to  do  some  work  for  Mrs.  Surratt,  he  said.  The  police 
arrested  him  as  a  suspect  and  took  him  to  the  station  where 
Mrs.  Surratt  had  already  been  taken.  She  was  confronted  with 
the  stranger  and  was  asked  if  she  knew  him.  She  said  she  did 
not.  This  man  proved  to  be  Lewis  Payne,  the  assailant  of 
Seward.  In  the  March  previous  he  had  been  to  Mrs.  Surratt's 
house  at  least  once,  and  was  passing  off  as  the  son  of  a  Baptist 
preacher.  This  denial  of  acquaintance  by  Mrs.  Surratt  was 
suspicious  but  not  necessarily  criminal. 

In  addition  to  this  circumstance  there  were  two  others. 
Weichman,  Mrs.  Surratt's  favorite  boarder,  testified  that  on 
the  Tuesday  before  the  fatal  Friday  he  and  Mrs.  Surratt  had 


THE  EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT      281 

driven  out  to  Surrattsville,  where  she  had  a  private  talk  with 
Lloyd,  her  tenant,  which  he  did  not  hear.  Lloyd,  all  but 
frightened  to  death,  stated  that  Mrs.  Surratt  said,  on  that 
occasion,  "Get  the  shooting  irons  ready,  parties  will  call  for 
them."  Afterwards,  when  he  and  Weichman  were  threatened 
with  hanging  if  he  did  not  tell  more,  he  changed  the  statement 
and  swore  she  said,  "Get  the  shooting  irons  ready,  parties  will 
be  wanting  them  soon."  Weichman  also  testified  that  on  Fri- 
day, April  14,  about  noon,  while  he  and  Mrs.  Surratt  were  in  a 
buggy  and  about  to  start  for  Surrattsville,  Booth  came  along 
and  put  a  package  in  the  buggy,  and  they  carried  the  package 
to  Surrattsville.  This  package  when  afterwards  opened  was 
found  to  contain  Booth's  field  glasses. 

Secretary  of  War  Stanton  and  Joseph  Holt,  Judge  Advo- 
cate General,  had  skillfully  and  expeditiously  done  the  work  of 
detecting  and  capturing  these  conspirators.  But  their  attempt 
to  implicate  Jefferson  Davis  and  others  was  a  farce.  At  Stan- 
ton's request  President  Johnson  had  offered  $100,000  for  the 
capture  of  Davis  and  smaller  sums  for  C.  C.  Clay,  J.  P.  Benja- 
min and  others.^  Stanton  and  Holt  had  worked  themselves  up 
to  believing  Davis  and  Judah  P.  Benjamin  in  Richmond  had 
hired  the  conspirators  to  commit  the  crime.  Stanton,  nervous 
and  timid,  was  wild  with  excitement ;  he  was  guarded  by  special 
police.  Judge  Holt,  his  assistant,  was  merciless  and  cruel.  A 
man  of  harsh,  forbidding  countenance.  Holt  had  prosecuted 
and  disgraced  Fitz- John  Porter.  No  one  who  bore  the  name  of 
"rebel"  had  any  rights,  he  thought.  In  1864  he  refused  the  re- 
quest of  an  18-year-old  "rebel"  girl  to  attend  a  marriage  in 
her  family.''  Judge  Holt  expected  "to  hang  the  murderers 
before  Lincoln  was  buried."  ^ 

Holt  and  Stanton  assured  President  Johnson  that  they  had 
evidence  to  convict  Davis,  Benjamin,  Clay  and  others,  and  in 
consequence  of  this  statement  the  President  offered  the  re- 
wards. This  extraordinary  conclusion  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment was  based  on  the  statement  of  one  Sanford  Conover  "who 
was  going  to  produce  at  least  three  witnesses  of  unimpeached 

5  Welles,  Diary,  Vol.  II,  p.  300. 

6  0.  R.  Series  II,  Part  VIII,  p.  839. 

7  Welles,  Vol.  II,  May  9,  1865;  Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  26. 


282  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

character  who  submitted  to  Davis  a  proposition  to  kill  the 
President."  ^  Conover,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was  a  suborner  of 
perjury.^ 

In  order  to  include  Davis  and  the  others,  whether  present  or 
not,  in  the  murder  of  Lincoln,  Judge  Holt  charged  a  con- 
spiracy. Now  when  a  criminal  conspiracy  is  proven  every  con- 
spirator, though  absent  when  the  crime  is  committed,  is  bound 
by  the  acts  of  his  co-conspirators.  In  May,  Jefferson  Davis 
was  captured  in  Georgia  and  was  informed  of  President  John- 
son's reward.  "Why,  Johnson  knows  better  than  that,"  said 
the  fleeing  Confederate  chieftain,  "he  knows  I  much  prefer  Lin- 
coln as  President,  to  him."  ^'^  Booth  having  been  killed  and 
John  Surratt  having  fled  to  Europe,  only  eight  persons  re- 
mained to  be  tried.  They  were  rough  characters,  except  Mrs. 
Surratt  and  Dr.  Mudd.  She  was  a  refined  woman  and  a  devout 
Catholic,  and  he  was  a  man  of  character.  All  were  huddled  to- 
gether in  the  old  prison,  at  the  foot  of  Seventh  Street,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Potomac,  and  were  tried  by  a  Military  Commis- 
sion, without  judge  or  jury. 

This  court-martial  was  perhaps  the  most  important  and 
far-reaching  military  trial  in  American  annals.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
the  victim,  was  the  foremost  personage  in  the  world ;  his  mur- 
derer was  John  Wilkes  Booth,  brother  of  Edwin  Booth,  the 
impersonator  of  Hamlet ;  the  court  was  composed  of  ten  officers, 
none  with  the  rank  of  less  degree  than  General,  except  two 
who  were  Colonels.  One  member  of  the  court  was  Lew  Wal- 
lace, author  of  Ben  Hur;  General  Winfield  Scott  Hancock, 
afterwards  Democratic  candidate  for  President,  was  sheriff 
or  marshal.  The  commission  was  organized  May  8  and  was 
in  session  nearly  sixty  days;  the  trial  provoked  unending  dis- 
cussion and  out  of  it  came  hundreds  of  books,  pamphlets  and 
newspaper  articles.  It  likewise  entered  into  politics,  greatly 
irritating  President  Johnson  and  injuring  the  usefulness  of 

8  Jones,  JAfc  of  Andrcu-  Johnson,  p.  150. 

»  DeWitt,  Assassination,  p.  173. 

niTTnion  soldiors  Avho  fiipturod  Davis  cortify  that  he  was  not  dispfiiised,  hut 
hore  himself  like  a  gallant  soldier.  J.  Wm.  Jones,  Memorial  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
p.  401. 


THE   EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT      283 

Judge  Joseph  Holt,  JoHn  A.  Bingham,  special  prosecutor  for 
the  Government,  and  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War. 

Each  day  the  eight  prisoners  would  be  brought  into  court  in 
shackles.  Only  two  days  had  been  allowed  them  to  get  ready 
and  employ  attorneys.  Wlien  Reverdy  Johnson,  a  Union  Sen- 
ator from  Maryland,  came  in  to  represent  Mrs.  Surratt,  he  was 
ordered  out  of  the  case.  Under  the  rule  he  was  advised  no  one 
could  appear  as  attorney  who  had  not  taken  the  iron  clad  oath. 
Johnson  was  afterwards  readmitted  but  refused  to  appear. 
Evidence  of  the  most  remote  kind  was  heard.  In  fact,  Mrs. 
Surratt  and  her  associates  were  made  responsible  for  the  acts 
of  southern  rebels  during  the  war, — for  the  "horrors  of  South- 
ern prisons"  and  the  like. 

During  the  torrid  days  of  June  the  court  room  was  packed 
with  public  officials,  generals  of  the  army,  society  leaders,  curi- 
osity seekers,  brides  and  grooms.^"  Mrs.  Surratt's  daughter 
Anna  was  also  present.  As  near  as  she  could  approach  her 
mother,  this  devoted  woman  dragged  herself,  almost  dying  of 
grief  and  sorrow.  John  L.  Bingham  and  Major  H.  L.  Burnett 
appeared  for  the  United  States,  and  seven  attorneys  for  the 
defendants.  The  trial  was  a  farce.  Recorder  Holt,  w^hose 
duty  it  was  to  see  that  justice  was  done  and  no  innocent  person 
convicted,  taxed  his  ingenuity  to  suppress  evidence  that  would 
hurt  the  Government's  case  or  help  the  defendants. 

He  had  in  his  possession  the  diary  of  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
taken  off  the  dead  body  of  Booth  and  written  just  after  the 
murder.  This  diary  would  have  shown  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had 
no  knowledge  of  the  plot  to  assassinate  Lincoln,  that  Booth's 
change  of  plan  after  April  11  had  not  been  known  to  her. 
This  was  not  brought  to  light,  nor  offered  to  the  Court.^^ 
Commenting  on  this  diary.  General  B.  F.  Butler,  on  a  noted 
occasion  attacking  Bingham,  declared,  "It  might  not  have  been 
legal  evidence,  yet  it  was  moral  evidence  carrying  conviction 
to  the  moral  sense,  and  if  Mrs.  Surratt  did  not  knoAV  of  the 
change  of  purpose,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  she  knew  in 

lOOldroyd,  op.  cit.,  p.  316. 

11  DeWitt  finds  as  the  motive  for  the  suppression  of  Booth's  diary  that 
both  Stanton  and  Holt  wished  to  convict  John  Surratt,  and  that  this  could 
not  have  been  done  if  Booth's  diary  were  put  in  evidence.  DeWitt,  Impeach' 
ment,  p.  215. 


284.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

any  way  of  the  assassination,  she  ought  not  in  my  judgment 
to  have  been  convicted."  Judge  Bingham  addressed  the  Com- 
mission in  his  impassioned  manner,  for  five  or  six  days,  con- 
cluding his  speech  on  July  3. 

The  Military  Commission  then  retired  to  consider  their  ver- 
dict. They  found  all  eight  guilty.  Mrs.  Surratt,  Payne,  At- 
zerodt  and  Herold  were  guilty  in  the  first  degree  and  should 
be  hung ;  three  of  the  others  should  be  imprisoned  for  life,  and 
one  for  six  years.  This  sentence  had  to  be  approved  by  the 
President  before  it  could  be  carried  out.  On  July  5  the  dili- 
gent Holt  gained  admittance,  by  a  side  door,  to  the  White 
House — the  President  though  sick  must  sign  the  death  war- 
rant. President  Johnson,  anxious  as  Holt  or  Stanton  to  pun- 
ish Mr.  Lincoln's  murderers,  came  from  his  sick  bed,  and 
signed  the  warrant,  under  circumstances  I  will  presently  ex- 
plain. 

The  friends  of  Mrs.  Surratt  on  July  5  and  6  moved  heaven 
and  earth  to  secure  her  release.  Many  hastened  to  the  White 
House  to  implore  the  President  to  exercise  mercy,  but  were 
refused  admittance.  Preston  King  and  Senator  Lane 
guarded  the  White  House  entrance.  The  President,  since  June 
26,  had  been  confined  with  bilious  fever.  Anna  Surratt  threw 
herself  fainting  on  the  steps  of  the  White  House.  Other 
friends  applied  to  Judge  Wylie  to  issue  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
to  inquire  into  the  legality  of  a  court-martial  in  times  of 
peace.  The  writ  was  issued  and  directed  to  General  Hancock 
to  execute.  The  General,  with  the  great  writ  in  hand,  called  on 
Attorney-General  Speed  for  advice.  The  legal  department 
advised  that  the  M-rit  had  been  suspended  by  Lincoln  "and 
specially  in  this  case  by  Johnson."  Therefore  the  General, 
after  explaining  matters  to  the  Judge,  returned  the  writ  un- 
executed.^^ 

All  hope  for  Mrs.  Surratt  was  now  gone.  The  President 
would  not  hear  her  appeal  for  mercy  and  the  courts  were  sup- 
pressed. Judge  Wylie  complained  that  he  was  treated  with 
contempt,  but  did  not  further  defy  the  Government.    July  7, 

12  In  1880  wlien  Hancock  was  the  Democratic  candidate  for  President  this 
circumstance  injured  him  in  bome  sections. 


THE  EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT      285 

1865,  was  a  hot,  blistering  day ;  on  that  day  Mrs.  Mary  Sur- 
ratt  was  to  die  on  the  gallows.  Bound  and  shackled,  the  four 
doomed  persons  approached  the  place  of  death — two  in  front 
and  two  behind.  At  one  o'clock  General  Hartranft,  Provost- 
Marshal,  cut  the  rope  and  the  four  bodies  fell  with  a  thud. 
Thousands  from  trees  and  rooftops  gazed  at  the  gruesome 
spectacle.  Their  bodies  were  buried  on  the  spot.  The  four 
lesser  culprits  were  sent  to  the  Dry  Tortugas,  off  the  coast  of 
Florida.^^  The  pardoning  of  these  parties  in  1869  by  Presi- 
dent Johnson  "created  not  a  ripple."  ^* 

The  public  and  the  press  in  July  1865  "approved  the  find- 
ing of  the  court-martial  and  the  execution  of  the  four  mur- 
derers." ^^  "So  far  as  heard  in  the  public  marts,"  said  the  re- 
porters, "people  approve  the  trial,  and  the  sentence  gives  gen- 
eral satisfaction ;"  "of  the  guilt  of  the  criminals  and  the  justice 
of  the  sentences  there  was  ample  evidence."  ^'^  The  agony  of 
Anna  Surratt,  fainting  on  the  steps  of  the  White  House, 
moved  not  the  hearts  of  an  outraged  people.  Yet  her  friends 
felt  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had  been  murdered.  The  Surratt  home 
was  draped  in  mourning  that  July  day,  and  church  bells  tolled 
her  death.  But  it  was  a  day  of  tragedy  and  Lincoln's  murder 
must  be  avenged.  "Thousands  of  relic  hunters  visited  the  Sur- 
ratt home  and  chipped  chips  from  the  portico  until  the  police 
were  called  to  disperse  them."  "  But  the  sequel  to  this  trial  is 
its  most  interesting  feature. 

Two  years  after  the  execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  her  son  John 
was  captured  in  Italy,  as  a  member  of  the  Pope's  Guards,  and 
brought  back  to  Washington.  He  was  indicted  and  tried  be- 
fore a  civil  court  and  a  jury  for  conspiracy  to  murder  Lincoln. 
At  this  trial  startling  disclosures  occurred  in  connection  with 
the  court-martial  of  Mrs.  Surratt.    For  the  first  time  it  came 

13  In  March  1869  Andrew  Johnson  pardoned  Dr.  Mudd,  who  had  risked 
his  life  in  a  yellow  fever  epidemic  on  the  island,  and  also  Spengler  and  Arnold ; 
O'Loughlin  had  died  in  the  yellow  fever  scourge. 

14  Oldroyd,  Assassination,  etc.,  p.  161;  DeWitt,  Assassination,  in  the  last 
chapter. 

15  Washington  papers,  July  8,  1865. 

"i^^  National  Republican,  July  26;  National  Intelligencer,  July  7. 

^T  Evening  Star,  July  8;  the  superstitious  noted  that  Senator  Lane  and  ex- 
Senator  King,  who  acted  as  janitors  at  the  White  House  and  kept  Anna  Sur- 
ratt from  the  President,  soon  killed  themselves. 


286  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

out  that  John  Wilkes  Booth  had  left  a  diary  and  that  this 
diary  would  have  acquitted  Mrs.  Surratt,  and  that  the  diary 
had  been  suppressed.  A  second  fact  came  to  light.  There  had 
been  a  recommendation  for  mercy,  signed  by  five  of  the  mili- 
tary commission.  This  recommendation  had  likewise  been 
suppressed.  As  the  evidence  against  Mrs.  Surratt  was  meager 
and  related  to  matters  prior  to  April  11,  1865,  when  Booth 
changed  his  plans,  it  was  manifest  that  she  had  been  improp- 
erly convicted — "murdered!"  Holt  and  his  associates  had 
suppressed  evidence,  it  was  charged,  they  had  offered  the  pipe, 
the  field  glasses  and  the  spur,  taken  from  Booth's  body,  but  the 
diary  they  had  not  offered.  In  Holt's  safe  it  had  lain  for  two 
years,  known  to  no  one  except  Holt,  Bingham  and  Burnett. 
John  Surratt  was  set  free  by  the  court.^® 

The  suppression  of  the  recommendation  for  mercy  came  to 
light  in  this  way.  Richard  T.  Merrick,  John  Surratt's  attor- 
ney, in  his  address  to  the  jury,  referred  to  the  change  in 
Booth's  plans.  "Mrs.  Surratt  had  no  earthly  connection  with 
the  plot  to  kill  formed  after  the  11th  of  April,"  he  asserted. 
Bingham,  counsel  for  the  Government,  replied  that  "the  whole 
matter  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  guilt  or  innocence  had  been  passed  on 
and  reviewed  by  President  Johnson."  "Here  I  hold  in  my 
hand  the  original  record,"  he  exclaimed,  "a  record  presented  to 
the  President  and  laid  before  his  cabinet.  .  .  .  Every  single 
member  voted  to  confirm  the  sentence  and  the  President  with 
his  own  hand  wrote  his  confirmation  of  it  and  with  his  own 
hand  signed  the  warrant." 

Now  this  was  the  first  knowledge  the  President,  the  cabinet 
or  the  public  had  of  such  a  paper.  Though  during  the  early 
days  of  July  1865  there  had  been  wild  rumors  of  such  a  recom- 
mendation, these  rumors  soon  died  out  and  were  discredited. 
President  Johnson  was  as  much  astonished  as  the  public  by 
Bingham's  statement.  At  once  he  sent  to  the  War  Department 
for  the  original  records  in  the  court-martial  of  Mrs.  Surratt." 
In  the  records  he  found  the  recommendation  for  mercy.  Here, 
then,  was  a  bad  situation — a  woman  hung,  hung  because  evi- 

JsLaughlin,  The  Death  of  Lincoln,  p.  396. 
19  VV.  G.  Moore,  Diary,  August  5,  1867. 


THE  EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT      287 

dence  had  been  suppressed  and  a  recommendation  for  mercy 
withheld. 

What  then  was  the  truth  of  this  matter?  Only  July  5, 1865, 
when  Judge  Holt  called  President  Johnson  from  his  bed  and  re- 
quested him  to  sign  the  sentence  of  death  against  Mrs.  Surratt, 
did  he  suppress  the  recommendation  for  mercy  .'^  Again  w^as 
the  recommendation  for  mercy  submitted  to  the  President  at  a 
cabinet  meeting,  as  stated  by  Bingham,  and  approved  by  them? 
The  President  always  declared  he  never  saw  or  heard  of  the 
recommendation  for  mercy  until  it  was  called  to  his  attention 
by  the  newspapers  on  August  4,  1867.  Holt  asserted  that  the 
President  had  seen  it.  The  facts  of  this  wretched  affair  seem 
to  sustain  the  President.  To  begin  with,  there  was  no  cabinet 
meeting  on  the  last  Friday  in  June  1865.  In  fact,  after  the 
finding  of  the  court-martial  and  before  the  hanging  of  IMrs. 
Surratt  there  was  no  cabinet  meeting  at  all,  as  the  records 
show.  During  that  time  it  is  conceded  the  President  was  sick 
with  fever  and  that  he  got  out  of  a  sick  bed  on  the  fifth  and 
signed  the  death  warrant.  Therefore,  the  statement  that  the 
cabinet  approved  the  execution  was  erroneous.^" 

A  most  pregnant  fact  is  this :  The  recommendation  for  mercy 
was  never  printed  nor  referred  to  in  the  newspapers.  The  Star 
of  July  10,  1865,  had  a  long  account  of  the  trial,  New  York 
and  other  papers,  likewise,  were  full  of  it,  but  no  reference  was 
made  to  a  recommendation  for  mercy.  If  it  had  been  in  the  file, 
surely  reporters  would  not  have  missed  so  important  a  point. 
But  perhaps  the  public  could  not  gain  access  to  the  War  De- 
partment to  inspect  the  file?  That  suggestion  is  met  by  an- 
other circumstance.  In  August  1865  Benn  Pittman,  reporter 
to  the  military  commission,  asked  leave  of  Judge  Holt  to  print 
the  trial.  The  Judge  granted  leave  but  imposed  two  condi- 
tions :  First,  Pittman  "must  publish  every  word,  omitting  noth- 
ing"; second,  in  order  to  see  that  nothing  was  changed  or 
omitted,  "Major  Burnett  of  the  commission  must  inspect  the 
proof."  This  was  carefully  done;  Major  Burnett  inspected 
the  proof  of  Pittman's  book,  TJie  Trial  of  the  Assassins,  and 

20  Welles,  Diary,  Vol.  II,  p.  324 ;  Oberholtzer,  History  of  the  United  States, 
Vol.  I,  p.  17. 


288  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

certified  to  its  "faithfulness  and  accuracy."  Yet  nowhere  in 
the  publication  does  the  recommendation  for  mercy  appear. 
Other  publications  of  the  trial,  some  profusely  illustrated,  were 
issued,  but  in  none  was  there  a  recommendation  for  mercy. 

In  the  spring  of  1926  I  inspected  the  original  of  this  mili- 
tary court-martial,  on  file  in  the  War  Department  at  Washing- 
ton. It  presents  a  curious  aspect.  Each  day's  evidence, 
consisting  of  about  twenty-five  foolscap  pages,  is  written  in 
longhand  and  bound  together ;  the  fastenings  are  blue  ribbons, 
inserted  through  three  slits  at  the  top  of  each  page.  This  is 
true  of  all  the  proceedings  except  after  the  evidence  and  the 
argument  of  counsel — that  is  to  say  from  June  30  to  July  5. 
These  last  six  days'  proceedings,  nineteen  pages,  relate  to  mat- 
ters after  the  argument.  They  include  the  names  of  the  cul- 
prits, the  connection  of  each  with  the  assassination,  the  finding 
of  the  court-martial,  the  sentence  imposed  upon  each  prisoner 
and  the  recommendation  for  mercy.  Now  these  nineteen  pages 
are  not  at  this  time  bound  together,  though  it  is  apparent  that 
at  one  time  they  were.  Furthermore,  at  the  top  of  the  nine- 
teen pages  are  not  only  three  perforations  for  ribbons  sim- 
ilar to  the  other  pages,  but  also  three  holes  or  e3^elets  for  brads. 
Evidently  this  part  of  the  file  was  at  one  time  bound  together 
with  ribbons  and  then  was  taken  apart  and  afterward  bound 
with  brads.  At  present  each  sheet  is  separate  and  unbound. 
The  outside  page  or  covering  indicates  rough  treatment ;  it 
appears  to  have  been  ground  by  some  one's  heel  into  a  gritty 
floor. 

A  controlling  circumstance  may  now  be  stated.  In  the  file 
is  a  private  report  of  Adjutant-General  Holt  to  the  President. 
Its  language  is  significant.  Judge  Holt  uses  these  words, 
"Having  been  personally  engaged  in  the  conduct  of  the  fore- 
going case  as  Judge  Advocate  of  the  commission,  I  deem  it 
unnecessary  to  enter  in  this  report  into  an  elaborate  discussion 
of  the  immense  mass  of  evidence  submitted  to  a  consideration  of 
the  Court.  .  .  .  There  were  fifty-three  daj^s  of  the  evidence 
and  tlirec  hundred  or  four  hundred  witnesses.  .  .  .  Tlie  riglits 
of  the  prisoners  were  watclied  and  zealously  guarded  b}'^  seven 
able  counselors.  .  .  .  The  opinion  is  entertained  that  the  pro- 


THE  EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT      289 

ceedings  were  regular  and  that  the  findings  of  the  commission 
were  fully  justified  by  the  evidence.  It  is  thought  that  the 
highest  considerations  of  public  justice  as  well  as  the  future  se- 
curity of  the  lives  of  the  officers  of  the  Government  demand  that 
the  sentences  based  on  these  findings  should  be  carried  into  exe- 
cution." Holt  likewise  reports  that  he  was  present  at  all  times 
during  the  trial  and  speaks  of  his  own  knowledge.  Holt's  re- 
port is  bound  with  one  brad  and  covers  everything  necessary 
for  the  information  of  the  President,  except  the  recommenda- 
tion for  mercy.  In  Holt's  report  this  recommendation  is  not 
alluded  to,  and  it  is  so  written  and  placed  on  the  back  of  a  page, 
that  when  signing  the  death  warrant  the  President  could  not 
see  it. 

On  the  whole,  it  seems  clear  that  the  President  had  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  recommendation  for  mercy  until  two  years  after 
]\Irs.  Surratt's  death  and  at  the  trial  of  John  Surratt  on 
August  4,  1867.  It  is  significant  that  on  that  date  the  Presi- 
dent discharged  Stanton  from  office.  Relying  on  the  report 
and  recommendation  of  his  official  advisers,  and  on  the  findings 
of  ten  officers,  constituting  the  military  tribunal,  the  President 
signed  the  death  warrant.  It  does  not  follow  that  he  would 
have  pardoned  Mrs.  Surratt  had  he  seen  the  recommendation 
for  mercy — ^he  wished  Lincoln's  assassins  hung — but  he  was 
entitled  to  have  seen  it.  It  seems  plain  that  at  the  interview 
between  President  Johnson  and  Judge  Holt  on  July  5,  1865, 
the  original  file  was  not  inspected  by  the  President.  He  relied 
upon  the  personal  and  intimate  report  of  his  official  adviser 
and  this  did  not  call  the  recommendation  to  his  attention.  In 
fact,  Holt  urged  the  President  to  sign  the  death  warrant,  giv- 
ing his  personal  assurance  that  Mrs.  Surratt  was  guilty  and 
should  be  hung.  As  soon  as  Judge  Holt  obtained  the  Presi- 
dent's signature  he  carried  the  original  file  to  his  office  and 
locked  it  up.  This  file  remained  in  his  safe  till  the  John  Sur- 
ratt trial,  when,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  brought  out  by  Judge 
Bingham. 

INIy  own  theory  is  this.  In  August  1865,  when  Pittman 
asked  leave  to  publish  the  trial,  Holt  furnished  him  with  the 
entire  record  but  retained  the  recommendation  for  mercy.    In 


290  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

fact,  no  copy  of  the  recommendation  was  made,  as  was  the  case 
with  the  other  papers,  and  the  original,  attached  to  the  court- 
martial  proceeding,  was  perhaps  not  subject  to  inspection  by 
the  public.  In  justification  of  the  conduct  of  Judge  Holt  in 
not  calling  the  attention  of  the  President  to  the  recommenda- 
tion for  mercy,  it  may  be  said  that  he  imagined  he  was  serving 
the  country  and  avoiding  a  scene.  It  was  then  generally 
thought  that  Mrs.  Surratt  was  guilty,  and  in  this  opinion  Holt, 
Bingham  and  Stanton  concurred.  One  member  of  the  com- 
mission declining  to  recommend  mercy  was  General  Lew  Wal- 
lace, perhaps  the  ablest  of  the  tribunal.  Besides,  it  must  be 
said  that  disinterested  lawyers  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  Mrs.  Surratt  kept  "the  nest  in  which  treason  was 
hatched."  ^^  On  the  other  hand,  Payne  on  his  way  to  the  scaf- 
fold told  General  Hartranft  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had  no  earthly 
connection  with  the  assassination  plot,  a  fact  which  was  shortly 
after  the  death  of  Mrs.  Surratt  communicated  to  President 
Johnson. 

In  August  1867,  when  John  Surratt  was  tried,  the  public 
began  to  remember  many  circumstances  connected  with  the 
trial  of  Mrs.  Surratt — that  the  prisoners  M^ere  bound  and 
shackled  and  brought  into  court  surrounded  by  men  under 
arms,  that  their  cells  were  padded,  and  that  sacks  had  been 
tied  around  their  heads  leaving  a  small  opening  through  which 
food  was  passed  into  their  mouths ;  that  Mrs.  Surratt's  lawyer, 
Reverdy  Johnson,  appearing  for  her  without  pay,  had  been 
badgered  by  the  court  and  insulted,  and  that  the  whole  pro- 
ceedings— certainly  as  to  Mrs.  Surratt — were  disreputable, 
being  but  the  mockery  of  a  trial. 

Andrew  Johnson  urged  the  execution  of  Lincoln's  murderers, 
a  fact  he  often  stated.  If  he  is  censurable  in  connection  with 
the  death  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  it  would  seem  to  be  because  he  relied 
upon  his  official  advisers.  Attorney-General  Speed  furnished 
an  opinion  in  writing  that  a  military  commission  was  the 
proper  tribunal  to  try  the  case  and  tliat  it  ouglit  not  to  yield 
its  jurisdiction  to  a  civil  court,  that  Washington  City  was  in 
a  state  of  war,  and  was  an  armed  camp,  that  Lincoln  at  tlie 

21  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  2. 


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'Die    llciiiimiiciidal  idii   fur   (.  Iciiiciicv   in   I  lie  Sui'i'all    Trial 


THE  EXECUTION  OF  MRS.  SURRATT      291 

time  of  his  death  was  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army,  and 
that  to  slay  the  Commander  of  the  army  "was  to  violate  the 
common  law  of  war."  On  this  opinion  the  President  relied. 
Should  he  have  done  otherwise.''  As  to  the  guilt  or  innocence  of 
Mrs.  Surratt,  he  put  that  up  to  the  duly  constituted  author- 
ities. They  having  declared  her  guilty,  in  this  opinion  he  con- 
curred. His  war  minister  and  his  Adjutant-General,  together 
with  the  private  prosecutor,  were  lawyers  of  national  reputa- 
tion. Johnson  was  not  a  lawyer.  Would  he  have  been  justified 
in  over-ruling  experts  in  the  law  and  setting  himself  above 
Attorney-General  Speed,  Judge  Holt,  Judge  Bingham  and 
Secretary  Stanton.''  ^^ 

In  after  years,  when  attacked  for  '^murdering"  Mrs.  Sur- 
ratt, Johnson  boldly  asserted  that  he  relied  on  his  Attorney- 
General  and  on  the  Military  Department.  Secretary  McCul- 
loch,  however,  states  that  the  incident  was  grievous  to  John- 
son and  that  "he  deeply  regretted  it."  -^  In  connection  with 
this  court-martial,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  Supreme  Court  would 
have  declared  it  illegal,  had  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  come 
before  it.  At  that  time  the  war  was  still  raging.  Washington 
was  an  armed  camp  and  there  the  Commander-in-Chief  had 
his  headquarters.  The  opinion  in  Ex  Parte  Milligan,  subse- 
quently delivered,  went  no  further  than  to  hold  that  courts- 
martial  were  illegal  in  states  where  war  was  not  raging,  as  in 
Missouri.^* 

22  Vindication,  in  Washington  Chronicle  of  July  26,  1872,  and  Refutation, 
published  in  1873,  in  pamphlet  form,  give  Holt's  side;  President  Johnson's 
reply  in  the  Chronicle  of  November  12,  1872,  is  a  document  of  conviction ; 
North  American  Review,  July  1888. 

23  McCulloch,  Memoirs,  etc.,  p.  226. 

24  Warren,  The  Supreme  Court,  Vol.  III.     Ex  Parte  Milligan. 


CHAPTER  IX 
HERO  OF  AN  HOUR 

One  August  day  in  1865  two  carriages  drove  up  to  the 
White  House.  Tom  Pendel,  the  old  doorkeeper,  opened  wide 
the  doors,  the  servants  bustled  around  in  obsequious  welcome, 
and  the  President  hastened  from  his  busy  desk — the  entire 
Johnson  family,  eleven  in  number,  had  arrived.  Exiles,  fugi- 
tives, three  years  driven  from  their  Tennessee  home,  but  now 
together  again  and  under  one  roof.  Five  robust  children, 
happy  and  open-eyed,  swarmed  through  their  magnificent  new 
home,  twelve-year-old  Andy,  cured  of  infantile  consumption, 
leading  the  rest.  Mrs.  Johnson,  weary  with  travel  and  worn 
with  disease,  was  assisted  from  the  carriage  and  soon  retired, 
having  chosen  a  small  quiet  bedroom  on  the  southwest,  over- 
looking the  grassy  lawn  and  the  wonderful  elms,  with  the  Mall 
and  the  Potomac  in  the  background. 

What  a  contrast  the  renovated  White  House  was  to  that  of 
President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln's  days.  Then  there  was  anxiety, 
war  and  destruction ;  now  had  come  smiling  peace.  Then,  only 
three  sat  at  table,  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  little  Tad; 
now  there  were  a  round  dozen.  Colonel  Robert  Johnson,  about 
thirty  years  of  age,  was  to  assist  the  President  in  routine  work ; 
Andrew,  Jr.,  was  entered  at  a  Catholic  school  in  Georgetown ; 
D.  T.  Patterson,  a  son-in-law,  was  a  Senator  from  Tennessee. 
His  wife,  Mrs.  Martha  Patterson,  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  Mary 
Stover,  were  to  relieve  their  mother,  as  mistress  of  the  White 
House.  A  private  tutor  had  been  engaged  for  the  children  old 
enough  to  enter  school.  These  were  Mary  Belle,  a  beautiful 
young  girl,  and  Andrew  Johnson  Patterson;  and  then  the 
Stovers,  Sara,  Lillie  S.  and  Andrew  Johnson — rollicking, 
wholesome,  fun-loving  urchins,  devoted  to  "Grandpa"  and 
"Grandma"  and  always  out  for  fun  and  sport.^    Indeed  these 

i- Recollections  of  Col.  W.  H.  Crook;  Saturday  Evening  Post,  June  18,  1910. 

202 


HERO  OF  AN  HOUR  293 

little  ones  soon  drew  their  over-worked  grandparent  out  of 
himself.^  As  a  result  of  the  care  of  his  wife  and  daughters, 
and  to  the  exercise  he  received  in  his  drives  and  tramps  with  the 
children,  the  President  grew  fit  and  strong,  and  by  the  coming 
of  winter  was  in  excellent  health.  To  Rock  Creek  Park,  to 
Pierce's  Mill,  and  now  and  then  to  Silver  Spring,  the  home  of 
Frank  P.  Blair  in  Maryland,  Grandpa  and  the  children  fre- 
quently drove.  Weather  and  duties  permitting,  the  President's 
carriage,  running  over  with  children,  could  be  seen  Mending  its 
way  into  the  country  for  a  picnic  frolic.  The  little  ones, 
pulling  off  shoes  and  stockings,  as  the  officer  of  the  White 
House  writes,  would  "wade  in  the  soft  waters  of  Rock  Creek, 
skate  flat  stones  over  its  surface,  fish  for  frogs,  minnows  and 
water  bugs,"  while  the  President  "would  wander  through  the 
woods,  enjoying  their  happiness.  .  .  .  When  twilight  closed 
in  and  the  merry  party,  with  a  carriage  filled  with  wild  flowers, 
moss  and  lichens,  would  return  to  the  White  House,  the  little 
ones  would  hasten  to  Grandma's  room  with  their  wonderful 
adventures.  No  one  in  all  the  world  was  quite  like  Grandma, 
with  her  sweet  gentle  ways,  her  simplicity,  patience,  common 
sense,  and  never  failing  sympathy.  Though  frail  in  body,  the 
little  woman,  as  she  quietly  knitted  or  crocheted  in  her  corner, 
was  the  center  of  the  household.  To  the  guiding  hand  and 
mind  of  this  motherly  old  lady  was  due  a  remarkable  fact. 
Three  families  lived  together  under  one  roof  without  friction 
or  disputes  for  nearly  four  years.  This  may  sound  extraor- 
dinary— it  is  extraordinary — but  it  is  true.  For  example  if 
one  of  the  boys  or  girls  would  suddenly  shout,  *Come  along  and 
have  a  roll !'  all  the  rest  of  them  would  jump  up  with  an  answer- 
ing shout  and  off  they  would  romp  to  the  slopes  south  of  the 
White  House,  where  they  would  throw  themselves  down  on  the 
green  turf  and  roll  over  and  over,  laughing  and  whooping  like 
a  lot  of  wild  Indians."  ^ 

Mrs.  Eliza  Johnson's  influence  over  her  husband  was  bound- 
less.    So  devoted  were  they,  "they  seemed  as  two  souls  and 

2  Century,  Vol.  LXXXV,  p.  440;  Colonel  W.  H.  Crook   (Disbursing  Officer 
of  the  White  House),  Through  Five  Administrations,  pp.  88-90. 

3  Through  Five  Administrations,  p.  90. 


294  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

minds  merged  as  one."  "The  nearest  approach  to  ideal  mar- 
ried life  I've  ever  seen  or  known,"  said  the  officer  of  the  White 
House,  "was  in  the  case  of  Andrew  Johnson  and  his  wife,  and 
yet  they  were  as  unlike  temperamentally  as  was  possible  for  two 
human  beings  to  be."  "She  looked  after  everything  for  him — 
his  room,  diet  and  dress."  In  fact,  she  was  "an  angel  of  a 
wife."  *  In  the  matter  of  dress  President  Johnson  "was  par- 
ticular to  the  point  of  fastidiousness — wearing  a  frock  coat, 
a  stiff  collar,  well-fitting  boots  and  carefully  cut  trousers." 
The  newspaper  reporters,  of  course,  sought  to  interview  the 
President's  wife,  but  got  little  satisfaction.  "We  are  plain 
people  from  Tennessee,"  she  quietly  observed,  "temporarily  in 
a  high  place,  and  you  must  not  expect  too  much  of  us  in  a  social 
way."  This  simple  speech  found  its  way  into  the  hearts  of 
men  everywhere  and,  we  may  be  sure,  did  not  detract  from  the 
popularity  of  her  husband.  In  such  an  atmosphere  there  was 
no  place  for  pretense  and  "airs."  Simple  living,  industrj?^  and 
economy,  as  in  the  old  Tennessee  home,  was  the  life  of  the 
White  House.  Mrs.  Patterson,  real  head  of  the  establishment 
because  of  her  mother's  illness,  gave  close  attention  to  house- 
hold duties.  She  purchased  two  jersey  cows,  installed  them  on 
the  premises,  and  supplied  the  family  with  milk  and  butter. 
Not  conceited  because  of  the  high  place  they  filled,  they  were 
just  normal  folk,  regardful  of  the  poor  and  the  humble,  and, 
as  singular  as  it  may  sound,  they  were  ever  longing  to  be  back 
again  in  Tennessee,  at  the  Dan  Stover  place  or  in  the  old  home 
in  Greeneville,  overlooking  the  mountains. 

"Crook,"  Mrs.  Johnson  would  say  to  the  disbursing  officer, 
"it's  all  very  well  for  them  who  like  it,  but  I  don't  like  this 
public  life  at  all.  I  often  wish  the  time  would  come  when  we 
could  return  to  where  I  feel  we  best  belong."  Sometimes  the 
dear  soul,  laying  aside  needlework  and  book — for  slie  was  a 
great  reader  and  of  the  best  literature — would  wander  down 
to  the  kitchen,  "as  thougli  she  wished  to  have  a  hand  in  making 
the  doughnuts  and  pies !"  "Her  kindness  to  those  in  distress 
was  unusual ;  inquiries,  delicacies,  flowers,  slie  constantly  sent 
to  the  sick  and  needy."    White  House  domestics,  when  taken 

«  Bool- man,  Vol.  XXXIV,  p.  399. 


HERO  OF  AN  HOUR  295 

sick,  were  to  be  treated  "just  as  members  of  the  household." 
When  Slade,  the  old  and  infirm  colored  butler,  grew  ill  he  was 
given  every  attention  and  at  his  humble  burial  the  President 
of  the  United  States  was  a  sincere  mourner.^ 

One  afternoon,  as  the  President's  carriage  was  returning 
from  a  drive  through  Rock  Creek  Park,  a  summer  thunder- 
storm broke;  rain  fell  in  sheets  and  thunders  rolled.  By  the 
roadside  a  woman,  poor  and  ragged  and  dripping  wet,  with  a 
babe  in  her  arms,  was  making  her  way  towards  town.  The 
President,  discovering  her  plight,  stopped  the  carriage,  and 
the  poor  creatures  were  stored  away  in  a  seat,  fronting  his 
own.  At  Boundary  Street,  between  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth, 
mother  and  babe  were  delivered  at  their  humble  home.  Reach- 
ing the  White  House,  the  President  issued  orders  for  a  hot 
whiskey  toddy  to  be  served  to  the  rain-soaked  coachman.^ 

With  customs  and  manners  so  unconventional,  so  simple  and 
democratic,  one  might  imagine  the  dignity  and  traditions  of 
the  White  House  would  suffer.  The  contrary  is  true.  With 
one  voice  the  people  of  America  acclaimed  the  Roman  mother 
and  her  daughters.  Always  they  dressed  well,  appeared  well 
and  maintained  the  best  traditions  of  their  exalted  station. 
Their  gowns  were  of  "simple  but  rich  material"  and  were  con- 
structed "by  the  best  dressmakers  in  Washington."  "The 
honor  and  dignity  of  the  nation  lost  nothing  in  the  hands  of 
these  plain  people  from  Tennessee."  '^  They  were  every  inch 
women,  "kindly  and  gracious,"  fully  understanding  "what  was 
required  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  equal  to 
any  emergency."  "One  of  the  finest  characters  that  ever 
graced  the  White  House  was  Eliza  Johnson,  wife  of  Andrew 
Johnson."  ^  A  Senator  who  knew  the  family  intimately  de- 
clared: "All  parties  agree  that  the  White  House  was  never 
more  gracefully  kept  and  presided  over  than  by  Mrs.  Patter- 
son"— a  perfect  lady,  a  model  of  a  Republican  mistress  of  the 
White  House.^     Of  such  a  helpmeet  and  such  daughters  An- 

5  A.  H.  Stephens,  Recollections,  p.  536. 

6  Johnson  MS. 

7  Independent,  Vol.  LVI,  p.  727. 

8  Cosmopolitan,  Vol.  XXX,  p.  410. 

9  Senator  Doolittle  in  an  Address  in  1869. 


296  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

drew  Jolinson  "was  proud  and  justly  so."  "More  sensible  or 
unpretending  women  never  occupied  the  White  House."  ^° 

The  President  would  informally  call  on  members  of  his  cab- 
inet and  on  the  Blairs  and  other  friends.  He  also  attended  a 
reception  given  by  General  Grant.  Now  that  the  war  was  over, 
society  had  undergone  a  complete  transformation.  At  the 
President's  receptions  "aristocracy  and  democracy  were  alike 
represented  and  titled  dames  and  republican  waves  and  mothers 
were  scarcely  distinguishable  in  the  crowded  rooms  of  the 
presidential  mansion.  The  ladies  displayed  a  large  variety  of 
toilets  from  the  plain  parlor  to  the  extreme  evening  or  party 
dress.  There  were  velvets,  satins,  pearl,  lavender,  crimson, 
garnet  and  black  silks  in  profusion,  as  well  as  tulles  and 
tarletons.  These  adorned  with  diamonds  and  other  ornaments, 
with  their  neatly  arranged  coiffures,  presented  an  attracting 
and  fascinating  scene."  ^^ 

On  these  occasions  the  President,  dressed  in  plain  black  with 
straw-colored  gloves,  usually  stood  near  the  entrance  in  the 
Blue  Room.  Mrs.  Patterson  and  Mrs.  Stover,  on  the  right  and 
rear  of  the  President,  assisted  in  receiving  the  guests.  Mrs. 
Patterson,  attired  in  black  velvet,  low  neck  and  short  sleeves, 
with  illusion  bodice  and  her  hair  ornamented  with  flowers  and 
back  curls ;  Mrs.  Stover  wearing  a  rich  black  silk  trimmed  with 
lace,  with  hair  tastefully  arranged  and  back  curls.  The  Cab- 
inet usually  remained  in  the  Blue  Room.  Noted  promenaders 
were  conspicuous.  Sometimes  one  would  observe  Governor 
Sliarkey  and  lady,  the  latter  dressed  in  rich  pearl-colored  silk, 
long  trail  with  velvet  border  and  trimmings,  "with  steel  edging, 
with  an  elaborate  coiffure;"  or  Mr.  and  Mrs.  General  Banks, 
the  latter  "attired  in  rich  salmon  silk  with  pink  flowers,  low 
neck  and  trail  and  coral  necklace."  Frederick  Bruce  and  Lady 
Thurlow  attended  a  reception,  and  Sefior  Romero,  the  Mex- 
ican Minister,  was  seen  "escorting  the  lady  of  President 
Juarez,  who  was  attired  in  lavender  silk  richly  trimmed,  with 
long  trail  and  diamonds ;  Hon.  L.  D.  Campbell  also  had  a  Mex- 
ican lady  on  his  arm.    She  was  dressed  in  a  blue  silk,  long  trail, 

10  McCulloch,  Men  and  Measures,  p.  406. 

11  Singleton,  Story  of  the  White  House,  p.  107. 


HERO  OF  AN  HOUR  297 

and  fluted  trimmings  round  the  bottom,  with  diamond  pin. 
Mr.  Labantree,  of  the  State  Department,  also  escorted  a  Mex- 
ican lady,  who  attracted  considerable  attention.  The  brunette 
countenances  and  well-formed  features  of  these  Montezuma 
ladies  furnished  a  contrast  with  the  American  ladies,  and  made 
them  the  center  of  attraction."  ^^  "The  President  never  ap- 
peared to  be  in  better  spirits  than  when  mingling  with  the 
people,"  the  reporters  noted ;  and  "the  ladies  of  his  household 
received  the  guests  in  the  same  frank  and  unostentatious  man- 
ner that  has  heretofore  gained  for  them  the  respect  of  all 
visitors." 

When  Queen  Emma  of  Hawaii,  widow  of  King  Kamehameha 
IV,  visited  Washington  on  her  way  home  from  a  trip  around  the 
world,  the  President  gave  her  a  reception.  "She  arrived  with 
her  suite  at  half  past  eight  o'clock,  and  was  received  by  ]\Ir. 
Stanbery,  the  Attorney-General,  who  escorted  her  to  the  Red 
Room,  where  the  President,  Mrs.  Johnson,  Mrs.  Patterson, 
Mrs.  Stanbery,  Secretary  and  Mrs.  Gideon  Welles  and  other 
ladies  and  gentlemen  were  assembled.  The  dusky  queen  was 
dressed  in  a  rich  black  silk  with  low  neck,  a  broad  mauve  ribbon 
across  her  breast,  a  jet  necklace  and  a  diamond  brooch.  A 
jet  tiara  and  white  lace  veil  were  worn  upon  her  head.  Con- 
trary to  custom,  the  doors  of  the  White  House  were  thrown 
open  to  as  many  as  could  be  accommodated  in  the  reception 
room,  so  that  all  who  pleased  might  witness  the  ceremony."  ^^ 

In  December  1865  Congress  appropriated  thirty  thousand 
dollars  for  the  renovation  and  refurnishing  of  the  White 
House.  In  a  few  months  the  newly  decorated  rooms  were  on 
view  for  the  first  time.  As  the  weather  was  most  inclement,  the 
new  carpets  were  prudently  covered,  for  the  house  warming 
which  then  took  place.  On  this  occasion  Mrs.  Patterson  and 
Mrs.  Stover  were  dressed  "with  unexceptionable  taste  and  ele- 
gance and  very  nearly  alike.  Each  wore  a  black  corded  silk 
dress  with  tight-fitting  basques,  splendidly  embroidered  with 
a  border  of  leaves  of  a  new  and  exquisite  pattern.  The  em- 
broidery extended  around  the  skirt  a  little  distance  below  the 

i2  7?)tU,  p.  108. 
13  Ibid.,  p.  109. 


298  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

waist,  and  descended  in  a  double  border  down  the  front  of  the 
skirt,  widening  into  a  graceful  curve  on  either  side,  and  con- 
tinued in  a  deep  border  near  the  bottom  of  the  skirt.  Mrs. 
Patterson's  dress  was  embroidered  with  narrow  white  braid 
forming  a  vine  of  leaves  bordered  with  white  on  the  black 
ground  of  the  dress.  Mrs.  Stover's  dress  was  embroidered  in 
violet  silk,  the  leaves  of  the  vine  being  worked  solid.  Each 
of  the  ladies  wore  narrow  collars  fastened  with  a  brooch.  Mrs. 
Patterson  had  a  spray  of  mignonette  in  her  hair,  and  Mrs. 
Stover's  hair  was  ornamented  with  a  white  japonica."  ^* 

The  renovation  of  the  Mansion  and  the  decoration  of  the 
rooms  had  been  under  the  supervision  of  Mrs.  Patterson,  and 
the  work  of  improvement  was  thorough  and  on  a  most  extensive 
scale.  "The  ceilings  have  been  newly  frescoed,"  the  newspapers 
announced,  "the  heavy  cornices  newly  painted  and  gilded ;  the 
walls  which  were  formerly  covered  with  paper  of  red  velvet 
and  gold,  are  now  laid  off  in  panel  work,  surrounded  by  a  rich 
border  of  black  and  gold,  giving  to  the  room  a  most  brilliant 
effect ;  the  furniture  has  been  revarnished  and  freshly  covered 
with  flowered  silk,  of  a  color  corresponding  with  the  name  of 
the  room ;  the  mirrors  have  been  regilded,  and  some  that  were 
of  a  rather  ancient  pattern  have  been  replaced  with  others  of 
a  new  and  elegant  design."  As  elegant  as  the  new  mansion  was, 
the  President  insisted  that  the  masses  should  be  admitted  with- 
out restraint;  and  so  dense  became  the  crowd  it  was  uncon- 
trollable. Both  policemen  and  soldiers  were  kept  on  duty  at 
the  door  of  the  Red  Room  "to  prevent  the  visitors  from  rush- 
ing through."  Nevertheless,  his  family  were  swept  away  "and 
carried  on  with  the  living  tide  to  the  Blue  Room,  where  the 
throng  was  as  dense  as  elsewhere." 

Soon  after  the  Civil  War  an  orgy  of  speculation  and  ex- 
travagance set  in.  Gambling  in  stocks,  bonds  and  other  se- 
curities, wildcat  and  fraudulent  schemes,  were  the  order  of 
the  day.  Favorable  legislation  was  necessary  for  the  success 
of  these  schemes  and  lawmakers  and  other  officials  were  pre- 
sented with  rich  gifts.  Now  this  practice  was  specially  distaste- 
ful to  President  Johnson.  What  tliough  gifts  were  accepted 
14  Singleton,  8tory  of  the  ^Y1lite  IIousc,  p.  110. 


HERO  OF  AN  HOUR  299 

by  Admirals  and  Generals?  Each  man  must  judge  of  such 
matters  for  himself.  Therefore,  when  certain  M^ealthy  persons 
in  New  York  presented  President  Johnson  with  a  coach  and 
four,  of  the  value  of  six  thousand  dollars,  he  returned  the  gift. 
True  to  form,  as  in  the  '40's  when  he  sent  back  to  the  Govern- 
ment an  overpayment  of  three  hundred  and  twenty-six  dollars 
for  services  as  a  committeeman  in  the  investigation  of  Thomas 
Corwin,  he  would  have  nothing  he  had  not  earned. 

If  in  little  things  Andrew  Johnson  was  the  hero  of  an  hour, 
much  more  so  was  he  in  his  great  office  as  President.  During 
all  his  days  he  had  stood  for  economy  in  government.  In  1858, 
when  fighting  the  Jejfferson  Davis  bill  to  increase  the  army,  he 
denounced  "extravagance,  profligacy,  corruption,  and  im- 
proper appropriation  of  the  people's  money."  In  the  progress 
of  events  it  had  come  to  pass  that  he  was  now  in  position  to 
carry  out  his  teachings,  and  to  tighten  the  purse  strings.  To 
this  task  he  set  himself.  Public  expenditures  were  cut  at  the 
rate  of  a  million  a  day.  The  army  and  the  navy  were  reduced 
as  fast  as  the  disturbed  times  permitted.  The  civil  list  was 
purged  of  idlers  and  supernumeraries.^^ 

In  April  1865,  when  Johnson  became  President,  it  must  be 
said  he  was  far  from  popular.  Indeed,  he  was  suspected  and 
disliked.  To  the  triumphant  North  it  seemed  a  cruel  paradox 
that  their  great  and  good  President  Lincoln  had  been  murdered 
by  a  southern  man  and  succeeded  by  a  southern  man  from  a 
slaveholding  state.  But  this  feeling  of  resentment  and  dis- 
trust did  not  long  continue.  In  a  short  time  suspicion  and  dis- 
like passed  away.  Nearly  every  class  began  to  find  something 
admirable  in  "Old  Andy  Johnson,"  the  Tennessee  tailor.  First, 
the  North  was  propitiated.  The  progress  with  which  north- 
ern prisons  were  filled  with  southern  rebels  and  the  speedy  trial 
and  execution  of  President  Lincoln's  assassins  did  much  to  ap- 
pease northern  sentiment  and  to  mollify  the  Radicals.  In 
fact,  it  was  at  first  feared  that  the  President  would  be  too  severe 
in  punishing  rebels.  Ben  Wade  advised  the  President  not  to 
execute  more  than  "a  round  dozen  of  the  rebels."  Even 
before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  buried  a  caucus  of  the  Radicals  had 

15  Khodes,  Vol.  V,  p.  533. 


300  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

been  called  and  a  free  exchange  of  opinions  made.  Ben  Wade 
was  delighted.  On  leaving  the  caucus,  he  turned  to  the  Presi- 
dent and  exclaimed,  "Johnson,  by  the  gods  we  have  faith  in 
you ;  there  will  be  no  further  trouble  with  rebels  now."  ^® 

Even  the  South,  where  a  few  years  before  Andy  Johnson's 
name  was  a  synonym  for  hate,  and  where  he  was  burned  in 
effigy  by  a  negro  slave,  was  soon  joining  in  the  chorus  of  praise. 
His  efforts  to  rehabilitate  that  section,  his  amnesty  proclama- 
tion, his  proclamation  looking  to  the  readmission  of  North 
Carolina  and  other  states  into  the  Union,  the  generous  senti- 
ments expressed  to  visiting  southern  delegations — "I  love  the 
southern  people,  I  know  them  to  be  brave  and  honorable,  I 
know  that  they  have  accepted  the  situation  and  will  come  back 
into  the  Union  in  good  faith" — were  winning  for  him  golden 
opinions  among  southern  people.  War  democrats,  of  course, 
were  delighted,  and  hailed  the  President  as  one  of  their  own 
faith.  He  was  ruling  the  nation  wisely  and  well.  Such  leaders 
as  Thurlow  Weed,  Frank  P.  Blair,  Senator  Dixon,  Senator 
Doolittle,  Reverdy  Johnson,  and  S.  S.  Cox  were  loud  in  praise 
of  the  President's  course.  Old  line  Union  Whigs,  Seward, 
Raymond,  General  Thomas  Ewing,  Sherman  and  Fessenden 
joined  in  the  chorus.^^ 

People  praised  the  President's  "dignity,  his  patriotism  and 
his  high  purpose."  They  recalled  "the  golden  opinions  he  had 
won  as  Military  Governor  of  Tennessee.^®  Southern  legisla- 
tures, where  a  few  months  before  Andrew  Johnson  had  been 
denounced  as  "the  drunken  Tennessee  tailor"  and  "the  vulgar 
renegade,"  now  vied  with  each  other  in  praise  of  him.  His 
administration  was  "wise  and  patriotic";  it  was  "marked  by 
liberality  and  magnanimity."  "By  the  sense  of  justice  he  was 
attaching  the  South  to  the  Union  by  cords  stronger  tlian  triple 
steel."  "He  was  endeavoring  to  stem  the  tide  of  fanaticism."  ^^ 
Secretary  Seward's  proclamation  of  December  18,  that  three- 
fourths  of  the  States  had  ratified  the  Thirteenth  Amendment 

36  Most  of  Johnson's  threats  ^vero  made  while  he  was  Vice-president. — ■ 
Schoulcr,  Vol.  VII,  Chap.  I. 

17  Flanders,  Ohservatiotis,  etc.,  p.  6. 

isMcCall,  l^tevctis,  p.  250;  American  Historical  Review,  Vol.  XI,  p.  575. 

10  New  York  Tribune,  December  8,  1865,  ibid.,  December  1. 


HERO  OF  AN  HOUR  301 

and  that  slavery  had  been  forever  stamped  out,  was  hailed 
with  joy  unspeakable.  "Glory  to  God"  was  on  every  tongue. 
The  President  came  in  for  his  share  of  the  praise.  Because  of 
his  activity,  and  that  of  his  provisional  southern  Governors  the 
result,  it  was  conceded,  had  come  about.  South  Carolina  was 
the  first  southern  State  to  ratify  the  amendment.  This  was  on 
November  13, 1865.  Then  followed  North  Carolina  on  Decem- 
ber 1,  Alabama  on  December  2,  and  Georgia  on  December  6. 
The  requisite  three-fourths  being  thus  secured,  slavery  was 
abolished;  abolished,  too,  by  the  aid  of  southern  slaveholding 
states.  Not  only  was  slavery  abolished,  but  at  President  John- 
son's request,  if  not  command — for  it  was  no  less  than  a  com- 
mand— all  debts  in  aid  of  rebellion  were  canceled  and  Seces- 
sion ordinances  repealed. 

In  May  the  President  had  appointed  provisional  Governors 
for  the  seceding  states.  By  them  conventions  had  been  called. 
Legislatures  were  elected.  Congressmen  and  Senators  chosen, 
and  civil  government  restored.  The  South  was  pulling  herself 
together.  On  December  6,  when  Congress  met,  nearly  every 
southern  state  was  represented.  Southern  Senators  and  Con- 
gressmen were  standing  at  the  doors  and  knocking  for  admis- 
sion. Though  the  overzeal  and  impetuosity  of  many  Southern 
leaders,  especially  in  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi,  had 
greatly  embarrassed  the  President's  work  of  rehabilitation,  it 
had,  nevertheless,  proceeded,  as  he  declared,  "with  more  will- 
ingness and  greater  promptitude  than  under  the  circumstances 
could  reasonably  have  been  expected."  His  embarrassment 
had  been  of  this  kind.  The  Mississippi  Legislature  had  insisted 
that  Davis  should  be  pardoned  by  the  President;  Perry,  the 
Military  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  had  expressed  sorrow 
and  pain  at  having  to  bring  his  state  back  into  the  Union. 
Surely  these  were  unwise  utterances  from  rebels  seeking  favors ! 
For  the  most  part,  however,  the  President's  embarrassment 
came  not  from  the  obstinacy  or  opposition  of  southern  rebels 
and  northern  copperheads — ^but  from  overpraise — from  too 
much  approval.  "What  business  had  rebels  and  copperheads 
praising  a  Union  President?"  northern  Radicals  were  asking. 
When  such  papers  as  "The  Copperhead"  World  changed  front 


302  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

and  began  to  praise  Andrew  Johnson,  and  when  southern 
legislatures  endorsed  him,  and  southern  rebels  claimed  him 
as  their  own,  it  was  high  time  for  lovers  of  the  Union  to  beware. 

Praise  and  applause,  however,  continued  to  fill  the  Presi- 
dent's ears.  "Take  him  all  and  all,"  said  a  Virginia  delegate 
returning  to  Richmond  in  May,  from  an  interview  with  the 
President,  "I  do  not  believe  any  proud  monarch  of  Europe, 
whose  race  of  kings  by  divine  right  has  flourished  a  thousand 
years  of  time,  has  a  clearer  conception  of  his  duties  and  knows 
better  how  to  temper  mercy  with  justice  than  Andrew  Johnson 
of  Tennessee."  ^^  Of  this  portion  of  the  President's  life — the 
summer  and  autumn  of  1865 — a  not  too  favorable  historian 
asserts  that  "the  President  labored  with  industry,  tact  and  pa- 
tience to  heal  the  great  sectional  wound  and  cure  the  body  of 
the  state."  ^^  In  truth,  his  words  and  acts  merit  this  encomium 
for  "he  reasoned  with  and  counseled  his  provisional  Governors 
by  turn  ...  as  he  praised  and  congratulated  them  when  they 
did  well."  ^^  "God  grant  that  the  southern  people  will  see 
their  true  interest  and  the  welfare  of  the  whole  country,  and 
act  accordingly,"  he  wired  to  Governor  Holden  of  North  Caro- 
lina, urging  the  adoption  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment.  "I 
do  hope  the  southern  people  will  see  the  position  they  now 
occupy,  and  avail  themselves  of  the  favorable  opportunity  of 
once  more  resuming  all  their  former  relations  to  the  Govern- 
ment," he  telegraphed  Governor  Sharkey,  in  November.  "If  I 
know  my  own  heart  and  every  passion  which  enters  it,"  he 
telegraphed  Governor  Perry,  "my  earnest  desire  is  to  restore 
the  blessings  of  the  Union  and  to  tie  up  and  heal  every  bleed- 
ing wound  which  has  been  caused  by  this  fratricidal  war."  ^^ 

The  President's  course  provoked  not  only  the  admiration  of 
America  but  of  Europe.  Here  was  a  man  "generous  and  ju- 
dicious" and  with  godlike  attributes,  one  who  knew  "how  to 
be  forgiving  to  enemies."  "*  Not  only  had  he  issued  a  general 
amnesty  proclamation,  but  had  specially  pardoned  thousands 

20  Savage,  p.  407. 

21  Oberholtzor,  Vol.  T,  p.  143. 
22lhid.,  Vol.   I,  p.    143. 

28 Hcnate  Executive  Document,  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  First  ficssion,  No.  2fi, 
pp.  221,  234,  254. 

24Schouler,  Vol.  VI,  p.  32. 


HERO  OF  AN  HOUR  303 

excepted  from  its  provisions — pardoned  the  men  who  had 
abused  and  insulted  him,  set  a  price  upon  his  head,  called  him 
a  renegade,  and  sought  to  destroy  him.  Count  A.  de  Gas- 
parin,  in  an  open  letter,  "bowed  before  the  wisdom  of  such  a 
policy.  ...  It  is  simple  like  everything  that  is  great,  it  is 
resolute  like  everything  that  is  good."  ^^  Beecher  from  his  ex- 
acting pulpit  exclaimed,  "Thus  far  the  Lord  hath  led  us — I 
have  faith  in  Andrew  Johnson." 

In  the  midst  of  so  much  praise  President  Johnson  delivered 
his  first  message  to  Congress.  This  remarkable  state  paper  as- 
tonished every  one.  How  was  it  possible  for  an  illiterate  man 
to  conceive  such  generous  thoughts  and  to  express  himself  sc 
smoothly  and  so  aptly?  This  message  indeed  "put  a  climax  to 
the  President's  popularity."  "Nothing  better  has  been  pro- 
duced since  Washington  was  chief  and  Hamilton  his  financier," 
exclaimed  Charles  Francis  Adams,  generous  as  the  Adames 
ever  are.  "It  was  smooth,  eloquent  and  dignified,"  all  agreed.-*^ 
Metropolitan  Dailies — the  Times  and  the  Tribune  likewise 
praised  the  message.    "It  is  full  of  wisdom,"  they  wrote. 

In  language  plain,  but  not  offensive,  the  President  restated 
his  views  of  what  constitutes  a  state  and  of  the  relation  of  a 
state  to  the  Union.  "The  sovereignty  of  a  state  is  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Confederacy,"  he  asserted,  "and  not  the  language 
of  the  Constitution.  .  .  .  Though  the  people  ordained  and 
established  the  Constitution  the  states  had  to  give  their  as- 
sent. .  .  .  The  best  security  for  the  permanent  existence  of  the 
states  is  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Constitution.  ...  So 
long  as  the  Constitution  endures  the  states  will  endure,  the 
destruction  of  one  is  the  destruction  of  the  other ;  the  preser- 
vation of  one  is  the  preservation  of  the  other."  Dealing  with 
the  newly  liberated  slaves,  the  President  enjoined  "patience 
and  no  hasty  assumption  that  the  two  races  can  not  live  side  by 
side  with  mutual  benefit  and  good  will."  .  .  .  "Let  nothing  be 
wanted,"  he  urged,  "to  make  a  fair  experiment."     If  dissatis- 

^^  Loyal  Publications,  Serial  'Number  87,  No.  3;  Pierce,  Sumner,  Vol.  IV, 
p.  250. 

"^Historical  Review,  Vol.  XI,  p.  575;  Cf.  Historical  Review,  Vol.  XI,  p.  951 
for  a  criticism  of  the  "frivolous  manner"  in  which  Professor  Dunning  dis- 
poses of  Johnson's  "plagiarism." 


304  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

fied,  let  the  negro  migrate  but  let  migration  and  emigration  be 
purely  voluntary.  "I  know  that  sincere  philanthropy  is  ear- 
nest," he  admitted,  "for  the  inmiediate  realization  of  its  re- 
motest ends,  but  time  is  always  an  element,  in  reform.  .  .  . 
Our  Government  springs  from,  and  it  was  made  for  the  people, 
not  the  people  for  the  government."  Monopolies,  perpetuities 
and  class  legislation  are  "contrary  to  the  genius  of  a  free 
people  and  ought  not  to  be  allowed."  For  the  reason  that  the 
system  of  slavery  created  "a  monopoly  of  labor,"  this  was  the 
inherent  defect  of  that  system.  "When  labor  was  the  property 
of  the  capitalists  the  white  man  was  excluded  from  employment 
or  had  but  the  second  best  chance  of  finding  it ;  and  the  foreign 
emigrant  turned  away  from  a  region  where  his  position  would 
be  so  precarious."  With  great  satisfaction  the  President  ad- 
vised Congress  that  military  rule  in  the  South  had  ended,  that 
steps  had  been  taken  to  return  the  states  to  their  constitutional 
relations  to  the  Union  by  participation  in  the  high  office  of 
amending  the  Constitution.  "The  adoption  of  the  amendment 
reunites  us  beyond  all  power  of  disruption.  It  heals  the  wound 
that  is  still  imperfectly  closed;  it  removes  forever  the  element 
which  has  so  long  perplexed  and  divided  the  country ;  it  makes 
of  us  once  more  a  united  people,  renewed  and  strengthened, 
bound  more  than  ever  to  mutual  affection  and  support." 

"The  amendment  to  the  Constitution  being  adopted,"  he  re- 
minded Congress  that  "it  would  remain  for  the  states,  whose 
powers  have  been  so  long  in  abeyance,  to  resume  their  places 
in  the  two  branches  of  the  national  legislature,  and  thereby 
complete  the  work  of  restoration.  Here  it  is  for  j^ou  fellow 
citizens  of  the  Senate  and  for  you,  fellow  citizens  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  to  judge  each  of  you  for  yourselves  of  the 
elections,  returns,  and  qualifications  of  your  own  numbers." 

On  December  6  when  this  message  was  read  President  John- 
son had  rounded  out  less  than  eight  months  of  his  term.  By 
that  date  or  shortly  thereafter,  nearly  every  southern  state 
had  called  conventions,  as  I  have  said,  elected  Senators,  Con- 
gressmen, Governors,  and  other  civil  officers,  and  were  func- 
tioning, with  little  aid  from  the  general  government.  Though 
the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  still  suspended  and  troops  were 


HERO  OF  AN  HOUR  305 

kept  at  some  parts  of  the  South,  to  assist  in  preserving  order, 
yet  the  body  of  the  people,  lately  at  war  with  the  North,  had 
signified  an  earnest  desire  to  come  back  home.  Belying  the  old 
prophecy  that  the  South  could  not  be  brought  back  into  the 
Union  against  its  will — could  not  be  pinned  to  the  Union  with 
bayonets — the  southern  people  had  shown  unmistakably  that, 
instead  of  hating,  they  loved  and  respected  the  Union,  and 
longed  to  get  back  into  the  fold.  A  few  unrepentant  rebels  had 
fled  to  South  America,  to  Mexico  and  to  Europe,  but  scarcely 
one  in  a  thousand  remained.  Afflicted  with  an  attack  of  nostal- 
gia, they  were  applying  to  "Andy  Johnson,"  their  ancient 
enemy,  for  pardon,  and  returning  to  the  land  of  their  birth,  to 
the  old  flag,  and  to  the  Union. 

While  these  mighty  changes  were  taking  place — shackles 
broken  from  the  limbs  of  four  million  slaves,  southern  states 
rehabilitated  and  knocking  at  the  doors  of  Congress — what 
of  Andrew  Johnson,  the  captain  of  the  craft?  How  did  he 
conduct  himself?  Had  the  office  of  President  gone  to  his 
head?  Were  his  thoughts  of  self  or  of  country?  From  the 
office  of  Military  Governor  of  Tennessee  he  had  come  out 
poorer  than  he  went  in.  But  now  greater  opportunities  pre- 
sented themselves,  would  he  reveal  his  true  character  at  last? 
Would  he  prove  himself  to  have  been  a  demagogue,  "feather 
his  nest,"  and  build  up  a  political  party  to  boost  himself,  or 
would  he  tread  the  winepress  alone?  The  answer  is  not  diffi- 
cult. To  a  delegation  of  South  Carolinians  in  October  he  said, 
"If  I  could  be  instrumental  in  restoring  the  Government  to  its 
former  relations,  and  see  the  people  once  more  united,  I  should 
feel  that  I  had  more  than  filled  the  measure  of  my  ambition. 
If  I  could  feel  that  I  had  contributed  to  this  in  any  degree 
my  heart  would  be  more  than  gratified,  and  my  ambition 
full."  " 

Regardless  of  self  he  stood,  like  Lincoln,  four-square  to 
every  wind,  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  his  only  guide. 
No  Union,  no  Constitution;  no  Constitution,  no  Union.  "I 
want  the  people  of  the  world  to  know,"  said  he  to  a  Virginia 
delegation,  "that  I  stand  where  I  did  of  old  battling  for  the 

27  New  York  Tribune,  October  14,  1865. 


^06  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Constitution   and   the   Union   of   these   United   States. 
While  I  dread  the  disintegration  of  the  states  I  am  equally 
opposed  to  centralization  or  consolidation  of  power  here,  under 
whatever  guise  or  name,"  and  "if  the  issue  is  forced,  I  shall 
fight  it  to  the  end."  '« 

ic!!>^^-'^,°^''^°°  ^^^  favored  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  in 
1866  civil  war  would  have  resulted.  It  required  two  years  of  neo-ro  misrule 
to  convince  the  North  that  the  negro  was  unfitted  for  governmental  action.— 
Moore  and  Foster,  Tennessee,  p.  517. 


->••■••   ^'^^T/r'      //I?       '^"ri 


PU 


W 


CHAPTER  X 
THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS 

Radicals  in  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress  were  greatly  alarmed. 
Would  it  be  possible  to  head  off  the  aggressive  President?  If 
not,  they  feared  direful  results.  The  Republican  party  would 
be  defeated  by  a  combination  of  southern  Rebels  and  north- 
ern Copperheads,  and  the  negro  would  remain  a  slave.  Per- 
haps the  national  debt  would  be  repudiated  and  bonds  issued 
to  compensate  the  slave-holders.  The  bare  thought  of  these 
things  had  put  Thad  Stevens  and  Charles  Sumner  in  a  tower- 
ing passion.  "Rebellion  has  vaulted  into  the  saddle,"  said 
Sumner.  "If  something  isn't  done,"  Wade  wrote  Sumner  in 
the  early  fall,  "the  people  will  crown  Johnson  king  before 
Congress  meets.  So  much  success,"  he  complained,  "will 
reconcile  the  people  to  anything." 

In  April  Wade  and  Sumner,  after  interviews  with  Johnson, 
had  been  sure  he  would  cooperate  and  be  as  unrelenting  as 
could  be  wished.  But  Thad  Stevens  was  doubtful — Johnson 
did  not  so  impress  him.  Early  in  the  summer  he  wrote  the 
President  from  Philadelphia,  "I  have  not  found  a  single  person 
who  approves  of  your  policy !  Wait  for  Congress."  During  the 
Summer  "a  campaign  of  misrepresentation  was  begun  to  dis- 
credit Presidential  reconstruction,  to  keep  alive  war  hatred 
and  to  build  up  a  radical  organization."  ^  In  February  1865 
the  doctrine  was  spread  in  the  West  that  the  Southern  States 
were  conquered  territories.  They  should  be  held  as  such  "as 
a  pubKc  example,"  "for  the  dignity  and  safety  of  the  Gov- 
ernment," "as  an  act  of  justice  to  the  freemen  and  the  loyal 
Southern  whites,  and  to  protect  the  national  debt  from  re- 
pudiation." -  At  Dartmouth  College  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
address,  dealing  with  reconstruction  problems,  called  loudly 

1  Fleming,  Sequel  of  Appomattox,  p.  83. 

2  John  Y.  Smith,  Address,  pamphlet. 

307 


308  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

for  action  in  favor  of  negro  suffrage.  "No  waiting,  but  now, 
waiting  means  no  action."  ^  "Shall  the  horrors  of  Salisbury 
and  Andersonville  prisons,  the  murdering  of  innocent  pris- 
oners," it  was  asked,  "be  forgotten  and  forgiven  to  unre- 
pentant or  lip-serving,  lying  rebels,  whose  oath  is  as  naught 
under  compulsion"  .^^  Stevens  in  Pennsylvania  was  teaching  a 
similar  doctrine. 

Senator  Morton,  then  a  friend  of  the  President,  "repelled 
the  insinuation  that  Andrew  Johnson  was  disloyal  or  had  left 
the  Republican  party."  "The  President  was  going  to  submit 
his  acts  to  Congress,"  said  Morton.*  Chase,  however,  wrote 
that  Andrew  Johnson's  face  "was  set  as  flint  against  the  good 
cause."  Charles  Kirkland,  in  an  open  letter  to  Peter  Cooper, 
made  a  list  of  the  rebels  to  be  hung:  Jefferson  Davis  and  his 
cabinet;  also  Judge  Campbell  and  two  members  of  Buchan- 
an's cabinet.  A  baker's  dozen  in  all.  The  Chicago  Tribune 
threatened  to  convert  the  South  into  "a  frog  pond"  unless  it 
treated  the  colored  man  better.*^  In  this  state  of  confused  pub- 
lic opinion  Thaddeus  Stevens  undertook  to  maneuver  the  Re- 
publican party  into  a  compact  phalanx.  In  the  radical  House 
he  felt  safe,  but  the  Senate  was  more  conservative  and  trouble- 
some. In  that  body  there  were  four  groups.  Radicals,  led  by 
Sumner  of  Massachusetts,  Wade  of  Ohio,  and  Howe  of  Wis- 
consin; Conservative  Republicans  of  whom  Fessenden  of 
Maine,  Grimes  of  Iowa,  and  Trumbull  of  Illinois  were  types; 
administration  Republicans,  consisting  of  such  leaders  as  Doo- 
little  of  Wisconsin,  Cowan  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Dixon  of 
Connecticut;  and  Democrats  led  by  Johnson  of  Maryland, 
Guthrie  of  Kentucky,  and  Hendricks  of  Indiana. 

On  Friday  December  1, 1865,  Stevens  and  about  thirty  rad- 
ical associates  held  a  caucus  in  Washington  to  lay  plans  to 
thwart  the  President  and  revive  the  Republican  party.  The 
caucus  appointed  a  committee,  with  Stevens  as  chairman,  to 
prepare  resolutions  to  bind  each  House  not  to  admit  southern 

3  A.  Crosby,  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Address,  pamphlet. 

4  Olohe,  Second  Session  Fortieth  Congress,  p.  726. 

41 A  joint  resolution  of  the  Tennessee  Legislature  proposed  that  nine 
"Rebels"  be  put  to  death:  Davis,  Mason,  Hunter,  Toombs,  Cobb,  Benjamin, 
Slidell,  Lee  and  Breckinridge. — Moore  and  Foster,  Tennessee,  p.  531. 


THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS      309 

representatives  till  the  other  House  had  come  to  the  same  con- 
clusion.^ On  the  next  evening,  Saturday,  December  2,  the 
regular  Republican  caucus  was  held  and  a  committee,  with 
Stevens  again  as  chairman,  was  appointed  to  consider  what 
should  be  done  with  the  southern  Representatives.  Stevens, 
quietly  and  without  alluding  to  the  previous  caucus,  proposed 
his  caucus  resolution  and  it  was  adopted  unanimously.  Such 
stupidity  as  the  astute  Raymond,  serving  on  Stevens'  com- 
mittee, was  guilty  of  in  not  fighting  this  bottling-up  of  the 
conservative  Republicans  was  hardly  ever  witnessed.® 

On  Monday,  December  4,  when  Congress  met,  the  floors,  the 
ante-rooms  and  galleries  were  filled  with  spectators  to  witness 
the  return  of  the  "erring  Southern  Sisters"  to  the  Union. 
But  they  were  disappointed.  When  the  roll  was  called  Edwin 
McPherson,  the  clerk,  omitted  the  names  of  the  newly  elected 
Congressmen  from  the  South.  Horace  Maynard,  the  Ten- 
nessee loyalist,  Congressman  elect  from  his  Union  District, 
holding  in  his  hand  a  certificate  of  election  from  Governor 
Brownlow,  addressed  the  clerk  and  asked  that  his  name  be 
called.  The  clerk  turned  a  deaf  ear,  though  Maynard  had  rep- 
resented his  district  in  Congress  during  the  early  years  of  the 
war  and  had  been  a  delegate  to  the  1864)  Baltimore  Convention 
which  nominated  Lincoln  and  Johnson.  "Does  the  clerk  de- 
cline to  hear  me.^"  Maynard  shouted.  The  clerk  adhered  to  his 
ruling. 

Brooks  of  New  York,  the  minority  leader,  insisted  that 
southern  members  should  be  admitted;  that  as  the  South  had 
complied  with  the  prerequisites  to  admission  as  promulgated 
by  the  President,  Congress  could  not  exclude  them.  "If  Ten- 
nessee is  not  in  the  Union,"  said  Brooks,  "and  has  not  been  in 
the  Union,  and  is  not  a  loyal  State,  and  the  people  of  Ten- 
nessee are  aliens  and  foreigners  to  the  Union,  by  what  right 
does  the  President  of  the  United  States  usurp  a  place  in  the 
White  House.?"  This  embarrassing  question  did  not  seem  to 
trouble  Congress  in  the  least ;  in  fact,  it  refused  to  hear  May- 
nard in  his  own  behalf.     At  this  stage  the  "blue-eyed,  light, 

sKendrick,  Committee  of  Fifteen,  p.  139. 
6  8equel  of  Appomattox,  p.  126. 


310  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

sunny-haired  clerk"  turned  to  Stevens  for  further  orders. 
"I  wish  to  know  when  the  matter  of  admitting  southern  mem- 
bers will  be  taken  up,"  he  inquired.  "I  have  no  objection  to 
answering  the  gentleman,"  said  the  audacious  Stevens.  "I 
will  press  the  matter  at  the  proper  time."  "^ 

This  cut-and-dried  program  having  been  carried  out,  and 
the  roll-call  exhibiting  176  members  present — a  quorum  with- 
out the  presence  of  the  Southerners — the  speaker,  "Smiling" 
Schuyler  Colfax,  foreshadowed  what  the  Radicals  were  going 
to  do  to  Andrew  Johnson's  reconstructed  southern  states. 
"The  duty  of  Congress,"  said  the  Speaker,  "is  as  plain  as  the 
sun's  pathway  in  the  Heavens ;  the  door  having  been  shut  in  the 
rebel  faces,  it  is  still  to  be  kept  bolted.  .  .  .  Establish  a  repub- 
lican form  of  government  and  put  the  rebel  states  anew  on  such 
a  basis  of  enduring  justice  as  to  guarantee  every  safeguard  and 
protection  to  the  loyal  people."  These  words  provoked  loud 
applause.^  That  which  Lincoln  had  done  in  Tennessee,  Louis- 
iana, and  Arkansas,  and  Johnson  in  the  other  southern  states 
to  restore  civil  government  was  to  be  wiped  out  and  everything 
done  "anew." 

Meanwhile  "Old  Thad  Stevens,"  his  wig  awry,  was  sitting 
complacently  in  his  place.  Presently  the  House  was  organized 
and  he  offered  his  caucus  resolution.  Dawson  of  Pennsylvania 
moved  to  defer  action  till  the  President's  message  was  received. 
This  was  promptly  voted  do^^n."  Niblack  of  Indiana  moved 
that  pending  the  question  of  "admitting  persons  claiming  seats 
in  Congress,  such  persons  be  entitled  to  the  privilege  of  the 
floor."  This  was  likewise  voted  down.  The  Stevens  resolution 
was  carried  by  vote  of  129  to  35.  Thereby  a  Joint  Select  Com- 
mittee of  Fifteen  was  provided,  who  were  to  inquire  into  "the 
condition  of  the  so-called  Confederate  States  and  to  report  by 
bill  if  any  were  entitled  to  be  represented  in  Congress;  .  .  . 
and  until  that  time  no  member  to  be  received  into  either  house." 
A  similar  resolution  was  offered  in  the  Senate  by  Charles  Sum- 
ner of  Massachusetts.    The  Senate,  however,  refused  to  adopt 

7  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  151  and  citatioue. 

8  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  112. 
» Ibid. 


THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS   311 

the  last  provision,  admitting  members  only  upon  a  joint  vote. 
William  Pitt  Fessenden,  a  wise  and  just  Senator  from  Maine, 
killed  this  unusual  provision.  He  advocated  the  Anthony  mo- 
tion to  strike  it  out.  This  motion  was  passed  by  the  Senate  and 
accepted  by  the  House. 

Thus  early  did  Congress  put  itself  on  record  that  the  recon- 
struction of  southern  states  was  the  business  of  Congress  and 
not  of  the  President.  Thereby  a  contest  was  precipitated  "that 
transcended  any  in  the  history  of  the  country."  ^°  Congress 
became  a  one-man-power  Congress  and  every  resolution  relat- 
ing to  southern  affairs  had  to  be  referred  to  this  committee, 
there  to  be  buried  "as  in  a  tomb."  The  Committee  of  Fifteen 
became  a  "Central  Directory,"  as  Senator  Cowan  declared, 
"carrying  in  its  girdle  the  keys  to  the  Union,  without  which  the 
erring  Sisters  could  not  enter."  Four  years  of  war  had  been 
waged  to  bring  the  seceding  states  back  into  the  Union,  "a 
four  years'  war  was  to  be  waged  to  keep  them  out.  .  .  .  By 
this  political  dexterity  of  the  Radicals  no  opportunity  was 
afforded  the  Conservatives  to  get  together  and  support  the 
President,"  though  "Congress  at  that  time  was  in  a  frame  of 
mind  to  do  so."  ^'^ 

The  Joint  Select  Committee  consisted  of  six  Senators  and 
nine  Congressmen.  Its  head,  however,  was  Thad  Stevens.  The 
members  of  the  committee  were  Senators  Fessenden,  Howard, 
Harris,  Grimes,  Johnson  and  Williams ;  and  Representatives 
Stevens,  Washburne,  Morrill,  Grider,  Bingham,  Conkling, 
Boutwell,  Blow  and  Rogers.  In  the  cause  of  the  negro,  Ste- 
vens, with  the  aid  of  Sumner,  was  an  ideal  leader.  Their  aim 
was  to  abolish  all  racial  prejudices  and  distinctions.^"  "In  a 
moment's  time  the  civilization  of  two  centuries"  in  the  South 
was  to  be  uprooted."  Looking  upon  the  Constitution  as  a 
covenant  with  hell,  nothing  to  Stevens  or  Sumner  was  wrong  or 
"unconstitutional  which  advanced  the  cause  of  freedom."  In 
behalf  of  the  negro,  Sumner  was  a  pernicious  philanthropist,  a 

10  McCall,  Stevens,  p.  250. 

11  Sequel  of  Appomattox,  p.   121. 

12  Haynea,  Sumner,  p.  317. 

13  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  80. 


312  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

mere  theorist.  Personally  he  cared  nothing  for  the  colored 
man. 

Not  so  Thad  Stevens.  "He  had  no  objection  to  the  closest 
contact  with  negroes."  ^*  To  destroy  Copperheadism,  to  re- 
build the  Republican  party,  to  establish  freedom  for  all  men, 
and  to  punish  the  slaveholding  aristocrats,  confiscating  their 
estates  and  giving  to  each  freeman  "forty  acres  and  a  mule," — 
this  was  Stevens'  program.  Fierce,  "vindictive  and  unscrupu- 
lous," "bitter  in  speech  and  possessing  in  a  supreme  degree  the 
faculty  of  making  ridiculous  those  who  opposed  him,"  Stevens 
"had  a  countenance  of  iron,"  and  the  tongue  of  Voltaire. ^^ 
Hitherto  "a  party  leader,  hereafter  he  became  the  dictator  of 
the  nation." 

Thus  by  the  partisan  leadership  of  Thaddeus  Stevens  were 
the  labors  of  Johnson  and  his  cabinet  wiped  out.  Though  the 
seceding  states  had  complied  with  the  President's  demand, 
adopted  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  repealed  Secession  or- 
dinances and  abolished  war  debts,  they  were  not  to  come  in  the 
Union  until  Congress  gave  consent.  They  were  to  be  deemed 
States  sufficient  to  adopt  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  but  no 
further.  History  was  repeating  itself.  In  1863  Lincoln  had 
done  in  Louisiana  precisely  what  Johnson  was  now  doing.  He 
had  established  a  form  of  civil  government,  formed  the  nucleus 
of  self-governing  states,  and  relied  upon  the  magnanimity  and 
manhood  of  the  Southerners  to  deal  fairly  and  honestly  by  the 
dependent  and  newly  manumitted  slave.  For  this,  in  186-i,  the 
Radicals  in  Congress  assailed  Lincoln  and  endeavored  to  tear 
down  his  work. 

"A  President  has  no  authority  to  admit  rebel  states  into  the 
Union,"  said  Congress  in  1864  as  in  1865.  "Tliis  is  the  work 
of  Congress  alone."  The  Wade-Davis  bill  of  February  1864* 
attacking  Lincoln  passed  both  Houses,  as  I  have  stated,  but  was 
defeated  by  President  Lincoln's  pocket-veto.     Lincoln  thougli 

14  Fleming,  Sequel  to  Appomattox,  p.  125;  J.  G.  deK.  Hamilton,  Reconstruc- 
tion, p.  81.  On  his  doath  bed  Mr.  Stevens  was  attended  by  colored  people, 
and  was  then  baptized  by  one  of  them;  his  honorary  jialibearers  were 
colored  and  a  majority  of  his  active  pallbearers;  his  "housekeeper"  was  a 
negress. — Stewart,  Ifcminiscenccs,  p.  205.  By  his  Will,  he  was  buried  in  a 
cemetery  with  the  colored  people. — Last  chapter  of  Woodburn's  Stevens. 

10  Fleming,  op.  cit. 


THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS       313 

"not  wedded  to  any  particular  form  of  reconstruction,"  was 
not  willing  to  surrender  to  Congress.  The  work  of  the  loyal 
men  of  Louisiana  should  not  be  wiped  out.  In  November 
1864  at  the  polls  Henry  Winter  Davis,  author  of  these  attacks 
on  Lincoln,  was  defeated  and  Lincoln  triumphed.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  speculate  upon  what  might  have  happened  if  the 
radical  Wade-Davis  bill,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  not 
at  all  radical,  had  become  the  law.  It  did  not  enfranchise  the 
negro.  Nevertheless,  had  it  become  law,  might  not  the  negro 
have  fared  better  at  the  hands  of  southern  whites,  than  at  the 
hands  of  the  National  Government?  Though  the  Wade-Davis 
bill  provided  that  the  negro  should  be  set  free,  yet  the  right  to 
vote  was  limited  to  "the  loyal  white  male  citizen  of  the  United 
States."  If  the  returning  Confederate  soldier  and  not  the 
negro  had  been  put  in  control  of  the  South,  would  not  a  more 
satisfactory  system  of  reconstruction  have  resulted.''  ^^ 

Now  President  Johnson,  with  the  approval  of  his  cabinet. 
Secretary  Stanton  included,  had  followed  Lincoln's  "Louisiana 
Plan."  The  action  of  Congress,  therefore,  in  repudiating  his 
course  and  overturning  civil  governments  in  the  South  was  a 
blow  to  him.  Though  he  expected  a  fight  with  the  Radicals, 
he  did  not  expect  a  fight  with  moderates — these  he  counted  on 
to  support  his  policy.  But  a  fight  from  every  quarter  had 
come  and  the  Radicals  had  drawn  the  first  blood.  Particularly 
was  the  President  wounded  because  it  seemed  to  him  Congress 
had  ceased  to  be  patriotic  and  become  partisan,  that  it  was 
more  concerned  in  saving  the  Republican  party  than  in  saving 
the  country.  For,  as  the  New  York  Times  put  it,  "The  very 
success  of  Johnson's  policy  proved  to  be  one  element  of  later 
weakness; — the  Republicans  were  against  him  because  the 
Democrats  were  for  him." 

I  have  stated  that  partisan  politics  defeated  the  program  of 
reconstruction,  but  this  is  only  partly  true.  Party  politics 
alone  could  not  have  defeated  a  plan  so  far  reaching  and  gen- 
erous. In  1865  elemental  forces  were  at  work  in  our  country. 
At  that  time  the  guns  w^ere  just  silenced.     Hatred  stirred  the 

16  McDonald,  Documentary  Source  Book,  p.  482;  Eice,  Sumner,  Vol.  II, 
p.  441. 


314  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

hearts  of  men ;  and  Ate  was  come  "hot  from  hell."  The  pas- 
sions of  half  a  century  had  found  vent  in  four  years  of  war. 
Billions  of  property  had  been  destroyed.  Hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  men  had  been  killed  or  wounded.  The  land  was  full  of 
widows  and  orphans.  These  evils  the  North  regarded  as  the 
work  of  southern  rebels;  men  who  had  precipitated  a  useless 
and  a  bloody  war,  with  slavery  as  its  basis.^^  Even  the  gentle- 
women of  the  North  were  asking  vengeance  on  the  rebel  South. 
"Tell  President  Johnson,"  wrote  Mrs.  Doolittle  to  her  son  the 
Senator,  "to  be  sure  to  have  Jeff  Davis  tried  and  executed."  ^® 
"God  bless  you,  sir,"  wrote  one  correspondent  to  Johnson  when 
he  approved  the  hanging  of  Mrs.  Surratt. 

That  the  rebels  who  wrought  this  desolation  and  destruction 
were  now  knocking  for  admission  to  Congress,  the  North  re- 
garded as  traitorous  and  wicked.  To  admit  into  Congress  four 
Confederate  generals,  five  Confederate  colonels,  six  of  the  Con- 
federate cabinet,  and  fifty-eight  Confederate  Congressmen, 
none  of  whom  was  able  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  seemed 
to  the  North  unthinkable.  And  yet  a  situation  of  that  kind 
confronted  Congress.  The  case  of  Alex  H.  Stephens,  late 
Vice-president  of  the  Confederacy,  was  especially  aggravating. 
Four  months  before  he  had  been  a  prisoner  at  Fort  Warren. 
Pardoned  by  the  President,  he  waited  not  a  moment  to  repent 
but  returned  to  Georgia,  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate, and  was  now  asking  admission — asking  to  govern  the  coun- 
try he  had  been  trying  to  destroy.  To  grant  this  request,  said 
the  North,  would  be  stretching  forgiveness  to  the  breaking 
point. 

This  condition  of  affairs  in  the  South,  however,  except  in 
the  Border  States,  was  not  only  natural  but  unavoidable.  War 
in  the  South  during  four  years  had  become  a  test  of  manhood 
and  of  loyalty  to  home.  The  braver  the  fighter  the  truer  the 
man.  "The  hope  of  the  nation  lies  in  the  Confederate  soldier," 
said  Colonel  W.  H.  Truman,  in  his  report  to  the  President  in 
1866.  "From  the  returning  soldier  the  people  of  the  South 
are  learning  the  lesson  of  charity  and  brotherhood,  as  the 

17  Rhodes,  Vol.  IV,  p.  79. 

18  Obt-rholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  19. 


THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS   315 

people  of  the  north  do  from  returning  northern  soldiers."  " 
In  the  spring  of  1865  Vice-president  Johnson  had  shared  this 
feeling  of  vengeance  against  "the  head  devils  of  the  rebels." 
But  when  war  hysteria  wore  off  and  he  saw  the  true  condition 
of  the  South  and  of  the  southern  people,  he  ceased  to  regard 
them  as  conscious  rebels  or,  except  Davis  and  a  few  others,  as 
criminals  deserving  punishment. 

As  one  looks  back  on  the  summer  of  1865,  it  must  be  said 
that  there  was  much  confused  thinking  and  'WTiting.  Conserva- 
tive papers  which  praised  the  President's  course  read  some- 
thing into  his  messages  which  was  not  there.  They  declared 
that  his  first  message  was  non-committal  and  hence  open  to 
changes  and  to  the  "cooperation  of  Congress."  The  opposite 
was  true.  The  message  was  final,  and  Johnson  so  intended. 
"The  South  must  be  Americanized,"  said  the  candid  North 
American  Revieza,  attacking  the  message.^"  "The  North  is 
not  to  be  cheated  out  of  its  victory."  It  is  not  "to  be  deluded 
by  specious  promises  or  by  oaths  taken  to  be  broken."  Though 
Andrew  Johnson  is  "not  a  tool  like  Buchanan  or  a  tyrant  like 
Jackson,"  said  Lowell,  yet  "the  North  is  in  no  temper  to  sub- 
mit to  'black  Codes'  or  to  the  burning  of  negro  schools" ;  the 
President  "ought  to  have  recommended  negro  suffrage  in  his 
message." 

A  genuine  note  of  defiance  came  from  abolitionists  such  as 
Wendell  Phillips.  When  Johnson,  in  his  message,  failed  to 
advocate  full  social  and  political  freedom  for  the  negro,  Phil- 
lips delivered  a  blistering  lecture.  "The  South  Victorious,"  he 
tauntingly  called  it.  When  invited  to  Washington,  he  refused 
to  go.  He  "would  rather  not  breathe  the  same  atmosphere  with 
them,"  he  declared."  "Slavery  is  being  reestablished  by  Con- 
gress and  there  is  a  specter  walking  over  the  country  in  its 
shroud.  ...  If  the  President  succeeds  he  shall  write  his  name 
higher  than  Burr  or  Arnold." 

Radicals  were  strengthened  by  the  report  of  General  Carl 
Schurz.    This  report  was  published  and  widely  circulated.    In 

19  Fleming,  Sequel  of  Appomattox,  Chap.  I;  Truman,  Report. 

20  Vol.  CII,  p.  258. 

21  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  159. 


316  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  summer  of  1865  Scliurz  had  been  sent  South  by  the  Presi- 
dent to  ascertain  conditions.  The  accompHshed  German  had 
indicated  to  the  President  that  he  approved  Presidential  Re- 
construction. After  visiting  portions  of  the  South  and  con- 
sorting, it  was  claimed,  mostly  with  Federal  Bureau  Agents 
and  others  hostile  to  the  President's  course,  he  made  his  re- 
port. There  is  "no  loyalty  among  leaders  or  masses,"  he 
reported,  "except  such  as  consists  in  submission  to  necessity." 
By  means  of  new  legislation  "the  South  is  establishing  a 
form  of  slavery  like  the  old  chattel  slavery"  and  this  "can 
only  be  prevented  by  a  national  law  and  by  national  con- 
trol." The  negro,  according  to  Schurz's  report,  "cannot 
protect  himself  without  suffrage  and  this  the  South  will  not 
of  itself  grant."  To  induce  the  South  to  grant  suffrage  "it 
must  be  made  a  condition  precedent  to  admission."  In  1872, 
it  may  be  here  stated,  the  versatile  Schurz  presided  over  the 
Greeley  Convention,  organized  to  defeat  President  Grant  and 
disrupt  the  Republican  party.  "This  is  moving  day,"  he  then 
said.  But  he  had  then  become  "a  southern  man  with  southern 
ideas."  In  1872  he  was  opposing  the  Republican  party  for 
doing  that  which  in  1865  he  had  urged  it  to  do — make  the 
negroes  the  equal  of  the  whites. ^^ 

General  Grant,  in  his  report,  drew  conclusions  opposite  to 
Schurz's  and  reported  to  the  President  accordingly.  The 
General  had  also  been  requested  by  the  President,  while  on  duty 
in  the  South,  to  examine  into  affairs.  Though  his  visit  was  not 
of  such  length  as  that  of  Schurz;  he  was  satisfied  "that  the 
mass  of  the  men  of  the  South  accept  the  situation  in  good  faith 
— the  right  of  a  state  to  secede  they  regard  as  settled  for- 
ever." In  Grant's  opinion  "the  officers  of  the  Federal  Bureau 
are  a  useless  and  dangerous  set  and  should  be  dismissed  and 
military  officers  substituted."  The  report  of  Major  Truman, 
who  traveled  extensively  over  the  South,  was  the  fullest  and 
most  comprehensive  of  the  three  reports.  Truman  drew  a  wise 
distinction  between  patriotism  and  loyalt3\  He  found  and  de- 
clared that  the  South  Avas  "thoroughly  lo^'al."  "To  the  dis- 
banded regiments  of  the  old  rebel  armies,"  he  said,  "I  look  with 

22  iJemtnisccjiccs  of  Carl  8churz,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  321-341. 


THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS       317 

great  confidence  as  the  best  and  altogether  the  most  hopeful 
element  of  the  South,  the  real  basis  of  reconstruction  and  the 
material  of  worthy  citizenship." 

Radical  leaders  made  a  great  ado  over  Carl  Schurz's  report 
and  paid  little  attention  to  Grant's.  Grant's  report  was 
meager,  they  said.  Of  Johnson's  message  accompanying 
Grant's  report  Sumner  declared  it  was  "like  the  white-washing 
message  of  Franklin  Pierce  with  regard  to  the  enormities  of 
Kansas."  This  statement  Harper's  deprecated,  declaring  that 
the  President  was  "patriotic  and  should  be  sustained."  ^^  With 
Schurz's  report  in  hand,  and  a  promiscuous  mass  of  letters 
filled  with  negro  outrages  on  his  desk,  Sumner  admonished  the 
Senate :  "An  angry  God  could  not  sleep  while  such  things  find 
countenance."  He  besought  the  President,  if  he  was  "not 
ready  to  be  the  Moses  of  an  oppressed  people  not  to  become 
its  Pharaoh." 

The  situation  in  the  South  in  the  winter  of  1865  and  1866 
was  this.  Mississippi,  where  negroes  were  in  a  majority  and 
"were  wandering  around  lazy,  vicious  and  waiting  for  their 
forty  acres  and  a  mule,"  had  enacted  Black  Codes.  None  of 
the  other  states  had  enacted  such  laws.  But,  as  a  none  too 
friendly  critic  of  Johnson's  policy  puts  it,  "this  Mississippi 
legislation  does  not  appear  as  far  from  what  was  natural  and 
even  necessary,  as  Mr.  Stevens  and  his  followers  made  it  out."  ^* 
As  to  disorders  in  the  South  in  1865  and  1866,  "they  were  no 
more  than  were  usual  in  the  South  and  in  new  countries,  ex- 
cept in  Memphis  and  Mississippi."  "^  It  is  also  to  be  said  that 
in  1865,  when  the  Mississippi  Black  Code  was  enacted,  the 
status  of  the  negro  was  undefined;  though  he  was  not  a  slave 
he  was  not  a  citizen.  The  Black  Codes  "extended  rather  than 
restricted  the  negroes'  rights."  "^  "The  Southern  vagrant  acts 
were  quite  similar  to  those  in  Maine,  Rhode  Island  and  Con- 
necticut." ^^    It  is  also  pointed  out  by  modern  historians  that 

23  Harper's  Weekly,  March  10,  1866. 

24  Burgess,  Reconstruction,  p.  53. 

25  Fleming,  Sequel  to  Appomattox,  p.  83. 

26  Woodrow  Wilson,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  V,  p.  20. 

27  As  to  the  necessity  for  such  laws,  consult  Herbert,  Reconstruction,  pp. 
8-31;  Fleming,  op.  cit.,  p.  1;  Rhodes,  Vol.  V,  p.  556;  Garner,  Reconstruction, 
p.  116. 


318  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

these  codes  were  not  enacted  "from  hate  of  the  North  but  to 
protect  Southern  whites."  Professor  Hamilton  also  points 
out,  that  no  reference,  in  the  Congressional  debates  of  1865,  to 
Black  Codes  was  made.^^ 

While  Congress  and  the  North  were  agitating  themselves 
about  the  freedman — "God's  image  in  ivory"  as  he  was  then 
called — Thad  Stevens  and  his  Directory  sat  complacent,  play- 
ing for  time.  They  knew  that  the  impoverished  South,  overrun 
by  armies,  staggering  under  the  race  problem  and  outlawed  by 
Congress,  must  soon  break  out  into  disorder  and  that  this  would 
play  into  the  hands  of  the  Radicals. 

Conservative  members  of  the  committee  like  Fessenden  were 
anxious  to  bring  about  reconstruction  without  going  to  the 
extent  of  negro  enfranchisement  and  social  equality,  but  they 
were  over-ridden  by  the  Radicals.  From  the  first  Sumner,  the 
theorist,  openly  avowed  his  purpose  to  effect  absolute  equality 
of  black  and  white.  Later,  when  his  bill  guaranteeing  such 
equality  was  defeated,  "he  hastened  from  the  Senate  to  his 
home  where  his  disappointment  found  vent  in  tears."  ^^ 
Stevens  was  more  practical  than  Sumner.  He  fought  each 
inch  of  ground  for  the  negro,  taking  what  he  could  get.  As 
soon  as  one  rampart  was  scaled  Stevens  moved  to  the  next. 
First,  freedom  for  the  negro ;  next,  protection  through  the 
Bureau;  then.  Civil  Rights,  to  be  followed  by  Military  Rule, 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment  and  the  Fifteenth — and,  if  he 
could  have  had  his  way,  confiscation.  Forward  and  ever  for- 
ward the  heroic  old  man  pressed,  till  halted  by  an  aroused  pub- 
lic conscience. 

In  a  speech  on  December  18,  1865,  Stevens  laid  his  cards  on 
the  table. ^°  "The  Republican  party  and  it  alone  can  save  the 
Union,"  he  declared.  "  'Do  you  aver  the  party  purpose?'  some 
horror-stricken  demagogue  asks  me.  *I  do.'  "  Thus  spoke  the 
candid  man.  To  save  the  country  the  Republican  party  must 
control  Congress,  and  southern  members  must  be  excluded.  If 
southern  Representatives  were  admitted  the  Republican  party 

28  Herbert,  p.  13:  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Connecticut  and  other  northern 
States  in  1865  voted  against  negro  suffrage. 

29  Haynes,  Sumner,  p.  317. 
ao  Fleming,  t^cqucl,  p.  125. 


THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS   319 

might  be  defeated.  In  the  Senate  there  were  39  Republicans 
and  11  Democrats,  in  the  House  141  Republicans  and  43 
Democrats.  To  the  Democrats  must  be  added  certain  weak- 
kneed  Republicans  who  were  supporting  President  Johnson; 
such  men  as  Dixon,  Cowan,  Doolittle  and,  at  that  time,  Mor- 
ton. If  southern  Representatives  were  admitted  22  Senators 
and  58  Congressmen  would  be  added  to  the  Democratic  col- 
umn. Thus  Congress  might  pass  under  Democratic  and  Cop- 
perhead control.^^  That  the  negro  should  not  count  if  he 
did  not  vote  Stevens  regarded  as  a  truism.  He  averred  that 
"the  idea  of  a  white  man's  government  is  as  atrocious  as  the 
Dred  Scott  decision — a  decision  that  has  damned  the  late  Chief 
Justice  to  everlasting  fame  and  I  fear  everlasting  fire." 

While  Congress  was  debating  the  loyalty  of  the  South,  while 
the  press  was  full  of  it  and  it  was  the  talk  of  every  northern 
home.  President  Johnson  had  information  unknown  to  the 
public.  Into  his  ear  were  pouring  the  sorrows  and  the  agony 
of  Southerners  from  Texas  to  Maryland.  To  the  White  House 
they  daily  came.  They  admitted  that  the  war  had  been  a  mis- 
take, that  the  President  had  been  right  and,  as  General  Lee 
afterwards  testified  before  the  Reconstruction  Committee,  but 
for  the  politicians  no  war  would  have  taken  place,  that  if 
the  people  could  have  settled  the  matter  war  would  have 
been  avoided.  These  visiting  delegations  told  of  scenes  of 
desolation  in  the  South.  During  the  war  every  available  dollar 
— trust  funds  included — had  gone  into  Confederate  securities 
and  had  been  lost.  "Everything  to  eat  and  everything  to  wear 
had  been  consumed.  When  the  war  ended,  suddenly,  there  was 
nothing  left  but  poverty  and  nakedness.  Famine  had  followed 
and  suffering  beyond  computation — the  story  of  which  could 
never  be  told."  ^-  In  truth,  the  President  was  satisfied  that  the 
Secession  element  of  the  South  was  discredited  beyond  resur- 
rection. 

Judge  Reade,  the  loyalist  President  of  the  1865  North  Caro- 
lina Convention,  had  sounded  the  keynote :  "My  friends,"  said 
he,  in  his  opening  address,  "we  are  going  home,  we  are  going 

31  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  First  Session,  p.  74. 

32  Pike,  Prostrate  State,  p.  117. 


820  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

home."  And  so  President  Johnson  concluded.  Had  the  aifairs 
of  Tennessee,  North  CaroHna,  Kentucky,  Maryland,  West 
Virginia,  Louisiana,  Arkansas  been  left  to  the  South,  the  North 
would  never  have  regretted  its  generosity.  Had  those  Border 
States  been  permitted  to  manage  their  own  affairs  without 
force  or  violence  they  would  have  "come  back  home."  The 
names  of  fire-eating  Secessionists,  who  once  boasted  of  "having 
pulled  the  lanyard  that  fired  the  first  gun  at  Sumter,"  would 
have  been  anathema.  Andrew  Johnson  foresaw  all  this  and, 
foreseeing,  was  willing  to  risk  the  affairs  of  the  Nation  in  the 
hands  of  the  loyal  men  of  the  South,  though  they  had  been 
in  Confederate  armies.  Charles  Sumner's  assertion  that  such 
men  were  "not  so  far  changed  as  to  be  fit  associates,"  the 
President  did  not  approve  of. 

And  yet  this  must  be  said.  Andrew  Johnson  himself  had 
changed  his  views  as  to  the  punishment  of  rebels.  He  was, 
therefore,  in  no  condition  to  blame  those  who — without  his 
inside  information — would  not  follow  him.  President  John- 
son, in  December  1865,  was  not  bloodthirsty  as  was  Vice-presi- 
dent Johnson  in  April  previous.  At  all  events,  there  was  an 
honest  difference  of  opinion  between  patriotic  men  of  the  North 
and  of  the  South  on  the  subject  of  Reconstruction.  Neverthe- 
less the  President,  having  worked  faithfully  and  unselfishly, 
having  won  the  epithet  of  "Angel  of  Light,"  undoubtedly  ex- 
pected an  endorsement  by  Congress.  The  critical  New  York 
Nation  had  said  of  his  policy  and  of  his  first  message,  "We  do 
not  know  where  to  look  in  any  part  of  the  globe  for  a  states- 
man to  seize  the  points  of  so  great  a  question  and  state  them 
with  so  much  clearness  and  breadth  as  this  Tennessee  tailor." 
"If  the  President  were  to  commit  to-morrow  every  mistake  or 
sin  which  his  enemies  have  feared,"  the  Nation  continued,  "his 
plan  of  reconstruction  would  still  remain  the  brightest  example 
of  humanity,  self-restraint  and  sagacity  ever  witnessed — some- 
thing to  which  history  offers  no  approach."  With  such  words 
of  praise  sounding  in  the  President's  ear  the  attitude  of  Con- 
gress grated  harshly  upon  him. 

On  December  21  Senator  Voorhees  offered  a  resolution  en- 
dorsing Johnson's  policy  and  declaring  "his  message  was  able 


THAD  STEVENS  POCKETS  CONGRESS   321 

and  patriotic,"  that  lie  was  entitled  to  thanks  for  his  wise 
and  patriotic  efforts  to  restore  civil  government  and  "we  pledge 
ourselves  to  aid  and  uphold  him  in  his  policy  to  give  harmony, 
peace  and  unity  to  the  country."  Bingham  offered  a  substi- 
tute, but  Thad  Stevens  objected  to  any  recognition  of  Andrew 
Johnson.  Stevens  asked  that  both  the  motion  and  the  substi- 
tute go  to  his  committee.  On  January  9  the  motion  of  Voor- 
hees  was  voted  down  and  the  House  passed  the  Bingham  sub- 
stitute. It  damned  the  President  with  faint  praise.  The 
House  was  satisfied,  the  resolution  read,  "that  in  the  future 
as  in  the  past  the  President  will  cooperate  with  Congress." 
From  this  time,  January  9,  1866,  "the  relation  of  the  dominant 
party  in  the  North  to  President  Johnson  was  changed;  and 
any  cooperation  between  him  and  Congress  became  extremely 
difficult."  '^ 

About  this  time  an  ominous  situation  arose  in  the  cabinet: 
Stanton  was  looking  one  way  and  rowing  another.  That  is,  in 
the  cabinet,  he  was  supposed  to  be  an  out  and  out  Johnson 
man ;  but  with  Sumner,  he  was  an  out  and  out  Radical.^*  Sum- 
ner, Stanton's  sponsor,  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  Secretary 
Welles.  He  accused  Welles  of  misrepresenting  New  England 
sentiment.  On  the  other  hand  Welles  concludes  that  "Sumner 
was  vain  and  egotistical."  Though  he  boasted,  said  Welles, 
of  having  read  everything  "on  what  constitutes  a  Republican 
government,  from  Plato  to  the  last  French  pamphlet,"  he  was 
thoroughly  "unpractical."  ^^  Sumner  did  not  fail  to  pay  his 
respects  to  Andrew  Johnson,  -  calling  him  "the  utterly  un- 
principled and  wicked  author  of  incalculable  woe  to  the 
country."  ^^ 

33  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  137. 

34  Welles,  Diary,  Vol.  II,  p.  394. 
S5lUd.,  Vol.  II,  p.  393. 

36  Haynes,  Sumner,  p.  213. 


PART  III:  UNBOWED 

1865   and  After 


CHAPTER  I 
PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION 

In  a  speech  in  lighter  vein,  in  which  Seward  often  indulged, 
he  declared  that  Congress  was  quarreling  with  President  John- 
son though  it  had  had  its  way.  This  reminded  him  of  an  irate 
individual  who  had  won  his  lawsuit  but  continued  out  of  sorts. 
"Damn  it,"  the  man  said,  "I  won  my  case  but  I  didn't  win  it 
my  way."  Mr.  Seward's  wish,  in  this  matter,  was  undoubtedly 
father  to  his  thought. 

The  differences  between  the  President  and  Congress  were 
basic.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Johnson  opposed  any  funda- 
mental change  in  the  Constitution.  Therefore,  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau  bill  and  the  Civil  Rights  bill  he  vetoed  on  principle. 
He  saw  clearly  that  the  first  of  these  bills  was  only  the  advance 
guard  "of  a  long  procession  of  others  that  were  even  more 
obnoxious  to  him.  .  .  .  He  knew  it  was  impossible  to  avoid  the 
issue  eventually  and  he  determined  to  meet  it  firmly  at  the  out- 
set." ^  The  President's  mistake  was  in  thinking  the  Freed- 
men's Bureau  bill  a  measure  for  which  the  Radicals  alone  were 
responsible.  "As  a  matter  of  fact  there  were  very  few  Re- 
publicans who  did  not  desire  such  modification  of  the  Presi- 
dent's policy  as  would  give  protection  and  assistance  to  the 
newly  emancipated  negroes."  ^ 

Congress  would  never  have  consented  that  the  Southern 
States  return  to  the  Union  by  simply  abolishing  slavery,  re- 
pealing secession  ordinances,  and  repudiating  confederate 
debts.  Indeed,  as  we  have  already  seen.  Congress  assailed  Lin- 
coln's Louisiana  Plan  of  reconstruction.  Certainly  the  com- 
mittee, dominated  by  Thad  Stevens,  would  have  demanded 
more  than  the  Louisiana  plan  and  would  have  insisted  that 
such  demands  be  put  in  the  Constitution.     Even  the  conserva- 

1  Congressional  Globe,  February  21,   1866. 

2  Kendrick,  Committee  of  Fifteen,  p.  235. 

325 


326  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

tives  on  the  committee,  Fessenden,  Bingham  and  Roscoe  Conk- 
ling,  insisted  on  radical  changes  in  the  Constitution.  They 
would  place  the  rights  of  the  citizen  in  the  keeping  of  the 
Federal  Government.  The  radical  members  would  go  further. 
They  would  follow  Stevens,  not  only  reconstructing  but  pun- 
isliing;  the  South.  An  analvsis  of  the  committee  shows  it  was 
composed  of  George  S.  Boutwell  of  Massachusetts,  a  cold  and 
calculating  fanatic,  a  professional  politician  dependent  on 
office  for  a  livelihood;  Williams  of  Oregon,  whom  the  acri- 
monious Welles  designates  as  "a  third-rate  lawyer  weak  and 
corrupt" ;  Grimes  of  Iowa  who,  at  that  time,  was  quite  radical ; 
and  Howard  of  Michigan,  classed  as  a  protege  of  Zachary 
Chandler,  one  of  the  most  vulgar  and  reckless  of  Radicals,  in 
the  vanguard  of  the  extreme  negrophiles.  The  other  Republi- 
cans on  the  committee,  some  of  them  also  radical,  were  of  little 
importance  in  shaping  reconstruction  legislation.  They  were 
Morrill  of  Vermont,  Washburne  of  Illinois,  Blow  of  Missouri, 
and  Harris  of  New  York.  The  Democratic  members  were 
Johnson  of  Mar3'land,  Grider  of  Kentucky,  and  Rogers  of 
New  York.^  Johnson  was  the  ablest  of  the  Democratic  Sena- 
tors and  was  not  a  strict  party  man. 

In  addition  to  the  negro  question  there  was  this  vital  issue 
between  President  and  Congress :  Should  the  southern  states 
be  restored  under  the  old  Constitution  or  should  they  be  recon- 
structed? Should  the  old  Union  remain  intact,  that  is,  should 
each  State  be  a  judge  of  citizenship  and  of  its  local  affairs? 
Or,  should  citizenship  become  national  and  the  general  gov- 
ernment regulate  the  internal  affairs  of  the  states?  In  a  word 
should  America  become  a  Nation?  In  this  contest  there  could 
be  no  doubt  as  to  where  Andrew  Johnson  would  stand.  As  in 
the  past,  he  would  be  for  the  old  Constitution  and  the  old 
Union.  The  Constitution  had  been  his  pole  star.  By  it  he  had 
guided  his  political  course.  It  was  too  late  to  expect  him  to 
break  away  from  the  simple,  uncomplicated  Democratic  doc- 
trines of  Jackson  and  take  up  the  complex,  paternalistic  and 
fcderalistic  principles  of  Adams.  He  had  always  op])osed  in- 
direct taxation.      Tariffs  and  other   revenue   taxes   were  his 

3  Kendrick,  Committee  of  Fifteen,  p.  190. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION  327 

abomination.  He  maintained  now  as  he  had  when  in  Congress 
that  there  were  too  many  laws  and  that  the  general  govern- 
ment should  not  supplant  state  governments.  No  more  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution  were  necessary,  he  thought,  except 
one  to  change  the  basis  of  representation  because  of  the  lib- 
eration of  the  slaves  under  the  Thirteenth  Amendment. 

In  this  course  Johnson  was  not  changing  front.  Mr.  Seward 
was  not  "softening  him,"  as  it  was  charged.  Neither  were 
"southern  aristocrats  and  rebels  flattering  him  to  reverse  him- 
self." In  1864,  when  Military  Governor,  he  had  urged  Lincoln 
not  to  follow  Stevens  and  Sumner  but  to  treat  the  rebel  states 
as  states.  His  July  1861  resolutions  defined  the  purposes  of 
the  war  to  be  simple  restoration,  a  principle  which  his  message 
to  Congress  in  December  1865  reaffirmed.  In  the  White 
House,  and  in  official  life  his  associates  were  not  rebels,  not 
Southerners  and  not  Copperheads.  His  friends  and  associates 
were  Unionists  and  war  men — many  of  them  the  attached 
friends  of  Lincoln.  In  February  1861,  when  Lincoln  passed 
through  Baltimore,  and  faced  a  threatening  mob,  he  chose  one 
man  to  stand  by  and  guard  his  life.  Armed  to  the  teeth,  the 
courageous  Ward  Hill  Lamon,  Lincoln's  partner  and  "par- 
ticular friend,"  was  the  man  so  chosen  by  Lincoln.  Lamon 
soon  became  Johnson's  particular  friend  also.  Seward,  Welles 
and  McCulloch  had  been  Lincoln's  friends  and  advisers,  they 
were  also  Johnson's.  Browning  was  Lincoln's  manager  in 
Illinois,  and  he  was  put  in  Johnson's  cabinet.  So  with  the 
Blairs,  Grant,  Sherman,  Cowan,  Dixon,  Ewing,  Doolittle  and 
others ;  they  had  been  Lincoln's  advisers,  and  they  became 
Johnson's.  President  Johnson's  fault  was  not  that  he  had 
changed  but  that  he  had  not  changed  and  would  not  change. 
For  this  he  was  attacked,  and  so  were  all  others  who  followed 
Lincoln.  For  refusing  to  follow  the  Radical  program,  at  a 
later  date,  Henderson,  Trumbull,  Fessenden,  Grimes,  Ross, 
Fowler,  Doolittle,  Chase  and  others  became,  like  Johnson, 
traitors,  unworthy  and  discredited ;  *  Ward  Lamon  was  almost 
hounded  to  his  death. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  struggle  between  the 

4Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  Chap.  I. 


328  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

President  and  Congress  touched  the  latter  at  a  vital  point. 
President  Johnson  was  endeavoring  to  supplant  or  to  dwarf 
Congress.  This  Lincoln  had  done  during  the  war,  and  this 
Congress  was  determined  should  not  continue.  Now  that  the 
war  had  ended,  Congress  meant  to  reassert  itself,  to  put  the 
President  in  his  place  and  take  the  southern  situation  in 
hand.  Moreover,  the  President's  course  in  re-admitting  the 
rebel  states  would  be  ruinous  to  the  Republican  party.  This 
was  a  vital  point.  In  December  1865  when  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  was  adopted,  setting  free  the  slaves,  a  curious 
result  followed.  Twenty-nine  additional  Representatives  were 
thereby  added  to  the  South.^  The  three-fifths  rule  no  longer 
operated.  If  no  other  amendments  were  adopted,  all  the 
negroes  would  be  counted  in  apportioning  representation,  and 
the  amendment  would  work  an  injury  of  the  party  which  passed 
it.  The  struggle  was  fiercer  because  of  one  other  fact  I  have 
mentioned:  The  ancient  social  structure  of  America  lay  in 
hopeless  ruins ;  conditions  after  the  war  were  totally  different 
from  those  before  the  war.  The  days  of  individualism  were 
gone.  The  rise  of  Nationalism  was  manifest  in  Europe  and  in 
America.  Andrew  Johnson  did  not  appreciate  this  fact.  He 
set  himself  against  a  force  which  has  controlled  the  world 
from  that  day  to  our  own,  against  the  Nationalization  of  his 
country. 

In  the  process  of  reconstruction  curious  changes  of  position 
occurred.  Whatever  the  Constitution  declared  on  the  subject 
of  Secession  or  whatever  either  side  contended,  the  North  had 
fought  to  prove  and  by  success  had  proved,  that  no  state  could 
withdraw  from  the  Union :  "Wherefore  the  seceding  states  con- 
tinued to  be  states  after  Lee's  surrender  just  as  they  had  been 
before  invalid  votes  had  undertaken  to  effect  an  unlawful  Se- 
cession. .  .  .  The  Radical  view  that  the  southern  area  was  no 
longer  an  aggregation  of  sovereign  states  but  conquered  terri- 
tory to  be  re-organizcd  and  dealt  with  as  the  victors  might 
choose,  was  illogical  and  contrary  to  the  theory  on  which  the 
war  was  fought."  "     And  yet  the  working  out  of  the  former 

BKcndrick,  Committee  of  Fifteen,  p.  198. 
0  Welles,  Diary,  Preface  by  Morse,  p.  xlvi. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION  329 

theory,  that  is  the  perdurance  of  a  state,  was  utterly  im- 
practicable. Something  must  be  done  by  the  rebel  states,  be- 
sides laying  down  arms,  before  they  could  come  back  into  the 
Union. 

The  question  was,  What  should  be  done  by  the  rebellious 
states  and  who  should  pass  on  the  matter,  the  President  or 
Congress.  Now  the  initial  steps  taken  b^'  Mr.  Lincoln  "in  the 
readjustment  after  the  termination  of  hostilities  were  guided 
by  the  widespread  northern  belief  that  the  old  Union  had  been 
maintained,"  but  the  "final  steps  in  reconstruction  revealed 
with  unmistakable  clearness  the  truth  of  the  southern  view  that 
a  new  U^nion  had  been  created."  '  In  fact,  "a  condition  never 
contemplated  by  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  had  to  be 
disposed  of  in  pretended  accordance  with  an  instrument  which 
had  not  a  word  to  say  concerning  such  problems."  ^  Neverthe- 
less, it  seems  safe  to  conclude,  arguendo,  tliat  the  Avork  of 
bringing  the  states  into  their  proper  relations  with  the  Union 
was  for  the  President  and  not  for  Congress.^ 

No  one  knew  better  than  Andrew  Johnson  that  the  wai- 
had  been  inaugurated  by  President  Lincoln,  that  is,  that 
President  Lincoln,  and  not  Congress,  in  April  1861,  adjudged 
that  the  states  were  in  rebellion  and  declared  war.  If  the 
President  had  this  right,  Johnson  inquired,  why  not  the  cor- 
responding right  to  say  when  the  states  were  no  longer  rebel- 
lious but  fit  to  return  to  their  proper  places  in  the  Union.'' 
The  President  is  Commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy, 
he  must  take  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed;  he 
takes  an  oath  to  support,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  the  Constitution  guarantees  to  each  state  a  Repub- 
lican form  of  government.  Therefore,  did  it  not  follow, 
as  Lincoln  held,  that  reconstruction  was  his  job,  that  it  was  his 
right  to  restore  the  states  to  their  places  in  the  Union,  and  to 
see  that  a  Republican  form  of  government  was  maintained?  " 

At  all  events.  President  Johnson  concluded  that  this  was  his 
duty.     He  put  the  case  this  wa3^     No  state  has  ever  been  out 

7  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  5. 

8  John  T.  Morse,  supra. 

9  Lincoln's  Proclamation  of  December  8,  1863. 
loKendrick,  op.  cit.,  p.  17. 


330  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

of  the  Union  nor  can  it  get  out.  Each  state  "went  into  rebel- 
lion with  slavery  and  by  the  operation  of  rebellion  lost  that 
feature,  but  it  was  a  state  when  it  went  into  rebellion  and  when 
it  came  out,  with  the  peculiar  institution  it  was  still  a  state  .  .  . 
its  life  breath  had  only  been  suspended."  ^^  Therefore,  in 
tackling  the  problem  of  reconstruction,  "President  Johnson 
was  under  no  necessity  of  devising  a  solution,  the  plan  already 
applied  by  Lincoln  being  ready  to  hand.  He  took  up  the 
work  at  the  precise  point  where  his  predecessor  had  left  off."  ^^ 
Easy  it  would  have  been  to  float  with  the  tide,  to  join  with 
the  Radicals,  to  agree  with  Congress,  to  control  administration 
patronage  and  to  succeed  himself  as  President.  To  do  this, 
however — to  compromise,  to  become  a  Federalist — would  not 
have  been  Andrew  Johnson.^^  President  Johnson  was  pleased 
that  his  plan  concurred  with  Lincoln's.  The  two  had  worked 
together  harmoniously  since  February  1862,  when  Johnson 
became  Lincoln's  War  Governor  and  agent  in  Tennessee. 
Johnson,  therefore,  determined  to  follow  Lincoln. 

Without  doubt  the  plan  of  reconstruction  adopted  by  Lin- 
coln and  followed  by  Johnson  was  the  martyr  President's  last 
will  and  testament.  Whoever  opposed  it  incurred  his  dis- 
pleasure.^* In  1863  General  Butler  called  an  election  in  Nor- 
folk, over  the  head  of  Provisional  Governor  Peirpoint.  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  rebuked  him,  as  he  did  military  authorities  in 
Tennessee  for  interfering  with  Governor  Johnson,  and  in 
Arkansas  for  interfering  with  Governor  Steele.  These  states, 
having  shown  a  loyal  disposition,  had,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  con- 
cluded, regained  their  right  to  statehood.  Congress  itself  had 
considered  the  southern  states  merely  rebellious  and  not  out 
of  the  Union  and  had  endorsed  Lincoln's  plan  of  reconstruc- 
tion. This  is  shown  by  many  facts.  At  the  special  session  in 
July  1861  Andrew  Johnson,  from  the  rebel  State  of  Tennessee, 
had  been  admitted  as  a  Senator  and  so  had  Maynard  and 
Clements,  as  Congressmen.     In  1862  Halm  and  Flanders  had 

11  April  1865  speech  to  the  Indiana  delegation. 

12  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  in  the  ^American  Nation,  p.  35;  Rhodes, 
Vol.  V,  p.  527 ;   Burgoss,  Reconstruction,  p.  36. 

1'' Speech  to  committee  of  Philadclpliia  Convention,  Augiist  18(50. 
14  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Lincoln,  Vol.  IX,  p.  437. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION         331 

been  admitted  from  Louisiana/^  In  1864  Andrew  Johnson, 
of  the  rebel  State  of  Tennessee,  had  been  nominated  for  Vice- 
president  of  the  United  States ;  and  on  July  8,  1864,  Lincoln 
had  issued  a  proclamation  in  which  he  maintained  that  Louisi- 
ana was  a  state  of  the  Union.  He  would  not  yield  to  Wade 
and  Davis,  he  would  not  consent  to  abolish  what  loyal  Louisiana 
had  done.  Louisiana  should  forthwith  come  back  into  the 
Union. 

Undoubtedly,  therefore,  the  war  had  been  begun  and  prose- 
cuted on  the  idea  that  there  was  and  could  be  no  disruption  of 
the  L^nion  by  invalid  ordinances  of  secession.  In  July  1861 
the  basic  principle  on  which  the  war  was  to  be  fought  was 
declared  by  Congress.  As  Andrew  Johnson's  resolution  sets 
forth:  It  was  to  be,  not  conquest,  not  oppression,  but  the 
suppression  of  rebellion  and  the  restoration  of  the  L^nion. 
Even  prior  to  then,  in  his  December  18,  1860,  speech  to  the 
Senate,  Andrew  Johnson  had  given  notice  to  the  world  that 
in  his  judgment  the  Union  existed  only  by  virtue  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  that  without  the  Constitution  there  could  be  no 
Union.^^ 

Again,  early  in  February  1865,  a  bill  declaring  that  no 
Representatives  should  be  admitted  from  the  rebel  states  till 
Congress  so  declared  had  been  defeated  by  a  vote  of  80  to  65. 
In  the  same  month.  Senator  Trumbull,  from  Lincoln's  State, 
moved  that  Louisiana  be  admitted  as  the  President  recom- 
mended. This  bill  would  have  passed  but  for  Charles  Sumner. 
He  defeated  it  by  a  filibuster.  Forming  a  combination,  as 
Trumbull  charged,  with  Wade  and  two  or  three  other  radical 
Senators  to  defeat  a  great  public  measure,  Sumner  and  the 
Radicals  had  their  way.  This  bill  was  called  up  again  on 
February  27  and  was  postponed  by  a  filibuster  "until  to- 
morrow."   But  to-morrow  never  came.^" 

On  Sunday,  April  9,  General  Lee  surrendered  and  the  people 
rejoiced.  But  Lincoln  did  not  rejoice,  the  reconstruction  of 
the  southern  states  bore  too  heavily  on  his  heart.     "He  was 

15  Burgess,  p.  14. 

16  Fleming,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  116. 
iTNicolay  and  Hay,  Vol.  IX,  p.  462. 


332  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

glad  Congress  was  not  in  session,"  .  .  .  "he  wished  Southern 
matters  closed  without  much  discussion,"  .  .  .  "the  breach 
between  the  North  and  South  must  be  speedily  healed."  ^^ 
From  the  White  House  steps  on  Tuesday,  April  11,  he  read  to 
cheering  thousands  his  last  public  speech,  thoroughly  pre- 
pared, and  a  generous,  gracious  document.  First  he  argued 
that  Louisiana  and  the  repentant  southern  states  should  be 
at  once  admitted  to  seats  in  Congress,  on  complying  with  his 
proclamation.  Proceeding,  he  said:  "Now  if  we  reject  and 
spurn  the  southern  whites  we  do  our  utmost  to  disorganize 
and  disperse  them.  We  in  effect  say  to  the  white  man,  'You 
are  worthless  or  worse;  we  will  never  help  you  nor  be  helped 
by  you.'  To  the  blacks  we  say,  'This  cup  of  liberty  which 
these  your  old  masters  hold  to  your  lips  we  will  dash  from 
you  and  leave  you  to  the  chance  of  gathering  the  spilled  and 
scattered  contents  in  some  vague  and  undefined  when,  where, 
and  how.'  If  this  course,  discouraging  and  paralyzing  to  both 
white  and  black,  has  any  tendency  to  bring  Louisiana  into 
proper  practical  relations  with  the  Union,  I  have  so  far  been 
unable  to  perceive  it.  .  .  .  We  must  energize  and  feed,  nour- 
ish and  cherish  the  twelve  thousand  loyal  men  in  Louisiana. 
.  .  .  Granting  that  the  negro  desires  the  franchise,  will  he 
not  rather  attain  it  by  holding  what  he  has  than  running  back- 
ward over  his  old  masters?" 

On  April  14  Lincoln's  cabinet  met  for  the  last  time.  Stan- 
ton, always  diligent  and  efficient,  had  a  draft  of  the  proclama- 
tion admitting  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  and  other  states  to 
representation  in  Congress.  It  was  objected  by  the  conserva- 
tive members  of  the  cabinet  that  Virginia  and  North  Carolina 
should  not  be  coupled  together  in  one  bill.  This  would  impair 
their  territorial  boundaries.  While  the  matter  was  being  dis- 
cussed, Mr.  Lincoln  took  occasion  to  outline  his  policy  toward 
the  South.  "No  one  need  expect  me,"  he  said,  "to  take  part  in 
hanging  these  men.  Drive  them  out  of  the  country,  open  the 
gates,  let  down  the  bars,  scare  tliem  off," — tlirowing  up  his 
hands  as  if  to  scare  sheep.  He  deprecated  the  disposition  to 
hector  and  dictate  to  the  people  of  the  South  who  were  trying 

"  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Vol.  X,  p.  283. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION         333 

to  right  themselves.  He  urged  that  Congress  should  admit  the 
southern  states.  No  harm  would  follow,  he  insisted,  because 
"Congress  has  the  right  to  accept  or  reject  such  members  as 
present  themselves."  That  night  Lincoln,  the  friend  of  man- 
kind, was  murdered  and  the  South  lost  its  best  friend.  Forth- 
with the  wrath  of  the  North  was  poured  out  as  never  before. 

In  less  than  sixty  days  Wendell  Phillips  was  declaring  that 
it  was  "better,  far  better,  for  Grant  to  have  surrendered  to 
Lee  than  President  Johnson  to  North  Carolina."  ^^  The 
humane  proclamations  of  Lincoln  and  Johnson  to  admit  the 
southern  states  and  to  leave  it  to  the  honor  and  virtue  of  the 
southern  white  man  to  work  out  the  negro  problem,  Phillips 
and  his  associates  scouted.  Radicals,  abolitionists,  negrophiles, 
and  philanthropists  were  gathering  their  forces  to  fight  An- 
drew Johnson  and  his  policy  as  in  1863  and  1864  they  had 
fought  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Meanwhile,  the  country  was  kept  in  a  ferment.  The  Re- 
construction Committee  was  taking  evidence,  mostly  partisan, 
tending  to  show  disorder  and  disloyalty  on  the  part  of  the 
impoverished  and  helpless  South.  The  press  was  insisting  that 
the  revolution  should  not  go  backward,  that  the  South  should 
not  escape  punishment — forgetting  the  misery,  the  poverty, 
and  the  desolation  of  the  southern  people.  In  Congress  the 
Shellabargers  and  the  Stevenses  were  waving  the  bloody  shirt, 
coining  war  hysteria  into  partisan  advantage.  According  to 
men  who  "had  remained  a  safe  distance  from  the  battlefields," 
southern  soldiers  had  "carved  the  bones  of  your  unburied  dead 
into  ornaments  and  drank  from  goblets  made  out  of  their 
skulls."  -°  In  the  Senate,  Conservatives,  like  Doolittle  of  Wis- 
consin, were  vainly  urging  a  conciliatory  course,  the  approval 
of  Lincoln  and  Johnson's  plan,  and  the  putting  of  thirty-six 
actual,  not  sham,  stars  in  the  National  Flag.  "Is  the  flag  as 
it  floats,"  Doolittle  indignantly  asked,  "a  truth  or  a  flaunting, 
hypocritical  lie.?" 

Wade,  Sumner,  and  the  Radicals  were  insisting  that  it  rested 
with  Congress  to  decide  what  government  is  the  established  one 

19  Life  of  Triimhull,  p.  235. 

20  Shellabarger  in  January  1866  debate. 


334  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

in  a  state,  and  were  threatening  to  remove  the  President  by  im- 
peachment if  he  stood  in  the  way.  In  fact,  Congressman 
Yeates  was  for  harsher  means — "The  President  should  be 
taken  out  of  the  way,"  he  put  it,  "though  I  will  not  say  how."  -'^ 

In  the  background  of  this  confusion  and  dissension — if  not 
its  real  cause — was  the  newly  liberated  slave.  What  should  be 
done  with  him  ?  Lincoln  had  insisted  on  colonization.  In  April 
and  in  July  1862,  Congress  had  put  $600,000  in  his  hands  to 
be  disposed  of  "as  his  judgment  might  direct  in  settling  the 
negroes  recently  emancipated  in  the  District  of  Columbia  be- 
yond the  limits  of  the  United  States."  ^^  Andrew  Johnson 
concurred  with  Lincoln  in  this  view  but  was,  nevertheless,  in 
favor  of  first  trying  out  the  experiment  of  gradual  enfranchise- 
ment by  the  states.  He  favored  giving  the  ballot  "to  colored 
soldiers,  to  the  more  intelligent  negroes,  and  to  those  owning 
$300  of  property."  ^^  If  this  experiment  failed,  after  an  hon- 
est effort,  then  Johnson  favored  voluntary  colonization.^*  In 
this  conviction — that  enfranchisement  en  masse  of  the  ig- 
norant negro  would  be  a  great  wrong  and  would  lead  to  blood- 
shed and  riot — men  like  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  Governor 
Andrew  of  Massachusetts  concurred.  Though  they  wished 
fair  treatment  for  the  blacks,  they  also  wished  fair  treatment 
for  their  white  brethren  of  the  South. 

Relying  on  the  President's  promise  that  she  would  be  taken 
back  into  the  Union,  the  South  had  adopted  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  and  otherwise  complied  with  the  President's  de- 
mands. Notwithstanding  this  the  Radicals  were  determined 
to  block  the  pathway  and  if  necessary  to  overthrow  the  policy 
of  the  President  and  resort  to  force  and  a  military  govern- 
ment. In  this  policy  Stevens  was  a  leader,  though  in  Decem- 
ber 1865,  when  opposing  the  admission  of  the  Southern  States, 
he  had  said,  "They  will  not  and  ought  not  to  live  up  to  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment."  "The  President  has  forced  the 
amendment  uj^jon  them,"  he  said.    "No  one  who  has  any  regard 

21  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  Second  Session,  pp.  315-317. 

22  Oberholtzer,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  I,  p.  75. 

^3  Senate  Executive  Document.'!,  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  First  Session,  No. 
2G,  p.  22!);   Flomiiig,  Documentary  History  of  Reconstruction,  p.  177. 
24  Oberholtzor,  Vol.  I,  p.  75. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION         335 

for  the  freedom  of  elections  can  look  upon  these  governments 
forced  upon  them  in  duress  with  any  favor,"  In  fact,  Stevens 
agreed  that  southern  whites  "should  disregard  laws  and  con- 
stitutions put  upon  them  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet."  "It 
would  be,"  said  he,  "both  natural  and  just  if  the  South  will 
scorn  and  disregard  their  present  constitutions  forced  upon 
them  in  the  midst  of  martial  law."  '^ 

Mr.  Beecher,  at  this  time  in  sjanpathy  with  Johnson,  was 
often  in  Washington,  saw  southern  men  in  the  White  House, 
and  knew  how  deeply  repentant  they  were.  In  the  last  con- 
versation Beecher  had  with  Lincoln  and  Governor  Andrew, 
President  Lincoln  said  that  he  was  inclined  "to  the  policy  of 
immediate  reconstruction."  The  great  preacher,  visuahzing 
the  situation,  with  prophetic  insight  expressed  himself  in  noble 
words.  "We  that  live  at  a  distance,"  said  he  in  an  open  let- 
ter, "may  think  that  the  social  reconstruction  involved  in  the 
emancipation  of  four  million  slaves  is  as  simple  and  easy  as 
it  is  to  discourse  about  it,  but  such  a  change  is  itself  one  of  the 
most  tremendous  tests  to  which  industry  and  society  can  be 
subjected,  and  to  its  favorable  issue  is  required  every  advan- 
tage possible.  .  .  .  No  army,  no  government  and  no  earthly 
power  can  compel  the  South  to  treat  four  million  men  justly 
if  the  inhabitants,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  regard  these 
men  as  the  cause  or  even  the  occasion  of  their  unhappiness  and 
disfranchisement.  But  no  army  or  government  or  power  will 
be  required  when  the  Southern  States  are  honorably  restored, 
and  are  prospering  in  the  renewed  Union.  Then  the  negro 
will  be  felt  to  be  a  necessity  to  southern  industry,  and  interest 
will  join  with  conscience  and  kindness  in  securing  for  him  fa- 
vorable treatment  from  his  fellow  citizens."  ^'^  Eor  uttering 
these  sentiments,  Plymouth  Church  called  on  Beecher  to  ex- 
plain and  recant.  This  he  would  not  do.  But  he  restated  his 
position  in  milder  language,  and  joined  in  the  popular  abuse 
of  Johnson's  "obstinacy." 

The  word  "if"  plays  a  great  part  in  history.  If  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  not  been  assassinated,  what  would  have  happened .'' 

25  Stevens'  speech,  December  18,  1865. 

26  Two  Letters  of  H.  W.  Beecher-  pamphlet. 


336  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Could  he  have  commanded  enough  votes  in  December  1865  to 
readmit  the  Southern  States?  Was  a  compromise  possible,  or 
was  a  show-down  between  Radicals  and  Conservatives  inevi- 
table ?  That  Lincoln  would  have  imposed  no  harsher  terms  on 
the  South  than  his  Louisiana  plan  is  certain.  That  the  Radi- 
cals would  not  have  yielded  is  equally  certain.  In  other  words, 
it  is  fair  to  conclude  "that  Lincoln  would  have  aligned  himself 
with  Johnson  and  Secretary  Welles,  and  that  a  fight  on  his 
policy  would  have  resulted."  -^  "The  truth  is  that  the  Radicals 
of  Johnson's  day  were  really  thinking  of  votes  and  were  only 
talking  of  negroes."  Radical  caucuses  of  the  time  were  shock- 
ing affairs,  full,  reckless,  and  venomous.  It  required  a  brave 
Congressman  to  disobey  their  mandates.  When  old  Thad 
Stevens  took  the  floor  and  sneered  at  Andy  Johnson  and  Andy 
Johnsonism  every  Congressman  "fled  the  sheep-fold — or  the 
goat-fold."  "Do  not,  I  pray  you,"  said  he,  "admit  those  who 
have  slaughtered  half  a  million  of  our  countrymen,  until  their 
clothes  are  dried  and  until  they  are  reclad.  I  do  not  wish  to 
sit  side  by  side  with  men  whose  garments  smell  of  the  blood  of 
my  kindred.  Only  six  years  ago  when  the  mighty  Toombs, 
with  his  shaggy  locks,  headed  a  gang  with  shouts  of  defiance 
on  this  floor,  he  rendered  this  hall  a  hell  of  legislation."  "Ah, 
sir,  just  before  they  went  out  to  join  the  armies  of  Cataline, 
just  before  they  left  this  hall,  with  weapons  drawn,  and  Barks- 
dale's  bowie-knife  gleaming  before  our  eyes,  it  was  one  yelling 
body  and  all  because  a  speech  was  made  for  freedom.  Would 
you  have  these  men  back  again  so  soon  to  reenact  this  scene  .'^ 
Wait  until  I  am  gone,  I  pray  j^^ou.  I  want  not  to  go  through 
it  again.  It  will  be  but  a  short  time  for  my  colleague  to  wait. 
I  hope  he  will  not  put  us  to  that  test." 

In  truth,  to  the  blood-thirsty  Stevens  universal  amnesty  and 
"universal  Andy  Johnsonism"  were  the  same  thing  and  each 
equally  diabolical  and  sinister.  He  delighted  to  ask  if  loyal 
blacks  had  not  "quite  as  good  a  right  to  choose  rulers  and  make 
laws  as  rebel  whites."  "Centuries  ago,"  he  exclaimed  in  refer- 
ence to  Johnson's  first  veto,  "had  such  an  utterance  been  made 
to  Parliament  by  a  British  King,  it  would  have  cost  him  his 

27  Wi'lles,  Diary,  Vol.  I,  Preface,  p.  Ixiv. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION  337 

head."  Sumner  declared  that  the  President's  plan  of  admit- 
ting the  southern  states  was  the  greatest  and  most  criminal 
error  ever  committed  by  any  government  and  insinuated  that 
"the  negroes  of  Georgia  are  better  qualified  to  establish  and 
maintain  a  Republican  government  than  the  whites."  ^®  In  a 
word  the  Radicals — and  they  were  dominant — were  fixed  in 
their  determination  to  undo  all  that  President  Lincoln  and 
President  Johnson  had  done  and  to  enfranchise  the  negro, 
literate  and  illiterate,  en  bloc.^^  And  it  must  be  admitted  that 
freeing  the  slaves  and  thereby  increasing  the  strength  of  the 
South  by  more  than  thirty  votes  and  yet  denying  to  the  negro 
the  ballot  was  a  great  hardship  on  the  Republican  party  and  a 
natural  element  of  discord.  This  condition,  however,  Johnson 
realized  and  proposed  to  remedy.  He  would  change  the  basis 
of  elections  from  population  to  qualified  voters.^^ 

But  the  President's  troubles  were  not  all  frontal;  many 
came  from  the  rear  and  flank.  The  Copperheads  continued 
to  embarrass  him.  Though  he  would  not  join  them  or  endorse 
them,  he  could  not  prevent  their  endorsing  him.  Time  and 
again  the  irrepressible  Vallandigham  had  to  be  admonished 
that  he  was  not  wanted. ^^  Again,  when  Raymond,  the  liberal 
New  York  Congressman,  rose  to  speak,  he  was  terribly  handi- 
capped. A  Copperhead  Congressman,  one  who  had  done  what 
he  could  to  disrupt  the  Union,  got  the  floor  first,  making  a 
cheap  exhibition  of  himself,  and  discrediting  the  cause  he 
advocated.  On  the  principle  that  one  is  known  by  the  com- 
pany he  keeps,  Raymond's  defense  of  the  President  was  at  a 
disadvantage  and  fell  on  a  hostile  nation.  Shellabarger's  fierce 
and  lurid  picture  of  southern  atrocities  and  outrages  swept  all 
before  it.  The  Conservatives  made  no  impression  upon  the 
country. 

The  very  honesty  and  manhood  of  the  South  were  attributed 
by  the  Radicals  to  sinister  motives  and  to  disloyalty  to  the 
Union.  In  the  fires  of  war  it  had  been  forgotten  at  the  North 
that  there  was  a  j  ustification  for  Secession ;  that  Secession  had 

28  Welles,  Vol.  II,  p.  393. 
29 /bid.,  p.  415. 

30  Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  26. 

31  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  46. 


338  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

been  a  debatable  question ;  that  slavery  was  a  condition  brought 
about  by  North  and  South  alike ;  that  but  for  Boston  and  New 
Bedford  sailing  vessels  the  infamous  slave  trade  could  not  have 
been  carried  on ;  and  that,  in  the  far  South — as  in  the  North 
in  earlier  days — practically  all  men  considered  the  right  of 
Secession  a  constitutional  one  and  themselves,  in  exercising  it, 
not  traitors,  but  patriots.  Though  the  North  had  forgotten 
these  things,  the  South  had  not,  nor  had  Andrew  Johnson. 
Having  always  been  a  state-rights  Democrat,  Johnson, 
with  his  one-track  mind,  had  held  uniformly  to  the  doctrine 
that  a  state  is  as  necessary  to  the  Union  as  the  Union  to  a 
state,  and  that  each  state  should  manage  its  own  affairs  with- 
out outside  interference.  The  Southerners,  however,  in  their 
demands  on  the  President,  went  much  too  far.  Though  thor- 
oughly loyal  they  conceded  nothing,  admitted  no  guilt.  In 
May  1865  they  were  grievously  wrong  in  asking  the  President 
to  restore  the  rebel  states  without  more  ado  than  the  laying 
down  of  arms.  If  they  were  entitled  to  come  back  in  May 
1865,  why  not  in  May  1863,  during  the  battle  of  Chancel- 
lorsville  ? 

At  a  conference  of  the  President  with  three  Unionists  from 
North  Carolina  in  May  1865,  this  fact  was  brought  baldly  to 
light. ^^  When  the  President  exhibited  his  plan  to  restore 
North  Carolina,  B.  F.  Moore,  the  chairman  of  the  committee, 
objected  and  urged  that  it  was  unconstitutional.  The  Legis- 
lature should  first  meet  and  call  a  convention,  he  insisted,  as 
provided  by  the  Constitution.  The  President  took  the  ground 
that  the  legislature  of  North  Carolina  had  no  legal  status. 
"Besides,"  said  the  President,  no  doubt  recalling  his  experience 
as  Military  Governor  of  Tennessee,  "suppose  I  recognize  the 
legislature  and  it  refuses  to  conform  to  the  terms  deemed 
necessary.'*"  To  this  the  North  Carolina  Unionist  replied, 
"Such  a  thing  in  the  loyal  State  of  North  Carolina  is  un- 
thinkable. Why,  sir,"  he  said,  "there  is  no  one  of  that  body 
who  might  not  be  led  back  into  the  Union  with  a  silken  thread." 

82  Hamilton,  Reconstruction  in  Xorth  Carolina,  p.  lOfi;  Senator  Pool  in  a 
pamphlet  asserts  that  the  South  accepted  every  thing  favorable  and  rejected 
every  thing  unfavorable. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION         339 

On  the  next  day,  when  the  President  appointed  Holden  pro- 
visional governor,  Moore  and  his  associates  left  the  room,  de- 
clining to  take  any  part  in  the  proceedings.  And,  logically, 
of  course,  Moore  was  right. 

Here,  indeed,  was  the  weak  point  in  Lincoln's  and  Johnson's 
plan.  If  the  southern  states  were  now  states,  having  become 
loyal  to  the  Union,  what  right  had  Congress  or  the  President  to 
impose  terms  and  conditions — even  the  Thirteenth  Amend- 
ment— on  a  sovereign  state?  If  the  President  had  the  right 
to  require  the  states  to  abolish  slavery  as  a  condition  of  re- 
admittance  to  the  Union,  why  had  not  Congress  the  right  to 
impose  other  conditions  .^^  The  reply  of  Lincoln  and  Johnson 
that  that  was  their  business  and  not  Congress's  is  not  con- 
vincing. Surely  neither  the  President  nor  Congress  has  the 
right  to  impose  terms  on  a  State  not  imposed  by  the  Constitu- 
tion. Raymond  undertook  to  justify  the  President's  action  in 
an  ingenious  argument.  Undoubtedly,  as  he  contended,  the 
President,  as  Commander-in-chief,  had  the  right,  under  his 
war  powers,  to  destroy  rebel  arsenals  and  all  other  implements 
of  warfare  and  agencies  for  maintaining  Secession.  "Now," 
said  Raymond,  "slavery  was  more  an  implement  of  war  than 
the  deadliest  gun.  Slavery,  indeed,  was  the  cause  of  the  pres- 
ent war  and  if  allowed  to  continue,  will  cause  other  wars. 
Hence,  slavery  must  go  with  Secession  and  guns."  At  all 
events,  Johnson,  having  worked  out  the  matter  as  his  prede- 
cessor had  done,  put  down  his  foot,  defying  the  world,  the  flesh, 
and  the  devil. 

No  doubt  Johnson  had  visions  of  succeeding  himself  as 
President,  but  this  was  not  his  operating  motive.^^  Here  and 
there  the  matter  was  being  discussed  and  in  the  spring  of 
1866  a  definite  organization,  the  National  Union  party,  was 
started  in  Washington,  looking  to  Johnson's  nomination  in 
1868,  but  he  paid  little  or  no  attention  to  the  project.  If 
he  won,  it  must  be  on  his  record,  not  on  any  party  caucus  or  fiat 
of  the  leaders.^*  Being  a  man  without  a  party,  he  knew  that 
his  chances  of  success  were  slim.     The  National  Union  party 

33  Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  10. 

34  Johnson  MS. 


34jO  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

could  not  spring  into  being  and  win  in  a  moment,  and  the 
Republican  party  was  the  dominant  factor  in  politics.  Yet  he 
refused  to  ally  himself  with  that  dominant  party.  To  do  so 
would  be  "to  give  the  lie  to  his  whole  life  and  to  the  policy  on 
which  he  understood  the  war  was  fought."  Time  and  again 
Republican  leaders  assured  him  that  if  he  would  partake  of 
their  radicalism  and  cooperate  with  Congress,  all  would  be 
well.  In  fact,  John  Sherman  and  others,  who  valued  Johnson's 
unselfish  and  patriotic  services  for  the  Union,  were  convinced 
that  he  would  finally  do  this — that  he  would  cease  to  obstruct 
legislation.  But  this  he  would  not  do,  he  would  not  yield.  "I 
was  born  a  state-rights  Democrat  and  I  shall  die  one,"  he 
declared.  Yet  he  would  not  join  the  Democratic  party. 
Though  he  could  not  cooperate  with  the  Republicans  to 
humiliate,  disgrace,  pauperize,  and  Africanize  the  South,  yet 
he  could  not  join  with  the  Democracy  of  the  South  and 
thereby  keep  alive  the  fires  of  sectionalism.^^ 

So  it  came  about  that  Andy  Johnson  in  the  White  House 
was  the  same  Andy  Johnson  as  in  the  Tennessee  tailor  shop. 
In  Tennessee  the  leaders  had  been  against  him.  In  Washing- 
ton like  conditions  existed  and  he  must  tread  the  wine  press 
alone.  There  was,  however,  one  bright  spot  in  the  political 
sky.  Nearly  all  the  great  Union  generals  and  fighters  were 
backing  him.  General  Grant  endorsed  his  action  and  so  did 
General  Sherman.  Indeed,  Sherman  was  convinced  of  the  loy- 
alty and  manhood  of  the  South.  After  a  conversation  with 
Lincoln  in  April  1865,  he  had  entered  into  a  "convention"  with 
General  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  the  Confederate  leader,  at  Dur- 
ham, N.  C.  In  this  convention  it  was  agreed  that  the  old  Union 
should  be  restored  and  the  southern  states  readmitted  with- 
out any  reconstruction  whatsoever.  Schofield,  Meade,  Han- 
cock, Ewing,  and  Thomas — these  great  Generals  likewise  en- 
dorsed the  President's  southern  policy.  So  also,  substantially, 
did  Andrew,  the  war  Governor  of  Massachusetts.  "Before  I 
support  Grant,"  said  General  Ewing  in  1868,  "I  wish  to  know 

35  Cameron  and  Chandler,  in  a  conversation  with  Congressman  Brownlow, 
declared  that  President  Johnson  would  have  succeeded  himself  if  he  had  not 
opi)osed  Congress.  Letter  dated  November  27,  1897,  and  copied  in  the  Nash- 
ville Banner,  January  20,  1010. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION         341 

if  he  approves  the  reconstruction  measures.  If  he  does,  I 
cannot  support  him."  ^^  In  1865  Schofield  from  Raleigh  ad- 
vised Grant  of  the  "total  unfitness  of  the  negro  as  a  class  to 
exercise  the  ballot."  ^^ 

While  the  Reconstruction  Committee  was  slowly  incubating 
■ — their  policy  being  one  of  delay  "and  to  preserve  and  per- 
petuate the  Republican  party" — the  Thirty-ninth  Congress 
was  not  idle.^®  Its  task,  indeed,  was  next  in  importance  to  the 
First  Congress  which  organized  the  government  under  the 
Constitution.  Yet  it  was  engaged  in  an  impossible  undertak- 
ing. Legislation  which  was  clearly  outside  the  Constitution 
and  could  not  be  justified  except  under  war  powers,  was  the 
concern  of  Congress.  Despite  the  line  of  decisions,  culminat- 
ing in  the  Dred  Scott  case.  Congress  was  engaged  in  legislating 
upon  matters  expressly  forbidden  to  them  by  the  Constitu- 
tion.^® It  was  this  feature  of  Congressional  action  that 
alarmed  President  Johnson.  He  had  almost  as  soon  the  Union 
itself  was  blotted  out  as  a  state.  That  a  state  should  manage 
its  own  affairs  had  been  the  rock  on  which  he  stood.  On  this 
principle  he  had  fought  the  Whig  party,  and  on  it  he  had 
destroyed  the  Know-Nothing  party  in  Tennessee.  While  he 
conceded  to  Congress  the  right  to  legislate  for  territories,  he 
did  not  concede  this  right  as  to  a  sovereign  state.  In  his  opin- 
ion, the  war  being  over,  all  war  powers  were  at  an  end,  and  the 
Constitution  suo  vigore  was  the  law  of  the  land. 

And  yet,  even  this  patriotic  thought  was  not  without  a  flaw. 
At  that  moment  in  the  South  United  States  troops  were  sta- 
tioned and  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  suspended — a  condi- 
tion incompatible  with  civil  government.^" 

Entertaining  these  old-fashioned  views  of  the  Constitution, 
the  President  could  do  no  less  than  veto  the  very  first  recon- 
struction measure,  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  bill.  This  bill 
passed  Congress  in  February  1866.     It  was  unconstitutional 

36  Pollard,  Lost  Cause  Regained,  p.  166;  Memoirs  of  General  Sherman,  p. 
375. 

37  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.   141. 

38Kendrick,  Joint  Committee,  p.  141;  Barnes,  The  Thirty-ninth  Congress, 
p.  442. 

39  McDonald,  Documentary  Source  Book,  p.  415. 

40  W.  A.  Dimning,  Essays,  p.  89. 


842  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

beyond  cavil,  as  It  really  superseded  civil  authority  throughout 
the  South.  In  fact,  It  was  formulated  on  the  Stevens  Idea  that 
the  South  was  conquered  territory,  and  It  was  a  blow  to  Presi- 
dential reconstruction.  The  President's  veto  reached  Congress 
February  19.  Though  the  bill  had  passed  the  House  by  the 
large  vote  of  137  to  33  and  the  Senate  by  37  to  10,  It  was  de- 
feated, after  the  veto.  Two-thirds  of  the  Senate  refused  to 
over-ride  the  President.  Thus  did  Johnson  triumph  over  Con- 
gress and  block  their  progress.  It  was  thought  the  Radicals 
were  now  at  the  end  of  their  row.  But  the  case  was  far  other- 
wise.   Congress  had  just  begun  to  fight. 

On  the  next  day  Congress  responded  to  the  veto  by  passing 
a  cast-iron  resolution  that  the  rebel  states  should  have  no  repre- 
sentation in  either  House  until  both  Houses  so  declared.  Thad 
Stevens,  advocating  the  measure,  said  "Its  passage  would  put 
an  end  to  a  disturbing  question  agitating  the  country  and  that 
rebel  Congressmen  would  be  admitted  when  Congress  said  so, 
not  before."  Many  inducements  had  been  held  out  to  the 
President  not  to  veto  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  bill.  Senators 
and  Representatives  from  Tennessee  would  be  admitted,  he  was 
promised,  if  he  would  withhold  his  disapproval.  Three  of  his 
cabinet  Indeed  joined  In  the  request  not  to  veto — Stanton, 
Harlan,  and  Speed.  But  the  unyielding  man  could  be  neither 
bribed  nor  intimidated.  "He  would  not  do  wrong,"  he  declared 
to  the  cabinet,  "to  secure  right."  *^ 

Forthwith  the  country  became  a  political  debating  society. 
Sumner,  on  his  weekly  visit  to  Welles,  to  detach  him  from  the 
President,  exhibited  articles  of  impeachment  against  Jolinson. 
Gideon  Welles,  the  brave  and  puritanical  Secretary,  wanted  to 
know  if  Sumner  "really  thought  Massachusetts  could  govern 
Georgia  better  than  Georgia  could  govern  herself?"  Sumner 
thought  she  could.  In  fact,  "this  is  Massachusetts'  mission."  ^^ 
The  New  York  Woi'ld,  endorsing  the  President,  dubbed  the 
Congress,  sitting  without  the  eleven  Southern  States,  a  "rump 
Congress."     The   Committee   of   Fifteen  was  likened  to  the 

*i  Wellos,  Vol.  II,  p.  434. 
*2lbid.,  p.  430. 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION         343 

French  Directory.  It  was  called  "a  red  cabal"  and  its  "mission 
was  to  grind  the  southern  white  man  in  the  dust."  *^ 

Washington's  Birthday  was  fixed  upon  by  the  President's 
friends,  and  the  conservatives  throughout  the  Nation,  as  a 
suitable  time  to  make  a  grand  demonstration  in  his  behalf.  A 
monster  meeting  was  held  in  Cooper  Union,  New  York  City. 
David  Dudley  Field  presented  resolutions  endorsing  the  Presi- 
dent's policy.  Seward,  Dennison,  and  Raymond  spoke.  The 
New  York  Aldermen  passed  resolutions  endorsing  the  Presi- 
dent's "conservative,  liberal,  enlightened,  and  Christian  pol- 
icy." One  hundred  guns  were  fired  on  February  21  and  one 
hundred  on  February  22.  The  President's  mail  was  packed 
with  letters  of  approval.  Johnson  was,  they  declared,  "greater 
than  *01d  Hickory.'  "  "He  was  on  the  highest  pinnacle  of  the 
mount  of  fame";  "his  feet  were  planted  on  the  Constitution 
of  his  country" ;  "he  was  a  modern  edition  of  Andrew  Jackson 
bound  in  calf."  Preachers  prayed  for  him,  women  named  their 
babies  for  him,  he  was  "suffering  all  things  as  Christ  did."  ^* 
Unfortunately  for  the  President's  cause,  too  much  of  this 
praise  came  from  rebel  states  and  from  Copperheads  of  the 
North.  Indeed,  it  was  said  by  the  Radicals  in  reply  to  the 
Democratic  fireworks  that  "more  powder  was  burned  in  honor 
of  the  veto  by  the  Copperheads  than  they  had  consumed  during 
the  four  years  of  war." 

In  Washington  City  thousands  gathered  at  the  White  House 
to  cheer  and  encourage  the  President.  There  were  music  and 
shouting  and  a  great  demonstration.  Andrew  Johnson  was 
the  second  Andrew  Jackson — "a  man  not  to  be  bullied  or  in- 
timidated." Calls  went  up  for  a  speech.  Senator  Doolittle  had 
urged  Johnson  to  make  no  speech,  but  Welles  had  insisted  that 
he  should  publicly  state  his  position.*^  Appearing  on  the  White 
House  terrace  and  looking  into  the  faces  of  the  cheering  people, 
the  deterministic  man  forgot  he  was  the  ruler  of  millions  of 
people.  He  was  in  Tennessee  again.  He  was  fighting  the 
battles  of  the  Union,  standing  for  the  Constitution  and  the 

43  Ibid.,  pp.  424,  425,  432. 

44  Johnson  MS. 

45  Welles,  Diary,  Vol.  II,  p.  421. 


SU  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

old  flag — the  glorious  old  flag,  36  stars  intact,  not  one  plucked 
from  its  place.  Having  dared  all,  suffered  all  for  a  reunited 
country  and  now  standing  in  Lincoln's  shoes  pleading  for 
peace  and  harmony,  why  should  he  be  dictated  to  by  men  who 
had  sacrificed  nothing  in  the  great  cause — by  the  Covodes, 
the  Boutwells,  the  Wades,  the  Sumners,  the  Stevenses,  the 
Shellabargers,  the  Ashleys,  and  the  Coif  axes?  It  was  the  old 
fight  against  him,  he  felt,  the  fight  of  the  leaders,  not  of  the 
people.  If  the  people  only  knew  the  facts,  he  would  triumph, 
and  please  God  they  should  know  the  facts — ^know  exactly 
what  he  was  doing  for  them. 

Girding  up  his  loins  and  addressing  the  excited  crowd,  he 
asked :  "What  usurpation  has  Andrew  Johnson  been  guilty  of, 
what  is  his  offense?  His  only  usurpation  has  been  standing 
between  the  people  and  the  encroachments  of  power."  .  .  . 
"The  wicked  rebel  has  been  put  down  by  the  strong  arm  of 
the  Government,"  he  declared,  "the  rebel  armies  defeated  in 
the  field,  but  now  another  rebellion  has  started,  a  rebellion 
to  overthrow  the  Constitution  and  revolutionize  the  Govern- 
ment. ...  In  1861  I  said  in  the  Senate  that  the  states  had  no 
right  to  secede  and  that  question  has  been  settled  and  deter- 
mined. Thus  settled  and  thus  determined,  I  cannot  turn 
around  and  give  the  lie  direct  to  all  that  I  profess  to  have  done 
during  the  past  four  years.  .  .  .  Though  I  am  opposed  to  the 
Davises,  the  Toombs,  the  Slidells  and  the  long  list  of  such,  yet 
when  I  perceive  on  the  other  end  of  the  line  men  still  opposed 
to  the  Union,  I  am  equally  against  them,  and  I  am  free  to  say 
I  am  still  with  the  people." 

"Name  three  of  the  men  you  allude  to,"  came  from  the 
crowd. 

"The  gentleman  calls  for  three  names  and  I  will  give  them 
to  him.  I  say  Thad  Stevens  of  Pennsylvania,  I  say  Charles 
Sumner  of  Massachusetts,  and  I  say  Wendell  Phillips  of 
Massachusetts." 

Great  applause  greeted  this  thrust.  Indeed,  throughout  the 
speech  there  was  wild  cheering,  laughter,  and  applause.  Es- 
pecially when  some  one  asked  how  about  Forney — once  the 


PRESIDENTIAL  RECONSTRUCTION         34<5 

President's  friend,  now  his  worst  detractor.     "Forney?"  the 
President  replied.     "I  do  not  waste  my  fire  on  dead  ducks." 

Urged  on  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  crowd,  feehng  that  the 
people  were  with  him  and  that  he  could  rout  the  leaders,  the 
President  grew  more  personal.  He  declared  that  the  American 
people  by  instinct  knew  who  were  their  friends  and  that  An- 
drew Johnson,  in  all  positions  from  alderman  to  President, 
had  been  their  friend.  "I  have  occupied  many  positions  in 
the  Government,"  he  said,  "going  through  both  branches  of 
the  legislature — "  "And  was  once  a  tailor,"  some  one  inter- 
rupted. "Some  gentleman  here  behind  me  says  that  I  was 
once  a  tailor.  Now  that  don't  affect  me  in  the  least.  When  I 
was  a  tailor  I  always  made  a  close  fit,  was  punctual  to  my  cus- 
tomers, and  did  good  work."  (A  voice)  "No  patchwork!" 
(The  President)  "No,  I  did  not  want  any  patchwork.  But 
we  pass  by  this  digression."  Concluding  this  unusual,  not  to 
say  revolutionary  and  yet  wholly  characteristic  and  natural 
appeal  to  the  country,  the  President  declared  that  he  could 
wish  the  thirty  million  American  people  "could  sit  in  an  amphi- 
theater and  witness  the  great  struggle  now  going  on  to  pre- 
serve the  Constitution  of  our  fathers,  in  which  struggle  I  am 
but  your  instrument."  *® 

In  due  time,  James  Russell  Lowell,  speaking  for  the  North, 
asked,  "Shall  we  descend  to  a  mass  meeting?"  "The  North 
would  remind  the  South,"  said  Lowell,  "that  occasion  is  swift, 
that  something  happened  these  last  four  years,  that  the  United 
States  is  determined,  by  God's  grace,  to  Americanize  you.  By 
yourselves  or  us,  your  prejudices  must  be  conquered."  ^' 

To  the  South  and  to  northern  Copperheads  the  Washington 
Birthday  speech  gave  great  satisfaction.  "In  the  estimation 
of  thoughtful  people,  however,"  as  Secretary  McCulloch  re- 
cords, "it  hurt  the  President."  ^^  Nevertheless  the  New  York 
Herald  called  the  speech  "bold,  manly,  outspoken" ;  the  Times 
"strong,  direct,  manly."    Thurlow  Weed,  declared  it  "a  glori- 

^^  Annual  Encyclopcpdia,  1866,  p.  752. 

47  North  American  Review,  Vol.  CXLI,  p.  534. 

48  McCulloch,  Men  and  Measures,  p.  393. 


S4i6  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

ous  speech."  "Traitors  will  now  seek  hiding  places  and  the 
Government  is  safe."  Seward,  strong  for  Johnson  as  a 
stumper,  "heartily  approved  the  speech."  Even  the  less  en- 
thusiastic Welles  considered  it  "earnest,  honest,  and  strong." 

From  this  time,  as  was  to  be  expected,  a  fiercer  war  between 
Congress  and  the  President  was  waged.  This,  however,  was 
a  warfare  not  of  Johnson's  seeking.  Had  not  Congress  struck 
the  first  blow,  had  it  not  gone  back  on  the  Republican  plat- 
form of  1864  on  which  he  was  nominated  for  Vice-president? 
Had  it  not  tied  the  hands  of  the  President,  and  created  a 
Central  Directory  from  whose  girdle  hung  the  keys  of  the 
Nation  .f^  At  all  events,  Johnson  considered  Congress  the  ag- 
gressor, and  if  he  must  die,  he  would  die  defending  the  Con- 
stitution, and  with  boots  on.  Even  while  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  was  investigating  him,  with  the  view  to  im- 
peaching and  removing  him  from  office,  he  was  vetoing  every 
bill  he  regarded  unconstitutional.  The  Civil  Rights  bill  soon 
passed  Congress.  He  vetoed  it  as  he  did  the  second  Freedmen's 
Bureau  bill,  and  the  bills  admitting  Colorado  and  Nebraska. 
And  this  he  did  though  Ashley  was  running  down  every  rumor 
he  could  get  wind  of — Johnson's  alleged  drunkenness  and  licen- 
tiousness, even  his  private  letters  and  papers  undergoing 
scrutiny.^^  Stevens  was  irritating  and  insulting  the  President 
as  only  Stevens  could.  Referring  to  Johnson's  Washington's 
Birthday  speech,  Stevens  surprised  the  House.  He  praised 
Andrew  Johnson.  "His  patriotism  and  honestj'^  no  man  will 
question,"  he  declared.  Called  to  account  by  a  brother  Rad- 
ical, the  "Old  Commoner"  quizzically  retorted,  "Why,  it's  all 
a  hoax,  our  President  didn't  make  it ;  it's  a  contrivance  of  the 
Copperhead  party  which  has  been  persecuting  our  President !" 

49  The  evidence  taken  by  this  committee  is  on  file  in  the  Document  Room 
at  Washington;  none  of  it,  however,  was  embraced  in  the  charges  against  the 
President  in  the  Impeachment  Trial. 


CHAPTER  II 
SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE 

Andrew  Johnson  had  a  notion  that  everything  goes  in  a 
circle — that  unit  and  universe  are  round.  Delighting  in  elab- 
oration and  reiteration,  he  would  tackle  problems  from  every 
angle,  and,  if  given  time,  would  swing  around  the  circle  to  a 
mathematical,  but  oftentimes,  an  unworkable  conclusion.^ 
Now  in  1866  he  proposed  to  handle  the  issues  between  himself 
and  Congress  in  the  old  way.  Concealing  nothing,  he  would 
take  the  people  into  his  confidence,  swing  round  the  circle,  and 
fight  a  good  fight,  as  he  declared  "for  one  country,  one  flag 
and  a  union  of  equal  states."  He  would  like,  of  course,  to  have 
a  second  term,  but,  as  Schouler  concludes,  "he  made  no  effort  to 
ingratiate  himself  with  one  set  or  another."  .  .  .  "Under  a 
tremendous  pressure  of  political  apostasy,  he  refused  to 
Tylerize  the  party,"  but  "filled  the  cabinet  and  national  offices 
with  Republicans,  worthy  men  of  high  character."  .  .  .  "Cop- 
perheadism  made  no  head  with  Andrew  Johnson."  - 

In  the  beginning  it  seemed  that  the  President's  course  would 
be  sustained  at  the  polls.  Even  so  radical  a  Senator  as  O. 
P.  Morton  became  now  endorsed  him,  advising  that  he  employ 
every  power  and  instrumentality  to  sustain  his  position.  "I 
cannot  be  mistaken  in  the  opinion,"  he  wrote,  "that  the  great 
body  of  the  people  North  will  endorse  your  doctrines  and  this 
the  members  of  Congress  will  find  before  they  are  ninety  days 
older."  ^  Ex-Justice  R.  B.  Curtis,  perhaps  the  most  highly 
respected  judge  of  the  day,  advised  Senator  Doolittle  that  he 
endorsed  the  President,  and  "after  much  reflection  must  de- 
clare that  the  Southern  States  are  in  the  Union."     Stanton 

1  Temple,  p.  459. 

2  Bookman,  Vol,  XXXIV,  p.  500. 

3  Johnson  MS.  No.  8146. 

347 


348  ^  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

declared  that  Johnson's  measures  "received  the  cordial  support 
of  every  member  of  the  Cabinet."  * 

A  new  Congress  was  to  be  elected  in  November  and  it  was 
all  important  for  the  Presidential  plan  that  the  Radicals 
should  be  turned  out  and  Conservatives  chosen.  Early  in  the 
Spring  there  were  held  in  various  cities  mass  meetings  in  which 
the  people  expressed  themselves  on  the  veto  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau  bill  and  on  the  February  speech.  The  resolutions  par- 
took of  the  character  of  the  representatives  in  the  respective 
states.  In  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania,  represented  by 
Sumner  and  Stevens,  the  President's  course  was  usually  con- 
demned. In  Illinois  and  New  York,  the  homes  of  Trumbull  and 
Seward,  respectively,  it  was  endorsed.  On  March  13,  while 
the  country  was  still  agitated  over  the  veto  and  the  Washington 
Birthday  speech.  Congress  passed  the  first  Civil  Rights  bill. 
The  President  vetoed  this  bill  on  March  27.  This  act  made 
citizenship  a  United  States  and  not  a  state  affair,  and  guar- 
anteed certain  civil  rights  to  the  negroes.  The  President's 
veto  was  overridden  by  a  two-third  vote  of  the  Senate  on  April 
6  and  by  the  House  on  April  9.  The  President  placed  his 
veto  on  constitutional  ground.  In  fact.  Congress  had  touched 
the  President  in  a  vital  spot,  as  I  have  stated,  affection  for 
States'  Rights.  An  advocate  of  the  doctrine  that  each  state 
was  the  judge  of  citizenship  and  that  the  general  government 
could  not  encroach  on  the  states  in  such  matters,  the  President 
was  consistent  in  his  veto.  The  Civil  Rights  bill  was  so  mani- 
festly repugnant  to  the  fundamental  law  "Constitutional  law- 
yers stared  and  gasped."  °  To  make  the  act  particularly  ob- 
noxious, its  language  was  copied  from  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
of  1850.  It  was  intended  to  give  vitality  to  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment.® 

The  President's  veto  of  this  bill  gave  much  offense  to  Sena- 
tors like  Stewart,  who  had  voted  to  sustain  the  veto  of  tlie 
Freedmen's  Bureau,  with  the  understanding  that  the  President 

4  Fleming,  Documentary  History  of  Reconstruction,  Vol.  I,  p.  8G. 

E  Dunning,  Essays,  p.  65.  An  act  similar  to  this  was  afterwards  declared 
unconstitutional  by  the  Supreme  Court. — Civil  Rights  Cases,  Reports,  United 
States,  109,  p.  37. 

0  Gorham,  Stanton,  Vol.  II,  p.  294. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  349 

was  not  to  veto  the  Civil  Rights  bill."  Lyman  Trumbull  was 
so  sure  the  President  would  not  veto  the  Civil  Rights  bill,  he 
publicly  announced  the  fact.  But  these  Senators  must  have 
misunderstood  the  President.  At  no  time,  according  to  the 
record,  did  he  commit  himself  to  such  a  course,  whereas  time 
and  again  he  declared  "for  the  old  Union  as  it  was."  ^  The 
veto  was  an  able  and  a  dispassionate  document.  The  President 
planted  himself  on  the  Constitution.  Nevertheless,  the  North 
was  greatly  concerned  over  this  veto,  having  fully  expected  the 
President  to  approve  the  measure.  Governor  J.  D.  Cox  and 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  had  urged  the  President  to  sign  the  bill. 
All  the  Cabinet,  except  Welles,  had  joined  in  a  similar  request.^ 

The  action  of  Congress  in  overruling  the  veto  of  the  Presi- 
dent upon  a  constitutional  question  was  epochal  and  revolu- 
tionary. It  was  the  first  instance  of  the  kind  on  record.  What 
right  had  the  "Legislative  Department,  more  than  the  Execu- 
tive Department,  to  play  the  part  of  a  court — to  declare  an 
act  Constitutional  or  otherwise  .^^  Why  should  a  President  en- 
force an  act  which  he  considered  manifestly  violative  of  the 
highest  law  of  the  land  ?  Anyway,  the  President  acquiesced  in 
the  action  of  Congress  and  threw  no  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
enforcing  the  Civil  Rights  Act.^"  The  Radicals  were  now  in 
high  glee.  Having  a  two- third  majority,  they  could  legislate 
over  the  President's  head — Stevens  and  Sumner  "had  crossed 
the  Rubicon  and  taken  the  entire  army  with  them." 

On  April  30  Stevens  reported  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
to  the  House.  It  was  the  result  of  the  labors  of  his  Committee 
of  Fifteen. ^^  This  committee  had  been  sitting  in  Washington 
since  January,  inquiring  into  the  affairs  of  the  rebel  states. ^^ 
On  June  14  a  joint  resolution  passed  the  Senate  and  the  House 
proposing  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  states  for  adop- 

7  Stewart,  Reminiscences,  p.  199. 

8  August  1866.  Reply  to  a  Committee  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention. — 
Kendrick,  Journal,  p.  259. 

9  Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  56 ;  Rhodes,  Vol.  V,  p.  583. 

10  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  60.  This  situation  moved  President  Johnson  to 
recommend  an  Amendment  to  the  Constitution.  In  Constitutional  questions 
the  disputed  matter  should  be  certified  to  the  Supreme  Court  and  forthwith 
passed  on  by  it. — Address,  March  4,  1869,  "To  the  people  of  the  United  States." 

iiMcCall,  Life  of  Stevens,  p.  271. 

12  For  an  analysis  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  vide  post,  p.  518. 


350  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

tion.  The  resolution,  however,  gave  no  assurance  that  its 
adoption  would  admit  the  Southern  States.  Though  Stevens 
offered  a  bill  to  admit  them  upon  the  passage  of  the  Amend- 
ment, it  is  believed  that  he  was  merely  playing  politics.  Cer- 
tainly he  did  not  approve  of  the  bill.  At  this  time  the  radicals 
in  Congress  were  indulging  in  flouts  and  jeers  at  the  Consti- 
tution.^^ The  President  opposed  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
and  made  no  concealment  of  the  fact.  Telegraphing  Governor 
Parsons  of  Alabama,  he  said  that  to  pass  the  Amendment  would 
do  "no  possible  good."  That  there  should  be  "no  faltering  on 
the  part  of  those  who  are  honest  in  the  determination  to  sus- 
tain the  several  coordinate  departments  of  the  Government 
in  accordance  with  its  original  design."  ^^  Nevertheless,  the 
President  directed  the  Secretary  of  State  to  certify  the  Amend- 
ment to  the  states  for  their  action.  Though  he  loved  the  Con- 
stitution much,  he  loved  the  Union  more.^^ 

After  six  months'  deliberation  the  Joint  Committee  of  Fif- 
teen had  no  program.  Though  Congress  had  rejected  John- 
son's plan  of  admitting  the  rebel  states,  it  had  no  substitute 
to  offer  for  it.  In  the  circumstances  the  commercial  North  was 
growing  restless.  Eleven  southern  states  were  treated  as 
mere  conquered  territory  and  there  was  no  prospect  of  a 
change.  Though  mails  were  carried,  courts  functioned,  post- 
offices  were  open,  and  taxes  collected,  representation  in  Con- 
gress was  denied  the  South.  Conservative  Northerners  were 
asking  what  Congress  proposed  to  do.  Was  the  South  to  be 
held  in  perpetual  bondage,  its  territory  divided  up  among  the 
negroes,  and  the  whites  expelled  as  Stevens  and  the  Radicals 
insisted  .f^  ^°  If  not,  why  did  not  Congress  speak  out,  formulate 
a  platform,  let  the  South  know  what  to  expect?  The  South 
had  adopted  Presidential  reconstruction,  what  else  was  in 
store  ?  Evidently,  things  were  working  well  with  Thad  Stevens 
and  there  was  no  hurry. 

13  Dunning,  Essays  on  Reconstruction  in  American  Nation,  p.  60;  Mac- 
Pherson,  History  of  Reconstruction,  Vol.  I,  p.  152;  Dunning,  Essays,  p.  84. 

14  Fleming,  Documentary  History  of  Reconstruction,  Vol.  I,  p.   237. 

15  The  removal  of  Stanton  was  the  only  instance  in  which  President  John- 
son disregarded  a  Statute  of  Congress,  no  matter  how  unconstitutional.  He 
did,  however,  exercise  the  pardon  power,  which  Congress  forbade. 

i(!  Fleming,  op.  cit.,  p.  151. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  351 

Nevertheless,  as  the  summer  campaign  was  coming  on,  Con- 
gress was  afraid  to  adjourn  without  some  show  of  reconcilia- 
tion between  the  sections.  Therefore  they  turned  to  the  ques- 
tion of  admitting  Tennessee,  the  most  loyal  of  the  seceding 
states.  In  January  1866,  Governor  Brownlow  had  wired  Con- 
gressional leaders  to  admit  Tennessee  and  save  a  break  with 
Johnson.  In  April  1866  an  arrangement  had  been  made,  in 
the  Senate  and  House,  whereby  the  passage  of  the  Civil  Rights 
bill  would  insure  the  admission  of  Tennessee  into  the  Union.^'' 
To  aid  in  carrying  out  this  arrangement,  Governor  Brownlow, 
who  had  become  a  pronounced  southern  Radical,  on  July  19, 
by  high-handed  methods,  had  forced  the  Tennessee  legislature 
to  adopt  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.  When  he  wired  the  news 
to  Congress  he  also  sent  his  "respects  to  the  dead  dog  in  the 
White  House,"  meaning  President  Johnson.  Evidently  the 
war-time  friendship  of  Johnson,  the  states-rights  Democrat, 
and  the  Fighting  Parson,  an  old-line  Whig,  had  been  of  short 
duration. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  southern  people,  "many  of  whom 
were  idle  and  starving,"  were  growing  desperate.^*  In  the  halls 
of  Congress  they  were  criticized  by  the  radicals  for  wearing 
rebel  uniforms,  when  often  they  had  nothing  else  to  wear. 
They  were  besides  denounced  as  unrepentant  rebels — perjurers 
taking  the  test  oath  to  break  it,  and  unfit  to  associate  with 
loyal  people.  In  southern  cities  the  late  slaves  had  gathered 
in  numbers  and  were  often  idle,  boastful  and  dangerous.  In 
such  case,  conflicts  between  whites  and  blacks  were  unavoid- 
able. In  the  country  districts,  where  there  was  no  congestion, 
conditions  were  much  better.  During  the  last  of  April,  a  riot 
occurred  in  Memphis.  There  the  negro  soldiers  were  rowdy 
and  disorderly  and  unfortunately  the  police  were  fighting 
Irishmen.  On  April  30  four  Irish  policemen  had  j  ostled  negro 
soldiers  on  the  sidewalks.  Next  day,  another  collision  with  the 
negroes  occurred.  The  police  were  joined  by  a  white  mob. 
An  attack  was  made  upon  the  negro  population  and  forty- 
six  negroes  were  killed  outright.     This  riot  created  a  revul- 

17  Kendrick,  Journal,  p.  259. 

18  Fleming,  Documentary  History,  Vol.  I,  p.  17;  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  378. 


352  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

sion  in  the  North.  A  Gommittee  of  the  House  investigated 
the  matter  and  there  were  two  reports.  The  majority  reported 
that  the  whites  were  not  only  disloyal  but  "bear  undying  hate 
to  the  black  race."  The  minority  reported  that  the  negro 
soldiers  began  the  riot  and  that  the  policy  of  Congress  in  dis- 
enfranchising the  better  element  of  the  South  was  the  cause  of 
ill  feeling. 

In  this  condition  of  affairs  the  President's  position  was  grow- 
ing more  precarious  every  day.  If  he  adhered  to  the  principles 
of  a  life-time  and  opposed  the  rising  tide  of  nationalism  he  was 
sure  of  a  fall.  Only  by  yielding  his  convictions  and  joining 
the  Radicals  could  he  hope  to  succeed  himself  as  President. 
Extremists  like  General  Frank  Blair,  the  brave  Unionist,  were 
urging  that  he  ignore  the  "rump  Congress"  and  recognize 
Senators  and  Congressmen  from  the  southern  states.  It  was 
urged  that  the  southern  Representatives,  added  to  the  north- 
ern Democrats  and  to  conservative  Republicans,  would  consti- 
tute a  majority  in  Congress,  and  that  the  combination  could 
run  the  country,  on  a  constitutional  basis.  Others  urged  the 
President  to  pursue  the  opposite  course  and  to  yield  to  Con- 
gress, even  to  the  extent  of  approving  bills  which  were  admit- 
tedly unconstitutional.  Northern  Copperheads  continued  to 
be  a  thorn  in  the  President's  flesh.  In  the  South  also  a  neAv 
party  called  the  Radicals  had  organized  to  advocate  negro 
suffrage  and  "to  secure  its  fruits."  ^°  These  southern  Radicals 
were  specially  dangerous  as  they  had  the  ear  of  Stevens,  Sum- 
ner and  their  followers.  In  the  South  they  were  known  to  be 
mostly  scalawags,  carpet-baggers,  buffaloes  and  deserters  from 
the  Confederate  army.  In  the  North,  however,  where  they 
were  unknown,  and  therefore  idealized  as  the  only  true  south- 
ern loyalists,  they  commanded  respect.^" 

The  President's  advisers  were  also  at  variance.  His  Cabinet 
was  divided.  Welles  insisted  that  the  President  stand  firm, 
Seward  advised  a  milder  course.  Nearly  all  of  the  Democrats 
contended  that  Seward  was  an  obstruction  and  should  leave  the 

19  Fleming,  Documentary  Eistory,  Vol.   I,  p.   164. 

20  In  the  mountain  sections  of  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  North  Carolina  and 
Virginia,  there  were  many  excellent  citizens  who  became  Radicals. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  353 

Cabinet.  To  these  conflicting  counsels,  the  President  gave  a 
too  patient  ear,  but  after  much  dehberation  arrived  at  the  only- 
conclusion  possible  to  a  man  of  his  antecedents.  He  would 
carry  the  question  directly  to  the  people.  He  would  "swing 
round  the  circle,"  as  he  had  so  often  done  in  Tennessee. 

The  failure  of  the  President  to  endorse  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  and  his  veto  of  the  Civil  Rights  bill  are  generally 
considered  his  greatest  mistakes,  and  are  pointed  to  as  evidence 
of  obstinacy  and  bullheadedness. 

In  taking  the  issue  to  the  people  two  major  movements  were 
to  be  set  on  foot.  A  Union  mass  convention  was  to  be  held  in 
Philadelphia  on  August  14.  This  was  to  be  followed  by  a  pub- 
lic campaign  conducted  by  the  President  himself.  The  former 
movement  has  passed  into  history  as  the  "Arm  and  Arm  Con- 
vention," the  latter,  as  the  "Swing  round  the  Circle."  The 
idea  behind  the  Philadelphia  convention  was  the  organization 
of  a  great  Union  part}'^  to  be  made  up  of  old  Wliigs,  the  dis- 
rupted Democratic  party,  and  conservative  Republicans.  Its 
name  was  to  be  the  National  Union  party.  This  was  its  name 
at  Baltimore  in  June  1864  when  Lincoln  and  Johnson  were 
nominated,  and  the  name  was  to  be  retained.  The  movement 
originated  in  Washington  in  the  Spring  of  1866  with  A.  W. 
Randall,  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  as  its  leader.  In  a 
short  while  another  club  was  organized  in  Washington  called 
the  National  Union  Johnson  Club.  This  club  had  Democratic 
antecedents  and  was  headed  by  Montgomery  Blair,  Charles 
Mason  of  Ohio,  T.  B.  Florence  of  Pennsylvania,  Charles 
Knapp,  and  Ward  H.  Lamon  of  Washington.  The  two  clubs 
consolidated  under  the  name  of  the  National  L^nion  Club,  with 
A.  W.  Randall  as  president,  and  with  sundry  vice-presidents, 
members  of  the  executive  committee  and  other  officers. 

Forthwith  extensive  preparations  began.  Meetings  were 
held  and  two  delegates  from  each  Congressional  district  and 
four  at  large  from  each  state  were  chosen  to  attend  the  Phila- 
delphia Convention.  As  the  fourteenth  approached,  the  move- 
ment assumed  gigantic  proportions.  A  special  wigwam,  two 
stories  high,  was  erected  on  Girard  Avenue  with  a  seating 
capacity  of  ten  thousand.    The  interior  was  decorated  with  the 


354  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

United  States  flag  and  thirty-six  commonwealths  rose  above  the 
Speaker's  chair.  The  day  before  the  convention  met,  dele- 
gates began  to  arrive  and  by  Tuesday  noon,  the  fourteenth,  an 
enthusiastic  and  patriotic  crowd  had  assembled.  The  tem- 
porary chairman  was  General  John  A.  Dix,  who,  as  Secretary 
of  War  in  April  1861,  had  made  the  Nation  tingle  by  his  order 
to  shoot  the  first  man  who  pulled  down  the  flag  at  Sumter. 
Senator  J.  R.  Doolittle  was  chosen  permanent  president.  The 
keynote  of  the  convention  was  the  Constitution  and  the  old 
Flag,  thirty-six  stars,  not  one  erased — the  Union  as  it  was. 
How  could  this  be  done  except  by  turning  the  Radicals  out 
and  electing  a  brand-new  Congress?  Reverend  J.  P.  Holt- 
singer,  Chaplain  of  the  First  Tennessee  Union  Regiment,  who 
had  fought  to  rescue  Andrew  Johnson  from  the  rebels  in  June 
1861,  offered  a  prayer  for  his  old  friend  and  comrade-in-arms. 
"Give  him  the  head,  the  heart  and  the  hands  to  accomplish  the 
mighty  work  assigned  to  him  to  perform,"  he  prayed.  From 
East  Tennessee  no  delegates  reported.  President  Johnson's 
course  toward  the  rebels  was  much  too  considerate  for  those 
fierce  mountaineers.  But  two  old  Union  Tennessee  friends, 
Governor  W.  B.  Campbell  and  Governor  Neill  S.  Brown,  came 
as  delegates  at  large. 

"A  few  minutes  before  twelve  o'clock,  as  a  band  of  music  sta- 
tioned in  the  gallery  gave  the  National  air.  Governor  Randall 
announced  from  the  platform  that  the  delegates  from  Massa- 
chusetts and  from  South  Carolina  were  entering  the  hall  arm 
in  arm."  This  announcement  produced  great  excitement; 
"cheer  after  cheer  went  up.  Members  stood  upon  the  benches, 
hats  were  thrown  into  the  air,  ladies  waved  their  handkerchiefs, 
the  band  commenced  the  air  'Rally  Round  the  Flag,'  and  fol- 
lowed it  with  the  'Star  Spangled  Banner'  and  'Dixie.'  Major 
General  Custer  jumped  upon  a  bench  and  called  for  cheers." 
General  Dix,  the  Chairman,  came  forward  and  declared  that 
the  Confederate  States,  having  accepted  the  condition  imposed 
upon  them  by  the  President,  were  entitled  to  exercise  their 
legitimate  function  as  members  of  the  Union,  that  the  enac- 
tion of  new  conditions  "was  unjust  and  the  violation  of  the 
faith  of  the  Government,  subversive  to  the  purpose  of  our 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  355 

political  system,  and  dangerous  to  the  public  prosperity  and 
peace."  .  .  .  "Is  this  the  government  our  fathers  fought  to 
establish  ?"  he  exclaimed.  "Is  this  the  government  we  have  been 
fighting  to  preserve?"  What  an  inspiring  and  yet  what  an 
impossible  scheme !  How  noble  the  thought !  In  twelve  months 
men  who  had  been  cutting  each  other's  throats  had  become  the 
best  of  friends.  Yet  how  absurd  to  expect  that  Copperheads, 
like  Fernando  Wood  and  C.  L.  Vallandigham,  could  organize 
a  National  Union  party  and  take  charge  of  a  Nation  that  had 
been  saved,  despite  their  efforts  to  disrupt  it. 

Indeed  the  incongruousness  of  the  thing  was  such  that  dele- 
gates Wood  and  Vallandigham  withdrew,  under  pressure.  But 
there  remained  another  class  of  delegates  almost  as  obnoxious 
to  the  North — the  rebel  element  from  the  South.  Men  like 
Alexander  Stephens,  Vice-president  of  the  Confederacy ;  J.  B. 
Gordon  and  Richard  Taylor,  gallant  Confederate  generals; 
Colonel  Mclntyre  and  Major  Pendleton.  Should  rebels  and 
Copperheads  lay  down  laws  for  Union  men?  In  fact,  the  call 
for  the  convention,  which  was  largely  a  Democratic  call,  was 
itself  an  offense  to  the  triumphant  North,  and  many  wise  men, 
like  William  Cornell  Jewett,  so  wrote  and  advised  the  com- 
mittee in  charge.  Horace  Greeley  fairly  blistered  the  pages  of 
the  Tribune  with  maledictions.  It  was  a  "bread  and  butter" 
convention  and  it  was  "composed  of  ninety  per  cent.  Rebels  and 
Copperheads"!  Notwithstanding  these  handicaps,  the  con- 
vention was  a  success.  Senator  Reverdy  Johnson,  the  Presi- 
dent's personal  manager,  was  well  pleased.  Randall  wrote  the 
President  that  "if  the  convention  got  through  without  a  split" 
they  would  "have  easy  sailing  thereafter."  In  response  to  a 
wire  from  secretaries  Browning  and  Randall,  the  President 
replied,  "The  finger  of  Providence  is  unerring  and  will  guide 
you  safely  through.  The  people  must  be  trusted  and  the  coun- 
try will  be  restored."  While  the  Convention  was  sitting  Col- 
orado was  reported  to  have  elected  a  Conservative  to  Congress 
over  a  Radical  and  there  was  great  applause."  The  declara- 
tion of  principles  was  wise  and  strong  and  the  address  to  the 

21  r/ie  National  Union  Convention,  its  History  and  Proceedings  (Barclay 
and  Company,  publishers),  Philadelphia,  1866. 


356  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

people  in  excellent  style  and  taste.  Both  were  the  work  of 
Henry  J.  Raymond,  Chairman  of  the  Resolutions  Committee. 
Samuel  J.  Tilden  rose  and  proposed  three  cheers  for  Raymond 
and  they  were  given  with  a  will. 

"History  affords  no  instance,"  so  the  resolution  read,  "where 
a  people  so  powerful  in  numbers,  in  resources,  and  in  public 
spirit,  after  a  war  so  long  in  its  duration  and  so  adverse  in 
its  issue,  have  accepted  defeat  and  its  consequences  with  so 
much  of  good  faith  as  have  marked  the  conduct  of  the  people 
lately  in  insurrection  against  the  United  States."  And  yet  "no 
people  has  ever  existed  whose  loyalty  and  faith  the  treatment 
accorded  them  by  Congress  would  not  alienate  and  impair. 
The  ten  millions  of  Americans  who  live  in  the  South  would  be 
unworthy  citizens  of  a  free  country,  degenerate  sons  of  a  heroic 
ancestor  if  they  could  accept  with  submission  the  humiliations 
sought  to  be  imposed  upon  them.  Resentment  of  injustice  is 
always  and  everywhere  essential  to  freedom;  and  the  spirit 
which  prompts  the  states  and  the  people  lately  in  the  Insur- 
rection, but  insurgent  now  no  longer,  to  protest  against  the 
imposition  of  unjust  and  degrading  conditions,  makes  them 
all  the  more  worthy  to  share  in  the  government  of  a  free  com- 
monwealth, and  gives  still  firmer  assurance  of  the  future  power 
and  freedom  of  the  Republic." 

The  convention  adjourned,  well  pleased  with  its  work,  hav- 
ing appointed  a  committee  of  two  delegates  from  each  state,  of 
which  Reverdy  Johnson  was  chairman,  to  present  an  official 
copy  of  the  proceedings  to  the  President.  On  the  eighteenth 
the  committee  went  over  to  Washington.  They  assured  the 
President  that  there  was  unanimity  and  unbroken  harmony, 
that  every  heart  was  full  of  joy,  every  eye  beaming  \Wth  patri- 
otic animation,  that  the  men  of  Massachusetts  and  of  South 
Carolina  came  in  the  convention  hand  in  hand,  filling  thousands 
of  eyes  with  tears  of  joy  which  they  neither  "could  nor  desired 
to  repress;  for  the  time  had  arrived  when  all  sectional  differ- 
ences had  ceased  and  there  was  unbounded  pride  in  a  common 
Union."  .  .  .  "In  you,  Mr.  President,"  the  committee  de- 
clared, "the  convention  recognize  a  chief  magistrate  devoted  to 
the  Constitution  and  laws  and  the  interests  of  the  whole  coun- 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  357 

try.  The  course  of  Congress  in  holding  ten  states  as  subjected 
provinces  is  at  war  with  the  very  genius  of  our  Government  and 
prejudicial  to  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  country." 

The  President,  accepting  the  proceedings,  spoke  with  vigor 
and  feeling.  He  had  taken  his  stand  upon  the  broad  principles 
of  liberty  and  the  Constitution,  he  declared,  and  "there  is  not 
power  enough  on  earth  to  drive  me  from  it.  .  .  .  Having 
placed  myself  upon  that  broad  platform  I  have  never  been 
awed,  dismayed  or  intimidated  by  either  threats  or  encroach- 
ment, but  have  stood  there  in  conjunction  with  patriotic 
spirits,  sounding  the  tocsin  of  alarm  when  I  deemed  the  citadel 
of  liberty  in  danger.  .  .  .  My  race  is  nearly  run,  I  have  passed 
through  every  position  from  village  alderman  to  President 
...  if  I  wanted  authority  or  if  I  wished  to  perpetuate  my  own 
power,  how  easy  it  would  have  been  to  hold  and  wield  that 
which  was  placed  in  my  hands  by  the  measure  called  the  Freed- 
men's  Bureau  bill!  With  an  army  which  it  placed  at  my  dis- 
cretion, I  could  have  remained  in  the  Capitol  and  with  fifty  or 
sixty  millions  of  appropriations  at  my  disposal,  with  the  ma- 
chinery to  be  worked  by  my  own  hands,  and  with  my  satraps 
and  dependents  in  every  town  and  village,  and  then  with  the 
Civil  Rights  bill  following  as  an  auxiliary,  I  could  have  pro- 
claimed myself  dictator.  .  .  .  But,  gentlemen,  my  pride  and 
my  ambition  have  been  to  occupy  that  position  which  retains 
all  power  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  ...  I  acknowledge  no 
superior  except  my  God,  the  author  of  my  existence,  and  the 
people  of  the  United  States."  As  the  President  proceeded,  the 
committee  followed  him  with  rapt  attention,  particularly  when 
he  said  how  visibly  he  was  affected  when  he  received  a  despatch 
informing  him  that  the  convention,  distinguished  for  intellect 
and  wisdom,  was  at  times  so  overcome  that  "every  eye  was 
suffused  with  tears  on  beholding  the  scene."  ...  "I  could  not 
finish  reading  the  despatch,"  the  President  admitted,  "for  my 
feelings  overcame  me." 

But  there  were  seams  in  the  President's  armor,  seams  which 
the  rapier  of  the  Radicals  soon  pierced.  In  the  course  of  his 
speech  he  had  said  that  Congress  was  "a  body  called  or  which 
assumes  to  be  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  but  in  fact  a 


858  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Congress  of  only  a  part  of  the  states,  a  body  hanging  on  the 
verge  of  government."  Why,  the  man  who  could  give  expres- 
sion to  such  sentiments  was  a  traitor  and  ought  to  be  ejected 
from  office  without  a  trial !  Accounts  of  the  "arm  and  arm  con- 
vention" filled  every  paper.  By  the  Conservatives  Johnson  was 
pictured  as  a  patriot.  By  the  Radicals  he  was  depicted  as 
"King  Andy" — in  purple  and  velvet  with  the  trappings  of 
royalty.  "Tears,  idle  tears,"  Greeley  wrote.  "No  doubt, 
tears  of  grief  at  the  murder  of  loyal  men  in  Memphis  and 
throughout  the  South!"  Thomas  Nast,  the  cartoonist,  had  a 
fine  subject  for  ridicule.  Harper'' s  bubbled  over  with  fun. 
Its  readers  could  not  get  enough  of  the  "arm  in  arm  conven- 
tion." It  was  pictured  from  every  angle,  but  always  in  tears. 
Governor  Orr  of  South  Carolina,  large  and  benevolent  with 
chin  whiskers,  a  la  Horace  Greeley,  and  General  Couch  of 
Massachusetts,  kindly,  humane,  dreamy-eyed,  both  locked  in 
fond  embrace,  were  cartooned  leading  a  procession  of  tearful 
delegates.  A  lion  and  a  lamb,  likewise  arm  in  arm,  then  came 
along.  In  the  corner  a  pussy  cat  was  weeping,  as  though  her 
heart  would  break ;  while  the  dicky  bird,  on  the  mantel,  shook 
with  grief.  The  great  writer,  James  Russell  Lowell,  descended 
from  his  lofty  tripod,  appealing  to  man's  lower  nature,  even 
making  fun  of  the  Chairman's  name — -"Doolittle !"  .  .  .  "He 
was  a  Doolittle  indeed !"  and  much  more  of  like  kind."- 

Unfortunately  for  the  President,  on  July  30,  while  meetings 
were  being  held  in  New  Orleans  to  select  delegates  to  the  Phila- 
delphia convention,  a  terrible  riot  occurred  in  the  former  city. 
Nearly  forty  people,  almost  all  negroes  or  Unionists,  were 
killed.  The  blame  of  the  affair  was  sought  to  be  laid  by  the 
Radicals  at  the  President's  door.^^  The  New  Orleans  Riot 
is  but  the  history  of  the  age-old  conflict  between  whites  and 
blacks.  In  1864*  a  constitutional  convention,  called  by  the 
Military  Governor,  had  been  held  in  New  Orleans,  and,  after 
finishing  its  work,  adjourned  to  be  reconvened,  "if  the  work  of 
the  convention  is  not  ratified  by  the  people,"  at  the  call  of  the 
presiding  officer.    But  the  work  of  the  convention  was  ratified 

22  North  American  Revieiw,  Vol.  CII,  p.  520. 

23  New  York  Tribime,  July  31,  1866. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  359 

at  the  polls.-*  Nevertheless,  two  years  later  the  presiding  offi- 
cer was  asked  to  reconvene  the  convention,  the  object  being  to 
give  the  negroes  the  ballot,  thereby  placing  New  Orleans  under 
negro  rule.  This  the  President  refused  to  do.  He  held  that 
the  convention  was  functus  and  had  no  right  to  meet  again. 

A  few  members  of  the  1864  convention  then  met  and  at- 
tempted to  elect  a  new  presiding  officer.  This  officer,  though 
it  was  claimed  he  was  not  a  delegate  to  the  convention,  issued 
a  call  for  the  convention  to  meet  on  Monday,  July  30,  to  ascer- 
tain how  many  vacancies  had  occurred  since  1864  and  to  trans- 
act other  business.  Up  to  this  stage  the  affair  was  considered 
harmless  and  more  or  less  of  a  joke,  but  when  the  Governor 
took  a  hand  and  issued  a  call  for  an  election  to  be  held  on 
September  3  to  fill  vacancies  in  the  convention,  matters  grew 
serious."^  Was  New  Orleans  to  become  Africanized?  Was 
Louisiana  to  pass  into  corrupt  and  alien  hands,  as  Arkansas 
had  done  ? 

In  this  situation  Judge  Abell,  a  member  of  the  convention 
and  also  a  state  Judge,  charged  the  grand  jury  at  New  Orleans 
to  present  the  members  of  the  convention,  about  to  assemble, 
that  such  assembly  was  unlawful  and  that  the  overt  act  of  law- 
lessness was  the  mere  gathering  together  of  the  delegates  with- 
out authority  and  for  unlawful  purposes.  He  called  attention 
of  the  grand  jury  to  the  law  as  declared  in  Russell  on  Crimes^ 
"The  mere  assembly  of  persons  to  do  an  unlawful  thing  is  a 
disturbance  of  the  peace."  ^^  The  military  authorities  then 
arrested  the  Judge.  In  this  controversy,  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor and  the  Mayor  stood  in  with  the  whites,  and  both  sides 
seemed  anxious  to  be  sustained  by  the  National  Government. 
In  New  Orleans  at  this  time,  as  General  Sheridan  reported  to 
General  Grant  on  August  1,  the  negroes  were  led  on  by  whites, 
"who  were  political  agitators  and  revolutionary  men,"  and 
"the  action  of  the  convention  was  likely  to  produce  breaches 
of  the  peace."  -"^ 

Three  days  before  the  convention  met.  Dr.  Dostie,  a  radical 

24  New  York  Times,  August  1,  1866. 
2nlhid.,  July  31-August  10,  1866. 

26  New  Orleans  Times,  July  28-August  10,  1866. 

27  Johnson  MS.  No.  11,939. 


360  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

leader,  addressing  the  negroes,  advised  them  to  come  to  the 
convention  armed  to  fight  the  "hell-born"  rebels.  .  .  .  "We 
have  four  hundred  thousand  to  three  hundred  thousand,"  he 
exclaimed,  "and  we  cannot  only  whip  but  exterminate  the  other 
party."  .  .  .  "We  want  brave  men  and  not  cowards  Monday. 
.  .  .  There  will  be  no  such  puerile  aifair  as  at  Memphis  and 
...  if  we  are  interfered  with  the  streets  of  New  Orleans  will 
run  with  blood."  The  crowd  of  excited  negroes  shouted  back 
that  they  would  be  there.^®  President  Johnson  did  Avhat  he 
could,  by  letter  and  wire,  to  prevent  the  convention  from  assem- 
bling. The  civil  authorities  were  evidently  anxious  to  avoid 
bloodshed,  as  were  the  military.  After  Judge  Abell  was  ar- 
rested, on  July  25,  the  Mayor  wrote  to  General  Baird,  in 
command  during  the  temporary  absence  of  General  Sheridan, 
that  he,  as  mayor,  felt  it  his  duty  to  arrest  the  delegates  and 
"suppress  the  unlawful  assembly  provided  they  met  without  the 
sanction  of  the  military  authorities."  General  Baird  replied 
that  he  could  not  see  what  business  the  Mayor  had  to  interfere, 
that  "the  Governor  ought  to  take  the  initiative  and  the  United 
States  Government  ought  to  decide." 

Each  side  got  in  touch  with  Washington,  General  Baird 
wiring  Secretary  Stanton  and  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  and 
the  Mayor  wiring  the  President.  The  Mayor's  wire  to  the 
President,  dated  2  p.m.,  July  28, 1866,  advised  that  "the  Presi- 
dent was  bitterly  denounced" ;  that  the  whole  matter  would  be 
moved  before  the  grand  jury,  but  it  was  "impossible  to  execute 
civil  process  without  certainty  of  a  riot.  Contemplated  to  have 
members  of  the  convention  under  process  from  the  Civil  Court. 
Is  military  to  interfere  to  prevent  process  of  court .f*"  To  this 
wire,  the  President  replied  at  once,  "The  military  would  be 
expected  to  sustain  and  not  to  obstruct  or  interfere  with  tlie 
proceedings  of  the  court." 

To  General  Baird's  telegram.  Secretary  Stanton  made  no 
reply.  Baird's  telegram  notified  Stanton  that  a  convention 
had  been  called  with  the  sanction  of  Governor  Wells  for  Mon- 
day. "The  Lieutenant-Governor  and  city  authorities  think 
it  unlawful  and  propose  to  break  it  up  by  arresting  the  dcle- 
28  Fleming,  History  of  Reconstruction,  Vol.  I,  p.  231. 


Reconstruction  and  How  It  Works 


yast  Cartoon 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  861 

gates."  So  Baird's  wire  read.  And  it  went  on :  "I  have  given 
no  orders  on  the  subject,  but  have  warned  the  parties  I  should 
not  countenance  or  permit  such  action  without  instructions  to 
that  effect  from  the  President.  Please  instruct  me  by  tele- 
graph." The  President's  wire  to  the  Mayor  was  exhibited  to 
General  Baird  on  the  forenoon  of  July  28.  Stanton  made  no 
reply  to  Baird's  telegram,  claiming  that  he  did  "not  under- 
stand from  the  wire  that  force  or  resistance  would  be  used  to 
break  up  the  convention ;"  "^  nor  did  he  communicate  its  con- 
tents to  the  President. 

General  Baird  declared  that  he  would  arrest  any  officer  who 
interfered  with  the  delegates.  In  consequence  of  this,  as  the 
Mayor  claimed,  he  turned  the  matter  of  policing  New  Orleans 
on  the  thirtieth  over  to  General  Baird,  who  promised  to  have 
troops  at  that  time.  On  the  day  of  the  convention  the  delegates 
assembled  at  twelve  noon  without  disturbance.  At  this  time 
there  were  neither  police  nor  soldiers  around  Mechanics'  Hall 
where  the  convention  met.  No  quorum  being  present,  an  ad- 
journment was  taken  for  an  hour  and  a  half.  Meanwhile  a 
large  crowd  of  negroes  armed  with  pistols  and  clubs  marched 
to  the  convention  hall.  On  the  way  down  they  either  knocked 
or  shoved  a  white  boy  from  the  sidewalk.  The  offending  negro 
was  arrested,  but  before  he  could  be  taken  in  hand  by  the 
officer  the  negroes  fired  one  or  two  shots.  This  was  the  first 
shooting  of  the  day.  Immediately  a  call  was  sent  in  for  the 
police  force,  which  had  been  armed  in  advance.  A  battle  en- 
sued between  the  police,  assisted  by  a  large  number  of  whites, 
and  the  negro  rioters.  The  negroes  fled  to  the  convention 
hall.  A  white  flag  was  run  out  of  the  window ;  the  police  went 
forward  to  make  the  arrest,  and  were  fired  upon  from  the 
convention  hall.  Infuriated  whites  broke  into  the  building 
and  killed  and  butchered  without  mercy.  Only  one  policeman 
was  killed.  General  Sheridan  reported  that  the  Mayor  was  "a 
bad,  disloyal  man"  and  that  "three-fourths  of  the  mob  of 

29  Tribune  Tracts  No.  1;  History  of  Neiv  Orleans,  Vol.  I,  p.  267;  Report 
of  the  Committee  of  the  House,  Second  Session  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  Docu- 
ment No.  1304,  p.  27  and  also  p.  252. 


362  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

whites  were  ex-Confederates,"  who  "instead  of  quieting  the  riot 
aided  it." 

Before  the  convention  assembled  General  Baird  stated 
that  if  a  riot  occurred  it  would  be  "a  serious  hurt  to  reconstruc- 
tion." President  Johnson  and  Secretary  Welles,  commenting 
on  the  affair,  insisted  that  the  riot  was  deliberately  arranged 
by  the  Radicals  for  political  effect.  The  Radicals,  on  the  other 
hand,  laid  the  blame  on  Johnson's  telegram.  President  John- 
son did  not  know  of  General  Baird's  wire  to  Secretary  Stanton 
until  the  middle  of  August,  and  he  bore  resentment  to  Stanton 
for  failing  to  call  it  to  his  attention.  Time  and  again  the 
President  declared  that  if  he  had  known  the  contents  of  the 
Stanton  ^°  telegram  he  would  have  put  the  city  under  military 
rule  on  July  30.  One  of  the  strangest  incidents  connected  with 
the  affair  is  that  Baird  claims  he  thought  the  convention  was 
to  meet  at  6  o'clock  at  night.  He  admits  that  he  made  no  in- 
quiry as  to  the  time.^^  The  negro  rioters  were  indicted  by  the 
Grand  Jury,  which  made  a  report  exonerating  the  whites. 
The  police  were  not  arrested.  The  influence  of  this  terrible 
affair  upon  the  minds  of  the  nation  was  overwhelming.  In  all 
its  horrors  it  was  photographed  in  the  magazines.  By  the 
Radicals  it  was  held  up  to  the  North  as  the  direct  result  of 
Andy  Johnsonism.  The  Tribune  called  it  a  "rebel  riot."  It 
was  not  a  riot,  it  subsequently  said,  but  "a  cold-blooded  mur- 
der." No  doubt  the  convention  of  1864  was  a  defunct  body, 
but  the  violence  with  which  the  police  set  upon  the  badly  ad- 
vised negroes  was  wholly  without  excuse. 

The  New  Orleans  massacre  furnished  a  rallying  point  for 
the  two  Republican  conventions  which  were  shortly  after  held, 
one  in  Philadelphia  by  the  "True  Southern  Loyalists"  and  the 
Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  convention  in  Pittsburgh.  This  last  con- 
vention was  the  most  enthusiastic  and  best  attended  of  all  the 
conventions  of  the  year.  It  declared:  "We  will  dare  maintain 
our  country  and  when  we  follow  Congress  we  follow  the  same 
flag  and  principle  we  did  during  the  war."  The  Southern  Loy- 
alists convention  proclaimed  Andrew  Johnson  a  traitor  to  his 

30  W.  G.  Moore,  Diary,  p.  98. 
ni  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  ()13. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  363 

country,  the  speech  made  by  Fighting  Parson  Brownlow  on  this 
occasion  being  as  violent  as  anything  ever  uttered  by  Thad- 
deus  Stevens.  The  Parson  gave  notice  that  unless  the  new 
rebels  were  put  dowTi  nothing  was  left  to  the  National  Govern- 
ment but  to  send  out  an  army  with  compass  and  rule,  and  cut 
up  the  South  into  small  lots  and  sell  these  off  to  pay  the  ex- 
penses of  the  war. 

Early  in  July  three  of  the  cabinet,  unwilling  to  oppose  the 
radical  policy  of  Congress — Dennison,  Harlan,  and  Speed — 
resigned  and  were  replaced  by  Randall  of  Wisconsin,  Browning 
of  Kentucky,  and  Stanbery  of  Ohio.  In  the  reorganization  of 
the  cabinet,  "the  President  had  no  recourse  to  the  Democracy ; 
none  of  the  new  members  had  ever  affiliated  with  that  partj?^, 
Johnson  exhibiting  an  immovable  fidelity  to  the  conditions 
under  which  he  attained  to  his  high  office."  ^"  The  subordinate 
offices  under  the  new  secretaries  were,  however,  filled  by  persons 
friendly  to  the  President,  who  contributed  what  they  could  to 
the  building  up  of  a  party  favorable  to  him.  Stanton  did  not 
resign  but  remained  to  plague  the  administration.^^  Advised 
by  the  Radicals  to  "stick,"  he  stuck.  Welles,  Preston  King, 
the  Blairs,  and  others  urged  the  President  to  remove  him,  but 
Seward  opposed  and  prevailed.^*  In  pursuing  this  course,  and 
retaining  the  Republicans,  the  President  was  undoubtedly  cor- 
rect. Being  a  southern  man  and  under  suspicion  at  the  North, 
had  he  yielded  to  Welles,  he  could  not  have  weathered  the 
storm  of  northern  indignation  as  long  as  he  did.^^ 

In  the  midst  of  such  excitement  and  discussion  the  event 
known  as  the  "Swing  Round  the  Circle"  took  place.  Promptly 
at  seven-thirty  a.m.  on  August  28,  in  compliance  wdth  an  invi- 
tation of  the  Douglas  Memorial  Association,  President  John- 
son and  his  party  pulled  out  from  the  Washington  station  in 
coaches  attached  to  the  regular  train  for  Chicago.  Accom- 
panying the  President  were  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Patterson, 
together  with  General  Grant,  Admiral  Farragut,  Secretaries 
Seward,  Randall,  Welles  and  Mrs.  Welles.     Some  fifty  others, 

32  Dunning.  Reconstruction,  p.  73. 

33  Welles,  Diary,  May  14,  1866,  and  Rhodes,  Vol.  V,  p.  611. 
34 /bid.,  Vol.  in,  p.  492. 

35  Magazine  of  American  History,  Vol.  XX,  p.  40. 


364  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

more  or  less  prominent,  many  accompanied  by  their  respective 
wives,  were  also  of  the  party.  The  pageant,  as  Secretary 
Welles  calls  it,  was  approved  of  by  Seward,  Stanton,  McCul- 
loch  and  Stanbery,  but  he,  Welles,  was  "greatly  disinclined  to 
go  along."  ^^ 

It  was,  however,  the  event  of  all  others  President  Johnson 
welcomed ;  he  wished  the  chance  to  meet  the  people  face  to  face. 
Forgetting  that  war  hysteria  had  not  subsided  in  the  North 
as  it  had  in  his  own  bosom  and  that  revolutions  never  go  back- 
ward, he  was  going  forth  with  the  United  States  flag  in  one 
hand  and  the  Constitution  in  the  other,  pleading  for  the  old 
Union  just  as  it  was.  Incidentally,  he  was  breaking  up  the 
Republican  party  and  organizing  a  new  party  in  which  neither 
Jeff  Davis,  Thad  Stevens,  Charles  L.  Vallandigham,  nor  other 
Rebel  or  Radical  or  Copperhead,  would  be  tolerated.  Since 
taking  up  Lincoln's  task  he  had  striven  to  follow  the  middle 
course  with  malice  towards  none  and  charity  for  all,  the  ex- 
pounding of  this  policy  being  one  object  of  his  present  trip. 
Scarcely,  however,  had  the  trip  begun  before  it  was  plain  the 
Radicals  were  determined  to  ridicule  it  and  belittle  it,  as  they 
shortly  did  at  Philadelphia,  and  finally  to  break  it  up. 

In  Baltimore  the  people  turned  out,  one  hundred  thousand 
strong.  Cannon  boomed  and  the  air  was  rent  with  cheers. 
The  President  rode  in  a  carriage  through  the  main  street  and 
on  to  Fort  McHenry.  General  Grant  and  Admiral  Farragut, 
when  presented  by  Seward,  who  uniformly  acted  as  master  of 
ceremonies,  were  wildly  cheered.  A  number  of  mechanics  and 
laborers,  breaking  through  the  crowd,  clasped  the  President  by 
the  hand  amidst  great  applause.^'^'^  The  Metropolitan  press 
carried  columns  describing  the  great  tour  with  its  orations, 
banquets  and  pageants.  In  Philadelphia  the  crowds  were  im- 
mense, but  there,  as  in  Baltimore,  Republican  leaders  were 
conspicuously  absent.  On  August  29,  in  New  York,  half  a 
million  people  greeted  the  party.  There  were  speeches  by  the 
President,  General  Grant,  Farragut  and  Seward,  a  great  ban- 


so  Welles,  Dinrxj,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  588. 
BoaNevv  York  Herald,  August  2J,),  18G6. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  365 

quet  at  Delmonico's  and  a  serenade  to  the  President,  together 
with  a  reception  along  the  Hudson. 

The  gist  of  the  President's  remarks  wherever  he  spoke  was, 
"Let  there  be  a  common  feehng — our  country  first,  our  country 
last,  our  country  all  the  time — disregarding  party  for  the 
public  good."  This  sentiment  usually  met  with  vigorous  ap- 
plause. Commenting  editorially  on  the  President's  course,  the 
Herald  called  Andrew  Johnson  "the  fearless  patriot,  steadfast 
to  his  trust  and  in  the  fiery  days  of  war  like 

"  'Abdiel,  faithful  found 

Among  the  faithless  faithful  only  he.'  " 

But  the  Radicals  were  bent  on  his  destruction.  The  Repub- 
lican party,  which  had  won  the  war  and  broken  the  shackles 
from  the  ankles  of  four  million  slaves,  must  not  be  destroyed  by 
a  combination  of  Copperheads  and  Rebels  led  on  by  a  turncoat 
President.  Forgetting  that  Johnson's  policy  at  that  moment 
was  the  same  as  in  1865  when  he  was  the  national  hero,  Horace 
Greeley  called  him  a  traitor  and  pooh-poohed  the  idea  he  was 
following  in  Lincoln's  footsteps.  Other  Radical  and  Jacobin 
journals  used  violent,  dangerous  and  threatening  language, 
pointing  to  Charles  I  as  a  warning.  The  New  York  assembly 
voted  down  a  resolution  welcoming  the  President  to  the  state. 
A  Senator,  who  had  been  a  Wall  Street  speculator  during  the 
war,  intimated  that  Johnson  would  be  murdered  if  he  attempted 
to  cross  upper  New  York.^"  Thad  Stevens  pulled  himself  out 
of  a  sick  room  to  make  a  single  speech.  Dubbing  Johnson's 
swing  around  the  circle  a  traveling  circus,  with  Seward  and 
Johnson  as  the  two  clowns,  he  sneeringly  paraphrased  the  Presi- 
dent's speeches.  "He  has  been  everything,"  he  tells  us,  "alder- 
man, constable,  legislator — God  help  that  legislature — and  in 
Congress  and  now  is  President ;  but  he  has  never  been  a  hang- 
man and  so  he  wants  to  be  that,  and  hang  Thad  Stevens."  ^* 

Conservative  Republicans  of  the  James  Russell  Lowell  type 
lost  their  poise,  declaring  that  Seward's  "awkward  attempts  at 
familiarity,"  "his  tumbling  efforts  to  be  droll,"  and  Johnson's 
"Jack-pudding  tricks,"  as  they  swung  around  the  circle,  were 

37  76tU,  August  31,  1866. 
ssMcCall,  Stevens,  p.  281. 


S66  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

disgusting.  Johnson's  plan  of  reconciliation,  which  the  car- 
toonists labeled  "My  Policy,"  they  called  treasonable.  There 
should  be  no  policy.  "The  boyish  and  conceited  Southerners," 
they  asserted,  "would  treat  Johnson's  leniency  as  cowardice." 
.  .  .  "The  South  called  for  war,"  said  Lowell,  "and  we  have 
given  it  to  her.  We  will  fix  the  terms  of  peace  ourselves  and 
we  will  teach  the  South  that  Christ  is  disguised  in  a  dusky 
race."  ^^ 

On  the  way  to  Chicago  the  President  spoke  in  sundry  cities, 
sometimes  from  the  rear  end  of  the  platform.  "I  leave  in  your 
hands  the  Constitution  and  the  Union,"  he  would  uniformly 
say,  "and  the  glorious  flag  of  your  country,  not  with  twenty- 
five  but  with  thirty-six  stars."  On  September  6  at  Chicago  he 
delivered  the  address  before  the  Douglas  Memorial  Association, 
crying  out :  If  Andrew  Jackson  or  Stephen  A.  Douglas  knew 
what  was  going  on  in  our  country  to-day  "they  would  shake 
off  the  habiliments  of  the  tomb  and  declare  'the  Constitution 
and  the  Union,  they  must  be  preserved.'  "  Everywhere  he 
made  it  plain  that  the  Radicals  in  Congress  must  be  defeated 
and  Conservatives  elected,  indulging  in  personal  experiences 
to  point  his  remarks. 

By  the  time  the  party  set  out  on  the  return  trip  to  Wash- 
ington the  President's  opponents  were  well  organized.  In 
opposition  to  the  new  National  Union  party  stood  forth  a 
mighty  phalanx:  Party  men  like  Fessenden,  Blaine  and  Gar- 
field, who  saw  death  to  the  Republican  party  in  the  new  John- 
son movement ;  philanthropists  like  Beecher,  Gerard  and  Gree- 
ley, who  felt  that  the  colored  man  needed  further  protection 
than  the  Thirteenth  Amendment ;  radicals  like  Wade,  Stevens, 
Chandler,  Shellabarger,  who  hated  the  South  on  principle; 
negrophiles  such  as  Chase,  Sumner  and  Julian.  Besides  these 
there  were  millions  of  Union  soldiers,  some  crippled  and 
wounded,  together  with  their  families,  who  were  unwilling  to 
trust  their  future  in  the  hands  of  the  Democratic  party. 
General  Dix,  who  presided  at  the  Philadelphia  convention, 
charged  that  faith  was  not  kept  with  that  convention,  that  the 
new  party  had  been  captured  by  the  Democrats.     But  what 

^9  North  American  Review,  Vol.  CII,  p.  520. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  367 

could  Johnson  do?  As  the  tour  proceeded  it  was  becoming 
more  and  more  evident  that  he  could  not  shake  off  the  copper- 
heads and  the  rebels,  and  that  these  constituted  nearly  all  that 
was  left  of  the  promising  National  Union  partJ^  As  Hogan, 
the  Irish  Congressman  from  St.  Louis,  with  his  strong  lungs, 
would  introduce  the  President  to  the  crowd,  General  Grant 
took  grave  offense.  "I  can  stand  a  rebel,"  said  the  General  to 
Welles,  "but  a  Copperhead  like  Hogan  I  cannot  forgive."  ^'^ 

On  the  return  trip  the  crowds  were  sometimes  boisterous 
and  unruly.  The  Radical  press  had  ridiculed  the  President's 
idea  of  immediate  and  peaceful  restoration  until  the  boys 
in  the  streets  laughed  and  jeered  without  knowing  what  it 
was  all  about. *^  At  Philadelphia  the  President,  reverting  to 
his  stock  illustration  and  addressing  the  mechanics,  declared 
that  Adam  was  the  first  tailor  and  sewed  fig  leaves  together. 
"No,"  he  said,  "this  is  not  entirely  satisfactory,  for  we  read  in 
the  twenty-first  verse  of  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis  that  God 
Almightj'^  was  the  first  tailor  and  that  'unto  Adam  also  and  his 
wife  did  the  Lord  God  make  coats  of  skin.'  Therefore  God 
Himself  was  the  first  member  of  the  craft !"  *^*  Clearly  this 
was  blasphemy,  the  Radicals  declared,  and  "the  use  of  such 
language  showed  that  Johnson  was  desperate." 

The  President  so  often  referred  to  what  he  had  done  and 
suffered  for  the  Union,  Forney  of  the  Philadelphia  Press  head- 
lined accounts  of  the  tour  with  only  one  word,  "I,"  "My,"  or 
"Me."  He  charged  that  Johnson's  speeches  were  a  continued 
rigmarole  of  "My  policy."  The  Memphis  and  New  Orleans 
riots  were  again  brought  forward  by  the  press.  Harper's  had 
blood-curdling  cartoons,  sometimes  covering  two  pages.  One 
of  these  was  labeled,  "Andrew  Johnson's  Record — How  it 
works."  Skeletons  of  starving  Union  soldiers,  starved  at 
Andersonville,  were  depicted.*^^  Negro  men  and  women  were 
seen  tied  to  a  stake  while  the  bull  whip  was  being  poured  on 

40  Welles,  Diani,  Vol.  II,  p.  591. 

41  Blaine,  Vol.  11,  p.  239. 

4ia  It  will  be  rioted  that  this  is  the  same  speech  that  Johnson  delivered  in 
Nashville  in  1857;  Hubbard.  Talc  of  Two  Tailors. 

4ib  The  per  cent,  of  deaths  in  northern  prisons  and  in  southern  was  prac- 
tically the  same. 


368  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

their  naked  backs.  In  hospital  wards  negroes,  wounded  or 
killed  at  Memphis  and  New  Orleans,  were  shown. 

As  Johnson  read  these  attacks  upon  himself  and  heard  his 
motives  impugned  by  "slackers"  he  hurled  back  the  charges. 
The  radical  press  he  called  mercenary  and  subsidized.  "The 
foul  rebellion  at  the  South,"  he  declared,  "headed  by  the 
traitor,  Jeff  Davis,  had  been  put  down  and  this  new  rebellion 
headed  by  Stevens  and  Sumner  must  also  be  put  down.  .  .  . 
I  fought  the  southern  traitors  and  whipped  them,"  he  said, 
"and,  God  being  willing  and  with  your  help,  I  intend  to  fight 
out  the  battle  with  northern  traitors."  Presently  hecklers 
began  to  interrupt  the  speaking.  "What  about  the  New  Or- 
leans riot.?"  they  asked.  "Don't  get  mad,  Andy,"  they  jeered. 
"Three  cheers  for  Congress,"  they  cried.  Sometimes  they 
cried,  "Traitor !  Traitor !"  One  of  the  hecklers  shouted,  "Why 
don't  you  hang  Jeff  Davis  .f"'  "I  am  not  the  Chief  Justice," 
Johnson  retorted,  "I  am  not  the  prosecuting  attorney,  nor  am 
I  the  jury." 

At  Norwalk,  Ohio,  the  President  was  saying  that  it  was  time 
to  stop  the  sacrifice  of  blood  and  treasure  when  a  rowdy  broke 
in  and  asked,  "Wh}''  don't  you  stop  it  at  New  Orleans?"  John- 
son called  for  the  fellow  and  denounced  him  in  a  most  un- 
Presidential  way.  At  Cleveland,  when  some  one  yelled  out  that 
his  speech  did  not  become  the  dignity  of  a  President,  Johnson 
answered,  "When  I  am  insulted  I  do  not  care  about  dignity." 
To  a  person  in  the  crowd  who  constantly  interrupted  the  speak- 
ing Johnson  hurled  back  that  one  wlio  would  stop  free  speech 
had  "ceased  to  be  a  man  and  had  shrunk  into  the  dimensions  of 
a  reptile."  At  St.  Louis  he  replied  to  an  interruption  relat- 
ing to  the  New  Orleans  riot,  saying  that  the  blood  of  that  riot 
was  not  on  himself  but  on  Congress,  that  the  Radicals  in  Con- 
gress held  a  caucus  just  before  the  riot  and  knew  that  the  un- 
lawful Louisiana  convention  was  called  to  meet,  and  approved 
of  its  object,  and  that  the  object  was  to  disfranchise  the  whites 
and  enfranchise  the  blacks. 

At  Cleveland  it  was  charged  that  ruffians  liad  been  hired 
to  heckle  tlie  President.^-     At  Pittsburgli,  where  the  great 

42  Oberlioltzer,  History,  Vol.  I,  p.  409. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  369 

Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  convention  was  soon  to  meet,  the  speak- 
ing could  not  take  place.  Along  the  route  it  was  plain  that 
Grant  and  Farragut  were  more  popular  than  the  President, 
and  for  the  first  time  Grant  began  to  think  of  the  Presidency 
for  himself.  On  September  10,  while  the  President  was  at 
dinner  at  Indianapolis,  a  riot  broke  out  in  the  lobby  of  his 
hotel  and  several  persons  were  killed  or  wounded.  The 
Indianapolis  Herald  of  that  date  declared  that  it  was  a  radical 
plot  and  "the  whole  thing  preconcerted." 

As  the  Presidential  party  came  further  South  the  com- 
plexion of  the  crowds  changed  and  there  was  great  enthusiasm. 
At  Louisville,  Kentucky,  "the  reception  was  magnificent," 
as  it  was  all  through  Kentucky,  Maryland  and  in  parts  of 
Pennsylvania.  While  the  tour  was  in  progress,  southern 
radicals  were  not  idle.  Parson  Brownlow,  who  had  become  a 
leader  of  the  radical  wing,  headed  a  counter  tour,  its  object 
being,  he  declared,  "to  wipe  out  the  moccasin  tracks  of  An- 
drew Johnson  and  William  H,  Seward."  *^ 

The  New  York  Herald  spoke  of  the  j  ourney  and  the  speech- 
making  tour  of  Brownlow  and  Jack  Hamilton  of  Texas  as 
"the  journey  of  the  negrophiles  and  the  miscegines."  And 
truly  the  course  which  they  then  advocated  was  a  bloody  one. 
The  Fighting  Parson  declared  that  when  the  next  northern 
army  went  South,  he  "wanted  to  have  a  finger  in  the  pie." 
"Let  them  go  armed  with  small  arms  and  with  heavy  artillery," 
said  the  Parson,  "in  order  to  do  the  killing ;  and  with  spirits  of 
turpentine  and  pine  knots  to  do  the  burning."  *^ 

After  passing  through  York  and  Baltimore,  amidst  great 
enthusiasm,  on  Saturday,  September  15,  the  Presidential  party 
arrived  in  Washington.  Great  preparations  had  been  ar- 
ranged by  the  city  council  and  patriotic  organizations  to  make 
the  President's  homecoming  a  hearty  welcome.  Guns  were  fired 
at  the  navy  yard.    Poets  shrieked  popular  lines, 

"Thrice  welcome  back 
To  thy  national  home 
Our  brave  magnanimous  President." 

43  Herald,  September  12,  1866. 

44  New  York  Times,  September  13,  1866;  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  405. 


370  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Mayor  Wallach,  delivering  the  address  of  welcome,  declared 
that  the  whole  population  of  Washington  had  turned  out  for 
the  occasion.  "We  have  come  out  to  greet  you,  Mr.  President," 
he  said,  "to  welcome  you  home  and  to  cheer  you  in  your  efforts 
to  restore  eleven  states  to  their  places  in  the  Union."  ^^  After 
the  President  had  made  a  short  and  appropriate  reply  the 
enthusiastic  crowds  marched  up  Pennsylvania  Avenue  to  the 
White  House.  They  passed  under  banners  on  which  were 
inscribed,  "The  Constitution  and  Andrew  Johnson  now  and 
forever,"  and  like  patriotic  sentiments.  At  the  Mansion  the 
crowd  called  out  the  President  again.  He  spoke  briefly  and 
well,  thanking  them  for  their  presence  and  bidding  them  good- 
night. 

Taking  the  tour  as  a  whole.  Secretary  Welles  thought  it 
was  a  success.  "In  some  cases  party  malignity  showed  itself, 
but  it  was  rare  and  the  guilty  few  in  number."  .  .  .  "It  was 
evident,"  said  Welles,  "that  in  most  of  the  cases — not  exceed- 
ing a  half  dozen  in  all — the  hostile  party  manifestations  were 
pre-arranged  and  precipitated  by  sneaking  leaders."  .  .  . 
"The  President  spoke  freely,"  said  Welles.  "He  wished  to 
address  the  people  face  to  face,  a  plan  with  which  he  had  been 
familiar  in  Tennessee  and  the  Southwest.  .  .  .  When  he  stated 
the  true  issues  to  the  people  they  were  obviously  with  him."  *° 
Not  only  Welles  but  the  President  himself,  "had  sanguine  be- 
lief that  he  had  aroused  his  countrymen."  Unfortunately,  the 
President  was  mistaken.  Though  the  people  were  aroused,  it 
was  not  in  his  behalf.  It  would  have  been  far  better  for  the 
President's  cause  had  he  remained  at  home.  Despite  en- 
thusiastic peace  and  union  meetings  in  New  York  on  September 
17  and  elsewhere  during  the  fall,  in  the  November  election 
"Andyjohnsonism"  was  turned  down.  In  1861  and  in  1862, 
Johnson's  rough  tongue,  in  the  cause  of  the  Union,  had  de- 
lighted the  North  and  he  was  then  called  "glorious  old  Andy 
Johnson."  In  1866  the  same  sturdy  patriot  had  become  a 
blackguard ! 

40  New  York  Herald,  September  IG;  National  Intelligencer,  September  17; 
Evening  Union,  Septemhor  15. 
40  Welles,  Vol.  II,  p.  590. 


SWINGING  ROUND  THE  CIRCLE  371 

As  the  southern  states  voted  against  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment, it  was  defeated,  for  lack  of  the  requisite  three-fourths. 
Thus  the  Radicals  won  a  temporary  victory.  But  was  it  not 
at  a  sacrifice?  Having  rejected  Lincoln's  advice,  having 
"spurned  and  rejected  the  southern  Avhites"  and  said  to  them, 
"You  are  worthless,  or  worse,"  the  Radicals  molded  a  solid 
South,  resurrected  the  defunct  and  despised  Democratic  party, 
and  created  those  unhappy  conditions  in  the  South  which 
have  not  yet  fully  disappeared/^ 

Rhodes,  the  historian,  characterizes  this  trip  as  an  "indecent 
org}'^,"  and  positively  asserts  that  Johnson  was  intoxicated  at 
Cleveland.  In  this  Rhodes  was  mistaken,  as  we  now  know.  All 
trustworthy  accounts  are  that  these  charges  of  drunkenness 
are  "wholly  unfounded,"  that  there  was  no  eye-witness  and  "no 
responsible  charge  of  drinking."  In  fact,  Schouler  "challenges 
the  proof  of  such  a  cruel  statement."  While  Johnson's  ha- 
rangues and  colloquies  "were  vehement  and  inappropriate," 
they  were  "clear  and  to  the  point,"  and  far  from  "incoherent  or 
maudlin."  ^^  I  might  add  that  in  the  Impeachment  trial  news- 
paper reporters  testified  that  there  was  no  drinking  on  this  trip. 
Indeed,  the  presence  of  the  wives  and  daughters  of  those  partic- 
ipating repels  the  suggestion  of  a  "drunken  orgy." 

47  Blaine,  Ticenty  Years,  Vol.  II,  p.  242:  The  1866  election  was  vital;  "had 
it  gone  Democratic  there  would  have  been  no  more  amendments  or  recon- 
struction laws." 

48  Major  Truman,  Century  Magazine,  January  191.3,  p.  438;  McCulloch, 
Men  and  Measures,  p.  393;  DeWitt,  Impeachment  and  Trial,  p.  420;  Schouler, 
Vol.  VII,  p.  74;   Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  404. 


CHAPTER  III 
VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO 

The  November  elections  in  1866  went  overwhelmingly  Re- 
publican, and  the  Radicals  had  things  their  own  way.  Old 
Thad  Stevens,  rising  in  Congress,  drolly  remarked,  "I  was  a 
Conservative  at  the  last  session  of  this  Congress,  but  I  mean  to 
be  a  Radical  hereafter."  The  President's  course  had  been  so 
thoroughly  condemned  at  the  polls  that  conservative  papers 
were  urging  him  "to  forego  his  plans."  He  could  now  "tuck 
ship  and  sail  with  the  wind,"  they  declared;  "why  sharpen 
acrimony  by  further  resistance.''"^  The  radical  press  was 
jubilant,  boasting  that  "King  Andy"  was  dead,  that  the  sot, 
the  beast,  the  renegade,  the  dirty  dog  and  the  copperhead,  as 
they  called  the  President,  together  with  "my  policy"  and  "I," 
"Me,"  and  "My"  had  been  buried  forever.-  He  had  "reeled" 
into  the  Presidency  and  been  repudiated. 

Threats  made  during  the  campaign,  "We'll  hang  the  d — d 
traitor,"  were  again  heard  and  the  Governors  of  several  states 
held  an  imprudent  and  violent  meeting.^  The  President  being 
a  traitor  to  his  party,  his  office  should  be  sequestered,  he  should 
be  turned  out  and  tried  afterwards.  On  the  other  side  unwise 
friends  were  still  urging  the  President  to  meet  force  with 
force.  Congress  was  a  Rump  and  it  was  his  duty,  they  in- 
sisted, not  to  recognize  the  unlawful  assembly  or  to  approve 
any  bill  until  the  southern  states  M^ere  admitted.  He  was  ad- 
monished "to  keep  his  powder  dry"  and  "to  issue  a  call  for  five 
hundred  thousand  troops  to  defend  the  country."  *  Advice 
of  this  kind  came  from  the  North,  however,  the  South  having 
had  war  enough  for  the  present. 

In  this  state  of  confusion  the  President  kept  his  head  and 

1  New  York  Herald  and  World,  November  8,  1866;  Times,  November  9. 

2  Oberholtzcr,  Vol.  I,  p.  416. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  417. 

4  Johnson  MS. 

372 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  S76 

wisely  held  his  tongue  though  he  issued  orders  to  Secretary 
Stanton  "to  take  such  steps  as  were  adequate  for  the  protection 
and  security  of  the  Government."  ^  Neither  radicals  nor 
conservatives  understood  President  Johnson.  Though  he  was 
stubborn  and  pugnacious  he  was  loyal,  through  and  through, 
and  his  country  was  more  to  him  than  personal  success.  He 
had  been  ill  treated  by  Congress  but  he  would  not  follow  those 
advising  that  he  use  the  army  to  reorganize  that  body. 
Neither  would  he  follow  the  radicals  and  run  the  steam-roller 
over  the  Constitution  and  the  southern  states.  If  he  must  be 
a  martyr,  so  be  it,  he  was  willing  to  go  down  with  the  Constitu- 
tion. 

Besides,  Johnson  foolishly  concluded  that  the  people  had 
been  deceived  and  would  reverse  themselves  when  they  knew 
the  facts.  Even  war  hysteria  he  imagined  could  be  overcome 
by  the  facts.  He  was  sure  that  time  and  patience  would  disil- 
lusion the  North  as  to  the  negro  and  show  that  Lincoln  was 
right.  He  realized  that  not  an  inch  could  the  South  be  driven, 
but  anywhere  it  could  be  led,  by  kindness  and  generosity. 
Among  Democratic  leaders  the  President  relied  mostly  upon 
Senator  Reverdy  Johnson  of  Maryland,  who  was  daily  plead- 
ing for  conciliation  without  force  or  coercion.  "Let  us  take 
our  southern  brethren  to  our  bosoms  and  trust  them,"  he  was 
saying,  when  opposing  the  Civil  Rights  bill.  "And  as  I  believe 
in  my  existence  you  will  never  have  occasion  to  regret  it.  If 
we  do  this  we  will  look  back  with  delight  on  our  course  for  we 
will  be  prosperous  and  have  a  national  fame  of  which  the  world 
furnishes  no  example."  ^ 

In  a  word,  President  Johnson's  policy  was  very  unlike  that 
proposed  by  the  radical  leaders.  "The  Radicals  would  base 
the  new  governments  upon  the  loyalty  of  the  past,  plus  the  aid 
of  enfranchised  slaves ;  he  would  establish  the  new  regime  by 

5  Letter  to  Stanton  dated  November  1,  1866.  Oberholtzer  concludes  from 
this  letter  that  the  President  "took  counsel  of  his  fears  as  he  was  wont  to  do," 
a  charge  Johnson's  enemies  did  not  make.  Governor  Morton,  one  of  the  im- 
peaching Senators,  together  with  John  Sherman,  Blaine  and  other  stalwart 
Republicans  who  knew  Johnson  personally,  declare  that  he  was  "distinguished 
for  courage  and  bravery." — Memorial  Addresses  in  the  Senate  on  Andrew 
Johnson,  p.  14. 

6  Barnes,  The  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  p.  386. 


374j  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  loyalty  of  the  future."  Like  Governor  Andrew,  he  thought 
that  restoration  must  be  effected  by  the  willing  efforts  of  the 
South.  Johnson  would  aid  and  guide  but  not  force  the  people. 
If  the  latter  did  not  wish  restoration,  under  Lincoln's  terms 
and  his,  they  might  remain  under  military  rule.  There  should 
be  no  forced  negro  suffrage,  no  sweeping  disfranchisement  of 
whites,  no  "carpetbaggism."  "^ 

When  Congress  met  in  December  1866  the  President  sent  in 
a  message  whose  conservatism  and  dignity  surprised  the  rad- 
icals. They  had  been  looking  for  an  outburst  of  temper.  First 
he  recounted  the  steps  he  had  taken  with  a  view  to  the  gradual 
restoration  of  the  states.  Having  done  these  things,  "he  had 
done  all  that  was  within  the  scope  of  his  constitutional  au- 
thority." One  thing,  however,  "yet  remained  to  be  done  before 
the  work  of  restoration  could  be  completed,"  and  that  was 
"the  admission  to  Congress  of  loyal  Senators  and  Representa- 
tives from  the  South."  "More  than  one-fourth  of  the  whole 
number  of  states,"  he  declared,  "remained  without  representa- 
tion and  the  seats  of  fifty  members  in  the  House  and  twenty 
members  in  the  Senate  are  yet  vacant.  .  .  .  Their  admission 
would  have  accomplished  much  toward  the  renewal  and 
strengthening  of  our  relations  as  one  people;  it  would  have 
accorded  with  the  great  principles  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence that  no  people  ought  to  bear  the  burden  of  taxation 
and  yet  be  denied  the  right  of  representation.  .  .  .  Each  state 
shall  have  at  least  one  representative  .  .  .  and  no  state  with- 
out its  consent  shall  be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the 
Senate."  These  provisions,  the  President  reminded  the  Senate, 
were  "intended  to  secure  to  every  state  the  right  of  representa- 
tion. So  important  was  it  that  not  even  by  an  amendment  of 
the  Constitution  can  any  state,  without  its  consent,  be  denied 
an  equal  voice  in  the  Senate." 

The  President  next  quotes  his  resolutions  of  July  1861, 
which  declared  the  principles  upon  which  the  war  was  waged: 
"Not  in  any  spirit  of  oppression  nor  for  conquest  or  subjuga- 
tion nor  to  overthrow  or  interfere  with  the  rights  or  institu- 
tions of  the  states  but  to  defend  the  Constitution  and  preserve 

7  Fleming,  The  Sequel  of  Appomattox,  p.  68. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  375 

the  Union  with  the  rights  of  the  states  unimpaired."  All  of 
these  things  having  been  accomplished,  in  the  language  of  the 
resolution,  "the  war  ought  to  cease."  The  message  then  calls 
attention  to  acts  of  Congress  which,  from  time  to  time  during 
the  war,  recognized  the  existence  of  Tennessee  and  other  loyal 
southern  states,  and  also  to  the  action  of  the  executive  depart- 
ment of  the  Government  recognizing  such  states.  "The  recog- 
nition of  the  states  by  the  judicial  department  of  the  Govern- 
ment," the  message  continues,  "has  also  been  clear  and  con- 
clusive in  all  proceedings  affecting  them  as  states.  .  .  .  Upon 
this  question  so  vitally  affecting  the  restoration  of  the  Union 
and  permanency  of  our  present  form  of  government,"  the 
President  declares,  "my  convictions  heretofore  expressed,  have 
undergone  no  change,  but,  on  the  contrary,  their  correctness 
has  been  confirmed  by  reflection  and  time.  If  the  admission  of 
loyal  members  to  seats  in  the  respective  Houses  of  Congress  was 
wise  and  expedient  a  year  ago,  it  is  no  less  wise  and  expedient 
now.  If  this  anomalous  condition  is  right  now — if  in  the  exact 
condition  of  these  states  at  the  present  time  it  is  lawful  to 
exclude  them  from  representation — I  do  not  see  that  the  ques- 
tion will  be  changed  by  the  efflux  of  time.  Ten  years  hence, 
if  these  states  remain  as  they  are,  the  right  of  representation 
will  be  no  stronger,  the  right  of  exclusion  will  be  no  weaker."  ^ 
This  was  Andrew  Johnson's  view  of  the  Constitution  and  of 
his  duty  as  a  Constitutional  President,  and  from  this  position 
he  would  not  budge.  According  to  his  way  of  thinking  no 
state  had  committed  suicide  nor  was  the  Constitution  perma- 
nently dead.  During  the  Civil  War  the  rebellious  states  tem- 
porarily lost  their  standing  in  the  Union.  When  the  war  ended 
such  states  regained  their  statehood  and  the  Constitution  be- 
came the  supreme  law.  "On  the  question  of  punishing  rebels," 
as  has  been  well  said,  "the  Radicals  may  have  had  cause  of  com- 
plaint that  Andrew  Johnson,  in  action,  had  turned  out  so 
differently  from  Andrew  Johnson,  in  speech,  but  not  on  the 
question  of  reconstruction.  Upon  that  question  his  course  had 
been  perfectly  consistent  and  straightforward  throughout."  ^ 

8  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  Vol.  VI,  p.  448. 

9  "Vice-president  Johnson,"  Southern  Historical  Association,  Vol.  IX,  1905; 
Sehouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  28. 


876  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

As  to  the  matter  of  pardons,  he  was  liberally  extending  par- 
dons in  individual  cases.  Freely  and  wisely  he  was  exercis- 
ing this  great  power/" 

Republican  organs,  commenting  on  the  message,  charac- 
terized it  as  "a  dreary,  lifeless  document  and  on  a  par  with 
one  of  Franklin  Pierce's."  .  .  .  "The  President  has  been  re- 
duced to  a  cipher,"  they  boasted,  "and  Congress  will  deal 
with  him  so  as  to  make  him  realize  his  defeat  and  future  insig- 
nificance." ^^  Accordingly,  the  Radicals  or  Jacobins  in  Con- 
gress set  about  to  make  Johnson  a  figurehead,  a  thing  it  must 
be  admitted  they  were  fully  capable  of  undertaking.  Stevens, 
mocking  at  Johnson's  attempt  at  restoration  as  he  had  mocked 
Lincoln's  effort  to  organize  Virginia  and  give  constitutional 
life  to  the  ten  per  cent,  governments;  Sumner  "unpractical, 
theoretical,  not  troubled  by  constitutional  scruples";  Henry 
Wilson,  "the  Natick  cobbler,"  who  considered  the  Republican 
party  divine,  "created  by  no  man  or  set  of  men  but  brought 
into  being  by  Almighty  God  himself";  Morton,  who  had 
changed  front,  and  Wade,  "bluff,  coarse  and  ungenerous"; 
Boutwell,  "fanatical  and  mediocre" ;  Ben  Butler,  "a  charlatan 
and  a  demagogue,"  and  Shellabarger,  who  had  convinced  him- 
self that  "the  Confederates  had  framed  iniquity  and  universal 
murder  into  law,  poisoned  northern  wells,  put  mines  under  the 
prisons  of  Union  soldiers,  ordered  the  torch  and  yellow  fever 
to  be  carried  into  northern  cities,  to  kill  women  and  children, 
and  plan  one  universal  bonfire  of  the  North  from  Lake  On- 
tario to  the  Mississippi."  ^-  An  unfortunate  aggregation  to  be 
sure!  Writing  to  his  wife,  the  rising  young  Congressman 
Garfield,  made  tliis  comment,  "The  Radicals  must  do  some 
absurdly  extravagant  thing  to  prove  themselves  Radicals,  but 
I  am  trying  to  be  a  Radical  and  not  a  fool."  ^^ 

Undoubtedly  the  recent  election  was  an  endorsement  of  the 
plan  of  the  radicals.  The  southern  states  were  either  con- 
quered provinces  or  had  committed  suicide.  In  either  event 
there  was  no  law  and  no  constitution  for  them,  except  such  as 

lORhodoa,  nistory,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  60  and  535. 

11  Obcrholtzor,  Vol.  I,  p.  422. 

12  Fleming,  Sequel,  p.   124. 
18  Smith,  Qarficld,  p.  397. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  377 

the  conquerors  miglit  vouchsafe.  W^ith  this  mandate  from  the 
people  Congress  needed  no  further  urging.  In  order  to  bring 
to  a  test  vote  his  plan  of  treating  the  late  Confederate  States  as 
conquered  provinces  Stevens  opened  an  attack  upon  the  John- 
son governments  in  the  South.  On  December  13,  1866,  he 
offered  a  bill  to  abolish  the  government  in  North  Carolina  and 
to  reconstruct  that  State.  On  February  6,  1867,  he  reported 
from  the  joint  committee  a  general  reconstruction  bill.  This 
great  measure  is  so  important  I  have  reserved  it  for  a  separate 
chapter.  During  the  years  1866,  1867  and  1868  the  Thirty- 
ninth  Congress,  treating  the  southern  states  as  conquered 
provinces  and  unprotected  by  the  Constitution,  placed  various 
statutes  on  the  book.^*  These  statutes  were  logical  and  neces- 
sary, the  Radicals  concluded,  to  carry  out  the  mandate  of  the 
people  and  to  give  full  effect  to  the  Thirteenth  Amendment 
liberating  the  slaves.  As  they  were  mere  statutes,  however, 
and  not  yet  a  part  of  the  Constitution  it  was  understood  that 
they  were  temporary,  being  police  regulations  and  awaiting 
their  embodiment  in  the  fundamental  law.  The  Fourteenth 
Amendment,  just  submitted  to  the  states  but  not  adopted  by 
them,  had  it  been  enacted,  would  have  accomplished  this  end 
in  part. 

These  acts  were  manifestly  unconstitutional,  if  there  were  a 
Constitution  in  those  horrid  days.  Courts  and  lawyers  there- 
fore "could  only  stare  and  gasp" ;  ^^  and  historians  exclaim, 
"Oh,  monstrous !"  ^^  To  each  and  every  one  of  them  the  Presi- 
dent entered  his  protest.  With  delicate  irony  he  would  say  to 
Congress,  "The  Constitution  makes  it  the  President's  duty  to 
recommend  to  Congress  such  measures  as  he  shall  judge  neces- 
sary and  expedient  and  he  knows  of  no  measure  more  impera- 
tively demanded  than  the  admission  of  loyal  members  from  the 

14  The  dates  of  these  Acts  are  as  follows :  First  Civil  Rights  Act,  April  9, 
1866;  First  Reconstruction  Act,  January  31,  1867;  Tenure  of  Office  Act, 
March  2,  1867;  Conduct  of  the  Army  Act,  March  2,  1867;  Second  Reconstruc- 
tion Act,  March  23,  1867;  Third  Reconstruction  Act,  July  19,  1867;  Fourth 
Reconstruction  Act,  March  11,  1868;  The  Act  Admitting  North  Carolina,  etc., 
July  25,  1868;  Joint  Resolution  Excluding  Electoral  Vote  of  Louisiana  and 
other  states,  July  20,  1868. — MacDonald,  Documentary  Source  Book,  pp.  501- 
535. 

15  Dunning,  Essays,  p.  65. 

16  Burgess,  Reconstruction,  p.  127. 


378  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

now  unrepresented  states."  He  would  also  raise  the  question 
whether  there  was  a  Congress  at  all  or  only  the  part  of  a  Con- 
gress, eleven  states  being  unrepresented. 

"The  President  of  the  United  States  represents  all  the 
people,"  he  would  blandly  suggest,  and  "a  Senator  or  Con- 
gressman represents  only  one  state  or  one  district."  While  he 
would  not  interfere  with  the  discretion  of  Congress  with  regard 
to  the  qualification  of  members,  nevertheless  when  admittedly 
loyal  persons  were  asking  admission,  why  reject  them.?"  .  .  . 
"Disquiet  and  complaint  would  arise  in  the  nation  if  any  in- 
definite or  permanent  exclusion  was  enforced  and  a  sentiment 
against  the  Government  might  arise."  In  the  President's 
opinion  the  rebel  states  had  been  restored  to  the  Union,  "and  if 
they  have  not,"  said  he,  "let  us  get  together  and  secure  that 
desirable  end."  "^ 

In  his  veto  of  the  Civil  Rights  bill  the  President  declared  that 
its  details  were  fraught  with  evil.  Suddenly  to  uproot  a  civi- 
lization was  dangerous  and  time  only  could  adjust  the  rela- 
tions between  the  blacks  and  their  late  masters.  He  also  called 
attention  to  this  effort  of  Congress  to  abrogate  the  local  laws  of 
the  states.  "In  many  states  there  are  laws  forbidding  mar- 
riages between  the  races,"  he  reminded  Congress.  Did  Con- 
gress propose  to  change  this  law.f*  Quoting  Chancellor  Kent, 
that  marriages  between  whites  and  blacks  are  forbidden  by 
law  in  most  of  the  states,  and,  "whether  forbidden  or  not, 
are  revolting  and  regarded  as  an  offense  against  public  de- 
corum," ^^  the  President  asked,  "Does  Congress  propose  to  go 
into  a  state  and  overturn  its  domestic  and  local  policy.'^"  "Is 
not  Congress  endeavoring  to  change  the  Constitution  by  a 
short  cut.?"  he  enquired.  By  a  mere  statute  it  was  undertaking 
to  annul  the  precise  meaning  of  the  phrase,  "citizen  of  the 
United  States"  as  defined  in  the  Dred  Scott  case.  Congress 
would  make  citizenship  a  national  and  not  a  state  matter  and  it 
would  place  citizenship  beyond  state  influence.^*     "There  are 

ica  In  December  1927,  when  the  Senate  undertook  to  pass  on  the  qualifica- 
tions, other  than  constitutional,  of  Senators  Smith  and  Vare,  it  raised  the 
very  question  confronting  Congress  in  1865. 

1"  Richardson,  Messages,  Vol.  VI,  p.  407. 

J8  Running,  Essays,  p.  96. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  379 

no  citizens  of  the  United  States,"  he  reminded  Congress,  "only 
citizens  of  states — as  the  Supreme  Court  has  held."  Why  un- 
settle this  matter  of  citizenship? 

Johnson's  vetoes  of  the  Civil  Rights  bill  and  of  other  meas- 
ures relating  to  the  negro  were  not  because  of  animosity  toward 
the  race,  but  because  of  a  reverence  for  the  Constitution.  "He 
was  earnest  in  his  desire  that  the  negro  should  be  properly 
treated,"  and  "he  enforced  all  statutes  relating  to  the  negro, 
though  he  had  previously  vetoed  such  statutes."  ^^  Even  as  to 
so-called  southern  Black  Codes,  Johnson  well  knew  that  these 
codes,  far  from  embodying  any  spirit  of  defiance  for  the 
North  or  any  purpose  to  evade  conditions,  which  the  victor  had 
imposed,  were  in  the  main  "a  conscientious  and  straightfor- 
ward attempt  to  bring  some  sort  of  order  out  of  the  social  and 
economic  chaos  which  a  full  acceptance  of  the  results  of  the  war 
involved."  ^° 

In  vetoing  this  mass  of  unconstitutional  legislation,  how  far 
into  the  future  did  President  Johnson  peer?  Congress  was 
engaged  in  overturning  a  proud  and  self-contained  civilization, 
one  which  had  produced  Washington,  Marshall,  Jefferson, 
Henry,  Madison,  Andrew  Jackson,  and  Robert  E.  Lee.  When 
Johnson  warned  Congress  of  the  danger  of  this  task  and  of  the 
folly  of  thrusting  the  ballot  into  the  hands  of  four  million 
ignorant  blacks,  at  a  time  when  negro  suffrage  was  not  gen- 
erally allowed  in  the  North,  "engendering  a  hatred  between 
the  races,  deep-rooted  and  ineradicable,  preventing  them  from 
living  together  in  a  state  of  mutual  friendliness,"  did  he  fore- 
see conditions  as  they  are  to-day?  "The  sudden  gift  of  the 
ballot  to  men  wholly  unprepared  to  use  it,"  said  Dunning  of 
Columbia  University  in  1901,  "was  a  most  dangerous  policy. 
...  It  is  equally  apparent  that  insofar  as  partisan  motive 
was  dominant  in  the  transaction,  partisanship  has  paid  the 
penalty.  ...  In  the  South  the  negro  enjoys  practically  no 
political  rights,  the  influence  of  the  negro  in  political  affairs  is 
'nil'  and  the  Republican  party  but  the  shadow  of  a  name."  ^^ 

19  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  27 ;  Schofield,  Forty-six  Years,  p.  420. 

20  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  58. 

21  "The  United  States  is  doing  with  the  Filipinos  what  the  South  is  doing 
with  the  negro.     Why  may  not  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  apply  the 


380  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

The  connection  of  Stanton,  the  great  War  Secretary,  with 
the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  exhibits  the  temper  of  that  wretched 
period.  Stanton  first  advised  with  the  radicals  as  to  the 
passage  of  this  measure;  after  its  adoption  he  wrote  the  mes- 
sage vetoing  it.  After  the  veto  was  overruled  he  stuck  to  his 
job,  though  ordered  to  vacate,  becoming  bolder  and  more  open 
in  opposition  to  the  President.^^  This  veto  is  "the  masterpiece 
of  political  logic."  ^^  It  may  be  added  it  put  Congress  in  a 
hole  from  which  it  never  extricated  itself — and  destroyed  Sec- 
retary Stanton,  as  will  presently  appear. 

If  there  had  been  no  negro  problem  reconstruction  would 
have  been  less  difficult.  When  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  set 
the  negro  free  he  became,  as  we  have  seen,  a  full  unit  in  esti- 
mating the  population  and  not  three-fifths  of  a  unit  as  in 
slave  days.  Hence  southern  representation  in  Congress,  by 
virtue  of  this  amendment,  would  be  increased  more  than  thirty 
per  cent.  Yet  the  negro  could  not  vote.  Manifestly  this  was 
unjust  to  the  North  and  this  Johnson  was  willing  to  rectify, 
as  appears  when  he  requested  Congress  to  meet  him  and  "ar- 
range terms  of  amicable  settlement."  The  President  wished  to 
estimate  representation  according  to  population,  excluding  any 
class  not  allowed  to  vote.  This  position  he  made  plain  on 
numerous  occasions. 

In  vetoing  these  acts  of  Congress  Johnson  maintained  that 
he  was  not  obstructing  legislation  but  advancing  it,  and  keep- 
ing faith  with  the  new  South.  As  he  reasoned,  in  such  matters 
he  was  also  acting  especially  for  the  people.  In  Roman  days, 
as  he  once  showed  in  a  speech  to  Congress,  the  Tribunes  of 
the  people  exercised  the  veto  power  for  the  public  good  and 
not  for  the  king  or  the  ruling  classes.  In  the  thirties,  when 
Congress  censured  Andrew  Jackson  for  vetoing  the  Bank  bill, 
"Old  Hickory"  entered  his  protest  to  such  censure.  As  the 
law-making  power,  under  the  Constitution,  consisted  of  both 
Congress  and  the  President,  no  bill  could  become  a  law  witli- 

shot-gun  policy  as  well  as  the  United  8tatca?" — Atlantic  Monthly,  Vol. 
LXVIII,  p.  434.  "The  JSIorth  has  had  a  change  of  mind  and  heart,"  says 
Burgess,  p.  298. 

22  DeWitt,  Impeachment,  pp.  202  and  270;  Welles,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  54;  Dunning, 
Reconstruction,  p.   01;   American  Historical  Review,  December  4,   1885. 

23  Burgess,  Reconstruction,  p.  127. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  381 

out  the  President's  signature,  except  by  a  two-thirds  over- 
riding vote.  As  President  Johnson  was  a  part  of  Congress 
in  this  matter  of  enacting  laws,  he  could  not  understand 
how  he  was  censurable  for  exercising  his  constitutional  veto 
power."*  The  popular  idea  that  Johnson  is  the  "veto"  Presi- 
dent is  not  correct,  at  least  so  far  as  the  number  of  bills 
vetoed  is  concerned.  At  the  end  of  Cleveland's  administration 
there  had  been  four  hundred  and  thirty-three  vetoes.  Of  these 
Johnson  had  vetoed  twenty-one  bills.  Grant  forty-three,  Cleve- 
land three  hundred  and  one.  The  remaining  vetoes  are  divided 
out  among  the  other  presidents ;  Jefferson  vetoed  no  bill  but 
left  such  matters  to  Congress.  Two  of  Andrew  Johnson's 
vetoes  prevented  a  New  York  mining  corporation  getting 
illegal  control  of  certain  Montana  lands. "^ 

Johnson's  state  papers,  including  vetoes,  were  uniformly  in 
good  temper,  conservative,  historical  and  well  considered.  In 
the  preparation  of  them  he  made  use  of  every  person  on  whom 
he  could  lay  his  hands.  Bancroft  wrote  the  first  message  to 
Congress;  Jerre  Black,  the  hero  of  Ex  Parte  Milligan,  wrote 
the  reconstruction  veto ;  Seward,  the  precise  scholar,  supervised 
much  that  the  President  wrote ;  Stanton,  the  practical  lawyer, 
wrote  the  bill  to  admit  North  Carolina  and  other  states  into  the 
Union  in  1865  ;  the  Attorney-General,  Welles,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  and  other  members  of  the  cabinet  he  frequently  used. 
Neither  a  lawyer  nor  a  statistician,  Johnson  relied  on  the  legal 
profession  to  furnish  the  law  and  on  the  experts  to  make  reports 
on  their  various  departments.  In  pursuing  this  course,  and  in 
fighting  the  enemies  of  the  Constitution  with  his  might,  the 
President  was  following  precedent.  Hamilton's  hand  is  plainly 
seen  in  Washington's  farewell  address ;  Livingston  wrote  Jack- 
son's Nullification  Proclamation;  and,  in  later  days,  Olney  is 
discovered  in  Cleveland's  Venezuela  message,  and  Hay  in  Mc- 
Kinley's  state  papers.  Webster's  connection  with  President 
Taylor's  inaugural  is  well  known.  As  Mrs.  Seaton,  at 
whose  house  Webster  was  staying,  tells  the  story,  Mr.  Webster 
came  in  one  day  after  having  read  and  corrected  Taylor's  vo- 

24  Harvard  Historical  Monograph,  "Veto  Power  of  the  President,"  p.  33. 

25  Veto  Power,  supra,  p.  133. 


382  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

luminous  inaugural  manuscript,  abounding  in  allusions  to 
Roman  history.  "You  look  worried,  Mr.  Webster,"  she  said. 
"Has  anything  happened.?"  "If  you  knew  what  I  have  done," 
Webster  replied,  "you  would  think  so.  I've  just  killed  seven- 
teen Roman  pro-consuls."  ^^ 

That  Johnson  openly  requested  his  cabinet  to  write  certain 
of  his  state  papers  would  seem  to  rebut  the  idea,  so  widely  cir- 
culated, that  he  was  endeavoring  to  conceal  the  fact  that  he 
did  not  compose  them.  Certainly,  when  he  filed  away  among 
his  valuable  papers  his  first  message  to  Congress,  largely  in 
the  handwriting  of  Bancroft,  he  was  not  endeavoring  to  de- 
ceive the  public  as  to  its  authorship.^^  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Bancroft's  part  in  this  message  was  to  whip  it  into  shape.  He 
took  Johnson's  speeches  on  the  Constitution  and  Union  and 
threw  them  into  a  connected  and  attractive  whole.  This  will 
appear  from  a  study  of  the  message  itself.  The  last  fourteen 
paragraphs,  relating  to  the  work  of  the  departments,  are 
purely  technical. 

The  introduction  is  the  work  of  Bancroft  alone.  Johnson 
did  not  write  smoothly  and  flowingly  as  in  that  first  paragraph. 
The  next  paragraph,  covering  a  full  page,  and  also  paragraph 
twelve  follow  Johnson's  speech  of  December  18  and  19,  1860. 
The  illustrations  throughout  and  references  to  Jefferson  were 
constantly  in  Johnson's  mouth  during  the  war.  The  third 
paragraph  is  thoroughly  Johnsonian.  Reference  to  "the  suf- 
fering revolutionary  patriots,"  to  "arbitrary  power,"  to  the 
"absorption  of  state  governments  by  the  general  government" 
and  to  the  fear  that  "the  states  might  break  away  from  their 
orbits,"  suggest  one  of  Johnson's  old  Tennessee  mountain 
speeches  in  the  "Roaring  '40's,"  when  "Federal  blue  lights 
were  burning  low."  Paragraphs  four  and  five  contain  ex- 
tracts from  Jackson's  Nullification  Proclamation  which  John- 
son often  quoted. 

The  sixth  paragraph  and  part  of  the  seventh  are  formal. 
The  last  part  of  the  seventh  is  taken  from  an  interview  with 

2e  Nation,  Vol.  LXXXII,  p.  91;  American  Historical  Rcvieic,  Vol.  II,  p.  951; 
Bookman,  Vol.  XXXIV,  p.  500. 

27  This  paper  may  now  be  seen  among  the  Jolinaon  manuscripts  at  Wash- 
ington. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  883 

the  Indiana  delegation  in  April  1865.  Paragraphs  eight  to 
eleven  merely  state  the  President's  views  on  reconstruction, 
and  are  not  significant.  Paragraph  thirteen  suggests  the 
famous  Stearns  interview  in  October  1865  which  Johnson 
signed  with  his  own  hand.  Paragraphs  fourteen  to  sixteen 
explain  the  acts  of  his  administration  and  are  not  significant ; 
the  sixteenth  paragraph  also  calls  to  mind  Johnson's  address 
in  April  1865  to  Loyal  Southerners.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  entire  message  is  the  product  of  Andrew  Johnson,  though 
its  literary  flavor  is  due  to  the  historian,  Bancroft.^^ 

In  the  fall  and  winter  of  1866  and  1867,  when  the  southern 
states  and  some  of  the  northern  states  refused  to  ratify  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment,-^  Conservatives  like  Fessenden,  Sher- 
man, and  Garfield  considered  that  Congress  had  done  its  duty 
by  the  South.  The  South  had  been  given  a  chance  on  liberal 
terms  and  had  refused  it.^°  Radicals  began  to  run  a  race  to 
see  which  could  prove  himself  the  most  radical,  oftentimes 
becoming  vindictive  and  going  to  useless  lengths.  On  January 
8,  1867,  Sumner  "nagged"  the  District  of  Columbia  bill 
through  Congress  over  the  President's  veto.  This  act  gave  the 
ballot  to  the  negroes  in  the  district,^^  though  there  was  no  de- 
mand for  such  legislation  and  the  proposal  had  been  voted 
down  a  few  weeks  earlier  by  a  vote  of  6525  to  35  in  Wash- 
ington, and  812  to  1  in  Georgetown.^"  So  unprepared  were 
the  negroes  in  Washington  for  the  ballot  that  fraud,  corrup- 
tion, and  violence  followed  in  the  wake  of  this  statute.  In  1874 
Congress  repealed  the  act,  and  placed  the  Capitol  under  a 
board  of  three  commissioners. 

The  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  of  March  1867,  undertaking  to  tie 
the  President's  hands  and  to  make  his  subordinate  officers  inde- 
pendent of  him,  was  vicious  legislation.  Not  only  was  it  un- 
constitutional and  so  declared  by  the  courts,  but  "it  was  not 
at  all  necessary."  .   .  .  "It  grew  out  of  a  family  quarrel  in  the 

28 1  have  followed  the  American  Historical  Review,  Vol.  XI,  p.  952,  in  this 
analysis. 

29  Kentucky,  Maryland  and  Delaware  rejected  this  amendment  and  in  Janu- 
ary 1868  New  York  and  New  Jersey  withdrew  their  approval. 

30  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  475. 

31  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  94. 

32  Fleming,  Sequel  to  Appomattox,  p.  134;  Burgess,  Reconstruction,  p.  109. 


384)  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

heat  and  excitement  of  the  day  and  was  intended  to  worry  and 
insult  the  President."  ^^  At  this  time  Congress  was  angered  at 
the  Supreme  Court  "because  of  decisions  adverse  to  their  rad- 
ical theory,"  ^*  and  was  determined  to  make  a  cipher  of  that 
court  as  well  as  of  the  President. ^^  Though  little  legislation 
was  enacted  hostile  to  the  Supreme  Court  it  was  made  to  under- 
stand that  Congress  would  tolerate  no  interference.^^  Well 
might  the  court  fear  a  Congress  Avhich  deprived  it  of  juris- 
diction in  a  criminal  case,  in  order  to  save  reconstruction  legis- 
lation from  being  overturned.  This  Congress  did  after  the 
matter  had  reached  a  hearing.^^  Congress  likewise  reduced 
the  court  from  nine  to  seven  to  prevent  Conservatives  from 
being  added  to  it  by  the  President. 

Perhaps  the  veto  of  the  Civil  Rights  bill  created  more  bitter- 
ness than  any  other  veto.  Stewart  of  Nevada,  who  had  been 
the  President's  supporter,  in  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  matter, 
turned  against  him,  pursuing  him  ever  after,  writing  news- 
paper articles  and  his  own  Reminiscences  full  of  bitterness  as 
well  as  of  misstatements.^®  Sherman,  Trumbull  and  Fessen- 
den,  who  had  also  been  friendly  to  the  President,  became  an- 
tagonistic. Radicals  of  the  Ben  Wade  type  were  furious. 
When  a  vote  was  to  be  taken  on  this  veto  a  conservative  Sen- 
ator rose  and  requested  a  postponement  of  the  matter  for 
one  day  to  allow  a  sick  member  an  opportunity  to  be  present. 
Thereupon  Wade  indulged  in  a  tirade  beyond  precedent. 
Gloating  over  the  sickness  of  the  absent  Senator,  Wade  ex- 
claimed, "I  feel  justified  in  taking  advantage  of  what  the 
Almighty  has  put  in  my  hand  and  I  will  tell  the  President 
if  God  Almighty  has  stricken  one  member  so  he  cannot  be  here 
to  uphold  the  dictation  of  a  despot,  I  thank  Him  for  his  inter- 

33  Blaine,  Ttcenty  Years,  Vol.  II,  p.  274;  Civil  Rights  Cases,  United  States 
Reports,  Vol.  109,  p.  3;  Myers  vs.  United  States,  decided  in  October  1926. 

34  Dunning,  Essays,  p.  121;  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  90. 

^^  Ex  I'arte  Milligan,  4  Wall.  2;  Cummings  vs.  Missouri,  4  Wall.  277  and 
Ex  Parte  Oarland,  4  Wall.  3.33;  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  89. 

36  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  pp.  256-258. 

s"!  McCardle  Case;  Dunning,  Essat/s.  p.  137;  Burgess,  p.  107. 

38  The  quotation,  in  my  Introduction,  that  Johnson,  at  the  time  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln's  death,  was  intoxicated  and  that  Stewart  and  his  friends  took 
him  to  the  White  House  may  illustrate  other  statements  by  Senator  Stewart. 
At  that  time,  as  I  have  stated,  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  occupying  the  White  House 
and  remained  more  than  a  month. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  385 

position."  The  Senate  was  shocked.  The  golden-hearted  Mc- 
Dougall,  Senator  from  Cahfornia,  and  the  most  brilHant  man 
in  the  body  though  sometimes  intemperate,  steadied  himself  to 
reply : 

"The  Senator  from  Ohio,"  said  McDougall,  "is  in  the  habit 
of  appealing  to  his  God  in  vindication  of  his  judgment  and 
conduct.  It  is  a  common  thing  for  him  to  do  so.  But  in  view 
of  his  demonstration  it  may  well  be  asked  who  and  what  is  his 
God — Ormudz  or  Abriman,  the  god  of  lightness  and  beauty  or 
the  god  of  death  .^  .  .  .  Well  or  ill,  God  has  made  him  ill,  sir, 
and  the  god  of  evil  and  of  death  is  his  god.  I  never  expected 
to  hear  such  objections  raised  by  an  honorable  member — to 
hear  such  things  in  this  hall — and  I  rise  simply  to  say  that  such 
sentiments  were  to  be  condemned  and  must  receive  mj'  con- 
demnation and  if  it  amounts  to  a  rebuke,  I  trust  it  may  be  a 
rebuke."    Immediately  the  Senate  adjourned  till  the  next  day. 

In  February  1867  an  effort  was  made  by  the  Conservatives 
of  North  Carolina  to  formulate  a  plan  to  take  the  place  of  the 
defeated  Fourteenth  Amendment. ^°  There  is  no  direct  evi- 
dence that  the  plan  had  Johnson's  approval.  Anj'^way,  the 
Legislature  refused  to  accept  it  doubtless  asking,  what  is  the 
good?  In  1865,  though  it  had  adopted  one  plan,  it  had  been 
turned  down  by  Congress.  Why  try  another.'^  The  proposed 
amendment  is  nevertheless  interesting.  It  provided  that  (1) 
no  state  could  of  its  own  will  leave  the  L'nion  or  be  ejected 
from  it;  (2)  the  public  debt  of  the  Linited  States  should  be 
observed  and  paid;  (3)  citizenship  should  be  as  provided  in 
the  defeated  Fourteenth  Amendment;  (-i)  numbers  should  be 
the  basis  of  representation  and  if  any  class  were  not  allowed 
to  vote  it  should  be  excluded.  A  part  of  the  plan  was  that  a 
state  amendment  should  likewise  be  adopted  that  "any  male 
citizen  who  had  been  one  year  in  the  state,  six  months  in  the 
countj^  and  could  read  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
the  Constitution  and  wTite  his  name  or  who  may  be  the  owner 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  of  taxable  property  shall  be 

39  My  father,  Patrick  Henry  Winston,  President  of  Governor  Worth's  Council 
of  State,  was  with  the  Committee  which  prepared  this  measure. — Hamilton, 
lieconstruction,  p.  1S7. 


386  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

entitled  to  vote."  *°  Rhodes  is  correct  in  his  condemnation  of 
Johnson  if  he  approved  this  measure ;  *^  but  the  Raleigh  Sen- 
tinel, a  Johnson  paper,  on  February  7,  1867,  announced  that 
the  President  "was  standing  by  his  own  plan."  The  North 
Carolina  plan  embraces  Johnson's  position,  however,  except  as 
to  citizenship.  It  puts  reconstruction  up  to  the  states,  guard- 
ing and  protecting  the  intelligent  negro  in  his  ballot. 

To  enforce  and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  negro  gov- 
ernments in  the  South,  Johnson  well  knew,  and  so  advised  Con- 
gress, that  it  would  require  an  expenditure  of  two  hundred 
million  dollars  a  year,  besides  the  evil  consequences  that  would 
result  from  the  effort  to  Africanize  one-third  the  country.*" 
At  all  events,  Johnson  stood  by  the  Constitution.  And  after 
the  southern  states  in  1865  had  accepted  presidential  recon- 
struction, in  good  faith,  and  the  Civil  War  had  ended,  was  he 
not  right  in  his  course.'^  Would  not  Lincoln  have  kept  faith 
with  a  repentant  South,  as  he  did  with  Louisiana  in  1865.'' 
Despite  Memphis  and  New  Orleans  riots  and  the  unsettled  con- 
dition of  the  Southern  States — grooving  out  of  the  war,  and 
out  of  the  shock  of  freeing  the  slaves — these  states  were  never- 
theless loyal.  There  were  not  sufficient  reasons,  as  we  of  to-day 
see,  for  excluding  the  southern  Representatives  from  Congress. 
When  Congress  met  in  December  1865  not  only  was  the  South 
loyal  but  the  original  Secessionists  were  in  disrepute.  This 
is  a  cardinal  point,  one  that  I  must  urge  again.  Wigfall,  Iver- 
son,  Toombs,  Slidell,  Rhett,  Yancey,  Yulee,  Mason,  even 
Jefferson  Davis — less  belligerent  in  I860  than  earlier — none 
of  these  were  in  evidence.  It  is  true  that  Alex  Stephens,  the 
unhappy  Vice-president  of  the  late  Confederacy  and  IMr.  Lin- 
coln's old  Whig  and  Union-loving  friend,  was  in  Washington 
knocking  at  the  door  of  Congress.  So  was  that  other  Whig 
lover  of  the  Union,  W.  A.  Graham,  late  of  the  Confederate 
Senate.     General  Gordon,  a  Unionist,  through  and  through, 

*o  Ajinual  Encyclopcedia,  1865,  p.  132. 

41  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  11.  This  proposition  was  submitted  by  North  Cnro- 
lina  in  February  1867  to  avoid  the  Reconstruction  Act,  then  pending  and  cer- 
tain to  ])ass. 

■»■-  Blaine  ridicules  Johnson's  position,  but  must  it  not  be  said  that  the 
unsettled  negro  question  has  cost  the  nation  more  than  the  President  esti- 
mated ?— Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  300. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO 


i)»< 


and  a  handful  of  other  lesser  Confederate  lights  had  also  been 
elected  to  Congress.  But  these  men,  too,  were  loyal  to  the 
L^nion.  They  had  espoused  the  Confederate  cause  by  force  of 
circumstances,  when  every  attribute  of  manhood  drove  them  to 
that  course.  After  it  was  decided  in  that  Brothers'  War  that 
the  southern  man  must  fight  with  his  state  or  against  it  these 
lovers  of  the  Union  with  a  sad  heart  had  joined  the  Confed- 
eracy. President  Johnson  knew  that  Horace  Maynard,  W.  A. 
Graham  and  Alex  Stephens  were  as  true  to  the  Union  in  1865 
as  they  had  been  before  the  Civil  War.  Though  Secretary 
Seward,  of  kind  and  optimistic  nature,  encouraged  President 
Johnson  in  his  conciliatory  course  toward  the  South,  he  needed 
no  such  outside  aid.  Johnson  was  a  kind  and  a  forgiving  man, 
as  Secretary  McCulloch  declares.  "When  the  fight  was  over 
he  bore  no  malice."  ^^ 

Before  the  southern  states  accepted  presidential  reconstruc- 
tion, in  the  fall  of  1865,  it  was  doubtful  as  to  what  course  the 
President  should  take  in  dealing  with  these  states.  Theoreti- 
cally either  the  extreme  Radical  like  Stephens  was  correct  or 
the  extreme  Copperhead  like  Vallandigham.  That  is,  either 
the  South  was  conquered  territory,  to  be  dealt  with  as  such,  or 
else  it  was  as  much  a  part  of  the  Union  as  before  the  Civil  War. 
Johnson  followed  Lincoln  and  the  Constitution,  and  put 
natural  and  necessary  terms  of  restoration  upon  the  South. 
These  terms  appear  to  have  been  acceded  to  in  good  faith. 
Under  these  circumstances  should  not  Congress  have  followed 
the  advice  of  the  martyred  President,  should  they  not  have 
hesitated  a  long  time  before  dashing  from  southern  lips  the 
cup  which  had  been  extended  to  them?  ^*  In  1862,  to  save  the 
Union,  Lincoln  had  torn  the  Constitution  to  shreds  and  put 

43  Stanton  was  perhaps  Johnson's  most  implacable  foe  and  yet  the  President 
in  December  1868  attended  Stanton's  funeral  and  made  a  short  talk.  It  is 
reported  as  follows:  "He  was  my  friend,  a  friend  who  did  not  always  under- 
stand me.  He  was  one  of  the  most  able  men  I  ever  knew  and  one  of  the  most 
honest  men  I  ever  knew.  If  he  had  faults  they  were  of  the  head  and  not  of 
the  heart.  And  now  all  we  remember  is  his  zeal,  his  earnest  zeal  for  the 
good,  his  upright  intellect,  his  matchless  ability  of  brain.  Let  love  mingle 
with  memory  and  peace  be  accorded  his  ashes."— Hubbard,  The  Tale  of  Two 
Tailors,  p.  12;  at  the  end  of  his  bitter  campaign  in  1853,  Johnson  and  his 
opponent  shook  hands  and  went  their  ways. — True  Whig,  August  4,  1853. 

44  C.  F.  Adams,  Address  on  Lee  at  Lexington,  Va.;  Rhodes,  Vol.  IV,  p.  240. 


388  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

men  in  jail  without  the  semblance  of  law;  in  December  1865, 
after  the  war  was  over,  would  he  have  trampled  on  the  Consti- 
tution to  save  the  Republican  party? 

There  were  many  noble  men  in  Congress — Fessenden,  Hen- 
derson, Sherman,  Grimes,  Trumbull — who  would  not  follow 
Lincoln's  last  public  advice.  They  contended  that  Lincoln 
would  have  changed  his  mind  had  he  lived,  that  "he  would  have 
rejected  without  hesitation  any  system  of  which  the  fruits  were 
a  little  more  than  a  nullification  of  his  decree  of  emancipa- 
tion." ^^  Is  it  not  more  charitable  to  conclude  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln would  not  have  reversed  himself  in  this  matter;  that  he 
would  have  been  well  pleased  at  the  loyalty  of  the  South  in  the 
fall  of  1865,  that  he  would  have  kept  faith  with  the  National 
Union  party,  a  party  composed  of  Whigs,  Free  Soilers,  and 
War  Democrats.^  This  party  had  solidified  the  nation  in 
July  1861,  saved  the  Union  at  the  polls  in  1862,  brought  sev- 
eral hundred  thousand  Border  soldiers  into  the  Union  army, 
and  reelected  Lincoln  President  in  1864.^^ 

The  plea  that  Congress  was  justified  in  going  back  on  its 
resolution  of  July  22,  1861,  was  met  by  President  Johnson  in 
his  message  to  Congress  in  1867.  He  reminded  Congress  that 
the  resolution  was  "a  solemn,  official  pledge  of  the  national 
honor"  and  he  could  "not  imagine  on  what  grounds  the  repudi- 
ation of  it  is  to  be  justified."  .  .  .  "If  it  be  said,"  the  Presi- 
dent went  on,  with  fine  irony,  "that  we  are  not  bound  to  keep 
faith  with  the  rebels  let  it  be  remembered  that  this  pledge  was 
not  made  to  rebels  only.    Thousands  of  true  men  in  the  South 

45  McCarthy,  Lincoln's  Plan  of  Reconstruction,  p.  487;  McCarthy  intimates 
that  the  July  1861  resolutions,  defining  tlie  objects  of  the  war,  were  passed, 
Dot  in  good  faith,  but  as  a  means  of  winning  the  war;  that  when  the  South 
continued  to  fight  circumstances  were  so  changed  there  was  no  longer  a 
reason  for  sticking  to  the  original  bargain. 

4G  On  the  day  after  the  November  1862  election  the  New  York  Times 
declared  that  "a  feeling  of  gloomy  anticipation  surrounds  the  administra- 
tion." At  that  time  Illinois,  Mr.  Lincoln's  state,  toyed  with  Copperheadism, 
electing  eleven  Democratic  Congressmen  and  only  three  Republicans.  New 
York  went  against  the  war  and,  "in  the  great  cordon  of  Free  States  begin- 
ning with  New  York  and  New  Jersey  on  the  Atlantic  and  extending  to  Mis- 
souri the  Copperhead  majority  in  Congress  was  twenty-three."  This  majority, 
however,  was  overcome  by  Union  victories  in  the  Border  States  and  thus,  and 
thus  only,  l\Ir.  Lincoln  was  enabled  to  carry  on. — Julian,  Recollections,  p.  215; 
McCall,  'tltevcns,  p.  221;  Khodes,  Vol.  IV,  p.  163. 


VETO  FOLLOWS  VETO  389 

were  drawn  to  our  standard  by  it  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
in  the  North  gave  their  Hves  in  the  belief  it  could  be  carried 
out."  Regardless  of  warnings,  however,  Congress  went  its 
precipitate  way,  passing  laws,  which,  as  Rhodes  remarks,  must 
have  made  Conservatives  exclaim, 

"Oh,  most  wicked  speed! 
It  is  not  nor  it  can  not  come  to  good." 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION 

Two  years  had  gone  by  since  Lee  surrendered,  and  the 
Southern  States  were  still  out  of  the  Union  and  the  fight  be- 
tween the  President  and  Congress  growing  fiercer.  After  the 
1866  election  Johnson  realized  that  his  "swing  around  the 
circle"  had  not  worked  and  that  the  people  as  well  as  the  poli- 
ticians seemed  to  be  against  him.  But  he  was  determined  to 
fight  on  and,  with  his  back  to  the  wall,  meet  the  enemies  of  the 
Constitution.  In  this  conflict  he  had  the  support  of  his  entire 
cabinet  except  Stanton.  Gideon  Welles,  "the  old  bushy- 
bearded  Connecticut  deacon,"  as  Governor  Andrew  laughingly 
called  him,  was  more  aggressive  than  Johnson  himself ;  Seward 
was  equally  loyal,  though  Welles  declared  he  was  "always  danc- 
ing around  the  Radicals" ;  and  so  were  Attorney-General  Stan- 
bery,  McCulloch,  Randall  and  Browning.  The  cabinet,  in  fact, 
were  becoming  genuinely  attached  to  the  fearless,  lonesome 
and  determined  President.  His  abstemious  and  heroic  life,  the 
loyalty  of  his  wife  and  daughters,  their  wholesome,  unpreten- 
tious lives,  and  the  general  atmosphere  of  the  White  House  ap- 
pealed not  only  to  the  cabinet  but  to  thoughtful  people  in  the 
country  at  large.  It  was  a  fine  thing  to  see  Spartan  virtue 
and  simplicity  in  high  place. 

After  his  unfortunate  speeches  in  1866  the  President  con- 
ducted his  controversy  in  courteous  and  parliamentary  lan- 
guage. Yet  he  gave  offense  to  the  practical,  conservative  Re- 
publicans who  wished  the  deadlock  ended.  These  men  were 
wounded  because  the  President  constantly  referred  to  the 
legislative  body  as  only  a  part  of  Congress.  They  knew  that 
Congress,  as  then  constituted,  had  legislated  for  many  years. 
Fcsscnden,  Grimes,  Henderson,  Sherman,  Bingham  and  other 
Senators  and  Congressmen,  who  knew  and  appreciated  what 
Johnson  had  done  for  the  Union,  were  personally  fond  of  him, 

390 


7S<  /.•*»  _. . 


/'  IHilf  ■!•'  on  Mitt!  ■'..  .••.■..•.>i    ■.    /..  I-,-.' 
.■,.-.y,.- i  'i)i/rt,</f-/ij   tc-^i   .?(i/.rt'-: 


Till  ^iSfe.ilfi-gl'SBttiUij  f5ii!l£'y  ti?-Cfi^;S!g2§-8,  As  iUiistraied  in  Califorii.d. 


Reconstruction,  as  Illustrated  in  California 


THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION  391 

but  were  beginning  to  regard  him  as  a  theorist  and  an  ob- 
stinate theorist  beside.  Though  they  disHked  Stevens'  and 
Sumner's  radicahsm,  Httle  by  Httle  they  were  forced  to  follow 
it.  No  other  course  was  open.  In  December  1S66  Congress 
grew  alarmed  at  the  President's  action  in  vetoing  bills  and 
passed  a  resolution  that  the  Fortieth  Congress  should  meet 
March  4,  1867,  instead  of  in  December  1867  as  usual.  This 
was  done  in  order  to  keep  watch  over  him.  On  March  4  Con- 
gress met  and  by  the  thirtieth  had  completed  its  work  and  was 
ready  to  adjourn.  The  Radicals  were  unwilling  to  this. 
They  dared  not  leave  the  Government  a  single  day  in  the 
hands  of  this  "bad  man,"  as  Sumner  called  the  President. 
Therefore  an  adjournment  was  taken  until  July  3  and  on  the 
thirtieth  of  that  month,  all  business  being  finished,  Congress 
was  again  ready  to  adjourn  sine  die.  Sumner,  Howard  and 
others  objected  and  an  adjournment  was  taken  to  November 
25.  These  adjournments  caused  the  people  to  fear  that  there 
was  a  secret  danger,  known  only  to  Congress,  and  tended  to 
add  to  the  general  sense  of  uneasiness. 

In  his  veto  of  the  Army  bill  the  President  had  spoken  his 
mind  to  Congress,  condemning  their  effort  to  legislate  him  out 
of  office  and  to  make  a  cipher  of  the  Executive.  "While  I  hold 
the  chief  executive  authority  of  the  United  States,"  he  de- 
clared, "while  the  obligation  rests  upon  me  to  see  that  all  laws 
are  faithfully  executed,  I  can  never  willingly  surrender  that 
trust  or  the  powers  given  for  its  execution.  I  can  never  give 
my  assent  to  be  made  responsible  for  the  faithful  execution  of 
laws,  and  at  the  same  time  surrender  that  trust  and  the  powers 
which  accompany  it  to  any  other  executive  officer,  high  or  low, 
or  to  any  number  of  executive  officers."  This  statement  of  the 
President  Congress  construed  as  a  threat  to  overthrow  the 
government  by  force. 

In  March  1867  an  event  of  the  greatest  consequence  had 
occurred:  A  general  plan  of  reconstruction  was  formulated 
and  adopted  by  Congress.  Previous  to  that  time  there  had 
been  much  delay,  either  for  partisan  reasons  or  because  no 
agreement  could  be  reached.  In  May  of  the  previous  year, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  Reconstruction  Committee,  having  finished 


392  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

its  labors  and  reported  its  work  to  Congress,  ceased  to  function 
for  the  remainder  of  the  year.  Their  labors  consisted  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  and  this  the  southern  states  had  re- 
fused to  adopt.  Therefore  the  work  of  the  committee  was 
blocked.  That  Johnson  did  what  he  could  to  defeat  this 
amendment  is  true,  but  that  his  influence  caused  its  defeat  by 
the  South  is  more  than  doubtful.  After  the  summer  of  1865 
the  southern  states  were  acting  for  themselves  and  were  con- 
stantly running  counter  to  the  President's  wishes.  In  the  fall 
of  that  year  North  Carolina,  Johnson's  native  State  and  more 
devoted  to  him  than  any  of  the  other  states  except  Tennessee, 
repudiated  Holden,  Johnson's  candidate  for  Governor,  and 
elected  Worth.  In  Alabama  and  Mississippi  the  President's 
candidates  had  likewise  been  defeated.^ 

In  truth  the  only  time  the  southern  people  were  really 
frightened  was  immediately  after  the  collapse  of  the  Confed- 
eracy. "After  the  1866  elections  they  regarded  the  Four- 
teenth Amendment  as  inevitable,  and  negro  suffrage  as  a 
possibility,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  they  ever  seriously 
considered  that  they  would  again  be  placed  under  military  rule, 
their  state  governments  overthrown,  and  new  governments 
established  in  which  apostates  to  their  cause,  northern  adven- 
turers and  negroes  would  have  the  controlling  influence."  ^ 
If  Congress,  in  1866,  had  coupled  with  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment a  provision  that  upon  its  adoption  the  Southern  States 
would  be  admitted  into  the  Union,  it  is  probable  the  amendment 
would  have  been  adopted,  despite  the  disfranchising  clause. 

But  at  no  time  did  the  Radicals  consider  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  the  complete  plan  of  reconstruction.  "It  was  but 
the  first  step  and  others  were  to  f  oIIoav."  ^  If  this  amendment 
was  not  a  final  settlement  of  reconstruction,  it  may  be  asked 
what  then  was  it?  An  answer  to  this  question  was  given  by 
the  New  York  Herald  of  June  12,  1866.  "Tliis  Congressional 
proposition,"  said  the  Herald^  "is  an  ingeniously  contrived 

1  Oberholtzer,  History,  Vol.  I,  p.  125. 

2  Kondrick,  Committee  of  Fifteen,  p.  351:  "Those  writers  who  attempt  to 
shift  upon  the  South  a  part  of  the  blame  for  the  evils  of  reconstruction  are 
hardly  justified." 

^  Ihid.,  Comm^ittce,  p.  314. 


THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION  393 

party  platform  for  the  coming  fall  elections."  In  New  Eng- 
land it  was  understood  that  the  amendment  was  not  final,  and 
the  Independent,  the  Radical  organ,  of  November  18,  1866, 
scouted  the  idea.*  In  fact,  the  Stevens  bill  accompanying  the 
amendment,  and  declaring  the  same  to  be  a  finality,  was 
laughed  at  by  the  author  himself,  kicked  around  in  the  House, 
delayed,  postponed  and  finally  tabled  by  a  vote  of  101  to  35. 
Morton  and  possibly  Blow  in  the  Senate  were  the  only  members 
willing  to  keep  the  faith.  "Thus  sank  into  eternal  sleep  the 
luckless  Reconstruction  bill."  ^ 

During  the  preceding  two  years  radicalism  had  greatly  ad- 
vanced. "At  the  end  of  the  war  the  northern  people  would 
have  supported  a  settlement  in  accordance  with  Lincoln's  pol- 
icy; eight  months  later  a  majority,  but  a  smaller  one,  would 
have  supported  Johnson's  work  had  it  been  possible  to  secure 
a  popular  decision  on  it."  ^  How  then  did  the  Radicals  gain 
the  victory  over  the  Conservatives  .^  James  Ford  Rhodes 
asserts  that  three  men  are  responsible  for  the  Congressional 
policy  of  reconstruction:  Andrew  Johnson,  by  his  obstinacy 
and  bad  conduct;  Thad  Stevens,  by  his  vindictiveness  and 
parliamentary  tyranny;  and  Charles  Sumner,  by  his  pertina- 
cious, misguided  humanitarianism.  Yet  radicalism,  as  we  know, 
did  not  begin  in  the  Johnson  administration.  Lincoln  had 
felt  its  covert  opposition  throughout  the  war.  That  Johnson 
is  responsible  for  a  failure  to  compromise  with  Congress  may 
be  true,  though  it  is  not  probable,  as  I  have  endeavored  to 
show.  Was  not  the  conflict  between  President  and  Congress 
fundamental,  was  it  not  a  fight  between  Andrew  Johnson,  a 
strict  constructionist,  and  the  spirit  of  modern  nationalism? 
Was  not  reconstruction  a  struggle  between  the  individualism 

4  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  85;  Scliouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  83;  Kendrick,  p. 
314;  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  427. 

5  Kendrick  supra;  Blaine  asserts  that  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  if 
adopted  would  have  put  an  end  to  reconstruction  legislation. — Blaine,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  243-245.  In  discussing  the  amendment,  however,  Congressman  Blaine 
appears  to  have  been  of  a  different  opinion.  He  then  called  attention  to 
objections  to  the  amendment  and  said  that  the  obligation  of  "the  Federal 
Government  to  protect  the  loyalists  of  the  South  was  supreme"  and  that  "the 
gift  of  free  suffrage  must  be  guaranteed." — Globe,  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  p.  53. 

6  Fleming,  Sequel,  p.  119. 


394  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

of  ante-bellum  days  and  the  governmental  and  industrial  con- 
centration, unification  and  cooperation  of  our  own  times? 

Whatever  the  cause  of  the  growth  of  radicalism,  the  fact  of 
such  growth  was  manifest,  and  Stevens  could  hardly  hold  back 
his  radical  followers.  Grinnel  was  asking,  "Are  we  to  allow 
rebels  to  come  here  and  take  their  seats,  rebels  unwashed,  unre- 
pentant, unpunished,  unpardoned  and  unhung?"  (Laugh- 
ter.) Boutwell  was  telling  Congress,  "You  might  as  well 
expect  to  build  a  fire  in  the  depth  of  the  ocean  as  to  reconstruct 
loyal  governments  in  the  South  until  you  have  broken  down 
disloyal  despotisms."  "There  are  eight  million  and  more  of 
people,"  he  exclaimed,  "writhing  under  cruelties  nameless  in 
their  character."  "^  Stevens  was  calling  attention  to  the  loy- 
alists of  the  South,  "driven  from  home  by  the  rebels."  .  .  . 
"These  loyal  men  you  see  flitting  about  you  in  your  cities, 
melancholy,  depressed,  haggard,  like  the  ghosts  of  unburied 
dead  on  this  side  of  the  river  Styx.  If  we  neglect  to  protect 
these  people  we  shall  be  responsible  to  the  civilized  world  for 
the  greatest  neglect  of  duty  that  ever  a  great  nation  was 
guilty  of  before,  to  humanity."  While  Mr.  Stevens  was  speak- 
ing these  perfervid  words,  President  Johnson  well  knew  that 
"the  relations  between  the  races  in  the  South  were  better  than 
conditions  indicated."  *  For,  as  General  Bob  Taylor,  of  Con- 
federate fame,  put  it,  it  seemed,  according  to  the  Radicals, 
"that  about  1866  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  South 
began  to  kill  niggers."  ^ 

At  all  events  the  time  had  come  when  the  most  radical  of 
radicals  conceded  that  something  must  be  done  with  the  South, 
that  a  complete  plan  of  reconstruction  should  be  formulated. 
The  people  were  demanding  this  and  furtlier  delay  was  dan- 
gerous. Now  the  fight  between  the  President  and  Congress 
had  come  to  a  draw.  Though  Congress,  without  southern 
votes,  could  pass  a  statute,  it  could  not  enact  an  amendment. 
The  southern  states  not  only  could  but  would  block  any  change 

iQlohe,  p.  1122. 

8  Fleming,  p.  47. 

» C/.  Fleming,  pp.  100-117.  As  to  the  Black  Lawa  or  Codes  often  com- 
plained of  by  the  Radicals,  "they  were  never  enforced  but  were  suspended 
from  the  beginning  by  the  army  and  the  Froedmen's  Bureau." — Ibid.,  p.  97. 


THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION  395 

in  the  Constitution  which  made  the  late  slaves  the  rulers  of  the 
whites.  Though  Stevens  was  sure  the  southern  "provinces" 
need  not  be  consulted  in  the  enactment  of  an  amendment  and 
wished  to  declare  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  valid  though  less 
than  three-fourths  of  the  states  had  adopted  it,  wiser  ones  knew 
better.  They  knew  that  the  Supreme  Court  had  just  held  in 
the  Milligan  case  that  the  Constitution  was  still  the  law  and 
that  under  the  Constitution  three-fourths  of  all  the  states  must 
ratify  an  amendment  before  its  adoption. 

The  great  question  before  Congress  therefore  was  how  to  put 
through  an  amendment  protecting  the  rights  of  the  freedmen 
despite  the  southern  states.  Secretary  Welles  thought  this 
would  finally  be  done  as  Stevens  suggested,  that  is,  by  disre- 
garding southern  states. ^°  "If  the  southern  states  should 
be  put  to  the  ban  by  Congress  and  declared  territories,"  Welles 
wrote,  "the  Radicals  would  not  then  have  completely  accom- 
plished their  purpose,  for  Mordecai  the  Jew  w411  still  be  in  their 
way.  Andrew  Johnson  must  be  disposed  of  and  impeachment 
must  be  effected."  Welles  concluded  that  "as  the  states  were 
excluded  from  Congress  in  disregard  and  defiance  of  the  Con- 
stitution, the  same  Radicals  could,  with  as  much  authority,  ex- 
clude them  from  passing  on  the  Constitutional  changes."  But 
in  this  Welles  was  mistaken.  Congress  was  unwilling  to  take 
any  chances,  they  were  afraid  of  the  Supreme  Court.  There- 
fore they  adopted  a  simpler  and  less  dangerous  way  of  meeting 
the  situation.  Congress  proposed  to  coerce  the  South,  and  to 
enforce  consent  to  its  legislation.  That  is,  they  would  dis- 
franchise the  whites,  enfranchise  the  negroes  and  put  the 
amendment  up  to  this  new  and  strange  electorate — a  composi- 
tion of  late  slaves,  scalawags,  carpetbaggers,  and  a  few  decent 
natives. 

On  February  6,  1867,  Thad  Stevens,  for  the  Committee  of 
Fifteen,  presented  to  the  House  a  military  reconstruction  bill, 
out  of  which  the  great  reconstruction  measure  grew.  An  un- 
complicated bill,  it  was  nevertheless,  "thorough."  As  Garfield 
said  of  it,  "It  M^as  written  with  an  iron  pen,  made  of  a  bayonet." 
"This  measure  is  so  simple,"  said  Stevens  when  offering  it, 

10  Welles,  Vol,  III,  p.  636. 


S96  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

"one  night's  rest  after  its  reading  is  enough  to  digest  it."  The 
Stevens  bill  proposed  to  wipe  out  the  work  of  two  Presidents, 
to  wipe  out  all  that  had  been  done  in  the  South  towards  re- 
habilitation in  the  last  two  years,  to  change  the  ten  southern 
states  into  five  military  districts — these  to  be  ruled  by  five 
Generals  of  the  army.  So  far  as  this  bill  provided,  it  was  with- 
out limit  as  to  time,  military  rule  was  to  be  indefinite.  Fortu- 
nately for  the  peace  of  the  country,  Blaine  offered  his  his- 
torical amendment.  The  "Blaine  Amendment"  provided  sub- 
stantially that  any  southern  state  could  come  out  from  under 
military  rule  and  into  the  Union  upon  adoption  of  the  Four- 
teenth Amendment  and  changing  its  state  constitution  so  as  to 
admit  white  and  black  alike  to  the  polls. ^^ 

But  Stevens  and  his  followers  voted  down  the  Blaine  Amend- 
ment and  whipped  the  original  bill  through  the  House.  In  the 
Senate  Williams  of  Oregon  proposed  the  Blaine  Amendment 
and  then  withdrew  it.  Thereupon  Reverdy  Johnson  offered  it 
again.  After  a  long  and  fierce  debate,  in  which  the  whole 
ground  of  Presidential  reconstruction  as  opposed  to  Congres- 
sional reconstruction  was  gone  over,  the  matter  was  referred 
to  Senator  Sherman  to  prepare  a  substitute.  The  "Sherman 
Substitute"  passed  the  Senate,  with  amendments.  After  con- 
ferences and  further  amendments  the  House  adopted  the 
Stevens-Blaine- Sherman  bill.  Thus  for  the  first  time  definite 
terms  upon  which  the  rebel  states  could  come  back  into  the 
Union  were  outlined.  The  bill  reached  the  President  IMarch  2 
and  though  he  might  have  killed  it  by  a  pocket  veto,  he  sent 
it  back  to  Congress  with  his  objections.  This  veto,  written  by 
Jerre  S.  Black,  was  "stronger  than  all  arguments  that  had  been 
made  against  the  amendment  in  both  Houses."  ^-  The  bill  was 
immediately  passed  over  the  veto  and  on  March  2,  1867,  the 
Great  Reconstruction  measure  became  the  law  of  the  land. 
It  is  idle  to  waste  words  as  to  tlie  unconstitutionality  of  an 
act  which  was  "passed  purel}^  for  political  purposes" ;  '^  which 
was  enacted  when  matters  in  the  South  "did  not  justify  it";  ^* 

11  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  256. 

«2 /&t(/.,  p.  2(51;    American  nisturicul  Jhvicic,  April    1900,  p.  585. 

13  Dunning,  Essays,  p.  13!). 

It  Ibid.,  Iicconslructio7i,  p.  05. 


THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION  397 

and  which  advocates  of  the  "conquered  territory"  theory  admit 
was  "distinct  usurpation."  ^^ 

In  due  time  the  Southern  States  accepted  the  terms  of  the 
Act  and  returned  to  the  Union.  On  July  28,  1868,  the 
requisite  three-fourths  having  concurred,  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  became  a  part  of  the  Constitution.  Of  this  amend- 
ment it  must  be  admitted  that,  for  good  or  evil,  it  trans- 
formed the  United  States  from  a  Confederation  into  a  Nation ; 
that  it  has  been  the  source  of  more  litigation  than  any  other 
amendment ;  that  it  overrules  all  that  was  said  about  citizenship 
in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  abolishes  the  much  disputed  three-fifths 
clause  in  the  Constitution,  makes  citizenship  a  matter  of  na- 
tional and  not  of  state  concern,  places  the  citizen  of  each  and 
every  state,  his  life,  his  limb  and  his  property  under  national 
protection  and  gives  to  all  persons  the  equal  protection  of  the 
laws  of  the  United  States.  But  it  does  more,  as  concerns  An- 
drew Johnson  and  his  views  of  the  Constitution.  It  is  the 
utter  destruction  of  the  old  dogma  of  States'  Rights.  It  is  a 
return  to  the  Federalistic  and  Whig  doctrine  of  protection  to 
American  industries.  Before  this  amendment  there  was  legally 
no  such  thing  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  One  Avas  then 
a  citizen  of  a  state  but  not  of  the  United  States.  Nothing  in 
the  old  Constitution  defined  or  implied  national  citizenship,  as 
distinct  from  state  citizenship;  but  from  the  adoption  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  a  great  change  took  place.^*' 

I  might  add  that  the  amendment  as  construed  by  the  Su- 
preme Court  has  given  the  world  a  decided  surprise.  Con- 
struing the  amendment  strictly,  the  Court  holds  that  it  fur- 
nishes little  protection  to  the  negro,  that  it  operates  on  a  state 
only.  It  prohibits  a  state,  not  a  person  or  corporation,  from 
denying  equal  rights  to  the  black  man.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Court  holds  that  the  amendment  must  be  liberally  construed  to 
place  corporations  under  its  protecting  segis,  free  from  unjust 
and  unequal  state  laws.^^  Hence  under  the  provisions  of  this 
amendment,  and  the  protection  of  United  States  courts.  Big 

15  Burgess,  Reconstruction,  p.  197. 

16  Civil  Rights  Cases;  16  Wall.,  p.  73;  United  States  Reports,  Vol.  109,  p.  3. 
'^T  Santa  Clara  vs.  Railroad,  United  States  Reports,  Vol.  118,  p.  394;  Ken- 

drick,  p.  27. 


398  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Business  has  flourished.  The  individual  in  business  has  dis- 
appeared. As  a  natural  consequence  Andrew  Johnson's  little 
tailor  shop,  down  in  Greeneville,  closed  its  door,  the  overshot 
mill  wheel,  hard  by  his  residence,  ceased  to  turn,  the  cobbler 
no  longer  made  shoes  for  the  neighborhood.  Blackstone  Mc- 
Daniel,  the  village  plasterer,  Johnson's  only  pal,  went  out  of 
business  or  took  orders  from  the  local  union. 

The  Fourteenth  Amendment  was  carefully  drawn  and  is 
worthy  of  the  great  subject  it  disposes  of.  A  part  of  the  world 
movement  for  nationalization  and  expansion,  begun  in  the 
'60's,  the  instrument  breathes  a  broad  and  liberal  spirit.  If  we 
omit  the  fifth  section,  which  merely  authorizes  Congress  to 
enforce  the  amendment  by  appropriate  legislation,  there  are 
four  short  sections.  The  first  section  declares  that  all  persons 
who  are  citizens  of  a  state  are  likewise  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  and  that  no  state  shall  make  any  law  which  shall 
abridge  the  rights  of  such  citizen  or  deprive  any  person  of 
liberty  or  property  without  due  process  of  law  or  deny  the 
equal  protection  of  the  laws.  Section  two  declares  that  repre- 
sentation shall  be  apportioned  among  the  states  according  to 
numbers,  but  if  the  right  to  vote  is  denied,  the  basis  of  repre- 
sentation shall  be  reduced  accordingly.  Section  three  deprives 
of  holding  any  office  all  persons  who  previously  had  taken  oath 
in  certain  capacities  to  support  the  Constitution  and  there- 
after engaged  in  rebellion.  By  a  two-tliirds  vote  of  each 
House  this  disability  might  be  removed.  The  fourth  section 
declares  that  the  validity  of  the  debt  of  the  United  States  shall 
not  be  questioned,  but  that  none  of  the  Confederate  debt  or 
any  claim  for  the  emancipation  of  the  slave  shall  ever  be  al- 
lowed. On  the  same  day,  March  2,  1^67,  that  the  Recon- 
struction Act  was  passed,  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  and  the 
Command  of  the  Army  Act  were  likewise  passed  over  the 
President's  veto. 

The  great  Reconstruction  Act  was  twice  amended  to  meet 
defects.  Tliese  amendments  were  likewise  vetoed  by  the  Presi- 
dent. To  prevent  a  judicial  decision  u})on  the  original  act  or 
the  amendments  Congress  provided  that  no  court  should  have 
jurisdiction  over  the  same.     For  about  one  year  after  the  act 


THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION  399 

was  passed  the  South  was  under  military  rule  and  during  this 
time  "a  Radical  party  was  organized  composed  of  negroes, 
scalawags  and  carpetbaggers."  ^^  Under  the  supervision  of 
the  army  a  new  electorate  was  enrolled,  elections  were  held,  and 
conventions,  composed  of  the  above-named  individuals,  met  and 
framed  for  the  Southern  States  new  constitutions  in  harmony 
with  the  acts.  The  white  man  was  practically  turned  out  of 
house  and  home. 

The  great  Reconstruction  Act  was  passed  under  strange  sur- 
roundings. Senator  Sumner  spoke  no  word  in  its  behalf — 
Sumner,  who  for  a  dozen  years  had  insisted  that  whites  and 
blacks  sit  together  in  the  theaters  and  other  public  places  of 
amusement,  in  the  common  schools  and  public  institutions  of 
learning,  in  railroad  coaches,  in  the  churches,  that  they  occupy 
beds  in  the  same  benevolent  institutions  and  be  buried  in  the 
same  cemeteries.^^  The  act  was  too  mild  for  Sumner.  On 
the  other  hand,  Reverdy  Johnson,  the  Conservative,  was  a 
staunch  supporter  of  the  act.  He  contended  that  the  South 
should  act  quickly  and  accept  the  bill,  or  worse  was  in  store 
for  her.  The  incorrigible  Welles  saw  in  Senator  Johnson's 
course  apostasy  to  the  administration.  He  called  Johnson 
"an  old  political  prostitute"  currying  favor  with  the  Radicals 
"to  get  his  son-in-law  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  as  United 
States  District  Attorney." 

The  course  of  Senator  Johnson,  however,  was  not  so  bad  as 
Welles  pictured  it.  Johnson  knew  that  the  military  bill  would 
pass  anyway  and  set  himself  to  work  to  limit  the  operation  of 
the  same  through  the  Blaine  amendment.  As  the  discussion 
proceeded  he  dealt  effective  but  courteous  blows.  In  the  con- 
duct of  Senator  Williams  of  Oregon,  a  champion  of  the  "down- 
trodden" negro.  Senator  Johnson  discovered  an  inconsistency. 
"The  honorable  Senator  from  Oregon,"  said  he,  "is  the  cham- 
pion of  the  negro  in  this  hall  and  yet  if  I  mistake  not  in  the 
State  of  Oregon  from  which  the  Senator  comes  no  negro  is 
allowed  to  enter,  or  to  vote  or  to  contract  or  to  sue.  Is  not  the 
Senator's  State  sinning  against  the  light  of  the  times,  tramp- 
is  Fleming,  Documentary  History,  p.  397. 
19  Storey,  Sumner,  p.  403. 


400  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

ling  upon  the  inalienable  rights  of  man,  denying  manhood  suf- 
frage?" 

During  the  debates  on  this  measure  so  much  diversity  of 
opinion  arose  in  the  Republican  party,  Stevens  grew  dis- 
couraged. "If  I  don't  change  my  mind,"  he  said,  "I  will  to- 
morrow move  to  lay  the  bill  on  the  table."  But  after  the 
passage  of  the  act  the  "Old  Commoner"  was  himself  again,  the 
greatest  parliamentary  leader  before  whom  Congress  ever  bent 
the  knee.  When  the  bill  was  enrolled  he  lifted  himself,  on  his 
club  foot,  pursed  together  his  terrible  lips  and  exclaimed,  "Mr. 
Speaker,  I  rise  to  inquire  if  it  is  in  order  for  me  now  to  say 
that  we  endorse  the  language  of  good  old  Laertes,  that  Heaven 
rules  as  yet  and  there  are  gods  above."  During  the  entire  dis- 
cussion he  had  been  the  guiding  spirit.  With  wit,  ridicule, 
sarcasm,  and  invective,  he  had  lashed  the  House  into  partial 
obedience.  Referring  to  the  charges  that  the  bill  was  harsh 
and  unconstitutional  and  to  the  provision  that  the  rebels  should 
not  vote  till  1870,  he  declared  that  this  provision  was  not  too 
harsh.  "My  only  objection  to  it,"  he  said,  "is  it's  too  limited  in 
time.  I  might  not  submit  to  the  severity  of  the  Military  Gov- 
ernor of  Tennessee,  I  mean  the  late  lamented  Andrew  Johnson 
of  blessed  memory,  but  I  would  have  in  it  the  security  of  section 
three.     Give  me  section  three  or  give  me  nothing." 

While  Stevens  was  bullying  his  party  associates  in  the 
House,  the  voice  of  McDougall  in  the  Senate  was  heard  in  a 
wise  appeal  to  the  future.  "There  is  no  such  thing  as  coercing 
an  unwilling  people,"  he  declared.  "The  South  has  been  pun- 
ished and  has  come  to  us  as  the  prodigal  son ;  we  make  no  feasts 
for  them  but  have  met  them  witli  curses  and  we  pronounce  ex- 
communication. Will  that  policy  be  a  success.''  .  .  .  You  can- 
not conquer  the  human  will.  Brave  men  when  vanquished 
can  surrender  and  yield  and  become  obedient  but  they  cannot 
be  degraded.  .  .  .  Would  you  put  twelve  millions  of  Anglo- 
Saxons — men  of  your  own  color — under  their  late  slaves.'*  .  .  . 
Half  a  century  hence  wlicn  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Chinese 
liave  landed  in  tlie  State  of  California  will  Congress  place  these 
Asiatics  above  tlie  whites?" 

Other   minority   leaders   were   as   effective   as   McDougall. 


THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION  401 

Senator  Saulsbury  would  not  "touch,  taste  or  handle  the  un- 
clean thing."  It  "sounded  the  death  knell  of  civil  liberty." 
Because  he  disapproved  of  other  men  Saulsbury  declared  that 
he  would  not  come  in  to  usurp  the  seat  of  Almighty  God  and 
cast  "the  thunderbolts  of  damnation  upon  their  land."  "Great 
God,  has  it  come  to  this,"  Senator  Doolittle  passionately  ex- 
claimed, "a  dictatorship  and  a  despotism  for  the  South  .f^"  As 
Doolittle  saw  the  situation,  the  measure  "was  born  of  unfor- 
giving hate  and  lust  for  despotic  power" ;  the  disfranchisement 
of  the  whites  and  negro  domination  will  produce  "such  a  hor- 
rible state  of  things  as  no  language  could  describe  and  which  it 
has  never  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive."  Senators 
like  Wilson  of  Massachusetts,  on  the  other  hand,  discussed  the 
problem  of  overturning  the  southern  civilization  as  academ- 
ically as  if  it  were  a  game  of  checkers.  Thus  when  Doolittle 
asked  Wilson  this  question,  "Suppose  the  Southern  States  re- 
fuse to  accept  this  bill  or  to  adopt  the  amendment  what  then 
will  happen?"  Wilson  retorted,  "Make  them!  .  .  .  Settle  the 
controversy,  do  not  keep  it  open.  Cut  out  the  cancer."  ""^ 
Thad  Stevens  spoke  the  last  words  in  reply  to  the  Democrats, 
and  "his  tongue  dripped  venom."  He  was  not  satisfied  with 
the  way  the  Senate  had  treated  his  bill.  Instead  of  allowing 
the  power  of  appointment  of  officers  who  should  command  in 
the  South  to  remain  with  General  Grant  where  the  House  had 
placed  it,  the  Senate  had  preferred  to  entrust  this  duty  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  "How  will  the  President  exe- 
cute this  law.?"  Stevens  asked.  "As  he  has  executed  every  law 
for  the  last  two  years,  by  the  murder  of  Union  men  and  by 
despising  Congress  and  by  flinging  into  our  teeth  all  that  we 
seek  to  have  done.  ...  I  will  make  no  pledges  as  to  the  future 
to  these  outlawed  communities  of  robbers,  traitors  and  mur- 
derers," Stevens  continued,  "but  I  am  not  done  with  the  hope 
that  at  least  some  of  those  who  have  murdered  the  brothers, 
fathers  and  children  of  the  North  will  be  imprisoned  and 
hanged  and  their  property  confiscated."  -^ 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  act  did  not  pass  until  it  was  pro- 

20  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  432. 

21  Ibid.,  p.  433. 


402  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

vided  that  the  leading  whites  should  not  vote  in  the  conventions 
to  be  called  or  in  the  legislatures  following  such  conventions, 
and  not  until  equal  rights  were  guaranteed  to  the  negroes.  The 
negroes,  en  masse,  educated  and  uneducated,  should  vote.  Is 
it  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  adopted 
under  such  circumstances,  and  the  Fifteenth,  adopted  under 
like  circumstances,  have  ever  been  inoperative  and  nugatory — 
a  dead  letter?  In  1865  Thaddeus  Stevens  had  predicted  that 
such  would  be  the  case.  In  December  1865  he  had  said  that 
the  southern  people  ought  not  to  submit  to  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  forced  upon  them,  that  he  would  lose  respect  for 
them  if  they  did.  Now,  Andrew  Johnson  could  not  foresee  the 
consequences  which  would  follow  from  the  reconstruction  leg- 
islation. Yet  his  state  papers  indicate  that  he  understood  the 
matters  in  controversy  better  than  those  Senators  and  Con- 
gressmen who  were  far  removed  from  the  scene  of  the  problem 
and  were  undertaking  to  adjust  the  delicate  relations  between 
the  races  offhand. 

Though  party  expediency  might  demand  that  the  old  Con- 
stitution be  shattered,  though  philanthropy  and  humanity 
joined  in  the  cry,  and  though  the  spirit  of  nationalism  Avould 
not  be  hushed.  President  Johnson  knew  that  the  scheme,  put 
through  by  force,  would  not  work.  Therefore  he  stood  out 
against  it.  Years  before  in  Congress  he  had  pictured  the  dan- 
gers of  setting  free  four  millions  of  negroes  and  injecting 
them  into  a  white  civilization.  And  now  as  President  he  re- 
minded Congress  that  "some  people  considered  this  legislation 
so  important,  a  violation  of  the  Constitution  is  justified  as  a 
means  of  bringing  it  about ;  but  that  that  morality  was  always 
false  which  excused  a  wrong  because  it  proposes  to  accomplish 
a  desirable  end."  .  .  .  "We  are  not  permitted  to  do  evil  that 
good  may  come,"  he  said ;  "but  in  this  case  the  end  itself  is  evil 
as  well  as  the  means."  As  he  saw  it,  the  subjection  of  the 
states  to  negro  domination  was  "worse  than  military  despot- 
ism," and  the  people  "would  endure  any  amount  of  mihtary 
oppression  rather  than  degrade  themselves  by  subjection  to  the 
negro  race.  .  .  .  While  the  blacks  in  the  South  should  be  well 
and  humanely  governed  and  have  the  protection  of  just  laws 


THE  GREAT  RECONSTRUCTION  403 

it  Is  now  proposed  that  they  shall  not  merely  govern  themselves 
but  rule  the  white  race,  make  laws,  elect  officers  and  shape  the 
destiny  of  the  country  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  .  .  .  Would 
such  a  trust  and  power  be  safe  in  such  hands  ?" 

The  President  likewise  reminded  Congress  that  the  United 
States  had  prospered  under  the  old  Constitution,  "which  is  well 
adapted  to  the  genius,  habits  and  wants  of  the  people — com- 
bining the  strength  of  a  great  empire  with  the  imperishable 
blessings  of  local  self-government;"  and  that  to  enforce  the 
Constitution  and  the  laws  "there  must  be  an  intelligent  and 
honest  electorate."  "Are  the  four  millions  of  black  persons 
who  yesterday  were  held  in  slavery  that  had  existed  for  genera- 
tions sufficiently  intelligent  to  cast  a  ballot?"  .  .  .  "Intelli- 
gent foreigners  coming  to  our  country,"  the  President  re- 
minded Congress,  "are  required  to  remain  five  years  and  to 
prove  good  moral  characters  before  they  can  be  admitted  to 
citizenship.  .  .  .  To  give  the  ballot  indiscriminately  to  a  new 
class  wholly  unprepared  by  previous  habits  and  opportunities 
to  perform  the  trust  which  it  demands  is  to  degrade  it  and 
finally  to  destroy  its  power,  for  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that 
no  political  truth  is  better  established  than  that  such  indis- 
criminate and  all-embracing  extension  of  popular  suffrage 
must  end  at  last  in  its  destruction."  ^^ 

The  South  was  stunned  by  a  return  to  military  government. 
Two  states  took  steps  to  have  the  acts  tested  by  the  Supreme 
Court.  In  April  1867  Mississippi  asked  leave  of  the  Court  to 
file  a  Bill  in  Equity  to  enjoin  President  Johnson  from  exe- 
cuting the  acts.  About  the  same  time  Georgia  brought  suit 
against  Stanton,  Grant  and  Pope  to  enjoin  them  as  individuals 
from  enforcing  the  same.-^  As  the  court  had  decided  in  the  Mc- 
Cardle  case  that  it  would  take  jurisdiction  and  enquire  into 
the  legality  of  a  trial  by  court  martial,  it  was  hoped  it  would 
also  pass  on  the  Reconstruction  Acts.     Cautiously,  and  no 

22  Richardson,  Messages  of  the  Presidents,  Vol.  VI,  p.  566 ;  General  Lee, 
General  Hampton,  Alexander  Stephens  and  his  brother  Linton  Stephens 
together  with  many  other  Southerners,  particularly  those  in  the  Border  States, 
agreed  with  President  Johnson  that  the  intelligent  negro  of  character  or  who 
had  accumulated  even  the  small  sum  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  should  be 
given  the  ballot. 

23  Mississippi  vs.  Johnson,  4  Wall.  475;  Georgia  vs.  Stanton,  6  Wall.  51. 


404j  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

doubt  wisely,  the  court  declined  to  interfere.  In  the  IVIissis- 
sippi  case  it  was  suggested  by  the  court  that  if  it  should 
restrain  President  Johnson  and  he  should  refuse  to  enforce  the 
acts  a  conflict  between  the  executive  and  the  legislature  might 
arise,  and  the  President  might  be  impeached.  In  that  case, 
"would  the  court  restrain  by  injunction  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  from  sitting  as  a  court  of  impeachment.'"' 

Though  military  officials  in  the  South  were  supreme,^  super- 
seding the  civil  authorities,  reconstruction  did  not  work  as 
badly  as  had  been  feared.  Legislatures  elected  during  that 
period  were  admittedly  ignorant  and  corrupt,  entailing  no 
end  of  trouble,  but  the  Generals,  appointed  by  the  President, 
were  honest  and  usually  fair  minded.  The  President  first 
appointed  Generals  Schofield,  Sickles,  Pope,  Ord  and  Sheri- 
dan, but  afterwards  changes  were  made.  Some  of  the  Generals 
were  radical ;  others,  moderate  and  tactful.  The  most  extreme 
were  Sheridan,  Pope  and  Sickles ;  the  most  conservative  Han- 
cock, Schofield  and  Meade,  Hancock's  benign  administration 
of  Virginia  affairs  winning  for  him  the  Democratic  nomination 
for  President  a  few  years  later. 


CHAPTER  V 
IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT 

The  three  departments  of  government  are  supposed  to  be 
equal,  but  they  are  far  otherwise.  Thus  during  times  of  war 
the  President  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  is  supreme. 
In  April  1861  President  Lincoln  seized  the  reins  of  government 
and  saved  the  Union.  Though  it  was  the  duty  of  Congress  to 
declare  war,  he  usurped  this  power,  calling  for  seventy-five 
thousand  troops  to  wage  four  j^ears  of  warfare.  Again,  in 
times  of  peace  the  courts  are  supreme ;  in  1857  the  Supreme 
Court  overrode  all  precedent,  declaring  legislation  relating  to 
slavery  in  the  territories  illegal,  and  setting  itself  up  as  su- 
preme. And  yet  after  all  is  said  the  legislative  department  is 
the  final  arbiter.  It  controls  the  purse,  has  the  power  to 
impeach  presidents  and  judges  and  to  deprive  courts  of  juris- 
diction. Except  when  war  is  actually  raging  and  an  army  is 
in  the  field,  the  popular  assembly,  standing  closest  to  the 
people,  is  the  ultimate  source  of  power. 

Possessing  this  great  power,  Congress  was  bent  on  using  it. 
Nothing  should  stand  in  "its  way  of  reconstructing  the  South 
with  a  negro  on  top  and  a  white  man  on  the  bottom."  ^  If 
necessary  the  courts  and  the  President  should  be  reduced  to 
ciphers,  and  the  checks  and  balances  of  the  Constitution  de- 
stroyed. In  1866  when  the  Supreme  Court  decided  the  Milli- 
gan,  Cummings  and  Garland  cases,  holding  that  military  tri- 
bunals were  illegal  and  could  not  function  in  times  of  peace,  and 
that  no  ex  post  facto  or  similar  laws  could  be  passed,  because 
the  Constitution  forbade.  Radicals  were  beside  themselves. 
The  calm  judicial  statement  of  Justice  David  Davis  that  mili- 
tary tribunals  had  had  their  day  seemed  to  the  mind  of  Sum- 
ner, "an  alliance  offensive  and  defensive  between  the  Supreme 
Court  and  the  President."    Wendell  Phillips  was  for  abolishing 

1  DeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  135. 

405 


406  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  court.  Thaddeus  Stevens  regarded  the  Milligan  opinion 
"as  more  dangerous  than  Dred  Scott,  placing  the  knife  of  the 
rebel  at  the  throat  of  every  man  who  now  or  ever  had  declared 
himself  a  loyal  Union  man."  And,  so  far  as  the  Radical  party 
is  concerned,  this  fear  was  well  grounded.  If  the  Supreme 
Court  had  been  allowed  to  pass  on  reconstruction  legislation 
it  would  have  given  it  a  complete  knockout.  A  majority  of 
the  court  at  that  time,  including  Chief  Justice  Chase,  were  of 
the  conviction  that  reconstruction  acts  were  unconstitutional.^ 
It  therefore  became  necessary  to  silence  the  Supreme  Court. 
A  bill  was  offered  in  the  House  requiring  a  unanimous  opinion 
of  the  court  on  all  matters  relating  to  reconstruction,  and  a  bill 
passed  the  House  requiring  a  two-thirds  vote  in  such  cases.^ 
But  a  more  satisfactory  manner  of  disposing  of  the  court  was 
soon  arranged.  Congress  by  statute  deprived  the  court  of 
jurisdiction  in  reconstruction  matters.  In  a  case  from  Missis- 
sippi, the  McCardle  case,  there  was  no  way  for  the  court  to 
sidestep  the  doctrine  of  the  Milligan  case.  Either  it  must 
stultify  itself  by  overruling  Milligan  or  it  must  face  the  issue, 
take  jurisdiction  of  reconstruction,  and  probably  overturn  it. 
In  the  fall  of  1867  McCardle,  a  Mississippi  editor,  was  arrested 
by  military  order  for  opposition  to  reconstruction.  McCardle 
sued  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  the  United  States  Circuit 
Court,  charging  that  military  reconstruction  was  unconstitu- 
tional, that  he  was  unlawfully  detained,  and  asking  his  dis- 
charge. The  military  commander  refused  to  obey  this  writ  and 
held  the  prisoner.  An  appeal  was  taken  to  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  and,  after  an  argument  of  four  days  by  some 
of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  America,  the  court  decided  that  it  had 
jurisdiction  and  must  pass  upon  the  issue.  But  before  the 
day  of  hearing  Congress  repealed  the  law  allowing  appeals  in 
such  cases  and  the  Supreme  Court  bowed  in  silence. — As  Judge 
Curtis  said  of  this  McCardle  affair.  Congress  by  the  ac- 
quiesence  of  the  people  "overcame  the  President  and  subdued 

2  Fleming,  The  Sequel,  p.  159;  in  1875,  1882  and  1883  "the  Supn-mc  Court 
came  to  tlie  aid  of  the  Democrats  with  decrees  which  drew  the  teeth  from 
the  Enforcement  Acts,  and  in  1894  Congress  repealed  what  was  left  of  this 
legislation,  restoring  Home  Rule  to  the  South. — Fleming,  op.  cit.,  p.  303. 

3  Second  Session  Fortieth  Congress,  p.  489. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       407 

the  Supreme  Court."  *  Now  if  Congress  would  thus  hector 
and  degrade  the  highest  court,  what  would  it  not  do  to  Andrew 
Johnson,  whom  they  regarded  as  an  "incubus"? 

Though  the  first  resolutions  of  impeachment  were  not 
offered  until  January  1867,  at  all  times,  since  the  President 
and  Congress  came  to  the  parting  of  the  ways,  the  Radicals 
had  been  urging  impeachment  and  removal  from  office.  All 
during  the  year  1866,  Boutwell,  of  the  judiciary  com- 
mittee, and  Ashley  had  been  keeping  their  eye  on  the 
"great  malefactor."  The  Republican  victory  of  1866  having 
inspired  Congress  to  go  any  length  against  the  President,  it 
passed  numerous  resolutions  and  bills  to  vex  and  harass  him. 
Perhaps  the  most  astounding  legislation  on  record  was  the  act 
relating  to  the  President's  military  functions,  requiring 
that  the  Commander-in-Chief  should  consult  the  Senate  before 
giving  certain  orders  to  his  subordinates.  As  Professor  Dun- 
ning characterizes  this  act,  it  is  "without  parallel  in  our  history 
for  its  encroachments  on  the  constitutional  powers  of  the 
executive  or  for  inherent  preposterousness."  "But,"  says  Dun- 
ning, "its  source  is  even  more  astonishing  than  its  content ;  for 
it  was  secretly  dictated  to  Boutwell  by  the  President's  official 
adviser,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War."  °  On  the  first 
day  of  the  session  in  1866  Congress  likewise  undertook  to  de- 
prive the  President  of  his  constitutional  right  to  grant  am- 
nesty; but  he  proceeded  to  extend  pardons  as  before,  disre- 
garding the  resolution.  As  we  have  seen,  the  President  Avould 
veto  offending  measures  and  each  veto  would  give  fresh  offense. 
Finally,  on  January  7,  1867,  when  he  sent  in  a  veto  to  the  bill 
extending  the  ballot  to  the  negroes  of  the  District,  the  ex- 
plosion came.  This  measure  was  a  pet  of  Sumner's.  The 
negrophiles  regarded  it  as  a  forerunner  of  negro  suffrage 
throughout  the  Union,  a  step  "without  which  the  nation  could 
not  long  endure."  In  his  veto  the  President  called  the  atten- 
tion of  Congress  to  the  folly  of  enfranchising  illiterate  negroes, 

4Prentis,  Life  of  Curtis,  p.  421.  The  act  of  February  5,  1867,  was  passed 
to  enable  the  black  man  to  appeal  from  local  courts  to  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court.  It  was  repealed  in  March  1868  to  prevent  the  white  man 
from  exercising  the  same  right  of  appeal. — Curtis,  "Executive  Power,"  cited 
in  Rhodes.  Vol.  TV,  p.  170. 

5  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  91;  Boutwell,  Reminiscences,  Vol.  II,  p.  108. 


408  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

good  and  bad  without  distinction,  and  intimated  that  there  was 
danger  that  Congress  would  soon  assume  all  power  to  itself 
"and  create  a  despotic  government." 

This  veto  enraged  the  House  no  little.  Lone  and  Kelso, 
Radicals  from  Missouri,  attempted  to  offer  resolutions  of  im- 
peachment, but  failed.  Thereupon  Ashley  of  Ohio,  soon  to  be 
known  as  the  self-appointed  "scavenger  of  the  smelling  com- 
mittee," rose  to  a  question  of  personal  privilege.  "I  have  a 
painful  but  solemn  duty  to  perform,"  he  declared.  "I  impeach 
Andrew  Johnson  in  that  he  has  usurped  power  and  violated 
the  law,  that  he  has  corruptly  used  the  appointing  power  and 
the  pardoning  power,  has  corruptly  interfered  in  elections,  that 
he  has  corruptly  used  the  veto  power  and  has  corruptly  dis- 
posed of  the  property  of  the  United  States."  ^  Ashley's  resolu- 
tions were  adopted  and  a  sub-conjmittee  of  the  Judiciary  ap- 
pointed to  take  evidence.  As  soon  as  this  episode  was  closed, 
the  House  without  debate  overrode  the  President's  veto,  and 
on  January  8,  1867,  suffrage  was  extended  to  the  negroes  of 
Washington  city. 

Armed  with  authority  to  investigate  the  President,  Boutwell 
and  Ashley  were  satisfied  they  would  have  the  bad  man  out  of 
office  and  probably  on  the  gallows  before  the  new  year.  They 
were  already  on  the  track  of  most  astounding  disclosures. 
They  had  discovered  facts  and  circumstances  which  satisfied 
them  that  Andrew  Johnson  was  one  of  the  murderers  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  This  conclusion  they  arrived  at  while  the  com- 
mittee was  investigating  the  complicity  of  Jefferson  Davis  and 
Benjamin  in  the  assassination.  To  the  inflamed  mind  of  Bout- 
well,  and  also  of  Ashley,  there  was  no  doubt  of  the  guilt  of 
Davis  and  Benjamin,  and  probably  of  Johnson  as  well.  Judge 
Holt  had  produced  before  the  committee  one  Sanford  Conover. 
This  person  brought  with  him  seven  depositions  setting  forth 
that  the  deponents  were  in  Richmond  in  the  spring  of  1865, 
at  an  interview  between  Davis  and  Benjamin,  when  the  plot  was 
formed  to  murder  Lincoln.^  Now  one  of  these  precious  wit- 
nesses of  Conover  was  a  fellow  named  Campbell.     But  on  com- 

^  Second  Session  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  pp.  319-321. 
TDeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  138;  Welles,  Vol.  II,  p.  299. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       409 

ing  before  the  committee  Campbell  broke  down  and  confessed 
that  the  depositions  were  fabricated  by  Conover,  that  he  him- 
self was  going  under  an  assumed  name,  and  so  was  Conover, 
w^hose  real  name  was  Dunham.  When  confronted  with  Camp- 
bell, Dunham  took  to  his  heels  but  was  soon  caught,  tried,  and 
given  ten  years  in  the  penitentiary  for  perjury.  Campbell  had 
been  paid  six  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  and  Snivel,  an- 
other of  the  scoundrels,  four  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars 
by  Holt's  Department  of  Justice. 

Now  this  perjury  and  villainy  in  no  way  dashed  Boutwell's 
ardor,  or  Ashley's,  nor  did  it  divert  them  from  their  pursuit 
of  Andrew  Johnson.  "Why  does  not  Johnson  cause  the  arrest 
of  John  Surratt.?"  they  asked  themselves.  "Surratt  has  been 
located  in  Europe,  why  shall  he  not  be  brought  back  to  America 
and  hung  as  his  mother  was  before  him?"  The  obvious  answer 
was  because  Andrew  Johnson  w^as  afraid  of  Surratt,  afraid  that 
Surratt  would  "give  him  away."  Who  but  Andrew  Johnson 
had  a  motive  to  kill  President  Lincoln.'*  Did  not  Lincoln's 
death  make  Johnson  President?  Was  not  Johnson  a  bad  man, 
just  the  man  for  such  a  deed,  and  had  he  not  been  drunk  when 
sworn  in  as  Vice-president?  Undoubtedly,  according  to  Bout- 
well  and  Ashley,  he  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  assassination  plot. 
Ignoring  the  advice  of  Stanton  and  Holt,  that  John  Surratt 
should  not  be  brought  back  to  America  for  trial  as  no  jury 
would  convict  him  on  the  evidence,  and  that  the  fifty  thousand 
dollar  reward  for  his  arrest  be  withdrawn,  Boutwell  proceeded 
gravely  to  inform  the  House  "that  the  executive  had  not  used 
due  diligence"  in  arresting  Surratt.^  Boutwell  indeed  died  in 
the  belief  that  Johnson  was  implicated  in  the  assassination  of 
Mr.  Lincoln. 

Under  the  impeachment  resolutions  the  judiciary  committee 
busied  themselves  to  sustain  Ashley's  absurd  charges.®  Shortly 
it  was  given  out  by  Boutwell  and  Ashley  that  the  President  was 
suspected  of  assassinating  Lincoln.     Thereupon  Dunham,  who 

8  Boutwell,  North  American  Review,  Vol.  CXLI,  p.  573. 

9  Blaine  declares  that  every  one  present  felt  that  Ashley's  charges  "were 
gross  exaggerations  and  distortions  of  fact  and  could  not  be  sustained  by  legal 
evidence  or  indeed  by  reputable  testimony  of  any  kind." — Blaine,  Vol.  II, 
p.  342. 


410  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

was  not  yet  In  the  penitentiary  but  in  jail  awaiting  his  depar- 
ture thence,  became  a  star  witness.  Ashley  and  others  visited 
him  in  his  jail  quarters.  Dunham  and  his  wife  let  it  be  known 
that  they  could  supply  the  missing  testimony  to  convict  John- 
son. A  man  named  Adamson  had  a  letter,  Dunham  assured  the 
judiciary  committee.  This  letter  he  had  seen.  It  was  written 
during  the  war  by  Military  Governor  Johnson  to  Jeff  Davis. 
In  this  letter  Johnson  offered  to  surrender  Tennessee  to  the 
Confederacy  and  assured  the  sendee,  he  "was  going  to  join 
them."  A  colored  servant  of  Parson  Brownlow's  son  had  stolen 
the  letter  from  Johnson's  desk  before  it  was  sent.  Chief  Detec- 
tive Baker,  a  moving  party  in  this  malodorous  investigation, 
had  also  seen  this  letter.  While  Baker  was  out  looking  for 
the  man,  Adamson,  the  committee  went  cheerily  ahead  taking 
evidence  against  the  President.  It  raked  over  the  New  Or- 
leans riots,  investigated  the  President's  bank  account  and 
private  papers,  inquired  into  his  opposition  to  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment,  his  restoration  of  captured  lands  to  southern 
rebels.  And  his  construction  of  the  Nashville,  Chattanooga 
and  Northwestern  Railroad  in  1863  and  1864.  Of  course 
Adamson  was  never  found.  The  whole  affair  was  the  froth  and 
scum  that  float  to  the  surface  after  all  great  human  cataclysms. 
Though  the  committee  was  wholly  without  evidence  to  sustain 
Ashley's  charges,  a  majority  asked,  and  obtained  leave  of 
Congress,  that  the  committee  be  continued  until  the  Fortieth 
Congress,  Ashley  intimating  that  the  President  was  a  party 
to  Lincoln's  assassination. 

While  the  House  was  busy  nosing  around  for  proof  of  its 
charges,  radical  Senators,  under  the  leadership  of  Ben  Wade, 
were  equally  busy  packing  the  Senate  to  convict,  when  the 
House  voted  to  impeach.  Daily  it  was  becoming  more  plain  to 
radicals  such  as  Sumner,  Wade  and  Chandler  that  conserva- 
tive Senators  were  deserting  them.  Therefore  the  greater  the 
necessity  that  the  Senate  be  purged  and  made  "loyal."  A  two- 
thirds  majority  must  be  maintained  at  all  hazards.  Accord- 
ingly, the  seat  of  Stockton,  a  Democratic  Senator  from  New 
Jersey,  was  contested  by  the  Republicans,  and  Stockton  was 
unseated  under  disreputable  circumstances.     A   pair,   which 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       411 

Morrill,  a  Republican  Senator  of  Maine,  had  arranged  with  a 
Democratic  Senator,  was  ignored  and  broken  and  by  this  dis- 
graceful trick  Stockton  was  unseated  and  a  Republican  put  in 
his  place.  Likewise,  in  July  1866,  Nebraska,  with  a  popula- 
tion of  less  than  one-fourth  of  an  authorized  Congressional 
district,  was  admitted  as  a  state  over  the  President's  veto. 
Thereby  two  more  Republican  Senators  were  added  to  the  list. 
The  scheme  to  admit  Colorado,  with  a  less  population  than 
Nebraska  and  to  add  two  more  Republican  Senators,  was 
defeated  by  a  close  call. 

At  midnight  on  the  last  days  of  Congress  Wade,  who  would 
succeed  to  the  Presidency  if  Johnson  were  removed,  called  up 
the  bill  to  admit  Colorado  and  insisted  upon  an  immediate  vote. 
Senator  Fessenden  protested  on  account  of  the  pressing  nature 
of  the  bill  under  discussion.  And,  besides,  it  was  called  to  the 
Senate's  attention  that  Senator  Riddle  was  ill  with  rheumatism 
and  Senator  Grimes  was  likewise  ill  and  absent.  Therefore 
Senator  Hendricks  proposed  that  a  vote  be  taken  "at  half  past 
twelve  to-morrow."  Wade  bluntly  informed  the  Senators  that 
he  expected  to  get  a  vote  that  night.  "I  want  to  be  frank  and 
plain  about  it,"  he  said.  "I  am  better  prepared  to-night  than 
I  will  be  to-morrow  to  decide  this  question."  Senator  Doolittle 
replying  to  Wade,  called  attention  to  the  absence  of  the  two 
Senators  who  were  ill  and  to  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  almost 
midnight.  "Right  in  the  midst  of  the  business  of  the  Senate 
upon  an  important  measure,"  he  declared,  "to  have  pressed 
upon  us  by  surprise  a  motion  to  postpone  and  to  take  up  the 
Colorado  bill  is  beyond  anything  I  could  ever  have  antic- 
ipated." .  .  .  "Sir,"  said  he,  "the  world  stands  looking  on. 
The  people  of  the  United  States  know  what  is  transpiring  in 
this  body ;  and  there  are  peculiar  reasons  which  connect  them- 
selves with  the  Senator  from  Ohio,  which  will  draw  some  atten- 
tion to  him,  and  to  the  course  he  is  pursuing  on  this  occasion. 
We  all  know,  time  and  again,  that  Senator,  in  pressing  this 
matter  of  Colorado,  has  said  over  and  over  that  his  purpose 
was  to  reenforce  a  majority  in  this  body,  already  more  than 
two- thirds.     And  for  what,  sir.^"'  "     Doolittle  was  proceeding 

10  First  Session  Fortieth  Congress,  p.  497. 


412  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

to  furnish  a  bill  of  particulars,  the  chief  item  of  which  was 
that  Wade  was  scheming  to  be  President,  when  the  latter 
backed  down  and  said  that  "as  many  of  his  friends  did  not 
agree  with  him  he  withdrew  his  motion."  In  truth,  a  caucus 
had  been  held  on  this  measure ;  Fessenden,  Harris  and  Morgan 
had  kicked  out  of  radical  traces  and  Wade  knew  that  he  could 
not  override  the  veto.  The  next  day  the  President's  veto  was 
sustained  by  a  vote  of  29  to  19,  Edmunds,  Fessenden,  Foster, 
Grimes,  Harris  and  Morgan,  all  strict  Republicans,  voting 
"No."  "The  two-thirds  majority  was  broken.  The  Colorado 
bill  was  lost.  The  high-water  mark  of  impeachment  had  been 
reached,"  ^^  and  America  continued  to  be  a  representative  and 
not  a  parliamentary  government. 

Now  in  these  political  upheavals  the  Republicans  themselves 
were  far  from  united.  They  allowed  no  one  to  oppose  their 
program;  on  such  an  offending  member  they  turned  as  they 
did  upon  the  Democrats.  The  proud  Conkling  was  almost  run 
out  of  the  party  for  defending  Milligan.  Fessenden  and 
Grimes,  for  liberal  votes,  were  lashed  in  a  merciless  manner. 
Though  Senator  Fessenden  was  perhaps  the  ablest  Senator  on 
the  Republican  side  he  was  defeated  for  President  pro  tern,  by 
Wade,  who  frankly  admitted  that  "he  did  not  know  any  parlia- 
mentary law,"  and  he  was  roundly  abused  by  Zach  Chandler. 
"The  conservative  Senator  from  Maine!"  Chandler  would 
sneer  a  dozen  times  when  referring  to  Fessenden.  The  "con- 
servative Senator  from  Maine,"  according  to  Chandler  and 
others  was  "standing  in"  with  the  administration  to  keep 
friends  and  relatives  in  office."  Charles  Sumner  continued  the 
attack  in  a  Boston  interview."*  Senator  Fessenden,  Sumner 
insisted,  was  "afflicted  with  chronic  dyspepsia.  He  runs  to 
personalities  as  a  duck  to  water,  he  comes  into  the  debate  as 
the  Missouri  enters  the  Mississippi  and  discolors  it  with  tem- 
per, filled  and  surcharged  with  sediment.  .  .  .  He  is  of  much 
finer  fiber  than  Andrew  Johnson  but  resembles  the  President 
in  prejudice  and  combativeness." 

11  DeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  179. 

12  Fessenden,  lAfe  of  Fessenden,  Vol.  II,  p.  136. 
12a  Boston  Advertiser,  August  30. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       413 

Perhaps  the  queerest  instance  of  the  intolerance  of  the  Rad- 
ical with  the  Conservative  was  seen  when  Ben  Butler  ran  afoul 
of  Bingham.  The  House  was  debating  a  bill  for  the  relief 
of  destitute  persons  in  the  South,  whether  loyal  or  disloyal. 
Bingham,  supporting  the  bill,  wandered  over  to  the  Demo- 
cratic side  of  the  chamber.  Butler,  who  opposed  the  bill,  re- 
marked that  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  had  "got  over  on  the 
other  side  not  only  in  body  but  in  spirit."  Judge  Bingham, 
who  it  will  be  remembered  was  the  Judge  Advocate  who  prose- 
cuted Mrs.  Surratt  and  the  other  alleged  assassins  of  President 
Lincoln,  had  grown  tired  of  such  flings.  He  therefore  retorted 
that  "it  does  not  become  a  gentleman  who  recorded  his  vote 
fifty  times  for  Jeff  Davis,  the  arch  traitor  in  this  rebellion,  as 
his  candidate  for  President  of  the  United  States,  to  undertake 
to  damage  this  cause  by  an  imputation  on  either  my  integrity 
or  honor."  "I  repel  with  scorn  and  contempt  any  utterance  of 
that  sort  from  any  man,"  said  Bingham,  "whether  he  be  the 
hero  of  Fort  Fisher  not  taken  or  of  Fort  Fisher  taken." 

This  fling  at  General  Butler,  who,  as  was  well  known,  had 
voted  fifty  times  at  the  Charleston  convention  in  April  I860 
for  Davis  for  President,  and  had  not  taken  Fort  Fisher, 
aroused  the  incorrigible  man's  wrath.  In  reply  he  admitted  he 
had  voted  fifty-seven  times  for  Jeff  Davis  for  President,  "hop- 
ing thereby  to  prevent  disunion,"  but  he  asserted  that  the 
difference  between  himself  and  the  honorable  gentleman  from 
Ohio  was  this :  "While  Jeff  Davis  was  in  the  Union,  a  Senator 
of  the  United  States  and  claiming  to  be  a  friend  of  the  Union, 
I  supported  him."  ...  "I  left  him  as  soon  as  he  left  the 
Union,"  Butler  explained;  "but  the  gentleman  from  Ohio 
now  supports  him  when  he  is  a  traitor."  ...  "I  did  all  I 
could  and  the  best  I  could,"  he  went  on,  "and  I  feel  exceed- 
ingly chagrined  because  I  could  do  no  more ;  but  if  during  the 
war  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  did  as  much  as  I  did  in  that  direc- 
tion I  should  be  glad  to  recognize  that  much  done.  But  the 
only  victim  of  that  gentleman's  prowess  that  I  know  of  was 
an  innocent  woman  hung  upon  the  scaffold,  one  Mrs.  Surratt. 
And  I  can  sustain  the  memory  of  Fort  Fisher  if  he  and  his 
present  associates  can  sustain  him  in  shedding  the  blood  of  a 


4.14!  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

woman  tried  by  a  military  commission  and  convicted  without 
sufficient  evidence,  in  my  j  udgment." 

Butler's  onslaught  stunned  Bingham  and  he  corrected  his 
remarks  for  the  record.  Butler  then  renewed  the  attack,  in- 
timating that  Bingham  and  his  associates  had  withheld  Booth's 
diary  from  the  court  and  had  mutilated  it  by  tearing  out 
leaves  to  shield  Johnson,  the  instigator  of  Lincoln's  murder. 
"Who  spoliated  the  book?"  Butler  bellowed.  "Who  sup- 
pressed the  evidence?  Who  caused  an  innocent  woman  to  be 
hanged,  when  he  had  in  his  pocket  the  diary  showing  the  pur- 
pose of  the  main  conspirator  in  the  case?"  Along  this  line 
Butler  cavorted,  as  only  Ben  Butler  could.  When  he  had 
finished  his  remarkable  tirade  Bingham  rose  to  make  reply. 
"Such  a  charge  as  the  gentleman  makes,"  said  Bingham,  "is 
only  fit  to  come  from  a  man  who  lives  in  a  bottle  and  is  fed 
with  a  spoon" — evidently  referring  to  General  Grant's  con- 
temptuous remark  about  General  Butler's  soldiering  and  to 
Ben  Butler's  well-known  reputation  in  New  Orleans.^^ 

The  impeachment  committee  had  been  making  slow  progress. 
The  election  of  the  radical  Wade  President  pro  tern,  over 
Fessenden  and  the  absurd  stories  of  Dunham  and  Baker  had 
almost  put  an  end  to  the  investigation.  "Bad  as  President 
Johnson  is,"  the  Republicans  were  saying,  "Wade  as  President 
would  be  worse."  But  in  November  1867,  after  the  election, 
interest  in  the  investigation  was  revived  in  the  following  man- 
ner: The  Republicans  having  lost  heavily  at  the  polls — New 
York  and  New  Jersey  going  Democratic,  and  Maine,  Repub- 
lican, by  only  eleven  hundred — the  President's  friends  gath- 
ered about  him,  congratulating  and  calling  for  a  speech. 
From  a  written  manuscript  Johnson  boldly,  but  unwisely,  re- 
ferred to  the  "military  despotism  controlling  the  country"  and 
to  "the  arbitrary  power  of  Congress."  Concluding,  he  said  he 
was  still  hopeful  "that  in  the  end  the  rod  of  despotism  will  be 
broken  and  the  heel  of  power  lifted  from  the  necks  of  the 
people  and  the  principles  of  a  violated  Constitution  pre- 
served." ^^    "Treason !"  the  impeachment  committee  exclaimed. 

"DeWitt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  215-216. 

^*  Impeachment    Investigation,   p.    1175. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       415 

"That  utterance  alone  is  sufficient  to  warrant  impeachment." 
A  meeting  of  the  committee  was  hastily'  called  and  the  irre- 
pressible Baker  again  appeared  as  a  witness.  "One  Matchett," 
he  said,  "had  seen  a  witness,  a  Mrs.  Harris,  who  knew  all 
about  the  treasonable  Andrew  Johnson  letter  to  Jeff  Davis 
but  who  would  not  come  as  a  witness  for  less  than  twentj'^-five 
thousand  dollars,  paid  in  advance."  This  was  too  much,  even 
for  Ashley,  and  the  Avitness  Baker  was  dismissed  for  good. 

At  this  stage  of  the  investigation  Ashley  himself  took  the 
stand  and  became  a  witness  in  his  own  behalf.  "The  evidence 
against  Andrew  Johnson  though  not  legal,"  he  testified,  "sat- 
isfies me  that  he  was  implicated  in  Lincoln's  murder."  Ashle}', 
however,  stated  this  in  explanation,  "I  always  believed  that 
President  Harrison,  President  Taylor  and  President  Bu- 
chanan were  poisoned  and  were  poisoned  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  putting  the  Vice-president  in  the  presidential  office." 
It  seems  incredible  that  upon  such  balderdash  a  majority  of 
the  committee  should  have  reported  to  the  House  a  recommen- 
dation that  Andrew  Johnson  be  impeached,  but  so  they  did. 
The  minority  report,  prepared  by  Republican  Senator  Wilson 
was  adopted.  On  December  7,  1867,  Ashley's  resolution  to 
impeach  failed  b^^  a  vote  of  157  yeas  and  108  nays.  Fort}-- 
one  Democrats  and  sixty-seven  Republicans  voted  in  the  nega- 
tive, including  such  prominent  representatives  as  Banks,  Bing- 
ham, Blaine,  Garfield,  Dawes,  Washburn  and  Wilson. 

Little  wonder  Ashley  has  been  denounced  bj'^  historian  and 
biographer.  As  an  expert  at  double-crossing  he  was  with- 
out a  peer.  While  Dunham  was  in  jail  in  Washington  and 
had  not  gone  to  the  Albany  penitentiary,  "Ashley  and  Co." 
urged  the  President  to  pardon  him  "because  of  valuable  assist- 
ance in  Mrs.  Surratt's  case."  The  President  declined  to  do  so 
and  Dunham  was  sent  to  Albany.  The  worm  then  turned  and 
stung.  Dunham  attacked  Ashley,  Holt,  Butler,  and  Matchett. 
He  declared  that  they  had  been  using  him  as  a  tool  to  destroy 
the  President.  Ashley  had  manufactured  evidence  and  had 
said  it  would  be  easy  to  prove  four  facts  against  Johnson :  That 
Booth  paid  Vice-president  Johnson  several  visits  at  the  Kirk- 
wood  House,  that  Johnson  corresponded  with  Booth,  that  on 


416  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

April  14),  1865,  Atzerodt  put  weapons  in  his  room  as  a  blind  to 
divert  attention  from  Johnson,  and,  lastly,  that  Booth  had 
stated  in  New  York  that  Johnson  was  acting  with  him.  "If 
you  will  procure  this  evidence,"  Ashley  said  to  Dunham,  "you 
shall  be  pardoned."  Such  was  Dunham's  story.  He  also  went 
on  to  say  that  he  wrote  down  what  Ashley  dictated  and  pro- 
cured two  witnesses  to  commit  it  to  memory. 

At  all  events,  these  two  witnesses  came  to  Washington  and 
were  examined  by  Ben  Butler  and  Ashley.  Matters  then  came 
to  a  halt  because  Dunham  refused  to  go  on  unless  his  pardon 
was  first  forthcoming!  In  1869  President  Johnson  pardoned 
Dunham  both  on  account  of  ill  health  and  because  it  was  plain 
that  he  had  been  made  a  dupe  of  by  Ashley  and  Co.^^  It  may 
be  said  that  Ashley  was  called  the  scavenger  of  the  smelling 
committee  because  he  investigated  idle  and  remote  rumors  such 
as  this :  Did  prostitutes  have  access  to  Johnson's  back  stairs  and 
thereby  sell  pardons  to  rebels  ^  Did  a  woman  named  Perry  re- 
quest the  President  to  make  an  arrangement  with  her  to  handle 
the  New  York  Custom  House,  and  did  the  President  agree  to  do 
this.^  Johnson  filed  these  Perry  letters  and  wrote  on  them 
"Blackmail."  ^« 

During  this  year,  1867,  no  less  than  five  other  attempts  at 
impeachment  failed,  not  for  lack  of  a  desire  to  impeach,  but 
for  lack  of  a  scrap  of  evidence.  If  the  House  Committee  could 
only  lay  hands  on  some  specific  offense,  short  shift  it  would 
make  of  "the  renegade."  And  this  specific  act  Johnson  him- 
self soon  furnished.  In  the  teeth  of  a  resolution  of  the  Senate, 
passed  January  13,  1868,  that  the  President  had  no  power  to 
remove  Stanton  from  his  office  as  Secretary  of  War  and  to 
appoint  a  successor,  Andrew  Johnson  issued  an  order  to  Stan- 
ton to  vacate  and  another  order  to  General  Lorenzo  Thomas 
to  take  possession.  Tlie  explosion  which  followed  took  place 
on  February  22,  1868. 

It  is  necessary  to  recite  the  circumstances  leading  up  to  this 
event.  For  a  long  time  Secretary  Stanton  had  been  a  thorn  in 
the  President's  flesh.     Since  the  summer  of  1866  Welles  and 

If.  DoWitt,  Tinpeachment,  p.  28n. 
I'Mohnaon  MS;  Oberlioltzer,  Vol.  IT,  j).  65. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       41T 

others  had  urged  his  removal,  but  the  President  held  on  to  the 
popular  War  Secretary,  despite  such  warnings.  After  the 
Tenure  of  Office  Act,  March  2,  1867,  which  made  Stanton  se- 
cure, as  he  thought,  the  Secretary  of  War  had  become  more 
open  and  defiant  of  the  President  and  "assumed  the  task  of 
inspiring  in  Congress  the  belief  that  his  chief,  the  President, 
was  a  desperate  character,  bent  on  overriding  the  majority  by 
military  force."  ^"  At  a  cabinet  meeting  in  the  summer  of 
1866,  for  example,  when  the  question  of  the  government's 
supplying  bunting  for  the  Philadelphia  Union  National  Con- 
vention was  up  for  discussion,  a  significant  conversation 
occurred.  "Let  the  navy  furnish  the  bunting,"  said  Stanton, 
sneering  at  Welles's  attachment  to  Johnson.  "The  navy  never 
refuses  to  show  its  colors,"  Welles  retorted.  As  time  passed 
Stanton  drew  nearer  to  Sumner  and  "collogued  with  the  Rad- 
icals," in  fact  acted  with  such  duplicity  as  "to  strongly  sug- 
gest the  vagaries  of  an  opium-eater."  ^®  It  must  be  said,  how- 
ever, that,  though  Stanton  was  acting  as  a  spy  on  the  Johnson 
administration,  Congress,  as  a  whole,  sought  to  justify  liim  in 
so  doing.  He  had  a  right  to  do  so  and  indeed  he  was  moved  so 
to  do  by  high  and  patriotic  motives,  the  Radicals  affirmed. 

The  strained  relations  between  the  President,  supported  by 
his  cabinet,  and  the  Secretary  of  War  continued  till  Monday, 
August  5,  1867,  when  the  President  suspended  Stanton  from 
office,  and  appointed  General  Grant  in  his  place.  On  that  day, 
as  we  have  seen,  John  Surratt  was  on  trial  for  assassinating 
Lincoln,  and  his  attorney  was  charging  that  the  Government 
dared  not  put  Booth's  diary  in  evidence  as  it  would  acquit 
Surratt.  In  reply  Judge  Bingham,  for  the  Government, 
holding  in  his  hands  the  record  in  the  Mary  Surratt  trial 
of  two  years  before,  had  called  attention  to  it.  "Why,  this 
entire  record  was  presented  to  the  President,  at  that  time,  in- 
cluding the  recommendation  for  mercy ;"  Bingham  said,  "and 
the  judgment  approved  by  the  chief  executive."  Next  day's 
papers  carried  an  account  of  the  trial,  laying  special  stress  on 
the  recommendation  for  mercy.     Before  then,  as  I  have  stated, 

17  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  92. 
18/&ld.,  p.   91. 


418  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  President  had  never  heard  of  the  recommendation  and  was 
dumbfounded.  Did  the  war  secretary  know  of  the  recom- 
mendation and  conceal  it  from  him?  Holt  certainly  knew 
of  it,  as  he  often  admitted.  Must  Stanton  not  have  known 
of  it  also?  Anyway,  on  that  very  day,  Stanton  was  sus- 
pended and  General  Grant  appointed  ad  interim,  in  his  place. 
General  Grant  served  as  Secretary  of  War,  with  great 
satisfaction  to  the  administration,  for  about  four  months.  At 
the  time  of  this  incident  the  President  likewise  suspended  Gen- 
eral Slieridan  as  military  commander  at  New  Orleans  for  dis- 
courteous remarks  concerning  an  opinion  of  Attorney-General 
Stanbery  upon  the  Reconstruction  Act.  This  action  of  the 
President  gave  great  offense  to  the  North  and  was  displeasing 
to  General  Grant.^^ 

On  December  12,  1867,  the  President  sent  a  message  to  the 
Senate,  informing  them  that  he  had  removed  Stanton  and 
appointed  Grant,  giving  his  reasons.  Stanton  at  the  same 
time,  submitted  his  reply  to  the  Senate.  On  January  13, 
1868,  the  House,  in  a  great  state  of  excitement,  resolved  that 
the  President  had  no  right  to  remove  Stanton  or  to  appoint  a 
successor  and  sent  formal  notice  of  its  action  to  the  President, 
to  General  Grant,  to  Stanton,  and  to  General  Thomas.  On 
the  next  day,  Secretary  Grant,  fearing  that  he  might  be  fined 
ten  thousand  dollars  and  imprisoned  five  years,  as  prescribed 
in  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  resigned.  Going  into  the  War 
department  office,  he  locked  the  door,  then  turned  the  key  over 
to  his  first  assistant,  and  Stanton  came  back  in  as  Secretary 
of  War.  Now  this  was  more  than  the  resolute  President  could 
endure.  He  was  going  to  fight.  The  Constitution  authorized 
him  to  select  his  official  family  and  Congress  should  not  deprive 
him  of  the  right. 

Specially  was  his  wrath  kindled  against  General  Grant,  of 
whom  he  was  both  fond  and  proud.  Poor  men  they  had  been, 
and  plain  men;  Grant  a  tanner,  Johnson  a  tailor,  and  both 
Democrats.  But  Grant  had  gone  back  on  him  in  this  matter, 
he  concluded.  When  he  was  appointed  secretary  ad  interim 
he  had  promised  Johnson  if  Congress  interfered  to  hand  the 

1"  DeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  315. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       419 

office  back  and  not  to  deliver  it  over  to  Stanton.  This  would 
enable  the  President  to  test,  through  the  courts,  Stanton's 
right  to  hold  the  office.  Sending  for  General  Grant,  the  Presi- 
dent interrogated  him  before  the  assembled  cabinet.  Why  had 
he  not  complied  with  his  agreement?  A  controversy  arose  be- 
tween the  two  friends.  In  this  controversy  all  the  cabinet  sus- 
tained the  President.""  General  Grant's  pride  was  wounded 
and  forthwith  he  joined  his  old  enemy,  Stanton,  and  the  Rad- 
icals, Thad  Stevens  declaring  "we  will  now  admit  you  into  the 
church."  The  loss  of  General  Grant's  influence  was  an  im- 
measurable injury  to  the  President's  administration. 

In  this  crisis  the  President  had  the  cooperation  of  his  entire 
official  family.  Welles  considered  the  Senate  "a  debauched, 
debased,  demoralized  body  without  independence,  sense  of  right 
or  moral  courage.  ...  A  Radical  body  subject  to  the  dicta- 
tion of  Sumner  who  is  imperious  and  Chandler  who  is  un- 
principled." The  cabinet  had  just  advised  the  President  "that 
he  could  not  be  removed  from  office  except  on  impeachment," 
as  the  Constitution  provides ;  that,  "pending  impeachment,  he 
could  not  be  suspended";  that  "if  he  should  be  suspended  he 
ought  to  maintain  his  authority"  and  that  "such  suspension 
and  arrest  would  be  a  crime,  no  less  a  violation  of  the  law  by 
Congress  than  if  effected  by  private  parties."  ~^ 

After  the  retirement  of  General  Grant  as  Secretary  of  War 
on  January  14,  the  President  offered  the  place  to  General 
Sherman.  Sherman  declined.  As  a  last  resort  on  February 
21,  Stanton  was  again  removed  and  Lorenzo  Thomas,  titular 
Adjutant-General,  was  appointed  Secretary  of  War,  under  the 
act  of  1789.  Now,  the  Senate  being  in  session,  the  President 
could  not  remove  Stanton  if  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  was  ap- 
plicable and  constitutional.  He  and  his  advisers,  however, 
concluded  that  the  old  act  of  1789  covered  the  case  and  not 

20  Moore,  Diary,  p.  118;  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  489. 

21  Jones,  Life,  p.  245 ;  Rhodes  stigmatizes  this  conduct  of  Johnson,  in  not 
surrendering  to  Congress,  as  "vindictive  resentment."  "Johnson  was  sur- 
rounded by  oflBce-seeking  sycophants,"  says  Rhodes,  "and  was  driven  to  do 
what  he  did  by  obscure  busy-bodies,  beggars  for  place." — Cf.  The  opinion  of 
the  Supreme  Court  in  the  fall  of  1926,  in  Myers  vs.  United  States,  sustaining 
Johnson's  course,  cutting  up  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  by  the  roots,  and  declar- 
ing that  no  President  could  run  the  government  with  such  a  law  hanging  over 
him. 


420  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  and  that  he  could  remove  and  fill  the 
office  at  the  same  time."^  It  is  probable  that  General  J.  D.  Cox 
of  Ohio  if  appointed,  as  Sherman  and  Ewing  recommended, 
might  have  been  acceptable  to  the  Senate,  but  Cox  was  under 
Grant's  influence,  Welles  insisted.  Therefore,  he  was  not  ap- 
pointed."^ Ewing  and  Sherman,  much  concerned,  now  under- 
took to  get  the  President  out  of  trouble,  urging  him  to  let 
Stanton  alone  and  "not  adopt  rash  measures."  Chief  Justice 
Chase  also  warned  "of  the  coming  avalanche."  "*  But  Andrew 
Johnson  was  not  to  be  humiliated  or  disgraced.  Congress 
might  chop  him  to  mincemeat  but  he  would  not  play  the 
coward.  "Damn  it,"  he  would  say,  to  those  suggesting  that  he 
might  be  impeached,  "I  am  tired  of  such  talk,  let  them  go  on 
and  impeach  if  they  want  to."  .  .  .  "If  the  people  do  not  en- 
tertain sufficient  respect  for  their  Chief  Magistrate  to  uphold 
him  in  his  course,"  he  said  to  his  secretary,  "he  ought  to  re- 
sign." -^  To  the  New  York  World  he  said  that  he  had  "the 
constitutional  right  to  remove  Stanton  and  that  if  a  contest 
arose  it  would  be  settled  in  the  courts." 

It  was  February  21  when  Stanton  was  summarily  dismissed 
and  his  successor  Thomas  appointed.  Now  Thomas,  the  new 
appointee,  a  fair-weather  warrior,  was  a  gentleman  of  the  old 
school — convivial  in  his  habits  and  somewhat  garrulous. 
Under  his  administration  events  moved  along  rapidly  and 
merrily.  Going  over  to  Stanton's  office,  he  demanded  posses- 
sion, exhibiting  his  authority.  At  first  Stanton  seemed  dis- 
posed to  yield  but  asked  time  to  consider  the  matter.  The  Gen- 
eral, swelling  with  the  importance  of  the  high  honors  thrust 
upon  him,  went  his  way.  Stanton  put  himself  into  communica- 
tion with  the  Senate  and  House,  furnishing  to  them  copies  of 
the  President's  order  of  removal.  The  response  was  instant 
and  vigorous.  Many  Congressmen  rushed  to  the  War  depart- 
ment to  back  up  the  War  Secretar3\  Sumner  forwarded  a 
letter  with  the  single  word  "Stick." 

The  night  following  these  important  events  General  Thomas, 

22  DeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  340. 

23  Welles,  Diary,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  231. 

24  Warden,  Chase,  p.  618. 
20  Moore,  op.  cit.,  p.  120. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       421 

in  fantastic  garb,  attended  a  masque  ball  in  Washington,  en- 
joying the  luxury  of  his  new  position  and  the  sensation  he  was 
creating.  To  those  crowding  around  him  and  asking  what  he 
proposed  to  do  if  Stanton  resisted,  he  replied,  "Break  down 
the  doors !"  In  fact,  as  it  afterwards  appeared,  "the  eyes  of 
Delaware,"  his  native  State,  "were  upon  him!"  But  in  the 
early  morn  the  General's  sleep,  after  a  night  of  carousal,  was 
disturbed  by  the  arrival  of  the  sheriff,  armed  with  an  order  of 
arrest,  sworn  out  by  Stanton.  In  due  time  the  General  gave 
bond  to  appear  before  Judge  Cartter.  First,  however,  he 
asked  the  Judge  if  the  order  of  arrest  forbade  him  "having  it 
out"  with  Secretary  Stanton.  Advised  by  Judge  Cartter  that 
it  did  not,  the  General  conferred  with  the  President  who  was 
glad  "Stanton  had  taken  the  matter  to  court."  "That's  just 
where  I  wish  it,"  he  said.  "The  Tenure  of  Office  Act  will  now 
be  tested.  When  you  are  taken  in  custody  we  will  sue  out 
habeas  corpus  and  the  courts  will  settle  the  matter." 

Forthwith  the  gay  old  warrior  crossed  the  street  again  to  try 
his  luck  with  Secretary  Stanton.  But  Stanton  would  not 
budge  an  inch.  Thomas  demanded  of  Secretary  Stanton  to 
surrender  the  office.  Stanton  replied  that  he  himself  was  Sec- 
retary of  War  and  ordered  Thomas  out  of  the  office.  Thomas 
refused  to  go.  Stanton  wanted  to  know,  "Do  j^ou  mean  to  use 
force?"  Thomas  replied  that  he  did  not  care  to  use  force  but 
his  mind  was  made  up  what  he  should  do.  After  a  while  the 
controversy  grew  tiresome  and  the  Congressmen  who  had  wit- 
nessed the  scene  returned  to  the  House.  What  followed  their 
departure  it  was  left  to  Thomas  to  relate,  and  this  he  did  as  a 
witness  in  the  Impeachment  trial.  Stanton  handed  him  a  note, 
dated  the  day  before,  forbidding  him  from  acting  as  Secretary 
of  War  ad  interim;  and  then  the  conversation  continued  as 
follows : 

"I  said,  *The  next  time  you  have  me  arrested,  please  do  not 
do  it  before  I  get  something  to  eat.'  I  said  I  had  had  nothing 
to  eat  or  drink  that  day.  He  put  his  hand  around  my  neck,  as 
he  sometimes  does,  and  ran  his  hand  through  my  hair,  and 
turned  to  General  Schriver  and  said,  'Schriver,  you  have  got 
a  bottle  here;  bring  it  out.' 


422  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

"Schriver  unlocked  his  case  and  brought  out  a  small  vial, 
containing  I  suppose  about  a  spoonful  of  whiskey,  and  stated 
at  the  same  time  that  he  occasionally  took  a  little  for  dyspepsia. 
Mr.  Stanton  took  that  and  poured  it  into  a  tumbler  and  di- 
vided it  equally  and  we  drank  it  together. 

"A  fair  division,  because  he  held  up  the  glasses  to  the  light 
and  saw  that  they  each  had  about  the  same,  and  we  each  drank. 
Presently  a  messenger  came  in  with  a  bottle  of  whiskey,  a  full 
bottle ;  the  cork  was  drawn,  and  he  and  I  took  a  drink  together. 
'Now,'  said  he,  'this  at  least  is  neutral  ground.'  "  ^^ 

Soon  after  this  warlike  episode,  the  President  sent  to  the 
Senate  the  name  of  General  Ewing,  W.  T.  Sherman's  father- 
in-law,  to  be  Secretary  of  War.  The  appointment  was  not 
acted  upon,  sterner  matters  demanding  the  attention  of  Con- 
gress. On  the  twenty-first,  when  the  President  appointed 
Thomas,  he  likewise  sent  to  the  Senate  his  veto  of  the  resolu- 
tions of  Congress  disapproving  of  Stanton's  removal.  In  this 
document  he  gave  warning  to  the  Senate  and  to  the  House  to 
do  its  worst.  "Whatever  be  the  consequences  personal  to  my- 
self," he  declared,  "I  could  not  allow  them  to  prevail  against  a 
public  duty  so  clear  to  my  own  mind  and  so  imperative.  If  what 
was  possible  had  been  certain,  if  I  had  been  fully  advised  when 
I  removed  Mr.  Stanton,  that,  in  thus  defending  the  trust  com- 
mitted to  my  hands,  my  own  removal  was  sure  to  follow,  I  could 
not  have  hesitated,  actuated  by  public  considerations  of  the 
highest  character."  ^'^ 

It  was  February  22  when  this  message  was  received,  and  it 
threw  Congress  into  an  uproar.  Covode  immediately  offered 
impeachment  resolutions,  and  in  two  hours  the  Great  Recon- 
struction Committee,  now  at  last  a  unit  on  removing  Johnson, 
appeared  in  the  House  and  through  its  spokesman  Thaddeus 
Stevens  recommended  that  "Andrew  Johnson,  President  of 
the  United  States,  be  impeached  of  high  crimes  and  misde- 
meanors in  office."  All  Washington  was  now  on  tiptoe.  The 
country  at  large  was  greatly  excited.  Andy  Johnson  meant 
fight;  at  that  very  moment,  he  was  consulting  with  General 

28DeWitt,  p.  356. 
^7  Ihid.,  p.  375. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       423 

Emory,  and  preparing  to  resist  the  action  of  Congress.  The 
debate  on  Covode's  resolutions  to  impeach  occupied  a  day  and 
a  half.  Stevens  arraigned  the  President  as  the  "first  great 
political  malefactor" ;  a  man  "who  was  possessed  by  the  same 
motive  that  made  the  angels  fall."  .  .  .  "Who  dare  to  hope 
that  the  Senate  will  dare  to  betray  its  trust?"  he  asked.  .  .  . 
"Will  disgrace  itself  in  the  face  of  the  nation?  Point  me  to 
one  who  dare  do  it  and  I  will  show  you  one  who  will  dare  the 
infamy  of  posterity."  One  Radical  Congressman  was  in  favor 
of  "the  official  death  of  Andrew  Johnson  without  debate." 
Another  was  wagering  that  Ben  Wade  would  be  President 
within  ten  days.  Sumner  in  the  Senate  was  exclaiming,  in  his 
lordly  fashion,  that  this  was  "one  of  the  last  great  battles  with 
slavery."  "Why  higgle  over  words  and  phrases?"  Sumner  in- 
sisted.   "It  is  wrong  to  try  this  impeachment  on  any  articles." 

Democrats  and  conservative  Republicans,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  much  concerned.  It  seemed  to  the  Democrats  that  "they 
stood  in  the  midst  of  a  red  tribunal,"  that  Congress  had  "si- 
lenced the  courts,"  "murdered  ten  Southern  States"  and  now 
"proposed  to  put  the  President  out  of  office."  Hubbard  of 
Connecticut  spoke  words  of  great  earnestness.  "I  take  it  upon 
myself  to  say,"  the  Connecticut  Congressman  declared,  defend- 
ing Andrew  Johnson's  manhood,  "that  the  first  instinct  of  a 
man  of  honor  similarly  situated  would  impel  him  to  eject  by 
force  and  arms,  with  hot  and  honest  indignation,  any  con- 
temptible individual  who  should  presume,  with  brazen  and 
shameless  impudence,  to  seek  to  intrude  into  his  family  of 
confidential  advisers.  Nay,  sir,"  Hubbard  continued,  "if  the 
old  hero  of  New  Orleans  were  to-day  seated  in  the  President's 
chair,  he  would  find  a  sharp  and  speedy  remedy  for  such  a 
nuisance,  in  the  toe  of  his  boot,  and  not  by  the  tardy  process 
of  law." 

On  the  following  Monday,  February  24,  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  a  ballot  was  taken  on  Covode's  resolution.  It  was 
carried  by  a  vote  of  126  to  47.  Every  Republican  voted  aye 
and  every  Democrat  no.  A  committee  of  two,  consisting  of 
Stevens  and  Bingham,  was  appointed  to  communicate  the  ac- 
tion of  the  House  to  the  Senate.    Next  day  Thaddeus  Stevens 


424*  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

and  Bingham  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the  Senate.  Stevens, 
"looking  the  ideal  Roman,  with  singular  impressiveness,  as  if  he 
were  discharging  a  sad  duty,"  approached  and  said,  "In  the 
name  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  of  all  the  people  of 
the  United  States  we  do  impeach  Andrew  Johnson,  President 
of  the  United  States  of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  in 
office;  and  we  further  inform  the  Senate  that  the  House  of 
Representatives  will,  in  due  time,  exhibit  particular  articles  of 
impeachment  against  him  and  make  good  the  same."  Wade 
the  President  pro  tempore  replied,  "The  Senate  will  take  order 
in  the  premises."  '® 

While  these  momentous  matters  were  happening  in  Congress, 
the  ubiquitous  Thomas  was  also  playing  his  part  in  the  drama. 
Accompanied  by  his  lawyers,  on  the  day  fixed  for  the  trial,  he 
appeared  in  Judge  Cartter's  court  to  answer  the  charge  of 
Secretary  Stanton  for  a  violation  of  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act. 
Stanton  was  not  present  in  person,  but  by  attornej^s.  Thomas, 
coming  forward,  surrendered  himself  to  the  court.  "Hold," 
said  the  astonished  attorneys  for  Stanton,  seeing  a  habeas  cor- 
pus staring  them  in  the  face,  "we  have  not  asked  for  imprison- 
ment." "Very  well,"  Thomas's  attornej^s  replied,  "we  then  ask 
the  prisoner's  discharge."  The  court  so  ordered.  Thomas  was 
then  released  and  Andrew  Johnson's  effort  to  test  the  law  was 
again  foiled  by  the  Radicals.  Stanton,  understanding  that 
possession  was  nine  points  of  the  law  and  that  so  long  as  he 
was  in  the  office  no  court  would  put  him  out,  stuck  to  his  job. 
Whereas,  if  Thomas  had  been  put  in  custody  he  could  have  had 
his  imprisonment  inquired  of,  under  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 
This  great  writ  no  judge  would  dare  deny.  Thus  ingloriously 
ended  the  famous  lawsuit  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton  vs.  Lorenzo 
Thomas. 

Thomas  out  of  the  way  and  the  danger  of  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  removed,  Congress  could  go  forward  without  molesta- 
tion. Seven  managers  were  next  elected,  Bingham,  Boutwell, 
Butler,  Logan,  Stevens,  Williams,  and  Wilson.  General 
Grant's  contempt  for  Ben  Butler  had  kept  the  hero  of  Fort 

28  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  111. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       425 

Fislier  off  the  committee  to  formulate  charges,  but  Butler  had 
succeeded  in  being  appointed  a  manager.  Next  in  order  came 
the  formulating  of  charges  and  this  was  a  specially  troublesome 
task,  requiring  several  days.  The  issue  must  be  narrowed  for 
sensible  lawyers  knew  that  if  the  President  were  charged  with 
petty  offenses,  provable  by  rumor,  it  would  take  as  long  to  try 
him,  "as  it  did  to  try  Warren  Hastings."  It  was  therefore 
agreed  to  limit  the  charges  to  eleven.  Ten  of  them  were  formu- 
lated on  the  first  day  and  adopted.  Ben  Butler's  pet  specifi- 
cation was  rejected.  But  on  the  morning  of  March  4,  after  a 
night's  reflection,  the  ten  charges  sounded  so  scant  and  meager, 
the  House  reversed  itself  and  adopted  Butler's  charge,  based 
upon  the  President's  political  harangues.  Jenkes,  who  had  a 
habit  of  referring  to  the  President  as  "the  person  exercising 
the  duties  of  the  executive  office,"  wished  to  broaden  the 
charges  so  as  to  inquire  into  the  motives  of  the  President. 
"Beastly  Ben  Butler,"  discussing  the  question  of  what  con- 
stituted an  impeachable  offense,  expressed  himself  as  usual,  in 
the  language  of  the  fish  market.  "I  had  thought,"  said  he, 
"this  old  dogma  that  the  President  was  impeachable  only  for 
indictable  crimes  dead  and  buried — I  knew  it  stunk."  (Laugh- 
ter.) This  was  Butler's  idea  of  the  way  to  proceed  in  deposing 
the  Chief  Executive  of  forty  millions  of  people. 

Though  there  were  eleven  articles,  there  was  really  but  one 
offense — the  removal  of  Stanton  and  the  appointment  of 
Thomas.  The  first  article  charged  the  removal  in  so  many 
words ;  the  second  article  charged  the  writing  of  a  letter  to 
Thomas  to  take  possession ;  the  third  article  charged  the  actual 
appointment  of  Thomas.  Articles  four,  five,  six,  seven,  and 
eight  are  known  as  the  "conspiracy  articles"  as  they  charge 
a  conspiracy  to  do  what  the  three  first  articles  already  charged. 
The  ninth  article  charged  illegal  advice  to  General  Emory. 
The  tenth  article,  included  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  But- 
ler, charged  that  Andrew  Johnson,  in  a  loud  voice,  delivered 
sundry  speeches  on  February  22,  1866,  and  during  his  "swing 
round  the  circle."  Article  eleven  was  fathered  by  Thad 
Stevens  and  is  known  as  the  "omnibus  article."     It  charged  a 


426  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

design  to  prevent  the  reinstatement  of  Stanton  after  the  Senate 
had  concurred  in  his  suspension,  as  shown  by  the  Grant- John- 
son correspondence. "° 

Now  these  charges  were  based  on  a  violation  of  the  Tenure 
of  Office  Act  of  ]\Iarch  1867,  an  act  which  deprived  the  Presi- 
dent of  power  over  appointments  and  would  even  keep  an 
enemy  in  his  official  family.  At  the  time  the  bill  passed  the 
House  in  1867  it  provided  specifically  that  the  President 
sliould  not  remove  any  one  of  his  cabinet  without  the  Senate's 
consent.  The  Senate,  however,  struck  out  this  provision. 
After  a  conference  a  compromise  v/as  arranged,  as  appears 
in  the  proviso  to  the  first  section.  Discussing  this  proviso, 
Voorhees  suggested  that  the  provision  was  not  clear  and  that 
some  cabinet  officer  might  hold  over,  "though  ordered  out  by 
the  President."  Sherman  replied  that  such  a  thing  was  im- 
possible, that  he  did  not  see  "how  any  gentleman  could  do  it." 
Williams  declared,  "that  he  had  no  doubt  any  cabinet  minister, 
Math  a  particle  of  self-respect,  would  decline  to  remain  in  the 
cabinet  after  the  President  signified  his  presence  no  longer 
needed."  ^°  Hendricks,  hinting  at  Stanton,  stated  "that  the 
very  person  who  ought  to  be  turned  out  was  the  very  person 
who  would  stay  in."  And  so  it  eventuated,  Stanton  claiming 
that  he  was  not  within  the  exception. 

This  famous  Tenure  of  Office  Act  declares  in  substance  that 
the  President  shall  not  remove  any  officer  except  his  cabinet, 
and,  as  to  them,  they  shall  "hold  their  offices  respectively  for 
and  during  the  term  of  the  President,  by  whom  they  may  have 
been  appointed  and  for  one  month  thereafter,  subject  to  re- 
moval by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate."  Tlie 
act  further  provides  that  if  any  officer,  during  the  recess,  shall 
be  guilty  of  misconduct  the  President  may  suspend  him  and 
appoint  his  successor  until  the  case  can  be  acted  on  by  tlie 
Senate  and  in  such  case  the  President,  in  twenty  days  after 
the  Senate  meets,  shall  report  the  suspension  and  his  reasons 
to  the  Senate ;  that  if  the  Senate  fail  to  concur  in  the  removal 
the  removed  officer  shall  resume  his  duties ;  and,  finally,  that 

29DeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  386. 

30  Olobe,  Second  Session  Thirty-7ii>ith  Congress,  p.  1039. 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  THE  PRESIDENT       427 

any  person  who  violated  the  Act  or  attempted  to  do  so  should 
pay  a  fine  not  exceeding  ten  thousand  dollars  and  be  impris- 
oned for  not  more  than  five  years.  It  will  be  noted  that  in 
February  1867,  when  Stanton  was  finally  removed,  the  Senate 
was  sitting. 

By  12  o'clock  midnight  on  Wednesday,  March  4,  every- 
thing had  been  arranged — resolutions  of  impeachment 
adopted,  managers  elected,  charges  formulated.  On  the  mor- 
row, March  5,  1868,  at  high  noon,  the  President  of  the  United 
States  would  face  his  accusers  before  the  Senate  sitting  as  a 
High  Court  of  Impeachment  with  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Judge 
presiding. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  TRIAL 

On  Thursday  March  5,  at  one  o'clock,  the  Chief  Justice 
entered  the  Senate  Chamber,  every  Senator  rising  to  his  feet. 
Mr.  Justice  Nelson  accompanied  his  chief  and  Pomeroy,  Wil- 
son, and  Buckalew  acted  as  a  senatorial  escort.  On  taking  the 
chair  the  Chief  Justice  said,  "Senators,  in  obedience  to  your 
notice  I  am  present  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  Court  of 
Impeachment  and  am  now  ready  to  take  the  oath."  A  deep 
and  abiding  interest  followed  this  statement.  Did  the  Chief 
Justice  propose  to  change  the  Senate  into  a  court,  to  overrule 
the  radical  contention  that  the  Senate  was  a  mere  political 
tribunal  with  none  of  the  attributes  of  a  court?  Undoubtedly 
he  did,  for  after  taking  the  oath  he  turned  and  said,  "Senators, 
the  oath  will  be  administered  to  the  Senators  as  they  will  be 
called  by  the  secretary  in  succession."  Yielding  obedience  to 
a  force  greater  than  politics  or  partisanship,  the  Senators  came 
forward,  one  after  another,  and  the  Senate  was  transformed 
into  a  high  court  of  impeachment. 

A  brilliant  spectacle  was  presented:  the  Chief  Justice,  im- 
posing in  appearance,  of  great  natural  dignity  and  easily  con- 
scious of  the  awe  and  veneration  his  presence  inspired;  the 
prisoner  at  the  bar,  the  chief  executive  of  forty  millions  of 
people;  the  jury,  fifty-four  Senators  representing  twenty-seven 
sovereign  states ;  and  the  accusers,  one  hundred  and  ninety 
members  of  the  House.  In  the  audience  were  diplomats,  min- 
isters of  foreign  courts,  splendidly  gowned  women,  and  people 
of  all  ranks,  filling  every  inch  of  space.  As  the  roll  was  called 
and  the  name  of  Senator  B.  F.  Wade — President  of  the  Senate 
and  next  in  succession  to  the  presidency — was  reached,  objec- 
tion was  made.  If  Senator  Wade  were  allowed  to  take  his  seat 
as  a  member  of  the  court,  it  was  urged,  he  would  be  trying  his 
own  case.    The  Constitution  was  quoted  to  the  effect  that  when 

428 


THE  TRIAL  429 

the  President  is  impeached  the  Vice-president  shall  not  preside. 
In  deference  to  the  spirit  of  this  provision  it  was  thought  Wade 
should  not  sit  as  a  member  of  the  court.  Several  of  the  con- 
servative Senators,  however,  insisted  that  he  should,  and  ob- 
jection was  withdrawn.  On  the  sixth  he  was  sworn  in  and  took 
part  in  the  case.  That  he  was  within  his  legal  rights  no  one 
can  deny. 

The  composition  of  the  Senate  sitting  as  a  court  having  been 
arranged,  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  made  proclamation,  "Hear 
ye !  hear  ye !  all  persons  are  commanded  to  keep  silence  on  pain 
of  imprisonment  while  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  is  sitting 
for  the  trial  of  the  articles  of  impeachment  against  Andrew 
Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States."  Senator  Howard 
moved  that  the  secretary  notify  the  managers  that  the  Senate 
was  now  ready  to  proceed.  The  Chief  Justice  interposed,  feel- 
ing it  to  be  his  duty,  he  said,  to  submit  a  question  as  to  the 
rules  of  procedure.  "In  the  judgment  of  the  Chief  Justice," 
said  Chase,  speaking  with  the  impersonality  and  detachment 
of  a  disinterested  judge,  "the  Senate  is  no  longer  the  Senate, 
but  is  a  distinct  body,  under  a  different  oath,  and  the  presiding 
officer  is  not  the  president  pro  tern,  but  the  Chief  Justice; 
though  the  Senate  has  heretofore  adopted  rules  6i  procedure, 
such  rules  are  not  the  rules  of  this  body.  The  Chief  Justice 
may  be  in  error,"  he  said,  "and  if  so,  he  wishes  to  be  corrected ; 
and  therefore,  if  he  may  be  permitted  to  do  so,  he  will  take  the 
sense  of  the  Senate  on  this  question — whether  the  rules  adopted 
by  the  Senate  on  March  the  second  should  be  considered  the 
rules  of  this  body."  .  .  .  "Senators,"  the  Chief  Justice  went 
on,  putting  the  question,  "you  who  consider  such  rules  the 
rules  of  this  body  will  say  'aye,'  contrary,  'no.'  The  ayes 
have  it  by  the  sound."  Thus  a  second  time  the  majesty  of  the 
law  prevailed  over  the  turbulent  passions  of  politicians  and  it 
was  apparent  that  Ben  Wade's  place  was  filled  by  a  self-re- 
specting Judge.  Notice  was  given  to  the  managers  that  the 
Senate  was  ready  to  proceed  and  a  summons  was  ordered  to  be 
issued  for  Andrew  Johnson  to  show  cause  on  March  13  why 
he  should  not  be  removed  from  office  and  otherwise  dealt  with. 

Thousands  had  been  drawn  to  Washington  to  witness  the 


430  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

great  Impeacliment  trial.  "The  city  was  a  seething  caul- 
dron." "The  most  memorable  attempt  of  an  English-speaking 
people  to  dethrone  their  ruler"  was  a  drawing  card.  Though 
Andrew  Johnson's  head  could  not  be  chopped  off,  as  with 
Charles  I  and  Louis  XVI,  he  could  be  disgraced,  removed,  and 
in  a  jury  trial  fined  ten  thousand  dollars  and  imprisoned  for 
five  years.  But  the  matter  had  a  deeper  significance,  it  in- 
volved the  very  existence  of  the  executive  office.  Radicals, 
especially,  were  in  evidence,  re j  oicing  that  the  House  "had  had 
the  nerve  to  go  forward  and  that  the  madness  of  Johnson  had 
compelled  Congress  to  face  the  great  duty  of  removing  him."  ^ 

And  yet  while  feeling  was  running  high  against  the  Presi- 
dent and  General  Schenck  was  calling  him  "an  irresolute 
mule  and  a  devil  bent  on  the  ruin  of  his  country,"  a  dis- 
cordant note  was  sounded  in  a  most  unexpected  quarter.  On 
the  night  of  March  4  Chief  Justice  Chase  gave  a  reception  and, 
about  the  midnight  hour,  the  master  of  ceremonies,  waving 
other  guests  aside,  announced,  "The  President  of  the  United 
States !"  In  came  Andrew  Johnson  and  he  was  cordially 
greeted  by  his  old  abolition  friend  Chase.  Next  day  the  city 
of  Washington  was  set  by  the  ears.  Undoubtedly  the  Chief 
Justice  was  no  fit  person  to  preside  at  a  trial  "to  enforce  party 
discipline."  ^ 

On  the  thirteenth  the  trial  began.  Wade  again  vacated  the 
chair  and  the  Chief  Justice  looked  down  upon  fifty-four  Sen- 
ators seated  as  near  the  presiding  officer  as  convenient.  On 
the  left  were  the  managers,  on  the  right  the  lawyers  for  the 
President.  The  Sergeant-at-Arms  made  proclamation,  "Hear 
ye!  hear  ye!  Andrew  Johnson,  Andrew  Johnson,"  but  An- 
drew Johnson  came  not.  Obeying  his  attorneys,  he  was  re- 
maining discreetly  away,  attending  to  his  duties  in  the  White 
House.  While  this  call  for  Andrew  Johnson  was  echoing 
through  the  chamber,  "Ben"  Butler  popped  in  the  door  and 
halted  in  mid-air,  seemingly  at  a  loss  to  conceive  why  so 
offensive  a  name  should  be  hurled  at  him  in  so  offensive  a 
manner."     The  crowd  tittered  and  enjoyed  the  joke  on  "old 

1  Julian,  Recollections,  p.  316. 

2  Washington  papers  of  March  5. 


THE  TRIAL  431 

Ben,"  as  every  one  called  him.  Presently  Stanbery  rose  and 
read  a  paper,  signed  by  himself  and  B.  R.  Curtis,  Jeremiah  S. 
Black,  William  M.  Evarts,  and  Thomas  A.  R.  Nelson,  attor- 
neys for  the  President.  They  asked  forty  days  to  file  an 
answer.  Butler,  rolling  his  cock-eye  at  the  gallery,  exclaimed, 
"Forty  days,  as  long  as  it  took  God  Almighty  to  destroy  the 
world  by  a  flood !"  No  one  could  fail  to  mark  the  contrast  be- 
tween Henry  Stanbery  and  "Beast"  Butler — Butler,  "insolent, 
intolerant,  audacious" ;  Stanbery,  "courteous,  gentle  and  dig- 
nified" ;  so  refined  and  cultured  indeed,  Welles  was  alarmed 
"lest  he  would  prove  no  match  for  Butler."  ^ 

Butler's  effrontery  and  audacity  were  much  relished  by  the 
crowd  and  strangely  enough  by  the  great  old  man  Stevens, 
who  had  now  adopted  Butler  as  his  successor  and  spokesman. 
Thin,  pale  and  haggard,  his  face  scarred  with  the  crooked 
autograph  of  pain,  Stevens  would  die  content  could  he  but 
kick  Andrew  Johnson  out  of  the  White  House.^  Each  morning 
he  had  to  be  carried  upstairs  and  to  his  seat  by  two  negro 
men,  to  whom  he  would  grimly  remark,  "Boys,  I  wonder  who 
will  carry  me  when  you  are  dead  and  gone?"  ^  Though  his  eye 
flashed  and  his  bull-dog  mouth  snapped  as  of  old,  his  mighty 
spirit  was  flickering  and  was  soon  to  take  its  flight.  From  a 
tumbler  by  his  side  he  must  sip  strong  brandy  to  whip  himself 
along.  Butler  and  his  associates  regarded  themselves  as  "vice- 
gerents of  the  people."  Besides,  as  DeWitt  puts  it,  "They 
knew  their  Macaulay  and  were  resolved  to  be  the  Burkes  and 
Sheridans  in  this  trial  of  another  Warren  Hastings."  Man- 
ager Logan  was  known  as  "a  wild  horse."  He  had  an  unruly 
temper  and  a  mad  hatred  of  the  Democratic  party,  which  he 
had  just  quit;  Boutwell  was  the  typical  stump  orator;  James 
F.  Wilson  had  always  opposed  impeachment  and  "was  now  the 
sinner  come  to  repentance" ; "  he  was  saner  than  the  others. 
Manager  Williams  was  both  ornate  and  bitter.  Of  Judge 
Bingham  much  was  expected,  but  he  soon  took  a  back  seat, 
Butler  admitting  no  peer. 

3  Welles,  Diary,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  308. 

4  Cullum,  Fifty  Years,  p.  1256. 

5  Julian,  Recollections,  p.  313. 

6  DeWitt,  Chapter  VI. 


432  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

The  President's  request  to  be  allowed  forty  days  to  answer 
was  turned  down.  The  managers  insisted  that  no  time  be 
allowed  as  the  eighth  rule  required  an  immediate  trial.  Judge 
Curtis  called  attention  to  a  rule  of  all  courts  to  allow  a  reason- 
able time  to  answer,  and  suggested  it  was  not  well  to  put  an  im- 
portant matter  through  with  railroad  speed.  "Railroad 
speed!"  Butler  grunted.  "Sir,  why  not?  Railroads  have 
affected  all  other  business,  why  not  trials.?  In  every  other 
business  of  life  we  recognize  that  change,  why  not  in  this?" 
The  Senate  decided  ten  days  sufficient.  The  case  then  went 
over  until  March  23,  to  allow  the  President  time  to  file  his 
answer. 

During  this  interval  the  President  and  his  attorneys  were 
busy  with  the  defense.  Though  the  fated  man  was  beset  by 
enemies  he  did  not  waver ;  he  went  about  his  business  as  usual, 
reserved  and  calm.  He  was  going  to  put  up  a  fight  for  the 
Constitution  and  for  his  own  good  name — a  fierce  fight  but  a 
fair  one.  Soon  he  was  advised  that  the  Radicals  were  en- 
deavoring to  exert  influence  over  the  Senate  to  work  a  con- 
viction and  he  was  urged  to  meet  the  situation  by  fighting  the 
devil  with  fire.  "I  had  rather  be  convicted  than  resort  to  fraud, 
bribery  or  corruption  of  any  kind,"  he  replied.'^  A  great  com- 
fort to  him  in  these  trying  days  was  his  daughter,  ]\Irs.  Pat- 
terson. No  matter  how  late  the  conferences  or  how  protracted 
the  sittings  of  the  court,  she  remained  by  his  side,  ministering 
to  him  without  rest  or  sleep.  The  worn  and  invalid  wife  could 
render  no  aid,  but  his  daughter  Martha  never  failed  him ; 
when  the  lawyers  and  cabinet  had  gone  he  would  tell  her  of 
his  troubles  and  she  would  assist  in  bearing  his  heavy  load. 
Often  till  morning  she  would  busy  herself  making  a  pot  of 
coffee  or  arranging  some  delicacy,  awaiting  the  end  of  a  pro- 
tracted conference.® 

Henry  Stanbcry,  who  had  resigned  as  Attorney-General  to 
defend  the  President,  was  likewise  a  joy.  Living  no  great  dis- 
tance from  Johnson's  Tennessee  home,  and  being  a  true  friend 
of  the  President,  this  whole-hearted  Ohio  gentleman  would 

7  Moore,  Diary,  p.  129. 

8  Johnson  MS.;  Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  21. 


THE  TRIAL  433 

enter  the  White  House  and  by  his  excellent  spirits  encourage 
his  Chief.  "Everything  will  come  out  right,"  he  would  say; 
"I  feel  it  in  my  bones.  ...  I  confess  at  first  I  felt  a  misgiving 
about  this  act  of  impeachment,"  he  would  declare,  "but  now, 
Mr.  President,  I  see  in  it  nothing  but  good.  It  gives  you 
the  great  opportunity  to  vindicate  yourself, — not  only  before 
the  American  people  but  before  the  entire  world  ...  an  op- 
portunity such  as  you  could  never  otherwise  have  had  to  show 
whether  you  are  a  traitor  or  not."  On  another  occasion  he 
said,  "If  I  can  only  keep  well  for  this  trial,  Mr.  President,  I 
will  be  willing  to  be  sick  the  balance  of  my  life.  I  know.  Sir, 
that  you  W'ill  come  out  of  it  brighter  than  you  have  ever 
shone."  ^ 

The  President  had  hoped  that  his  old  friend  Jerre  Black, 
whom  he  selected  as  his  main  attorney,  would  be  a  stay  and 
support.  An  unfortunate  circumstance,  however,  removed 
Judge  Black  from  the  case  and  came  near  producing  serious 
results.  Black,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  a  staunch 
Democrat  and  had  assisted  the  President  in  his  messages  to 
Congress.  In  truth,  there  was  no  stronger  constitutional  law- 
yer in  his  day  than  Jerre  Black,  the  hero  of  Ex  Parte  Milligan. 
Now,  shortly  after  Black  was  retained,  his  law  firm  impru- 
dently urged  the  President  to  assist  them  In  recovering  a  small 
Guano  Island,  called  Alta  Vela,  In  the  Caribbean  Sea.  Black's 
firm  wished  United  States  war  vessels  to  be  sent  to  capture  the 
Island,  otherwise  their  client  would  lose  his  debt.  Accompany- 
ing the  request  to  the  President  was  a  letter  urging  favorable 
action.  This  letter  was  signed  by  Ben  Butler,  Stevens,  Bing- 
ham and  James  G.  Blaine.  It  must  be  kept  In  mind  that  this 
letter  was  dated  March  9,  several  days  after  the  Impeachment 
trial  had  got  under  way.  The  President  refused  Judge 
Black's  request.  He  was  not  to  be  made  a  tool  of  by  him  or 
any  one  else.  The  Judge  withdrew  from  the  case,  even  sever- 
ing further  social  relations  with  the  President. 

Very  little  evidence  was  offered,  about  twenty-five  witnesses 
for  the  managers  and  sixteen  for  the  defendant.  These  were 
wholly  unimportant.    The  case  was  based  upon  the  record  and 

9  Moore,  Notes,  p.  124. 


434!  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

not  upon  living  witnesses.  By  March  31  the  written  evidence 
was  in.  This  consisted  of  the  President's  oath  to  support  the 
Constitution ;  the  act  of  March  2,  1867 ;  the  order  removing 
Stanton  and  appointing  Thomas  and  other  evidence  of  that 
kind.  On  April  4  the  witnesses  for  the  managers  had  been 
examined  and  their  case  closed.  One  fact  at  least  the  man- 
agers had  developed,  that  in  his  "swing  round  the  circle"  the 
President  was  coolly  sober.  "There  was  no  drinking  on  that 
trip,"  the  newspaper  reporters  testified.  The  first  decided 
setback  the  prosecution  received  was  when  Butler  offered  to 
show  that  General  Thomas  had  gone  with  his  commission  in 
hand  to  Stanton's  office  with  intent  to  take  forcible  posses- 
sion.^*^ Stanbery  objected.  The  Chief  Justice  held  against  him. 
"The  evidence  will  be  heard  unless  the  Senate  think  otherwise," 
he  ruled.  Senator  Drake,  an  extreme  Radical,  took  exception 
to  the  presiding  officer's  "undertaking  to  decide  a  point  of  that 
kind.  It  is  for  the  Senate,"  he  insisted.  The  Chief  Justice 
ruled  against  this  position.  Drake  appealed  to  the  Senate  and 
demanded  a  vote.  Fessenden  insisted  that  Drake  was  out  of 
order.  Senator  Johnson  "called  the  Honorable  ISIember  to 
order."  "The  question  is  not  debatable  in  the  Senate,"  said 
Senator  Johnson.  "I  am  not  debating  it,"  retorted  Drake, 
"I  am  stating  my  point  of  order."  The  Chief  Justice  rapped 
sharply  upon  his  desk.  "The  Senator  will  come  to  order,"  he 
commanded.  "If  the  President  please,"  said  Manager  Butler, 
"is  not  this  question  debatable?"  "It  is  debatable,"  said  the 
Chief  Justice,  "by  the  managers  and  by  the  counsel  for  the 
defendant,  not  by  the  Senators."  After  further  discussion 
Senator  Drake  again  declared  he  objected  to  the  presiding 
officer's  ruling. 

"The  Senator  is  not  in  order,"  the  Chief  Justice  tartly  ruled. 
"I  wish  that  question  put  to  the  Senate,  sir,"  the  recalcitrant 
Senator  persisted.  "The  Senator  will  come  to  order,"  the 
Chief  Justice  sternly  said.  Senator  Drake  subsided  and  from 
this  time  forth  no  Senator  undertook  to  debate  the  case.  At 
this  juncture  the  Senate  retired  for  conference  and  by  a  vote 
of  30  to  20  adopted  a  rule  in  accordance  with  the  Chief  Jus- 

10  Supplement  to  Olobe,  Second  Session  Fortieth  Congress,  p.  59. 


THE  TRIAL  435 

tice's  suggestion,  that  is,  the  presiding  officer  would  first  pass 
upon  disputed  points  and  the  Senate,  on  appeal,  would  review 
him.  Despite  the  ruling  of  the  Chief  Justice  that  he  was  sit- 
ting as  a  judge  and  presiding  over  a  court  the  managers  and 
the  radical  Senators  continued  to  address  him  as  "Mr.  Presi- 
dent." Oddly  it  sounded  to  hear  Senator  Reverdy  Johnson  or 
Mr.  Evarts  say,  "Your  Honor,"  or  "Mr.  Chief  Justice,"  and 
to  hear  Senator  Conness  and  Senator  Sumner  address  the 
Judge  as  "Mr.  President." 

The  managers  undertook  to  make  a  great  deal  out  of  Gen- 
eral Thomas's  threats  to  batter  down  Secretary  Stanton's 
door.  When  it  appeared,  however,  that  "the  eyes  of  Delaware" 
were  upon  General  Thomas,  and  that  the  old  gentleman  was 
more  concerned  about  the  masquerade  ball  and  the  sensation 
he  was  creating  than  all  else,  evidence  of  this  kind  proved  a 
boomerang.  In  fact  when  it  came  out  in  evidence  that  the  gal- 
lant General  and  the  Secretary  of  War  "met  on  neutral 
ground"  and  took  "a  drink  from  the  same  flask,"  and  that  it 
"was  an  equal  divide,"  it  was  apparent  that  the  managers 
could  not  rely  upon  the  charge  of  force  or  conspiracy.  The 
charge  that  the  President  had  directed  General  Emory  to 
disobey  the  law,  in  opposition  to  a  resolution  of  Congress,  fell 
to  the  ground  when  Emory  testified  to  his  conversation  with 
the  President.  "Have  you  been  receiving  orders  from  any 
one  other  than  myself?"  the  President  had  asked  Emory.  "To 
this,"  said  Emory,  "I  replied,  'The  command  of  the  army  has 
been  taken  from  you,  Mr.  President,  and  given  to  General 
Grant.'  "  "But,"  said  the  President,  "is  that  not  unconstitu- 
tional.?" "Nevertheless,"  Emory  replied,  "I  must  obey  Con- 
gress. The  lawyers  all  advised  that  I  must."  Such  was  the 
terrible  Emory  episode ! 

On  Friday  April  10  the  defense  began  its  case.  Mr.  Stan- 
bery  called  witnesses  to  show  that  the  President  had  acted  in 
good  faith,  under  the  advice  of  his  cabinet,  and  with  no 
thought  of  violence.  Return  J.  Meigs,  Clerk  of  the  District 
Supreme  Court,  was  called  for  this  purpose.  He  produced 
the  papers  in  the  case  of  Stanton  against  Thomas,  also  the 
habeas  corpus  proceedings  taken  out  by  Thomas.     Butler  ob- 


436  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

jected  to  this  evidence.  The  Chief  Justice  ruled  in  favor  of 
the  President — "no  Senator  being  heard  to  object."  ^^  "Does 
your  Honor  understand  that  the  affidavit  in  the  case  is  admit- 
ted?" Manager  Butler  gasped.  The  Chief  Justice  did.  It 
seemed  that  this  ruling  would  go  unchallenged,  but  not  so.  "I 
heard  one  Senator  ask  for  the  question  to  be  put,"  Butler  in- 
sinuated. The  truculent  Senator  from  California,  Conness, 
admitted  that  he  wished  the  question  put.  The  Senate  by  a 
vote  of  34  to  17 — Roscoe  Conkling  one  of  the  seventeen,  how- 
ever— overruled  the  Radicals.  Butler  then  sneered,  "Mr. 
President,  I  wish  it  simply  understood,  that  I  may  clear  my 
skirts  of  this  matter,  that  this  all  goes  in  under  our  objection 
and  under  the  ruling  of  the  presiding  officer."  To  this  insolent 
insinuation  the  Chief  Justice  quietly  replied,  "It  goes  in  under 
the  direction  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States."  ^^ 

On  the  same  day  another  ruling  of  the  Chief  Justice  was 
sustained,  and  under  this  ruling  the  testimony  of  General 
Sherman  was  admitted.  On  January  27,  after  Grant  had 
turned  the  office  back  to  Stanton,  it  will  be  recalled,  Johnson 
tendered  the  place  to  Sherman.  Sherman  after  a  talk  with  the 
President  declined  it.  "Why  do  you  not  test  the  matter  in  the 
courts?"  Sherman  had  then  inquired.  "That's  precisely  what 
I'm  trying  to  do,"  the  President  replied.  The  force  of  this  evi- 
dence is  apparent.  It  showed  the  President's  lawful  motives. 
Now  at  the  conferences  of  the  lawyers  they  had  tried  in  vain 
to  devise  some  plan  to  induce  the  Senate  to  hear  evidence  of 
this  kind.  All  during  the  morning  of  April  18  General 
Sherman  had  been  interrogated  about  his  conversation  with  the 
President.  But  all  questions  and  answers  relating  to  this  mat- 
ter had  been  excluded. 

During  the  afternoon,  however,  and  while  the  General  was 
still  in  the  hall,  Reverdy  Johnson  asked  to  recall  him,  for  a 
question.  "When  the  President  tendered  to  you  the  office  of 
Secretary  of  War,"  Senator  Johnson  asked,  "did  he,  at  the  very 
time  of  making  such  tender,  state  to  you  what  his  purpose  in 

11  Globe,  p.  168. 
i2De\Vitt,  op.  cit..  p.  441. 


THE  TRIAL  437 

so  doing  was?  If  he  did,  state  what  he  said  his  purpose  was."  " 
These  searching  questions — relating  to  the  res  gestae,  as  the 
lawyers  would  say — threw  the  managers  into  a  passion.  Ben 
Butler  grew  indignant  and  insulting.  "In  this  matter,"  he 
snapped,  "Senator  Johnson  is  acting  as  the  attorney  of  the 
President."  The  Senate  by  a  vote  of  26  to  24*  directed  Sher- 
man to  answer  the  questions.  As  framed,  it  will  be  observed, 
they  related  to  the  res  gestae ;  that  is,  the  transaction  itself  was 
speaking.  General  Sherman  proceeded  to  testify:  "On  the 
twenty-seventh  and  thirty-first  of  January  the  President  had 
said,  'General  Sherman,  I  wish  you  to  serve  as  Secretary  of 
War,  to  protect  the  army  and  the  navy ;  I  cannot  work  in  har- 
mony with  Stanton  and  I  beg  you  as  the  General  of  the  army 
to  accept  this  office  for  the  good  of  the  country.' "  This  evi- 
dence disposed  of  all  the  charges  except  numbers  one,  two  and 
three.  When  General  Sherman  left  the  stand  Bingham  rose 
and  apologized  for  Butler's  remark.  "Senator  Johnson  was 
strictly  within  his  rights  in  asking  his  questions,"  said  Bing- 
ham, "and  the  managers  have  no  grievance  against  him." 
Secretary  Welles  was  next  called  but  was  not  permitted  to 
testify,  nor  were  the  other  members  of  the  Cabinet.  These 
witnesses  would  have  sworn  that  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  when 
first  passed  in  March  1867,  was  discussed  by  the  President  and 
cabinet.  Stanton  was  then  present.  The  cabinet  were  unan- 
imous that  the  Secretary  of  War  was  not  included  in  the 
protection  of  the  act.  Of  all  members  of  the  cabinet  Stanton 
was  the  most  outspoken  in  this  opinion. 

During  the  trial  the  suspicious  Welles  witnessed  a  scene  in 
the  streets  of  Washington  which  made  him  so  indignant  he 
hastened  home  to  record  it.  "When  I  was  coming  up  H 
Street  this  evening,  between  four  and  five,"  Welles  records,  "I 
came  upon  Conkling  and  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  who  were  in 
close  conversation  on  the  corner  of  15th  Street.  It  was  an 
ominous  and  discreditable  conjunction, — the  principal  man- 
ager, an  unscrupulous,  corrupt,  and  villainous  character,  hold- 
ing concourse  with  one  of  the  Senatorial  triers,  a  conceited 

13  Qlole,  p.  170. 


438  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

coxcomb  of  some  talents  and  individual  party  aspirations. 
They  both  were,  as  Jack  Downing  says,  stumped,  and  showed 
in  their  countenances  what  they  were  talking  about  and  their 
wish  that  I  had  been  on  some  other  street, — or  somewhere  else." 

A  little  while  before  Welles  had  made  another  entry  in  his 
diary :  "The  Constitution-breakers  are  trying  the  Constitution- 
defender,"  he  wrote ;  "the  law-breakers  are  passing  condemna- 
tion on  the  law-supporter ;  the  conspirators  are  sitting  in  judg- 
ment on  the  man  who  would  not  enter  into  their  conspiracy, 
who  was,  and  is,  faithful  to  his  oath,  his  country,  the  Union, 
and  the  Constitution.  What  a  spectacle!  And  if  successful, 
what  a  blow  to  free  government!  What  a  commentary  on 
popular  intelligence  and  public  virtue!" 

Towards  the  last  of  the  trial  Stanbery  was  taken  sick  and 
Evarts  asked  that  no  more  testimony  be  taken  during  the  day. 
This  simple  request  aroused  Butler's  anger  and  he  delivered 
what  Evarts  called  a  harangue,  "such  as  was  never  heard  before 
in  a  court  of  justice."  ^*  "While  these  delays  are  taking 
place,"  Butler  said,  "and  the  Senate  being  courteous  to  law- 
yers, the  true  Union  men  of  the  South  are  being  murdered.  On 
our  hands  and  on  our  skirts  is  their  blood.  Gentlemen  of  the 
Senate,"  he  roared,  "this  is  the  closing  up  of  a  war  wherein 
800,000  men  laid  down  their  lives  to  save  the  country."  .  .  . 
"My  mail  is  filled  with  threats  of  assassination,"  he  whined. 
"  'Butler,  prepare  to  meet  thy  God ;  Hell  is  your  portion,  the 
Avenger  is  abroad  on  your  track ;'  these  are  the  threats  I  daily 
receive,  but  I  am  a  free  man  and  it  is  known  that  the  threat- 
ened dog  lives  the  longest."  ^^  As  Butler  indulged  in  these 
daily  tirades  conservative  men  were  dreading  more  and  more 
the  placing  of  Ben  Wade  in  the  President's  office  with  Ben 
Butler  as  his  chief  adviser.^" 

As  soon  as  the  evidence  was  closed  it  was  clear  that  the  case 
was  one  wholly  of  law.  The  conspiracy  articles,  numbers  four, 
five,  six,  seven  and  eight  disappeared  under  the  evidence  of 
General  Sherman,  Thomas,  and  others  that  the  President's 
purpose  was  to  have  the  courts  test  the  matter.     Besides,  if 

i4DeWitt,  p.  442. 

15  Globe  Supplement,  Second  Session  Fortieth  Congress,  p.  208. 

10  Rhodes,  History,  Vol.  VI,  p.  152. 


THE  TRIAL  439 

there  had  been  a  conspiracy  General  Grant  was  one  of  the  con- 
spirators. He  had  served  as  Secretary  of  War  for  nearly  four 
months.  There  was  no  evidence  under  article  nine.  It  ap- 
peared that  the  President  in  his  dealings  with  General  Emory 
was  trying  to  keep  and  not  to  break  the  peace.  Article  ten, 
that  the  President  had  made  a  number  of  speeches,  using  rough 
language,  and  speaking  "in  a  loud  voice,"  as  Ben  Butler 
charged,  provoked  a  smile.  "It  is  certainly  a  novelty  in  this 
country,"  Evarts  blandly  remarked,  "to  try  anybody  for  mak- 
ing a  speech."  The  last  article,  known  as  the  omnibus  article, 
was  too  general  to  base  an  argument  upon.  In  a  word,  the  case 
finally  came  down  to  this,  "Was  the  President  guilty  of  a  high 
crime  and  misdemeanor  in  removing  Stanton  and  appointing 
Thomas?" 

One  phase  of  the  case,  however,  was  giving  the  defense  some 
trouble.  In  the  summer  of  1867  when  the  President  first  re- 
moved Stanton  he  seemed  to  be  placing  himself  within  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act.  The  Senate  was  not  then 
in  session.  When  it  met  in  December  the  President  reported 
his  action  to  the  Senate,  as  the  act  provides — apparently  oper- 
ating under  the  act.  If  the  President  had  removed  Stanton 
before  March  1867,  the  date  of  the  obnoxious  act,  or  if  he  had 
removed  him  outright  under  the  Act  of  1789  and  regardless  of 
the  Act  of  1867,  it  is  probable  he  would  not  have  been  im- 
peached.^^ But  this  mistake  of  the  President  in  first  proceed- 
ing under  the  Act  of  1867  M^as  not  regarded  as  fatal.  In  Feb- 
ruary 1868  he  finally  removed  Stanton  under  the  Act  of  1789 
and  was  on  safe  ground,  no  matter  what  he  had  done  in  August 
1867.  The  old  Act  of  1789  had  not  been  repealed.  For  more 
than  half  a  century  Presidents  had  removed  officials  at  their 
pleasure.  Johnson's  conduct  in  first  proceeding  under  the 
Tenure  of  Office  Act,  though  a  mistake,  was  not  a  crime.  By 
one's  conduct  one  can  not  estop  himself  so  as  to  transform 
innocent  conduct  into  a  violation  of  the  law. 

As  the  trial  progressed  the  President  grew  restless,  his 
calvinistic  blood  was  stirred.  To  be  charged  with  treason  to  a 
Union  which  he  had  fought  to  save  was  bad  enough.     To  be 

17  McCulloch,  Men  and  Measures,  p,  392 


MO  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

charged  with  complicity  in  Lincoln's  murder  was  more  than  he 
could  stand.  In  1862,  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  request,  he  had  quit 
the  quiet  life  of  a  Senator  in  Washington  to  go  into  the  hot 
furnace  of  Civil  War.  There  he  had  stood  like  adamant  while 
his  prosecutors  were  safe  in  bomb-proof  places.  Noav  these 
parlor-knights  were  hounding  him.  "He  hoped  to  God  he 
might  be  convicted,"  he  said  to  Colonel  Moore.  "He  would 
like  to  see  what  a  just  God  would  do  to  his  persecutors."  .  .  . 
"Bring  me  in  a  list  of  the  murderers  of  Charles  I,"  he  ordered ; 
"I'd  like  to  see  how  many  of  them  came  to  an  untimely  end." 
Several  times  he  was  on  the  eve  of  going  to  the  Senate  to 
manage  his  own  case.  At  night  he  sought  to  soothe  himself 
with  Addison's  "Cato,"  and  works  on  immortality. 

Crook,  the  President's  secretary,  makes  the  astounding 
statement  that  during  this  trying  time  the  President  would 
frequently  hand  a  letter  to  him  and  say,  "Crook,  here's  a  letter 
for  General  Butler,  take  it  and  wait  for  an  answer."  Crook 
would  go  to  Ben  Butler's  house,  at  I  Street  near  Fifteenth,  ring 
the  bell  and  "a  curious  cross-eyed  chap  like  his  master  would 
answer."  Crook  would  deliver  Butler's  answer  to  the  Presi- 
dent who  would  read  it  and  tear  it  up.  Now  considering  the 
time  and  the  circumstances  it  seems  plain  that  the  President's 
secretary  has  mixed  his  dates.  These  occurrences  took  place  in 
April  1865  and  not  in  April  1869.  At  the  former  date  the 
President  and  General  Butler  were  frequently  passing  notes, 
but  not  at  the  latter  date.^^ 

Each  evening  Warden,  the  President's  domestic,  would  come 
in  from  the  Senate,  no  matter  how  late,  and  report  what  had 
taken  place.  "Well,  Warden,"  the  President  would  cheerfully 
say,  "what  are  the  signs  of  the  zodiac  to-day?"  Warden  would 
give  an  account  of  the  day's  doings.  One  evening  Warden  told 
of  Boutwell's  speech.  Boutwell  had  just  assaulted  the  Presi- 
dent for  dismissing  Judge  Black  from  his  case.  He  had 
cliargcd  that  Johnson  had  treated  Black  tyrannically  and 
therefore  the  President  had  lost  his  chief  attorney.  "Andrew 
Johnson  has  but  one  rule  of  life,"  said  Boutwell:  "To  use 
every  man  of  power.     If  the  conservative  flee  or  the  brave  re- 

^s  Private  and  Official  Correspondence  of  General  Butler,  Vol.  V,  p.  602. 


THE  TRIAL  441 

sist,  they  are  utterly  ruined;  he  spares  no  one.  Already  this 
purpose  of  his  life  is  illustrated  in  the  treatment  of  a  gentle- 
man who  was  counsel  for  the  respondent,  but  who  has  never 
appeared  in  his  behalf."  These  charges  of  Boutwell  flew  on 
the  wings  of  the  wind.    Yet  the  President  sat  silent.^ ^^ 

After  the  exclusion  of  the  testimony  of  Secretary  Welles, 
no  other  evidence  of  consequence  was  offered.  The  case  was 
then  turned  over  to  the  lawyers.  The  taking  of  testimony  had 
consumed  but  half  a  dozen  full  days.  Butler  assumed  the  re- 
sponsible task  of  making  the  opening  speech.  Curtis  replied 
to  Butler.  Butler  had  declared  he  was  going  to  try  the  case, 
as  he  would  a  "horse  case."  He  did  not  belie  himself.  As 
Evarts  remarked,  at  the  end  of  Butler's  three-hour  speech, 
"The  air  was  filled  with  epithets  and  the  dome  shook  with  in- 
vectives." The  General,  however,  made  a  strong  plea  from 
manuscript,  which  he  read,  and  was  specially  severe  on  the 
President  for  language  used  in  his  speeches  while  "swinging 
round  the  circle."  In  Pickwickian  phrase  "old  Ben"  declared 
that  the  President  was  simply  blasphemous.  His  reply  to  the 
crowd  in  Cleveland,  that  "if  he  was  a  Judas,  Thad  Stevens, 
Wendell  Phillips  or  Charles  Sumner  must  have  been  the  Christ, 
was  shocking !"  "But,"  said  the  pious  Butler,  "I  will  not  pur- 
sue this  shocking  exhibition  any  further." 

A  high  crime  or  misdemeanor  Butler  defined  as  "one  which 
is  highly  prejudicial  to  the  public  or  is  the  abuse  of  discretion- 
ary powers  for  improper  motives."  ^^  The  strength  of  the 
General's  position  lay  in  this:  The  President  stood  self-con- 
victed. He  had  committed  the  crime  above  defined.  He  had 
been  disloyal  to  the  Government,  had  defied  Congress,  opposed 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  vetoed  wise  and  necessary  laws, 
and  was  a  public  enemy.  "If  the  President  commit  a  crime,  no 
matter  how  trifling,"  said  Manager  Butler,  "he  may  be  re- 
moved from  office.  Shall  he  escape  when  he  has  committed 
offenses  a  thousandfold  greater  than  technical  crimes?"  .  .  . 
"Senators,  you  are  bound  by  no  law,"  he  said,  "by  no  law  stat- 
ute or  common.  .  .  .  Johnson  was  elected  to  his  high  office, 

isaBvirgess,  p.  178. 

19  DeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  409. 


442  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

not  by  the  people  but  by  murder  most  foul."  Not  only  was  he 
probably  a  party  to  the  crime  of  Lincoln's  murder  but  in  a 
speech  in  Cleveland  had  referred  to  his  accession  to  the  Presi- 
dency "as  fortunate."  "The  liberties,  the  welfare,  of  all  men 
hang  trembling  on  the  decision  of  this  hour,"  Butler  dramat- 
ically concluded. 

Judge  Curtis  rose  to  reply.  Dignity  and  character  marked 
his  effort.  "I  am  present,"  he  quietly  began,  "to  speak  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  sitting  in  its  judiciary  capacity 
as  a  Court  of  Impeachment,  presided  over  by  the  Chief  Justice 
of  the  United  States,  for  the  trial  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  This  statement  sufficiently  characterizes  what 
I  have  to  say.  Here  party  spirit,  political  schemes,  foregone 
conclusions,  outrages,  biases,  can  have  no  fit  operation.  The 
Constitution  requires  that  here  should  be  a  'trial,'  and  as  in 
that  trial  the  oath  which  each  one  of  you  has  taken  is  to  admin- 
ister 'impartial  justice  according  to  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws,'  the  only  appeal  which  I  can  make  in  behalf  of  the  Presi- 
dent is  an  appeal  to  the  conscience  and  the  reason  of  each  judge 
who  sits  before  me." 

Curtis  then  proceeded  to  demonstrate  that  no  high  crime  or 
misdemeanor  had  been  proven,  unless  the  removal  of  Stanton 
constituted  such  offense.  The  only  real  charge  against  his 
client  was  such  removal  and  the  appointment  of  Thomas. 
Under  the  old  Act  of  1789  it  had  never  been  contended,  until 
recently,  he  declared,  that  the  power  of  removal  was  lodged  in 
no  one.  On  the  contrary,  it  had  been  the  custom  for  the  Presi- 
dent to  exercise  this  power  without  consulting  the  Senate ;  this 
and  no  more  the  President  had  done.  Besides,  Stanton  was 
not  protected  by  the  Act  of  1867,  he  was  appointed  by  Presi- 
dent Lincoln.  By  the  very  terms  of  that  act  his  office  expired 
a  month  after  Lincoln's  death.  From  that  date  he  was  an 
occupant  of  the  office  by  sufferance.  It  would  be  as  unreason- 
able, he  declared,  to  call  Johnson's  possession  of  the  Presi- 
dency President  Lincoln's  possession,  or  Johnson's  adminis- 
tration Lincoln's  administration,  as  to  call  Jolmson's  term 
Lincoln's  term.  President  Johnson's  right  to  remove  was  un- 
doubted.   But  if  tlie  President  was  in  error,  Curtis  continued, 


THE  TRIAL  443 

"he  was  not  criminally  in  error ;  no  one  could  test  the  Tenure 
of  Office  Act  but  the  President.  He,  in  good  faith,  was  anxious 
to  do  this  in  the  courts,  but  was  thwarted.  When  Thomas 
was  arrested,  on  Stanton's  oath,  and  taken  before  Judge  Cart- 
ter,  the  President  expressed  satisfaction.  The  case  was  where 
he  wished  it  to  be,  in  the  courts.  Stanton  dropped  the  case 
against  Thomas.  Therefore,  the  President  could  not  test  the 
matter,  except  by  removing  him.  This  he  had  attempted  to 
do  under  the  law."  To  meet  this  position,  Butler,  "the  learned 
manager  had  declared  that  you  are  no  court  and  bound  by 
no  law."  .  .  .  "Will  you  please  state,"  Butler  rose  and  inter- 
rupted, "where  I  said  the  Senate  was  bound  by  no  law." 
"You  stated  that  the  Senate  was  a  law  unto  itself,"  Cur- 
tis replied.  Evidently,  Judge  Curtis  had  almost  persuaded 
Butler  he  had  no  case.  At  the  end  of  Curtis's  address  no  one 
doubted  that  the  President  would  be  acquitted  unless  the  Senate 
took  the  law  into  their  own  hands,  as  Butler  had  urged  they 
should  do. 

William  M.  Evarts  added  to  his  already  great  fame.  Con- 
scious of  the  righteousness  of  his  case,  this  master  of  courts 
realized  that  to  lose  so  good  a  cause  would  reflect  on  his  repu- 
tation. Evarts  was  the  wit  of  the  occasion.  His  unfailing 
humor  made  the  ponderous  machinery  of  impeachment  appear 
ridiculous.  His  reply  to  Boutwell's  lurid  speech  produced  such 
peals  of  laughter  it  came  near  breaking  up  the  court.  To  this 
day  Boutwell's  effort  is  called  the  "Hole  in  the  sky"  speech. 
Boutwell  had  no  fear  of  a  conviction  of  Johnson.  What  dis- 
turbed him,  however,  was  what  to  do  with  Johnson  after  con- 
viction. Finally  he  worked  it  out.  The  guilty  man  must  be 
banished  to  outer  darkness.  "In  the  southern  heavens,  near 
the  southern  cross,"  said  the  impassioned  orator,  "there  is  a 
vacant  space  which  the  uneducated  call  the  'hole  in  the  sky.' 
There  the  eye  of  man  with  the  aid  of  the  most  powerful  tele- 
scope has  been  unable  to  discover  nebulae,  or  asteroid,  or  comet 
or  planet,  or  star  or  sun.  To  this  dreary  region  of  space  I 
consign  Andrew  Johnson,  the  enemy  of  mankind." 

Now  throughout  the  trial  Boutwell  had  been  sneering  at 
the  lawyers,  men  "whose  intellects  were  sharpened  but  not  en- 


444.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

larged  by  the  practice  of  the  law."  With  what  satisfaction 
therefore  Evarts  rephed  to  Boutwell's  extravagant  hole  in  the 
sky  metaphor.  "If  I  might  be  permitted  to  do  so,"  said 
Evarts,  "I  would  inquire  if  there  might  not  be  some  difficulty 
in  executing  the  sentence  proposed  by  the  learned  manager. 
The  sergeant-at-arms  is  not,  I  believe,  an  expert  astronomer 
and  perhaps  does  not  know  the  way  to  the  'hole  in  the  sky,' 
so  eloquently  described  by  my  honorable  friend.  I  see  no  way 
out  of  the  dilemma  unless  the  honorable  manager  will  consent 
to  serve  as  a  special  deputy  to  execute  the  sentence  of  the  court 
and  to  convey  the  President  to  his  doom.  And  as  the  honorable 
and  astronomical  manager,  with  the  President  securely  lashed 
to  his  strong  and  ample  shoulders,  shall  take  his  flight  from 
the  dome  of  the  capitol,  the  two  houses  of  Congress  and  all 
the  people  assembled  will  shout,  ^Sic  itur  ad  astra!'  As  he 
passes  through  the  constellations,  what  thinks  Bootes  as  he 
drives  his  dogs  up  the  zenith  in  their  race  of  sidereal  fire?" 
No  doubt  Boutwell  wished  to  his  dying  day  his  contemp- 
tuous sneer  at  men  "whose  intellects  were  sharpened  but  not 
enlarged  by  the  practice  of  the  law,"  had  been  left  unsaid. 

Evarts's  tribute  to  Johnson's  patriotism  was  fine.  "Though 
his  mind  is  not  enlarged  by  the  culture  of  the  school,"  said 
Evarts,  "thrice  daily  with  Eastern  devotion  he  bows  to  the 
Constitution."  Dealing  with  the  charge  against  the  President, 
as  set  forth  in  article  ten,  that  he  had  used  violent  language 
in  his  Washington  Birthday  speech  and  in  his  "swing  round 
the  circle,"  Evarts  explained  that  they  were  made  in  1866,  and 
that  they  related  to  a  Congress  which  had  passed  out  of 
existence.  These  speeches  were  a  subject  in  the  report  of  the 
judiciary  committee  to  the  House,  from  which  the  House  voted 
that  they  would  not  impeach.  This  matter,  therefore,  had 
been  adjudicated.  Further,  said  the  incorrigible  orator, 
"Though  these  speeches  of  my  client  may  be  crimes  against 
rhetoric,  against  oratory,  against  taste  and  perhaps  against 
logic,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  neither  in  itself 
nor  by  any  subsequent  amendments,  has  provided  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  tlie  people  of  this  country  in  these  regards." 

The  addresses  of  Nelson,  Groesbeck  and  Stanbcry  were  not 


4i^<!^:5''^-^  S>>s, 


k:^Sena.te  Chamber--^-— > 
^—-^  Mcf)rmhand26iJiMS  ^       ~ 
The  rote  of  the  Senate  sittiag  as  aHi^hCourtoflmpeadi 
nient  for  the  trial  of  AxotUErvr  JoHivsoK,I*resideiit  of  the 
United  States.upon  Uiellth,  2n{l  and  3rd  Ai-lides 


J2.  <:.^.</^.f.~^ 


JO    4e  />  /-^j,.^.^ 
13  C^  -i/Jatu  '/J^^' 


T' 


^/^ 


J2      d^.-^S^'C; 


MARCH  u.isaa  ' 


The  Vote  on  Impeachment  and  Ticket  of  Ailmission  to  Trial. 


THE  TRIAL  445 

as  effective,  from  a  legal  point,  as  Curtis's  and  Evarts's.  Their 
words  of  praise  and  sympathy  were  wasted.  No  Senator  was 
willing  to  acquit  the  President  unless  compelled  to  do  so  by 
his  oath.  Nevertheless,  these  speakers  measured  up  to  the 
occasion.  They  addressed  the  Senate  in  impassioned  and  dra- 
matic efforts.  Henry  Stanbery  was  just  from  a  sick  bed. 
"He  was  a  man  of  surpassing  beauty  of  person  and  emphasis 
of  presence."  In  a  "weird  meaning  and  abstracted  manner  he 
conjured  up,  in  the  Senate  chamber,  a  scene  memorable  in  the 
annals  of  American  oratory."  "Unseen  and  friendly  hands 
seem  to  support  me,"  he  declared,  "voices  inaudible  to  others 
I  seem  to  hear.  They  are  whispering  words  of  consolation,  of 
hope,  of  confidence ;  they  seem  to  say,  'Feeble  champion  of  the 
Right!  Hold  not  back!  A  single  pebble  from  the  brook  is 
enough  in  the  sling.' 

"Listen  for  a  moment,"  he  softly  continued,  "to  one  who 
perhaps  understands  Andrew  Johnson  better  than  most  of 
you;  for  his  opportunities  have  been  greater.  When  nearly 
two  years  ago  he  called  me  from  the  pursuits  of  a  professional 
life  to  take  a  seat  in  his  cabinet  I  answered  his  call  under  a 
sense  of  public  duty.  I  came  here  almost  a  stranger  to  him 
and  to  every  member  of  his  cabinet  except  Mr.  Stanton.  From 
the  moment  that  I  was  honored  with  a  seat  in  the  cabinet  of 
Mr.  Johnson  not  a  step  was  taken  that  did  not  come  under  my 
observation ;  not  a  word  was  said  that  escaped  my  attention. 
I  regarded  him  closely  in  the  cabinet,  and  in  still  more  private 
and  confidential  conversation.  I  saw  him  often  tempted  with 
bad  advice.  I  knew  that  evil  counselors  were  more  than  once 
around  him.  I  observed  him  with  the  most  intense  anxiety. 
But  never  in  word  or  deed,  in  thought,  in  action,  did  I  dis- 
cover in  that  man  anything  but  loyalty  to  the  Constitution  and 
the  laws.  He  stood  firm  as  a  rock  against  all  temptations  to 
abuse  his  own  powers  or  to  exercise  those  which  were  not  con- 
ferred upon  him.  Steadfast  and  self-reliant  in  the  midst  of 
all  difficulty,  when  dangers  threatened,  when  temptations  were 
strong,  he  looked  only  to  the  Constitution  of  his  country  and 
to  the  people. 

"Yes,  Senators,  I  have  seen  that  man  tried  as  few  have  been 


446  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

tried.  I  have  seen  his  confidence  abused;  I  have  seen  him 
handle  day  after  day  provocations  such  as  few  men  have  ever 
been  called  upon  to  meet.  No  man  could  have  met  them  with 
more  sublime  patience.  Sooner  or  later,  however,  I  knew  the 
explosion  must  come  and  when  it  did  come  my  only  wonder 
was  that  it  had  been  so  long  delayed.  Yes,  Senators,  with  all 
his  faults  the  President  has  been  more  sinned  against  than  sin- 
ning. Fear  not,  then,  to  acquit  him.  The  Constitution  of  the 
country  is  as  safe  from  violence  in  his  hands  as  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  Washington.  But  if  you  condemn  him,  if  you  strip 
him  of  the  robes  of  his  ofBce,  if  you  degrade  him  to  the  utmost 
stretch  of  your  power,  mark  the  prophecy !  The  strong  arms 
of  the  people  will  be  about  him.  They  will  find  a  way  to  raise 
him  from  any  depths  to  which  you  may  confine  him,  and  we 
shall  live  to  see  him  redeemed  and  to  hear  the  majestic  voice 
of  the  people,  'Well  done,  faithful  servant,  you  shall  have 
your  reward !'  "  Here  Stanbery,  the  sick  man,  paused  and 
gathered  strength  for  a  parting  word. 

"But  if.  Senators,"  he  concluded,  "as  I  cannot  believe,  but 
has  been  boldly  said  with  somewhat  official  sanction,  your  votes 
have  been  canvassed  and  the  doom  of  the  President  is  sealed, 
then  let  not  the  judgment  be  pronounced  in  this  Senate  cham- 
ber ;  not  here,  where  our  Camillus,  in  the  hour  of  our  greatest 
peril,  single-handed,  met  and  baffled  the  enemies  of  the  Re- 
public; not  here  where  he  stood  faithful  among  the  faithless; 
not  here  where  he  fought  the  good  fight  for  the  Union  and 
the  Constitution ;  not  in  this  chamber  whose  walls  echo  with  that 
clarion  voice  that  in  the  da3^s  of  our  greatest  danger  carried 
hope  and  comfort  to  many  a  despondent  heart,  strong  as  an 
army  with  banners !  No,  not  here !  Seek  out,  rather,  the  dark- 
est and  gloomiest  chamber  in  the  subterranean  recesses  of  this 
Capitol,  where  the  cheerful  light  of  day  never  enters!  There 
erect  the  altar  and  immolate  the  victim !" 

When  it  came  Judge  Nelson's  turn  to  address  the  court  it 
was  apparent  that  one  friend  was  pleading  the  cause  of  an- 
other. No  man  knew  Johnson's  life  better  than  Nelson.  No 
one  knew  better  what  Johnson  had  suffered  and  sacrificed  for 
the  Union.     No  one  felt  more  outraged  at  the  treatment  the 


THE  TRIAL  44)7 

President  was  receiving  at  the  hands  of  Congress  than  this 
Tennessee  Unionist.  In  truth,  Judge  Nelson's  zeal  almost  con- 
sumed him.  The  charge  that  the  President  had  been  dis- 
honorable in  discharging  Black  aroused  Nelson  to  the  use  of 
harsh  and  unparliamentary  language.  Plainly  he  recited  the 
facts.  Stevens,  Butler  and  Bingham  had  joined  with  Black 
in  requesting  the  President  to  do  what  the  President  considered 
wrong.  For  this  reason  and  for  no  other  Judge  Black  had 
withdrawn  from  the  case.  Nelson  concluded,  and  next  day 
Butler,  in  great  dudgeon,  rose  to  a  point  of  personal  privilege. 
He  accused  Nelson  of  "deliberate  falsehood."  "He  is  the 
veriest  tyro  in  the  law,"  said  Butler,  "and  from  the  most  be- 
nighted portion  of  the  southern  country.  He  dare  'insinuate 
calumny'  against  me !"  .  .  .  "I  deny  that  I  signed  the  request 
to  the  President  after  I  was  made  manager.  The  letter  must 
have  been  signed  in  February  before."  Thereupon  Nelson 
produced  the  letter  and  handed  it  to  the  Senate.  It  was  signed 
by  B.  F.  Butler  and  others.  It  bore  date  March  9,  five  daj^s 
after  the  trial  began.""  Unfortunately  Nelson  also  lost  his 
temper  in  the  encounter,  "hurling  back  Butler's  imputations 
with  scorn"  and  practically  offering  to  fight  him.  Though 
Charles  Sumner  moved  to  expel  Nelson  from  the  case,  "old 
Ben,"  always  a  good  sport,  would  not  hear  to  it.  "The  matter 
must  be  dropped,"  he  said.    Accordingly^,  it  was. 

Grocsbeck,  for  the  defense,  followed  the  belligerent  Nelson. 
He  spoke  but  a  few  simple  words,  words  of  great  power,  how- 
ever. ]\Iany  regarded  it  as  the  ablest  argument  on  either  side.^'^ 
Manager  Williams  read  a  ponderous,  solemn  oration.  He  de- 
scribed the  awful  scene  if  Andrew  Johnson  were  acquitted.  He 
pictured  "his  ascent  to  the  capitol,  like  the  conqueror  in  a 
Roman  triumph,  dragging  not  captive  kings  but  a  captive 
Senate  at  his  chariot  wheel."  Williams,  likewise,  impugned 
the  President's  patriotism.  Stevens,  too  Aveak  to  read  or  stand, 
handed  his  manuscript  to  Butler.  "Johnson  is  the  offspring 
of  assassination,"  said  Stevens.  "Any  Senator  who  votes  to 
acquit  will  be  tortured  on  the  gibbet  of  everlasting  obloquy." 

20  Supplement  to  Glohe.  p.  341. 

21  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  II,  p.  112. 


448  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

On  May  4  the  great  Bingham  was  to  address  the  Senate,  and 
close  the  case.  The  building  would  scarcely  hold  the  crowd. 
Of  Bingham  Thad  Stevens  had  declared  he  could  excel  any 
living  man  "in  his  appeals  to  the  gathered  wisdom  of  the  ages." 
And  well  did  Judge  Bingham  perform  a  difficult  task.  He 
moved  the  spectators  to  outbursts  of  applause  never  before 
witnessed  on  such  an  occasion. 

"Go  on!  Go  on!"  the  Radicals  would  shout  whenever  the 
speaker  showed  signs  of  quitting.  "The  written  order  for 
the  removal  of  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the  written  letter  of 
authority*  for  the  appointment  of  Thomas  to  the  office,"  Bing- 
ham declared,  "are  simply  written  confessions  of  guilt.  And 
in  the  light  of  that  which  I  have  already  read  from  the  record, 
no  man  can  gainsay  it.  ...  I  ask  you.  Senators,  to  consider 
that  we  stand  this  day  pleading  for  the  violated  majesty  of 
the  law,  by  the  graves  of  a  half  million  of  martyred  hero- 
patriots  who  made  death  beautiful  by  the  sacrifice  of  them- 
selves for  their  country,  the  Constitution,  and  the  laws,  and 
who  by  their  sublime  example  have  taught  us  that  all  must 
obey  the  law ;  that  none  are  above  the  law ;  that  no  man  lives  for 
himself  alone,  but  each  for  all;  that  some  must  die  that  the 
state  may  live ;  that  the  citizen  is  at  best  but  for  to-day,  while 
the  Commonwealth  is  for  all  time ;  and  that  position,  however 
high,  patronage,  however  powerful,  cannot  be  permitted  to 
shelter  crime  to  the  peril  of  the  Republic. 

"It  only  remains  for  me,  sirs,"  said  Bingham  in  conclusion, 
"to  thank  you  as  I  do  for  the  honor  you  have  done  me  by  your 
kind  attention  and  to  demand  in  the  name  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives and  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  judgment 
against  the  accused  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  in  office 
with  which  he  stands  impeached  and  of  which  before  man  and 
God  he  is  guilty !"  In  a  flash  men  and  women  rose  to  their  feet 
cheering,  clapping  hands  and  waving  handkerchiefs ;  a  gallery 
which  four  years  before  gave  three  hearty  cheers  for  the  Union 
and  for  Andy  Johnson  of  Tennessee  now  called  for  his  blood, 
and  would  not  be  appeased.  Such  a  scene,  and  3'et  one  so 
natural  in  the  rage  and  excitement  of  the  day,  rarely  disgraced 
a  court.     "Order !  Order !"  the  indignant  Chief  Justice  called. 


THE  TRIAL  449 

The  Sergeant-at-Arms  rushed  to  and  fro.  The  crowd  hissed 
and  hooted.  With  difficulty  the  gallery  was  cleared  and  the 
mob  driven  from  the  chamber.  Senator  Cameron  undertook 
to  apologize  for  the  disorder.  The  Chief  Justice  refused  to 
hear  him.  There  could  be  no  apology.  The  matter  was 
neither  excusable  nor  debatable. 

The  Senate  adjourned  until  May  11.  The  President,  in  the 
White  House,  during  all  this  excitement,  was  dignified  and 
silent.  He  had  grown  wonderfully  in  the  estimation  of  his  at- 
torneys."" Stanton  held  his  own  in  the  War  Office.  Like  a 
garrison  in  a  besieged  fort  he  and  his  friends  kept  watch  by 
day  and  night  against  old  General  Thomas.  Soldiers  sur- 
rounded and  filled  the  war  building,  lest  "the  rebels"  should 
rise  up  and  attempt  to  undo  the  work  of  the  war.  During  the 
recess  the  Senate  held  a  secret  session  and  written  opinions 
were  filed  by  nearly  all  of  the  Senators.  It  leaked  out  that 
Grimes,  Henderson  and  Fessenden  were  for  acquittal  and  an 
indescribable  gloom  prevailed.  On  the  eleventh  the  vote  was  to 
be  taken  and  the  excitement  reached  its  highest  pitch.  On  ac- 
count of  the  illness  of  Senator  Howard,  however,  the  Senate 
adjourned  to  the  sixteenth."*  One  day  Groesbeck  and  Mc- 
Culloch  called  on  the  President  and  canvassed  the  vote.  Ran- 
dall and  Welles  were  already  there.  The  vote  will  stand  22  to 
32  all,  except  the  doubtful  Welles,  declared.  "I  would  rather 
see  the  votes,"  Welles  cautioned."^ 

A  few  days  previously  Grimes  had  been  confirmed  in  his 
desire  to  acquit  the  President  by  a  ruse  which  S.  S.  Cox  and 
Reverdy  Johnson  worked.  Without  the  President's  knowledge 
they  arranged  that  he  should  "accidentally"   meet   Senator 

22  DeWitt,  p.  555. 

23  Johnson  MS.  No.  27,299.  In  June  1878  Evarts  wrote  Mrs.  Patterson  as 
follows:  "My  intercourse  with  President  Johnson  gave  me  opportunities  for 
service  to  the  country,  1  ever  enjoyed.  President  Johnson  during  the  whole 
time  of  my  acquaintance  with  him,  impressed  one  with  the  dignity  of  his 
manners,  the  sincerity  of  his  patriotism  and  his  unfailing  confidence  in  the 
spirit  and  purposes  of  the  great  body  of  the  American  people.  I  shared  in  the 
fullest  degree  in  this  estimate.  Upon  a  just  and  candid  estimate  of  Presi- 
dent Johnson's  public  conduct  in  difficult  times  he  will  be  surely  placed  by 
the  general  judgment  of  his  countrymen,  among  those  who  have  deserved  the 
most  and  the  best  of  the  Republic." 

24  Julian,  Recollections,  p.  215. 

25  Welles,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  352. 


450  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Grimes  at  Senator  Johnson's  rooms,  at  the  Arlington  Hotel. 
Early  one  evening  Warden,  the  President's  domestic,  who  was 
in  the  plot  to  arrange  the  conference,  entered  the  President's 
office.  He  announced  that  Senator  Johnson  would  like  to  see 
him  at  nine  o'clock.  As  the  President  entered  Johnson's  room 
that  evening,  Senator  Grimes  and  the  Maryland  Senator  were 
engaged  in  conversation.  A  pleasant  half  hour  was  passed  by 
the  four.  Reverdy  Johnson  then  began  to  denounce  the  street 
rumors  that  the  President  would  "do  rash  things  and  go  on  in 
excesses."  "They  have  no  warrant  for  such  charges,"  the 
President  retorted.  "My  whole  life  refutes  it."  Expressing 
the  deepest  love  for  the  Union,  he  satisfied  Grimes  there  was 
no  danger  from  his  acquittal.  Next  day  the  conservative 
Senators  were  reassured  by  Senator  Grimes.  "From  the  best 
authority,"  he  stated  to  them,  there  would  be  no  danger  in  vot- 
ing not  guilty. 

But  the  Radicals  were  not  idle.  Heaven  and  earth  were 
moved  to  whip  weak-kneed  Republicans  into  line.  Grimes, 
Fessenden,  Trumbull,  and  other  Senators  were  denounced  as 
"recreants,  apostates  and  Judases."  A  Union,  congressional 
committee  was  raised.  It  sent  out  appeals  for  help.  "A  fear- 
ful avalanche"  from  all  parts  of  the  Union  came  back.  Loyal, 
but  misguided  men  hastened  to  Washington  to  badger  and 
coerce.  If  seven  Republicans  joined  the  Democrats  the  Presi- 
dent would  be  acquitted.  Six  of  the  seven  were  known  to  be 
"wrong."  Ross  of  Kansas  had  not  committed  himself. 
Trumbull,  Fessenden,  Grimes  and  General  Henderson  were 
subjected  to  threats  and  insults.^''  Republican  Senators  who 
had  filed  opinions  that  the  President  was  not  guilty  were  de- 
nounced by  the  press  as  apostates.-"  There  was  a  general 
rumor  that  Sprague,  a  son-in-law  of  the  Chief  Justice,  would 
be  favorable  to  Johnson.  Anthony,  Frelinghuj^sen  and  others 
were  doubtful.  In  order  to  counteract  the  influence  of  such 
rumors,  Washburne  sent  a  wire  to  the  New  Hampshire  Repub- 
lican  Convention,   "The  recreant  will  be  out  of  the  White 

26  Cox,  Three  Decades,  p.  593 ;  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  II,  p.  127 ;  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI, 
p.  151. 

^r  Now  York  Tribune,  March  12,  1868. 


THE  TRIAL  451 

House  in  a  week;"  Butler  followed,  wiring,  "Wade  and  pros- 
perity are  sure  to  come  with  the  apple  blossoms."  -^ 

The  fateful  day  arrived,  May  16.  The  court  convened  with 
Chief  Justice  Chase  in  the  chair.  Crowds  filled  the  Senate 
chamber,  the  galleries  and  the  corridors.  "Indescribable  anx- 
iety was  written  on  every  face."  "^  Senator  Sherman  asks  that 
policemen  be  stationed  throughout  the  building  to  prevent  the 
repetition  of  the  disgraceful  scene  recently  witnessed.  The 
Chief  Justice  so  orders,  though  the  situation  is  now  well  in 
hand.  In  a  body  the  House  files  into  the  Senate  chamber.  The 
final  scene  has  come.  Manager  Williams  moves  that  the 
articles  be  voted  on  not  in  their  numerical  order,  as  theretofore 
agreed,  but  beginning  with  article  eleven.  Reverdy  Johnson 
desires  to  know  the  reason  for  this  change.  Conness  objects  to 
debate.  He  is  sustained  by  the  Chief  Justice.  The  motion 
to  vote  on  the  eleventh  article  first  is  put  and  carried — 34  ayes, 
19  nos.  At  this  forecasting  of  the  close  result  excitement  in- 
creases. Senator  Edmunds  moves  that  the  Senate  "do  now 
proceed  to  vote."  Senator  William  Pitt  Fessenden  of  Maine, 
with  emotion  in  every  lineament  of  his  face,  rises  in  his  place. 
He  asks  a  postponement  of  half  an  hour  as  "the  Senator  from 
Michigan,  Mr.  Grimes,  is  absent."  "I  saw  Mr.  Grimes  last 
evening,"  Senator  Fessenden  announces,  "and  he  told  me  that 
he  should  certainly  be  here  this  morning."  "It  was  his  inten- 
tion— "  Reverdy  Johnson  rises  from  his  place.  "Will  the 
honorable  member  permit  me  to  interrupt  him  for  a  moment.''" 
he  asks.  "He  is  here."  Mr.  Fessenden:  "I  thought  he  was 
not."  Mr.  Johnson:  "I  have  sent  for  him,  he  is  downstairs. 
He  will  be  in  the  chamber  in  a  moment.  Here  he  is."  Senator 
Grimes  is  brought  in,  faint  and  sick.  Every  Senator  is  now  in 
his  seat — fifty-four  of  them. 

The  Chief  Justice  admonishes  that  silence  and  order  must 
be  preserved.  He  directs  the  Clerk  to  read  the  eleventh  article. 
The  Clerk  reads  the  article.  "The  Clerk  will  now  call  the 
roll,"  the  Chief  Justice  directs.  The  Clerk  calls,  "Mr.  Sen- 
ator Anthony!"  Mr.  Anthony  rises  in  his  place.  "Mr.  Sen- 
as DeWitt,  p.  575. 
29  Julian,  p.  316. 


452  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

ator  Anthony,  how  say  you?"  the  Chief  Justice  asks.  "Is  the 
respondent,  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States, 
guilty  or  not  guilty  of  a  high  misdemeanor  as  charged  in  this 
article?"  Mr.  Senator  Anthony  answers,  "Guilty."  The  roll 
call  proceeds.  Bayard,  Buckalew,  Cameron,  Cattell,  Chandler ! 
Such  stillness  prevails  the  breathing  in  the  gallery  can  be  heard 
at  the  announcement  of  each  Senator's  vote.  Members  grow 
sick  and  pale.  "Mr.  Senator  Fessenden,"  the  Clerk  calls.  The 
Chief  Justice  asks  the  usual  question.  "Not  guilty,"  is  Fessen- 
den's  response.  The  old  guard  of  the  Republican  party  is 
broken. 

The  Clerk  proceeds,  "Fowler,  Grimes,  Henderson."  They 
vote  not  guilty.  How  will  Senator  Ross  vote?  So  far  he  is  un- 
derstood to  be  non-committal,  though  he  may  have  filed  an 
opinion  in  the  secret  session.  "Mr.  Senator  Ross?"  the  Clerk 
calls.  "Not  guilty,"  is  the  response.  "Mr.  Senator  Van- 
Winkle?"  "Not  guilty."  The  roll  call  is  finished  and  the 
Clerk  announces  the  result.  Thirty-five  Senators  have  voted 
for  conviction  and  nineteen  for  acquittal.  The  President  is 
acquitted  by  one  vote,  thirty-six  being  a  necessary  two-thirds. 
The  news  is  rushed  to  the  White  House.  The  President  re- 
ceives it  with  composure.  Butler  and  Boutwell  are  beside 
themselves.  They  charge  fraud  and  corruption.  A  committee 
is  appointed  to  investigate  but  they  enter  upon  a  fruitless 
quest.  "Radicals  are  wild  with  rage."  ^°  The  Senate  as  a 
court  of  impeachment  adjourns  to  May  26  to  allow  Congress- 
men to  attend  the  Republican  National  Convention  at  Chi- 
cago. There,  it  is  hoped,  enough  pressure  can  be  exerted  on 
the  traitorous  Republicans  to  cause  them  to  change  their 
vote.^^  On  the  heels  of  Senator  Ross's  vote  to  acquit,  a  tele- 
gram from  his  Kansas  constituents  comes: 

Leavenworth,  Kansas,  May  16,  1868 

Honorable  E.  G.  Ross,  United  States  Senator, 

Washington,  D.  C. 

Your  telegram  received.     Your  vote  is  dictated  by  Tom  Ewing, 

not  by  your  oath.    Your  motives  are  Indian  contracts  and  green- 
so  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  151. 
31  Ibid.,  p.  147. 


THE  TRIAL  453 

backs.     Kansas  repudiates   you   as   she  does   all  perjurers   and 
skunks. 

D.  R.  Anthony  and  Others. 

On  May  26  the  vote  was  again  taken.  The  second  and 
third  articles  were  submitted  to  the  Senate.  The  same  result 
followed  as  on  the  eleventh  article,  35  Senators  voting  "guilty" 
and  19  voting  "not  guilty."  Thus  came  to  an  end  the  great 
Impeachment  Trial.  On  motion  of  Mr.  Manager  Williams,  the 
Senate  sitting  as  a  court  of  impeachment  did  then  "adjourn 
without  day."  ^^  The  country  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief,  Europe 
applauded  the  verdict,  the  stock  market  rallied,  Old  Thad 
Stevens,  broken-hearted,  issued  his  valedictory  to  the  American 
people.  "No  Chief  Executive  will  be  again  removed  by  peace- 
ful means,"  he  sorrowfully  asserted,  and  went  home  to  die.^^ 

As  a  result  of  his  connection  with  this  case.  Chief  Justice 
Chase  was  insulted,  even  charged  with  corruption.  No  doubt, 
the  impeachment  trial  cost  him  the  presidency.  The  seven 
Republican  Senators  voting  "not  guilty"  never  held  another 
office.  They  were  hounded  to  their  political  death.  "When  I 
voted  not  guilty,"  said  Ross,  "I  felt  that  I  was  literally  looking 
into  my  open  grave."  And  yet  will  not  the  names  of  Fessen- 
den.  Fowler,  Grimes,  Henderson,  Ross,  Trumbull  and  Van- 
Winkle  live  when  their  detractors  are  forgotten? 

It  is  interesting  to  speculate  on  what  might  have  been  the 
result  if  some  one  like  Garfield  had  been  the  chief  manager  in- 
stead of  Ben  Butler.  Doubtless  the  case  would  have  been  man- 
aged quite  differently.  No  sharp  practices  would  have  been  in- 
dulged in.  No  request  for  time  would  have  been  denied;  no 
evidence  of  the  defense  would  have  been  excluded.  No  appeals 
to  passion  would  have  been  tolerated.  Doubtless  the  case  would 
have  been  tried  on  the  one  technical  point:  The  President 
willfully,  deliberately,  and  with  malice  aforethought,  disobeyed 
a  statute.  By  his  conduct,  he  admitted  this  in  the  summer  of 
1867.    This  was  a  crime.    In  the  excitement  of  the  day,  might 

32  Globe,  p.  415. 

33DeWitt,  p.  598;  Mr.  Blaine  records  that  "the  Republicans  never  counted 
impeachment  proceedings  among  their  accomplishments;"  Senator  Edmunds, 
however,  maintains  that  "but  for  distrust  of  Wade  by  the  Senate,  Johnson 
would  have  been  convicted." — Century,  Vol.  LXXXV,  p.  863. 


454  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

not  a  verdict  of  guilty  have  resulted?  Because  of  unfair  play, 
on  the  managers'  part,  three  Senators  are  understood  to  have 
voted  "not  guilty."  Grimes,  Henderson  and  Ross  are  under- 
stood to  have  voted  not  guilty  because  the  President's  cabinet 
were  not  allowed  to  testify.  How  would  they  have  voted  if 
there  had  been  no  unfair  play.f* 

The  skill  with  which  the  President's  case  was  managed  is 
above  praise.  Scores  of  pitfalls  were  in  the  way  of  the  lawyers 
for  the  defense.  These  were  avoided.  There  was  no  abuse,  no 
attack  on  Grant  or  Stanton.  Seward  was  not  put  on  the  stand 
to  belittle  Stanton  by  showing  he  wrote  the  veto  of  the  Tenure 
of  Office  bill.  No  party  issue  was  raised.  On  the  contrary, 
a  lawyer-like  appeal  was  made  to  American  fair  play;  on 
this  issue  the  President  won.  To  the  cool  head  and  clear  judg- 
ment of  Evarts  and  Curtis  and  the  diligence  of  Stanbery,  it  is 
due  that  the  impeachment  proceedings  had  so  little  effect  on 
prices  and  business.  The  nation  bore  the  strain  easily  and 
perfectly.^*  Stanton  at  once  gave  up  his  office.  Schofield  was 
appointed  in  his  place  and  was  confirmed.  Stanbery,  reap- 
pointed Attorney-General,  was  ungraciously  rejected  by  the 
Senate.  The  position  was  tendered  to  Curtis,  who  refused  it. 
Evarts  accepted  and  was  confirmed,  adding  great  strength  to 
the  President's  official  family.^^ 

34  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  156. 

35  In  1870  Senator  Sherman  said  to  Senator  Henderson,  "You  were  right 
in  your  vote  and  I  was  -wTong."— Century,  December  1912,  pp.  208-200.  Sher- 
man likewise  wrote  in  his  Recollections,  "After  this  long  lapse  of  time  I  am 
convinced  that  Mr.  Johnson's  scheme  of  reorganization  was  wise  and  judi- 
cious."— Burton,  Sherman,  p.  168. 


CHAPTER  VII 
FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY 

One  of  the  most  troublesome  matters  inherited  by  the  John- 
son administration  related  to  Mexico.  When  the  Civil  War 
began  that  turbulent  country  was  in  a  chronic  state  of  violence, 
and  in  forty  years  the  republic  had  had  no  less  than  seventy- 
three  presidents.  There  was  not  a  dollar  in  the  treasury, 
interest  on  the  public  debt  was  not  paid,  and  the  leading  road, 
from  Mexico  City  to  Vera  Cruz,  was  infested  by  bandits.  Dur- 
ing Lincoln's  administration  our  state  department  was  full  of 
complaints  that  American  citizens  were  murdered  and  their 
property  destroyed.  But  during  war  times  these  evils  had 
to  be  borne  for  fear  of  an  alliance  between  Mexico  and  the 
Southern  Confederacy.  While  war  was  raging  the  Rio  Grande 
had  been  kept  open  for  rebel  cruisers,  and  when  the  war  ended 
Mexico  became  the  refugee  home  of  southern  rebels. 

But  America  was  not  the  only  nation  that  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  the  Mexicans.  British  citizens  had  been  foully  mur- 
dered, the  British  legation  at  Mexico  City  attacked,  and  funds 
which  Mexico  had  paid  to  be  forwarded  to  British  bond  holders 
stolen.  The  French  Foreign  Office  was  also  fired  into  and  a 
bullet  imbedded  in  the  gallery  of  the  legation.  Spain  fared 
no  better  than  England  or  France,  everywhere  the  cry  being, 
"Death  to  foreigners."  ^  These  conditions  induced  England, 
France  and  Spain  to  combine  for  mutual  protection.  In 
October  1861,  at  a  conference  in  London,  they  agreed  on  a 
joint  military  operation  against  Mexico,  "not  for  the  acquisi- 
tion of  territory  or  to  prevent  Mexico  conducting  its  govern- 
ment as  it  chose,"  but  to  protect  the  person  and  the  property 
of  their  citizens,  America  was  invited  to  join  in  the  expedi- 
tion but  declined.  The  first  nation  to  arrive  in  Mexico  was 
Spain,  landing  six  thousand  troops  from  fourteen  transports 

1  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  497. 

455 


456  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

and  twelve  warships  at  Vera  Cruz  in  December  1861.  The 
English  squadron  of  ten  ships  and  the  French  squadron  fol- 
lowed in  January  1862.  These  movements,  destructive  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  caused  deep  concern  in  Washington  and 
Adams,  our  ambassador  at  London,  notified  the  British  author- 
ities that  the  United  States  was  looking  on  with  disfavor. 

At  this  time  Benito  Juarez,  a  full-blooded  Indian  and  a 
man  of  character,  was  president  of  Mexico  and  M.  Romero  his 
Charge  at  Washington;  Thomas  Corwin  was  Mr.  Lincoln's 
representative  at  Mexico  City.  Lincoln  proposed  a  settlement 
on  the  terms  of  a  payment  by  the  United  States  of  interest  at 
three  per  cent,  on  a  debt  of  about  sixty  millions  of  dollars  for 
five  years.  But  drafts  for  the  payment  of  interest  were  pro- 
tested in  Washington,  the  Senate  declining  to  ratify  the  treaty. 
In  this  state  of  disorder  the  Mexicans  themselves  were  divided. 
Ex-Presidents  began  to  arrive  from  Europe.  Chiefest  of  these 
was  Miramon,  a  desperate  character.  Almonte,  backed  by 
Napoleon  the  Third,  also  put  in  an  appearance.  He  was  a 
Mexican  monarchist  who  had  been  living  abroad  and  communi- 
cating with  Louis  Napoleon.  Dissensions  also  broke  out 
among  the  allies.  It  became  known  that  Napoleon  was  con- 
templating an  empire  in  Mexico  and  that  France  had  increased 
her  demands  by  including  fifteen  millions  of  bonds  incurred  by 
the  Miramon  government.  Thereupon  English  and  Spanish 
forces  were  withdrawn  in  disgust  by  their  governments. 

President  Juarez  gathered  his  scattered  forces  together 
for  the  conflict,  and  Napoleon  the  Third,  called  by  Hugo 
"Napoleon,  the  Little,"  showed  his  real  intentions.  "It  is  not 
to  my  interest,"  he  declared,  "that  the  United  States  shall 
grasp  the  whole  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  rule  the  Antilles  and  South 
America."  This  bald  statement  came  in  the  fall  of  1862  when 
the  United  States  was  engaged  in  a  fight  for  bare  existence. 
Napoleon  dispatched  General  Forney  to  command  the  French 
forces ;  Secretary  Seward  still  protested  "against  anti-Republi- 
can or  anti-American  government  in  Mexico."  In  May  1863 
General  Forney  captured  Puebla  and  in  June  entered  Mexico 
City  in  triumph.  Many  Mexican  monarchists  then  crossed 
over  to  Paris  and  asked  Napoleon  to  name  an  emperor  for 


FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY  457 

Mexico.  Archduke  Ferdinand  Maximilian,  brother  of  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  was  suggested.  But  Napoleon,  with  a 
show  of  fairness,  demanded  a  vote  by  the  Mexicans.  A  plebi- 
scite was  held,  though  only  about  one-thirtieth  of  the  territory 
and  a  small  proportion  of  the  population  were  under  French 
control.  Though  the  election  was  a  farce,  it  was  certified  to 
Napoleon  that  the  people  endorsed  an  empire  and  demanded 
Maximilian  as  emperor.  Mexican  monarchists  surrounded 
their  new  emperor  at  Trieste,  shouting,  "God  save  the  Emperor 
Maximilian  the  First,  and  God  save  the  Empress  Carlotta." 
On  June  12,  1864,  while  Lee  in  the  Wilderness  was  mowing 
down  Grant's  veterans  by  the  tens  of  thousands,  while  Lincoln 
was  more  fearful  of  the  Republic  than  at  any  other  time,  ex- 
pecting certain  defeat  for  himself  and  the  election  of  a  copper- 
head president,  Maximilian  and  Carlotta  entered  Mexico  City 
in  all  their  grandeur. 

Secretary  Seward  protested  more  vigorously  than  before, 
and  but  for  the  American  Civil  War  doubtless  France  and 
the  United  States  would  have  fought  out  the  issue  at  that  time. 
In  April  1865  Lee  surrendered  and  the  war  was  over.  War 
with  France  then  seemed  sure  and  war  talk  was  in  the  air. 
General  Grant  could  hardly  be  held  in  leash;  in  June  1865 
he  expressed  the  opinion  to  President  Johnson  that  Napoleon's 
conduct  was  "an  act  of  hostility  to  the  United  States."  Gen- 
eral Grant  arranged  for  Schofield  to  go  down  and  cooperate 
with  Juarez.  Johnson,  Seward  and  the  cabinet,  however, 
regarded  war  as  unnecessary  and  foolish.  Seward  declared 
"Maximilian  was  caught  like  a  rat  in  a  trap"  and  would  soon 
leave  the  country.  Nevertheless,  Seward  sent  Schofield  to 
Paris  "to  put  his  legs  under  Napoleon's  mahogany"  and  tell 
Napoleon  to  take  his  troops  home.  President  Johnson  re- 
quested Grant  to  go  to  Mexico  and  handle  the  situation,  but  the 
General  declined,  and  Campbell  of  Ohio  was  appointed  Envoy 
Extraordinary.^^  General  Sherman  and  Campbell  thereupon 
went  down  in  the  warship  Susquehanna.  After  looking  about  a 
long  time  for  Juarez  and  being  unable  to  find  him,  Sherman 

la  This  conduct  of  Johnson  was  afterwards  used  against  him,  he  was  banish- 
ing Grant! 


458  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

wrote  his  brother  that  he  felt  "like  Japeth  in  search  of  a 
father."    Nothing  was  accomplished  by  the  mission. 

But  fighting  Phil  Sheridan,  Grant's  favorite  General,  would 
not  be  restrained.  He  circulated  rumors  that  he  intended 
crossing  the  border  and  backing  Juarez,  and  he  likewise  fur- 
nished arms  and  munitions  to  the  Mexicans  and  encouraged  the 
Republicans.  Meanwhile,  affairs  in  France  were  turning 
against  Napoleon.  Prussia  was  moving  against  Austria,  and 
the  French  Assembly  was  complaining  that,  "in  order  to  col- 
lect a  paltry  sum  of  money  from  Mexico  Napoleon  has  spent 
four  hundred  millions  of  francs."  The  end  had  come,  Napo- 
leon agreed  to  withdraw  his  troops,  and  by  November  1867 
practically  all  troops  had  departed.  In  the  summer  Carlotta 
set  sail  for  Europe,  but  could  not  move  Napoleon  to  come  to 
the  relief  of  her  husband.  Maximilian  gallantly  refused  to 
desert  his  Mexican  followers,  declaring  that  a  Hapsburg  never 
deserted.  Seward  continued  to  indulge  the  situation.  By  this 
time  Maximilian  and  the  French  had  ceased  to  be  friendly. 
At  length,  with  fifteen  hundred  troops,  Maximilian  left  Mexico 
City  to  join  Miramon  at  Queretaro.  On  the  morning  of  May 
14,  1867,  the  hapless  emperor  was  betrayed,  captured,  and, 
after  a  court-martial  trial,  shot.  Carlotta,  her  reason  all  gone, 
was  sent  to  an  asylum,  there  to  remain  as  the  "mad  Queen" 
till  her  recent  death — nearly  sixty  years  afterwards. 

During  the  war  Secretary  Seward  observed  that  the  United 
States  navy  suffered  from  the  lack  of  coaling  stations  in  the 
West  Indies  and  in  the  Northern  Pacific.  As  soon  as  peace 
came,  and  during  Johnson's  administration,  Seward  was  re- 
solved to  acquire  the  necessary  outposts  for  American  ships. 
One  day,  in  the  late  winter  of  1866,  there  was  a  great  buzz  in 
the  House  of  Representatives.  Secretary  Seward,  a  member  of 
Andy  Johnson's  hated  family,  was  seen  to  walk  down  the  aisle 
and  to  go  to  Thad  Stevens's  desk  and  cordially  greet  him. 
When  it  leaked  out  that  Stevens  dined  that  evening  with  the 
Secretary  of  State,  at  his  home,  the  House  was  more  shocked 
than  ever.  A  day  or  two  afterwards  Stevens  rose  to  propose 
an  extra  appropriation  for  special  service  on  a  secret  diplo- 
matic mission  to  be  expended  under  the  Secretary  of  State. 


FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY  459 

Whatever  the  Old  Commoner  asked,  Congress  granted,  of 
course.  The  appropriation  was  therefore  voted.  Seward  had 
his  eye  on  the  Island  of  St.  Thomas,  a  splendid  land-locked 
harbor  in  the  Caribbean,  and  was  determined  to  get  it  as  a 
United  States  port.  Fred  Seward,  son  of  the  Secretary,  and 
Admiral  Porter  were  sent  to  the  island  by  the  President.  They 
discovered  that  it  would  be  useless  as  a  fort  without  the  right 
to  control  the  heights  of  San  Domingo.  In  due  time  these 
rights  were  acquired  and  the  Island  of  St.  Thomas  and  ap- 
purtenances were  the  United  States'  for  the  asking — to  the 
great  delight  of  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  State. 
Soon  Senor  Pujol  arrived  in  Washington,  clothed  with  au- 
thority to  cede  not  only  St.  Thomas  but  the  strategic  position 
commanding  the  whole  Antilles.  A  treaty,  approved  by  naval 
experts,  was  duly  signed,  sealed  and  delivered  and  sent  to  the 
Senate,  but  was  rejected  by  it.  No  southern  territory  was 
wanted,  and  nothing  that  Johnson  or  his  cabinet  might  pro- 
pose. It  may  not  be  amiss  to  inquire,  had  this  treaty  been 
ratified  and  the  guns  of  the  United  States  mounted  so  as  to 
cover  the  entire  Antilles,  would  the  Spanish- American  War 
have  occurred.'^ 

About  this  time  Seward  was  writing  some  interesting  words 
in  his  diary.  "Hot  denunciation  and  defense  of  Andrew 
Johnson,"  he  wrote,  "through  leafy  June  and  dusty  dog  days, 
and  press  and  public  give  cursory  attention  to  foreign  affairs 
which  engross  the  Secretary  of  State."  And  those  were  busy 
days  indeed  for  Secretary  Seward.  One  evening  in  the  spring 
of  1867,  while  the  Secretary  and  his  family  were  having  a 
game  of  whist,  at  the  Seward  home  just  across  from  Lafayette 
Park,  a  visitor  was  announced,  Baron  Edward  de  Stoeckl,  the 
Czar's  minister  at  Washington.  "I'm  just  in  receipt  of  au- 
thority from  my  government  to  close  with  you  for  our  colonies 
in  America,"  the  Baron  said,  "and  if  agreeable  I  will  call  at 
your  office  to-morrow."  "Why  not  to-night?"  the  alert  Seward 
asked,  knowing  the  Senate  would  soon  adjourn.  In  two  hours 
the  Secretary's  official  force  was  called  together  and  by  four 
o'clock  next  morning  the  treaty  was  drawn   and  executed. 


460  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

That  day  it  was  presented  to  the  Senate  by  Sumner,  Chairman 
of  the  committee  on  foreign  affairs.^ 

By  this  treaty  there  were  ceded  to  the  United  States  five 
hundred  thousand  miles  of  territory,  with  a  coast  line  of  four 
thousand  statute  miles,  and  with  splendid  bays  and  good 
harbors.  This  vast  territory  belonged  to  Russia  by  right  of 
discovery.  Early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  Peter  the  Great, 
a  lover  of  ships  and  navigation,  wishing  to  ascertain  if  Asia 
and  North  America  were  one  contiguous  tract  or  were  sepa- 
rated by  water,  set  to  work  to  ascertain  the  fact,  but  died  before 
making  the  discovery.  Empress  Catherine,  however,  in  1728 
fitted  out  an  expedition  and  Vitus  Behring,  a  Dane,  sailed 
across  and  discovered  the  narrow  neck  of  water  separating 
Asia  from  America  and  now  known  as  Behring  Strait.  There 
was  much  discussion  about  the  name  for  the  new  purchase. 
Yukon  was  suggested,  this  being  the  name  of  the  largest  river. 
Alaska  was  finally  selected,  this  being  the  name  of  the  great 
peninsula.  The  price  was  not  troublesome.  Based  on  the 
price  paid  for  French,  Spanish  and  Mexican  purchases, 
Stoeckl  suggested  ten  million  dollars.  Seward  proposed  five 
million.  The  Baron  was  willing  to  split  the  diiference.  Seward 
suggested  that  five  hundred  thousand  be  knocked  off.  This 
was  acceptable  to  the  Baron,  with  tM'o  hundred  thousand  addi- 
tional to  liquidate  claims  of  the  Russian  Fur  Company.  The 
total  price  therefore  was  $7,200,000.  But  a  serious  question 
arose.  Though  the  Senate  ratified  the  treaty  on  April  9,  1867, 
the  House  refused  to  vote  the  money.  Nothing  good  could 
come  out  of  the  White  House  while  Johnson  was  President !  ^ 

Congress  and  the  Radical  press  ridiculed  the  scheme,  calling 
the  purchase  "Johnson's  polar  bear  garden."  On  April  30 
Nast  had  a  screaming  cartoon.  King  Andy  was  sitting  view- 
ing himself,  in  regal  state,  his  crown  on  his  head.  Secre- 
tary Seward  was  rubbing  on  Russian  oil.  "The  products 
of  Alaska,"  said  opponents  of  the  Johnson  administration, 
"are  polar  bears  and  icebergs ;  the  vegetation  is  mosses ;  the 
ground  freezes  there  six  feet  deep  and  the  streams  are  glaciers." 

2  lieminisccnccs  of  F.  IV.  Seicard,  p.  345. 
8  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  542. 


■y  ry}"-. 


'^^'>->':iLi^-rC;^^J.^p^^y  7t  *_l_^  -^^ 


O 


FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY  461 

The  Supreme  Court  having  held,  in  an  early  case,  that  the 
Senate  could  not  ratify  a  treaty  requiring  the  paj'-ment  of 
money  without  the  consent  of  the  House,  it  seemed  that  the 
treaty  was  doomed  to  defeat.  But  Russia  agreed  to  wait  for 
her  money.  A  sentiment  favorable  to  Russia  likewise  grew,  she 
having  been  the  only  foreign  friend  America  had  in  the  Civil 
War.  Moreover,  as  Sumner  put  it,  "A  republican  form  of 
government  in  Alaska  was  worth  more  than  quintals  of  fish, 
sands  of  gold,  choicest  fur  or  most  beautiful  ivory."  .  .  .  "This 
treaty,"  the  philanthropic  Sumner  exclaimed,  "dismisses  one 
more  monarch  from  this  continent;  one  by  one  they  have  re- 
tired. First  France,  then  Spain,  then  France  again  and  now 
Russia,  all  giving  way  to  that  absorbing  unity  which  is  de- 
scribed in  the  national  motto,  E  Pluribus  Unum."  Sir  Fred- 
erick Bruce,  the  British  ambassador,  astounded  at  the  action 
of  America  in  this  matter,  telegraphed  to  London  asking  what 
should  be  done  in  the  grave  circumstances. 

President  Johnson  did  not  wait  for  the  House  to  appropri- 
ate the  necessary  funds.  In  October  1867  he  took  possession 
and  unfurled  the  United  States  flag  at  Sitka.  Russian  and 
American  soldiers  paraded  in  front  of  the  government  house. 
The  Russian  colors  were  lowered  and  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
hoisted  in  their  stead,  while  artillery  roared  and  troops  took 
possession.  Congress  met  and  the  House  raged.  General  C. 
C.  Washburne  declared,  "None  but  malefactors  live  in  that 
country,  where  the  skies  rain  three  hundred  days  in  the  year. 
.  .  .  As  much  right  has  the  President  to  send  an  army  to 
Canada  or  Mexico."  At  length,  on  July  14,  1868,  the  appro- 
priation passed  the  House  by  a  vote  of  113  to  43.  A  scandal 
grew  out  of  the  treaty.  Fraud  and  corruption  were  charged 
and  an  investigation  was  held.  It  was  claimed  that  only  five 
million  of  the  treaty  money  ever  found  its  way  to  Russia. 
Though  this  statement  was  proved  false,  several  petty  lobbyists 
were  besmirched.  By  the  irony  of  fate,  Forney,  President 
Johnson's  "dead  duck,"  was  among  the  number.  Forney  ad- 
mitted that  his  paper  got  three  thousand  dollars  in  gold  for 
advocating  the  Russian  treaty,  but  insisted  that  he  declined 
to  receive  the  money.    It  developed,  however,  that  "this  gold 


462  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

found  its  way  into  the  pockets  of  D.  C.  Forney,  his  brother."  * 
Secretary  Seward's  task  now  and  at  all  times  was  more 
trying  than  that  of  any  of  his  associates.  The  thorough-going 
Welles  delighted  to  denounce  and  to  fight  the  Radicals ;  Mc- 
CuUoch,  Secretarj^  of  the  Treasury,  went  about  his  duties  with- 
out much  thought  of  politics,  though  he  was  bitterly  denounced 
by  the  Radicals  for  appointing  revenue  officers  in  the  South 
who  were  unable  to  take  the  ironclad  oath.  Randall  had  risen 
to  the  cabinet  from  an  assistant's  place  and  was  content  to  fill 
his  position  faithfully.  Stanbery,  the  Attorney-General  and 
the  President's  personal  friend,  was  engrossed  in  law  duties. 
Stanton  let  himself  be  used  as  a  spy  and  became  a  scapegoat  to 
the  Radical  Congress.  But  Seward,  a  man  of  national  and 
international  fame,  serving  as  a  member  of  Johnson's  official 
family,  occupied  an  uncomfortable  position.  He  had  been 
the  foremost  Republican  in  America.  In  1860  he  had  barely 
missed  being  President.  He  had  likewise  been  the  great  For- 
eign Secretary  under  Lincoln.  Now  his  friends  charged  that 
he  was  pulling  the  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire  for  Andy  Johnson. 
Nevertheless,  cheerfully  and  nobly  Seward  went  about  his 
task,  serving  his  country  at  home  and  abroad,  "furnishing  an 
example  of  calm  judgment,  unfailing  patience  and  the  largest 
charity."  ^  In  1868  he  resigned,  but  withdrew  the  resignation 
at  the  President's  request.  As  has  been  said  of  him,  "He  be- 
trayed no  trust,  he  deserted  no  duty,  quailed  before  no  danger, 
he  recoiled  from  no  labor,  he  broke  no  friendship,  he  rose  on  no 
man's  fall,  he  fed  no  grievances  nor  raised  his  own  repute  by 
defamation  of  others." 

In  1868  Charles  Francis  Adams  had  partially  negotiated 
with  Lord  Clarendon  a  treaty  for  the  settlement  of  American 
claims  against  England,  known  as  the  Alabama  claims,  and 
growing  out  of  the  war.  Adams  then  resigned  and  President 
Johnson  appointed  his  old  friend  Reverdy  Jolinson  in  his  place. 
This  Maryland  patriot,  wliom  Sumner  pronounced  the  greatest 
constitutional  lawyer  ever  at  the  Britisli  court,  with  the  possible 

*Oherholtzcr,  Vol.  I,  p.  556. 

6  Seward  at  Washington,  F-varts's  Address,  p.  532. 


FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY  463 

exception  of  William  Pinkney,  took  up  Adams's  work  and  the 
result  was  the  Johnson-Clarendon  treaty. 

Though  this  treaty  gave  to  the  United  States  all  it  got  by 
the  treaty  with  Washington,  it  was  rejected  by  the  Senate. 
The  Senate  claimed  that  the  treaty  belittled  by  its  form  the 
work  to  be  done,  ignored  the  greater  national  grievances,  and 
contained  no  word  of  regret  for  the  fact  that  American  com- 
merce had  been  swept  from  the  sea  by  rebel  cruisers.  Yet 
much  was  gained  by  the  Johnson  administration  through  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  Treaty.  Theretofore  Lord  Russell  had 
emphatically  refused  to  admit  any  liability  on  England's  part 
on  account  of  depredations  by  Confederate  privateers,  but  by 
this  treaty  there  was  an  admission  of  the  principle  of  arbitra- 
tion for  our  damages  from  rebel  cruisers  and  a  satisfactory 
settlement  soon  followed.*' 

Complications  with  England  because  of  the  Fenian  uprising 
early  engaged  the  attention  of  the  Johnson  government. 
James  Stephens  was  at  the  head  of  a  movement  in  America 
called  the  Fenian  Movement,  based  on  the  chronic  hate  of  Irish- 
men for  England.  Meetings  were  held  and  much  money  raised. 
In  October  1865  Fenians,  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  gath- 
ered in  Philadelphia.  A  Republic  with  a  President,  a  Con- 
gress, a  Secretary  of  War  and  of  the  Treasury,  and  having 
its  bounds  wholly  within  the  United  States,  was  organized.  O. 
Mahoney,  known  as  "The  O.  Mahoney,"  was  reelected  presi- 
dent. The  Moffatt  house  off  Union  Square  in  New  York  was 
leased  for  headquarters.  Harps  were  displayed,  the  shamrock 
was  on  every  coat,  and  the  Goddess  of  Liberty  smiled  down  on 
enthusiastic  Irishmen.  Bonds  were  issued  and  sold.  But  a 
quarrel  arose  as  to  the  funds  and  also  as  to  how  to  proceed. 
W.  R.  Roberts,  vice-president,  and  General  Sweeney  insisted 
that  the  lion's  tail  be  twisted  and  that  Canada  be  captured. 
The  brotherhood  split  between  the  O.  Mahoneyites  and  the 
followers  of  Roberts.  On  account  of  these  transactions  rela- 
tions between  England  and  the  United  States  were  strained. 
In  April  1866  about  sixty  agitators,  claiming  to  be  Americans, 
were  in  jail  in  Ireland  and  Lord  Clarendon  hoped  "the  United 

eLothrop,  Seward,  p.  428. 


464.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

States  would  not  protect  these  conspirators."  The  British 
cabinet  protested,  and  insisted  that  troops  should  not  be  drilled 
and  money  raised  to  invade  Canada. 

In  order  to  harmonize  the  differences,  James  Stephens  called 
C.O.I.R.,  Chief  Organizer  of  the  Irish  Republic,  came  to 
America,  but  failed  in  his  mission.  The  O.  Mahoney  agreed 
to  disband  his  forces,  but  Roberts  was  not  so  complacent.  At 
length  the  0.  Mahoney  yielded  so  far  as  to  cooperate  in  the  in- 
vasion of  Canada,  and  backed  up  one  Killian,  who  was  to 
attack  Canada  from  Maine.  An  iron  steamer  was  purchased, 
and  in  April  1866  an  expedition  was  to  sail  from  Eastport  to 
Campobello  over  the  line,  but  British  warships  broke  up  the 
expedition.  More  fatal  results  followed  in  May  and  June. 
About  fifteen  hundred  men  crossed  the  Niagara  River  and 
raised  the  green  flag  over  Fort  Erie.  On  June  2  a  collision  oc- 
curred between  Canadian  regulars  and  volunteers  and  the 
Eenians.  Several  were  killed  and  wounded  on  each  side.  This 
collision  is  called  the  battle  of  Limestone  Ridge.  The  Irish  in 
America  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Fenians  and  endeavored  to 
deter  President  Johnson  from  opposing  the  Irish  invasion. 
In  this,  however,  they  were  unsuccessful,  and  the  President 
issued  a  proclamation  calling  upon  the  Fenians  to  disband  and 
cease  operations.^ 

In  matters  of  a  domestic  character,  the  financial  situation 
was  next  in  importance  to  reconstruction.  During  the  war  the 
currency  had  passed  from  a  specie  to  a  paper  or  greenback 
basis,  and  various  acts  authorizing  the  issue  of  legal  tender 
notes  had  passed  Congress.  In  October  1865  these  notes 
amounted  to  about  four  hundred  and  thirty-three  million  dol- 
lars in  all.  As  they  were  thought  to  be  unconstitutional,  they 
were  of  doubtful  legal  tender  value."''  The  public  debt  was 
two  billion,  eight  hundred  million  dollars.  Taxes  were 
enormously  high  and  were  levied  upon  every  species  of  prop- 
erty  and   franchise.^     The  questions   confronting   Secretary 

7  Johnson  MS. ;  I  have  made  free  use  of  Oberholtzer's  account  of  the 
Fenian  uprising. 

7a  At  first  the  Supreme  Court  held  that  they  were  unconstitutional  but 
afterwards  in  the  Legal  Tender  Cases — decided  by  a  five  to  four  vote  on 
February  7,  1870, — their  constitutionality  waa  sustained, 

8  Khodcs,  Vol.  VI,  p.  222. 


FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY  465 

McCulloch  were,  Should  the  United  States  go  to  a  specie 
basis  or  remain  on  a  greenback  basis,  and  further.  Was  it 
possible  to  reduce  taxes?  Fortunately,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  was  a  man  of  sound  financial  views.  In  1863,  under 
Lincoln,  he  had  been  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  and  had 
succeeded  Chase  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  After  Lin- 
coln's death  he  remained  In  President  Johnson's  Cabinet  and 
the  relationship  between  him  and  the  President  Avas  at  all  times 
cordial  and  intimate.^ 

Secretary  McCulloch  advocated  an  early  return  to  a  specie 
basis,  tax  reduction  and  a  brave  confronting  of  the  situation  by 
the  practice  of  thrift  and  economy.  In  these  views  the  Presi- 
dent fully  concurred.  At  first  Congress  approved  McCulloch's 
plan  and  on  April  12,  1866,  passed  an  act  authorizing  him  to 
sell  bonds  and  retire  greenbacks.  Forty-four  millions  were 
sold  under  this  act  before  McCulloch's  policy  was  reversed  by 
Congress.  In  less  than  three  j^ears  internal  revenue  taxes  were 
reduced  from  three  hundred  and  eleven  millions  to  one  hundred 
and  sixty  millions.  On  February  4,  1868,  however,  the  act 
authorizing  the  retirement  of  greenbacks  was  repealed.  The 
reason  for  this  repeal  is  manifest.  Hard  times  had  come  upon 
the  country,  a  reaction  had  set  in,  and  the  debtor  was  in  a  bad 
way.  Farmers  and  producers  awoke  to  the  fact  that  they  were 
receiving  for  corn,  wheat  and  cattle  a  paper  dollar  worth  but 
little  above  fifty  cents,  while  bond  holders  were  paid  In  gold 
worth  about  one  hundred  and  fifty. 

Secretary  IVIcCulloch  contended  that  these  conditions  would 
soon  pass  away  If  his  plan  was  pursued,  and  that  prosperity 
would  come  with  a  little  fortitude  on  the  part  of  the  people.^" 
He  pointed  to  the  fact  that  In  1866  and  1867  the  wheat  and 
corn  crops  were  good,  and  in  1867  the  cotton  crop  was  also 
good  and  was  bringing  a  fine  price,  that  immigration  was 
flowing  our  way,  a  million  immigrants  having  arrived  since 
July  1,  1865;  that  cotton  spindles  had  Increased  and  the  pro- 
duction of  pig-iron  had  greatly  improved.     At  that  time  also 

9  McCulloch,  Men  and  Measures,  p.  406. 

10  Ehodes  maintains  that  if  McCulloch's  plan  had  been  followed  specie  pay- 
ments would  have  been  resumed  in  1873,  six  years  before  they  were. — Rhodes, 
Vol.  VI,  p.  266. 


466  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

tonnage  on  the  great  inland  lakes  had  increased  and  nearly 
eight  thousand  miles  of  new  railroad  had  been  completed — 
thirty  thousand  Irish  were  working  on  the  Union  Pacific  and 
perhaps  as  many  Chinamen  on  the  Central  Pacific,  and  each 
road  running  a  race  to  reach  the  ocean.  Of  course  the  Secre- 
tary called  attention  to  the  evils  of  a  disordered  currency.  But 
he  pleaded  in  vain.  Complications  arose  which  soon  reversed 
his  policy  and  caused  him  to  be  severely  criticized. 

In  May  1866  a  financial  panic  struck  London  and  spread 
over  Europe,  reaching  America  in  1867.  The  United  States 
was  beginning  to  feel  the  effect  of  vast  destruction  of  property 
during  the  war  and  of  over-speculation.  A  speculating  and 
gambling  fever  had  pervaded  America.  Oil  in  Pennsylvania 
and  in  the  Rockies  had  made  and  unmade  fortunes.  Young 
men  of  the  Buck  Fanshaw  kind  had  rushed  to  the  mines  of 
Montana  and  Idaho.  In  these  flush  times  the  public  conscience 
was  deadened,  adding  to  the  demoralization.  Thus  the  Central 
Pacific  and  the  Union  Pacific  railroads  were  asking  land  grants 
and  special  privileges  of  various  kinds  from  Congress  and 
pursuing  devious  and  doubtful  methods.  The  Credit  Mobilier 
was  very  active.  It  M'as  a  fiscal  corporation  and  an  adjunct 
of  the  Union  Pacific,  and  Oakes  Ames,  a  Congressman  from 
Massachusetts,  was  its  backer.  This  corporation  twined  its 
tentacles  around  members  of  Congress,  giving  them  stock  for 
less  than  market  value ;  it  blasted  the  reputation  of  not  a  few 
public  men.  Congressmen  and  Senators  who  were  daily  de- 
nouncing Andrew  Johnson  as  corrupt  and  profligate  were,  at 
that  moment,  pocketing  Ames's  Credit  INIobilier  stock,  which  he 
had  delivered  to  them  "with  intent  to  influence  legislation." 
"Smiling"  Schuyler  Colfax,  who  as  Speaker  in  December  1865 
delivered  Congress  over  to  Thad  Stevens  and  the  Directory  of 
Fifteen,  was  besmirched  beyond  recovery.^^  Brooks,  tlie 
Democratic  leader,  along  with  Ames,  was  censured,  though  not 
expelled. 

This  orgy  of  speculation  and  corruption  and  disregard  of 

11  For  a  list  of  Senators  and  Congressmen,  likewise  implicated  in  the  Cn^dit 
Mobilier  Scandal,  consult  Oberholtzcr's  interesting  account. — History  of  the 
United  Htatcs,  Vol.  II,  p.  602. 


FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY  467 

the  principles  of  business  was  well  understood  to  be  the  begin- 
ning of  a  panic.  In  December  1868,  in  his  annual  message, 
President  Johnson  admonished  Congress  accordingly.  The 
Tenure  of  Office  Act  had  tied  his  hands,  he  insisted,  and 
"opened  the  doors  to  extravagance  and  corruption."  The 
Government  was  "plunged  into  debt,  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  dollars  being  due  to  foreign  bond  holders.  .  .  . 
Usurpation  of  power  and  profligacy  had  made  the  bond  holders 
masters  of  forty  millions  of  American  people.  .  .  .  Bond  hold- 
ers are  to  be  paid  in  gold  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent.,  which 
equals  nine  per  cent,  in  currency,  adding  two  per  cent.,  because 
of  exemption  of  taxation,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  the  bond  hold- 
ers are  getting  seventeen  per  cent,  in  gold  upon  their  invest- 
ment." "What  is  the  laborer  receiving?"  he  asked.  "He  is  to 
be  paid  in  depreciated  currency,  in  greenbacks." 

*'A  system  that  produces  such  results,"  the  President  de- 
clared, "is  justly  regarded  as  favoring  a  few  at  the  expense 
of  the  many,  and  has  led  to  the  further  inquiry  whether  our 
bondholders,  in  view  of  the  large  profits  which  they  have  en- 
joyed, would  themselves  be  averse  to  a  settlement  of  our  in- 
debtedness upon  a  plan  which  would  yield  them  a  fair  remu- 
neration and  at  the  same  time  be  just  to  the  taxpayers  of  the 
nation.  Our  national  credit  should  be  sacredly  observed,  but 
in  making  provision  for  our  creditors  we  should  not  forget 
what  is  due  to  the  masses  of  the  people."  In  his  message  the 
President  also  recommended  that  the  President  and  Vice-presi- 
dent and  Senators  should  be  elected  by  a  direct  vote  of  the 
people  and  that  in  the  event  of  a  vacancy  in  the  presidential 
office  some  one  should  be  specifically  designated  to  act  as  Presi- 
dent. Further,  that  the  terms  of  federal  judges  should  be 
limited.  Previous  to  1868  the  President  stood  with  Secretary 
McCuUoch  in  his  recommendations  to  Congress.  When  the 
issue,  however,  was  drawn  between  the  capitalist  and  the 
laborer  in  financial  matters,  the  President  leaned  to  the  latter. 
In  this  course  it  must  be  remembered  the  President  was  true 
to  type.  In  Tennessee  he  had  been  known  as  the  mechanic 
governor,  in  Washington  he  would  be  the  mechanic  president. 

Yet  the  President  would  not  remove  McCulloch  as  Secretary 


468  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

of  the  Treasury.  Greenbackers  and  inflatronists  urged  him 
to  do  so,  but  he  would  not.  In  fact,  the  President  seemed  to 
agree  with  McCulloch.  The  best  thing,  as  he  saw  it,  was  to  go 
to  a  specie  basis,  though,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  he  was  in 
favor  of  doing  this  at  the  expense  of  the  bondholders  and 
in  a  way  peculiar  to  himself.  The  war  had  now  been  over 
nearly  four  years,  and  it  was  feared  the  public  debt  could  never 
be  paid  in  gold.  There  was  not  enough  coin  in  the  world  to 
pay  the  debt,  it  was  thought.  How  therefore  should  the  debt 
be  paid.?  Especially,  how  should  the  5-20  issue  of  nearly  six 
hundred  millions  of  bonds  be  paid.^*  On  their  face  these  bonds, 
bearing  five  per  cent,  interest  and  payable  in  twenty  years, 
provided  that  interest  should  be  paid  in  coin.  But,  as  to  the 
payment  of  the  principal,  the  word  coin  was  not  mentioned. 

By  every  rule  of  construction,  therefore,  the  principal  of 
these  bonds  was  payable  in  the  currency  of  the  day,  greenbacks. 
This  was  the  opinion  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  lawyers, 
Allan  G.  Thui'man  being  one  of  the  number.  The  "Ohio  idea" 
was  the  term  used  to  express  the  greenback  sentiment.  John 
Sherman,  General  Logan,  Governor  Morton  and  other  leading 
Republicans,  "while  not  joining  the  inflationists,  made  pretense 
of  doing  so."  Sherman  was  in  favor  of  a  compromise  and  the 
issue  of  new  bonds  at  a  lower  rate;  "in  other  words  of  modi- 
fied repudiation."  ^^  Old  Thad  Stevens  was  enraged  at  the 
injustice  of  paying  the  laborer  in  rag  money  and  the  bond- 
holder in  gold.  "I'll  vote  for  no  such  swindle  of  the  taxpayers 
of  this  country,"  he  declared ;  "I'll  vote  for  Frank  Blair  and  the 
wicked  Democrats  first."  Ben  Butler  afterwards  rode  into  the 
governorship  of  Massachusetts  on  this  issue ;  Hendricks  en- 
dorsed the  President's  message;  Garrett  Davis  and  Bayard 
denounced  the  payment  of  the  bonds  in  gold  as  "iniquity  and 
robbery." 

In  1868  the  Republican  platform  avoided  the  use  of  the 
word  "coin"  or  "gold,"  and  straddled  the  issue,  declaring,  "The 
Republican  party  will  soundly  maintain  the  credit  of  the 
United  States  and  pay  the  bonds  according  to  the  letter  and 

12  Oberholtzcr,  Vol.  II,  p.  162:  Here  it  is  hastily  charged  that  Sherman  was 
"ignorant  or  dishonest." — Cf.  Nation,  December  28,  1871. 


FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC  POLICY  469 

the  spirit."  "  The  Republican  party  in  Indiana  and  in  other 
Western  States  advocated  the  payment  of  the  pubHc  debt  in 
greenbacks.  In  the  West  and  South  the  Democratic  party, 
bag  and  baggage,  went  over  to  the  "Ohio  Idea."  In  opposition 
to  this  poHcy  of  deahng  with  foreign  creditors  it  was  urged 
that  Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  had  advertised  that 
the  bonds  would  be  paid  in  coin  and  Garfield  stated  that  the 
Committee  on  Finance  so  understood  it.  Undoubtedly,  the 
controlling  reason  for  paying  the  bonds  in  gold  and  not  in 
greenbacks,  as  the  courts  would  no  doubt  have  decreed,  was 
"to  maintain  the  credit  of  the  United  States  and  enable  it  to 
borrow  more  money."  " 

Unfortunately,  Johnson  went  beyond  Sherman  or  Thurman 
or  the  "Ohio  Idea."  In  1868,  in  his  message  to  Congress,  he 
used  language  which  might  suggest  the  attitude  of  France  and 
Italy  in  1920  after  the  World  War,  in  relation  to  their  indebt- 
edness to  the  United  States.  In  a  word,  Johnson  advocated  a 
scaling  of  the  national  debt  due  to  England,  just  as  England 
in  1923  requested  America  to  scale  its  debt  against  her.  "It 
must  be  assumed,"  said  the  President,  "that  the  holders  of  our 
securities  have  already  received  upon  their  bonds  a  larger 
amount  than  their  original  investment,  measured  by  a  gold 
standard.  Upon  this  statement  of  facts  it  would  seem  but 
just  and  equitable  that  the  six  per  cent,  interest  now  paid  by 
the  Government  should  be  applied  to  the  reduction  of  the 
principal  in  semi-annual  installments,  which  in  sixteen  years 
and  eight  months  would  liquidate  the  entire  national  debt.  Six 
per  cent,  in  gold  would  at  present  rates  be  equal  to  nine  per 
cent,  in  currency,  and  equivalent  to  the  payment  of  the  debt  one 
and  a  half  times  in  a  fraction  less  than  seventeen  years.  This, 
in  connection  Avith  all  the  other  advantages  derived  from  their 
investment,  would  afford  to  the  public  creditors  a  fair  and  lib- 
eral compensation  for  the  use  of  their  capital,  and  with  this 
they  should  be  satisfied.  The  lessons  of  the  past  admonish  the 
lender  that  it  is  not  well  to  be  over-anxious  in  exacting  from  the 
borrower  rigid  compliance  with  the  letter  of  the  bond." 

13  Life  of  Stevens,  p.  348. 

14  Dewey,  Financial  History  of  the  United  States,  p.  347. 


470  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

This  idea  of  the  President,  the  candid  Welles  calls  "inexcus- 
ably weak  and  erroneous."  ^^  And  he  is  undoubtedly  correct. 
But  as  we  have  seen  both  political  parties  were  at  first  badly 
off  color  on  the  currency  question  and  the  payment  of  the 
national  debt.  The  President,  though  grievously  wrong,  was 
not  standing  alone.  This  must  also  be  said :  If  he  had  written 
nothing  else  he  would  have  called  attention  to  a  system  "favor- 
ing the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many,  and  to  the  oppression 
of  the  people  by  the  capitalists."  That  a  day  laborer  must 
receive  only  a  dollar  a  day  in  greenbacks,  worth  fifty  cents, 
while  the  capitalist  was  to  get  on  his  dollar  a  gold  dollar,  worth 
twice  a  greenback  dollar,  was  a  condition  Johnson  would  not 
endorse.  In  the  House  and  in  the  Senate  his  message  when  it 
was  read  was  heard  with  indignation  and  wrath.  It  was  a 
"tirade  against  Congress,  an  offensive  document."  The  Sen- 
ate refused  to  hear  it  through,  and  by  a  vote  of  26  to  20  ad- 
journed during  its  reading.  The  House  tabled  it  by  a  large 
vote.  Next  day  it  was  read  in  the  Senate  "for  the  benefit  of 
the  country  to  show  what  sort  of  an  official  was  at  the  head  of 
the  Government." 

Great  was  the  President's  disappointment  at  the  unfavorable 
reception  of  his  message.  Confidently  he  believed  that  the 
bondholders  would  agree  to  adjust  their  holdings,  and  scale 
their  debts,  and  that  specie  payments  could  be  resumed  at 
once.  This  was  his  plan  for  protecting  the  laboring  class,  and 
this  was  not  his  plan  alone.  The  year  previous  Thad  Stevens, 
in  tears,  we  are  told,  had  submitted  "to  the  stock  jobbers,  de- 
claring they  would  cost  the  Government  thousands  of  millions 
of  dollars."  '' 


15  Welles,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  478. 

18  Stewart,  Reminiscences,  p.  204. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Soon  after  his  acquittal,  the  President  received  a  touching 
letter  from  his  daughter  Mary,  down  on  the  Stover  farm  in 
Tennessee.  "Washington  is  ever  dear  to  me,"  she  wrote  her 
father;  "the  happiest  days  of  my  life  were  spent  there.  We 
have  been  verj'^  uneasy  but  thank  God  you  have  come  out 
victorious  and  we  can  say  with  Miriam: 

"  'Sound  the  loud  symbols  o'er  Egypt's  dark  sea 
Jehovah  has  triumphed,  his  people  are  free.'  "  ^ 

The  Harvard  Law  School  likewise  sent  congratulatory  reso- 
lutions on  the  failure  to  convict.  But  neither  words  of  praise 
nor  of  censure  affected  Johnson's  outward  appearance.  One 
visiting  the  White  House  would  discover  no  change  in  him. 
"God's  will  be  done,"  he  piously  ejaculated. 

"It  is  a  victory  not  for  myself,"  said  he,  "but  for  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  country,  and  I  look  with  perfect  confidence  to 
my  ultimate  vindication  and  to  the  justice  of  that  future  which 
I  am  convinced  will  not  be  long  delayed.  ...  A  day  of  wiser 
thought  and  wiser  estimates  is  near."  -  In  truth,  life  to  John- 
son was  but  a  fierce  struggle  and  he  knew  how  to  take  punish- 
ment. Hence  he  cherished  no  malice  for  opponents.  Thad 
Stevens  and  Charles  Sumner  had  fought  him  in  the  open,  and, 
though  fierce  and  terrible,  they  were  never  double-faced. 
Therefore,  he  bore  them  no  resentment.  Only  the  treacherous 
fellow  excited  his  contempt,  and  even  upon  him  Johnson 
wasted  no  anger.  When  the  fight  ended  feeling  subsided  and 
he  was  content  to  bury  the  past. 

"A  heart  full  of  kindness,"  said  his  secretary,  "and  a  gen- 
erous  spirit   of   helpfulness   to   those   in   need   or   struggling 

1  Johnson  MS.  No.  21,068. 

2  Harper's  Weekly,  March  23,  1872;  McPherson,  History  of  Reconstruction, 
p.  143. 

471 


472  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

upward  now  characterized  him."  ^  "A  nearer  view  of  the  man 
through  five  momentous  years,"  the  secretary  continues,  "has 
taught  his  opponents  that  they  had  not  understood  nor  appre- 
ciated him."  Or  as  N.  G.  Taylor,  his  old  Whig  opponent  with 
pardonable  pride  asserted,  "Standing  between  Radical  fanati- 
cism and  the  Constitution,  he  towered  above  contemporary 
politicians  like  the  watch  tower  about  the  billows."  *  His 
loyalty  to  friendship  and  his  kindness  to  Unionists  and  Con- 
federates were  everywhere  manifest.  Sam  Milligan,  companion 
of  his  early  days,  he  kept  by  his  side.  In  1864  he  made  Milli- 
gan his  secretary  at  Nashville ;  in  1865  he  caused  him  to  be  put 
upon  the  Supreme  Bench  of  the  State,  and  in  1868,  when  a 
vacancy  occurred  in  the  Court  of  Claims  at  Washington,  he 
elevated  his  wise  old  friend  to  that  high  place.  Blackstone 
McDaniel,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  appointed  United  States 
Marshal ;  Return  J.  Meigs  was  made  clerk  to  one  of  the  courts 
of  the  District ;  N.  G.  Taylor  was  sent  as  Commissioner  to  the 
Indians.  In  1863  and  1864  Taylor  had  gone  to  the  cities  of 
the  North,  and  pleaded  the  cause  of  southern  Unionists.  He 
raised  thousands  of  dollars,  collected  food  and  clothing  and 
assisted  in  saving  the  mountaineers  of  East  Tennessee  from 
starvation.  Lewis  Self  and  William  Lowry  were  put  in  charge 
of  post  offices.  Even  the  Knoxville  postmaster,  and  other  post- 
masters who  in  1861  had  rifled  Governor  Johnson's  mail  and 
spied  on  him,  were  pardoned.  And  the  patriotic  preacher,  J. 
P.  Holtsinger,  was  not  neglected. 

His  affection  for  those  of  his  own  household  was  well  known. 
"He  was  noted  for  his  devotion  to  his  invalid  wife,"  said  a 
neighbor,  "and  to  his  children  he  was  kind  to  indulgence."  * 
"From  personal  experience  and  contact  with  Andrew  Johnson," 
said  Judge  Barton,  whose  family  had  been  next-door  neighbors 
in  Greeneville  before  the  war,  "I  found  him  kind  and  helpful, 
specially  to  poor  young  men,  and  he  was  entirely  without  con- 
descension."   One  day,  when  Barton  was  a  mere  lad  of  twenty 

3  Col.  E.  C.  Reeves,  Johnson's  private  secretary,  in  Knoxville  Sentinel,  May 
30,  1023, 

4  Col.  N.  G.  Taylor's  pamphlet,  The  Political  Situation,  August  1866. 

5  Judge  Barton,  Commercial-Appeal,  January  23,  1927;  McCulloch,  Men  and 
Measures,  p.  406. 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  473 

and  on  his  way  to  college,  he  met  President  Johnson  on  the 
train.  "The  President  made  me  forget  I  was  a  timid  boy 
and  he  a  great  figure,"  Barton  wrote.  "He  spoke  of  my  oppor- 
tunities and  drew  out  my  own  ideas,  .  .  .  for  an  hour  he 
talked,  but  not  an  unkind  word  did  he  say  of  his  opponents. 
In  a  few  moments  I  felt  as  free  and  untrammeled  as  if  I  were 
talking  to  a  boy  companion."  These  friendly  traits  of  char- 
acter sat  well  on  a  President  who,  as  his  intimates  boastfully 
asserted,  had  "the  polish  of  a  Chesterfield,  was  the  personifica- 
tion of  dignity,  and  admitted  no  familiarity."  *^ 

Many  a  southern  home  was  gladdened  by  the  President's 
acts  of  kindness.  "With  all  his  worries  and  burdens,"  as  an 
old  rebel  said,  "while  the  jackals  were  at  his  heels,  and  hell 
raged  in  East  Tennessee,  he  did  not  forget  his  old  friends  and 
neighbors  who  had  stood  in  the  southern  battle-lines,  arrayed 
against  him  and  his  gallant  sons  who  were  in  the  Union  army 
for  four  years.  Without  request  from  them  he  extended  his 
protecting  hand  in  their  hour  of  need."  .  .  .  "Can  I  ever 
forget,"  said  this  southern  judge,  "when  my  own  father  was 
in  danger  and  defenseless,  and  charged  with  treason,  coming 
one  dark  day  from  our  village  postoffice  with  anxious  heart, 
as  I  bore  a  letter  in  a  large  envelope  with  the  White  House  ad- 
dress on  it,  and  what  was  the  joy  at  home  when  it  was  opened 
to  find  a  pardon — an  unasked  pardon  from  Andrew  Johnson, 
President  of  the  United  States — for  his  own  sins  in  serving  and 
aiding  the  rebellion."  Or  as  Governor  Vance  put  the  case: 
"Through  Andrew  Johnson,  and  such  as  he,  we  begin  to  see 
how  it  is  possible  to  love  our  whole  country  once  more." 

One  day  a  letter  came  to  the  President  from  Mrs.  General 
Donalson  of  Nashville.  It  told  of  the  seizure  of  her  home  by 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau  and  of  the  operations  of  a  sawmill, 
destroying  her  timber.  Mrs.  Donalson  was  a  daughter  of 
Governor  Branch,  formerly  Governor  of  North  Carolina.  The 
President  sent  a  wire  to  stop  depredations  and  to  restore  the 
unlawfully  confiscated  estates.  "Once  when  I  was  a  lad,"  said 
the  President  to  his  secretary,  holding  the  letter  of  Mrs.  Donal- 
son in  his  hand,  "this  woman's  father  came  in  the  tailor  shop  at 

6  Col.  E.  C.  Reeves,  supra. 


4745  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Raleigh,  where  I  M^as  an  apprentice  boy,  and  I  held  his  horse. 
When  he  went  out  he  gave  me  a  half  dollar  and  said,  'That's 
right,  my  son,  be  honest  and  industrious  and  j^ou  will  make 
a  great  man.'  I  have  kept  that  silver  piece  ever  since,"  the 
President  added.'^  One  day  Charles  Dickens  was  a  caller  at 
the  White  House  and  was  greatly  impressed  with  the  President. 
To  this  interpreter  of  human  nature  Johnson  appeared  as  "a 
man  with  a  remarkable  face,  indomitable  courage  and  watchful- 
ness and  a  certain  strength  of  purpose."  "I  would  have  picked 
him  out  anywhere,"  wrote  Dickens,  "as  a  character  of  mark." 

In  the  concluding  daj^s  of  his  term  President  Johnson  needed 
every  ounce  of  patience.  On  July  7,  1868,  Thad  Stevens 
offered  five  additional  articles  of  impeachment,  supporting  his 
resolution  with  bitter  words.  "No  president,"  said  Stevens 
biting  himself  with  rage,  "can  be  removed  by  the  processes  of 
the  law.  ...  If  tyranny  becomes  intolerable  the  only  recourse 
will  be  found  in  the  dagger  of  a  Brutus."  In  a  few  days 
Stevens,  America's  foremost  parliamentary  leader,  was  dead. 
When  his  will  was  opened  it  was  found  that  the  paradoxical 
man  had  used  the  tenderest  words  with  reference  to  his  mother 
and  others.  After  providing  an  ample  sum  to  care  for  his 
mother's  grave,  he  requested  the  sexton  "to  keep  the  grave  in 
good  order  and  plant  roses  and  other  cheerful  flowers  at  each 
of  the  four  corners  every  spring." 

General  Grant  was  likewise  unrelenting  in  his  hatred  of 
Johnson.  It  rankled  in  Grant's  bosom  that  his  conduct  in  sur- 
rendering the  office  of  Secretary  of  War  to  Stanton  smacked 
of  treachery.  In  the  impeachment  trial  it  had  been  made  plain 
that  President  Johnson  was  not  endeavoring  to  involve  the 
country  in  civil  war,  but  just  the  opposite.  He  had,  in  good 
faith,  asked  General  Grant  to  cooperate  in  testing  the  law 
through  the  courts.  The  General,  after  promising  to  do  so, 
had  failed  to  live  up  to  his  promise.  No  doubt  the  General 
thought  the  good  of  the  country  demanded  that  he  pursue  the 
course  he  did,  and  keep  out  of  the  controversy.  At  all  events, 
thoughtful  people  regarded  Johnson  as  the  injured  party. 
General  Grant  was  implacable,  nothing  could  induce  him  to 

7  Governor  Peay,  at  Johnson  tailor  shop  dedication,  May  30,  1923. 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  475 

forgive  Andrew  Johnson.  In  1868,  even  during  the  Impeach- 
ment trial,  he  importuned  Senator  Henderson  to  vote  to  con- 
vict the  President.  Not  so  the  President,  however.  True 
to  that  trait  which  McCulloch  discovered  of  "never  cherishing 
animosity  after  a  contest  was  over,"  ^  Johnson  time  and  again 
extended  the  oHve  branch  to  Grant. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  administration  President  Johnson 
appointed  Grant's  brother-in-law,  Judge  Louis  Dent,  to  the 
Chilean  Mission.  During  the  Christmas  holidays  In  1868  he 
invited  the  Grant  grandchildren  to  a  birthday  party  which  they 
did  not  attend.  The  President  likewise  extended  an  invitation 
to  the  General  to  New  Year  and  other  receptions,  but  the 
stern  old  warrior  left  town  rather  than  shake  the  hand  of  one 
who  had  placed  him  In  a  bad  light  before  the  country.  Now 
this  pacific  conduct  of  President  Johnson's  did  not  please  his 
thorough-going  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Welles  called  it  "tem- 
porizing." "No  good  can  come  of  such  temporizing,"  said 
he,  "and  as  to  Grant  I  want  not  his  favors  and  I  shun  not  his 
wrath."  ^ 

At  this  time,  as  always,  Johnson  continued  to  place  implicit 
faith  in  the  people.  No  matter  what  they  did  the  people  were 
right — his  confidence  in  them  was  absolute  and  without  reserve. 
If  they  fell  short  it  was  because  they  were  misinformed  or  mis- 
led. In  the  impeachment  troubles  the  people  were  not  against 
him,  he  felt,  they  were  deluded  by  the  politicians.  "I  cannot 
complain,"  he  wrote  in  the  summer  of  1868,  "if  the  people  while 
witnessing  recent  scenes  have  not  been  able  to  make  my  cause 
thoroughly  their  own,  the  defense  of  the  laws  their  own  bat- 
tle." " 

Try  as  he  would,  however,  Andrew  Johnson  could  not  get  on 
workable  terms  with  the  religion  of  the  day.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  preachers  and  pulpits  were  fomenting  strife  and  had 
substituted  revenge  and  hate  for  love  and  charity.  When  the 
Northern  Methodist  Church  took  an  active  part  In  the  im- 
peachment trial,  actually  petitioning  Congress  to  turn  him  out, 

8  McCulloch,  Men  and  Pleasures,  p.  405. 

8  Welles,  Diary,  Vol,  III,  p.  527.     Welles  charges  Grant  with  falsehood. 

10  DeWitt,  Impeachment,  p.  601. 


476  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Johnson  thought  of  a  new  church.  He  began  to  attend  St. 
Patrick's  cathedral.  Father  Maguire  suited  him  exactly.  The 
Father  cut  out  politics,  preached  neither  hate  nor  malice  and 
went  back  to  the  fundamental  virtues — lowly-mindedness  and 
charity.  "I  don't  know  anything  more  depressing,"  said  the 
President  one  morning,  after  listening  to  a  sermon  by  Father 
Maguire  on  the  subject  of  slander  and  back-biting,  "than  for 
a  man  to  labor  for  the  people  and  not  be  understood.  It  is 
enough  to  sour  his  soil."  ^^  The  Catholic  Church  appealed  to 
him  because  of  its  treatment  of  rich  and  poor  alike.  In  the 
cathedral  there  were  no  high  priced  pews  and  no  reserved  seats, 
the  old  woman  with  calico  dress  and  poke  bonnet  sitting  up 
high  and  being  as  welcome  as  the  richest.  And  this  was  An- 
drew Johnson's  touchstone.  He  would  forgive  a  great  deal  if 
the  principle  of  universal  democracy  was  preserved. 

In  matters  political  the  President  was  at  sea,  almost  without 
the  semblance  of  a  party.  The  old  Democratic  party  had  lost 
favor  with  him,  its  platform  of  1864)  being  damnable.  While 
the  Union  was  in  danger  it  had  denounced  the  war  as  a 
failure,  a  declaration  which  stultified  the  very  name  of  Democ- 
racy. Only  to  the  conservatives  could  he  turn  and  to  liberal 
Republicans.  McCulloch,  he  would  not  dismiss,  though  the 
Blairs  and  other  Democrats  urged  him  to  do  so.  McCulloch 
was  treacherous,  they  insisted,  and  must  go  and  Johnson  must 
reconstruct  his  Cabinet  and  build  up  a  strictly  Democratic 
party.    But  this  he  would  not  do. 

In  May,  at  Chicago,  the  Republicans  nominated  General 
Grant  for  President  and  Schuyler  Colfax  for  Vice-president. 
The  platform  declared  for  negro  suffrage  in  the  South  but 
not  in  the  North.  It  lauded  the  "Man  on  Horseback"  and 
approved  of  the  impeachment  of  Andrew  Johnson.  On  July 
4  the  Democratic  Convention  met  in  New  York.  Here  and 
there  lovers  of  the  old  Constitution  had  been  urging  Johnson 
to  stand  for  President,  but  he  must  first  reconstruct  his  cab- 
inet, he  must  have  a  party  behind  him.  To  these  appeals  he 
replied  "that  he  was  not  ambitious  for  furtlier  service  unless 
the  call  was  so  general  and  unequivocal  tliat  it  would  be  an 

11  Moore,  Diary,  March  29,  1868.    Oberholtzcr,  Vol.  II,  p.  127. 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  477 

endorsement  by  the  people  of  lils  endeavors  to  defend  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  reserved  rights  of  the  several  commonwealths 
composing  what  was  once  in  fact  the  Federal  Union."  .  .  . 
"Of  such  approval,  in  the  present  temper  of  parties,"  he  said, 
"I  can  perhaps  have  no  reasonable  expectations.  ...  In  the 
midst  of  these  embarrassments  I  have  not  been  discouraged, 
when  from  the  public  prints,  or  from  some  unusually  frank 
and  outspoken  friend  I  have  heard  that  'I  have  no  party.'  This 
suggestion  has  only  served  to  remind  me  of  a  memorable  re- 
mark, uttered  when  faction  ruled  high  in  Rome,  that  'Caesar 
had  a  party  and  Pompey  and  Crassus  each  a  party,  but  that 
the  Commonwealth  had  none.'  "  ^" 

Johnson's  name  was  presented  to  the  New  York  Convention 
and  on  the  first  ballot  he  received  the  second  highest  vote, 
sixty-five ;  George  H.  Pendleton  of  Ohio  receiving  one  hundred 
and  five.  The  South,  as  a  whole,  did  not  stand  by  him  and  on 
the  fifth  day  and  the  twenty-second  ballot,  Governor  Seymour 
of  New  York  was  nominated.  Ohio,  the  home  of  Salmon  P. 
Chase,  ostensibly  his  friend  and  backer,  had  deserted  the  Chief 
Justice,  suddenly  springing  the  name  of  Seymour  on  the 
convention.  General  F.  P.  Blair  was  the  nominee  for  Vice- 
president.  The  platform  adopted  the  "Ohio  Idea."  Thus  the 
West  got  the  platform  and  the  East  the  candidate.^^  In  this 
convention  the  southern  people  again  misinterpreted  the  north- 
ern temper,  sending  as  delegates  such  outspoken  Secessionists 
as  General  Forrest,  R.  B.  Rhett  and  ex-Senator  Chestnut. 
The  North,  equally  unwise,  had  sent  Copperheads  such  as 
Vallandigham.  The  impulsive  Blair,  candidate  for  Vice- 
president,  was  a  good  general  but  a  poor  politician;  in  fact, 
he  had  killed  the  Democratic  party  before  he  became  its  can- 
didate. On  June  30,  1868,  he  had  written  the  famous  "Brod- 
head  letter."  "The  only  way  to  restore  the  government  and 
the  Constitution,"  he  wrote,  is  to  "elect  a  President  who 
will  declare  Radical  reconstruction  null  and  void  and  with  an 
army  undo  usurpations  in  the  South  and  disperse  carpet-bag 

izDeWitt,  op.  cit.,  p.  601. 

13  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  II,  p.  171. 


478  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

governments,  superseding  them  with  white  governments."  ^* 
This  meant  civil  war  again.  As  Andrew  Johnson  with  bitter- 
ness said  to  Welles,  "it  overturned  everything."  Despite 
these  handicaps  Seymour  and  Blair  came  near  carrying  the 
country  in  the  fall.  But  for  the  South,  indeed,  they  would 
have  done  so.  "It  was  a  startling  fact,"  says  Blaine,  "that  if 
Seymour  had  received  the  solid  vote  of  the  South  he  would, 
in  connection  with  the  northern  vote,  have  been  elected."  ^^ 
And  Blaine  was  right.  New  York,  New  Jersey  and  Oregon 
went  Democratic.  Ohio  and  Indiana  were  very  close.  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Arkansas  and 
Florida,  now  Africanized,  went  Republican  and  elected  Grant. 

Congress  continued  to  bedevil  and  harass  the  President. 
Impeachment  was  held  over  his  head.  The  reconstructed  State 
of  Arkansas  was  to  be  admitted,  in  order  to  add  two  Radical 
Senators  to  sit  in  another  impeachment  trial,  though  they  had 
not  heard  the  evidence.^^  Prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  Four- 
teenth Amendment,  Congress  also  voted  to  admit  North  Caro- 
lina, South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Louisiana  and  Alabama,  re- 
cently Africanized  states.  Their  votes  were  needed  to  dispose 
of  the  President  at  some  later  date  if  necessar}^,  and  to  carry 
the  fall  elections.^''  Reverdy  Johnson  insisted  that  no  one 
"with  a  sense  of  justice  or  any,  the  least  sense  of  propriety" 
would  bring  in  new  Senators,  "who  had  not  heard  the  evidence 
to  take  part  in  the  decision."  Senator  Sumner  retorted,  "Of 
course  they  shall  come  in  and  vote." 

But  the  President  was  not  to  be  intimidated.  On  June  20, 
1868,  he  vetoed  the  bill  admitting  Arkansas  into  the  Union. 
This  bill  provided  "That  the  Constitution  of  Arkansas  shall 
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  entitled  to  vote  by  the  Constitution  herein  recognized."  In 
his  blandest  manner  the  President,  commenting  on  this  pro- 
vision, declared,  "I  am  unable  to  find  in  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  any  warrant  for  the  exercise  of  the  authority 

"i*  Annual  Encyclopcpdia,  1868,  p.  746. 

16  Blaine,  Twenty  Years,  p.  408. 

30  Globe,  Fortieth  Congress,  Second  ^^rssion,  pp.  2437  and  2516. 

i7()bcrhoUzor,  Vol.  II,  pp.  57  and  147. 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  479 

thus  claimed  by  Congress."  .  .  .  "In  assuming  the  power  to 
impose  a  'fundamental  condition'  upon  a  state,  which  has 
been  duly  admitted  into  the  Union  upon  an  equal  footing  with 
the  original  states  in  all  respects  whatever,"  the  President 
argued,  "Congress  asserts  a  right  to  enter  a  state  as  it  may  a 
territory  and  to  regulate  the  highest  prerogative  of  a  free 
people — the  elective  franchise.  .  .  .  This  question  is  reserved 
by  the  Constitution  to  the  states  themselves  and  to  concede  to 
Congress  the  power  to  regulate  the  subject  would  be — to  place 
in  the  hands  of  the  Federal  government,  which  is  the  creature 
of  the  states,  the  sovereignty  which  justly  belongs  to  the  states 
or  the  people."  ^^ 

In  dispassionate  language,  he  also  vetoed  the  bills  admitting 
North  Carolina  and  other  states  and  also  a  bill  refusing  to 
count  the  electoral  vote  of  those  states,  and  another,  relating 
to  the  Fourth  Freedmen's  Bureau.  The  bills  to  admit  the 
Southern  States,  he  vetoed  for  the  same  reason  he  vetoed  the 
Arkansas  bill.  On  July  4,  the  nation's  birthday,  the  President 
extended  full  pardon  and  amnesty,  unconditionally  and  with- 
out reserve,  to  all  rebels,  except  those  under  indictment.  This 
he  did  though  Congress  had  not  adjourned  but  was  in  recess 
watching  over  him  and  denouncing  his  vetoes  and  pardons. 

Through  his  Secretary  of  State,  in  July  1868,  the  President 
made  proclamation  that  the  southern  states  had  been  re- 
admitted into  the  Union.  He  did  this  in  obedience  to  law, 
though  he  had  vetoed  the  action  of  Congress  in  admitting 
them.  On  December  9  the  President  sent  his  last  annual 
message  to  Congress,  to  portions  of  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred. A  more  exasperating  and  yet  a  more  smoothly  written 
document  he  had  not  issued.  Reconstruction  he  declared  to  be 
a  failure  and  the  attempt  "to  put  the  white  population  of  the 
South  under  the  domination  of  persons  of  color  had  broken  up 
the  kindly  relations  subsisting  between  the  races,  creating  ani- 
mosity which  had  disturbed  the  entire  nation."  Party  passion 
and  sectional  prejudice,  he  insisted,  had  frustrated  the  work  of 
reconstruction  which  he  had  about  accomplished  in  1865 ;  the 

18  Macdonald,  Documentary  Source  Book,  p.  532. 


480  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Constitution  had  been  violated  at  every  step  and  Congress 
should  hasten  to  undo  its  illegal  work. 

The  year  1868,  full  of  worry  and  disappointment,  was  now 
drawing  to  a  close  and  the  old  warrior  in  the  White  House 
began  to  sniff  the  political  battle  afar.  He  was  going  back  to 
Tennessee  and  "swing  round  the  circle"  again.  Already  his 
enemies  were  at  war  with  each  other.  Stanton,  sour  because 
Johnson  had  not  been  convicted,  refused  to  recognize  his  old 
friend  Fessenden.  Soon  the  great  War  Secretary  was  to  pass 
away,  "mysterious  secrecy  enshrouding  his  last  hours."  ^^  In 
August  Stevens  also  died,  his  faith  in  popular  government 
shattered.  In  the  fall  Ben  Wade  lost  his  seat  in  the  Senate. 
The  corrupt  Ashley  dropped  out  of  sight.  The  blatant  Bout- 
well  Avas  shortly  repudiated.  Sumner  was  to  be  disgraced  by 
his  party — deposed  from  the  chairmanship  of  the  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations.  He  and  Carl  Schurz  and  Julian  were 
bitterly  to  assail  the  Radicals.  Grant  and  Sumner  were 
shortly  to  become  deadly  enemies  and  Ben  Butler  and  other 
charlatans  to  be  reduced  to  ranks.  The  country  was  beginning 
to  see  its  narrow  escape  when  the  unscrupulous  Wade  came  so 
near  entering  the  White  House. 

Christmas  Day  Andrew  Johnson  celebrated  in  splendid  fash- 
ion. He  extended  pardon,  absolutely  and  without  restriction, 
"to  all  who  directly  or  indirectly  participated  in  the  late  rebel- 
lion," Jefferson  Davis  included.  Eccentric  and  big-hearted 
old  Horace  Greeley  went  into  ecstasy.  "We  seldom  find  of  late 
a  decent  excuse  for  praising  Andrew  Johnson,"  said  Greeley. 
"But  we  thank  him  for  putting  an  end,  even  thus  tardily,  to 
the  legal  farce  enacted  every  few  months  under  the  deceitful 
title  of  'Trial  of  Jeff  Davis.'  •"  A  swindle  by  which  nobody  is 
duped,  a  farce  at  which  nobody  thinks  of  laughing,  must  have 
outlived  its  day.  ...  It  is  the  most  sweeping  amnesty  ever 
pronounced  by  man."  Democrats,  except  the  "Brigadiers," 
now  claimed  Johnson  as  tlicir  own.  His  example  of  honesty, 
economy,  and  simplicity  they  placed  in  contrast  to  the  grow- 

lODoWitt.  Inipeachmont,  p.  r)96;  Second  Session  Forty-second  Congress, 
ApjH'iidix  r)(50. 

20  This  utterance  and  the  signing  of  Davis'  appearance  bond,  probably  made 
Greeley  Democratic  candidate  for  I'residont  iu  1672. 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  481 

ing  extravagance  and  dishonesty  of  the  times.  Before  the 
southern  whites  were  disfranchised,  legislatures  had  passed  en- 
dorsements of  him  and  the  southern  press  had  forgiven  his 
desertion  of  the  South  in  1861  and  his  "cruelties"  while  mili- 
tary-governor. He  was,  now  more  than  ever,  the  "protector  of 
the  Union  and  the  defender  of  the  Constitution." 

These  manifestations  of  approval  were  not  lost  on  President 
Johnson,  and  he  would  respond  and  let  the  people  understand 
he  was  still  alive,  and  not  as  Parson  Brownlow  intimated,  "the 
dead  dog  in  the  White  House."  Accordingly,  assisted  by  Mrs. 
Patterson,  he  arranged  to  throw  open  the  Mansion  to  the  pub- 
lic— to  give  a  series  of  entertainments.  On  Easter  occasions 
the  egg  rollings  of  the  Johnsons  had  become  famous.  "Down 
the  long  slopes  near  the  White  House,  children  by  the  hundreds 
rolled  and  tumbled.  They  would  invade  the  grounds  and  in- 
dulge in  Easter  sports  and  games."  Now  there  was  to  be  a 
genuine  children's  party,  a  "juvenile  soiree,  .  .  .  the  first 
ever  seen  in  the  White  House."  ^^  The  President's  birthday, 
December  29,  was  selected  as  the  time.  "The  White  House 
was  beautifully  decorated  with  flowers,  great  chandeliers  were 
ablaze  with  lights,  the  music  was  the  best,  and  the  refreshments 
all  that  could  be  desired  or  digested."  Hundreds  of  children 
were  in  attendance,  fourteen  dances  were  on  the  cards.  The 
Lancers,  of  course,  and  the  Schottische;  the  Galop,  the  Var- 
sovienne,  Esmeralda,  Quadrille  Plain,  Quadrille  Backet,  Qua- 
drille Social ;  the  Polka  Plain  and  the  Polka  Redowa ;  of  waltzes 
there  was  only  one.^" 

Scarcely  was  this  gay  occasion  ended  before  the  White 
House  was  again  "a  scene  of  splendor."  Five  thousand  people, 
mostly  what  Mr.  Lincoln  called  the  plain  people,  sought  ad- 
mission to  the  New  Year  reception,  "submitting  the  host  to  the 
inevitable  handshaking."  Several  thousand  more  were  unable 
to  gain  admittance  because  of  the  crowd.^^  Though  President- 
elect Grant  and  leading  Republicans  were  absent,  some  Radi- 
cals, of  the  Ben  Butler  type,  were  there.     "And  what  are  you 

21  Colonel  Crook,  Through  Five  Administrations. 

22  Johnson  MS. 

23  New  York  Express,  January  1,  1869;  Journal  and  Tribune,  July  10,  1901. 


482  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

doing  here?"  one  of  them  would  laughingly  ask  another.  "I 
was  about  to  put  the  same  question  to  you,"  would  be  the  re- 
joinder. None  but  personal  friends  were  honored.  Judge 
Samuel  Milligan  was  at  the  head  of  the  receiving  line;  then 
came  General  Thomas  Ewing,  Attorney-General  Stanbery, 
Senator  Fowler,  and  Senator  Patterson.  Mrs.  Patterson  and 
Mrs.  Stover  were  dressed  alike,  in  black  silk,  beaded  and 
braided,  with  white  lace  collars."*  "The  girls  wore  tarleton  of 
different  colors,  though  silks  and  satins  and  silver  and  gold 
llama  was  also  worn  by  many."  "A  scene  of  mortal  grandeur," 
the  enthusiastic  reporters  wrote,  "magnificent  to  behold  and 
never  to  be  forgotten."  The  occasion  was  "one  of  sincere 
pleasure  to  the  President  who  relaxed  from  his  duties."  .  .  . 
"The  first  affair  of  the  season — the  best  Presidential  reception 
ever  seen."  It  was  "the  town  talk,  the  street  talk,  and  the  talk 
of  the  capitol  for  twenty-four  hours.  Every  one  wished  to 
shake  hands  with  the  great  men."  The  President  likewise 
entertained  the  foreign  embassies,  officials  of  the  army  and 
navy,  the  cabinet,  and  the  seven  Republican  Senators  voting 
"not  guilty."  Fessenden  and  Grimes,  however,  failed  to  ap- 
pear on  that  festive  occasion. 

The  last  day  of  the  year  was  cold  and  stormy.  Gideon 
Welles  remained  indoors  and  had  a  free  hand  with  his  be- 
loved diary.  "An  amiable,  forebearing  and  honest  President," 
he  wrote,  "striving  to  uphold  the  Government,  has  been  im- 
peached in  party  haste  and  barely  escaped  conviction.  .  .  . 
The  Radical  Congress  in  the  excess  of  party,  have  trampled 
the  organic  law  under  foot,  when  party  ends  were  to  be  sub- 
served, and  assaulted  and  broken  down  the  distinctive  depart- 
ments of  the  Government."  In  the  opinion  of  the  courageous 
Welles,  "Senators  and  Representatives  had  conspired  against 
the  President  and  committed  perjury  in  obedience  to  the  dic- 
tates of  party  leaders,  who  found  him  an  obstacle  to  their 
revolutionary  schemes." 

Abuse  of  the  President  produced  the  ordinary  fruits. 
Cranks  were  lying  in  wait  to  assail  or  murder  him.  "A  some- 
what alarming  incident  occurred  on  February  10,  1869,  wlicn  a 

-*  Singleton,  Htory  of  the  White  House,  Vol.  II,  p.  114. 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  483 

woman  named  Annie  O'Neil  was  found  lurking  in  the  corridor. 
She  said:  'I  am  sent  by  God  Almighty  to  kill  Andrew  John- 
son.' Her  old-fashioned,  double-barreled  pistol  was,  however, 
unloaded ;  and  she  was  spirited  away."  -^ 

As  the  fourth  of  March  drew  near  a  serious  domestic  ques- 
tion confronted  the  President  and  his  cabinet.  "Are  we  to 
participate  in  President  Grant's  inauguration  or  stay  away?" 
they  were  asking.  Welles  was  for  staying  away,  as  John 
Adams  did  when  Jefferson  was  inaugurated  and  as  John  Quincy 
Adams  and  Henry  Clay  absented  themselves  when  Jackson 
came  in.  But  Seward  and  Evarts,  McCulloch  and  Browning 
urged  the  President  "to  yield  for  appearance'  sake."  Undoubt- 
edly the  President  would  have  yielded  had  General  Grant  met 
his  peace  offerings  half  way.  The  pacific  Seward  and  his 
friend  Evarts  insisted  that  matters  could  be  arranged  by 
having  two  processions,  President  Grant  leading  one  line  of 
carriages  and  President  Johnson  the  other.  This  enraged 
Welles  no  little.  He  wrote  in  his  diary  of  March  2  that  Seward 
was  garrulous  and  "told  over  several  egotistical  and  stale 
stories,  claiming  that  President  Johnson  and  his  suite  had 
the  post  of  honor,  on  the  right — appealed  to  custom,  etc."  .  .  . 
"Whenever  before,"  wrote  the  indomitable  Welles,  "was  such  a 
thing  as  two  processions  heard  of.^"  ...  "I  disclaim  any 
neglect  or  want  of  courtesy,"  he  records,  "but  I  would  submit 
to  none."  Randall  backed  Welles  in  his  opinion,  "but  Mc- 
Culloch itching  to  go,"  as  Welles  affirms,  remarked  that  "it 
would  be  small,  and  would  be  considered  small,  not  to  go." 

On  the  evening  of  this  conversation,  March  2,  the  President 
gave  a  farewell  reception,  and  an  immense  gathering  was  seen 
at  the  White  House.-*^  "Hundreds  of  friends  and  officials  who 
wished  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  President  could  not  get  near 
him ;  women  with  bonnets  and  shawls  filled  the  reception  room 
and  rough  fellows  with  overcoats  and  wool  hats"  were  there; 
and  "not  a  few  fanatical  politicians  who  had  busied  themselves 
in  slandering  and  defaming  the  retiring  President."     But  it 

25lhid.,   p.    116. 

26  Welles,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  537  and  539. 


484.  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

was  a  glorious  evening  for  Andrew  Johnson.  He  could  read 
his  triumph  in  every  honest  handshake. 

At  nine  o'clock  on  March  4,  1869,  Secretary  Welles,  the 
truest  friend  of  Johnson's  official  family,  was  the  first  to  arrive 
at  the  White  House,  uncertain  whether  the  President  would 
follow  his  advice  or  Seward's.  The  President,  at  the  time,  was 
busy  at  his  work.  The  two  old  friends  shook  hands.  The 
President  then  quietly  said,  "I  think,  Mr.  Secretary,  we  will 
finish  our  work  here  without  going  to  the  capitol."  Presently 
the  other  cabinet  officers  came  in,  "Seward  confident  and  smok- 
ing his  inevitable  cigar."  .  .  .  "Ought  we  not  start  im- 
mediately?" he  briskly  said.  The  President  replied,  "I  am 
inclined  to  think  we  will  finish  our  work  here."  "Well,  you've 
carried  your  point,"  McCulloch  whispered  to  Welles. 

"After  the  silly,  arrogant  and  insolent  declarations  of 
Grant,"  as  Welles  wrote  in  his  diary,  "that  he  would  not  speak 
to  his  official  superior  and  predecessor,  nor  ride  nor  associate 
with  him,  the  President  could  not  compose  a  part  in  the 
pageant  to  glorify  Grant  without  a  feeling  of  abasement."  ^'^ 
At  a  few  minutes  past  twelve  the  President  said  to  the  members 
of  the  cabinet  that  they  would  then  part.  Feelingly,  he  shook 
hands  with  all  and  they  with  each  other,  and  the  turbulent  ad- 
ministration of  Andrew  Johnson  came  to  an  end.  From  the 
White  House  he  drove  to  the  home  of  the  editor  of  the  Intelli- 
gencer, Jno.  F.  Coyne,  where  Mrs.  Johnson  had  gone  a  few 
days  before.  There  he  remained  as  a  guest  until  departing  for 
Tennessee.  That  morning  Mrs.  Patterson  and  her  children, 
having  accepted  an  invitation  from  Secretary  Welles,  had  gone 
to  his  home.  First,  however,  Mrs.  Patterson  had  put  the  White 
House  "in  spotless  condition  against  the  arrival  of  the  Grants." 
When  she  and  her  mother  quitted  the  White  House  the  servants 
of  the  mansion  gathered  about  them,  "weeping  and  begging 
for  photographs  of  their  kind  employers."  The  Washington 
papers  were  filled  with  accounts  of  "the  simplicity  and  geniality 
of  the  Johnson  family."  "Of  these  plain  people  from  Ten- 
nessee," the  press  declared,  "it  must  be  said  they  leave  Wash- 
ington with  spotless  reputations,  they  have  received  no  ex- 

27  Welles,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  542. 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  485 

pensive  presents,  no  carriages,  no  costly  plate,  tliey  have  dis- 
pensed a  liberal  hospitality  ...  no  old  friends  have  been  cut, 
no  new  ones  turned  away."  ^^  In  his  diary  Welles  feelingly 
wrote,  "Socially  and  personally  I  part  with  them  with  regret; 
no  better  persons  have  occupied  the  executive  mansion."  ^^ 

It  is  now  one  o'clock,  March  4,  1869,  and  President  Grant 
is  riding  in  triumph  to  his  inaugural.  Cannon  are  booming, 
bands  playing,  and  the  military  resplendent.  But  what  of 
Andrew  Johnson  as  he  goes  out  of  office,  is  he  discouraged  and 
downcast.?  Far  from  it.  Unconquered  and  unconquerable,  at 
that  moment,  he  is  issuing  a  Farewell  Address  to  the  people  of 
the  United  States  as  George  Washington  and  Andrew  Jackson 
had  done.  First  he  calls  attention  to  the  illegal  and  uncon- 
stitutional methods  of  Congress — "conscription,  confiscation, 
loss  of  personal  liberty,"  "subjection  of  states  to  military 
rule,"  "disfranchisement  of  whites,"  "enfranchisement  of 
blacks  for  party  ends."  Next,  he  proceeds  to  say,  "While 
public  attention  has  been  carefully  and  constantly  turned  to 
the  past  and  expiated  sins  of  the  South,  the  servants  of  the 
people,  in  high  places,  have  boldly  betrayed  their  trust,  broken 
their  oaths  of  obedience  to  the  Constitution,  and  undermined 
the  very  foundation  of  liberty,  justice  and  good  government. 
When  the  rebellion  was  being  suppressed  by  the  volunteered 
services  of  patriot  soldiers  amid  the  dangers  of  the  battle- 
field, these  men  crept,  without  question,  into  place  and  power 
in  the  national  councils.  After  all  danger  had  passed,  when 
no  armed  foe  remained,  when  a  punished  and  repentant  people 
bowed  their  heads  to  the  flag  and  renewed  their  allegiance  to 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  then  it  was  that  pre- 
tended patriots  appeared  before  the  nation,  and  began  to  prate 
about  the  thousands  of  lives  and  millions  of  treasure  sacrificed 
in  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion. 

"They  have  since  persistently  sought  to  inflame  the  preju- 
dices engendered  between  the  sections,  to  retard  the  restora- 
tion of  peace  and  harmony,  and,  by  every  means,  to  keep  open 
and  exposed  to  the  poisonous  breath  of  party  passion  the  ter- 

28  Senator  Doolittle,  Address,  1869;  Jones,  Life,  p.  .333. 

29  Welles,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  556. 


486  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

rible  wounds  of  a  four  years'  war.  They  have  prevented  the 
return  of  peace  and  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  in  every  way 
rendered  delusive  the  purposes,  promises,  and  pledges  by  which 
the  army  was  marshaled,  treason  rebuked,  and  rebellion 
crushed,  and  made  the  liberties  of  the  people  and  the  rights  and 
powers  of  the  President  objects  of  constant  attack.  They  have 
wrested  from  the  President  his  constitutional  power  of  supreme 
command  of  the  army  and  navy.  They  have  destroyed  the 
strength  and  efficiency  of  the  Executive  Department,  by  mak- 
ing subordinate  officers  independent  of  and  able  to  defy  their 
chief.  They  have  attempted  to  place  the  President  under  the 
power  of  a  bold,  defiant,  and  treacherous  Cabinet  officer. 
They  have  robbed  the  Executive  of  the  prerogative  of  par- 
don, rendered  null  and  void  acts  of  clemency  granted  to 
thousands  of  persons  under  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
and  committed  gross  usurpations  by  legislative  attempts  to 
exercise  this  power  in  favor  of  party  adherents.  They  have 
conspired  to  change  the  system  of  our  Government  by  pre- 
ferring charges  against  the  President  in  the  form  of  articles 
of  impeachment,  and  contemplating,  before  hearing  or  trial, 
that  he  should  be  placed  in  arrest,  held  in  durance,  and,  when 
it  became  their  pleasure  to  pronounce  his  sentence,  driven  from 
place  and  power  in  disgrace. 

"They  have  in  time  of  peace  increased  the  national  debt  by 
a  reckless  expenditure  of  the  public  moneys,  and  thus  added  to 
the  burdens  which  already  weigh  upon  the  people.  They  have 
permitted  the  nation  to  suffer  the  evils  of  a  deranged  currency, 
to  the  enhancement  in  price  of  all  the  necessaries  of  life.  They 
have  maintained  a  large  standing  army,  for  the  enforcement  of 
their  measures  of  oppression.  They  have  engaged  in  class  leg- 
islation, and  built  up  and  encouraged  monopolies,  that  the 
few  might  be  enriched  at  the  expense  of  the  man3\  They  have 
failed  to  act  upon  important  treaties,  thereby  endangering  our 
present  peaceful  relations  with  foreign  powers." 

The  "Old  Man's"  boldness,  in  issuing  this  Farewell  Address, 
caught  the  press.  Some  applauded  liim.  Others  ridiculed  liis 
pretensions.  The  Democratic  daiHcs  of  March  5  were  filled 
with  stories  of  Andy  Johnson.     They  played  him  up  as  the 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  487 

Tennessee  tailor,  the  runaway  apprentice  boj^,  the  man  who 
had  "swung  round  the  circle"  and  held  every  office  from  village 
alderman  to  President,  and  thej"  predicted  his  early  return  to 
the  Senate.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Radical  papers  were  bitter 
in  their  denunciations.  Harper  s  Weekly  cartooned  him  as  a 
fat  and  beefy  Jew  clotliier,  selling  cheap  and  second-hand 
clothing  from  a  Tennessee  tailor  shop. 

Invitations  came  to  President  Johnson  to  visit  friends  and 
also  to  be  the  guest  of  English,  French  and  German  steam- 
ships.^** These  invitations  were  declined,  except  one  to  visit 
Baltimore.  On  March  12  President  Johnson  and  his  friends, 
in  special  cars,  went  over  and  attended  a  reception  and  ban- 
quet in  that  cit}'.  The  reception  was  held  in  the  rotunda  of  the 
post-office.  Crowds  from  one  o'clock  until  three  passed 
through  the  building  and  grasped  the  hand  of  the  old  patriot. 
At  night  a  banquet  was  given  at  Barnum's  Hotel  and  patriotic 
toasts  were  responded  to.  The  first  toast  presented,  "Our 
guest,  the  patriot  and  statesman,  Andrew  Johnson,  the  bul- 
wark of  equal  rights,  the  champion  of  the  only  true  and  perma- 
nent Union  of  these  states  and  the  defender  and  martyr  of 
the  Constitution."  "History  will  vindicate  his  fame,"  was 
the  next  toast,  and  "record  an  impeachment  of  his  impeachers, 
and  a  verdict  of  guilty  by  future  generations  of  American  free- 
men." "Baltimore  bids  you  welcome  to  a  place  in  the  hearts  of 
a  great  people,"  said  a  streaming  banner,  "for  whose  protection 
and  happiness  you  bared  j^our  breast  to  the  shafts  of  calumny, 
and  for  their  sakes  hazarded  all  that  was  dear  to  the  man  and 
the  citizen."  Altogether  it  was  a  great  occasion  for  Andrew 
Johnson. 

In  a  few  days  the  ex-President  and  his  family,  having  laid 
in  a  supply  of  furniture  and  other  household  goods,  set  out  for 
the  mountains  of  Tennessee.  And  surely  the  old  Greeneville 
home  needed  refurnishing  and  renovating.  It  had  had  rough 
treatment.  First  occupied  by  Confederate  armies,  it  had  been 
a  hospital  for  wounded  soldiers.  Taken  over  by  the  Union 
armies,  it  was  afterwards  a  residence  for  officers.  Later  camp 
followers  and  "bummers"  had  captured  it  and  converted  it  into 

30  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  II,  p.  208. 


488  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

a  negro  brothel.  Andrew  Johnson  had  not  laid  eyes  on  this 
home  for  eight  long  years.  In  1868  a  correspondent  of  the 
New  York  Herald  had  visited  the  place.  "The  fences  of  the 
lot  and  windows  of  the  house  sIioav  evident  signs  of  delapida- 
tion,"  he  wrote,  "the  consequences  of  rebellion  and  rebel  rule ; 
a  number  of  panes  of  glass  are  broken  out  and  their  places 
supplied  with  paper,  glass  not  being  obtainable  in  the  Confed- 
eracy. Looking  into  the  lot  you  see  several  young  apple  trees 
and  in  the  space  between  potatoes  are  growing ;  in  the  rear  of 
the  kitchen  a  small  aspen  shade  tree,  and  down  in  the  lower 
end  of  the  lot  a  grape  vine  trained  upon  a  trellis,  forming  a 
pleasant  bower;  scattered  around  are  a  number  of  rows  of 
currant  and  gooseberry  bushes ;  at  the  lower  end  of  the  lot  are 
two  large  weeping  willows  and  under  the  shade  is  a  very  beau- 
tiful spring." 

Andrew  Johnson's  home-going  was  memorable.  At  Lynch- 
burg where,  in  1861  he  had  been  shot  at  and  later  burnt  in 
effigy,  he  met  a  generous  welcome.  At  Bristol,  on  the  Ten- 
nessee border,  he  was  met  by  a  delegation  from  his  home  town. 
As  the  train  passed  along  over  the  familiar  mountains  and  down 
the  Watauga  and  Nolichucky  valleys,  through  Johnson  City, 
Jonesboro,  Carter  Station  near  the  Stover  farm,  and  then  on  to 
Greeneville,  people  by  the  thousands  gathered  along  the  way  to 
pay  homage  to  a  brave  man.  For  forty  odd  years  East  Ten- 
nessee had  been  the  apple  of  Andrew  Johnson's  eye,  her  moun- 
tains, her  streams,  and  her  brave  sons  were  as  the  ruddy  drops 
that  visited  his  heart.    And  now  he  was  home  again. 

The  old  tailor  shop  bade  him  welcome,  and  the  Gum  Spring, 
where  he  had  camped  that  first  September  night  forty-three 
j^ears  before,  and  the  little  mill  not  far  away.  Blackstone  Mc- 
Daniel  and  other  old  friends  were  there  to  greet  him,  but  most 
of  them  had  gone  to  their  reward.  Eight  years  before,  when 
he  fled  from  Greeneville  to  tlie  mountain  fastnesses,  a  banner 
liad  been  strctclied  across  INIain  Street,  and  on  it  was  written, 
"Andrew  Johnson,  Traitor."  Now  anotlier  banner  was 
stretched  across  the  same  street  but  it  was  quite  a  dififcrcnt 


LEAVING  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  489 

one,  "Welcome  Home,  Andrew  Johnson,  Patriot."  ^^  Fifteen 
thousand  mountaineers  crowded  the  streets  of  Greeneville  that 
March  day.  Mr.  Brittain  welcomed  the  exile  home  and  to  the 
mountains  of  Tennessee,  putting  in  his  mouth  the  words  of 
Napoleon  returning  to  Corsica.  "Blindfold,  my  native  hills 
I  would  have  known."  Andrew  Johnson,  mechanic-governor 
and  tailor-president,  ascends  the  platform,  overlooking  the  old 
Court  House,  where  in  days  gone  he  had  fought  the  people's 
battles,  and  bared  his  breast  to  the  storm,  for  the  Union  and 
the  Old  Flag.  He  tells  of  the  dark  days  since  he  left  them 
eight  years  ago,  of  the  sufferings  he  has  undergone  and  the 
sufferings  they  had  undergone,  and  of  the  love  he  has  ever 
borne  them.  With  hands  raised  aloft  he  concludes  in  the 
words  of  Cardinal  Wolsey : 

"An  old  man  broken  with  the  storms  of  state 
Is  come  to  lay  his  weary  bones  among  ye, 
Give  him  a  little  earth  for  charity." 

The  Volunteer  State  is  at  attention.  From  Cumberland  Gap, 
in  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  mountains,  to  Memphis,  on  the 
Father  of  Waters,  Andy  Johnson's  words  have  been  heard. 

31 A  few  steps  from  this  spot  is  a  monument  erected  to  the  memory  of 
the  Union  soldiers  of  Greene  County,  Tennessee.  On  it  is  written,  "In  time 
of  their  country's  peril  they  were  loyal  and  true." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  COME-BACK 

Andrew  Johnson  had  passed  his  sixty-second  birthday  when 
he  retired  from  the  Presidency.  His  consuming  thought,  at 
that  time,  was  that  he  had  been  misunderstood  and  his  admin- 
istration misrepresented.  He  was  not  satisfied  with  a  mere 
verdict  of  acquittah  He  wished  an  endorsement,  and  a  vindi- 
cation. Therefore,  after  a  short  rest  he  set  out  to  feel  the 
pulse  of  the  people,  visiting  Knoxville,  Chattanooga,  Murfrees- 
boro,  Memphis  and  Nashville.  In  the  western  and  middle  sec- 
tions the  response  to  his  appeal  was  cordial.  He  had  become 
an  object  of  curiosity — ^liis  career  had  been  so  checkered 
and  so  full  of  danger  he  was  classed  with  Sam  Houston, 
Dave  Crockett  and  Andy  Jackson.  In  his  speeches  he  was 
careful  to  say  that  he  was  a  candidate  for  no  office.  He  in- 
tended to  devote  "the  remainder  of  his  life  to  a  vindication 
of  his  character  and  that  of  his  State."  "I  will  indulge  in  no 
set  speeches,"  he  would  say,  "but  I  will  have  a  few  simple  con- 
versations with  the  people  here  and  there."  At  Knoxville,  after 
his  first  "conversation"  of  two  hours  or  more,  it  was  plain, 
however,  that  Napoleon  was  back  from  Elba;  that  Andrew 
Johnson  had  to  be  reckoned  with.  The  masses  crowded  around 
him,  as  in  former  days,  and  the  Radicals  became  thoroughly 
alarmed.'^  His  voice  rang  out  clear  and  strong,  he  was  "as 
robust  and  vigorous,  as  positive  and  self-reliant"  and  his  facts 
and  figures  as  full  and  convincing  as  when  first  heard  on  the 
hustings,  thirty  years  before.  At  Memphis  his  reception  was 
significant.  Near  the  spot  where  eight  years  before  "the  black- 
est negro  slave  in  town"  had  set  fire  to  a  figure  of  "the  traitor," 
great  crowds  gathered  to  honor  the  returned  "patriot"  and 
"hero."  It  soon  became  plain  that  Jolmson  was  out  for  a 
purpose,  that  he  was  after  the  United  States  Senate  and  would 

1  Jones,  Life,  p.  343, 

490 


THE  COME-BACK  491 

stand  for  election  by  the  very  next  legislature  to  be  chosen  in 
August. 

Never,  however,  had  he  encountered  a  more  complex  situa- 
tion than  he  was  now  facing.  Tennessee,  the  last  State  to  secede 
from  the  Union,  and  the  first  to  be  re-admitted,  had  escaped 
military  reconstruction  and  carpet-bag  rule,  nevertheless  the 
battle  for  political  supremacy  between  native  whites  was  as 
fierce  as  in  the  reconstructed  states  of  the  Black-Belt.  Demo- 
crats of  the  mountains,  who  had  always  idealized  Johnson,  had 
now  quit  him  and  joined  the  Radicals.  He  was  too  conservative 
for  them.  These  Union  men  had  suffered  much  at  the  hands 
of  their  Confederate  neighbors  and  were  unwilling  to  forgive 
or  forget.  Proscription,  disfranchisement  and  punishment  of 
the  rebels  they  demanded  and  nothing  less."  Like  Dave  Pot- 
ter, the  noted  Union  scout,  they  had  followed  Andy  Johnson 
blindfolded  into  the  Union  ranks,  but  they  were  not  going  to 
fellowship  with  rebels,  as  he  was  doing. 

"Dave,"  said  Captain  Polk,  of  Company  F,  Eighth  Indiana 
Regiment,  one  night  by  the  campfires,  "how  does  it  happen, 
you,  a  southern  man,  are  in  the  Union  army.?"  "Well,  you  see, 
Capt.,  it  was  this  way,"  Dave  replied.  "My  brother  Ish  is  er 
eddicated  man  and  he  tried  to  get  me  to  go  along  with  him 
and  jine  the  Secesh.  Then  I  says  to  Ish,  says  I,  'Ish,  how 
does  Andy  Johnson  stand  on  this  particular  question.'*'  Then 
Ish  he  says  to  me,  'Dave,  Andy  Johnson,  damn  him,  is  for  the 
Union.'  Says  I  to  Ish,  'Well,  if  Andy  Johnson  's  for  the  Union 
then  by  God  I'm  for  the  Union  too,  and  I  reckin'  you  and  me 
will  have  to  part  company.'  "  ^  It  was  men  like  Dave  Potter 
who  had  quit  the  Democratic  party  and  become  Republicans.* 

Johnson  had  not  only  lost  mountain  followers  like  Dave 
Potter  but  also  the  old  secession  Democrats  in  the  west  and 
middle  sections.  That  is  to  say,  both  extremes  were  against 
him.     Rank  Secessionists  despised  the  man  who  in  1861  had 

2Fertig,  p.  12. 

3  Wabash  Courier,  November  8,  1900. 

4  The  old  mountain  district  represented  by  Andy  Johnson,  which  before 
the  war  usually  gave  him  a  Democratic  majority  of  one  or  two  thousand, 
after  the  war  went  Republican  by  10,000  votes,  electing  W.  G.  Brownlow  to 
Congress  for  many  years. — Congressman  Brownlow's  Address  in  Congress,  June 
5,  1906. 


49^  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

deserted  the  South  and  taken  part  with  the  North,  and  as 
Mihtary  Governor,  in  1862,  '63  and  '64,  had  "tyrannized" 
over  Tennessee.  Unionists  were  equally  bitter  because  of  his 
leniency  to  the  Confederates.  Though  these  extremes  were  op- 
posed to  Johnson,  they  were  equally  opposed  to  each  other. 
Neither  side  recognized  nor  associated  with  the  other.  When 
a  young  Unionist,  and  a  native  of  Tennessee,  asked  a  Confed- 
erate damsel,  who  had  had  two  brothers  killed  in  the  war,  to  give 
him  a  waltz,  she  grew  highly  indignant  at  the  idea  of  dancing 
with  a  "yankeeized  southerner."  Her  kinspeople  then  took  up 
the  matter  and  three  men  were  slain  before  the  affront  was 
avenged.  In  such  conditions,  the  economic,  political  and  social 
affairs  of  the  State  were  almost  chaotic.  Tennessee  had  been 
readmitted  into  the  Union  in  July  1866  but  under  the  Four- 
teenth Amendment,  which  it  had  adopted,  leading  whites  were 
deprived  of  the  ballot  and  by  a  combination  of  the  liberated 
negroes  and  the  Radicals  the  affairs  of  state  passed  into  the 
hands  of  a  corrupt  and  unprincipled  gang. 

Governor  Brownlow — radical  of  the  Radicals — though 
honest  himself,  was  unable  to  control  his  "black  and  tan"  fol- 
lowers. The  worst  element  of  the  state  rose  to  the  surface. 
The  legislature  looted  the  treasury,  issued  millions  of  fraudu- 
lent bonds,  wasted  and  stole  public  funds,  and  terrorized 
the  state.  White  women  and  children  in  west  and  middle 
Tennessee,  especially  on  the  Mississippi  River  where  the 
negroes  were  in  a  majority,  were  in  daily  fear  of  their  lives. 
Offices  were  filled  with  negroes  and  confusion  and  discord  pre- 
vailed. The  powerless  white  man  stood  by  witnessing  the 
destruction  of  his  country  and  the  degradation  of  his  race. 
Finally  the  whites  determined  to  fight  the  devil  with  fire. 
They  were  going  to  save  the  state  from  Radical  and  negro  rule 
or  die  in  the  attempt.^  The  plan  adopted  was  revolutionary. 
The  whites  organized  a  secret  oath-bound  society,  calling  them- 
selves the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  The  entire  South  constituted  the 
Invisible  Empire,  and  the  ruler  was  known  as  "the  Grand 
Wizard."  General  Forrest,  the  noted  Confederate,  was  the 
first  to  hold  this  office.     Organized  in  Pulaski,  Tennessee,  in 

0  Oberholtzcr,  Vol.  II,  p.  349, 


THE  COME-BACK  493 

1866,  in  less  than  two  years  it  numbered  its  members  by  the 
hundreds  of  thousands.  In  New  Orleans  alone  there  were 
17,000  members  of  the  order.  Corruption,  crime  and  law- 
lessness were  to  be  overcome  with  force;  "miscegenation,  to 
be  prevented  and  the  inferior  race  held  down."  Thoroughly 
the  Ku  Klux  did  its  work. 

The  result  was  a  reign  of  terror.  By  October  1868  it  was 
reported  that  organized  companies  of  men  mounted,  armed 
and  disguised  were  spreading  terror  through  the  State. 
Though  the  Conservatives  claimed  that  the  conditions  were  not 
so  bad  as  reported,  in  which  view  President  Johnson  concurred, 
they  were  bad  enough,  in  all  conscience.^  The  white  man  with 
a  heritage  of  freedom  of  a  thousand  years  was  unwilling  to 
abdicate  in  favor  of  his  former  slaves.  "One  hundred  and 
sixty-two  persons  were  murdered  during  the  year  ending  June 
1,  1868,"  General  Thomas,  Military  Commander,  reported. 
"Murders,  robberies  and  outrages  of  all  kinds  are  taking  place 
in  the  country  districts  with  no  attempt  of  the  civil  authorities 
to  arrest  the  offenders."  '  Memphis,  with  its  immense  negro 
population,  was  the  Sodom  of  the  South."  "Absence  of  a  daily 
account  from  that  place  of  a  riot,  murder  or  some  other  out- 
rage is  conclusive  evidence  that  the  telegraph  wires  are  down." 
President  Johnson  was  charged  with  being  a  Ku  Klux.  This 
was  a  false  charge,  however.  Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs 
before  Johnson's  return  home.  In  the  summer  of  1868  Gov- 
ernor Brownlow  had  determined  to  suppress  the  Klan  and  to 
overcome  force  by  force.  The  legislature  in  special  session 
enacted  drastic  laws  against  the  Ku  Klux.  The  members  were 
declared  outlaws.  "Wherever  found  they  were  to  be  punished 
with  death" — an  open  season  for  hunting  and  killing  Ku 
Kluxers  was  provided.  Soon  the  original  klan  disbanded  and 
went  out  of  business ;  and  a  hybrid  affair  operated  under  the 
same  name,  committing  outrages,  without  the  semblance  of 
excuse. 

The  Republican  party  held  its  state  convention  in  May 
1869  and  split  into  two  factions,  the  radicals  and  the  con- 
s/bid., p.  371. 
T  Reports  of  Secretary  of  War,  1868-1869,  Vol,  I,  pp.  717-724. 


494^  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

servatives.  Colonel  W.  S.  Stokes  was  nominated  for  Governor 
by  the  radical  element  and  Governor  Senter  by  the  conserva- 
tives. Brownlow,  just  elected  United  States  Senator,  and  op- 
posed to  negro  domination,  espoused  the  cause  of  Senter. 
The  Democratic  party  as  a  political  organization  was  practi- 
cally extinct.  The  issue,  therefore,  was  between  the  two  wings 
of  the  Republican  party,  Stokes  favoring  further  proscription 
of  the  whites  and  Senter  advocating  a  milder  course. 

In  the  summer  of  1869  Johnson,  just  recovering  from  an 
attack  of  bilious  fever,  took  the  stump  for  Governor  Senter. 
Soon,  however,  he  was  called  home  on  account  of  the  sudden 
death  of  his  son,  Robert  Johnson.  This  lovable  man,  "his  own 
worst  enemy,"  succumbed  to  the  hardships  of  a  strenuous  life, 
a  strenuous  age,  dying  by  his  own  hand.  Eight  years  of  pro- 
scription and  war,  of  exile  and  ostracism  had  worn  him  out, 
the  stimulants  he  indulged  in  but  augmenting  his  troubles. 
Lawyer,  legislator.  Colonel  of  a  Union  regiment,  patriot  and 
assistant  secretary  to  the  President,  the  Colonel  passed  away 
esteemed  and  regretted,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-three.^  But 
neither  life  nor  death,  principalities  nor  powers,  could  stay  the 
tough,  fibrous  father.  Returning  to  the  canvass,  he  laid  his 
cause  before  the  people,  as  he  had  done  in  the  past.  In  the 
'40's  and  '50's  he  appealed  to  the  people  and  never  failed  to 
win ;  in  1861  he  went  to  the  people  of  East  Tennessee  pleading 
the  cause  of  the  Union  and  won  again.  In  1866  he  went  to  the 
people  of  the  North  in  behalf  of  the  outraged  Constitution  but 
they  did  not  heed  his  message.  They  were  deceived  by  politi- 
cians and  demagogues,  he  maintained.  So  again  to  the  people, 
the  source  of  all  power,  he  would  go.  Wherever  he  spoke  great 
interest  was  aroused. 

At  Marysville,  Tennessee,  on  August  3,  he  spoke  to  1,500 
voters,  estimated  to  be  one-third  conservatives,  and  for  Gov- 
ernor Senter  and  two-thirds  radicals,  and  for  Colonel  Stokes. 
The  crowd  was  turbulent  and  menacing;  "three  times  they 
howled  Johnson  down,"  with  yells  for  Stokes  and  with  personal 

8  Dr.  Charles  Johnson  had  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  and  Andy  John- 
son, Jr.,  shortly  afterwards  passed  away  at  the  age  of  twenty-six. 


THE  COME-BACK  495 

abuse.^  The  Stokes  men  were  determined  "to  prevent  the 
speaking  if  possible,  or  failing  in  that  to  break  it  up  in  a  row." 
Singleton,  a  conservative,  and  Phelps,  a  strong  radical,  "had 
a  personal  reconter."  .  .  .  "The  crowd  swayed  and  surged 
like  forest  trees  in  a  gale  .  .  .  pistols  were  attempted  to  be 
drawn."  .  .  .  "Take  him  down,"  the  crowd  yelled.  "Shoot  the 
damn  traitor."  But  Johnson  held  his  own — "A  man  of  mar- 
ble," save  that  his  eyes  flashed  fire ;  he  went  right  on  with  his 
speech.  "Why  call  me  traitor  .P"  he  said.  "I  am  no  traitor. 
Secessionists  and  Radicals  are  traitors ;  these  are  the  men  who 
would  break  up  our  Union.  Look  at  Grant,  your  President, 
appointing  the  rebel  General  Longstreet  to  office.  Was  it 
not  Longstreet,  who  devastated  your  fields  and  villages  while 
I  was  fighting  for  your  homes  and  for  the  Union  ?  I  say  to  you 
that  'yankee-rebels  and  rebel-Radicals'  are  equally  odious  to 
me.  The  Radical  party  would  take  the  devil  himself  to  its 
bosom  or  even  Jeff  Davis,  'unwashed  and  unrepentant  to- 
morrow, if  he  would  join  them.'  "...  "The  fraudulent  Ten- 
nessee bonds  issued  by  the  Radicals  should  be  wiped  out — the 
State  got  nothing  from  them  and  should  pay  nothing  in  re- 
turn." ^°  After  speaking  three  and  a  half  hours  and  submit- 
ting endless  facts  and  figures,  Johnson  retired  and  "all  who 
listened  to  him,  including  his  enemies,  went  away  with  food 
for  thought,  sufficient  for  many  a  day." 

At  Abingdon,  Virginia,  Johnson  assailed  the  Radical  Con- 
gress; four  years  they  waged  war  to  keep  the  southern  states 
in  the  Union,  he  declared,  and  four  years  to  keep  them  out. 
President  Grant's  cabinet  was  "a  sort  of  lottery,"  he  asserted, 
"those  getting  the  best  places  that  paid  the  most."  .  .  . 
"Stewart  bought  the  Treasurj?^  Secretaryship  with  a  check  for 
$65,000.00,  and  Borie  purchased  his  fat  place  with  a  fine  house 
and  furniture,  and  so  on ;  offices  were  disposed  of  at  various 
prices,  from  $65,000.00  down  to  a  box  of  segars."  ^^     At  a 

9  Daily  Whig,  August  3,  1866. 

10  The  Democratic  party  under  the  leadership  of  its  patriotic  and  worthy 
Governor,  Isham  G.  Harris,  afterwards  settled  its  bonded  indebtedness  some- 
what along  the  line  advocated  by  Andy  Johnson,  though  the  best  element  of 
the  Republicans  called  this  repudiation. 

11  The  Virginian,  August  6,  1869. 


496  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

speaking  at  Greeneville  Johnson  took  high  ground  for  uni- 
versal education.  "The  poor  boy  and  girl  are  entitled  to  be 
educated  free,"  he  declared.  "The  state  owes  something  to 
the  people,  the  toiling  masses  have  been  too  long  neglected  and 
I — "  Before  he  could  finish  the  sentence  some  one  yelled,  "Oh, 
that's  damn  yankee  talk!"  Calmly  and  quietly  Johnson  re- 
sumed his  speech,  declaring  that  "the  poor  man's  boy  should 
be  given  an  even  chance  with  the  rich  man's."  "Shoot  him, 
damn  him,  kill  the  damn  yankee,"  was  hurled  back.  "Shoot 
away,"  said  the  speaker.  "Here's  a  good  target."  And  plac- 
ing his  right  hand  over  his  left  breast,  he  invited  the  attack.^" 
Thus  day  after  day,  the  tireless  man  spoke,  winning  votes 
wherever  he  went.  Occupying  the  middle  ground  between 
radicalism  and  secession-Democracy,  his  position  was  the  safe 
and  patriotic  one.  At  the  August  election  the  radicals  were 
defeated  by  50,000  votes,  the  legislature  was  largely  con- 
servative, and  Senter  became  Governor  again. 

The  new  legislature  met  in  October  and  it  was  expected  that 
Andrew  Johnson  would  be  chosen  Senator  without  opposition. 
The  Tennessee  people,  that  is  the  masses,  wished  him  to  return 
to  Washington  at  once  and  confront  his  enemies.  But  the 
fates  were  against  him.  President  Grant  had  put  the  resources 
of  the  Government  in  Brownlow's  hands  and  federal  patronage 
as  well.  Johnson  was  defeated  for  the  Senate  by  one  or  two 
votes.  The  vote  of  Edmund  Cooper,  Johnson's  confidential 
friend  and  secretary  at  Washington,  turned  the  trick."  Sen- 
ator Brownlow,  secretly  dickering  with  the  secessionists,  had 
arranged  to  throw  the  Radical  vote  to  Henry  Cooper,  brother 
to  Edmund,  if  he  would  consent  to  run.  The  bargain  was 
struck  and  Henry  Cooper  received  the  necessary  vote.  This 
political  trick  wounded  Johnson  but  in  the  end  helped  him, 
as  the  people  did  not  approve  of  it.  Time  and  again  Johnson 
was  on  the  eve  of  getting  the  one  necessary  vote,  but  never 
did.  Radical  and  Secessionist  alike  despising  the  man.  A  native 
of  Virginia,  residing  in  Chattanooga  at  the  time,  and  serving 

12  This  incident  was  furnished  me  by  H.  G.  Brown,  a  youth,  in  1869,  not  in 
his  teena. 

I'Molmson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


THE  COME-BACK  497 

in  the  legislature,  "was  anxious  to  vindicate  Johnson  for  recent 
services  to  the  South,"  but  dared  not  vote  for  him.  "Time  and 
again,"  he  declared,  "I  was  on  the  eve  of  voting  for  Mr.  John- 
son because  of  his  recent  services  to  the  South,  but  then  I 
would  think  of  how  he  had  treated  the  southern  leaders,  and  the 
'old  Confederate  snake'  would  rise  in  my  throat  and  I  just 
could  not  do  it."  ^*  Thus  the  exquisite  piece  of  retributive  jus- 
tice which  was  near  completion  and  would  have  put  Andrew 
Johnson  back  into  the  Senate,  the  same  year  he  left  the  Presi- 
dency, failed. 

Again  in  1872  he  was  doomed  to  failure.  Entering  the  race 
for  Congressman-at-large,  he  was  beaten  by  Horace  Maynard. 
This  was  a  three-handed  race.  Confederate  General  Cheatham 
was  the  Democratic  nominee,  Horace  Maynard  the  Republican, 
and  Andrew  Johnson  the  Independent.  As  the  canvass  pro- 
ceeded it  became  plain  that  Johnson  would  kill  off  the  "Briga- 
diers" but  would  elect  the  Republicans.  As  Judge  Milligan 
wrote  his  old  friend  Johnson,  "The  lion  is  killing  the  prey 
for  the  jackals  to  devour."  The  Republican  party  standing 
solid  and  Johnson's  candidacy  dividing  the  Democrats,  May- 
nard's  election  was  made  sure.  In  the  canvass  Maynard  threw 
up  to  Johnson  the  execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  charging  him 
with  her  murder.  Johnson's  reply  was  open  and  bold.  "In 
1865,"  said  he,  "the  city  of  Washington  was  an  armed  camp ; 
Lincoln  was  our  Commander-in-Chief ;  he  was  foully  murdered 
and  a  court  duly  organized  sat  upon  the  case  and  convicted  his 
murderers,  a  woman  included;  I  was  unwilling  to  pardon  her 
and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it." 

In  the  western  counties  crowds  of  negroes  attended  the 
speaking,  some  evidently  anxious  to  make  good  citizens.  Ad- 
dressing these  colored  people,  Andrew  Johnson  explained  his 
position.  "If  fit  and  qualified  by  character  and  education,  no 
one  should  deny  you  the  ballot,"  he  said.  "I  have  been  ridi- 
culed for  saying  I  would  be  your  Moses,"  he  continued.  "Yet 
I  say  again,  I  will  be  your  Moses ;  and  if  you  have  a  certificate 
to  vote  you  should  be  allowed  to  vote,"  He  called  to  an 
elderly  colored  man  in  the  crowd  and  bade  him  come  to  the 

14  Ihid. 


498  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

stand.  Placing  his  hands  on  the  snow-white,  woolly  head  of 
this  old  slave,  the  ex-President  extended  his  blessing  and  bade 
him  go  forth  to  labor  for  the  upbuilding  of  his  race.  "The 
Radical  Congress  made  a  serious  blunder,"  he  went  on,  "when 
they  enfranchised  the  negro  race,  as  a  whole,  and  before  they 
were  qualified  to  vote.  This  matter  should  have  been  left  to 
the  individual  states.  But  let  bygones  be  bygones  and  let  us 
live  together  in  peace  and  good  fellowship ;  after  an  honest 
trial,  if  it  is  found  that  we  can't  live  in  peace,  let  it  be  arranged 
by  voluntary  colonization  or  otherwise,  so  that  we  may  part 
in  peace." 

In  1873  an  epidemic  of  Asiatic  cholera  swept  over  Tennessee. 
In  Greeneville  and  Greene  county  there  were  nearly  a  hundred 
victims  of  the  scourge.  Andrew  Johnson  and  his  family  had 
the  means  to  flee  and  avoid  the  disaster  but  they  chose  to  re- 
main at  home  assisting  the  destitute  and  sick  and  sharing  the 
afflictions  of  others.  Shortly  Johnson  succumbed  to  the  dread 
disease  and  for  a  while  his  life  was  despaired  of.  In  fact,  his 
recovery  was  not  complete,  he  was  never  afterwards  so  strong 
and  vigorous  as  he  had  been. 

Before  the  next  campaign,  some  one  asked  Johnson  if  he 
would  again  be  a  candidate  for  the  Senate.  "Of  course  I  will," 
he  jocularly  remarked.  "The  damned  Confederate  Brigadiers 
having  been  destroyed,  what  hinders  me  from  going  to  the 
Senate?"  And  in  this  surmise  he  was  correct.  In  1874*,  though 
opposed  by  Confederate  General  W.  C.  Bates  and  John  C. 
Brown,  leading  Democrats,  he  made  a  wonderful  canvass  and 
comeback.  His  experience  as  President  having  taught  the 
lesson  of  moderation,  he  spoke  without  bitterness  and  as  a 
father  to  his  children.  Though  the  issue  was  largely  personal 
he  likewise  advocated  his  old  doctrines,  retrenchment,  honesty 
in  public  affairs  and  the  preservation  of  local  self-governments. 
Perhaps  this  campaign  was  the  most  gratifying  of  his  long 
career.    He  saw  his  triumph  in  every  shout  of  the  people. 

The  speaking  at  Memphis,  May  16,  1874,  illustrates  his 
wonderful  comeback.  On  that  occasion  the  Memphis  theater 
was  "crowded  from  pit  to  dome,"  there  was  standing  room 
neither  on  the  floor  nor  in  the  galleries.    "The  crowd  was  com- 


THE  COME-BACK  499 

posed  of  every  class, — laborers,  artisans,  merchants,  manufac- 
turers, bankers,  lawyers,  doctors  and  divines,"  .  .  .  "nor  was 
it  stint  in  its  plaudits."  Mayor  Loague  introduced  the  speaker. 
"One  whom  the  entire  world  has  seen  fit  to  honor,"  he  declared, 
"as  the  defender  of  civil  and  religious  liberty."  From  begin- 
ning to  end  "the  Old  Commoner"  carried  the  crowd.  Alter- 
nately "they  laughed,  applauded  and  shouted  approval."  For 
three  hours  he  gave  an  account  of  his  stewardship:  How  he 
had,  in  that  very  spot,  twelve  years  before  warned  against 
Secession;  how  he  had  served  the  Union  all  his  life,  how  as 
President  he  had  endeavored  to  stand  between  the  South  and 
Radical  oppression.^^ 

"During  all  these  years  as  Military  Governor  and  as  Presi- 
dent," he  said,  "I  have  directed  the  spending  of  millions  of 
your  money,  and  thank  God  I  can  stand  before  the  people  of 
my  State  and  lift  up  both  my  hands  and  say  in  the  language  of 
Samuel  'whose  ox  have  I  taken  or  whose  ass  have  I  taken?  At 
whose  hands  have  I  ever  received  bribes  to  blind  mine  eyes 
therewith.?'  If  there  is  any  let  them  answer  and  I  will  return 
it."  ...  "I  know  that  when  a  man  gets  a  little  old,"  he  said 
in  conclusion,  "he  is  regarded  as  a  cinder,  something  that  won't 
generate  any  more  heat,  and  he  is  accordingly  thrown  out  in 
the  ash  pile ;  you  know  there  is  always  a  heap  of  these  cinders 
around  a  shop.  But,  thank  God,  there  is  a  little  of  the  fire 
of  my  youth  running  through  my  veins  and  in  my  heart  yet 
and  as  time  at  last  sets  all  things  even,  I  look  to  the  future  to 
judge  me.  ...  I  feel  that  my  State  was  wronged,  I  feel  that 
I  was  wronged  in  1869,  I  feel  that  the  legislature  in  that  year 
was  untrue  to  the  people  and  I  am  free  to  say  that  the  deepest 
wound  inflicted  upon  me,  yes,  I  may  say,  was  by  a  member  of  my 
own  household.  ...  I  would  not  be  worthy  to  be  called  a  man 
unless  I  was  ambitious.  I  am  ambitious,  ambitious  of  acquiring 
a  name  in  the  minds  of  the  people  that  I  have  been  a  faithful 
representative ;  that  I  have  stood  upon  the  watchtowers  of  my 
country,  and  defended  and  vindicated  and  guarded  their  rights 
when  they  were  not  in  a  condition  to  do  it  themselves.  .  .  . 
I  have  lived  and  toiled  for  the  people  because  I  wanted  their 

15  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


500  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

approbation  and  esteem,  and  when  the  time  shall  come  that  my 
connection  is  to  be  severed  with  this  people  and  all  things  that 
are  mortal,  and  when  the  lamp  of  life  is  flickering  the  last,  the 
most  pleasant  thoughts  that  can  pass  through  my  mind  will 
be  to  feel  and  to  know  that  I  occupied  a  place  in  the  respect 
and  hearts  of  my  countrymen." 

A  joint  meeting  of  the  two  houses  of  the  Legislature  was 
held  on  January  26,  1875,  to  elect  a  United  States  Senator, 
to  succeed  Brownlow.  On  the  fifty-fifth  ballot  Andrew  John- 
son, ex-President  of  the  United  States,  was  returned  to  the 
Senate,  by  a  vote  of  fifty-two  against  the  field — the  only  ex- 
President  ever  thus  honored.  Many  conditions  brought  about 
this  result.  In  the  first  place,  the  Republican  partj'^,  in  nation 
and  state,  had  played  its  cards  very  badly.  Early  in  1869 
Congress  had  been  forced  to  admit  its  error  in  enacting  the 
Tenure-of-Office  Act.  Neither  Grant  nor  any  other  self- 
respecting  man  would  serve  as  President  with  his  hands  tied  by 
such  a  measure.  Congress  was  therefore  compelled  to  take  the 
back  track.  The  House  voted  to  repeal  the  act,  but  the  Senate, 
more  timid  if  not  more  decent,  refused  thus  to  stultify  itself. 
Again  President  Grant's  hobby,  seeking  to  take  over  the 
island  of  San  Domingo,  had  offended  the  Abolitionists.  Sum- 
ner likened  Grant  to  "Franklin  Pierce,  John  Buchanan  and 
Andrew  Johnson."  The  enraged  Grant  bitterly  resented  Sum- 
ner's insult.  Frequently  he  would  pass  Sumner's  residence  by 
"shaking  his  fist  at  the  closed  windows"  and  threatening  to 
fight  him  a  duel.  National  politics  had  become  thoroughly 
rotten,  "it  was  controlled  by  hacks  and  flunkies."  President 
Grant's  appointments,  said  the  Nation^  "are  the  worst  ever 
made  by  a  civilized.  Christian  government;  the  parasites  of 
the  party  are  its  masters."  ^^  "Office  holders  as  scoundrels 
are  allowed  to  loot  the  South  under  cover  of  loyalty  and  to 
help  save  the  country  from  traitors,  i.e.,  from  anti-Grant  Re- 
publicans and  Democrats."  .  .  .  "The  treasury  is  a  hotbed 
of  low  jobbery.  There  is  a  mad  wliirl  of  office  brokerage,  and 
patriotism  has  become  mere  political  lucre." 

In  1872,  so  far  did  these  troubles  extend,  liberals  and  con- 

16  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  II,  p.  308. 


THE  COME-BACK  501 

servatives  in  the  Republican  party,  Sumner  included,  split  off 
and  set  up  a  new  organization  which  they  called  the  Liberal 
Party,  Uniting  with  the  Democrats,  this  new  party  might 
have  won  in  the  ensuing  election  but  for  the  nomination  of  the 
erratic  Greeley  for  President.  In  a  word,  by  the  year  1875, 
when  Johnson  was  elected  to  the  Senate,  the  Republican 
party  was  in  disfavor.  It  was  plain  that  the  people  were 
going  to  repudiate  it  and  restore  the  Democrats  to  power. 
Grant,  the  soldier,  had  been  without  a  superior;  Grant,  the 
President,  deceived  by  henchmen,  was  a  failure.  By  this  time 
also  the  South  had  begun  to  pull  itself  together  and  the  North 
was  beginning  to  see  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  southern  re- 
habilitation, with  the  burden  of  the  negro.  In  1869  the  Ku 
Klux  were  disbanded  and,  under  wiser  leadership,  whites  and 
blacks  were  getting  along  with  less  friction.  Soon  the  negro 
was  content  to  quit  politics  and  go  to  work  in  the  fields  again. 
The  "franchise,"  which  the  Radicals  were  going  to  give  him 
had  proved  a  delusion.  The  poor  fellow  imagined  it  was  "a 
side  of  bacon" !  And  when  he  went  to  the  polls  with  his  haver- 
sack and  found  it  wasn't  "somethin'  t'  eat,"  he  was  disgusted. 
All  these  things  were  water  on  Andrew  Johnson's  wheel. 
Thoughtful  people  were  beginning  to  contrast  the  simplicity, 
honesty,  and  ruggedness  of  the  Johnson  administration  with 
the  nepotism,  extravagance  and  corruption  of  its  successor. 

Analyzing  Johnson's  great  triumph  in  1875,  one  will  see 
that  it  was  brought  about  by  a  union  of  the  Conservatives  and 
a  handful  of  Republicans.  Yet  that  is  not  half  the  story. 
Clean  and  honest  and  without  the  use  of  money  or  bribes  un- 
doubtedly it  was,  but  his  triumph  was  more  personal  than 
political.  It  was  a  tribute  to  bravery,  to  loyalty  and  to  con- 
viction. The  legislature  was  made  up  of  men  whose  rebel 
fathers  had  been  pardoned  by  him;  others  whose  estates  had 
been  saved  from  confiscation  by  him;  not  a  few  who  had  been 
assisted  with  money  or  advice  by  him ;  and  of  many  friends  and 
neighbors,  mostly  laboring  men,  men  who  naturally  loved 
"Old  Andy  Johnson"  and  "gloried  in  his  spunk."  In  1875  it 
was  recalled  that  Johnson,  in  his  1869  contest  for  the  Senate, 
had  fought  fair  and  clean;  that,  at  that  session,  a  railroad 


502  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

magnate  had  come  to  Johnson's  rooms  and  assured  him  that 
next  day  would  witness  his  election,  as  the  necessary  votes 
would  be  forthcoming,  and  that  Johnson  had  inquired,  "How 
did  you  get  them?"  "I  am  to  pay  $2,000.00  for  them,"  was 
the  reply.  "You  will  do  no  such  thing,"  said  the  ex-President. 
"But,  Mr.  President,"  said  the  man,  "it  will  not  be  your  money, 
it  will  cost  you  nothing."  "It  will  cost  me  my  honor,"  Johnson 
retorted ;  "and  if  elected  in  that  way  I  will  go  before  the  Leg- 
islature, expose  the  fraud  and  decline  the  office."  '^'^ 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  masses  of  the  people,  however,  the 
legislature  of  1875  might  have  turned  Johnson  down  as  it 
had  done  in  1869.  But  the  plain  people  were  not  to  be  twice 
deceived.  They  kept  the  mails  and  the  wires  "hot"  for  Andy 
Johnson.  Many  came  to  Nashville  to  back  him  up.  On  the 
other  hand  the  old  "Secessionists"  were  splendidly  organized. 
They  were  led  by  the  Brigadiers  and  backed  by  President 
Grant  and  the  power  of  his  administration.  Senator  Brown- 
low,  in  Washington,  was  determined  to  put  down  Andy  John- 
son and  Andy  Johnsonism.  Extremes  had  met.  Now,  however 
unpopular  Grant  may  have  become  in  the  North,  he  had  not 
lost  the  good  will  and  esteem  of  the  South.  His  generous  treat- 
ment of  Lee  at  Appomattox,  and  when  it  was  proposed  to 
arrest  the  beloved  Southern  Chieftain  and  try  him  for  treason, 
had  won  southern  hearts.  His  noble  words,  "Let  us  have 
peace,"  had  given  him  a  secure  place  in  southern  affection, 
despite  his  recent  radicalism.  But  "the  Old  Commoner"  was 
too  much  for  President  Grant  and  the  Confederate  Brigadiers 
combined.  He  effectually  spiked  their  guns.  One  day  during 
the  session  he  met  General  Forrest  on  the  streets  of  Nashville 
and  asked  the  General  to  accompany  him  to  his  rooms,  at  the 
Maxwell  House.  General  Forrest  and  Johnson  had  been  old 
Democrats  and  states-rights  men,  and,  besides,  Forrest  was 
as  simple  and  plain  in  his  taste  as  Andrew  Johnson  himself. 
"General,"  said  Johnson  to  Forrest,  "these  damn  fellows  are 
just  using  you  and  your  influence  against  me;  if  they  want  a 
sure  enougli  General  for  Senator  why  don't  they  bring  you 

17  Colonel  Eeevc'8  in  Knoxville  iSentinel,  May  30,  1923. 


THE  COME-BACK  603 

out?"  The  General,  seeing  the  point,  quit  Nashville,  a  John- 
son man,  it  was  said,  leaving  the  field  to  the  ex-President. 

Starting  with  thirty-six  votes  on  the  first  ballot,  going  down 
to  thirty-two,  then  up  to  thirty-three,  thence  to  forty-four, 
and  finally  to  fifty-two,  Andy  Johnson  was  once  again  a  United 
States  Senator  with  a  safe  majority  of  one.^*^  When  the  news 
that  "the  Old  Commoner"  had  "whipped  out  the  crowd"  spread 
over  Nashville,  "the  shouts  of  many  thousands  were  answered 
by  shouts  from  Edgefield  until  it  seemed  that  Nashville  and 
its  suburbs  were  almost  unanimously  for  him."  Alf  Taylor, 
the  member  from  Carter,  wished  to  be  the  first  to  break  the 
news  to  his  father's  old  friend.  Rushing  down  the  street  to  the 
hotel,  and  crying  out  as  he  entered,  "Mr.  Johnson  you  are 
elected,  you  are  elected,"  he  fainted  dead  away  and  was  not 
revived  till  a  bucket  of  ice  water  was  dashed  in  his  f  ace.^^ 

No  sooner  had  Speaker  Payne  announced  that  Andrew 
Johnson  was  elected  to  the  Senate  than  the  crowd  rushed  from 
the  capitol  to  the  Maxwell  House,  cheering  and  shouting. 
That  night  ten  thousand  people  gathered  in  the  public  square 
to  listen  to  the  voice  of  the  Tennessee  patriot.  A  splendid 
speech  he  delivered — devoid  of  partisanship  or  bitterness,  "I 
will  go  to  the  Senate,"  he  said,  "with  no  personal  hostility  to- 
ward any  one,  but  with  a  large  affection  for,  and  a  more  in- 
tensified devotion  to,  the  ancient  landmarks.  .  .  .  My  few  re- 
maining years  shall  be  devoted  to  the  weal  and  prosperity  of 
my  country  which  I  love  more  than  my  own  life."  ^^ 

On  Friday,  March  5,  1875,  the  United  States  Senate  met  in 
extra  session.  The  desk  of  Senator  Andrew  Johnson,  which 
Senator  Brownlow  was  reluctantly  quitting,  was  covered 
with  flowers.  The  galleries  were  filled  with  admiring  friends. 
Shortly  after  twelve  o'clock  the  sturdy  ex-President,  clothed  in 
broadcloth,  with  standing  collar  and  stock  cravat,  was  seen 
slowly  to  enter  the  chamber — so  full  of  memories  for  him.  A 
group  of  Democratic  Senators  formed  about  him.  Edmunds 
of  Vermont  was  addressing  the  chair.     Observing  the  group, 

isDeWitt,  p.  622. 

i9Knoxville  Sentinel,  May  30,  1923;  article  by  Col.  E.  C.  Reeves. 

20  Jones,  Life,  p.  350. 


504  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

he  ceased  to  speak.  In  the  excitement  of  coming  face  to  face 
with  the  ex-President,  whom  he  had  voted  to  expel  from  ojffice, 
he  "kicked  over  a  lot  of  old  books  on  his  desk  and  abruptly  sat 
down."  Many  Senators  rose  to  their  feet  "to  honor  Johnson's 
former  greatness."  Carl  Schurz,  now  a  liberal  Democrat,  and 
Henry  Wilson,  Vice-president,  respectfully  stood."^  Senator 
Roscoe  Conkling,  whose  "turkey-gobbler  strut"  Blaine  had  im- 
mortalized, was  "pretending  to  read  a  letter  and  peering  at  the 
ex-President  from  the  corner  of  his  eye";  Senator  Freling- 
huysen  "went  down  on  his  knees  seeking  either  a  book — or 
hatchet";  Senator  John  Sherman  first  stared  about  and  was 
puzzled,  then,  recalling  war  days,  when  he  and  Johnson  had 
canvassed  Ohio  for  the  Union,  came  forward  and  shook  hands. 
Senator  Oliver  P.  Morton  was  in  the  greatest  quandary  of  all. 
He  had  been  President  Johnson's  friend  and  supporter,  then 
had  changed  and  voted  to  impeach  him.  He,  therefore,  stood 
aloof.  Magnanimously  Johnson  offered  his  hand;  Morton 
gladly  grasped  it.^^  The  clerk  proceeded  to  call  the  roll  of 
newly  elected  Senators.  "Hannibal  Hamlin !"  he  called.  The 
Senator  from  Maine  answered  to  his  name.  "Andrew  John- 
son !"  he  called.  The  ex-President  answered  "present." 
Henry  Cooper,  Johnson's  colleague,  came  down  the  aisle. 
Bowing  stiffly,  he  and  Senator  McCreery  of  Kentucky  escorted 
the  new  Senator  to  the  clerk's  desk.  The  Vice-president,  rising 
and  respectfully  standing,  contrary  to  custom,  administered 
the  oath.  And  he,  whom  Morton  had  pronounced  a  "violator 
of  the  Constitution  and  a  violator  of  his  oath,"  was  again  a 
Senator  of  the  United  States. ^^ 

Tears  were  noticed  in  the  ex-President's  eyes  as  he  went  back 
to  his  place.  "I  miss  my  old  friends,"  he  said  to  Senator  Mc- 
Creery. "Bayard,  Buckalew,  Reverdy  Johnson,  Fessenden, 
Fowler,  Trumbull,  Grimes,  Henderson,  Ross,  all  are  gone,  all 
but  yourself.  Senator  McCreery."  But  if  many  of  Senator 
Johnson's  friends  were  gone,  many  more  of  his  enemies  were 
likewise  gone.     Of  the  thirty-nine  Senators  voting  to  convict, 

21  Harper' 8  Weekly,  Vol.  XLVIII,  p.  1356. 

22  Morton,  Address,  Memorial  Exercises  of  Andrew  Johnson. 
28  Harper's  Weekly,  Vol.  XLVIII,  p.  1356. 


w 


THE  COME-BACK  505 

twenty-six  had  been  decapitated,  and  only  thirteen  remained. 
"Bluff"  Ben  Wade,  and  Radicals  of  his  kind  had  been  swept 
out  of  Congress  like  chaff  before  the  raging  storm.  In  Ohio, 
the  political  revolution  of  1869  was  "as  remarkable  in  char- 
acter as  it  was  sudden  in  time" ;  ^*  .  .  .  "a  revolution  of  public 
sentiment  without  premonition  and  visible  cause."  In  the 
House  there  was  a  majority  of  sixty-three  against  the  Repub- 
lican party.  Harper^s  Weekli/,  which,  a  short  while  before, 
had  heaped  no  end  of  ridicule  on  Johnson,  had  a  fine  picture, 
in  which  he  was  conspicuous.  As  he  held  in  his  hands  a  flag- 
staff, from  which  Old  Glory  was  waving,  Andrew  Johnson's 
sturdy,  honest  face  was  good  to  look  upon.  In  a  few  months 
the  New  York  Nation  declared  of  Johnson's  administration 
that  "it  was  in  the  main  unexceptionable."  Of  Andrew  John- 
son it  said,  "His  personal  integrity  is  beyond  question  and 
his  respect  for  the  laws  and  the  Constitution  made  his  admin- 
istration a  remarkable  contrast  to  that  which  succeeded  it."  ^^ 
On  March  22,  1875,  a  resolution  of  the  Senate  to  approve 
the  action  of  President  Grant,  in  protecting  Governor  Kellogg 
in  Louisiana  affairs,  was  under  debate.  Throughout  Wash- 
ington it  had  become  known  that  Andrew  Johnson  was  to 
speak,  that  he  was  to  launch  an  attack  on  Grant's  administra- 
tion. Many  spectators  came  to  witness  the  onslaught.  At 
that  time  the  Republican  party,  as  M^e  have  seen,  was  at  a  low 
ebb  and  Johnson  was  going  to  give  it  a  parting  kick.  From 
1870  to  1874,  so  far  had  fraud,  peculation  and  corruption  ad- 
vanced, the  period  is  called  "the  disgraceful  period  of  Amer- 
ican history."  ^^  During  Grant's  administration,  indeed,  "the 
orgy  reached  its  limits,"  and  Gould's  corrupt  corner  on  gold, 
culminating  in  "Black  Friday,"  September  24,  1869,  will 
never  be  forgotten.  To  these  unhappy  conditions  Senator 
Johnson  addressed  himself  in  a  speech  of  some  power.  This 
speech,  it  must  be  admitted,  came  as  an  anti-climax,  after 
other  and  more  exciting  episodes.  There  were  the  "same 
peculiarities  of  style  and  diction,"  however,  the  same  repeti- 

24  Blaine,  Vol.  II,  p.  441. 

2^  Nation,  August  5,  1875. 

26  Dunning,  Reconstruction,  p.  290.     Oberholtzer,  Vol.  II,  p.  548. 


506  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

tlons  and  elaborations,  and  "the  same  habit  of  keeping  the 
people  ever  in  his  eye,"  that  had  marked  his  whole  career.  He 
was  severe  on  President  Grant ;  President  Grant's  acceptance  of 
gifts  and  his  ambition  for  a  third  term  were  condemned.  The 
speech  was  evidently  a  reply  to  Grant's  assaults  in  the  last 
Tennessee  campaign,  and  not  nationally  significant.  On  the 
second  day  after,  the  Senate  adjourned  and  Senator  Johnson 
returned  to  Tennessee. 

During  the  spring  and  early  summer  Senator  Johnson  de- 
voted himself  to  private  affairs  and  to  a  study  of  the  currency 
question.  Since  his  prostration  by  cholera,  two  years  before, 
his  health  "had  not  been  all  that  could  be  desired.  Sometimes 
his  heart  had  troubled  him" ;  and  after  the  campaign  of  1874, 
"his  powers  did  not  obey  his  volition  as  promptly  as  before." 
Yet  he  continued  active  and  alert,  going  to  his  oflBce  every  day. 
Occasionally  he  visited  towns  nearby,  and  was  always  the  cen- 
ter of  admiring  groups.  Late  in  July  he  expressed  a  desire  to 
run  over  to  the  Stover  place  and  visit  his  daughter  Mary,  Mrs. 
Johnson  having  gone  over  a  little  while  before.^^ 

That  July  morning,  on  the  train  from  Greeneville  to  Carter 
Station,  there  were  a  lot  of  friends  and  admirers  of  the  ex- 
President.  Alf  Taylor,  who  happened  to  be  on  board,  and 
others  drew  the  old  man  out  on  his  amazing  career.  He  "was 
never  more  interesting."  Alf  Taylor's  home,  Happy  Valley, 
adjoined  the  Stover  place;  and  Taylor  asked  to  call  next  day. 
Every  one  was  struck  with  Johnson's  vigor  and  vivacity.^® 
They  asked  him  about  the  execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  which 
liad  cut  quite  a  figure  in  the  recent  fight.  The  ex-President  as- 
sured them  that  he  did  not  see  the  recommendation  for  mercy 
until  two  years  after  Mrs.  Surratt  was  put  to  death.  At  Car- 
ter Station  "the  boys"  accompanied  their  old  friend  to  the  car 
door  and  bade  him  adieu.  He  was  met  by  a  carriage  from  the 
plantation  and  driven  six  miles,  to  his  daughter's  home.  There 
he  arrived  about  eleven  o'clock  in  tlie  forenoon. 

At  the  noon  meal  his  spirits  were  buoyant,  his  conversation 
being  of  home  affairs  and  general  topics.     Shortly  afterwards 

27  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 

28  Greeneville  Democrat  Sun,  May  29,  1923. 


THE  COME-BACK  507 

he  went  to  his  room ;  Lillie  Stover  his  granddaughter,  once  the 
joy  of  White  House  days,  accompanied  him.  Seated  in  an  arm 
chair,  the  old  Patriot  talked  a  few  moments  to  his  grandchild. 
She  then  turned  and  started  to  the  door.  Suddenly  she  heard 
something  fall  heavily  to  the  floor.  It  was  her  grandfather. 
He  had  fallen  forward  on  the  carpet  and  was  lying  helpless. 
His  left  side  was  paralyzed,  he  feared.  The  family,  in  con- 
fusion, hastened  to  get  a  physician.  But  no !  The  indomitable 
man  forbade  it.  He  needed  no  doctor,  he  would  overcome  his 
troubles.  It  was  then  three  o'clock  Wednesday,  July  27.  Dur- 
ing the  next  twenty-four  hours  he  lay  in  bed  and  talked  of 
things  of  long  ago — his  tailor  shop  days,  his  struggles  upward. 
Next  day  at  the  same  hour  there  came  another  stroke,  extend- 
ing through  his  whole  frame.  This  attack  extinguished  every 
energy  of  mind  and  body.  Physicians  were  summoned.  In 
an  hour  or  two,  however,  "the  Old  Commoner"  was  dead. 
Dead  at  the  Stover  place,  he  loved  so  well.  The  family  called 
in  no  minister.  They  knew  the  dead  man's  wishes.  But  all 
day  Friday  and  Saturday  Masons  from  adjoining  towns  and 
neighbors,  men  from  hill  and  dale,  gathered.  The  Stover  home 
was  filled  with  mourners — plain  people  from  mountain  and 
cove,  men  who  loved  Johnson  and  whom  he  loved.  During 
the  silent  night  they  watched  by  his  bedside.  Early  Sunday 
morning  they  placed  the  dead  in  blankets,  filled  with  ice.  De- 
positing his  mortal  remains  in  a  plain  pine  box  they  set  out  for 
Greeneville. 

By  Monday  noon  "every  store,  office  and  public  building  in 
town  was  put  in  the  dressings  of  sorrow  and  mourning."  "The 
Court  House,  where  he  had  so  often  pleaded  the  cause  of  the 
Union,  was  hidden  with  festoons  of  white  and  black."  The 
old  tailor  shop,  "hung  around  with  loops  and  knots  of  mourn- 
ing, seemed  to  take  unto  itself  an  air  of  living  gloom  at  the 
vanishing  of  a  spirit  which  years  before  had  gone  from  its  por- 
tals to  enduring  fame."  Telegrams  and  messages  came  from 
every  portion  of  the  Union;  representatives  of  the  metropoli- 
tan press  arrived."^  At  length  arrangements  were  completed. 
A  suitable  casket  was  secured,  and  the  body  transferred  to  it. 

29  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


508  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

The  simple  words,  "Andrew  Johnson,  Seventeenth  President 
of  the  United  States,"  were  engraved  on  the  silver  plate.  In 
a  new,  silken  flag,  the  flag  of  his  country,  all  bright  and  glori- 
ous with  thirty-seven  stars,  not  one  omitted,  they  wrapped  him. 
His  lifeless  fingers  grasped  its  silken  folds.  Under  his  head 
they  placed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  first  he 
ever  owned.  It  bore  the  date  1835  and  was  marked  and  writ- 
ten over,  from  cover  to  cover.  His  wishes  they  had  carried  out 
to  the  letter :  "Pillow  my  head  on  the  Constitution  of  my  coun- 
try," he  had  asked.  "Let  the  flag  of  the  Nation  be  my  wind- 
ing sheet." 

Tuesday  morning  the  mother  lodge  No.  119,  where  both  An- 
drew Jackson  and  Andrew  Johnson  first  became  Masons,  re- 
quested that  the  body  be  removed  from  the  residence  and  rest 
in  the  Masonic  assembly  room.  The  request  was  granted  and 
the  casket  was  placed  on  a  catafalque,  covered  with  flowers,  in 
the  Temple.  It  was  then  removed  to  the  Court  House.  Special 
trains  pulled  into  the  little  station.  The  great  and  powerful 
came — Governors,  Judges,  Congressmen,  Legislators — forming 
a  procession  half  a  mile  long.  These  great  ones  were  welcome 
— these  Captains  and  Kings.  All  were  welcome.  But  not  more 
so  than  the  plain  people,  the  mechanic,  the  laborer,  the  artisan, 
the  farmer,  "the  mudsills  of  society."  By  the  thousands  they 
had  come.  One  last  look  at  him  who  had  faced  ostracism  and 
obloquy  for  their  sakes,  they  must  have.  W.  D.  Williams  and 
Mrs.  Williams,  son  and  daughter  of  Dr.  Alex  Williams,  laid 
flowers  on  the  bier.  Blackstone  IMcDaniel  was  the  chief 
mourner;  other  old  cronies  were  all  gone,  all  but  "old  Mac." 
Milligan,  Self,  Park,  Mordecai  Lincoln,  John  Jones,  were  no 
more.  Passing  through  a  line  of  Knights  Templars,  with 
crossed  swords,  McDaniel  and  seventeen  others  bore  the  dead 
to  the  carriage.  The  Dickenson  Light  Guards'  Band  played 
Webster's  Funeral  March.  Tlie  Johnson  Guards  followed  be- 
hind the  line  of  marshals.  Then  came  the  family.  Slowly  as- 
cending the  conical-shaped  hill,  half  a  mile  from  the  town,  the 
I)rocession  halted — halted  at  the  spot  Johnson  had  selected  for 
his  resting  place.^° 

80  Johnson  MS.  at  Greeneville. 


THE  COME-BACK  509 

At  this  point  the  Knight  Templar  Masons  took  charge. 
Priest  or  prelate  there  was  none.  The  Masonic  official,  U.  A. 
Rouser, — the  most  skillful  mechanic  in  the  city  of  Knoxville, — 
spoke  the  final  words.  From  the  ritual  he  read  a  prayer. 
Softly  the  Masonic  choir  chanted  their  sad  farewell. 

^'Christian  warriors  at  the  pealing 
Of  the  solemn  vesper  bell. 
Round  the  triform  altar  kneeling 
Whisper  each  'Immanuel.' " 

The  bugler  sounded  taps.  In  the  bosom  of  the  mountains 
they  left  the  Old  Commoner.  Shortly  afterwards  on  this  spot, 
with  its  wonderful  view  of  mountain  and  valley,  his  children 
put  up  a  monument :  a  marble  shaft  surmounted  by  the  Amer- 
ican eagle,  "Old  Glory"  draping  the  upper  half.  Cut  into  the 
side  of  the  shaft  is  a  copy  of  the  Constitution ;  underneath,  the 
words,  *'His  faith  in  the  people  never  wavered."  ^^ 

31  Among  the  Johnson  papers  was  found  a  pencil  memorandum  written  by 
him  during  the  cholera  scourge  on  June  9,  1873.  "All  seems  glocm  and 
despair,"  it  reads.  "Approaching  death  to  me  is  the  mere  shadow  of  God's 
protecting  wing.  Here  I  know  can  no  evil  come ;  here  I  will  rest  in  quiet  and 
peace  beyond  the  reach  of  calumny's  poisoned  shaft;  the  influence  of  envy  and 
jealous  enemies,  where  treason  and  traitors  in  State,  backsliders  and  hypo- 
crites in  the  church,  can  have  no  place;  where  the  great  fact  will  be  realized 
that  God  is  truth  and  gratitude  the  highest  attribute  of  man." 


CHAPTER  X 
SIXTY  YEARS  AFTER 

In  October  1926  the  legal  world  was  given  a  surprise.  The 
Supreme  Court  struck  down  the  old  act  of  March  1867 — the 
Tenure  of  Office  Act — under  which  Andrew  Johnson  had  been 
impeached  and  tried.  "This  act  is  invalid  as  an  attempt  to  in- 
terfere with  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  President,"  the 
court  said.  The  court  also  intimates  that  the  act  was  mon- 
strous and  vicious.  How  could  a  President  perform  the  duties 
of  his  office  with  an  adverse  cabinet.?  As  we  have  seen,  the 
court  had  previously  held  that  President  Johnson  was  within 
his  rights  when  he  vetoed  the  Civil  Rights  Act,  when  he  vetoed 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau  Act  and  the  Reconstruction  Acts.^ 
And  now,  after  more  than  sixty  years,  the  court  holds  that  the 
President  was  also  right  in  his  veto  of  the  Tenure  of  Office 
Act  and  of  the  Command  of  the  Army  Act.^ 

In  short,  it  is  to-day  held  by  the  courts,  and  generally  agreed 
by  historians,  that  nearly  every  particle  of  reconstruction  leg- 
islation after  peace  was  restored  was  null  and  void  and  that 
Andrew  Johnson  was  correct  in  his  veto  messages.  It  follows 
that  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments,  so  far  as  the 
southern  states  are  concerned,  were  adopted  under  compulsion 
and  by  means  of  illegal  statutes  disfranchising  whites  and  en- 
franchising blacks.  In  other  words,  the  courts  lay  down  two 
principles,  apparently  contradictory,  but  really  not  so  at  all. 
During  actual  warfare,  and  in  1865  till  order  was  restored,  the 
Southern  States  had  no  civil  government  and  martial  law  was 
necessary  and  proper.  In  1867,  however,  after  the  war  had 
ended  and  civil  governments  were  functioning,  Congress  could 

iWall.,  Vol.  VII.  p.  507;  United  States  Rep.,  Vol.  CVI,  p.  629;  United 
States  Rep.,  Vol.  CIX,  p.  1 ;  Lothrop.  Scirard,  j).  420. 

2  Myers  vs.  United  States,  October  25,  192(5;  Warreu'.s  Supreme  Court,  Vol. 
Ill,  pp.  300  and  331;  Atlantic,  Vol.  CVI,  p.  548. 

610 


SIXTY  YEARS  AFTER  611 

not  provide  and  enforce  martial  law.  This  was  for  the  civil 
courts.^ 

Now  the  opinion  in  this  Myers  case  is  noteworthy.  It  was 
delivered  by  a  Republican,  Chief  Justice  Taft,  formerly  Presi- 
dent. It  was  concurred  in  by  Republican  members  of  the 
court,  while  two  of  the  three  dissenting  judges,  McReynolds 
and  Brandeis,  are  Democrats.  The  case  is  also  full  of  his- 
torical interest.  In  July  1917  Myers  was  appointed  by  the 
President,  by  and  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate,  first-class 
Postmaster  at  Portland,  Oregon,  for  a  four  years'  term  ending 
in  July  1921.  Eighteen  months  before  his  term  expired,  he 
was  removed  by  the  President  without  the  consent  of  the 
Senate.  His  suit  was  to  recover  from  the  Government  the  re- 
mainder of  his  salary  for  eighteen  months.  Now  Myers  came 
in  under  the  Act  of  1876,  which  provides  that  first-class  post- 
masters shall  be  appointed  by  the  President,  but  shall  not  be 
removable  except  by  the  consent  of  the  Senate. 

In  construing  this  act  of  1876,  it  became  necessary  also  to 
construe  the  act  of  March  1867,  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act.  This 
the  court  did  without  flinching.  "The  power  to  appoint,"  says 
the  court,  analyzing  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  "carries  with 
it  the  power  to  remove."  As  the  Constitution  gives  the  Presi- 
dent power  to  appoint  members  of  his  cabinet  he  has  the  in- 
herent power  to  remove  any  member,  regardless  of  the  Senate. 
"In  1867  when  Congress  passed  reconstruction  legislation," 
says  the  court,  "it  was  attempting  to  redistribute  the  powers  of 
the  Government  and  to  minimize  the  President;"  that  is,  a 
Radical  Congress  "was  paralyzing  the  executive  arm."  "These 
were  extreme  measures,"  and  so  were  the  other  acts  known  as 
the  Command  of  the  Army  Act  and  the  act  abolishing  appeals 
in  habeas  corpus  matters,  to  oust  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  in  the  McCardle  case.  "Therefore,"  says  the 
court,  "the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  insofar  as  it  attempted  to 
prevent  the  President  from  removing  a  member  of  his  cabinet, 
was  invalid."  Thus  does  the  Supreme  Court  wipe  off  the 
statute  books  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  so  far  as  it  relates  to 
the  cabinet.     Thereby  the  impeachment  of  President  Johnson 

3  Ex  Parte  Milligan;  Dunning,  Essays  on  Reconstruction,  p.  95. 


512  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

is  rendered  ridiculous  and  absurd !  In  truth  it  was  but  a  moot 
affair. 

Were  I  dramatizing  Andrew  Johnson's  life,  I  might  avail 
myself  of  the  playwright's  privilege  and  utilize  this  final  word 
as  an  epilogue.  In  the  center  of  the  stage  Andrew  Johnson 
would  be  discovered.  Not  "King  Andy,"  with  crown  and 
scepter,  with  sable  coat  and  ermine-edging,  as  the  Radical 
cartoonists  used  to  portray  him,  but  a  plain,  rugged,  two-fisted 
American  President,  striving  to  do  the  right  thing  as  best  he 
could.  Grouped  about  him  would  be  Seward  and  Stanbery, 
Welles  and  McCulloch,  Randall  and  Browning.  Warden, 
the  doorkeeper  of  the  White  House,  would  enter  and  announce, 
"The  Senate  of  the  United  States  and  the  managers  in  the  im- 
peachment trial."  The  door  would  open  and  the  Senate  would 
approach,  the  President  and  his  cabinet  rising  to  their  feet. 
John  Sherman,  on  behalf  of  the  Senate,  would  say,  "Mr.  Presi- 
dent, in  the  light  of  the  past  sixty  years  and  of  the  recent  de- 
cision of  our  highest  court,  the  Senate  is  here  to  extend  an 
apology  and  to  assure  you  that  sixty  years  ago,  when  we  ques- 
tioned your  patriotism,  impugned  your  motives,  and  sought 
to  impeach  and  expel  you  from  the  presidency,  we  were  wrong. 
The  Senate  offers  no  excuses  except  the  passions  and  bitterness 
engendered  by  war."  While  the  President  bows  and  Senators 
come  forward  and  grasp  his  hand  the  voice  of  Thad  Stevens 
would  be  heard  in  the  ante-room.  "Damn  the  Myers  case,  it  is 
worse  than  Dred  Scott  or  Milligan.  It  will  damn  the  Chief 
Justice  to  an  everlasting  infamy  and,  I  fear,  to  an  everlasting 
fire." 

But  let  us  not  set  too  much  store  by  the  courts  and  their 
rulings.  It  may  be  that  Thad  Stevens  was  correct  and  the 
courts  wrong.  In  December  1865,  though  the  South  had 
grounded  arms  and  accepted  the  situation,  it  may  be  the 
Constitution  did  not  yet  protect  her.  Perhaps  necessity  war- 
ranted Congress  in  acting  regardless  of  the  Constitution. 
Waving  the  constitutional  aspects  of  the  matter,  therefore,  let 
us  inquire.  Which  was  right,  the  President  or  Congress?  Ought 
the  Southern  States  to  have  been  admitted  in  December  18(55 
or  ought  the^'  to  have  been  excluded  till  thoroughly  recon- 


SIXTY  YEARS  AFTER  513 

structed  as  in  1867  and  1868?  Congress  concluded  that  they 
should  be  reconstructed  and  had  Johnson  been  a  weak  executive 
he  would  probably  have  cooperated  with  them.  But  would  not 
such  a  course  have  turned  southern  state  governments  upside 
down,  and  produced  a  war  of  races  or  probably  some  new  spasm 
of  disunion?  In  1865  was  not  the  wiser  course  pursued  by  An- 
drew Johnson  ?  He  had  to  meet  an  emergency ;  there  were  no 
civil  governments  in  the  South  and  discord  prevailed.  He 
must  act  at  once,  and  it  was  his  job.  He  found  Lincoln's  plan 
of  restoring  the  Southern  States  ready  to  hand.  He  adopted 
this  plan,  the  whole  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet  holding  office  under 
him  and  composing  a  harmonious  and  united  administration, 
approving  his  course.*  Congress  then  overturned  these  gov- 
ernments, put  the  South  under  military  rule  again,  and 
eventually  under  the  negro. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  Lincoln  and  Johnson  plan  of  immedi- 
ate restoration,  if  adopted,  would  have  been  worse  for  the  coun- 
try than  this  Congressional  plan  and  that  it  would  have  been 
unjust  to  the  negro,  that  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments  were  necessary  to  protect  his  rights.  In  the  light 
of  sixty  years  have  the  amendments  protected  the  negro?  Is 
the  southern  negro  to-day  any  nearer  political  and  social 
rights  than  in  1865?  Is  he  not,  in  the  expressive  word  of 
Dunning,  "nil"?  And  will  not  this  condition  remain  for  a 
greater  length  of  time  than  if  Congress  had  entrusted  the  mat- 
ter to  the  southern  people  themselves?  ** 

Had  the  South  been  readmitted  to  the  Union  in  1865,  what 
might  have  resulted?  At  that  time  bad  blood  between  the 
North  and  South  had  not  been  stirred  up.  Civil  war  did  not 
anger  or  wound  the  pride  of  the  South.  In  the  main,  the 
American  civil  war  was  the  cleanest  and  fairest  ever  fought. 
Reconstruction  and  the  attempt  to  put  the  negroes  above  the 
whites,  created  bad  blood  and  the  "Solid  South."  Had 
Congress  approved  Johnson's  reconstruction  measures  in  1865, 
it  is  reasonable  to  predict  that  the  Secession  element  in  the 
South  would  never  have  been  heard  of  more.    The  old  Secession 

4  Schouler,  Vol.  VII,  p.  45. 
4a  Burgess,  p.  298 


514  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Democratic  party  would  have  been  buried  out  of  sight.  At  the 
end  of  the  war  it  was  anathema.  In  Tennessee  specially,  had 
Congress  admitted  Horace  Maynard  and  other  Unionists, 
there  would  have  been  no  split  in  the  Union  ranks;  Andrew 
Johnson,  Horace  Maynard  and  Parson  Brownlow  would  have 
pulled  together,  controlhng  the  State  in  favor  of  Union  and 
conservative  principles.  In  other  Border  States,  and  particu- 
larly in  North  Carolina,  as  Professor  Hamilton  points  out,  in 
the  summer  of  1865  the  leading  men  were  dead  opposed  to  the 
old  Secession  Democratic  party.^ 

It  must  be  admitted  that  just  after  the  war  the  South,  un- 
doubtedly the  upper  South,  was  ripe  for  a  fraternal,  forward 
movement  and  that  the  Radicals  destroyed  the  opportunity. 
It  is  not  too  much,  I  trust,  to  predict  further  that  if  Lincoln's 
"Louisiana  Plan"  had  prevailed  in  1865,  the  southern  states, 
one  by  one,  would  have  enfranchised  worthy  negroes,  those 
worth  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  and  up  or  who  could  read 
and  write.  Self-interest,  if  not  philanthropy,  would  have 
brought  this  to  pass.  In  truth,  prior  to  1832  the  "Free  negro" 
voted  in  the  State  of  North  Carolina.  The  Louisiana  Plan, 
being  voluntary,  would  have  caused  no  ill-will.  There  would 
have  been  no  persecutions  and  no  such  terrible  organizations 
as  the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  The  kindly  feeling  between  the  whites 
and  blacks,  existing  during  slavery  days,  would  have  been 
maintained.*^  Then  again,  a  systematic  movement  to  scatter 
the  southern  negro  would  undoubtedly  have  followed.  Also 
voluntary  colonization,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  had  urged  with  all  his 
might.^  In  the  South  as  elsewhere  tlie  negro  is  the  white  man's 
burden;  and  no  section  should  bear  more  than  its  pro-rata 
share  of  it.  As  we  have  seen,  long  before  the  Civil  War,  John- 
son had  discovered  this  fact.  He  had  come  to  realize  that  the 
old  southern  idea,  that  negro  slavery  had  created  a  great  and  a 

c  In  North  Carolina  Colonel  Waddoll,  Colonel  Carter,  Judge  Fowle,  Lewis 
Thompson,  B.  F.  Moore,  the  Settles,  Dockerys,  and  practically  all  of  the  lead- 
ing men  were  eager  to  cut  loose  from  the  old  Democratic  party,  to  organize  a 
national  party  to  be  called  the  Conservatives,  and  to  cooperate  with  the  North. 
— Hamilton,  Reconstruction  in  North  ('aroliiia,  p.  187. 

"  The  course  above  indicated  was  urged  by  General  Lee  and  General  Wade 
Hampton,  two  men  the  South  never  failed  to  follow. — Rhodes,  Vol.  V,  pp.  664, 
604;  Oberholtzer,  Vol.  I,  p.  71. 

7  Ibid.,  pp.  75,  80. 


SIXTY  YEARS  AFTER  515 

prosperous  South,  and  that  manual  labor  was  degrading,  was 
both  ridiculous  and  false.  In  the  early  days  of  the  nation,  as 
Johnson  learned  from  Helper's  Impending  Crisis,  the  South 
was  in  advance  of  the  North;  South  Carolina  and  Charleston 
excelled  Massachusetts  and  Boston.  In  that  early  day,  in  the 
matter  of  shipping,  of  exports  and  of  imports,  Charleston  was 
far  ahead  of  Boston.  Southern  plow  lands  were  more  valuable 
than  northern.  But  the  blight  of  slavery  had  reversed  these 
conditions  and  the  South  was  lagging  far  in  the  rear.®  As 
Uncle  Joe  Cannon,  the  Quaker,  born  in  North  Carolina,  often 
remarked,  "Into  the  southern  Eden  came  the  serpent  slavery 
and  in  the  '40's  white  families  by  the  thousands  left  the  South 
and  trekked  it  to  the  Free  States."  Johnson  was  the  only 
southern  statesman  to  discover  and  act  upon  this  fact. 

Again,  sixty  years  ago  it  was  urged  that  the  freedmen  must 
be  protected.  They  had  fought  for  their  freedom  and  should 
not  be  left  naked  to  their  enemies.  But,  as  I  shall  presently 
attempt  to  show,  the  rights  of  the  freedman  could  not  be 
protected  by  coercive  and  alien  laws.  This  was  possible 
by  natural  processes  only.  Moreover,  it  must  be  said  that 
the  southern  white  man  is  not  the  enemy  of  the  negro  but  is 
his  friend ;  ^^  and  that  the  suggestion  that  the  negro,  as  a  whole, 
fought  for  his  freedom  is  a  fallacy.  The  negro  fought,  not 
for  the  Union  but  against  it  and  for  the  Confederacy  and  for 
his  old  master.  About  two  hundred  thousand  negroes,  bond 
and  free,  from  North  and  South  and  from  elsewhere,  were  on 
the  Union  side,  mostly  in  fortification  and  similar  work; 
whereas  perhaps  six  or  eight  times  that  number  were  on  south- 
ern plantations  fighting  for  the  Confederacy.  But  for  negroes 
at  home,  raising  hog  and  hominy  for  Confederate  soldiers,  the 
Rebellion  might  have  collapsed  in  twelve  months.  Certainly, 
if  one  general  negro  uprising,  as  the  Nat  Turner  Insurrection, 
had  taken  place  Lee  would  not  have  had  a  soldier  in  his  ranks. 
Every  mother's  son  would  have  hastened  back  to  protect  his 
Dixie  home. 

8  Helper,  Impending  Crisis. 

8a  Each  southern  state  to-day  and  private  philanthropy — not  the  general 
government — are  caring  for  the  negro. 


516  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

Much  was  said  in  1866,  in  opposition  to  the  Louisiana  Plan, 
about  the  condition  of  the  black  man.  In  him  "Christ  lay  con- 
cealed," it  was  urged ;  he  was  God's  image  in  ebony,  a  superior 
being,  in  fact.  Now  it  must  be  said  that  the  person  who  wishes 
ill  of  the  negro  is  a  bad  citizen.  The  white  man  brought  the 
negro  to  America  and  the  latter  is  not  at  fault.  Yet  the 
likable  race  cannot  be  absorbed  by  the  white  race.  Social 
equality  is  impracticable,  and  the  negroes  are  "a  people  within 
a  people."  "We  know  of  the  existence  of  the  negro  race,"  says 
Agassiz,  "with  all  its  physical  peculiarities,  from  the  Egyptian 
monuments  several  thousand  years  before  the  Christian  era."  ^ 
During  all  these  years,  Agassiz  continues,  "in  natural  propen- 
sities and  mental  abilities,  negroes  were  pretty  much  what  we 
find  them  at  the  present  day, — indolent,  playful,  sensual,  imi- 
tative, subservient,  good-natured,  versatile,  unsteady  in  their 
purpose,  devoted  and  affectionate."  Everywhere  "the  negro  is 
the  same.  In  Africa  where  he  was  originally  found ;  in  upper 
Egypt;  along  the  borders  of  the  Carthaginian  and  Roman 
settlements  in  Africa;  in  Senegal,  in  juxtaposition  with  the 
French;  in  the  Congo,  in  juxtaposition  with  the  Portuguese; 
about  the  Cape ;  and  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Africa,  in  j  uxta- 
position  with  the  Dutch  and  the  English."  And  yet,  as 
Agassiz  goes  on  to  say,  "While  Egypt  and  Carthage,  Babylon, 
Syria,  and  Greece  were  developing  the  highest  culture  of  an- 
tiquity, the  negro  race  groped  in  barbarism  and  never  orig- 
inated a  regular  organization  among  themselves. ^^  °^ 

Overlooking  these  ethnological  facts.  Congress  insisted  that 
a  race,  just  out  of  slavery,  ignorant  and  untrained  for  citi- 
zenship, should  be  put  in  control  and  that  their  late  mas- 
ters should  be  disfranchised.  And  this  monstrous  thing,  over 
the  veto  of  President  Johnson,  was  accomplished  and,  for  six 
or  eight  years,  the  South  was  prostrate.  It  was  easy  enough, 
as  Beecher  warned,  for  one  living  in  New  England,  where 
there  were  no  negroes,  to  philosophize  about  the  rights  of  the 
colored  man.  In  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi,  however, 
with  a  fifty-five  per  cent,  negro  population  and  only  a  forty- 

0  Rhodes,  Vol.  VI,  p.  37. 
oa-Zbid.,  the  italics  are  Rhodes'. 


SIXTY  YEARS  AFTER  517 

five  per  cent,  white,  it  was  a  very  different  thing.  In  the 
South  it  was  a  fight  for  existence.  This  Johnson,  even  while  in 
Congress,  foresaw  and  predicted.  Mr.  Blaine,  in  Maine,  could 
write  of  "justice  to  the  negro,  of  the  negro's  patriotism,  of  full 
political  and  social  rights;"  he  might  insist  that  "the  South 
should  accept  the  justice  of  this  principle  and  that,  whether 
the  South  accepted  it  or  not,  the  North  was  resolved  that  it 
should  become  a  part  of  tjie  organic  law  of  the  Republic ;"  he 
might  even  boast  that  "Republican  legislation  wiped  out  two 
hundred  years  of  caste  and  put  the  races  on  an  equality  and 
that  thereby  the  wrath  of  man  was  made  to  praise  the  righteous 
works  of  God."  But  unfortunately  Blaine  forgot  that  men 
are  not  angels — that  racial  antipathies  exist  the  world  over.^° 
In  1865,  had  Congress  adopted  Lincoln's  Louisiana  Plan  they 
would  have  admitted  the  South  into  the  Union.  Slavery  had 
been  abolished.  Confederate  debts  wiped  out  and  ordinances  of 
Secession  repealed.  Lincoln  and  Johnson  required  no  more. 
This  matter,  indeed,  as  Mr.  Blaine  declares,  was  the  thought 
which  "wholly  engrossed  the  mind  of  Lincoln"  on  April  11, 
1865,  when  he  delivered  his  last  address,  "speaking  like  an 
oracle." 

In  the  light  of  recent  years  and  of  racial  conflicts,  the  world 
over,  it  must  be  recognized  that  racial  instincts  and  antipathies 
are  ineradicable.  Lincoln  and  Johnson  appreciated  this  fact. 
Congress  overlooked  it.  Lincoln  and  Johnson  knew  that  a 
civilization  could  not  be  uprooted  over-night ;  that  it  must  grow 
and  develop.  The  customs  and  manners  of  a  people,  a  people's 
mores,  may  be  gradually  modified  by  agitation  and  by  time, 
but  it  is  a  gradual  process.  The  hasty  re-organizer  of  society 
often  does  more  harm  than  good.  Having  "found  out  the 
truth"  this  reformer  wants  "to  get  a  law  passed"  to  realize  it 
right  away  and  is  only  a  mischief  maker.  "The  mores  of 
the  South,"  as  Professor  Sumner  declares,  "were  those  of  slav- 
ery in  full  and  satisfactory  operation,  including  social,  relig- 
ious, and  philosophical  notions  adapted  to  slavery.  ...  In 
the  North  the  abolition  of  slavery  had  been  brought  about  by 
changes  in  conditions  and  interests,  but  in  the  South  emanci- 

10  Blaine,  Twenty  Years,  Vol.  II,  p.  267. 


518  ANDREW  JOHNSON 

pation  and  franchise  were  produced  by  outside  forces,  against 
the  mores  of  the  whites;  the  consequence  has  been  forty  years 
of  economic,  social  and  political  discord."  ^^  It  is  often  said 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  set  free  millions  of  slaves  "by  a  stroke  of  the 
pen."  "Such  references,"  says  Sumner,  "are  only  flights  of 
rhetoric."  ^^  "They  entirely  miss  the  apprehension  of  what 
it  is  to  set  men  free,  or  to  tear  out  of  a  society  mores  of  long 
growth  and  wide  reach."  Slavery,  as  Lincoln  often  declared, 
was  dealt  with,  during  the  war,  as  a  war  measure,  not  for  the 
sake  of  freedom,  and  not  ethically. 

It  may  be  objected  that  if  the  Louisiana  Plan  had  been 
adopted  there  would  have  been  neither  a  Fourteenth  nor  a 
Fifteenth  Amendment.  It  may  be  asked:  Would  there  have 
been  a  need  for  them?  "Trust  the  southern  people,"  said 
Mr.  Lincoln.  And  if  this  had  been  done  gradual  enfranchise- 
ment might  have  taken  place  and  gradual  dispersion  of  the 
negro  from  the  South.  Also  gradual,  voluntary,  and  peaceful 
colonization.  In  a  word,  the  negro  might  have  been  provided 
with  a  Fatherland.  Besides,  may  it  not  be  asked.  Is  the  Four- 
teenth Amendment,  after  all,  an  unmixed  blessing?  Tran- 
scendent and  epoch-making,  it  is.  Undoubtedly  it  nationalized 
the  United  States,  making  them  the  wonder  among  Nations; 
and  it  gives  protection  to  great  financial  enterprises.  But  are 
nationalization,  centralization  and  bigness  wholly  desirable? 
From  the  viewpoint  of  the  World  War  can  it  be  said  that  civi- 
lization had  been  advanced  by  that  national,  dominating  spirit, 
which  took  possession  of  the  nations  between  1860  and  1870? 
Would  it  not  have  been  wiser  to  leave  the  United  States  un- 
nationalized  ?  So  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Madison  designed, 
and  so  Andrew  Jackson  and  Andrew  Johnson  insisted.  In 
Webster's  phrase,  would  not  "an  indissoluble  union  of  indis- 
soluble states"  have  been  just  as  efficient  and  less  complicated 
than  a  huge  nation?  With  prohibition  on  America's  hands, 
with  child  labor  laws  unsettled,  with  an  urge  for  uniform  di- 
vorce and  election  laws  and  for  Mann  acts  and  other  criss-cross 
legislation,  regulating  the  private,  intimate  affairs  of  the  citi- 

11  Sumner,  Folkways,  p,  113. 

12  Ibid.,  p.  90. 


SIXTY  YEARS  AFTER  519 

zen,  what  trouble  has  America  in  store  ?  At  all  events,  Andrew 
Johnson  was  of  opinion  that  a  homogeneous  state  could  more 
wisely  function  and  legislate,  in  local  and  domestic  matters, 
even  in  the  matter  of  adjudging  citizenship,  than  a  hetero- 
geneous nation.  Time  only  can  tell  whether  he  was  right.  This 
much  we  do  know,  however:  If  the  Secession  Democracy  of 
1860  was  silly,  wicked,  criminal,  the  Radicalism  of  1865-69 
was  more  wicked  and  more  criminal. 

I  have  pointed  out  that  courts  and  historians  are  beginning 
to  find  something  of  interest  in  Andrew  Johnson.  If  I  were  dis- 
posed to  dwell  on  the  subject,  I  could  point  to  a  revival  of 
popular  interest  as  well.  The  National  Government  has  ac- 
quired the  hill,  where  he  lies  buried,  and  converted  it  into  a 
national  cemetery,  and  a  United  States  soldier  nightly  guards 
the  spot.  Tennessee  has  constructed  a  boulevard,  stretching 
five  hundred  and  odd  miles  from  Bristol  to  Memphis,  passing 
the  door  of  the  old  tailor  shop.  It  is  called  the  "Andrew  John- 
son Highway."  Tennessee  has  likewise  purchased  the  tailor 
shop  itself,  encased  it  in  brick,  and  provided  a  caretaker.  Each 
year  fifteen  thousand  pilgrims  drive  over  the  Andrew  Johnson 
Highway  and  sit  on  the  bench,  where  the  tailor-president  once 
sat  and  plied  his  trade.  They  rest  under  the  trees  he  planted, 
wander  to  the  spot  where  Morgan  was  killed  or  go  down  by  the 
old  ruined  mill  site.  They  climb  High  Hill  and  look  off  toward 
the  blue  peaks  so  dear  to  Johnson's  heart.  They  imbibe  the 
spirit  of  the  tailor-president,  they  visualize  one  who  met  the 
supreme  test  of  physical  courage  and  daring.  Perhaps  they 
bend  their  way  to  Nashville,  the  capital  of  Tennessee,  and,  as- 
cending to  the  cupola  of  the  State  House — in  the  days  of  civil 
war  called  Fort  Andrew  Johnson — behold  a  fair  land,  a  land 
saved  from  slavery  and  disunion,  largely  by  one  whose  name  is 
written  in  the  book  of  National  Heroes. 


APPENDIX  A 

Johnson  Papers^  vol.  13 ;  2870 

State   of  Maryland 
Executive  Chamber 
Annapolis 
Sept  2.  1861. 
Hon.  Andrew  Johnson  of  Tenn 
D^  Sir 

Please  accept  my  thanks  for  your  Excellent  speech  de- 
livered in  the  U.S.S.  on  the  Tl^^  July  1861. 

Especially  do  I  thank  you  for  your  Patriotic  and  Country 
loving  course.  You  have  shared  the  abuse  of  the  disorganizers 
and  Country  distroyers,  but  it  can  do  you  no  injury.  Time 
will  put  you  right  and  them  in  the  shade. 

God  grant  yourself  and  Other  Patriots  success  in  your 
manly  effort  to  save  Tennessee  by  bringing  her  back  to  the 
Union  Fold.  With  great  respect  I  have  the  Honor  to  be 
your  ob* 

Serv*  &  fellow  sufferer 

Tho  H  Hicks 


521 


APPENDIX  B 

APPEAL  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  TENNESSEE 

Fellow-Citizens:  Tennessee  assumed  the  form  of  a  body 
politic,  as  one  of  the  United  States  of  America,  in  the  year 
seventeen  hundred  and  ninety-six,  at  once  entitled  to  all  the 
privileges  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  bound  by  all  its 
obligations.  For  nearly  sixty-five  years  she  continued  in 
the  enjoyment  of  all  her  rights,  and  in  the  performance  of  all 
her  duties,  one  of  the  most  loyal  and  devoted  of  the  sisterhood 
of  States.  She  had  been  honored  by  the  elevation  of  two  of 
her  citizens  to  the  highest  place  in  the  gift  of  the  American 
people,  and  a  third  had  been  nominated  for  the  same  high 
office,  who  received  a  liberal  though  ineffective  support.  Her 
population  had  rapidly  and  largely  increased,  and  their  moral 
and  material  interests  correspondingly  advanced.  Never  was 
a  people  more  prosperous,  contented  and  happy  than  the 
people  of  Tennessee  under  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  and  none  less  burdened  for  the  support  of  the  author- 
ity by  which  they  were  protected.  They  felt  their  Government 
only  in  the  conscious  enjoyment  of  the  benefits  it  conferred 
and  the  blessings  it  bestowed. 

Such  was  our  enviable  condition  until  within  the  year  just 
past,  when,  under  what  baneful  influences,  it  is  not  my  pur- 
pose now  to  inquire,  the  authority  of  the  Government  was  set 
at  defiance,  and  the  Constitution  and  Laws  condemned,  by  a 
rebellious,  armed  force.  ]\Ien  who,  in  addition  to  the  ordinary 
privileges  and  duties  of  the  citizens,  had  enjo3'ed  largely  the 
bounty  and  official  patronage  of  the  Government,  and  had,  by 
repeated  oaths,  obligated  themselves  to  its  support,  with  sud- 
den ingratitude  for  the  bounty  and  disregard  of  their  solemn 
obligation,  engaged,  deliberately  and  ostentatiously,  in  the 
accomplishment  of  its  overthrow.    Many,  accustomed  to  defer 

522 


APPENDIX  B  523 

to  their  opinions  and  to  accept  their  guidance,  and  others,  car- 
ried away  by  excitement  or  over-awed  by  seditious  clamor,  ar- 
rayed themselves  under  their  banners,  thus  organizing  a  treas- 
onable power,  which,  for  the  time  being,  stifled  and  suppressed 
the  authority  of  the  Federal  Government. 

In  this  condition  of  affairs  it  devolved  upon  the  President, 
bound  by  his  official  oath  to  preserve,  protect  and  defend  the 
Constitution,  and  charged  by  the  law  with  the  duty  of  sup- 
pressing insurrection  and  domestic  violence,  to  resist  and  repel 
this  rebellious  force  by  the  military  arm  of  the  government, 
and  thus  to  reestablish  the  Federal  authority.  Congress, 
assembling  at  an  early  day,  found  him  engaged  in  the  active 
discharge  of  this  momentous  and  responsible  trust.  That 
body  came  promptly  to  his  aid,  and  while  supplying  him  with 
treasure  and  arms  to  an  extent  that  would  previously  have 
been  considered  fabulous,  they,  at  the  same  time,  with  almost 
absolute  unanimity  declared  "that  this  war  is  not  waged  on 
their  part  in  any  spirit  of  oppression,  nor  for  any  purpose  of 
conquest  or  subjugation,  nor  purpose  of  overthrowing  or  in- 
terfering with  the  rights  or  established  institutions  of  these 
States,  but  to  defend  and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the 
Constitution  and  to  preserve  the  Union  with  all  the  dignity, 
equality  and  rights  of  the  several  States  unimpaired ;  and  that 
as  soon  as  these  objects  are  accomplished,  the  war  ought  to 
cease."  In  this  spirit  and  by  such  cooperation,  has  the  Presi- 
dent conducted  this  mighty  contest,  until,  as  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Army,  he  has  caused  the  national  flag  again  to 
float  undisputed  over  the  capitol  of  our  State.  Meanwhile  the 
State  government  has  disappeared.  The  Executive  has  ab- 
dicated; the  Legislature  has  dissolved;  the  Judiciary  is  in 
abeyance.  The  great  ship  of  state,  freighted  with  its  precious 
cargo  of  human  interests  and  human  hopes,  its  sails  all  set, 
and  its  glorious  old  flag  unfurled,  has  been  suddenly  aban- 
doned by  its  officers  and  mutinous  crew,  and  left  to  float  at  the 
mercy  of  the  winds,  and  to  be  plundered  by  every  rover  upon 
the  deep.  Indeed  the  work  of  plunder  has  already  commenced. 
The  archives  have  been  desecrated ;  the  public  property  stolen 
and  destroyed;  the  vaults  of  the  State  Bank  violated,  and  its 


524  APPENDIX  B 

treasures  robbed,  including  the  funds  carefully  gathered  and 
consecrated  for  all  time  to  the  instruction  of  our  children. 

In  such  a  lamentable  crisis,  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  could  not  be  unmindful  of  its  high  constitutional  obli- 
gations to  guarantee  to  every  State  in  this  Union  a  republican 
form  of  government,  an  obligation  which  every  State  has  a 
direct  and  immediate  interest  in  having  observed  towards 
every  other  State;  and  from  which,  by  no  action  on  the  part 
of  the  people  in  any  State,  can  the  Federal  Government  be 
absolved.  A  republican  form  of  government,  in  consonance 
with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  is  one  of  the  funda- 
mental conditions  of  our  political  existence,  by  which  every 
part  of  the  country  is  alike  bound,  and  from  which  no  part 
can  escape.  This  obligation  the  national  government  is  now 
attempting  to  discharge.  I  have  been  appointed,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  the  regular  and  established  State  authorities,  as  Mili- 
tary Governor  for  the  time  being,  to  preserve  the  public 
property  of  the  State,  to  give  the  protection  of  law  actively 
enforced  to  her  citizens,  and,  as  speedily  as  may  be,  to  restore 
her  government  to  the  same  condition  as  before  the  existing 
rebellion. 

In  this  grateful  but  arduous  undertaking,  I  shall  avail  my- 
self of  all  the  aid  that  may  be  afforded  by  my  fellow-citizens. 
And  for  this  purpose,  I  respectfully,  but  earnestly  invite  all 
the  people  of  Tennessee,  desirous  or  willing  to  see  a  restoration 
of  her  ancient  government,  without  distinction  of  party-affilia- 
tions or  past  political  opinions  or  action  to  unite  with  me,  by 
counsel  and  cooperative  agency,  to  accomplish  this  great  end. 
I  find  most,  if  not  all  of  the  offices  both  States  and  Federal 
vacated  either  by  actual  abandonment,  or  by  the  action  of  the 
incumbents  in  attempting  to  subordinate  their  functions  to  a 
power  in  hostility  to  the  fundamental  law  of  the  State,  and 
subversive  of  her  National  allegiance.  These  offices  must  be 
filled  temporarily,  until  tlie  State  shall  be  restored  so  far 
to  its  accustomed  quiet,  that  tlie  people  can  peaceably  assem- 
ble at  the  ballot  box  and  select  agents  of  their  own  choice. 
Otherwise  anarcliy  would  prevail,  and  no  man's  life  or  prop- 
erty would  be  safe  from  the  desperate  and  unprincipled. 


APPENDIX  B  525 

I  shall,  therefore,  as  early  as  practicable,  designate  for 
various  positions  under  the  State  and  county  governments, 
from  among  my  fellow  citizens,  persons  of  probity  and  intelli- 
gence, and  bearing  true  allegiance  to  the  Constitution  and 
Government  of  the  United  States,  who  will  execute  the  func- 
tions of  their  respective  offices,  until  their  places  can  be  filled 
by  the  action  of  the  people.  Their  authority,  when  their 
appointments  shall  have  been  made,  will  be  accordingly  re- 
spected and  observed. 

To  the  people  themselves,  the  protection  of  the  Government 
is  extended.  All  their  rights  will  be  duly  respected,  and  their 
wrongs  redressed  when  made  known.  Those  who  tlii'ough  the 
dark  and  weary  night  of  the  rebellion  have  maintained  their 
allegiance  to  the  Federal  Government  will  be  honored.  The 
erring  and  misguided  will  be  welcomed  on  their  return.  And 
while  it  may  become  necessary,  in  vindicating  the  violated 
majesty  of  the  law,  and  in  re-asserting  its  imperial  sway,  to 
punish  intelligent  and  conscious  treason  in  liigh  places,  no 
merely  retaliatory  or  vindictive  policy  will  be  adopted.  To 
those,  especially,  who  in  a  private,  unofficial  capacity  have 
assumed  an  attitude  of  hostility  to  the  Government,  a  full  and 
complete  amnesty  for  all  past  acts  and  declarations  is  offered, 
upon  the  one  condition  of  their  again  yielding  themselves 
peaceful  citizens  to  the  just  supremacy  of  the  laws.  This  I 
advise  them  to  do  for  their  own  good,  and  for  the  peace  and 
welfare  of  our  beloved  State,  endeared  to  me  by  the  associa- 
tions of  long  and  active  years,  and  by  the  enjoyment  of  her 
liighest  honors. 

And  appealing  to  my  fellow-citizens  of  Tennessee,  I  point 
you  to  my  long  public  life,  as  a  pledge  for  the  sincerity  of  my 
motives,  and  an  earnest  for  the  performance  of  my  present  and 
future  duties. 

AsTJREw  Johnson. 


APPENDIX  C 

"For  nearly  three  years,  in  the  midst  of  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties the  most  complicated  and  perplexing,  I  have  earnestly 
labored  to  restore  the  state  to  its  former  proud  position  in  the 
Union.  My  constant  effort  has  been  to  save  it,  not  to  destroy 
it ;  but  the  rebellious  sentiment  of  the  people  often  interposed 
obstacles  which  had  to  be  overcome  by  military  power.  The 
task  was  painful,  but  the  duty  has  been  performed,  and  the 
result  has  passed  into  history.  Time,  I  am  happy  to  say,  has 
greatly  calmed  the  passions  of  the  people,  and  experience  re- 
stored them  to  reason.  The  folly  of  destroying  their  govern- 
ment and  sacrificing  their  sons  to  gratify  the  mad  ambition  of 
political  leaders  needs  no  longer  to  be  told  to  the  laboring 
masses.  The  wasted  estates,  ruined  and  dilapidated  farms, 
vacant  seats  around  the  hearthstone,  prostrate  business,  and 
even  life  itself,  everywhere  proclaim  it  in  language  not  to  be 
misunderstood. 

"But  all  is  not  lost.  A  new  era  dawns  upon  the  people  of 
Tennessee.  They  enter  upon  a  career  guided  by  reason,  law, 
order,  and  reverence.  The  reign  of  brute  force  and  personal 
violence  has  passed  away  forever.  By  their  own  solemn  act 
at  the  ballot-box,  the  shackles  have  been  formally  stricken 
from  the  limbs  of  more  than  275,000  slaves  in  the  State.  The 
unjust  distinctions  in  society,  fostered  by  an  arrogant  aris- 
tocracy, based  upon  human  bondage,  have  been  overthrown, 
and  our  whole  social  system  reconstructed  on  the  basis  of 
honest  industry  and  personal  worth.  Labor  shall  now  receive 
its  merited  reward,  and  honesty,  energy,  and  enterprise  their 
just  appreciation.  Capital,  heretofore  timid  and  distrustful 
of  success,  may  now  confidently  seek  remunerative  and  profit- 
able investments  in  the  State.  Public  schools  and  colleges 
begin  anew  their  work  of  instruction  upon  a  broader  and  more 
enduring  basis.    The  foundations  of  society,  under  the  change 

620 


APPENDIX  C  527 

in  the  constitution,  are  in  harmony  with  the  principles  of  free 
government  and  National  Union ;  and  if  the  people  are  true  to 
themselves,  true  to  the  State,  and  loyal  to  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, they  will  rapidly  overcome  the  calamities  of  the  war, 
and  raise  the  State  to  a  power  and  grandeur  not  heretofore 
even  anticipated.  Many  of  its  vast  resources  lie  undiscovered, 
and  it  requires  intelligent  enterprise  and  free  labor  alone  to 
develop  them  and  clothe  the  State  with  a  richness  and  beauty 
surpassed  by  none  of  her  sisters." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

MANUSCRIPT    COLLECTIONS    OF    SOURCES 

Johnson  Manuscripts^  in  the  Library  of  Congress ;  covering  the 
years  1831-1875.  Purchased  in  1904;  15,000  separate 
pieces  in  more  than  225  bound  volumes.  A  storehouse  of 
events  and  opinions  as  presented  by  all  classes.  Johnson's 
rehabilitation  is  no  doubt  due  to  this  unexpurgated  collec- 
tion. Consult  the  Report  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  for 
the  year  ending  June  30,  1904,  for  further  information. 

In  the  Library  of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

In  the  Hall  of  History,  Raleigh,  N.  C.  These  include  ma- 
terial relating  to  Johnson's  parentage,  early  years,  and 
apprenticeship. 

• In  the  Library  of  The  Tennessee  Historical  Society  and  in 

the  Carnegie  Library  at  Nashville. 

A    private    collection    of    Andrew    Johnson    Patterson    at 

Greeneville,  Tenn.,  consisting  of  old  scrap  books,  clippings, 
newspaper  files,  and  personal  memoranda  relating  to  politics. 

Blacky  J.  S.y  Manuscripts;  in  the  Library  of  Congress.  Deal 
largely  with  the  Impeachment  and  the  Credit  Mobilier  affair. 

Chase,  S.  P.,  Diaries  and  Correspondence ;  in  the  Library  of  Con- 
gress, 141  bound  volumes. 

Holt,  Joseph,  Manuscripts;  in  the  Library  of  Congress.  These 
relate  to  the  trial  of  Mrs.  Surratt  and  the  labors  of  Judge 
Advocate  Holt. 

Nelson,  T.  A.  R.,  Manuscripts;  in  the  Lawson  McGhee  Library, 
Knoxville,  Tenn. 

Sumner,  Charles,  Manuscripts;  in  the  Library  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. 

Young y  John  Russell,  Manuscripts;  in  the  Library  of  Congress. 

PRINTED    COLLECTIONS    OF    SOURCES 

American  Annual  Cyclopedia.  N.  Y.  1861-1875.  Important 
public  events,  not  otherwise  available  for  the  ordinary 
reader,  recorded. 

Fleming,  W.  L.  Documentary  History  of  Reconstruction. 
New  Haven,  Conn.     1907.     A  useful  publication. 

629 


530  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hart,  A.  B.  American  History  Told  hy  Contemporaries.  N.  Y. 
1897-1901.  Contains  numerous  excerpts  from  public  and 
private  papers,  throwing  light  on  this  period. 

MacDonald,  William.  Documentary  Source  Book  of  American 
History.  N.  Y.  1912.  Contains  copious  notes  referring 
to  Congressional  proceedings  and  to  Supreme  Court  de- 
cisions. 

McPherson,  Edward.  The  Political  History  of  the  United  States 
During  Reconstruction.  Wash.  1875.  A  reprint  of  Mc- 
Pherson's  Political  Manuals  from  1866  to  1870. 

Moore,  Frank.    Rebellion  Record.    N.  Y.     1861-1868.  11  vols. 

Political  Textbook  for  1860.    N.  Y.    1860. 

Stanwood,  Edward.  A  History  of  the  Presidency.  Bost.  1898. 
Contains  party  platforms  and  popular  and  electoral  vote. 

PUBLIC    DOCUMENTS 

Congressional  Globe,  after  March  4,  1873,  Congressional  Record. 
Congressman  Johnson's  record  in  the  28th,  29th,  30th,  31st 
and  32nd  Congresses  (1843-1853),  and  Senator  Johnson's 
in  the  35th,  36th,  and  37th  Congresses  (1857-1862),  and  in 
the  40th  Congress  (1875),  are  here  set  out. 

Executive  Documents,  Reports  of  Committees,  and  Miscellaneous 
Documents  of  Senate  and  House.  In  the  order  named,  these 
contain  information  submitted  to  the  houses  by  the  Presi- 
dent, the  reports  made  to  the  various  committees,  and  a 
wide  range  of  matters  investigated,  including  testimony 
taken  by  investigating  committees  on  the  affairs  of  the  South 
and  on  President  Johnson's  management  of  the  government. 

Richardson,  J.  W.  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents. 
House  Miscellaneous  Documents,  53rd  Congress,  22nd  Sess. 
210.  Wash.  1897.  The  messages,  proclamations,  and  ex- 
ecutive orders  of  Johnson  and  Grant  are  here  compiled. 

Trial  of  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States.  Wash. 
Government  Printing  Office.     1868. 

Supreme  Court  Reports  of  the  United  States.  Our  period  is 
covered  by  the  reports  from  the  3rd  Wallace  to  4th  Otto, 
inclusive;  or,  according  to  numbers,  from  the  60th  volume 
of  the  reports  to  the  94th.  Myers  vs.  United  States,  U.  S.  R. 
272,  52  (decided  in  1926)  is  the  most  important  case  in 
our  study  of  the  impeachment  and  trial  of  the  President. 

Tennessee  Senate  Journals  and  House  Journals.  Sessions 
1835-36,  1839-40,  1841-42,  1853-54,  1855-56.  While  John- 
son was  Military  Governor  in  1862,  1863,  and  1864,  there 
was  no  Union  Legislature  in  Tennessee. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  531 

United  States  Statutes  at  Large,  XIV  to  XIX,  and  the  abridge- 
ment, Revised  Statutes  of  the  United  States  (2nd  ed.  1878). 
These  laws  and  the  public  documents  connected  with  them 
are  indispensable  to  an  understanding  of  Johnson's  admin- 
istration. 

United  States  War  Department.  Rebellion  Records  of  the  Union 
and  Confederate  Armies.     Wash.     1880-1901. 

CONTEMPORARY    PAMPHLETS    AND    NEWSPAPERS 

Pamphlets:  Addresses,  National  Johnson  Club,  Documents  1  and 
2,  1866. 

An  Account  of  a  Mass  Meeting  of  the  Citizens  of  New  York  ap- 
proving Johnson's  policy.     1866. 

Andrew,  John  A.  Address  to  the  Massachusetts  Legislature, 
1866. 

Beecher,  H.  W.     Two  Letters  on  Reconstruction,  1866. 

Comitatus,  Zedekiah.     Reconstruction  on  My  Policy.     1866. 

Crosby,  A.     Phi  Beta  Kappa  Address  at  Dartmouth,  1865. 

Curtis,  G.  W.    Ad  Interim  and  Ad  Outerim.     1868. 

Forney,  J.  W.     Biographical  Sketch  of  Andrew  Johnson.     1864. 

Gasparin,  Count  de.     Loyal  Publication  Society,  No.  87.     1865. 

Hallett,  B.  F.    A  Speech  before  the  Baltimore  Convention.    1860. 

Holt,  Joseph.  Vindication.  1872;  Reply,  1873;  and  Johnson's 
Reply  to  Holt's  Vindication  in  Washington  newspapers  of 
Sept.  8,  1872.  A  vast  quantity  of  material  on  the  Surratt 
trial  is  in  the  Library  of  Congress. 

Ingersoll,  E.  C.     Reconstruction  and  Andrew  Johnson.     1866. 

Johnson,  Andrew.    Letter  to  Constituents,  October  15,  1845. 

Inaugural  Addresses,  1853-55.     In  the  Public  Library  at 

Nashville,  Tenn. 

Address  to  the  Tennessee  Agricultural  Society.     Nashville, 

1875. 

Address  on  the  Political  Issues.     Nashville,  1859. 

McCutcheon,  E.     Swinging  Round  the  Circle.     1868. 

National  Union  Convention  at  Philadelphia.     1866. 

"Old  Andy,"  "My  Policy,"  "Saint  Andy,  the  Apostate,"  "R.  I.  P. : 
Hie  Jacet  Impeachment,  Requiescat  in  Pace,"  "George 
Washington's  Lost  Birthday,"  and  other  ridiculous  pamph- 
lets are  in  the  Library  of  Congress. 

Poole,  John.     A  Political  Address.     March,  1867. 

Schieffelin,  S.  B.     The  President  and  Congress.  1867. 

Sumner,  Charles.     The  One  Man  Power  vs.  Congress.     Oct.  1866. 

The  Great  Impeachment  Trial,  a  popular  account.     1866. 

The  Tailor  Boy.    1865. 


532  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Newspapers:  Joneshoro  Whig,  later  Knoxville  Whig,  W.  G. 
Brownlow,  editor.  Opposed  Johnson  from  1843  to  Dec. 
1860.  Congress  has  just  acquired  the  Joneshoro  Whig 
from  May  6,  1840,  to  April  19,  1849  (9  vols.),  and  the 
Knoxville  Whig  from  1849  to  1862. 

Memphis  Daily  Eagle,  Whig,  also  assailed  him.  See  issues  of 
July  13  and  22,  1853. 

Republican  Banner,  Whig,  likewise  opposed  Johnson  (Oct.  10, 
1853).  The  campaigns  of  1853,  1855,  1857,  and  1859,  con- 
ducted in  June,  July,  and  the  early  part  of  August,  largely 
centered  around  Governor  Johnson  and  his  anti-Southern, 
plebeian,  and  labor  record. 

The  True  Whig,  also  assailed  Johnson.     See  July  7,  8,  20,  1853. 

Nashville  Union  and  American,  Democrat,  sustained  Johnson's 
policies  (April  29  and  May  5,  1853).  In  1860  when  John- 
son threw  in  his  fortunes  with  the  Union,  the  Democratic 
papers  of  Tennessee  and  the  South  deserted  him,  and  the 
Whig  papers  endorsed  him.  When  the  Civil  War  began, 
the  press  of  Tennessee  and  the  South,  both  Whig  and  Demo- 
crat, assailed  him. 

National   Intelligencer,   Washington,   was    President    Johnson's 
organ. 

Philadelphia  Press,  J.  W.  Forney,  editor,  was  favorable  to  John- 
son until  the  spring  or  summer  of  1865,  when  it  opposed  him. 

The  Ledger  was  also  in  opposition. 

Henry  J.  Raymond,  Editor  of  the  New  Yorh  Times,  advocated 
Johnson's  reconstruction  policy  and  thereby  lost  ground  to 
Horace  Greeley's  Tribune.  The  Evening  Post  was  friendly 
at  first,  but  was  afterwards  hostile.  The  Herald  stood  by 
the  President  until  he  went  down  in  defeat.  The  World, 
charged  with  being  a  "copperhead,"  denounced  Johnson  till 
the  summer  of  1865,  when  it  embarrassed  him  by  its  support. 
The  Nation,  E.  L.  Godkin,  was  critical  of  President  Johnson 
almost  from  the  first,  and  so  was  Harper^s  Weekly,  edited 
by  George  W.  Curtis.  Godkin,  Curtis,  and  Theodore  Tilton 
of  the  Washington  Independent  used  their  influence  to  nul- 
lify Johnson's  policy.  Thomas  Nast  in  Harper's  Weekly 
caricatured  him  without  mercy.  In  1866  and  1867  James 
Russell  Lowell,  in  the  the  North  American  Review,  by  ridi- 
cule, sought  to  make  Johnson  obnoxious. 

The  Tribune,  the  Springfield  Republican,  and  many  other  papers 
deserted  the  Republicans,  organized  a  new  party,  and  sup- 
ported Horace  Greeley  for  the  Presidency  in  1872.  On 
Sept.  8,  1872,  the  American,  of  Nashville,  gave  an  account 
of  Johnson's  connection  with  the  execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  533 

In  the  spring  of  1875,  Johnson  was  elected  to  the  Senate;  in 
July,  he  died ;  in  1877,  his  monument  was  unveiled ;  and  in 
1922,  the  tailor  shop  was  purchased  by  the  state;  at  these 
times  the  newspapers  of  Memphis,  Nashville,  Knoxville,  and 
Greeneville  carried  columns  about  the  runaway  apprentice 
boy,  the  mechanic  governor,  and  the  tailor  president.  The 
Greeneville  Intelligencer,  at  the  time  of  Johnson's  death  was 
edited  by  his  son,  Andrew.  It  collected  many  personal  inci- 
dents.    (The  Intelligencer  file  is  in  the  Patterson  collection.) 

DIARIES,    MEMOIRS,    AND    REMINISCENCES 

Andrews,  Sidney.    South  Since  the  War.    Bost.     1866. 

Blaine,    J.    G.     Twenty    Years    of    Congress.     Norwich,    Conn. 

1886.    Interesting,  but  untrustworthy. 
Boutwell,  G.  S.     Reminiscences  of  Sixty  Years  in  Public  Affairs. 

N.  Y.     1902.     A  partisan  publication. 
Brownlow,  W.  G.     Parson  Brownlow's  Book.     Phila.     1862. 
Butler,  B.  F.    Ben  Butler's  Book.    Bost.     1892. 
Private    and    Official    Correspondence.      Norwood,    Mass. 

1917. 
Clingman,  T.  L.    Speeches  and  Writings.     Raleigh.     1877. 
Cox,  S.  S.     Three  Decades  of  Federal  Legislation.     Providence. 

1885.    A  plea  for  the  Democratic  Party. 
Craven,  J.  J.    Prison  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis.    N.  Y.    1905. 
Crooke,  W.  H.     Through  Five  Administrations.    N.  Y.     1910. 
Grant,  U.  S.    Personal  Memoirs.    N.  Y.     1885. 
Halstead,  Murat.     Caucuses  of  1860.     1860. 
Julian,  George  W.     Political  Recollections.     Chicago.     1884. 
Lamon,  W.  H.    Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln.    Wash.    1911. 
Locke,  D.  R.     (Petroleum  V.  Nasby)  Ekkoes  from  Kentucky:  A 

Perfect  Reminder  uv  the  Dimocricy  Doorin   the  Eventful 

Year  1867.    Bost.    1899. 

Swinging  Round  the  Circle.     N.  Y.     1866. 

McCulloch,  Hugh.    Men  and  Measures  of  Half  a  Century.    N.  Y. 

1889. 
Morgan,  J.  M.    Recollections  of  a  Rebel  Reefer.    Bost.     1917. 
Olmsted,  F.  L.    A  Journey  to  the  Seaboard  Slave  States.    N.  Y. 

1857. 
Polk,  J.  K.    Diary.     Chicago.     1910. 

Poore,  Ben  Perley.    Perley's  Reminiscences.    Phila.     1866. 
Russell,  W.  H.    My  Diary  North  and  South.    Bost.     1863. 
Schofield,  J.  McA.    Forty-six  Years  in  the  Army.     N.  Y.     1897. 
Schurz,  Carl.    Reminiscences.    N.  Y.     1908. 


534  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Seward,  Fred  W.    Autobiography  of  W.  H.  Seward,  with  Memoir. 

N.  Y.    1877. 
Sheridan,  P.  H.  Personal  Memoirs.     N.  Y.     1888.     A  soldier's 

bluff  record. 
Sherman,  John.     Recollections  of  Forty  Years.     N.  Y.     1895. 

Interesting  and  generally  impartial. 
Sherman,  W.  T.    Memoirs.    N.  Y.     1891. 
Stephens,  A.  H.    Recollections  and  Diary.     N.  Y.     1910. 
Stewart,  W.  A.     Reminiscences.    N.  Y.     1908.    Unreliable. 
Watterson,  Henry.     "Marse  Henry."    N.  Y.     1919. 
Welles,  Gideon.     Diary.     Bost.      1911.     Though   biased  in   the 

President's  favor,  the  most  valuable  single  publication  in  a 

study  of  Andrew  Johnson.     3  vols. 
White,  A.  D.    Autobiography.    N.  Y.    1907. 
Wise,  J.  S.    Recollections  of  Thirteen  Presidents.    N.  Y.     1906. 

ARTICLES    IN    PERIODICALS 

Early  Love  Affair.     (G.  Rouquie)  Nat.  Mag.  (Bost.),  6:  63. 

Personal  Incidents.  (H.  S.  Turner)  Harper's,  120:168;  (W. 
H.  Crook)  Century,  76:653,  863;  (E.  V.  Smalley)  Indep., 
52:2152;  (J.  M.  Scovel)  Nat.  Mag.  (Bost.),  18:111;  (C. 
K.  Tuckerman)  M.  Am.  H.,  XX:  41 ;  (B.  C.  Truman)  Cen- 
tury, 85:  435;  (M.  Gardner)  Norm.  Instr.  and  Prim.  Plans, 
32:48;  (W.  M.  Stewart)  Saturday  Evening  Post,  about 
1908  (vide  Stewart's  Reminiscences,  supra,  p.  195)  ;  (Carl 
Schurz)  McClure's,  29:494;  (George  Creel)  Collier's, 
78:23;  (C.  Nettles)  So.  Atl.  Quart.,  25:55.  The  fore- 
going are  popular  and  generally  sensational.  Some  are  not 
without  error.  Cf.  (W.  G.  Brownlow)  Taylor-Trotwood 
Magazine,  Sept.,  1908;  (R.  M.  Barton)  Memphis  Com. 
Appeal,  Nov.,  1926;  (J.  H.  Malone)  Current  Hist.,  26:7; 
(J.  Chambers)  Harper's  Weekly,  48:  1356;  (W.  E.  Horner) 
Carolina  Mag.,  51:17;  (W.  G.  Moore)  "Notes,"  Am.  Hist. 
Rev.,  XIX:  103. 

The  Homestead.  (T.  J.  Middleton)  Sewanee  Review,  15:316; 
(St.  George  L.  Sioussat)  Miss.  Val.  Hist.  Rev.  5,  No.  3:  253. 
This  article  is  of  great  historical  value. 

Execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt.  (Joseph  Holt)  No.  Am.  Rev.,  July, 
1888,  and  April,  1890. 

Impeachment.  (E.  I.  Sears)  Indep.,  117:545;  Nat.  Quar., 
16:373;  17:144;  (E.  L.  Godkin)  Nation,  3:310;  4:170; 
175,  214;  6:  184,  404;  (W.  F.  Allen)  Nation,  6:  490;  F.  A. 
Burr)  Lippincott's,  63:512;  (G.  S.  Boutwell)  McClure's, 
14: 171 ;  (E.  G.  Ross)  Forum,  19:  595;  (E.  G.  Ross)  Scrib- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  535 

ner's,  11:519;  (F.  T.  Hill)  Harper's,  113:827;  (Carl 
Schurz)  McClure's,  31:145;  (D.  M.  DeWitt)  Indep. 
55: 1812;  (DeWitt's  magazine  articles  are  now  in  book  form, 
supra);  (W.  W.  Boyce)  DeBow,  1:16;  (G.  F.  Edmunds) 
Cent.,  85:863;  (D/y.  Thomas)  Am.  Hist.  Rev.,  9:188 
(very  interesting)  ;  (L.  H.  Gipson)  Miss.  Val.  Hist.  Rev., 
2:  263  :  (W.  C.  Wilkinson)  Indep.,  63:  146;  Specially  (W.  A. 
Dunning)  in  Am.  Hist.  Assn.  Papers,  Vol.  IV,  Ft.  4,  p.  469. 
N.  Y.    1890. 

Charges  of  Plagiarism,  Bombast,  etc.  (J.  R.  Lowell)  N.  Am. 
Rev.,  102:  530  (Cf.  Parrington,  V.  L.,  Main  Currents,  vol.  2, 
pp.  460-470,  N.  Y.,  1927,  for  criticism  of  Lowell)  ;  (E.  L. 
Godkin)  Nation,  82:91;  (W.  A.  Dunning)  Am.  Hist.  Rev. 
XI,  No.  3:574.  Contra:  (C.  R.  Fish)  Am.  Hist.  Rev., 
11:951:  (M.  D.  Conway)  Fortn.  Rev.,  5:98;  and  specially 
(C.  Aldrich)  M.  Am.  Hist.,  25:  47. 

Defense  of  Johnson.  (D.  M.  DeWitt)  Puh.  So.  Hist.  Asso., 
8:437;  9:1,  71,  151,  213;  (James  Schouler)  Bookman, 
34:498;  Outlook,  82:69,  266;  (Gaillard  Hunt)  Cent., 
85:  421 ;  (Gideon  Welles)  AtL,  105:  697,  815;  106:  78,  238, 
388,  537,  680,  818:  (George  Baber)  N.  Am.  Rev.,  145:69; 
(J.  M.  Schofield)  Cent.,  32:576:  (John  B.  Henderson) 
Cent.,  85:199;  and  specially  the  three  following:  (St. 
George  L.  Sioussat)  An.  Report  of  Am.  Hist.  Asso.,  1914, 
vol.  i,  245;  (J.  G.  deRoulhac  Hamilton)  Proc.  State  Lit.  and 
Hist.  Asso.  of  N.  C,  1915:  65;  and  Dearborn  Independent, 
Feb.  and  Mch.,  1927;  (M.  S.  Gerry)  Cent.,  Nov.  and  Dec, 
1927. 

Policy  of  Andrew  Johnson.  (E.  P.  Whipple)  Atl.,  18:  875;  (C. 
Mackav)  Fortn.  Rev.,  4:477;  New  England,  25:711; 
Frazer,  75:243;  Nation,  2:422;  (C.  E.  Norton)  N.  Am. 
Rev.,  102:  250;  (W.  G.  Moore)  Am.  Hist.  Rev.,  19:  98;  (G. 
S.  Boutwell)  N.  Am.  Rev.,  141:570  (a  fierce  attack);  (L. 
H.  Gipson)  Miss.  Val.  Hist.  Rev.,  2:363;  (C.  Nettles)  So. 
Atl.  Quar.,  25:55;  (B.  J.  Ramage)  So.  Atl.  Quar.,  1:2; 
(M.  H.  Albjerg)  So.  Atl.  Quar.,  Oct.,  1927. 

BIOGRAPHIES    AXD    BIOGRAPHICAI.    SKETCHES    OF    JOHNSON 

Bacon,  George  W.  Life  and  Speeches  of  Andrew  Johnson.  Lon- 
don. 1865.  An  Englishman's  concise  estimate,  together 
with  Johnson's  earlier  speeches. 

Cowan,  Frank.  Andrew  Johnson;  Reminiscences  of  His  Private 
Life  and  Character.  Greensburg,  Pa.  1894.  An  account  of 
President  Johnson's  life  in  the  White  House  by  an  official. 


536  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Foster,  Lillian.  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States, 
N.  Y.  1866.  Introductory  chapter  of  some  fifty  pages  with 
speeches  and  addresses. 

Hall,  Clifton  R.  Andrew  Johnson,  Military  Governor  of  Ten- 
nessee. Princeton.  1916.  An  interesting  and  accurate 
account  of  Military  Governor  Johnson's  record. 

Jones,  J.  S.  Life  of  Andrew  Johnson.  Greeneville,  Tenn.  1901. 
The  only  Life  since  Johnson  was  President,  poorly  written 
by  an  unpracticed  hand. 

Life  and  Character  of  Andrew  Johnson,  Memorial  Addresses. 
Wash.     1876. 

Life,  Speeches,  and  Services  of  Andrew  Johnson.  Phila.  1865. 
This  anonymous  publication  appeared  when  Johnson  was  a 
popular  favorite. 

Moore,  Frank.     Life  and  Speeches  of  Andrew  Johnson.     Bost. 

1865.  The  introductory  chapter  is  useful  and  the  addresses 
well  selected. 

Rayner,  Kenneth.     Life  and  Times  of  Andrew  Johnson.     N.  Y. 

1866.  The  bombastic  and  laudatory  work  of  a  Southern 
Union  Whig. 

Savage,  John.  Life  and  Public  Services  of  Andrew  Johnson. 
N.  Y.  1866.  Partial  and  lacking  in  historical  value; 
serviceable,  however,  because  the  author  conferred  with  the 
President, 

BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES 

Appleton's  Cyclopedia,  III:  436,  article  "Andrew  Johnson,"  illus- 
trated. 

Ashe,  S.  A.  Biographical  History  of  North  Carolina,  article 
"Andrew  Johnson,"  IV:  228.  Greensboro,  N.  C.  1895. 
Ashe  is  a  North  Carolina  historian. 

Battle,  K.  P.  The  Early  History  of  Raleigh.  Raleigh,  N.  C. 
1893.  Battle  was  President  of  the  University  of  North 
Carolina. 

Battle,  R.  H.  Library  of  Southern  Literature,  VI:  2719.  New 
Orleans,  1907.  R.  H.  Battle  was  President  of  the  North 
Carolina  Literary  and  Historical  Association. 

Clark,  Champ.  Richardson's  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presi- 
dents.   Introductory  chapter,  "Andrew  Johnson." 

New  International  Encyclopedia,  "Andrew  Johnson,"  XII :  736. 

Sioussat,  George  St.  L.  "Andrew  Johnson  and  Early  Phases  of 
the  Homestead."  Miss.  Val.  Hist.  Rev.,  V.  No.  3 :  253.  An 
excellent  study  by  a  practiced  hand,  covering  much  of  John- 
son's career,  besides  his  homestead  record. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  537 

Swain,  D.  L.  "Early  Times  in  Raleigh,"  and  "A  Memorial  Ad- 
dress on  Jacob  Johnson,"  Raleigh,  N.  C.  1867.  Swain's 
addresses  are  by  a  contemporary  of  Johnson  and  furnish  the 
best  understanding  of  the  lad  before  leaving  North  Carolina 
and  of  his  father,  Jacob  Johnson.  Swain  was  President  of 
the  University  and  also  an  antiquarian. 

The  National  Cyclopedia  of  American  Biography.  II,  454. 
"Andrew  Johnson."  This  article  (1921)  is  fair  and  dis- 
criminating, as  are  nearly  all  modern  estimates  of  Johnson. 
Cf.  Enc.  Brit.,  Enc.  Amer.,  and  Studies  in  History,  Eco- 
nomics, and  Public  Law,  edited  by  the  faculty  of  Political 
Science  of  Columbia  University  covering  the  reconstruction 
period. 

Wheeler,  J.  H.     Reminiscences.    Columbus,  0.     1884. 

GENERAL    BIOGRAPHICAL    AND    HISTORICAL    WORKS 

Barnes,  W.  H.  History  of  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress.  N.  Y. 
1868. 

Beard,  C.  A.  and  ]\I.  R.  The  Rise  of  American  Civilization. 
N.  Y.     1927. 

Bowers,  Claude  G.  The  Party  Battles  of  the  Jackson  Period. 
Bost.     1925. 

Burgess,  John  W.  Reconstruction  and  the  Constitution.  N.  Y. 
1902. 

Chadsey,  C.  E.  The  Struggle  between  President  Johnson  and 
Congress  over  Reconstruction.     N.  Y.     1896. 

Cole,  A.  C.     Whig  Party  in  the  South.    Wash.     1913. 

Curtis,  W.  E.  Life  of  Zachariah  Chandler.     N.  Y.     1879. 

Davis,  Jefferson.  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment.    N.  Y.     1881.     Controversial  and  disappointing. 

DeWitt,  David  Miller.  Impeachment  and  Trial  of  Andrew  John- 
son. N.  Y.  1903.  Despite  its  restricted  title,  deals  inter- 
estingly and  dramatically  with  many  other  phases  of  John- 
son's life. 

The  Assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Its  Expiation. 

N.  Y.    1909. 

Dodd,  W.  E.    The  Cotton  Kingdom.    New  Haven,  1921. 

Dunning,  W.  A.  Reconstruction:  Political  and  Economic.  N.  Y. 
1907. 

Essays  on  the  Civil  War  and  Reconstruction.    N.  Y.     1908. 

Dunning  is  favorable  to  Johnson,  though  often  critical  and 
semi-humorous. 

Fertig,  J.  W.  The  Secession  and  Reconstruction  of  Tennessee. 
Chicago.    1898. 


538  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Fessenden,  Francis.  Life  and  Public  Service  of  William  Pitt  Fes- 

senden.    Bost.     1907. 
Flack,  H.  E.     Adoption  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.     Bait. 

1908. 
Ficklen,  J.  R.     History  of  Reconstruction  in  Louisiana.     Bait. 

1910. 
Fleming,  W.  L.     Reconstruction  of  the  Seceded  States.    Albany. 

1905. 
The  Sequel  of  Appomattox.    New  Haven.     1919.    Professor 

Fleming's  works  are  of  high  value. 
Foulke,  W.  D.     Life  and  Public  Service  of  Oliver  P.  Morton. 

Indianapolis,  1899. 
Garner,  J.  W.     Reconstruction  in  Mississippi.    N.  Y.     1901. 
Garrett,  W.  R.  and  Goodpasture,  A.  V.     History  of  Tennessee. 

Nashville.     1900. 
Gorham,  G.  C.     Life  and  Public  Services  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton. 

Bost.     1899. 
Greeley,  Horace.    The  American  Conflict.    Hartford.     1866. 
Guild,  Jo.  C.     Old  Times  in  Tennessee.     Nashville.     1878. 
Hale,  W.  T.,  and  Merritt,  D.  L.     Hist,   of  Tenn.     Nashville. 

1913. 
Hamilton,  J.  G.  deR.    Reconstruction  in  North  Carolina.    N.  Y. 

1914*. 
Hamlin,  C.  E.    Life  and  Times  of  Hannibal  Hamlin.    Cambridge. 

1898. 
Hart,  A.  B.    Salmon  Portland  Chase.    Bost.     1899. 
Helper,  H.  R.     The  Impending  Crisis.    N.  Y.     1857.    An  epoch- 
making  book,  more  statistical  and  political  than  historical. 
Herbert,  H.  A.     Why  the  Solid  South?     Bait.     1890.     A  par- 
tisan, but  graphic,  picture  of  reconstruction  days. 
Hill,  F.  T.    Decisive  Battles  of  the  Law.     "The  Impeachment  of 

Andrew  Johnson,  a  Historical  Moot  Court."     N.  Y.     1917. 
Hodgson,  J.    The  Cradle  of  the  Confederacy.    Mobile.     1876. 
Hollister,  O.  J.    Life  of  Schuyler  Colfax.     N.  Y.     1887. 
Hoist,  Hermann  E.  von.     Constitutional  History  of  the  United 

States.     Chicago.     1876. 
Hosmer,  J.  K.     The  Outcome  of  the  Civil  War.    N.  Y.    1907. 
Howe,  D.  W.    Political  History  of  Secession.    N.  Y.    1914. 
Humes,  T.  W.     Loyal  Mountaineers  of  Tennessee.     Knoxville, 

1888. 
Ingle,  Edward.     Southern  Side  Lights.     Bost.     1896. 
Kendrick,  B.  B.     The  Journal  of  the  Joint  Committee  of  Fifteen 

on  Reconstruction.    N.  Y.     1914. 
Lamon,  Ward  H.     Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln.     Wash. 

1911. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  539 

Linn,  W.  A.    Horace  Greeley.     N.  Y.     1903. 

Logan,  J.  A.     The  Great  Conspiracy.    N.  Y.     1886.    A  partisan 

plea. 
Mason,  E.  C.     The  Veto  Power.    Bost.  1891. 
McCarthy,   C.   H.      Lincoln's  Plan   of  Reconstruction.      N.   Y. 

1901. 
McClure,  A.  K.    Abraham  Lincoln  and  Men  of  War  Times.     3rd 

ed.    Phila.    1892. 
McDonald,  William.  Jacksonian  Democracy.     N.  Y.     1906. 
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1923. 
Nicolay,  J.  J.,  and  Hay,  John.  Abraham  Lincoln.     N.  Y.     1890. 
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Civil  War.    N.  Y.     1917.     Copious  footnotes. 
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1923. 
Reeve,  F.  A.     East  Tennessee  and  the   War  of   the  Rebellion. 

1902. 
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excellent. 
Robertson,  W.  J.    The  Changing  South.    N.  Y.     1927. 
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1913. 


INDEX 


Abolitionists,    in    Tenn.,    16;    admire 

J.,    72,    133;    honesty   of,    162;    at- 
tack Lincoln,  158 
Adams,  C.  F.,  on  J.,  173;   negotiates 

for  settlement  of  Alabama   claims, 

462 
Adams,  President,  relations  with  J., 

44-46 
Address  of  December  14,  1860,  163 
Aiken,  J.  F.,  defeated  by  J.,  42 
Alaska,  purchase  of,  460 
Aldrich,    Charles,    hears    J.'s    Union 

speech,   185 
Alta  Vela  affair,  433 
Aimes,    Oakes,    and    Credit    Mobilier, 

466 
Amnesty,      272;      Congress      deprives 

president   of    right   to   grant,   407 ; 

J.'s   unconditional,   479 
Anderson,    Major,    removes    to    Fort 

Sumter,  163,   175 
Andrew,   Governor,   sustains   J.,   334, 

374 
Andrew  Johnson,  Fort,  236 
Arkansas,    J.    vetoes    bill    to    admit, 

478,  479 
"Arm  in  Arm  Convention,"  353-357; 

J.'s  reply  to  committee,  357 
Army,  control  of,  J.  insists  on,  391 
Ashley,  J.  M.,  the  "scavenger,"  408; 

charges   J.   with   Lincoln's   murder, 

409-416;     disgraceful     conduct     of, 

410;    his    resolutions    to    impeach 

defeated,  415 
Assassins    of    Lincoln,    277-280;    Dr. 

Mudd    and    two    others    pardoned, 

289 
Atzerodt,  G.  A.,  assigned  to  murder 

J.,  279 

Baker,  Senator  and  Colonel,  reply  to 

Breckinridge,  209 
"Baker's   Detectives,"   409 
Baltimore     Union     Convention,     126; 
mob,  205,  255;   banquet  to  J.,  487 
Bancroft,    George,    prepares    J.'s    In- 
augural, 382 
Barksdale  and  his  bowie  knife,  109 
Barton,  R.  K,  writes  of  J.,  472-473 
Bastardy,  false  charges  of,  64 
Bayly,  Congressman,  tilt  with  J.,  49, 

73 
Beecher,    H.    W.,    approves    J.,    334; 
pleads  for  South,  335 


541 


Bell,  Senator,  controversy  with  J., 
92 

Benjamin,  Senator,  attacks  Douglas, 
125;  upbraided  by  J.,  177 

Benton,  Senator,  for  Homestead,   128 

"Bill,"  J.'s  slave,  103 

Bingham,  Judge,  on  Ben  Butler,  413; 
great  impeachment  speech,  448- 
449 

"Black  Codes,"  315,  317,  318,  379 

"Black-Friday,"   505 

Black,  J.  S.,  for  the  Union,  158; 
breach  with  J.,  433 

Blaine,  J.  A.,  praises  J.,  257;  his 
amendment,  396;  on  14th  amend- 
ment, 517 

Blair,  General,  unwise  advice,  352; 
"Brodhead  lettei',"  477;  advises 
Stanton's  removal,  363 

Blair,  Montgomery,  endorses  Gover- 
nor J,,  201 

Booth,  J.  W.,  kills  Lincoln  and  is 
killed  by  Sergeant  Corbett,  277 ; 
body  removed  by  Edwin  B.,  278; 
diary  suppressed,  283,  286 

Border  States,  the  nation's  bulwark, 
245,  247,  248,  255 

Boutwell,  Senator,  characterized, 
376-409;  "hole  in  the  air"  speech, 
443 

Branch,  Governor,  and  little  "Andy," 
473 

Breckinridge,  Senator,  calls  for  a 
rebuke  of  Lincoln,  208;  disunion 
speech,  209 

Bridge-burners,  219 

Bright,  Senator,  J.  excoriates,  215; 
expelled,  216 

Brittain,  Mayor,  welcomes  Pres.  J. 
home,  489 

Broderick,  Senator,  favors  and  J.  op- 
poses. Pacific  R.  R.,  91;  killed  by 
Terry,   173 

Brooks,  Jas.,  on  the  South,  308;  be- 
smirched, 466 

Brown,  John,  Raid,  108 

Brown,  Lazinka  C,  cordial  relations 
with  J.,  86 

Brown,  Neill  S.,  sustains  J.,  177,  354 

Brown,  W.  R.,  early  friend  of  J.,  13 

Brownlow,  "Parson,"  defeated  by  J., 
42;  charges  that  J.  is  an  infidel, 
50;  and  a  bastard,  64;  "floors" 
Yancey,    146;    cooperates    with    J. 


542 


INDEX 


for  union  and  saves  J.'s  life,  196; 
in  jail  and  "Whig"  destroyed,  197; 
falls  in  J.'s  arms,  230;    for  J.   for 
V.   Pres.,   256;    then   denounces   J., 
347,  369;  honest,  Radical,  espouses 
cause  of  Senter,  494;   elected  Sena- 
tor,   494;     continues    fight    on    J., 
496;  patronage  defeats  J.  for  Sen- 
ate, 496;   J.  defeats  at  last,  498 
Brownlow,  W.  H.,  befriends  J.,   196 
Browning,   Secretary   in   cabinet,   363 
Buchanan,   President,  J.  dislikes,  94; 
favors      Davis'      resolutions,      117; 
inept    message,    156;    cabinet    goes 
to  pieces,   157;   a  failure,  158,   174 
Buell,    General    and    E.    Tenn.,    218; 

removed  by  Lincoln,  235 
Butler,  B.  F.,  devises  scheme  to 
hang  Davis,  276 ;  a  demagogue, 
376;  attacks  Bingham,  413;  his  in- 
solence, 430-431 ;  sneers  at  the 
Chief  Justice,  436;  unprofessional, 
438;  Crook's  mistake,  440;  "apple 
blossom"  wine,  451;   cast-out,  505 

Cabinet,  J.'s,  goes  to  pieces,  363;  re- 
constructed and   sustains   him,  390 

Calhoun,  J.  C,  J.  disagrees  with, 
111;  reverses  himself  on  slavery, 
116 

Cameron,   Senator,  lauds  J.,   168 

Campbell,  Governor,  deserts  J.  and 
is  elected  Governor,  240;  Lincoln 
repudiates,  240;   sustains  J.,  354 

Campbell,  Sergeant,  kills  Morgan, 
250 

Carlotta,  Empress,  the  "mad  Queen," 
458 

Carthage,  N.  C,  in  1824,  home  of  J., 
11 

Cartter's,  Judge,  warrant  for  Gen. 
Thomas,   424 

Cass,  Lewis,  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet, 
resigns,   157 

Casso's  Inn,  where  J.  was  born,  3,  6 

Catholic  Church,  J.  admires,  102, 
476 

Caucus  of  Republicans,  308,  309,  336 

Chandler,  Zachariah,  his  radicalism, 
412 

Change  of  front,  J.'s,  273,  315,  320; 
explained,  327,  375 

Charleston,  S.  C,  Democratic  Con- 
vention of  1860,  120;  J.'s  name 
presented,  120;  on  slave  trade, 
123;  disrupted,  126;  Secession 
Convention,    162 

Chase,  Secretary,  friend  of  J.,  72; 
assists  J.  in  saving  Tenn.  to  the 
Union,  201 ;  rightly  estimates  J., 
308;  presides  at  impeaohment, 
429;  J.  at  his  reception,  430;  Rad- 


icals  charge   with   corruption,    453 

Chicago,    1868    Convention,   476 

Cholera,  J.  contracts,  498 

Civil  Rights  Act,  vetoed,  346;  uncon- 
stitutional, 348;  veto  overridden, 
348;  action  of  Congress  revolu- 
tionary,  349;    J.'s  views  on,  379 

Clark,  Senator,  resolutions  of,  177; 
lauds  J.,  210 

Clay,  Henry,  speaks  in  Nashville, 
34 

Clingman,  Senator,  duel  with  Yan- 
cey, 48;  clash  with  J.,  49;  quoted 
on  J.,   168 

Cobb,  Howell,  and  J.,  90 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  unscrupulous  radi- 
cal, 310;   besmirched,  466 

Colorado,  bill  vetoed,  346;  efforts  to 
admit,  411 

Committees  of  Thirteen,  156;  of 
Thirty-three,  163;  on  Conduct  of 
the  ^^ar,  215;  of  Fifteen,  "A  Cen- 
tral Directory,"  311;  character- 
ized, 326,  340 

Compromises  on  slavery,  in  Constitu- 
tion, 134;  Missouri,  116;  Henry 
Clay,    84;    Kansas-Nebraska,    114 

Confederacy   organized,    175 

Confederates  sent  to  U.  S.  Congress, 
387 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  defends  Milligau, 
412;  "turkey  gobbler  strut,"  504 

Conover.     See  Dunham 

Constitution,  The,  J.'s  chart,  145, 
325;   would  die  for,  346,  365 

Cooper,  Henry,  defeats  J.  for  Senate 
by  a  bargain,  496 

"Copperheads"  for  secession,  208-209; 
oppose  Lincoln  and  J.,  257,  477; 
embarrass   J.,   337 

Corwin,   Thomas,   J.   investigated,   53 

Covode,  John,  offers  impeachment 
resolutions,  422 

Cox,  S.  S.,  active  for  J.,  450 

Coyne,  J.  F.,  J.  visits,  484 

Craven,  Dr.,  quotes  Davis  on  J.,  100, 
note  8 

Credit  Mobilier,  466 

Crittenden,  Senator,  his  amendment, 
155;  rejected  by  Lincoln,  156;  and 
defeated,  do. 

Cuba,  fight  to  annex,  136 

Curtis,  Judge,  approves  J.'s  policy, 
347 ;   runs  Butler  to  cover,  443 

Davis,  Judge,  delivers  Milligan  opin- 
ion, 405 
Davis,  H.  W.,  attacks  Lincoln,  313 
Davis,  Senator,  tilt  with  J.,  50,  91, 
167;  on  nullification,  112;  charac- 
terized, 114;  for  secession,  do.; 
assails    Douglas,     126;     for    peace, 


INDEX 


543 


plus  secession,  161;  assails  J.,  167; 
withdraws  from  Senate,  do. ;  elected 
President  of  the  Confederacy,   175; 
in    prison,    274;     and    maltreated, 
275;    refuses   to  apply   for  pardon, 
do. ;   J.  would  have  hung.  do. 
Davis,  Mrs.  Jefferson,  thanks  J.,  275 
Davis   Resolutions,   aimed   at   J.   and 
Douglas,    113;    text  of,    116;    hood- 
winked J.,   117;   debated,   118;   dis- 
rupted Democratic  party,  124;  dis- 
rupted Union,  162 
Davis,  Reuben,  on  "Jeff"  Davis,  163 
"Democracy      and     Theocracy,"      J.'s 
dream,    24,    60;    "Jacob's    Ladder" 
metaphor,    78-79,    104,    171;    at   V. 
Pres.  J.'s  inaugural,  265,  297 
Democratic   Convention   of    1868,   J.'s 

name  presented,  476 
Dickens,  Charles,  on  J.,  474 
Dickinson,    Daniel    S.,    J.    defeats    in 

Baltimore  convention,  256 
District  of   Columbia,  Franchise  Act, 
Sumner's  pet,  407;  vetoed,  408;  re- 
pealed, 384 
Dix,    General,    presides    over    Union 

convention,   354 
Donalson,     Mrs.,     befriended     bv     J., 

473 

Doolittle,    Senator,   on   Slavery,    137; 

for  Union,  210;  with  J.,  333;  asks 

a  question,  401;  attacks  Wade,  411 

Douglas,   Senator,   J.   underestimates, 

54,  94;   Democrats  auitrue  to,   120; 

for  the  Union,  145 

Douglass,   Hugh,    Nashville  friend  of 

J.,  85 
Drake,  Senator,  a  Radical,  434 
Dred   Scott  Case,   115,  378,  307 
Drunkenness,  J.'s,  104,  234,  266,  277, 

371 
Dueling  and  Duels,  87-89,  93,  173 
Dunham,  corrupt  witness,  408 

East  Tennessee,  described,  15;  for 
Union,  200,  201 ;  during  the  war, 
220;   Could  it  have  been  held?,  235 

Edmunds,  Senator,  quoted  on  im- 
peachment,  453,   note 

Education,  J.  for,  79,  80,  82,  496 

Elector,  J.  an,  36 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  a  war 
measure.  245 

"Era  of  Disgrace."  during  Grant's 
administration,  480-481,  500 

Etheridge,  Emerson,  enters  Nash- 
ville with  Military  Gov.  J.,  222; 
deserts  J.,  240 

Evarts,  Secretary,  reply  to  Bout- 
well's  "hole  in  sky"  speech,  443- 
445;  in  J.'s  cabinet,  454;  letter  to 
J.'s   daughter,   449,   note 


Ewing,  Andrew,  for  J.  for  Governor, 

76 
Ewing,     General,     friendly     with    J., 

420;    sustains  J.,  340 

Farragut,  Admiral,  and  J.,  363 

Farewell  Address,  J.'s,  485 

Farwell,  Governor,  with  J.  night  of 
assassination,  267,  485-487 

Fenian,  movement,  463-464 

Fessenden,  Senator,  enters  the  debate 
for  the  Union,  209 ;  a  man  of  wis- 
dom,  311 

Fifteenth  Amendment,  adopted  by 
force,  402 

"Five-Twenties,"  payable  in  "cur- 
rency," J.  maintains,   468 

Floyd,  J.  B.,  in  Buchanan's  cabinet, 
cooperates  with  Secessionists,  159, 
175;  flees  from  Fort  Donelson,  221; 

Foote's  Resolutions,   110-128 

Foreign  and  domestic  policy,  457-468 

Forney.  J.  W.,  "the  dead,"  345;  and 
the  Alaska  scandal,  462 

Forrest.  General,  refuses  to  surren- 
der, 221;  attacks  Nashville,  229; 
Grand  Wizard,  492;  sustains  J., 
502 

Fourteenth  Amendment,  reported, 
349;  If  adopted  would  Radicals 
have  been  satisfied?,  350-392;  de- 
feated, 370-1;  up  again  and  J.  op- 
poses, 392;  adopted  and  analyzed, 
396;  Is  it  wholly-good?,  518;"  fur- 
ther  considered,   519 

Frankland,   J.'s   "free"   state,   35 

Freedmen's  Bureau  bill,  304 ;  vetoed. 
341 ;  Grant  assails  the  measure, 
316 

Fremont,  J.  C,  candidate  against 
Lincoln,   255 

Fugitive  Slave  laws  violated,  134, 
144,   1.55 

Garfield,  J.  A.,  "trying  not  to  be  a 
fool,"  376;  on  the  reconstruction 
bill,   395 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  attacks  Lincoln,  158 

Gentry,  M.  P.,  J.  defeats  and  canvass 
of,  69-72;  reluctantly  joins  seces- 
sion. 177 

"Georgia  Plan,"   158,   170 

Georgia  vs.   Stanton,  403 

Gerrymandered,  J.  out  of  Congress, 
42 

Giddings.  Joshua,  J.  sustains,  46; 
denounces  slavery  and  democracy, 
do. 

Gillem,  General,  in  E.  Tenn..   249 

Glenn,  S.  R.,  Herald  reporter  and 
Diarv.   231.   236-239 

"God  the  first  tailor,"  367 


544 


INDEX 


Grant,  General,  the  sledge-hammer, 
221,  222,  note;  "unconditional  sur- 
render," 223;  "report"  favorable 
to  South,  316;  on  tour  with  J., 
364;  Grant  and  J.,  296;  succeeds 
Stanton  and  breaks  faith  with  J., 
418;  turns  against  J.,  474-475;  J.'s 
kindness  to,  do.;  J.  finally  attacks, 
495 

Greeley,  Horace,  J.'s  friend,  44;  in- 
vites J.  to  speak,  133;  favors  peace- 
ful secession,  158;  denounces  J., 
355;  ridicules  his  policy,  358;  ap- 
proves J.'s  amnesty,  480 

Greonbacks,   J.   against,   468 

Greeneville  in  1826,  17;  J.  removes 
to,  14-16;  captured  by  J.'s  guards, 
248;    and  here  Morgan  killed,   250 

Greeneville  home  in  1868,  487;  J.'s 
reception  in  1869,  488-489 

Grimes,  Senator,  stands  with  Fes- 
senden,   450 

Groesbeck,  W.  S.,  defends  J.,  445 

Grundy,  Felix,  Whig  orator,  31,  59 

Gwin,  Senator,  and  J.,  92 

Eaheas  Corpus,  suspended  by  Lin- 
coln, 205 

Hale,  Senator,  a  Free  Soiler,  91;  for 
Homestead,  129;  Free  Soil  candi- 
date for  Pres.,  135;  doubtful  on 
coercing  South,  161 

Hall,  Judge,  fines  Jackson  for  con- 
tempt, 44;  J.  votes  to  refund  fine, 
45 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  at  J.'s  inaugural 
as  V.-pres.,  265;  writes  Pettis, 
255 

Hammond,  Senator,  father  of  "mud- 
sill"  expression,    4,    162 

Hampton,  General,  and  negro  suffrage, 
403 

Hancock,  General,  and  the  Surratt 
case,  282-284;  wise  Military  Gov- 
ernor, 404 

Harlan,  James,  on  J.'s  "Lane"  speech, 
186 

Harris,  Governor,  J.  aids,  84,  94; 
ridicules  J.,  105;  fails  to  make  J. 
a  secessionist,  150;  leader  in  se- 
cession, 193;  his  position,  194 

Haynes,  L.  C.,   defeated  by  J.,  42,  63 

Haywood,  Judge  John,   12 

Henderson,  General,  for  J.,  390 

Henderson,  Thos.,  life  saved  by 
Jacob  J.,  7 

Henry,  Gustavus,  J.  defeated  for 
Governor  and  canvass,  67-69,  75 

"Hermitage,"  Governor  J.  purchases, 
81 

Hicks.  Governor,  letter  to  J.,  ap- 
pendix 


Hill,  Dr.,  early  friend  of  J.,  6 

Holden,  Governor,  J.'s  appointee  de- 
feated, 392 

Holt,  Joseph,  in  Buchanan's  cabinet 
and  for  the  Union,  158 ;  prosecutes 
Lincoln's  assassins,  283;  attacked 
by  Butler  for  suppressing  Booth's 
diary,  283;  connection  with  per- 
jurers,  409 

Holtsinger,  J.  P.,  guards  J.,  199;  at 
Phila.,   354 

Homestead  measure,  J.  advocates, 
51;  J.,  as  governor,  80-81;  J. 
places  above  slavery,  110,  134;  de- 
structive of  slavery,  127;  Wigfall 
attacks,  129;  J.'s  speech  on,  132; 
and  in  New  York,   133 

Honesty  of  J.,  298,  299,  305,  340, 
484-485,  501-503 

Houston,  Sam,  J.'s  fondness  for,  54, 
94;    great   Unionist,    159 

Hubbard  of  Conn.,  wise  words  of,  423 

Human  side  of  J.,  83,  84,  85-86,  97, 
99,    106,    132,   295,   471-475 

"Immortal  Thirteen,"  32 
Impeachment,   405-427 ;   five  attempts 

fail,  516;  managers  of,  424;  eleven 

articles  analyzed,  425 
Independent.   J.    an,    31,   41,    52,    69; 

Avalks  to  inaugural,  75 ;  party  will 

not  endorse,   83,  91,   141,   149,   151, 

165-169,   .340 
Impending  Crisis,  107,   131,  515 
Inaugurals,  J.'s,  when  Governor,  75-79 
Iron  Clad  Oath,  J.'s,  258 
Iverson,      Senator,      "The     Terrible," 

threatens  Houston,  159,  160 

Jackson,  Andrew,  and  J.  contrasted, 
27,  28;  nullification,  28;  puts 
Judge  Hall  in  jail,  44;  is  fined 
.$1,000,    45 

"Jacob's  Ladder,"  77-79 

Jarnagan,    Senator,   Whig  leader,   36 

Johnson,  Andrew,  passim  and  see, 
chapter  headings ;  also  legislator, 
democracy,  independent,  religion, 
policy  of,  labor  party,  etc. 

Johnson,   Cave,   against   Giddings,   46 

Johnson,  Charles,  J.'s  son,  dissipated, 
96;   hunted  by  Confederates.  198 

Johnson,  Eliza,  described,  20,  106, 
292-294 

Johnson,  Jacob,  Andrew's  father,  1 ; 
rescues  Colonel  Henderson,  7; 
monument  to,  do. 

Johnson,  Mss.,  in  library  of  Con- 
gress, 27 

Johnson,  Reverdy,  speech  approving 
J.'s  policy,  357;  J.  relies  on  im- 
plicitly, 373;  ofl'crs  Blaine  Amend- 


INDEX 


545 


ment,  399;  asks  a  pertinent  ques- 
tion, 437;  Sumner's  tribute  to, 
462;  arranges  for  Johnson-Claren- 
don treaty,  463 

Johnson's  July  22,  1861,  resolutions, 
206-207,  331,  374,  388 

Johnson,  Robert,  J.'s  son,  93;  on 
Yancey,  125 ;  Colonel  of  Union  Regi- 
ment, 198-231;  Secretary  to  Presi- 
dent, 293;  death  of,  494 

Johnson,  William,  brother  of  An- 
drew, 11,  21;  denounces  Secession, 
etc,  168 

Jones,  G.  W.,  Democratic  Associate 
of  J.,  33,  94;  joins  Confederacy, 
145 

Jones,  "Lank  Jimmie,"  a  Whig 
"stumper,"   59 

Jones,  John,  a  Tennessee  recluse  of 
J.'s  adviser,  17 

Juarez,  President,  Mexican  Liberator, 
456 

Julian,  G.  W.,  for  abolition,  137 

Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  J.  endorses, 
84,   114 

King,  Preston,  advises  Stanton's  re- 
moval,  363;   death,   284 

"Know-Nothings,"  J.  attacks,  69- 
72 

Knoxville,  Lincoln  and  J.  would  hold, 
219;  seat  of  war,  241;  Rosecrans 
enters,  235 

Knoxville-Greeneville  Convention, 

197;  "East  Tennessee,"  a  new 
state  proposed,  199,  219,  241 

Ku  KJux  Klan,  organized,  492 

Labor  Party,  attracts  J.,  23,  34,  42; 
speech  for,  50,  52,  74,  168,  169, 
193,  252,  467 

Lamon,  W.  H.,  Lincoln's  partner, 
327;  J.'s  adviser,  353 

Lane,  Senator,  would  contest  Lin- 
coln's election  in  courts,  160;  as- 
sails J.,  168,  178 

Last  days,  506;  funeral  obsequies, 
507-509 

Lawrence,  Amos,  J.'s  connection 
with,  197,  201 

Leaders  in  Secession,  J.  severe  with, 
228,  275;  J.  denounces  "Jeff" 
Davis,  232 

Leady,  James,  Union  lad  causes  Mor- 
gan's death,  249 

Lecompton  Constitution,  J.'s  mis- 
take, 141 

Lee,  General,  follows  Va.,  194;  God- 
like at  Appomattox,  276;  endorses 
J.  and  applies  for  pardon,  276;  be- 
fore Committee  of  Fifteen,  319 

Legislator,  J.  a,  28-34 


Lincoln,  Abraham,  in  Congress  with 
J.,  43,  44;  Cooper  Union  speech, 
115;  elected  Pres.,  150;  opposes 
Crittenden  amendment,  156;  life  in 
danger  in  Baltimore,  puts  up  bold 
front,  173;  first  inaugural,  189; 
"cherished"  plan  to  hold  Tenn., 
200;  becomes  a  dictator,  205;  mes- 
sage to  special  session,  207,  208; 
must  hold  E.  Tenn.,  217-219;  puts 
J.  in  charge  of  amnesty,  239;  ad- 
vises J.  not  to  be  "put  down,"  241 ; 
Lincoln's  joke  on  Andy  and  the 
Parson,  248;  announces  terms  for 
admitting  rebel  states,  253;  se- 
lects J.  as  running  mate,  254-255; 
L.  praises  him,  259;  Johnson  at 
L.'s  death  bed,  267;  L.'s  "last  will 
and  testament,"  330,  332;  last 
cabinet  meeting,  333;  had  L.  lived, 
336 
Letters  of  1845  to  the  public,  65 
Litchford,  Jas.,  J.'s  early  friend,  9 
Louisiana      Plan,       Lincoln's,      253, 

313 
Lovejoy,   Owen,   denounces  the   Dem. 
party     and    slavery,     109;     is    set 
upon,   109,   110 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  warns  the  South,  345; 

ridicules  J.  and  Seward,  365 
Lowery,  William,  J.  befriends,  472 
Lundy,     Ben,     establishes     abolition 
paper  in  Greeneville,    16 

Manifesto  of  Dec,  14,  1860,  destroys 

Crittenden    Amendment,    174 
Mason,  Senator  and  Douglas,   118 
Maximilian   Emperor,   shot  by  order 

of  Juarez,  458 
Maynard,  Horace,  Union  Whig,  194; 

elected  to   Congress   in   1860,   217; 

for    J.    for    V.-pres.,    256;    defeats 

J.  for  Congress,  497 
McCardle  case,  406 
McClanahan,   J.    R.,   threatening    let- 
ter to  J.,  198 
McClellan,  General,  for  Pres.,  257 
McCulloch,    Secretary,   wise   financial 

policy,  465;  overruled  by  Congress, 

466;  J.  sustains,  467 
McDaniel,  Blackstone,   J.'s  only  inti 

mate,     17-18;     correspondence,    55 

66,  67;  for  the  union,  170,  177;  J 

befriends,  472 
McDougall,   Senator,   on  Wade,   385 

his  wise  utterance,  400 
Meigs,  Return  J.,  offers  shelter  to  J., 

201;   J.  befriends,  472 
Memphis,  Confederate  capital,  221 
Memphis  Riots,  361 
Messages  of  J.,  303,  374;  who  wrote, 

381-3,  402;  last  annual,  479 


546 


INDEX 


Methodist   Church,  demands  J.'s  im- 
peachment, 475 
Mexico  menaced  by  Europe,  455 
Miles,    General,    shackles    Davis,    275 
Military    Governors    in    South,    252, 

301 
Milligan  case,  395,  405 
Milligan,    Samuel,    J.'s    adviser,    19, 
37;  on  slavery,  135;  for  the  imion, 
170;   J.  befriends,  472 
Mississippi  vs.  Johnson,  403 
Moore,   B.   F.,   states    Southern  posi- 
tion, 338 
Morgan,  General,  killed,  249 
Morton,  Senator,  early  friendship  for 
J.,  235;   endorses  J.'s  policy,  347; 
changes  front,  376 
"Moses  speech,"  J.'s,  259-260,  497 
"Mud-sills,"  4,  137,  164,  193 
Myers  v.   U.   8.,   510  and  note;    dis- 
cussed, 511 

Napoleon  the  Third,  456-457 

Nashville  evacuated  by  Confederates, 
221 ;  Military  Governor  J.  occupies, 
222;  siege  of,  236-239;  battles  of, 
241 ;  union  convention  at,  242 

Nast,  Thomas,  and  his  cartoons,  358, 
367 

National  Debt,  465;  J.'s  error  herein, 
468;   J.  would  scale,  469 

National  Union  Party  nominates  Lin- 
coln and  J.,  256;  resolutions  of, 
257,  353 

Nationalization  of  the  United  States, 
J.  opposes,  326,  328,  402 

Nebraska  bill  vetoed,  346 

Negley,  General,  defends  Nashville, 
238 

Negroes,  J.  favors  voluntary  coloni- 
zation of,  252;  J.  would  aid,  303; 
"Colonization"  adopted  by  Con- 
gress,  334;    Agassiz   discusses,   516 

Negro  Suffrage,  J.  on,  334;  favors  re- 
ducing electoral  vote  of  South, 
337;  to-day,  379;  J.  and  General 
Lee  favored,  403;  a  pet  of  the  rad- 
icals, 407 

Nelson,  T.  A.  R.,  stumps  for  the 
Union,  194;  elected  to  Congress 
and  captured,  217;  reply  to  Butler, 
447 

New  Orleans  Riot,  358 

New  York  to  be  free  city  like  Venice, 
158 

Nicholson,  Senator,  stands  in  with 
J.,  94;  fails  to  make  J.  a  Seces- 
sionist, 150 

North  Carolina's  reconstruction 
"plan,"  385 

Nullification,  Calhoun,  Davis  and 
Johnson  on,  111-112 


O'Bierne,  Major,  with  J.  at  Lincoln's 

death  bed,  267 
"Ohio  Idea,"  advocated  by  Sherman, 
Logan,    Morton,    and    others,    468; 
Republican    party    straddles,    468; 
Democratic  party  goes  to,  469 
O'Neil,  Annie,  lurking  to  kill  J.,  483 
Oratory  in  Tennessee,  60,  61,  75 
Oregon,    J.   votes   to   admit   and   en- 
rages   the    South,    46;    his    speech 
on,  47,  48 
Orgy  of  speculation,  466-468 

Panic  of  1867.  466 
Pardons  freely  granted,  272 
Park,  Jno.,   J.'s  abolition  friend,  199 
Patterson,  D.  T.,  J.'s  son-in-law,  97; 

letter  from  J.,   120;   in  jail,   198 
Patterson,  Martha,  J.'s  daughter  and 

favorite,  97,  292-293 
Pepper,  Judge,  and  J.  exchange  gifts, 

83 
Personal  appearance  of  J.,  56,  99 
Perry,    Governor,    embarrasses    Pres. 

J.,  301 
Personal   Liberty    Laws,   repealed   in 

the  North,  155 
Pettis,    Judge,    letter    from    Hamlin, 

255 
Peyton,  Bailie,  for  the  Union,  232 
Phillips,    Wendell,    attacks    Lincoln, 

158,  and   J.,  315,  333 
"Plain  people  from  Tennessee,"  294-5 
Polk,  President,  and  J.  do  not  agree, 

53 
Polk,  W.  H.,  cooperates  with  J.,  224 
Policy   of   J.,    same   as   Lincoln,   268, 

269,    272,    305-307;    endorsed,    320- 

325,    329-330;    sustained   by   Union 

generals,    340,    364;     sustained    by 

Supreme  Court,  510-511;  discussed, 

512-51.5. 
"Poor  Whites,"  6,  220 
Porter,  General,  prosecuted  by  Holt, 

281 
Potter,    Dave,    Union    scout    and    J., 

491 
Potter  of   Wisconsin,  accepts  Prior's 

challenge,   173 
Prior,     General,     challenges     Potter, 

109;    attacks   Lovcjoy,    109-110 
Property  rights,  J.  advocates,  57,  133 
Pugh,  Senator,  speech  at  Charleston, 

123 

Queen    Emma    visits    White    House, 
297 

Raleigh,  N.  C,  J.'s  birth-place,  1;  in 

1S08,  4 
rviirulall,   Secretary,  363;    J.'s  leader, 

353 


INDEX 


54n 


Eaymond,  H.  J.,  handicapped  by  Cop- 
perheads, 337;  his  speech,  339; 
resolutions  of,  356 

Reade,  E.  W.,  president  union  con- 
vention, 319 

"Rebels,"  V.-pres.  J.  threats  against, 
266;  hated  at  North,  314,  315;  J. 
attacks,  495 

Reconstruction,  Presidential,  326 

Religion,  J.  professed  none,  101,  102; 
inclines   to  Catholics,  476 

Radical  Party,  South,  352 

Reconstruction,  the  Great,  377,  390; 
veto  of,  404;  overturned  by  Su- 
preme Court,  510-511 

Republican  Party,  in  danger,  328; 
injustice  to,  337,  365;  in  South 
to-day,   380 

Rhea  Academy,  20,  102 

Rhett,  R.  B.,  the  leader  for  Seces- 
sion,  122,   162 

Rhodes,  J.  F.,  unfair  to  J.,  371 

Rosecrans,  General,  enters  Knoxville, 
235 

Ross,  Senator,  "a  skunk,"  450-453 

Rush,  Benj.,  applauds  J.,  186 

Russia,  sells  Alaska,  460-2 

Rutledge,  Tenn.,  in  1826  and  1827, 
J.'s  home,   14 

St.  Thomas,  Seward  arranges  to  pur- 
chase, 459 

Sailors'  and  Soldiers'  Convention, 
362 

"Sam,"  a  slave  of  J.,  103 

Saulsberry,  Senator,  on  Reconstruc- 
tion, 401 

Schouler,  James,  quoted,  347 

Schurz,  General,  his  vagaries  and 
ridicule  of  J.,  233;  repudiates  "Re- 
port," 315-316;  repudiates  Grant, 
316 

Secession  movement  North  and  South, 
161;  at  Charleston,  162;  almost 
accomplished  without  war,  175-176; 
"anathema,"  318,  386;  North  once 
favored,  337 

Selby,  J.  J.,  J.'s  "master,"  8;  offers 
reward  for  J.,   11 

Self,  Squire,  story  of  J.,  104 

Senator,  J.  again  elected  and  canvass, 
498-504;  the  ex-President  enters 
Senate  Chamber,  504-505;  J.'s  last 
speech,   506 

Seward,  Secretary,  early  friend  of 
J.,  72;  Toombs  and  S.,  135-136;  ad- 
vocates "Georgia  idea,"  170-176; 
an  optimist,  176;  advises  J.  to  con- 
ciliation, 352;  the  great  Secretary 
of  State,  462 

Seymour,  Governor,  for  peaceful  se- 
cession, 159 


Shellabarger,   Sam,  quoted,  376 

Sheridan,  General  and  New  Orleans' 
riot,  361 

Sherman,  Senator,  for  the  Union, 
209;  canvasses  with  J.,  261;  fond 
of  J.,  340;  his  substitute  measure, 
396;  embarrassed  in  impeachment 
trial,  426 

Sherman,  General,  magnanimous 
with  General  Johnston,   340 

Sickles,  General,  investigates  J.,  254 

Slavery,  J.  on,  45,  84,  102;  discussed, 
109;  J.'s  mistake  advocating  Kan- 
sas-Nebraska act,  117;  and  Le- 
compton  constitution,  141 ;  J.  pre- 
fers the  Homestead  to  Slavery,  119, 
133;  Democratic  party  favors,  124; 
J.  dubs  discussion  of,  an  abstrac- 
tion, 126;  J.  calls  a  curse,  and 
favors  colonization,  135,  143; 
debate  on,   136 

Slidell,   Senator,  described,  122 

Smiley,  T.  T.,  affair,  88 

South,  after  war,  273,  274,  351,  493; 
overturning  Southern  civilization, 
517-518 

South  Carolina,  the  first  to  secede, 
161 ;  J.  on,  148,  166 

Southerner,  J.  a,  with  northern  prin- 
ciples, 48,  49,  52,  73,  141 

Squatter  Sovereignty,   115 

Stanbery,  Attorney  General,  363;  re- 
signs to  defend  President,  432; 
speech  in  impeachment  trial,  445- 
446 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  ridicules  Lin- 
coln, 188;  afterwards  the  great 
War  Secretary,  188,  note;  lauds 
J.,  247;  induces  J.  to  offer  reward 
for  Davis,  281 ;  approves  J.'s 
course,  313;  deserts  J.,  321;  and 
New  Orleans  telegram,  360;  du- 
plicity, 380;  acts  as  spy,  417;  re- 
moved, 418;  "sticks,"  421;  causes 
Thomas's  arrest  and  withdraws 
suit,   424;    unhappy   death,   480 

Star  of  the  West  is  fired  on,  175 

States'  Rights  run  to  seed,  338,  339 

Stephens,  Alex  and  Lincoln,  156; 
elected    Senator,   314 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  on  slavery,  131 ; 
assumes  congressional  dictatorship, 
308;  characterized,  312,  318;  on 
Dred  Scott  case,  319,  406;  on  Thir- 
teenth Amendment,  334;  his  sneers, 
336,  346,  368,  372,  400;  grows  bit- 
ter, 401 ;  arraigns  the  President, 
423;  for  Green  Backs,  468-470; 
pursues  J.,  474;  death  of  and  will, 
do. 

Stewart,  Senator,  sustains  J.,  348; 
then  opposes,  384 


548 


INDEX 


Stockton,  Senator,  seated,  411 

Stokes,  Governor,  for  the  Union,  232; 
defeated  for  governor  by  Senter 
and  J.'s  canvass  against,  494-496 

Stover,  Farm,  97 

Stover,  Mary,  J.'s  daughter,  97,  296 

Sumner,  {Senator,  assaulted  by 
Brooks,  173;  characterized^  311; 
weeps  over  defeat  of  "force  bill," 
318;  attacks  J.,  321;  for  negro 
equality,  337 ;  thinks  "Mass. 
should  govern  Georgia,"  342;  calls 
J.  a  "bad  man,"  391;  reconstruc- 
tion bill  too  mild  for,  399;  attacks 
Fessenden,  412;  above  the  law, 
423;  attacks  Grant,  500;  quits  the 
Eepublican   party,   501 

Sumter,  Fort,  fired  on,  192;  precipi- 
tates war,    193 

Supreme  Court  and  Congress,  384, 
395;    silenced,  406 

Surratt,  John,  trial  and  discharge  of, 
285 

Surratt,  Mary,  trial  and  execution 
of,  277-292;  recommendation  for 
mercy  suppressed,  288 

"Swinging  Round  the  Circle,"  347-372 

Tariff,  against,  23,  326 

Taylor,  N.  G.,  defeated  by  J.,  42;  on 
J.,  472 

Taylor,  General,  quoted,  394 

Temple,  0.  P.,  defeated  by  J.,  42; 
describes  J.,  56;  declares  J.  god- 
like for  the  Union,   194 

Tennessee,  in  1861  for  the  Union, 
176;  new  party  alignment  in  1861, 
191;  secedes,  196;  first  to  come 
back  in  Union,  224;  the  "cock- 
pit," 229,  245;  abolishes  slavery, 
261;  adopts  14th  Amendment  and 
admitted  to   Union,   351 

Tenure  of  Office  Act,  vicious  and  un- 
constitutional, 383 ;  J.  admonishes 
Congress,  422;    analyzed,  427 

The  Thirteenth  Amendment,  ratified, 
300;  acts  to  enforce,  377,  and 
note;   unconstitutional,  378 

Thomas,  General,  defeats  and  kills 
Zollicofi"er,  221 

Thomas,  Lorenzo,  appointed  Secretary 
of  War,  419;  "the  gay  old  war- 
rior," 421 

Threats,  against  J.,  Smiley,  167,  170; 
Wigfall's  "duel,"  173;  at  Lynch- 
burg, 189;  in  East  Tenn.,  195;  of 
Jno.  R.  McClanahan,  198;  J.  driven 
from  home,  199,  224 

"Throe-fifths  Clause,"  J.  attacks,  36; 
nullified,   328 

Texas,  J.'s  speech  on  admission  of, 
47 


Toombs,  Senator,  debate  on  slavery, 
138;  sneers  at  J.,  139;  "Hamilcar" 
speech  electrifies  the  Senate,  160, 
163 

Trial  of  President  J.,  429-454;  at- 
torneys in,  431;  acquittal  of,  452; 
seven  Republicans  voting  to  acquit, 
453 

Truman,  General,  understands  the 
South,  314 

Trumbull,  Senator,  defends  Doug- 
las, 125;  sustains  Lincoln,  331;  de- 
serts J.,  349 

Turner,  J.  J.,  Nov.  5,  1860,  with  J., 
150 

Union,  the,  J.'s  obsession,  127,  144, 
148;  J.'s  December  1860  speech 
for,  165,  169;  February  speech, 
171;  March,  do.;  reply  to  Lane, 
179-186;  Union,  with  J.  stronger 
than  caste  or  loyalty  to  South, 
193,  194,  197,  216,  220,  233,  251, 
301,  304 

Union,  J.'s  speeches  for  in  Tenn., 
"hell-born  and  hell-bound  seces- 
sion," 194;  in  Kentucky  and  Ohio, 
199-200;  at  Camp  Dick  Robinson, 
202-204;  in  the  Senate  endorsing 
Lincoln,  212-215;  as  Military  Gov- 
ernor, 228-230;  J.'s  sacrifice  for, 
231,  251 

Vallandigham,  C.  L.,  asked  to  leave 
convention,  355 

Vance,  Governor,  Lincoln's  "call" 
makes  a  secessionist,  192;  on  J., 
473 

Vetoes,  J.  defends  the  right  of  veto, 
51;  his  vetoes,  372;  not  a  "veto" 
President,  380-1 ;  offends  conserva- 
tive Republicans,  390 

Vice-president,  J.  nominated  for, 
256;  his  comment  on  and  Stevens', 
257;   inaugurated,  262-266 

Voorhees,  Senator,  endorses  J., 
320 

Wade,  Senator,  attacks  slavery,  136; 

doubtful  as  to  coercing  South,  160; 

J.    delights,    300;    a    Radical,    334, 

376;      outrageous      conduct,      384; 

shocks    the    Senate,    410,    411;    for 

President,  414 
Wade-Davis   Bill,   Lincoln   "pockets," 

253,  312 
Walker,  T.  P.,  and  J.,  74 
Wallace,    General,    against    "mercy" 

for  Mrs.   Surratt,  290 
Warden,  doorkeeper  of  White  House, 

440 
Washington,  D.  C,  in  1843,  43 


INDEX 


549 


Washington  Birthday  Speech,  343- 
345;  Weed,  Wells  and  Copper- 
heads approve,  345-347 

Watterson,  H.  M.,  supports  J.  in 
Tenn.,   169 

Webster,  Daniel,  and  J.,  113;  wrote 
Taylor's  Inaugural,  381 

Weed,  Thurlow,  resolutions,  155;  vis- 
its Lincoln,   156 

Welles,  Secretary,  requests  J.  to  re- 
move Stanton,  317;  on  Sumner, 
321;  advises  J.  to  fight,  352;  ap- 
proves J.'s  speeches,  370;  criticizes 
Eeverdy  Johnson,  399;  on  Butler 
and  Conkling,  437;  on  Constitu- 
tion-breakers, 438;  retains  J.'s 
confidence  to  the  end,  484;  final 
estimate  of  J.,  485 

"Whiggery,"  J.  disliked,  23,  28,  35; 
party  of  caste,  37 

White  House,  renovated,  297 ;  J.'s  life 
in,  270,  292;  receptions,  297,  480- 
483 

White,  Senator,  J.'s  attachment  for, 
27 

Wigfall,  Senator,  attacks  Douglas, 
125;    described,    138;    hurls    thim- 


derbolts,  163,  164,  168,  172;  co- 
operates with  Secession,  175 

Williams,  Alex,  J.'s  antagonist,  17, 
23;  slights  J.,  38;  reconciliation, 
508 

Wilmot  Proviso  destroyed  Whig 
party,  113 

Wilson,  Senator,  described,  376;  his 
bitterness,  401 

Wise,  Governor,  J.  follows,  71 

Witthorne,  W.  C,  at  Charleston,  126; 
for  disunion,   145 

Woods,   Sheriff,  29,   60 

Word,  Sarah,  J.'s  first  love,  11,  19 

Worth,  Governor,  defeats  Holden,  392 

Yancey,  W.  L.,  denounces  Clingman, 
48;  as  he  was,  122-123;  dominates 
the  Democratic  party,  124;  can- 
vasses the  county,   146 

Yates,  Congressman,  suggests  J.'s  as- 
sassination, 334 

Yulee,  Senator,  hectors  J.,  166 

Zollicoffer,  General,  gallant  words, 
219;  killed,  221 


'BOT       F.W. 


IwtM 


BOUND    TO    PLEASE 


N.  MANCHESTER. 
INDIANA_