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our republican government firm and stable forever. The first of those amendments is to change the basis of representation among the states from Federal numbers to actual voters. Now all the colored freemen in the slave states, and three-fifths of the slaves are represented, though none of them have votes. The states have nineteen representatives of colored slaves. If the slaves are now free, then they can add, for the other two-fifths, thirteen more, making the slave representation thirty-two. I suppose the free blacks in those states will give at least five more, making the representation of non-voting people of color thirty-seven. The whole number of representatives now from the slave states is seventy. Add the other two-fifths and it will be eighty-three. If the amendment prevails, and those states withhold the right of suffrage from persons of color, it will deduct about thirty-seven, leaving then but forty-six. With the basis unchanged, the eighty-three Southern members, with the Democrats that will in the best times be elected from the North, will always give them a majority in Congress, and in the Electoral College. They will at the very first election take possession of the White House, and the halls of Congress. I need not depict the ruin that would follow. Assumption of the rebel debt, or repudiation of the Federal debt, would be sure to follow. The oppression of the freedmen; the reamendment of their state constitutions, and the re-establishment of slavery would be the inevitable result. That they would scorn and disregard their present constitutions, forced upon them in the midst of martial law, would be both natural and just. No one who has any regard for freedom of elections can look upon those governments, forced upon them in duress, with any favor. If they should grant the right of suffrage to persons of color, I think there would always be Union white men enough in the South, aided by the blacks, to divide the representation, and thus continue the Republican ascendency. If they should refuse to thus alter their election laws, it would reduce the representatives of the slave states to about forty-five, and render them powerless for evil. It is plain that this amendment must be consummated before the defunct states are admitted to be capable of state action, or it never can be."

Mr. Stevens insisted that homesteads should be given to the emancipated slaves. But the mode proposed - confiscation of land- did not agree with his war theory. Conquerors are presumed to respect property rights. His theory in regard to the effects of secession and resistance to the laws of the United States, differed in mode only from that of the secessionists. They claimed that the states had the constitutional right to secede, while he conceded to them the physical power to secede. On either theory, their condition in the event of defeat would seem to be as Mr. Stevens described it, that of conquered territories, without governments and without laws. He held that they were completely at the mercy of the conqueror. As a conquered people, they might be dealt with as the monarchies of

THE TRUE RULE FOR CONGRESSIONAL ACTION.

373 Europe deal with conquered provinces, without regard to the nature of our republican institutions, or the limits of constitutional authority. There is no authority given by the Constitution to hold conquered territory as a province, with the people inhabiting it deprived of the right of self-government and equal representation in Congress. Whenever our government shall enter upon a career of conquest and subjugation, it will forfeit its character of a free republic, in which equal rights are guaranteed to all

men.

In regard to the political weight which the South derived from the presence and representation of its colored population, Mr. Stevens was a little in error. Instead of the South being entitled to seventy representatives under the apportionment based on the census of 1860, counting three-fifths. of the negroes, it was entitled to eighty-five. He said that the seventy would be increased to eighty-three if the remaining two-fifths were represented; whereas, on that basis the eighty-five would have risen to ninetyeight. He proposed to take from the South the whole negro representation, which, he said, would reduce the representation to about forty, whereas it would have remained at about fifty-five or fifty-six. He doubtless had in his mind the representation of the Confederate States, when he spoke of the Southern representation being seventy.

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Does the line of argument followed by Mr. Stevens touch the real merits of the question? Does it show any acknowledgment that the Constitution is the ganglion, the productive organ of Federal action; and that its powers are the nerve-fibres which alone give vital force to the will of Congress? His points, citations, and conclusions might be convincing in a prize case, where the court "must be governed by the principles of public law applicable to civil and international wars." They might do very well in any suit involving only personal or property rights. But his argument was not in the line of statesmanship. There was no precedent applicable to the case. The question presented was political. No Federal or state court could take jurisdiction for its determination. Neither municipal nor international law could furnish principles for determining the relation of any state of the Union to the government of the United States while the Federal Constitution remained a binding instrument on that government and the states respectively. There, in that charter, in it alone is to be found the decisive rules for congressional action. Where in that charter is to be found the doctrine of forfeiture of state rights? Where the doctrine of state felo-de-se? Where of war between the states?

If by reason of the extent of the insurrection, and the action of foreign powers we were compelled to suppress secession under the rules of war, does it follow that the insurrection was a war? The words "rebel" and "insurgent" imply citizenship. They do not imply alienage. Suppose the State of Maine were now to pass an ordinance of secession, assert her independ

ence, and resist with all her force the national authority, would that be felode-se? Would she be no longer a state of the Union? If not, by what right could we assume to make a conquest of her territory? If Mr. Stevens' argument were a sound one, would not the Canadians have as good a right to ask her to join their Confederation as we should have to ask her to return to the Union? Would they not have as much right to use force in defending her as we should have to make war on her?

The argument from belligerency, like that for the right of secession, be it ever so strong, can have no force where there is devotion to brotherly unity. Could separation be effected without warlike hostilities? If it can, it must be because parties are so evenly balanced, and so distinctly marked and divided by a geographical line athwart the continent, that war between them would be manifest folly. On the contrary, if secession must always be effected by war, it will never be resorted to unless there is great unanimity in a large and contiguous portion of the Union. Wherever and whenever this is the case, no one can successfully dispute the right of the government to resist separation in the modes of war. What would any one care for the abstract "rights" of secession? Even the secession leaders disregarded their own theory when they apprehended that it might be turned against themselves. They stood ready to overwhelm the menaced secession of North Carolina from the Confederacy, by the troops of adjacent and sister states. To hold states as territories after a war for a Union of states, is just as illogical.

Suppose the radical doctrine is admitted, on what grounds of ethics or international law is the "Confederate war debt" to be repudiated? Suppose we should conquer Mexico, could we lawfully repudiate the debts of her government? When we came to amend the Constitution, after the national authority had asserted itself over the insurgent states, did we speak of war or conquests, or prohibit the payment of any war debts? No. We said: "But neither the United States, nor any state, shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States." Was this an admission that we had conquered territories in a war? Was it not a plain assertion that the strife was an insurrection and rebellion, and that all contracts in aid of it were null and void. Payment of them cannot even be voluntary. States and Congresses which might desire to pay them are prohibited from so doing. When secession is treated in the constitutional way, as an insurrection or rebellion, no questions can arise that will involve contradictory conclusions. The moment the Federal power withdrew its action into its own sphere, that moment the sovereignty of the states asserted itself. To this course, the calming influences of better judgment at last brought the people of the North. It would have been reached in a very short time if moderation, and not passion, had obtained sway in the councils of the Nation.

CHAPTER XXI.

TEMPORARY STATE REORGANIZATION IN THE SOUTH.

STATUS OF THE COLORED PEOPLE — DEMANDS FOR THEIR ENFRANCHISEMENT – THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTION ACT — PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S VETO-THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OPINION — MARTIAL LAW TO GOVERN THE SOUTH — DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE INTELLIGENT- -PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S POLICY ITS OPERATION - REORGANIZATION IN TENNESSEE WILLIAM G. BROWNCONFED

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LOW ELECTED GOVERNOR -SECESSION ORDINANCES ANNULLED
ERATE ACTS AND OBLIGATIONS MADE VOID-CONSTITUTIONAL AMEND-
MENTS DISUNIONISTS DISFRANCHISED SLAVERY ABOLISHED CIVIL
RIGHTS GRANTED TO COLORED PEOPLE-THEY ARE NOT TO VOTE, HOLD
OFFICE, OR SIT ON JURIES-CONGRESS APPROVES OF THIS COURSE-TEN-
NESSEE ADMITTED To federal RELATIONS, JULY 24, 1866 — UNION SENTI-
MENT IN NORTH CAROLINA – PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S ATTEMPT TO REHA-
BILITATE THAT STATE GOVERNOR VANCE'S ADVICE PROVISIONAL GOV-
HEARTY REPEAL OF THE SECESSION ORDI-
NANCE CONVENTION AND LEGISLATIVE WORK-IT DOES NOT SATISFY
CONGRESS NORTH CAROLINA TO REMAIN A CONQUERED PROVINCE.

ERNOR HOLDEN APPOINTED

T

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HE temporary organizations of the Southern States under the proclamations of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson were suffered to remain in force until the spring of 1867. In none of them was the suffrage conferred upon colored men, and in some of them the legislatures enacted laws which discriminated against the colored people in other respects. Some tutelary legislation was contemplated by Mr. Lincoln in behalf of the freedmen. It was hinted at in his proclamation of Dec. 8, 1863, as a temporary expedient consistent "with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class." But this concession to the state legislatures was far from being satisfactory to the majority of Congress. The discriminating laws, though guarded in terms, and intended to protect the emancipated slaves, were to be enforced by men who had held them in slavery. It was surmised that these men would abuse a trust which was a limitation upon their long-exercised, hereditary and absolute authority. Loud complaints were soon heard of the tyranny and cruelty exercised over

the blacks. Congress was in no mood to listen to such complaints with indifference. Northern and congressional sentiment was rapidly developing in favor of a more radical treatment of the South. It began to be believed that nothing short of an unqualified grant of suffrage to the negroes would secure them peace, with justice. It was also thought that the predominance of the Republican party would be assured by such a grant. As a tentative measure, bills were introduced in each house for the establishment of negro suffrage in the District of Columbia, and in all the territories. The bill for the District encountered strenuous opposition. Many Republican Representatives from states which confined the right of suffrage to white men, or encumbered it in the case of colored men with educational or property qualifications, naturally hesitated. When called on by the exigencies of party to

invest with the franchise the whole mass of illiterate blacks in other communities which had no voice in determining the question, they hesitated. But they overcame their scruples, and in January, 1867, the District bill was passed, over President Johnson's veto. The Territorial Suffrage bill was adopted by both houses, during the same month, by overwhelming majorities.

In pursuance of the same policy, the act known as the Reconstruction act was likewise passed by Congress over the President's veto, on March 2, 1867. This bill goes under a misnomer. It is entitled, "An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel states." It should have been called, "An Act for the more thorough military subjugation of the states lately in insurrection against the United States." The act, after alleging that no legal state governments or adequate protection for life and property existed in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, provided that these states should be divided into five military districts, under the command of officers of the army assigned thereto by the President. Each of these commanders was to have under his control troops enough to enforce his authority. The power conferred on these commanders within their districts was almost unlimited. The fifth and sixth sections of the act authorized the people to reconstruct their state governments by spontaneous action, though on prescribed conditions. These sections, however, were superseded by the act of March 23d, following. This act not only fixed the conditions of reconstruction, but provided that the process should be inaugurated and conducted by the military commanders.

In assigning his reasons for withholding his signature from this measure, President Johnson denied that the states in question were without legal governments. He insisted that the true purpose of the bill was not to enforce peace and good order, but to compel the people of those states to confer the right of suffrage on the negro, and to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In the course of his long and searching analysis of the bill, the President criticised the powers it conferred

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