time. From the siege guns planted at that point a salute was fired. His Excellency, President Bulloch, the members of Council, Colonel McIntosh, many gentlemen, and the militia subsequently dined under the cedar trees, and cordially drank to the "prosperity and perpetuity of the United, Free, and Independent States of America."

In the evening the town was illuminated. A funeral procession, embracing a number of citizens larger than had ever been congregated in the history of Savannah, and attended by the grenadier and light infantry companies, the Georgia battalion, and the militia, with muffled drums, marched to the front of the Court House-where his Majesty King George the Third was interred in effigy, and the following burial service prepared for the occasion was read with all solemnity:

"For as much as George the Third of Great Britain hath most flagrantly violated his coronation oath, and trampled upon the Constitution of our country and the sacred rights of mankind, we therefore commit his political existence to the ground-corruption to corruption--tyranny to the grave-and oppression to eternal infamy-in sure and certain hope that he will never obtain a resurrection to rule again over these United States of America. But, my friends and fellow citizens, let us not be sorry, as men without hope, for Tyrants that thus depart :- rather let us remember America is free and independent, and that she is, and will be, with the blessing of the Almighty, great among the nations of the earth. Let this encourage us in well doing, and to fight for our rights and privileges, for our wives and children, and for all that is near and dear unto us. May God give us his blessing, and let all the people say, Amen!"

With similar joy was the Declaration of Independence welcomed in the other parishes of Georgia. St. John's parish-the home of Hall and Gwinnett, two of the Signers-was most pronounced in its demonstrations of loyalty and approval.

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, July 26, 1888.

Marles. C.Iones. It.

RECONSTRUCTION

Much has been written and said in general terms concerning the reconstruction of the Union after the close of the civil war. Some have characterized that measure as a mistake, while others deemed it the best that could be done under the circumstances. Meanwhile the national government continues to come in for a share of censure for not having performed its full duty in the premises; that is, in having freed the slave and made him an American citizen, and then failed to institute proper measures for training him by education to fulfill his duties of citizenship and to protect him in the exercise of his newly acquired privileges. But the national government did not design in freeing the slave to virtually hand him over to his former master with only one portion of his bondage removed, that of being bought and sold. Its policy was much more comprehensive.

When the slave was freed it was once for all time, both for him and his posterity, while "reconstruction," in contradistinction to "restoration," was designed to secure for him, in every sense, the rights of the American citizen. These rights were presumed to be secured by an organic arrangement when three-fourths of the states ratified the 13th, the 14th and the 15th amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Perhaps there is no portion of our recent history so little understood by even the majority of intelligent American readers, as that pertaining to the period of reconstruction. Questions are often asked why that particular policy was adopted in bringing back the "erring sisters" into the household of the nation. Where was the necessity of giving the ballot to the ignorant and illiterate freedmen? Why should not the policy of Restoration have been preferred to that of Reconstruction? We propose to answer these questions as concisely and as distinctly as the subject and our space will permit, in order that the reader may judge of the expediency of Con gress adopting the policy of reconstruction. It is due to truth and justice. that the reasons should be known which influenced the statesmen of that critical period to receive back into the Union on such conditions, that if honestly carried out would, in the end, promote the mutual interests of all classes of citizens, white or colored.

The Thirty-eighth Congress closed its second session March 3, 1865, and the Thirty-ninth would not meet in regular session till the fourth of December following, nine months afterward. Andrew Johnson, on the

death of Mr. Lincoln, became President April 15, 1865; General Lee surrendered on the ninth of the same month, as did General Johnston eight days afterward. The President, in the course of about six weeks after assuming office, indicated by unmistakable signs that a change was taking place in his sentiments toward the leaders of the rebellion just closed. It was rumored, meanwhile, that the President had devised a plan by means of which these states could be restored to the Union. This scheme he characterized as "my policy," and with it the leaders just mentioned were satisfied, and they co-operated earnestly with him in the preliminary measures necessary to make it effective. The President's plan has since been known as that of "restoration" in contradistinction to that afterward adopted by Congress and kown as "reconstruction." The difference between these two policies in their influence upon the future of the nation. are recognized as very great by the intelligent and thoughtful.

Restoration contemplated the return of the lately rebellious states into the ful fellowship of the Union. They were only required by the President "to acquiesce in the abolition of slavery; to repudiate the rebel debt and repeal the ordinances of secession." These conditions of re-admission ignored the once slave population, now become free and of course citizens, and who were left subject to the laws that might be enacted in respect to themselves by the legislatures of these several states thus restored, while in making these laws, as voters, they had no voice.

Instead of calling an extra session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, that legislative measures might be taken on the occasion, the President, of his own motion, resolved to restore these states, and that with as little delay as possible. He urged forward the project with his usual zeal and energy, without reference to what the people of the North might wish in the premises, or to give their representatives in Congress an opportunity even to express an opinion on the subject. The President, between May 29th and July 13th, appointed seven provisional governors over as many states: to these officials he gave special instructions. These governors had about four months and a half to prepare their respective states for "restoration," to do which they went to work energetically. As authorized by the President, they gave directions for the people to choose and send delegates to state conventions, which should repeal the "ordinances of secession," repudiate the debt of the "pretended confederacy" and "acquiesce in the abolition of slavery." Complying with these conditions, they had the implied assurance of the President that they would be restored to the Union, and if prepared, admitted to the national councils at the first meeting of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Accordingly, the conventions.

were soon called, and they at once repealed the now obnoxious ordinances and complied with the other requirements. The managers, meanwhile, hastened to have the people elect members of Congress and also of the state legislatures; the latter meeting soon after chose United States senators. In this unprecedented haste the usual laws in regard to the ordinances passed by such convention being submitted to the people for their sanction were ignored, nor were writs issued in legal form for the election of the members of Congress and of the legislatures.

It may be well to notice briefly the character of the national legislature that was about to assemble at Washington. The Senate of the Thirtyninth Congress was unusually strong in the number of its experienced statesmen, while the Lower House was equally remarkable in regard to its composition. Of the members of the two houses, two were afterward Presidents of the United States, and one lacked only about one thousand votes of being so; three were Vice-Presidents; eleven, members of the cabinet; four, ministers abroad; and five, governors of their respective states. More than half the members of the Lower House had belonged to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and many had also been members of previous ones. It is thus evident that in this crisis (1864) in the nation's life, the majority of the people were anxious to secure the services of statesmen who had had experience in public affairs, as upon them, in all probability, would devolve the duty of re-admitting to the Union the states then in rebellion. It is remarkable that two-thirds of the members constituting the majority (Republican) of the Lower House had also been members of previous Congresses, while more than three-fifths of the minority (Democratic) were

new men.

The crisis was, indeed, full of complications hitherto unknown on the one hand, were the freedmen, recognized as citizens, but in an abnormal condition; on the other certain leaders, military and political, fresh from an attempt to destroy the Union by force of arms, but now demanding that their states, so recently in rebellion, should be admitted again to that Union unconditionally, and they themselves to the councils of the nation.

When the Thirty-ninth Congress assembled, a majority of these ex-confederate Congressmen and Senators, chosen in the peculiar manner already noted, were on hand, and eager to enter upon their duties in the national legislature. Of the whole number, not one had been a "Union man;' all had been directly or indirectly engaged in the rebellion. Many were unpardoned, numbers could not take the prescribed oath, and it was evident there existed in their minds, for the most part, a profound under-curcurrent of hostility toward the United States government. These gentle

men claimed their seats in Congress in virtue of President Johnson's policy, and his explicit or implied assurance that they would be re-admitted. Congress refused to recognize the claim-one objection being that the President, as executive, had no authority derived from the Constitution or otherwise, to re-admit these states to the Union, that power belonging to the legislative, not to the executive branch of the government, and which authority the former had hitherto always exercised. In addition, these states were still under martial law, and the provisional governors could exercise military authority merely to preserve order, while the President, the chief military executive, could only depute similar authority to his subordinates. This was far different from the legislative and legal authority of admitting states to the Union. The President could have called an extra session of Congress, but he did not. On the other hand, the undue haste in which these preliminary measures were pushed, and the disrespect indirectly shown by the chief executive to the authority of the legislative branch of the government, roused in the minds of the thoughtful in the northern states a distrust of his proposed measures, about which an unusual reticence was preserved, not only by the President himself, but by those who appeared most active in promoting his "policy."

The President's first annual message (Dec. 4, 1865) to the Thirty-ninth Congress revealed, however, to the country a partial outline of the policy of restoration, which he designed to carry out. Up to this time the posi. tion of the freedman as a citizen of the nation had not been authoritatively defined, yet what it was assumed to be in the states now seeking re-admission to the Union may be inferred from a series of laws then in process of enactment by their legislatures. One phase of the political status of the freedman, either by an understanding or remarkable coincidence, was held by the President, and also by his co-laborers in promoting the former's "policy." Several of the state conventions called into existence by the provisional governors denied the right or the duty of Congress to enact laws in respect to the political status of the freedmen, and coincident with that view of the subject, the President in this, his first message to Congress, says: "In my judgment the freedmen, if they show patience and manly virtue, will sooner obtain participation in the elective franchise through the states than through the general government." Then he volunteers the opinion that "it is not competent for Congress to extend the elective franchise in the several states." This coincidence, connected with the hitherto carefully preserved reticence on the subject, appeared ominous, while the adoption of this theory of the freedman's political status by the President and the members of these legislatures may explain the rationale of