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message, which was mild and conciliatory as compared with his speeches, was read in Congress and was well received by all the members except the extreme radicals. Johnson stated his plan of reconstruction calmly and without color, largely in the spirit of Lincoln's second inaugural.* With great satisfaction, he informed that body that all of the seceded States, with the exception of Texas, which would not hold its convention until the spring of 1866, had met the requirements of the reconstruction plans and were ready to resume their places in the Union.

In the summer the President, in order to obtain first hand information regarding the actual condition of affairs in the South, had sent several agents throughout the States to collect all the data obtainable. General Grant, Watterson, and Benjamin C. Truman made full and encouraging reports, but Carl Schurz rendered a contrary report that fully suited the views of the radical element.†

Though the official reports of these agents had not been rendered when Congress convened, yet the majority of both Houses were disposed to im

pugn the motives and methods of the President in reconstructing the States and to question the results obtained. The Republican majority in Congress, "jealous of the prerogative of their body," would not sanction Johnson's plan of restoration and as the latter was equally as stubborn, the two, instead of working together, became involved in a bitter struggle. Sumner and Stevens then proposed or renewed their theories of reconstruction (see chapter I). On December 19 the President submitted to the Senate the reports of Grant and Schurz concerning conditions in the South and the debate was formally opened with Johnson on the one side and Sumner and Stevens on the other as the principal actors.

*

In his report Schurz said: "Treason does, under existing circumstances, not appear odious in the South. The people are not impressed with any sense of its criminality.

*

pp. 353-371; McPherson, Handbook of Politics, 1868, pp. 64-66.

Senate Executive Document No. 2, 39th Congress, 1st session, quoted in A. B. Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, vol. iv., pp. 452458. See also Blaine, vol. ii., pp. 147-154; McPherson's Political History, p. 67; and for a history of Schurz's trip and the subsequent report, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, vol. iii., pp. 153-209. On general conditions see Whitelaw Reid, After the War: A Southern Tour.

master, it is not admitted that he has a right to become his own master After recounting the poverty and hardships imposed upon the people by the war Schurz said: "It is, indeed, not wonderful that, under such circumstances, they should study not how to introduce and develop free labor but how to avoid its introduction *"'; and again: "as long as the change from slavery to free labor is known to the Southern people only by its destructive results, the people must be expected to throw obstacles in its way."

*

On the contrary, Grant said in his report:* "I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith." He recommended that enough soldiers be maintained in the South to insure order and guarantee safety and protection to life and property, but he urged that no negro troops be sent, for "the presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes labor." He said that "the late slave seems to be imbued with the idea that the property of his late master should, by right, belong to him, or at least should have no protection from the colored soldiers." His observations brought him to the conclusion that "the citizens of the Southern States are anxious to return to self-government, within the Union, as soon as possible; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required by the government,

*Senate Doc. No. 2, p. 106 et seq., 39th Congress, 1st session.

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not humiliating to them as citizens, and that if such a course were pointed out they would pursue it in good faith."'*

Congress, however, ignored the whole scheme of reconstruction which Lincoln and Johnson had carried out, and during the last week of February, 1866, the Senate passed a resolution, concurrent with the Stevens resolution in the House, denying the right of the Southern representatives to enter Congress until the report of the Committee on Reconstruction should be rendered and acted upon.†

Undoubtedly one of the reasons (and one for which the radicals had long been in search) that led Congress to put its veto upon the policy pursued by the executive was the character of the legislation with regard to freedmen enacted by some of the Southern States during the latter part of 1865 and the early part of 1866. The purpose of this, it was alleged by the radicals, was to keep the negroes in a condition of involuntary servitude if not of actual slavery. That the Southerners were confronted with a most trying and perplexing situation cannot be doubted and this situation was little understood by the people of the North.