CHAP. XV. bring some order into his thoughts by rising above the wrangling of men and of parties, and pondering the relations of human government to the Divine. In this frame of mind, absolutely detached from any earthly considerations, he wrote this meditation. It has never been published. It was not written to be seen of men. It was penned in the awful sincerity of a perfectly honest soul trying to bring itself into closer communion with its Maker. The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power on the minds of the now contestants, he could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun, he could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. CHAPTER XVI BY MILITARY GOVERNORS 1862. Y the Union victories in the spring of 1862 very CHAP. XVI. considerable areas of territory in States in rebellion came under the control and occupation of the Union armies, namely: in Tennessee, after the battles of Fort Donelson and Shiloh; in Arkansas, after the battle of Pea Ridge; in North Carolina, after the capture of Roanoke Island; and in Louisiana, after the capture of New Orleans. The sudden change from Confederate to Federal authority involved everywhere either a serious. derangement or total cessation of the ordinary administration of local civil law, and the displacement from the occupied territory of State governments and State officials who claimed to be exercising functions under ordinances of secession, and yielding obedience to the self-styled Confederate States. A similar displacement had occurred in Virginia and in Missouri during the year 1861, but in those States prompt remedies were available. In Virginia, by a spontaneous and overwhelming popular movement, a delegate Convention was assembled, which at once abrogated the rebel, and restored a Federal State government, from which, in due time, sprang the separation of Virginia, and CHAP. XVI. the erection and admission of the new State of West Virginia. In Missouri there existed a lawfully chosen State Convention, a full quorum of which was called together under its own rules, and by ordinances of undoubted validity vacated the State offices held by insurgents and appointed a provisional State government, loyal to the Federal Union. 1862. Neither of these courses, however, was immediately feasible in the other States we have named, and a substitute was found in the appointment of military governors to represent and exert such State and local authority as the anomalous conditions made practicable, and as the supreme military necessities might allow. The first of these appointments occurred in Tennessee. Nashville, the capital, having been evacuated about February 23, 1862, President Lincoln nominated, and the Senate confirmed, Andrew Johnson (March 4, 1862) as military governor with the rank of brigadiergeneral. In a speech made by Governor Johnson at Nashville, on assuming his duties, he thus sketched what he understood to be his official functions: The State government has disappeared. The Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is in abeyance. . . The archives have been desecrated; the public property stolen and destroyed; the vaults of the State bank violated, and its 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 obligation to guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government. . . This obligation the National Government is now attempting to discharge. I have been ap pointed, in the absence of the regular and established CHAP. XVI. State authorities, as military 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. . . I find most, if not all of the offices, both State 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. . . 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 intelligence, and bearing true allegiance to the Constitution and Government of the United States, who will execute the functions of their respective offices until their places can be filled by the action of the people. Address of Andrew Johnson, published March 18, 1862. May 19, 1862. Stanton Conforming to this precedent, Mr. Lincoln, through the Secretary of War, appointed Edward Stanley military governor of North Carolina, "with authority to exercise and perform, within the limits of that State, all and singular the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor (including the power to establish all necessary offices and tribunals, and suspend the writ of habeas corpus) during the pleasure of the President, or until the loyal inhabitants of that State shall organize a civil government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States." "It is obvious to you," added the Secretary on the 20th, "that the great purpose of your appointment is to reëstablish the authority of the Federal Government in the State of North Carolina, and provide the means of maintaining peace and security to the loyal inhabitants of that State, until they 1862. w. R. shall be able to establish a civil government." to Stanley, 1862. w. R. pp. 396, 397. May 19, W. Vol. IX., Ibid.. May 20, Vol. IX., p. 397. CHAP. XVI. Stanton to Vol. XV., p. 471. In like manner, soon after news was received of the successes in the Gulf, Colonel G. F. Shepley (of the 12th Maine Infantry) of Butler's army was appointed military governor of Louisiana, this selection being made because General Butler had already designated him to act as mayor of the city 1862. W. R. of New Orleans, and it was thought best to combine both functions in the same individual. The utility of such appointments had been so far demonstrated that when General Curtis, after the March, 1862. battle of Pea Ridge, had marched down White River to Helena on the Mississippi River, and was preparing to resume from that point his meditated advance on Little Rock, with every prospect that he would be able to hold it permanently, a similar commission as military governor of Arkansas was given to John S. Phelps, a citizen of Missouri, with the intention that he should accompany the army and assume his duties as soon as the capital of the State was reached, to prevent the delays of communication to and from Washington. Subsequent military events, however, delayed the advance of the Union army to that place more than a year, and when it finally occurred, a spontaneous popular movement organized a Convention which appointed a provisional governor, rendering the intervention of a military governor unnecessary. Mr. Phelps therefore never actually entered upon any practical official duties. It is not within the scope of this work to review the official administration of these military governors, except so far as it relates to the action of President Lincoln on the subject of what is known as reconstruction, or, more properly, the reorganiza |