The Northern States regarded the granting of suffrage to negroes in the North as a question for each Northern State to decide for itself and in 1865 the question was submitted to popular vote in Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Colorado. In each the question was defeated though the Republican party practically held undisputed control of these States. With few exceptions the political status of the negro in the Northern States "was just what it was in the Southern, just as long as the control of such status remained in the hands of the people of the States themselves. And further, even after Congress had assumed control of the domestic affairs of the Southern States, the Northerners still wished to reserve to themselves the regulation of negro suffrage within their

own borders. Whatever the fate of the South, these States wanted to control their own political destiny. They did not propose to experiment with negro suffrage upon their own people."* In other words the North now took the same stand on states' rights for which they had condemned the South before the war and furthermore forced the South to accept conditions that would not have been tolerated in Northern States. What was right and proper up North was all wrong in the South and vice versa.

E. C. Woolley, The Reconstruction of Georgia, in Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, vol. xiii., No. 3, pp. 476-480 (1901).

*A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 31-32; see also Blaine, vol. ii., p. 92.

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Even Lincoln's own State, Illinois, had rejected negro suffrage and her anti-negro legislation was as drastic as that of any other "free state" in the Union. Yet on December 1, 1865, the Chicago Tribune, in speaking on the freedmen statutes recently enacted by Mississippi, said:

"We tell the white men of Mississippi that the men of the North will convert the State of Mississippi into a frog pond before they will allow any such laws to disgrace one foot of soil in which the bones of our soldiers sleep, and over which the flag of freedom waves.'

Both President Johnson and Congress now began to push their reconstruction policies with persistency and the hostility became even more bitter.

Johnson's most effectual weapon was his veto power, which he used unsparingly, but even with this weapon he was powerless because of the overwhelming majority in Congress against him. On January 25, 1866, an act for enlarging the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau, established March 3, 1865 (as the "Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands") for the relief of the freedmen and refugees, passed the Senate by a vote of 37 to 10 and the House on February 6 by 136 to 33. The President vetoed the bill on February

*Garner, Reconstruction in Mississippi, p. 115, footnote.

For the history of this bill see P. S. Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau, a Chapter in the History of Reconstruction, in Iowa State University Studies in Sociology, Economics, Politics and History, vol. iii., No. 1, N. S. No. 74, pp. 34–45 (March, 1904); Wilson, Slave Power, vol. iii., chaps. xxxiii.xxxiv.

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19.* The radicals, however, could not secure the necessary majority at this time to pass the measure over the veto, but in July Congress passed another Freedmen's Bureau bill. Johnson vetoed this also, but on July 16 Congress passed it over his veto. The Bureau continued in control of the negroes until 1868 when its life. was extended for a year by act of Congress in July, 1868, and it was not finally withdrawn from all the States until 1872, when it was discontinued by an act passed June 10 of that year.[]

This Bureau, which was established primarily for the purpose of caring for the confiscated property, and of aiding and advising the freedmen and distributing supplies among them, became a most important institution. of reconstruction. As has already been said, at the end of the war thousands of negroes left the plantations and flocked to the cities and therefore had no visible means of support, being far removed from their natural occupations and not inclined to work. The result was that they were soon in a fair way toward starving to death. Moreover, much lawlessness was in

* Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vi., pp. 398-405; Globe, p. 815 et seq.; McPherson, Political History, pp. 68-72; Peirce, Freedmen's Bureau, PP. 55-63.

McPherson, p. 74; Chadsey, President Johnson and Reconstruction, pp. 59-63; De Witt, Impeachment, pp. 42-44.

Fleming, Documentary History, vol. i., p. 321; Richardson, vol. vi., pp. 422-426; Burgess, Reconstruction, pp. 64-67, 87-90; Blaine, vol. ii., pp. 162-172; McPherson, pp. 147-151; Wilson, Slave Power, vol. iii., pp. 486-498.

Rhodes, vol. vi., p. 186 and authorities cited.

dulged in by the blacks, who released from the restraint of slavery, wandered over the country, committing acts of vandalism and depredation upon property, and crimes of all kinds against their former masters. The Southern States had no vagrant class before the war and no laws regarding vagrancy were on the statute books; therefore the authorities were unable to lawfully cope with the conditions. that arose when the slaves were emancipated. Charity for some time was able to relieve the conditions, but the number of "contrabands" increased so rapidly that the charity bureaus found their resources inadequate. Therefore the duties of the Freedmen's Bureau were enlarged.

It undertook to supply rations and clothes to the needy and provide hospitals and medical attendance for the sick and infirm; it endeavored to prevent the infringement of the civil rights of the freedmen; in States where the blacks were not allowed to testify it established courts to try all cases in which they were involved and attempted to administer "justice" in a way that frequently maddened the whites; it circulated the Emancipation Proclamation among the blacks and attempted to teach them their new duties and responsibilities; and encouraged them to return to work and examined and approved their labor contracts. The Bureau also allotted the confiscated lands in its charge to the negroes to cultivate, and on the Atlantic coast sold the land to them at such ridiculously low rates

that nearly all the blacks became possessed of the notion that the lands of the whites were to be divided among the negroes and that the government at Washington would give each of them "forty acres and a mule."* Beside this the Bureau aided the young blacks in obtaining an education by establishing schools and providing teachers from the North to such communities as desired them; and in various other ways it attempted to aid the unfortunate race.†

The result of the work of the Bureau, was, however, far different from its object, for while undoubtedly accomplishing some good, much idleness and demoralization among the negroes resulted from its establishment, and instead of promoting harmonious relations between the two races much ill-feeling was engendered among the whites against both the blacks and the Bureau. The head of the Bureau Bureau organization was a commissioner, General O. O. How

* General Grant had reported (December 18, 1865) to President Johnson, after his Southern tour: 66 "The belief widely spread among the freedmen that the land of their former owners will, at least in part, be divided among them, has come through agents of this Bureau. This belief is seriously interfering with the willingness of the freedmen to make contracts." Grant also indicated that the officers of the Bureau were useless and dangerFor the organization and early work of the Bureau see House Ex. Doc. No. 70, 39th Congress, 1st session. See also Sidney Andrews, The South Since the War, pp. 208-213.

ous.

For the details of the work see Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau, pp. 75-174; Hollis, Reconstruction in South Carolina, pp. 107-129; Wilson, Slave Power, vol. iii., pp. 499-504; George W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, vol. ii., p. 394 et seq.; W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, chap. ii.

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ard, whose headquarters were in the war department; in each State under him was an assistant commissioner and under these a number of sub-commissioners, who had charge of the different districts into which each State was divided. In every locality was an agent whose duty is was to distribute rations, acquaint the blacks with the orders of the Bureau, instruct them how to act, etc. But whereas the character of the higher officials were almost uniformly good (though even Howard himself was accused and tried for malversation and dereliction of duty but acquitted by the investigating committee), the lower officials and agents, being mostly subordinate military officers, proved to be bigoted, tyrannical, unscrupulous, inefficient or corrupt.*

As slavery had been abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment it became necessary that the negro should be vested with civil rights as an incident to his new status. We have already seen what rights the State legislatures had given him, but Congress was not satisfied with the general tenor of these laws and therefore passed a civil rights law; (February 2, 1866, by the Senate, 33 to 12, and March 13 by the House 111 to 38) which was intended

* Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau, pp. 46-54; W. E. B. DuBois, The Freedmen's Bureau, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. lxxxvii., pp. 354-365 (1901); Fleming, Documentary History, vol. i., pp. 319-394; Cox, Three Decades, pp. 442-450.

Introduced in the Senate January 5, 1866, by Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois. Globe, pp. 500, 1755, 39th Congress, 1st session. See also Dunning, Essays, p. 92 et seq.; Wilson, Slave Power, vol. iii., pp. 684-692,