376 BREACH BETWEEN JOHNSON AND CONGRESS. to secure equal civil rights to all citizens, without regard to color or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. This placed the negroes upon an equality with the whites in acquiring, holding and conveying real and personal property, in making and enforcing contracts, in suing and giving testimony in the courts and in the enjoyment of the protection of the laws and forces of the United States. Jurisdiction was given to the Federal courts in cases arising under this act and the army and navy were placed at the disposal of the President should their use become necessary in order to enforce this act. But Johnson vetoed this measure March 27, "because it conferred citizenship on the negroes when eleven out of thirty-six States were unrepresented" and because he thought it unconstitutional.* His veto was set aside by a vote of 33 to 15 in the Senate April 6 and 122 to 41 in the House April 9, and thus became a law. The opposition of Congress to his policies had angered Johnson and caused him to lose control over his temper. His first public outburst of passion was on Washington's Birthday, in 1866, when he made an important speech to a large popular gathering assembled in front of the Presidential mansion. In that speech *Globe, p. 1679; Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vi., pp. 405-413; Blaine, vol. ii., pp. 172-180; Burgess, Reconstruction, pp. 68-74; McPherson, Political History, p. 74; Chadsey, Presi dent Johnson and Reconstruction, pp. 68–72. "Contemporaneous and subsequent comment on this speech has devoted disproportionate attention to a few passages which manifested Johnson's tendency to offensive egotism and personalities in public speaking; if these accidents be relegated to their proper significance, the speech is a useful complement to the veto message in estimating the influence which led him, in his rage against the radicals who were harrying him, to strike at Congress as a whole." But the radicals were not content to allow these passages to sink into obscurity nor to be forgotten, and this fact, together with Johnson's continual use of the veto, completed the breach between the two. On April 2, 1866, the President had officially declared the rebellion at an end everywhere except in Texas and on August 20 gave official witness to its cessation there as that State in its convention had complied with the provisions of the executive policy of reconstruction. In June the joint Committee on Reconstruction reported their suggestions of measures for re construction to the two Houses. The majority report declared that the State governments which had been organized under the executive policy were illegal, that the authority for reconstructing the States was vested in Congress, and that before the States should be allowed to re-enter the * Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips.- Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, February 23, 1866); Sherman's Recollections, vol. i., pp. 364-368; Rhodes, vol. v., p. 573 et seq. and footnotes; DeWitt, Impeachment, pp. 50-58. Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vi., pp. 429-432, 434-438; McPherson, Handbook of Poli tics, 1868, pp. 15-17, 194-196. CONGRESS PASSES FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. 377 On July 24 Tennessee was formally admitted into the Union, against radical opposition because the State had not enfranchised the freedmen, though she had ratified the proposed Amend Union they should give some guarantee of future security. The majority also advocated that recognition be refused to those States that would not guarantee civil rights to the negro, and that those who had taken part in the secession be disfranchised from voting and disqualified from holding office.* This would disfranchise the leading whites, but Congress nevertheless framed the Fourteenth Amendment (in its original form introduced by Thaddeus Stevens, April except for participating in rebellion, or other 30, 1866) which embodied the provisions of the civil rights bill. The Senate passed it June 8 by a vote of 33 to 11, and the House June 13 by a vote of 138 to 36. It was then sent out to the States for ratification with the guarantee to the Southern States. that their restoration to the Union would follow if ratified.† son, * House Reports, ii., No. 30, 39th Congress, 1st session; Blaine, vol. ii., pp. 188-204; McPherPolitical History, pp. 84-101; Burgess, Reconstruction, pp. 84-87; Chadsey, President Johnson and Reconstruction, pp. 73-82. George S. Boutwell, in his Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, vol. ii., chap. xxxi., gives some of the testimony before the committee. The following is a copy of the Fourteenth Amendment: "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed; but when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and VicePresident of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State (being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States), or in any way abridged, crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. "Section 3. No person shall be a Senator, or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President or Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid to the enemies thereof, but Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. "Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned; 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, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slaves. But all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. "Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Thorpe, Constitutional History, pp. 260-271, 308-311 and authorities cited; Burgess, Reconstruction, pp. 74-82; Blaine, vol. ii., Pp. 204214; Wilson, Slave Power, vol. iii., pp. 647-660. Section 2 of the amendment is almost verbatim that offered by Justice Chase (J. W. Schuckers, Life and Public Serviccs of Salmon P. Chase, p. 527). 378 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS. ment on July 19.* On the 28th Congress adjourned. The congressional elections were now approaching and the parties held their nominating conventions. The radicals were strengthened by two unfortunate occurrences in 1866, which were greatly magnified and exaggerated in the North. On the 1st, 2d and 3d of May a conflict took place between the whites and blacks in Memphis, Tenn., in which numerous persons, mostly blacks, were killed or injured.† In July another riot broke out in New Orleans because of a cleverly concocted scheme to reconvene the defunct convention of 1864 and enact a new constitution disfranchising the Confederates in order to prevent the government from falling into their power. The mayor and military commanders in New Orleans, fearing trouble, telegraphed to Washington for aid to keep the peace, but Secretary of War Stanton, who had now become hostile to President to President Johnson suppressed the telegrams, and the President was unaware of the trouble until the riot had been perpetrated. The fight began in the streets and was continued in the convention hall, and before it was stopped several whites and over 40 blacks had been killed and over 160 wounded. * J. W. Fertig, Secession and Reconstruction in Tennessee, p. 77 et seq.; Appleton's Annual Cyclo padia, 1866, p. 729; McPherson, Political History, p. 152; Cox, Three Decades, pp. 381-383; Globe, p. 3999, 39th Congress, 1st session. House Reports No. 101, 39th Congress, 1st session. ‡ Phelps, Louisiana, pp. 353-357; P. H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs, p. 234 et seq.; Burgess, The issues were now defined, and resolved into a choice between the President and a conservative policy of reconstruction, and the radical policies of disfranchisement of the Confederates and suffrage to the negroes. "Each side professed to represent the people and each bent all its energies to securing a favorable verdict an exceedingly bitter one."* On August 14 a convention was held in Philadelphia composed chiefly of those who supported Johnson. The object of this convention was to form a new party the National Union party, composed of moderate Republicans and the bulk of Democrats, with President Johnson as the standardbearer. The opposing party was the former Union party which consisted altogether of Republicans and which soon changed its name to the Republican party. The minor parties also held conventions and either condemned or endorsed the President's policies. *. The contest was Soon after the convention of the National Union party, the President with a portion of his Cabinet, General Grant, Admiral Farragut, and others, started on a political tour to Chicago and beyond. On that journey ("swinging around the circle"), the President, goaded into losing his temper, denounced Congress as an illegal body and undeserving the re Reconstruction, pp. 92–98; House Report No. 16, p. 12, 39th Congress, 1st session. *Dunning, Impeachment, p. 471. Dunning, Reconstruction, pp. 71-76. |