robbed the Government while in office. Mr. Stanton, the most thoroughly unpopular and disliked man ever in a department, whose administration of the War Department was characterized by more extravagances, and illegal acts, and grosser neglects of duties, and who was guilty of greater contempt and disrespect for his superior, the President, than any of his predecessors or heads of departments, was thus sent back to the War Department, after his suspension, and by the votes of Senators who declared, on the passage of this law, that no man could so far disgrace himself as to cling to a cabinet office against the wishes of the President. This was done after it was known that Mr. Stanton had declared the Tenure-of-Office Bill unconstitutional, and had advised the veto, and promised to help prepare it. America has never been so disgraced by such an example on her records, and by such a death-like struggle to retain office. Congress changed their day of meeting, in 1867, from the first Monday in December to the 4th of March, so that the Senate should be constantly in session to prevent the President from making removals in vacation, granting commissions which would ordinarily run to midsummer, 1868, and took recesses, and adjourned from time to time, doing little business until the winter session of 1867-'68. The avowed and known object of all this legislative manœuvring was to prevent Mr. Johnson from removing and making appointments. Among the consequences we find that the President is surrounded by officers endeavoring to thwart him in the performance of his duties, and suffering their subordinates to plunder the public revenue before it reaches the Treasury, and others to clutch it after it has reached there. Nearly every civil office throughout the Union, and a large portion of those in the Army, and a majority in the Navy, are filled with men who are struggling in aid of Congress to keep the Southern States out of the Union until they can be brought in through negro votes, to aid in continuing the Republican party in power. The good of the service is entirely ignored. Congress is now even proposing to constitute the Internal Revenue Bureau a separate department, making the present chief of it the head of the department, giving him all the appointments, so as to prevent the Secretary of the Treasury or the President

exercising any control over it. Such legislation would disgrace any government, even if the man proposed to be legislated to the head of the department was competent to perform his duties well. But this struggle for office must, ere long, end in disappointment. The people will place the Government in honest and competent hands, who will restore it to its former high character.

117.-THE REORGANIZATION OF LOUISIANA AND ARKANSAS, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

Mr. Lincoln's plan of restoration, contained in his proclamation of December 8, 1863, was to allow one-tenth of the former number of voters, if loyal, to form new State governments, to be admitted in place of the former ones. The election of delegates to a convention, their proceedings, and the adoption of the new constitution, were to be under the direction of a Governor appointed by him. Under this proclamation and that of General Banks, Louisiana elected delegates, who met in convention, framed a new constitution prohibiting slavery, and submitted it to the people, who approved of it. Under this constitution a new government was organized and put in operation. Under General Banks's proclamation, Michael Hahn had been elected Governor. At the election of delegates to frame a new constitution five members of Congress were elected, and members to form a Legislature, who chose seven electors of President and Vice-President. The government thus authorized was in operation on the 1st of January, 1865. Two of the members elected to Congress were admitted and voted for Speaker. When the Committee on Elections acted upon their right to seats, it reported in their favor, but the report was not acted upon. Hahn was elected by the Legislature to the Senate of the United States, but was not admitted to a seat. A controversy sprang up concerning the fairness of the proceedings to organize the new government, the radical Republicans charging fraud. But the real cause of discontent was the omission in the constitution of a provision placing negroes on an equal footing with the whites, and allowing them to vote. A movement to reconvene the convention with the view of inserting this provision, a year or more after its work had been submitted to and approved by the

people, led to the New-Orleans riots. Mr. Johnson had approved of and recognized this reorganization in Louisiana.

At the beginning of the year 1864, Arkansas framed and organized a new government under Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of December 8, 1863. The constitution prohibited slavery. All the votes cast were for the constitution, except 226. There were chosen at this election, in addition to their usual State officials, a Legislature and three members of Congress. When the Legislature convened they elected Senators, whose right to seats was discussed in, but which never decided by the Senate. Nor were the members elected, admitted to seats in the House. The Legislature, by a law, disfranchised a large portion of those who claimed to be voters under the constitution. Mr. Johnson, in a letter to Governor Murphy, October 30, 1865, said:

"There will be no interference with your present organization of State government. I have learned from E. W. Gantt, Esq., and other sources, that all is working well, and you will proceed and resume the former relations with the Federal Government, and all the aid in the power of the Government will be given in restoring the State to its former relations."

Here was a State government in full operation under Mr. Lincoln's plan, under which the State was resuming its business and prosperity. Arkansas and Louisiana confided in Mr. Lincoln, and acted accordingly. He had not only proclaimed his plan of reorganization in December, 1863, but had, on the 8th of July, 1864, reaffirmed it by his proclamation, in which he said, “I am also unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and ments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set side and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens, who have set up the same, as to further effort."

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In both these States slavery had been abolished, which was all that had been previously claimed. The act which had been passed, but not approved by Mr. Lincoln, required no more. Negro suffrage had not been provided in any act of Congress, or in the national platform. Up to that time Mr. Lincoln's word had not only been the law, but often far above the law, and sus

tained by Congress and the whole Republican party. These two State organizations had been under the direction of his friends, and through agents selected by him. Notwithstanding all these considerations, these reorganized State governments have been crowded out and supplanted by military tyrannies instituted under the reconstruction acts passed by Congress over the President's veto. And why? The reason is obvious. These State governments were not so organized as to insure the perpetuation of power in the hands of the Republicans. It was feared that a majority of the white people, who knew they had designedly precipitated the war, would not vote to continue them in office. It was expected that, by the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the use of the military power, the negroes could be controlled, and made to sustain them by their votes, which would render their success certain. For these reasons, two unobjectionable State governments, organized under Mr. Lincoln's own authority, and satisfactory to all but radical politicians fearing defeat, and under which the people were contented and becoming prosperous, were crushed out, and all power placed in the hands of those who rule by the sword and bayonet. The wishes of the governed and the pledges of the past were ignored without hesitation in the effort by the Republicans to perpetuate their power. For this purpose they are ready to make deserts and waste places of ten beautiful and lovely States.

Whether this shall be permitted is one of the questions for the consideration of the public. Tennessee, though treated by Congress as reconstructed, is probably in a worse condition than any other State. Her old constitution was amended, and the amendments were so submitted as to prevent two-thirds of the people from voting on the question of its ratification. It is now an instrument of disabilities, instead of one authorizing self-government by the people. Hon. Cave Johnson, in a letter before referred to, after enumerating the various public employments he had held, and stating that he had taken no part in the rebellion, and had taken the oath of allegiance, says: "I thought I might be entitled to vote, and applied yesterday to be registered, as required by the late acts, and was refused, because I had, in the

spring, refused to vote for Brownlow & Co. We suppose, under the law, when properly construed, not fifty voters could be found in this county out of 2,600 voters. Some 300 or 400 have been registered for the election next Thursday-mostly those who felt bound to take any oaths required to enable them to do business for the support of their families." This is the condition of things in Tennessee, where the Constitution and laws were once respected and obeyed. It shows that, where Congress and the Republican party rule, whether reconstructed or not, there is no respect for the laws or security for persons. If every State South were to become reconstructed under existing laws, as construed by Congress and nearly all the military authorities, things would not be essentially improved, and many would be made far worse. Degradation and misery would be the rule, and peace and happiness the exception.

118.-CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUSES.

From the times when the calkers, as they called themselves, met privately near the Boston ship-yard, in Revolutionary times, caucuses under some name have been held to select candidates and concert plans to aid in their election, and without objection. But public meetings are more dignified, and command greater respect. A free and independent citizen has a right to resort to either mode or both. He represents only himself, and binds nobody. In the old congressional caucuses to nominate candidates for the presidency, those attending did so in their individual and not in a representative capacity, and their acts bound no one, nor did they have relation to making laws. Meetings to select candidates to be supported for officers of a legislative body are unobjectionable; but, when a member acts in his representative capacity, and in relation to making laws, the case is wholly different. His constituents elected him to represent them, and upon the strength of his own judgment, and not as an instrument in the hands of others, to carry out theirs. They expect him, if in darkness concerning the requirements of the Constitution and the principles of right, to seek light to aid him in forming conclusions, but not to accept the will of others as the rule of his ac