CHAPTER XXVII.

RECONSTRUCTION IN THE FIRST MILITARY DISTRICT.

FIVE MILITARY DISTRICTS IN THE SOUTH – VIRGINIA THE FIRST DISTRICT — PROVISIONS OF THE LEGISLATION-CALL ON THE PRESIDENT FOR INFORMATION- HIS REPLY-MILITARY COMMANDERS-GENERAL SCHOFIELD FOR VIRGINIA-HIS GENERAL ORDERS-SUB-DISTRICT COMMANDERS-DIVISION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY INTO MODERATES AND RADICALS – INDICTMENT OF HUNNICUTT FOR INCENDIARY LANGUAGE-THE BILL OF RIGHTS - THE VOTE ON THE NEW CONSTITUTION-GENERAL STONEMAN IN COMMAND OF DISTRICT - GENERAL CANBY SUCCEEDS HIM-REMOVALS FROM CIVIL OFFICE ELECTION OF GOVERNOR WALKER — VIRGINIA RECONSTRUCTED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.

T

HE Reconstruction acts provided for the division of the Southern States into five districts, as stated in a preceding chapter. Virginia constituted the First district, North and South Carolina the Second, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the Third, Mississippi and Arkansas the Fourth, and Louisiana and Texas the Fifth district. The President was authorized and instructed to appoint an army officer, regular or volunteer, to the command of each district. When so appointed, their powers were absolute and unlimited. They were endowed with legislative, judicial, and executive authority. The President himself could give them no directions or instructions. He could only remove them and appoint their successors. The general commanding the armies had no authority to approve or disapprove any of their acts. They could abolish charters, extend franchises, stay the collection of debts, and prohibit the foreclosure of mortgages, levy taxes, impose fines, and inflict penalties, authorize the issue of bonds, and the contraction of state indebtedness, set aside the decisions of the courts, remove all officers, and fill all vacancies, without the form of an election. These district commanders could even try persons by commissions selected by themselves. Fortunately for the people of the South, the selection of these commanders was in the hands of that pure patriot and honest man,

METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION.

481 Andrew Johnson. Under these acts, and with these dictatorial powers, Gen. John M. Schofield was appointed to the command of the First District. His headquarters were at Richmond.

The act prescribing this method of reconstruction was passed over the President's veto, March 23, 1867. It provided that before the first day of September then ensuing, the commanding general in each district should cause a registration to be made of the male citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age and upwards, residing in each county or parish of the state. This registration should include only those persons who were qualified to vote for delegates under the requirements of the act of March 2, 1867. Before registration the applicant must have taken and subscribed an oath that he had not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States; that he had not held any executive or judicial office in any state and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to its enemies; that he had never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States 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, and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to its enemies; and that he would faithfully support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and would, to the best of his ability, encourage others to do so. The act also provided that, after the completion of such registration, an election should be held of delegates to a convention. This convention was for the purpose of establishing a constitution and civil government for the state. The convention in each state was to consist of the same number of members as the most numerous branch of the state legislature of such state in the year 1860. They were to be apportioned among the several districts, counties, or parishes in the ratio of registered voters, as nearly as might be. The convention in Virginia was to consist of the same number of delegates as had been in the most numerous branch of the legislature of that state in the year 1860. The counties, however, that constitute the State of West Virginia had been lopped off.

Provisions were also made for boards of registration, and for the usual machinery of an election. The vote was to be cast in the usual mode, by the registered voters: "For a convention" and "Against a convention." The act provided that if a majority of the votes given should be in favor of a convention, the delegates should assemble at a time and place to be mentioned in the notification. They should then proceed to frame a constitution and civil government. When this was done, the constitution should be submitted by the convention for ratification to the registered voters, at an election to be conducted by officers or persons to be appointed by the commanding general. It also provided that if the constitution should be ratified

by a majority of the qualified and registered voters, the president of the convention should transmit a copy thereof to the President of the United States, to be by him transmitted to Congress. If it should appear to Congress that the election was one at which all the registered and qualified voters in the state had an opportunity to vote freely and without restraint, fear, or the influence of fraud, and that the constitution met the approval of a majority of all the qualified electors in the state, and was in conformity with the provisions of the Reconstruction act, then such constitution should be approved by Congress. The state should then be declared entitled to representation. Senators and Representatives therefrom should be admitted to Congress. All elections were to be by ballot. The registers and pollkeepers were required to take the test oath of July 2, 1862, the "iron-clad oath." It subjected to the pains and penalties of perjury any of them who took it falsely.

The act of March 11, 1868, which was amendatory of the acts of March, 1867, became a law by lapse of time, the President neither signing it nor returning it with his objections. It had passed the Senate on the 25th of February, by a vote of twenty-eight yeas to six nays. It had passed the House on the next day by a vote of ninety-six yeas to thirty-two nays. It provided that any election authorized by the act of March 23, 1867, should be decided by a majority of the votes actually cast; and that at an election in which the question of the adoption or rejection of any state constitution was submitted, any person duly registered in the state might vote in the election district where he offered to vote, provided he had resided therein for ten days next preceding the election. It also provided that the constitutional convention of any of the states mentioned might provide that at the time of voting upon the ratification of the constitution the registered voters might also vote for Representatives in Congress, and for all elective officers provided for by such constitution. The original acts of reconstruction required the ratification of the constitution by majorities of the registered voters. But this rule was changed by the first section of the act of March 11, 1868. It provided that a majority of the votes cast should determine the question. The clause allowing voters to cast their ballots in any district where they had resided for ten days was conceived with the motive of securing ratification. This regulation admitted of the transfer of supernumerary voters from one district to another, in which their services might be needed. There could be no difficulty in effecting such transfers of the freedmen, with the ample powers possessed by the army and by the Freedmen's Bureau. The last clause of the act provided for the election of governors, members of the legislature, and Representatives in Congress, not as the state constitutions might provide, but as prescribed by an act of Congress.

They

The conventions in some of the states made suffrage universal. thereby enfranchised the numerous classes which were, by the Reconstruction

THE AMENDATORY ACT OF 1868.

483

acts, excluded from registration. But this act of March 11, 1868, authorized the district commanders to cheat these classes out of their rights by ordering an election of congressmen and state officers on the same day that the votes were given for ratification or rejection of the constitution, and by the same registered voters and no others. No ingenuity could reconcile this act and the proceedings under it with the Constitution of the United States, or with those of the states. The Constitution of the United States declares that "the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states; and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature." It was, therefore, nothing else than rank usurpation for Congress to say who should elect state officers. The persons thus chosen had no legitimate authority. The so-called legislatures thus elected by a part of the people designated and qualified by act of Congress, were mere popular or party conventions. They had no right to contract debts, to impose taxes, or to make laws for the states which were subjected to their rule by external force. Neither were the men who were elected to Congress by the registered voters, to the exclusion of thousands who were qualified by the new constitutions, duly elected members of that body. Congress had no more authority to say that a part of the voters in a Southern state might choose representatives, than it had to apply the same rule to Massachusetts or NewYork.

On the 3d of July, 1867, the Senate adopted a resolution requesting the President to communicate copies of all orders, instructions, circular letters or letters of advice issued to the respective military officers assigned to the several military districts under the act of March 2, 1867. It also required him to communicate copies of all opinions given by the Attorney-General of the United States touching the construction and interpretation of such acts. Copies were called for of all correspondence relating to the operation, construction or execution of such acts, between the President and any of such military commanders, between him and the general of the army, between the general of the army and any of the commanders touching the same subjects; also copies of all orders issued by any of such commanders in carrying out the provisions of the acts. The President was also requested to inform the Senate as to the progress made in the matter of registration under such acts, and whether the appropriation for that purpose was probably sufficient.

This resolution of the Senate was conceived in the same want of confidence in the President of the United States that inspired the act of July 19, to which reference has already been made. That act substituted the commander of the army for the Executive of the Nation. The President replied to this resolution on July 15. He stated that the appropriation of half a million of dollars for carrying the acts of reconstruction into effect had

already been expended, and that over a million and a half was required for immediate use. It was exceedingly difficult, he said, to estimate the probable expense of carrying into effect these Reconstruction acts. If the existing governments of ten states were to be deposed and their entire machinery was to be placed under the exclusive authority of the district commanders, all the expenditures incident to the administration of such governments must necessarily be incurred by the Federal Government. He estimated that the necessary expenditure, in addition to what had already been expended, would not be less than fourteen millions of dollars. He expressed the opinion that the cost of the administration of affairs by the Federal Government in these ten states would exceed that amount, and that the abolition of the state governments would make the Federal Government responsible for the state debts created before the rebellion for laudable purposes of public improvement. These debts amounted to about one hundred millions of dollars. "Was it," he asked, "worthy of the consideration of Congress, whether such an addition to the national obligations would or would not impair the public credit?" Would not a refusal to assume the debts of those states after overthrowing their governments be viewed as a violation of good faith and as a repudiation by the National Legislature of liabilities which the states had justly and legally incurred? It seems not to have occurred to the President that the same doubts or questions might have arisen in the minds of the creditors of those states in 1865, when he took the lead in overthrowing their governments. In addition to this general information, the President transmitted to the Senate the required correspondence.

General Schofield assumed the command of the First district, constituting the State of Virginia, on the 13th of March, 1867. In his general order of that date, he announced that all officers under the existing provisional government of the State of Virginia would continue to perform the duties of their respective offices, unless otherwise ordered in individual cases, until their successors were duly elected and qualified in accordance with the act of Congress of March 2, 1867. It was desirable (he said) that the military. authority should be exercised only so far as might be necessary to accomplish the objects for which that power was conferred. He appealed to the people of Virginia, and especially to magistrates and other civil officers, to render the necessity for the exercise of military power as slight as possible, by strict obedience to the laws and by the impartial administration of justice to all classes.

This general order, like others issued by General Schofield, does honor to his head and heart. It shows that, like General Hancock in Texas, he took a statesmanlike view of the duties assigned to him. Other general orders were issued by him from time to time. Among them was one of April It decreed that temporary appointments to fill vacancies occurring in

20.