CHAP. XXV.

THE GIFTS OF THE PEOPLE.

1701 While the two great organizations here noticed were at work, others, in large numbers, but less conspicuous, were laboring for the same holy purpose. Associations for the relief of the freedmen, and for sailors, also for promoting enlistments for the military and naval service, were organized; and everywhere the most active and disinterested benevolence was manifested. High authority has said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." If so, then the loyal people of our land were eminently blessed; for it is estimated that through these two great Commissions, various associations, and by private contributions, they made free gifts of their substance to the amount of five hundred million dollars.

While these associations were at work for the benefit of the Union. soldiers, similar efforts, though not on so grand a scale, were put forth by the benevolent-minded in the slave-labor States for the benefit of the Confederate soldiers. They labored in the good work most zealously to the extent of their ability, and conferred vast benefits upon the sick and wounded soldiers of the Confederate army. We have no special reports of the result of their labors; but we know that it was a great blessing to the recipients of the kindly care, especially of the women of the South. Among the variety of organizations for benevolent purposes was one called The Confederate Association for the Relief of Maimed Soldiers. The object of that association was to supply artificial limbs gratuitously to soldiers who had lost their natural ones. An annual subscription of $10 constituted a member; of $300, a life-member; and of $100, an honorary director. Upon a certificate of membership, before me, is a rude wood-cut representation of the proposed seal of the Confederate States.

CHAPTER XXVI.

REORGANIZATION OF THE UNION -PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S PLAN

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT CHARACTER OF THE PRESIDENT-JUSTICE FOR THE FREEDMEN-MOTIVES OF LINCOLN AND JOHNSON CONTRASTED A PITIFUL TRICK -ACTION IN THE DISORGANIZED STATES — THE TEST OATH-" RECONSTRUCTION" COMMITTEE-PRESIDENT, OFFENDED, MAKES WAR ON CON

GRESS HIS POLITICAL TOUR-HIS VETOES- - THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY STANTON — FRENCH TROOPS IN MEXICO-NAPOLEON'S DESIGNS AND PERFIDY-BRITISH INTERFERENCESUFFRAGE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA-PRESIDENT THREATENED WITH IMPEACHMENT— ACTS OF CONGRESS VETOED AND PASSED-EXTRA SESSIONS—UNLAWFUL CONDUCT OF THE PRESIDENT.

FTER the terrible convulsions produced by the Civil War, by which

A State governments had been paralyzed, a hoary and deep-rooted

social system had been overthrown, and throughout a number of the commonwealths of the Republic there had been a disruption of every kind of business, the powers of the National government were invoked to bring about a general reorganization of the disorganized elements, political, social, and industrial. There was nothing to be reconstructed, for nothing worth preserving had been destroyed. No State, as a component part of the Republic, had been severed from the others, for secession was an impossibility. When the war ended, the States, geographically and politically, remained as they were before it began. The insurrection against the authority of the National Government only placed the constitutions of some of the States in a condition of suspended animation. They needed only the stimulant of competent official authority exercised by the National Government to reanimate them. All the States were politically equal-living members of the great Commonwealth, before, during, and at the close of the Civil War. Some of them, incapacitated for healthful functional action, were awaiting resuscitation at the hands of the only healer, the National Government. To that resuscitation-that reorganization and fitting them for active life-the General Government soon directed its efforts.

President Johnson took a preliminary step toward reorganization, on the 29th of April, 1865, when he proclaimed the removal of restrictions upon commercial intercourse between all the States. A month later (May 29) he issued a proclamation stating the terms by which the people of the paralyzed

CHAP. XXVI.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.

1703

States, with specified exceptions, might receive full amnesty and pardon, and be reinvested with the right to exercise the functions of citizenship, supposed to have been destroyed by participation in the insurrection. This was soon followed by the appointment by the President of provisional governors for seven of those States which had formed the original fabric known as the "Confederate States of America," clothed with authority to assemble citizens in convention who had taken the amnesty oath, with power to reorganize State governments, and secure the election of representatives in the National Congress. The plan was to restore to the States named their former position in the Union without any provision for securing to the freedmen the right to the exercise of citizenship which the amendment to the National Constitution, then before the State legislatures, would justly entitle them to. This amendment, known as the XIIIth, was adopted by Congress early in 1865, and was as follows:

"SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

This amendment was adopted by a large majority. When the result of the vote was known, the Republican members of the House of Representatives instantly sprang to their feet and applauded with cheers and clapping of hands. The spectators in the crowded galleries waved their hats and made the chamber ring with enthusiastic plaudits. Hundreds of ladies rose in their seats in the galleries and gave emphasis to their plaudits by waving their handkerchiefs and participating in the general demonstration of enthusiasm, and added to the intense excitement of a scene that will long be remembered by those who were fortunate enough to witness it. The amendment was sent, to the several State legislatures for ratification; and on the 18th of December following, the Secretary of State (Mr. Seward) declared that it had, by such ratification, become a part of the fundamental law of the land.

When Andrew Johnson was inaugurated President, there were painful apprehensions among men who knew him most intimately, that he would not be faithful to the trust reposed in him by the loyal people of the land. Notwithstanding the strength of our government had been made manifest by the shock of Civil War which it had survived, it was equally manifest

that it was surrounded with great perils. A pilot was needed at the helm of the ship of state possessed of a combination of moral and intellectual forces of a rare order-sound morality, strong and unwavering convictions, firmness of will, sobriety of conduct, calmness of temper, a thorough knowl edge of men, an accurate and impartial judgment, a willingness to take counsel, a clear perception of righteousness, and the acuteness of a true statesman. Circumstances had occurred which justly created a doubt in the public mind whether the new President possessed all these qualities, so requisite at that critical time, and these doubts soon became settled convictions. His total disregard of the highest interests of the freedmen, and the fact that the President was making haste to pardon a large number of those who had been active in the service of the Confederates and would exercise a controlling influence in the States which he was equally in haste to reorganize on his own plan, startled the loyal men of the country, and made them doubt the sincerity of his vehement declaration of intentions to punish the leading enemies of our Government. To a delegation from New Hampshire, who waited upon him soon after his inauguration, he said: “Treason is a crime, and must be punished as a crime. It must not be regarded as a mere difference of political opinion. It must not be excused as an unsuccessful rebellion, to be overlooked and forgiven. It is a crime before which all other crimes sink into insignificance." Such, and even more severe language was used by the President when speaking of the leading Confederates; and, as we have seen, he charged Jefferson Davis and others with being acces sories in the murder of Mr. Lincoln, and offered large rewards for their It was feared by some that the President would deal too harshly with the offenders; but events soon dispelled the illusion.

The poor freedmen relied with bright hopes upon the President's promise to be their "Moses" in leading them completely out of bondage; but they soon found that he was unwilling to do more than secure their personal freedom. He was unwilling to invest them with civil rights, which deprivation he knew would virtually remand them to slavery. The political party which had emancipated them and elevated Mr. Johnson to his high position, felt that justice, not expediency, should be the rule in the readjustment of the affairs of the Republic; and it was demanded, as an act of National honor, that the freedman when made a citizen by the Constitution, should have equal civil and political rights and privileges with other citizens, such as the elective franchise. In the spring of 1864, President Lincoln suggested to the governor of Louisiana, the propriety of giving that franchise to the colored people. "They would probably keep," he said, almost prophetically, "in some trying time to come, the jewel of Liberty in

CHAP. XXVI.

PLANS FOR REORGANIZATION.

1705

the family of freedom." For an ignoble purpose, President Johnson proposed to his provisional governor of Mississippi, to give the franchise to such of the freedmen as could read the National Constitution and possessed property worth two hundred and fifty dollars. He well knew that an extremely small number could avail themselves of the privilege, as the laws of Mississippi made it a punishable offence to teach a colored person to read; and in the condition of slavery, not one could hold property. It was a pitiful trick, which he was not ashamed to avow. In his letter to the governor, he said: "Do this, and, as a consequence, the radicals (in other words the most earnest Republicans), who are wild upon negro suffrage, will be completely foiled in their attempt to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations with the Union."

Within a hundred days after his inauguration, President Johnson took issue with the Republican party upon vital points of principle and policy; and at the close of 1865, it was plain to the comprehension of sagacious observers, that the Chief Magistrate was more friendly to the late enemies of his country than consistency with his professions, or the safety of the Republic, would allow. It was soon perceived that politicians in the North who had sympathized with the Confederates during the war, and the newspapers in their interest which had advocated the cause of the insurgents, had assumed a belligerent tone toward Congress and the loyal people, which greatly disturbed the latter by unpleasant forebodings.

In the meantime measures had been taken for perfecting peaceful rela tions among the whole people of the Republic, by a revival of industrial pursuits and a restoration of harmony of interests. The order for a block, ade of the Southern ports was rescinded late in June (1865); most of the restrictions upon inter-State commerce were removed in August; State prisoners were paroled in October; and on the first day of December, the first important measure adopted, after the assembling of Congress, was the repeal of the act suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.

During that period (June to December), Johnson's provisional governors had been diligent in carrying out his plan of reorganization before Congress should meet, and, possibly, interfere with it. Before the first of December five of the disorganized States had ratified the XIIIth amendment of the Constitution, cited on page 1703. They had, also, caused the formation of constitutions for their respective States and the election of representatives in the National Congress. The President had hurried on his work, by directing the provisional governors to resign their powers into the hands of others who had been elected under the new constitutions. Some of these governors-elect had been active participants in the insurrection; and some