294

THE SOUTH IN STATU QUO.

two votes, and, in the Senate, would have a decided preponderance. What danger to the Government, then, could possibly arise from Southern representation? Was the party in the majority in fear, or did it wish to keep the country in a turmoil, to reduce the States to bondage, to deny them their rights under the Constitution and to degrade their citizens merely that it might continue in power? Of the loyalty of Southern Senators and Representatives there was ample evidence; not the least trustworthy of which was the testimony of General Grant.1 From his recent visit to South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, he had declared himself convinced that the mass of thinking men of the South accepted the new situation of affairs in good faith, and that the people were anxious to return to civil government within the Union.

Secession as a practical doctrine was almost utterly abandoned; it had failed in the ordeal of battle. Undoubtedly the States, North and South, would cheerfully adopt an amendment guarding against it. The Southern States had adopted constitutions free from intrinsic objections, and had agreed to every stipulation which the President had thought necessary for the protection and benefit of all. What more was necessary? The repudiation of the rebel debt? The denial of all obligation to pay for manumitted slaves? The inviolability of the national debt? If these provisions were deemed necessary, they could not be defeated, even if the South were disposed to defeat them, by the admission of its Representatives into Congress. But these measures were associated with others which it was believed the people of the South would never

1 In his letter to President Johnson, December 18, 1865. See Messages of the President, December 19, 1865, Executive Document, House of Representatives, Thirty-ninth Congress, First Session, pp. 106-108.

DISFRANCHISEMENT.

295

adopt. They were asked to disfranchise a numerous class of their citizens, also to agree to diminish their representation in Congress-and, of course, in the electoral collegeand to admit their colored males to the right of suffrage, a class in a condition of almost utter ignorance, thus placing them on the same political footing with white citizens. For reasons so obvious that the dullest might discover them, the right of granting the suffrage to the negro had not been directly inserted in any of these measures. "That would be obnoxious to most of the Northern and Western States; so much so that their consent was not to be anticipated." But as the proposed plan of reconstruction would have no effect on the representation of these States, because of the small number of negroes in them, it was thought that it might be adopted in the Southern States, because it would materially lessen their number in them.

The assent of the Southern States to the measure could hardly be expected, as its effect, if not its purpose, was forever to deny them representation, or, if they consented to the condition, to weaken their representative power and thus probably to continue in power the party which now controlled the Government. The proclamations of amnesty issued by President Lincoln and his successor, with the consent of Congress, were inconsistent with the idea that the parties they included were not to be considered, in future, as restored to all rights belonging to them as citizens of their respective States. "A power to pardon is a power to restore the offender to the condition in which he was before the date of the offense pardoned." These amnesties would be but false pretenses if they were to be practically construed as leaving the parties who had availed themselves of them in almost every particular in the condition in which they would have been if they had

296

THE AMENDMENT IMPOLITIC.

rejected them. Expediency clearly demanded the immediate admission of the States. The North was deeply interested in restoring, to all their rights and privileges under the Constitution, the population of the South, nearly ten millions in number, and inhabiting an area larger than that of the five leading nations of Europe.1

The manner in which the amendment was proposed was impolitic and without precedent. Its several parts were without connection; "each if adopted would have its appropriate effect if the others were rejected, and each, therefore, should be submitted as a separate article. The repudiation of the rebel debt and of the obligation to compensation for the loss of slaves, and the inviolability of the national debt would undoubtedly meet the approval of many Southern States, but this part of the amendment could not be sanctioned without sanctioning the others. To force negro suffrage upon a State, by means of the penalty of a loss of part of its representation, not only imposed a disparaging condition, but virtually interfered with the clear and exclusive right of each State to regulate the suffrage for itself. The suffrage clause of the amendment, therefore, was its most objectionable feature.

These conflicting views of the majority and the minority of the Joint Committee accurately reflected the opinion of parties in Congress and public opinion outside. The Fourteenth Amendment involved an issue different from that raised when the Thirteenth was proposed. Slavery. was then commonly recognized as the chief cause of the war. The North was eager to have it abolished, and the South could do no less than register an accomplished fact. The amendment, therefore, was taken up quite unanimously by the legislatures, North and South, and was

1 Report of the minority, Id., pp. 1-13; the language of the report is quite closely followed.

OBJECTIONAL CLAUSES.

297

ratified within the brief period of eleven months; ratification by the South being undoubtedly induced and hastened by the prospect of its speedy representation in Congress. Moreover, the amendment contained but a single provision, The Fourteenth, on the contrary, contained four provisions, each of which raised a distinct political issue. The first section embodied the substance of the civil rights bill and was not likely to be opposed North or South, because the old free States had always acknowledged that free persons of color possessed civil rights and the old slave-holding States had recently, by statute, granted them these rights. To ratify this amendment was, therefore, no more than to record an accomplished fact. The fourth section, on the validity of the national debt, and the repudiation of the Confederate debt, and of all claims for the loss of slaves, would not meet with opposition at the North. Public policy demanded the ratification of this clause.

The national debt, which at this time had reached its highest point, over two and three-quarter billions of dollars, was held chiefly at the North, and its repudiation, or diminution in value, or any distrust of its obligation, would affect most disastrously the lives and fortunes of the Northern people and would injure our national credit abroad. Its validity was essential to our prosperity, however great the burden of payment might prove to be. But repudiation of the Confederate debt included the debt to the Southern States incurred in rebellion, and the claims. for slaves which in the aggregate was twice as great as the national debt.2 Repudiation would easily, naturally, and

1 $2,773,236,173.69.

2 The total loss by the South in property, assets and debts, State and Confederate, was estimated to be $5,262,303,554.29. Stevenson's Report on the Finances of the Late Insurrectionary States, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1872, p. 1151.

298

THE SOUTH MUST REJECT.

it may be said, justly, be construed by the North as the penalty for rebellion. The reasons, however, which would lead the North to ratify this part of the amendment would lead the South to reject it. But the attitude of the North and South toward the national and Confederate debts was like that toward the third section of the amendment, on the disqualification for holding office. The North would view it as a just punishment for treason and would easily ratify it; the South would consider it an outrage upon intelligence, and tending to put every Southern State into the control of the negroes. Its second section, on representation, could affect the North but slightly. The ninety thousand male negroes, of voting age, in the North, distributed from Maine to California, were not sufficient in number to affect any local election. But the section, by including negroes in the voting population, would nullify the election laws of sixteen of the Northern States. For years the free negro had been unwelcome in every Northern State save five.1 He was excluded by statute in the North from the body of voters, and the constitution of Oregon went so far as to forbid him to enter the State.

The outlook for the ratification of the amendment therefore, though hopeful, was not assuring. The New England States might be counted on for ratification, and the border States, excepting West Virginia and possibly Tennessee, for rejection. Their opinion was well expressed in a recent joint resolution of the Delaware legislature, that the extension of the right of suffrage to negroes in the District of Columbia was a lasting stigma and disgrace to the free white men of the country.2 New York,

1 Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Nebraska.

2 See Senate and Assembly Journal, January 22, 1866.