CHAPTER LIV.

TURMOIL-RESCUING GRANT.

Six of these "provisional" governors were appointed within six weeks and others followed in due time. Under them elections were held which resulted in filling the local offices and legislatures with men hostile to the Federal authority;* electing as representatives and senators those only who had lately been in rebellion; promulgating State constitutions without submitting them to the people; and enacting oppressive laws against the blacks.

In South Carolina "Governor" Perry suspended everything that had been accomplished and reinstated the laws in existence prior to secession, forcing the military commanders of that Department to send protests to Stanton against that manner of reversing the results of the war.

Once more the North became aroused and thunders of indignation rolled against the White House. General Carl Schurz was sent to investigate and report upon conditions and sentiments in the South. The result did not suit President Johnson, who requested. Grant to make a counter report.

Grant, with Stanton's formal approval, left his office on Novem-、 ber 27, 1865, but was back in Washington in eight or ten days. He saw but few persons and gathered no testimony. His report comprised two printed pages. He reported no facts, but, as Badeau says (p. 33) reported according to "the expectations of the President."

Schurz's report was elaborate, containing one hundred and five printed pages. It was reinforced by official documents and formal statements from nearly all of the military officers (many of them men of distinction) in the insurrectionary sections. Therefore Stan

*Only Confederates were chosen. When, as was generally the case, men were elected who could not take the prescribed oath, their names were forwarded to Johnson who promptly issued pardons to them, thus making them his active partisans.

ton thought a contrary statement by Grant, unsupported by facts, would prove to be injudicious and probably disastrous, but Johnson ordered otherwise, and, against Stanton's advice, Grant's so-called report (termed "whitewash" by Senator Charles Sumner) was sent by the President to Congress with and as an antidote to that of Schurz, who thus concluded:

(1) The loyalty of the masses and of most of the leaders of the Southern people consists in submission to necessity. (2) Slavery in the old form cannot be kept up. (3) The ordinances abolishing slavery, passed by the conventions under the pressure of circumstances, will not be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude and (4) will result in bloody collision and will certainly plunge Southern society into restless fluctuations and anarchial confusion.

Congress, spurning Grant's and accepting Schurz's conclusions, declared without debate against admitting the members and senators elected under Johnson's "provisional" governments; also against the proposition of the rebellious States to reenact their former slave constitutions, and that the insurgent leaders, by their acts of war, had become tainted with treason and could not participate in public affairs, even as voters upon Federal matters, until they had been purged.

Johnson was furious, denouncing and defying Congress as an "usurper" and "dictator." The situation was critical. The President and all of his cabinet (save Stanton) and apparently the head. of the armies (Grant)* were arrayed on one side, while Stanton and a majority of Congress were arrayed on the other to maintain the Union and a rational form of reconstruction.

On February 19, 1866, the President vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which Stanton had championed, for the alleged reason that the insurrectionary States had no representatives in the Congress which enacted the law. On the following day Representative Thaddeus Stevens presented a resolution declaring that the representatives of no rebellious States should be received in Congress until that body had decided that such States were entitled to representation, and it passed both Houses.

*"General Grant was a Democrat and thought and acted in harmony with President Johnson in politics and reconstruction for a time after the close of the war," says Major A. E. H. Johnson, confidential clerk to both Stanton and Grant.

On April 2, 1866, hoping to submerge the law-making power, Johnson issued a proclamation declaring the Rebellion closed and the insurrectionary States back in the Union as before, with all the rights, powers, and privileges of the loyal States.

"If President Johnson can put flesh on the bones and blood in the veins of three hundred thousand men and return them to their families, he can make this nation think he is right; if not, he never can," said Stanton to Philetus Sawyer of Wisconsin. "A year ago. we had a million fighting men in the field and the same sentiment and influence that sent them there will return them again, before the people will see the political power of this nation placed in the hands of the rebellious States by Andrew Johnson or any other man."

On May 22, 1866, the President and his cabinet were serenaded, according to a plan conceived by Alex. W. Randall of Wisconsin, who was subsequently rewarded with the appointment of postmaster-general. The device was intended to trap certain members of the cabinet, all of whom were invited to speak.

Stanton prepared in writing a moderate but adroit speech, which was intended mainly for Congress. After stating his differences with Johnson and his adherence to a rational and permanent form of reconstruction, he said he had advised the President to sign the Civil Rights, Freedmen's Bureau, and Reconstruction bills, which were vetoed, and concluded with emphasis, that he was opposed to the third section of a pending amendment of the constitution proposing to "exclude all States lately in rebellion from representation in Congress till July 4, 1870." He declared that for Congress to tie its hands more than four years in advance was unwise and dangerous, as circumstances might so change in the meantime as to make the readmission of the seceded States proper and wholesome.

Six days later the Senate unanimously struck out the section Stanton thus objected to, although it had passed the House by a large majority. His influence with Congress was yet omnipotent, as it had been for years, for he had made no mistakes in his advice. to that body or to the President.

Shortly after this, by a law of Congress, Grant was elevated to the grand position of general. Why? He was gaining no victories; he was leading no armies; the war was over; only twenty-five thousand of the million soldiers under his command a little over a year before were left on the rolls; there was no preparation for another

war.

President Johnson, now fully entered upon his great fight against Congress and the loyal masses, was toadying to Grant in the hope of permanently retaining him as a powerful helpmeet, leading the public to believe, with regret and grief, that the General endorsed the President's policy. Congress, therefore, would have been far more likely, if left to itself, to curtail than add to Grant's glories and power.

The proposed promotion was hung up a long time in committee. Stanton, seeing Grant drifting farther and farther from the people, farther and farther from the record and the fruits of his own great achievements, and hoping to rescue him from being completely Johnsonized, went to the committee and gave reasons which, though entirely political, were nevertheless accepted as sufficient for the passage of the bill; and it was passed. The President signed it because he believed that he had Grant safely appropriated to his own uses and purposes, and that this magnificent elevation of a distinguished ally would add to his own strength in the battle that was now on with Congress and the loyal people. But Stanton, relying on Grant's abundant store of common sense and the ultimate effect of the influence of the Union masses who had idolized him, did not think so. He felt that Grant, who was a child in politics, would sooner or later discover the real trend of affairs and attach himself in peace to the people for whom he had fought in war, and whose representatives had bestowed upon him this great additional honor. Therefore he gave not only his official but his close personal attention to this promotion, and was careful to make Grant acquainted with the fact, as this private note, by his own hand, delivered by a special messenger on July 25, 1866, will show:

General:

The President has signed the bill reviving the grade of general. I have made out and laid your commission before him and it will be sent to the Senate this morning.

Although Grant continued his intimacy at the White House, he did so, after September, 1866, under strong mental protest and only after persistent dragooning—a fact, however, which the people have not been permitted to know to this day.

CHAPTER LV.

"SWINGING AROUND THE CIRCLE"-GREAT LETTER TO ASHLEY.

The autumn of 1866 was especially full of contention and chaos. Johnson arranged a series of so-called national conventions (one called for Philadelphia on August 14, and the other for Cleveland on September 17) for the purpose of influencing pending congressional elections in favor of "my policy."

To offset the Philadelphia convention Stanton suggested that an imposing assembly called "Loyalists of the South" be held in the same city on September 3. It was a very large gathering and drew as participants or spectators the most distinguished men of the nation, the Southerners having requested delegates from the North to meet and confer with them. The general mass-meeting on the third day was the largest ever seen in Philadelphia.

In order to neutralize the effect of the convention at Cleveland, a vast gathering of soldiers and sailors opposed to Johnson and upholding Stanton and Congress, met in Pittsburg on the 25th of September. Every State in the Union was represented. John A. Logan presided and nearly all the great generals were present on the stage.

Four days prior to this gathering Stanton felt called upon to send the following letter:

Dear Sir:

Washington City, September 21, 1866.

I have heard it intimated that some of the delegates to the Pittsburg convention contemplate offering a complimentary resolution in favor of myself, and asking me to retain my position in the War Department. General Irwin of Philadelphia and General Brisbane of Ohio have been mentioned as having that disposition.

It must be obvious to you, as it is to me, that any personal allusion favorable to me would be prejudicial to any good influence I may be able to exert. I desire no endorsement, and personal compliments are matters for which I have no taste. I wish you would therefore see that nothing of that kind is done in respect to myself.

The Honorable J. K. Moorhead.

Yours truly,

Edwin M. Stanton.