realize what was taking place, negro suffrage-the most unpopular measure of the day, advocated by no party in its platform and repeatedly and uniformly rejected by the people at the polls-had suddenly become, in a large part of the Union, un fait accompli.

On December 13th, 1866, Congress passed a bill establishing negro suffrage in the District of Columbia, and repassed it over the President's veto on January 8th, 1867. Two days later it enacted an omnibus bill, establishing negro suffrage in all the territories. On February 9th, 1867, in spite of the President's veto, it forced negro suffrage on Nebraska in the manner just mentioned. And on March 2nd, 1867, the famous Reconstruction Act was passed over the President's veto, relegating the Southern States to the condition of military districts, fixing negro suffrage upon them, and disfranchising the large majority of their white men.54

This was a coup d'etat of the first magnitude. It could never have been successfully carried out under any other circumstances than those in which the country then found itself, and, doubtless, by no other men who have ever wielded the destinies of this Nation than that masterful coterie of political bigots and fanatics which then dominated Congress. The helpless South was simply paralyzed by the blow. The North, although long and carefully prepared for it, scarcely realized what had been done. But the Radical leaders in Congress realized that they had given a coup de grace to their adversaries, and that thereafter they would "rule the roost" undisturbed for some time to come.

These leaders recognized that their action was unconstitutional-Mr. Stevens hardly took the trouble to pretend it was otherwise. They knew they had burnt the bridges behind them and that their only safety lay

54 See Congressional Globe for January, February and March, 1867.

in making themselves the practical dictators of the country. On the same day, therefore, that they passed the Reconstruction Act, they proceeded to emasculate the office of President, by passing, over his veto, the Civil Tenure Act, whereby they took possession of all the patronage of the executive office, and reduced the President to a mere ministerial officer of Congress. They so far ignored President Johnson, that it was only necessary that he veto a bill to insure its immediate passage, over his veto, by largely increased majorities. They denounced him as a traitor; they accused him of harboring designs to turn the government over to the "rebels"; they posed as the rescuers of the country from impending destruction, and they finally impeached the President for high crimes and misdemeanors. He, on the other hand, by his undignified conduct, his violence and his tactlessness, played into their hands and assisted in increasing his own unpopularity and consequently in augmenting their strength.

These Congressional Radicals ostracised every man who resisted them and impugned the motives of all who differed with them, not even excepting the Chief Justice of the United States. They attacked the Supreme Court and took from it jurisdiction to pass upon the validity of the Reconstruction Acts;55 and some went so far as to threaten speedy impeachment for the entire Court, if they should dare to hold any Act of Congress unconstitutional. Finally, like most similar bodies intoxicated with unlimited power, their own excesses wrought their destruction, but not before, in a last desperate effort to retain and perpetuate that power which they saw slipping from their hands, they had fastened negro

56

55 Ex parte McArdle, 6 Wall., 318; Act of Congress, March 27th, 1868, 15 U. S. Stat. 44; Ex parte McArdle, 7 Wall., 515.

56 Speech of Senator Drake, of Mo., on February 8th, 1869. See Globe, p. 992, et seq., and also New York Herald of February 10th, 1869, p. 3.

suffrage, as a national institution, upon an unwilling country.

As the representatives, for the time being, of that great party which claimed credit for having saved the Union, as the very men themselves who insisted that they had effected a second rescue of the country from the machinations of the "arch traitor" President Johnson, and his Southern allies, these men, who have well been called "the Jacobins of Congress"57 dominated a party, which, in turn, dominated the country. The great majority of the Northern people looked to them as the saviours of the country, and trusted them with implicit confidence. This confidence, these Radical leaders first appealed to and then betrayed, in order to establish negro suffrage, which they thought essential to the perpetuation of their power.

The instrumentalities employed by Congress for the accomplishment of this measure, were the State Legislatures, most of which the Radicals then controlled.58 In February, 1867, the Legislature of Tennessee undertook to change the Constitution of that State, so as to create negro suffrage, by a simple statute, without reference to the people. In April, the Ohio Legislature proposed negro suffrage to the people of that State, but at the October election it was voted down by over fifty thousand majority. In November, the people of

57 See New York Herald, January 15th, 1869, p. 6.

58 See speech of Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, on February 26th, 1869, Globe, p. 1626, in which he referred to the fact that his radical faction "had twenty-five State Legislatures in the hands of our friends,” as a reason for rushing through an amendment which a few days before (see Globe, page 672), he had said was unpopular in every square mile of the United States. See also the appeal of Senator Stewart, of Nevada, on the same day, that the amendment be not allowed to go over five days to the incoming Congress, although it would be more than two-thirds Republican: "Your Legislatures," said he, "are waiting now, ready to act. Send it (the Amendment) to another conference and the whole thing is lost!" Globe, p. 1629. See, also, editorial of New York Tribune, February 27th, 1869, claiming twenty-six States to be "safely Republican."

Kansas and Minnesota were invited by their Legislatures to try negro suffrage, but they would have none of it, and voted it down by large majorities.59

The people would follow their political leaders in everything but negro suffrage; at this they balked and ever had balked, and doubtless, ever would balk. The faithful legislatures were willing enough to do the bidding of the party leaders in Congress, but they simply could not lead the people on this one point-in no single instance had they succeeded. Why were the people so stubborn and so prejudiced? Could they not see the urgent need of the negro vote to preserve their party in power and thus save the country? Apparently they could not, or would not. How, then, could this essential thing of negro suffrage be obtained?

The Reconstruction Acts of March, 1867, had, indeed, established negro suffrage where it was most needed; but, in the first place, negroes were rapidly coming north, where they might soon hold the balance of power, and, in the second place, the Reconstruction Acts were liable to be rescinded or set aside as unconstitutional;60 furthermore, the Southern States were bound, sooner or later, to come back into the Union as States and they would then surely abolish negro suffrage, in spite

59 A bill was introduced this year (1867), in the Lower House of the New Jersey Legislature, to submit a negro suffrage Amendment to the voters of that State; but it was defeated in the House by a vote of practically two to one-the exact vote was twenty for and thirty-eight against negro suffrage. See House Journal of New Jersey Legislature, 1867.

60 The Northern Democrats were loud in their denunciation of the Reconstruction Acts and in their avowed intention of disregarding and repudiating them as unconstitutional and void, as soon as their party should come into power. See General Blair's letter, July 13th, 1868, accepting the Democratic nomination as Vice-President (McPherson's History of Reconstruction, p. 369), and his widely published letter of June 30th, 1868, to Col. Brodhead, which gained the nomination for him (Idem., p. 380). It was common knowledge that, but for the Act of March 27th, 1868, depriving it of jurisdiction, the United States Supreme Court would have decided in the McArdle case that the Reconstruction Acts were unconstitutional and void.

of all the "fundamental conditions" that might be imposed upon them. Manifestly, no political power could be safely built upon such shifting sand as these Reconstruction Acts. Negro suffrage must be embodied in the Federal Constitution. But how get it there, if the people of the North remained so solidly against it? This was a difficult problem, but the "Jacobins of Congress" showed themselves equal to solving it.

On March 7th, 1867, Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, had introduced in the Senate a joint resolution, known as "Senate Resolution, No. 8,"61 which was read and referred to the Judiciary Committee. This resolution was not discussed at the time, but it carried out the suggestion of Mr. Sumner at the Worcester Convention in September, 1865, that the Federal Constitution be amended so as to prevent the exclusion of negroes from the elective franchise, and two years later it became, with a slight alteration, the Fifteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. At the time of its introduction, however, in March, 1867, it created no comment; it did not make a ripple; for who then would have thought the ratification of such an amendment possible!

During the year 1867, after the first astonishment of the people at the reconstruction measures began to die out, the public became a little restive under the course pursued by the Radicals. It is true that the Radical leaders still dominated the Republican party, but a revulsion of sentiment was becoming manifest and more moderate counsels were being listened to. The Democrats persisted in their charge that the Radicals were trying to force negro suffrage on the States by Federal authority; the Radicals still bitterly denied it, but the facts were strongly against them. From the South came no sound, save the cry of the carpet-baggers for "negro 61 Congressional Globe, March 7th, 1867, p. 13.