Part 24 (2/2)
Military Governors--Lincoln's Theory of Reconstruction--Congressional Election in Louisiana--Letter to Military Governors--Letter to Shepley--Amnesty Proclamation, December 8, 1863--Instructions to Banks--Banks's Action in Louisiana--Louisiana Abolishes Slavery--Arkansas Abolishes Slavery--Reconstruction in Tennessee--Missouri Emanc.i.p.ation--Lincoln's Letter to Drake--Missouri Abolishes Slavery--Emanc.i.p.ation in Maryland--Maryland Abolishes Slavery
To subdue the Confederate armies and establish order under martial law was not the only task before President Lincoln. As rapidly as rebel States or portions of States were occupied by Federal troops, it became necessary to displace usurping Confederate officials and appoint in their stead loyal State, county, and subordinate officers to restore the administration of local civil law under the authority of the United States. In western Virginia the people had spontaneously effected this reform, first by repudiating the Richmond secession ordinance and organizing a provisional State government, and, second, by adopting a new const.i.tution and obtaining admission to the Union as the new State of West Virginia. In Missouri the State convention which refused to pa.s.s a secession ordinance effected the same object by establis.h.i.+ng a provisional State government. In both these States the whole process of what in subsequent years was comprehensively designated ”reconstruction”
was carried on by popular local action, without any Federal initiative or interference other than prompt Federal recognition and substantial military support and protection.
But in other seceded States there was no such groundwork of loyal popular authority upon which to rebuild the structure of civil government. Therefore, when portions of Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and North Carolina came under Federal control, President Lincoln, during the first half of 1862, appointed military governors to begin the work of temporary civil administration. He had a clear and consistent const.i.tutional theory under which this could be done. In his first inaugural he announced the doctrine that ”the union of these States is perpetual” and ”unbroken.” His special message to Congress on July 4, 1861, added the supplementary declaration that ”the States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status.” The same message contained the further definition:
”The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to make its nest within her borders; and this government has no choice left but to deal with it where it finds it. And it has the less regret, as the loyal citizens have, in due form, claimed its protection. Those loyal citizens this government is bound to recognize and protect, as being Virginia.”
The action of Congress entirely conformed to this theory. That body admitted to seats senators and representatives from the provisional State governments of West Virginia and Missouri; and also allowed Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee to retain his seat, and admitted Horace Maynard and Andrew J. Clements as representatives from the same State, though since their election Tennessee had undergone the usual secession usurpation, and had as yet organized no loyal provisional government.
The progress of the Union armies was so far checked during the second half of 1862, that Military Governor Phelps, appointed for Arkansas, did not a.s.sume his functions; and Military Governor Stanley wielded but slight authority in North Carolina. Senator Andrew Johnson, appointed military governor of Tennessee, established himself at Nashville, the capital, and, though Union control of Tennessee fluctuated greatly, he was able, by appointing loyal State and county officers, to control the administration of civil government in considerable districts, under substantial Federal jurisdiction.
In the State of Louisiana the process of restoring Federal authority was carried on a step farther, owing largely to the fact that the territory occupied by the Union army, though quite limited, comprising only the city of New Orleans and a few adjacent parishes, was more securely held, and its hostile frontier less disturbed. It soon became evident that considerable Union sentiment yet existed in the captured city and surrounding districts, and when some of the loyal citizens began to manifest impatience at the restraints of martial law, President Lincoln in a frank letter pointed the way to a remedy:
”The people of Louisiana,” he wrote under date of July 28, 1862, ”who wish protection to person and property, have but to reach forth their hands and take it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate the national authority and set up a State government conforming thereto under the Const.i.tution. They know how to do it, and can have the protection of the army while doing it. The army will be withdrawn so soon as such State government can dispense with its presence, and the people of the State can then, upon the old const.i.tutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking.”
At about this date there occurred the serious military crisis in Virginia; and the battles of the Peninsula, of the second Bull Run, and of Antietam necessarily compelled the postponement of minor questions.
But during this period the President's policy on the slavery question reached its development and solution, and when, on September 22, he issued his preliminary proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation, it also paved the way for a further defining of his policy of reconstruction.
That proclamation announced the penalty of military emanc.i.p.ation against all States in rebellion on the succeeding first day of January; but also provided that if the people thereof were represented in Congress by properly elected members, they should be deemed not in rebellion, and thereby escape the penalty. Wis.h.i.+ng now to prove the sincerity of what he said in the Greeley letter, that his paramount object was to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery, he wrote a circular letter to the military governors and commanders in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, instructing them to permit and aid the people within the districts held by them to hold elections for members of Congress, and perhaps a legislature, State officers, and United States senators.
”In all available ways,” he wrote, ”give the people a chance to express their wishes at these elections. Follow forms of law as far as convenient, but at all events get the expression of the largest number of the people possible. All see how such action will connect with and affect the proclamation of September 22. Of course the men elected should be gentlemen of character, willing to swear support to the Const.i.tution as of old, and known to be above reasonable suspicion of duplicity.”
But the President wished this to be a real and not a sham proceeding, as he explained a month later in a letter to Governor Shepley:
”We do not particularly need members of Congress from there to enable us to get along with legislation here. What we do want is the conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are willing to be members of Congress and to swear support to the Const.i.tution, and that other respectable citizens there are willing to vote for them and send them. To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really so), at the point of the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous; and were I a member of Congress here, I would vote against admitting any such man to a seat.”
Thus instructed, Governor Shepley caused an election to be held in the first and second congressional districts of Louisiana on December 3, 1862, at which members of Congress were chosen. No Federal office-holder was a candidate, and about one half the usual vote was polled. The House of Representatives admitted them to seats after full scrutiny, the chairman of the committee declaring this ”had every essential of a regular election in a time of most profound peace, with the exception of the fact that the proclamation was issued by the military instead of the civil governor of Louisiana.”
Military affairs were of such importance and absorbed so much attention during the year 1863, both at Was.h.i.+ngton and at the headquarters of the various armies, that the subject of reconstruction was of necessity somewhat neglected. The military governor of Louisiana indeed ordered a registration of loyal voters, about the middle of June, for the purpose of organizing a loyal State government; but its only result was to develop an inevitable antagonism and contest between conservatives who desired that the old const.i.tution of Louisiana prior to the rebellion should be revived, by which the inst.i.tution of slavery as then existing would be maintained, and the free-State party which demanded that an entirely new const.i.tution be framed and adopted, in which slavery should be summarily abolished. The conservatives asked President Lincoln to adopt their plan. While the President refused this, he in a letter to General Banks dated August 5, 1863, suggested the middle course of gradual emanc.i.p.ation.
”For my own part,” he wrote, ”I think I shall not, in any event, retract the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation; nor, as Executive, ever return to slavery any person who is freed by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress. If Louisiana shall send members to Congress, their admission to seats will depend, as you know, upon the respective houses and not upon the President.”
”I would be glad for her to make a new const.i.tution recognizing the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation and adopting emanc.i.p.ation in those parts of the State to which the proclamation does not apply. And while she is at it, I think it would not be objectionable for her to adopt some practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new. Education for young blacks should be included in the plan. After all, the power or element of 'contract' may be sufficient for this probationary period, and by its simplicity and flexibility may be the better.”
During the autumn months the President's mind dwelt more and more on the subject of reconstruction, and he matured a general plan which he laid before Congress in his annual message to that body on December 8, 1863. He issued on the same day a proclamation of amnesty, on certain conditions, to all persons in rebellion except certain specified cla.s.ses, who should take a prescribed oath of allegiance. The proclamation further provided that whenever a number of persons so amnestied in any rebel State, equal to one tenth the vote cast at the presidential election of 1860, should ”reestablish a State government which shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said oath,” such would be recognized as the true government of the State. The annual message discussed and advocated the plan at length, but also added: ”Saying that reconstruction will be accepted if presented in a specified way, it is not said it will never be accepted in any other way.”
This plan of reconstructing what came to be called ”ten percent States,”
met much opposition in Congress, and that body, reversing its action in former instances, long refused admission to members and senators from States similarly organized; but the point needs no further mention here.
A month before the amnesty proclamation the President had written to General Banks, expressing his great disappointment that the reconstruction in Louisiana had been permitted to fall in abeyance by the leading Union officials there, civil and military.
”I do, however,” he wrote, ”urge both you and them to lose no more time.
Governor Shepley has special instructions from the War Department. I wish him--these gentlemen and others cooperating--without waiting for more territory, to go to work and give me a tangible nucleus which the remainder of the State may rally around as fast as it can, and which I can at once recognize and sustain as the true State government.”
He urged that such reconstruction should have in view a new free-State const.i.tution, for, said he:
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