Volume II Part 59 (2/2)
”SECTION 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
It may here be stated that the restoration of the late Confederate States to all the rights and privileges of States as co-equal members of the Union, under the plan of President Johnson, received the approval of the executive and judicial branches of the Government soon after the cessation of hostilities. Congress, however, not only withheld its a.s.sent, but, during its session in 1866, required as a condition precedent to a recognition of any one of these States, and the admission of its Representatives and Senators to seats, the adoption by its Legislature of the above-mentioned amendment. The question really involved in this amendment was the admission to citizens.h.i.+p and the ballot of the negroes in these States. It was the acknowledged fact that the authority to determine this question resided in the States severally and nowhere else. The amendment itself, in its second section, recognized the authority to grant or withhold the elective franchise as existing in the State governments.
This amendment was submitted to the Legislatures of the States immediately after its adoption by Congress in June, 1866, and by March 30, 1867, it had been ratified by twenty States, including West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Tennessee, and rejected by thirteen, including Delaware and Kentucky, and eleven of the late Confederate States. There were thirty-four States at that time, and thirty had voted. A ratification by three fourths was required to make it valid.
When this amendment was presented for ratification to the Legislature of Virginia at its session commencing December, 1866, it was rejected in the Senate by a unanimous vote, and in the House by a vote of seventy-four to one. Meantime the Freedmen's Bureau was organized and put in operation in the State, but the military occupation continued, and the condition of affairs remained unchanged during the proceedings of Congress to construct its plan for subjugation.
After the vote of the States up to March, 1867, it was manifest that no real advance had been made in the extension of the franchise to the negro population of the States. In this position of affairs Congress, on March 2d, adopted an entirety new system of measures relative to the late Confederate States, The fiction upon which these measures were based is thus expressed in the preamble of the first act:
”_Whereas_, No legal State governments, or adequate protection for life or property, now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and, _whereas_, it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States, until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: therefore, _be it enacted_,” etc.
These States were then divided into five military districts, and it was further provided:
”Until the people of the said rebel States shall by law be admitted to representation to the Congress of the United States, all civil governments that may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and shall be in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States, at any time to abolish, modify, control, and supersede the same, and in all elections to any office under such provisional governments, all persons shall be ent.i.tled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this act.”
Thus these States, when held by military force as conquered territory, with the sovereignty of the people extinct, were not allowed to claim to possess any rights under the Federal Const.i.tution, or any other than such as might be granted by the will of the conqueror. It was a.s.serted that the right to regulate the elective franchise, recognized as belonging to the States in the Union, could not attach to those out of the Union, and having only provisional political inst.i.tutions. Congress then proceeded to declare, in the fifth section of the bill, the terms upon which a late Confederate State could become a member of the Union:
”SECTION 5. That, when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a Const.i.tution of government in conformity with the Const.i.tution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for partic.i.p.ation in the rebellion or for felony at common law, and when such Const.i.tution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such Const.i.tution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such Const.i.tution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its Legislature elected under said Const.i.tution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as Article XIV, and when said article shall have become a part of the Const.i.tution of the United States, said State shall be declared ent.i.tled to representation in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State,” etc.
The bill became a law, notwithstanding the veto of the President.
On March 4th a new Congress commenced its session, and on March 23d a supplement to the preceding act was pa.s.sed. It ordered a registration to be made of the qualified voters in each military sub-district of the State, an election to be held for the State Convention to draft a Const.i.tution for the State, and for delegates to such convention; and that such Const.i.tution should be submitted to the voters for adoption or rejection, and upon its adoption a State government should be organized, etc. The registration was required to be made of all citizens as defined by the ”act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights,” etc. Many disqualifications of voters, arising from partic.i.p.ation in the war, were also expressed. This act also became a law, notwithstanding the objections of the President.
It will be seen that this act contemplated two distinct governments in each of the ten States--the one military and the other civil.
Both were provisional, and both were to continue until the new State Const.i.tution was framed, and the State was admitted to representation in Congress. The two were to be carried on together, and the people were made subject to both and obliged to obey both. The law was next put in operation by const.i.tuting the districts, as follows: 1.
Virginia, commander, Major-General Schofield; 2. North Carolina and South Carolina, commander, Major-General Sickles; 3. Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, commander, Major-General John Pope; 4.
Mississippi and Arkansas, commander, Major-General Ord; 5. Louisiana and Texas, commander, Major-General Sheridan.
Previous to adjournment, on July 19, 1867, Congress pa.s.sed an additional supplement to the act of March 3d and the supplement of March 23d. It declared the intent and meaning of the previous acts to have been: that the civil governments of the ten States were not legal governments, and, if continued, were to be subject in all respects to the military commanders and the paramount authority of Congress. It made the acts of the military commanders subject only to the disapproval of the General of the Army, U. S. Grant, and authorized them to remove any person from office under the State government. It further defined the cla.s.ses disfranchised, and directed that no district commander should be bound in his action by any opinion of any civil officer of the United States.
The President vetoed the bill, and in his message said:
”Thus, over all these ten States, this military government is now declared to have unlimited authority. It is no longer confined to the preservation of the public peace, the administration of criminal law, the registration of voters, and the superintendence of elections; but, 'in all respects,' is a.s.serted to be paramount to the existing civil governments. It is impossible to conceive any state of society more intolerable than this, and yet it is to this condition that twelve millions of American citizens are reduced by the Congress of the United States. Over every foot of the immense territory occupied by these American citizens, the Const.i.tution of the United States is theoretically in full operation. It binds all the people there, and should protect them; yet they are denied every one of its sacred guarantees. Of what avail will it be to any one of these Southern people, when seized by a file of soldiers, to ask for the cause of arrest, or for the production of the warrant? Of what avail to ask for the privilege of bail when in military custody, which knows no such thing as bail? Of what avail to demand a trial by jury, process for witnesses, a copy of the indictment, the privilege of counsel, or that greater privilege, the writ of _habeas corpus_?”
Congress having thus completed its plan of operations, the cras.h.i.+ng wheels of subjugation began to move forward. Let us proceed with the narration of affairs in Virginia.
On the appearance of Major-General Schofield at Richmond, all the proceedings of the so-called civil government, for the organization and restoration of the State to the Union, at once ceased, and he a.s.sumed command. A board of army officers was named by the commanding General for the purpose of selecting suitable persons for appointment as registering officers throughout the State. In making the selections, the preference was given, first, to officers of the army and of the Freedmen's Bureau, on duty in the State; second, to persons who had been discharged from the Federal army, after ”meritorious” services during the war; third, to ”loyal” citizens of the county or city where they were to serve. On April 2d an order appeared from the major-general, suspending all elections, whether State, county, or munic.i.p.al, ”under the provisional government,”
until after the registration was completed. A lecture on the ”Chivalry of the South,” advertised to be delivered in Lynchburg, was suppressed by the order of the post commander at that place. A warning was given by the major-general to the editor of the Richmond ”Times,” which said, ”The efforts of your paper to foster enmity, create disorder, and lead to violence, can no longer be tolerated.”
On the refusal of five magistrates of the Corporation Council of Norfolk to receive the testimony of a negro, they were arrested on a process issued under the Civil Bights Bill, and held to bail to appear before the District Court. All armed organizations in the State were disbanded. Inflammatory meetings of freedmen and those who sought their political alliance were held in different parts of the State.
Military commissioners were appointed over sub-districts for the suppression of disorder and violence, for the protection of all persons in their so-called rights of person and property, and clothed with all the powers of justices of a county or police magistrates of a city. The State was also divided into sub-districts, and commanders appointed over the same. These officers were empowered to exercise a general supervision over the military commissioners, and to furnish them, when necessary, with sufficient military force to enable them to discharge their duties. Further orders relative to the qualification of voters were issued by the major-general, in which it was declared that ”all persons who voluntarily joined the rebel army, and all persons in that army, whether volunteers or conscripts, who committed voluntarily any hostile act, were thereby engaged in insurrection or rebellion; and all who voted for the ordinance of secession, gave aid and comfort to the enemy. Also all who voluntarily furnished supplies of food, or clothing, arms, ammunition, horses, or mules, or any other material of war, partic.i.p.ated in the rebellion,” and were disfranchised. The whole number registered was 116,982 whites and 104,772 blacks. The vote for the Convention was 14,835 whites and 92,507 blacks; against the Convention, 61,249 whites and 638 blacks.
The Convention a.s.sembled on December 3d and adjourned on April 17, 1868. The Bill of Eights adopted declared that--
”The State shall ever remain a member of the United States of America, and the people thereof a part of the American nation, and all attempts, from whatever source, and upon whatever pretext, to dissolve said Union, or to sever said Union, are unauthorized, and ought to be resisted with the whole power of the State.
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