Читать книгу Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction - Charles H. McCarthy - Страница 5
I
TENNESSEE
ОглавлениеWhile the celebrated joint debates with Senator Douglas in 1858, the Cooper Union and other addresses, marked Mr. Lincoln, in the new political party just rising to power, as the intellectual peer of able and trusted leaders like Sumner, Chase and Seward, his conservative opinions on the subject of slavery made his nomination by the Chicago Convention more acceptable to delegates from the border States. Though his competitors received, in the memorable contest which followed, almost a million votes in excess of the number cast for Mr. Lincoln and his associate, the fierce conflict among fragments of the Democratic party resulted, as is well known, in the choice of a decided majority of Republican electors.[1] This rather unexpected defeat of a political organization that had lost but two Presidential contests since its first success under Jefferson afforded Southern leaders a pretext for urging a dismemberment of the Union. Indeed, there is evidence that the more impetuous among them had, four years earlier, seriously determined, in case of Fremont’s election, upon a similar course.[2] Thus the present event, so far from being an universal disappointment to members of the defeated party, had been ardently hoped for by many.
The choice of a minority party, and not at first possessing the entire confidence of even that minority, Mr. Lincoln, unable to divine the future, was compelled in dealing with the insurrection to proceed with the utmost caution. Washington himself, in organizing the Federal Government, had a task of less magnitude, and the renown of his military achievements silenced for a time even the boldest in opposition. President Lincoln’s victories, gained on a different field, gave no such unquestioned authority to his name. This peculiar situation forced him to adopt for the guidance of his administration a policy not altogether free from embarrassment to both himself and his successor. His purpose at that time appears to have been to meet the demands of the moment by the contrivances of the moment. Whether a different course would have been rewarded by earlier or by more complete success is a hazardous subject for speculation. If his theory of our national existence be liable to the multitude of objections which have grown up in these fruitful times of peace, no other has been suggested that is free from criticism. His political doctrine, too, had the advantage of always recommending measures scarcely less distinguished for enlarged views than those enlightened convictions which characterize his first inaugural address. Whatever may be concluded of its merits, the theory embraced at the outset exerted on many administrative acts of President Lincoln an influence that continued to be felt during his entire executive career; and without remembering this fact we shall not easily comprehend either the extent of his “Border Policy,” as the plan of compensated emancipation is often called, or his undoubted concern for persecuted Union men in the seceded States.
The sufferings of loyal citizens in East Tennessee had early enlisted the President’s sympathies, and almost from the commencement of hostilities measures for their relief formed in his mind part of the plan of operations by the army under General Buell. Writing, January 6, 1862, to that commander he gives reasons for suggesting the occupation of some point there rather than Nashville, and adds: “But my distress is that our friends in East Tennessee are being hanged and driven to despair, and even now, I fear, are thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of personal protection. In this we lose the most valuable stake we have in the South.”[3] The cause of these outrages may be briefly explained in a digression.
In no part of the late Confederate States was the slave interest more feeble than in the thirty counties comprising East Tennessee.[4] That portion of the State contained in 1860 slightly over 300,000 inhabitants,[5] of whom only about one tenth were slaves, while in many counties they formed no more than one in seventeen of the population. Here and there, indeed, were persons of wealth some of whom owned a few negroes. But though a majority of the people looked upon domestic slavery as something foreign to their social life, they had no strong philanthropic impulse to oppose it. While quite willing to allow their countrymen elsewhere to keep bondmen at pleasure, they did not regard it any concern of theirs to assist either in extending or perpetuating human servitude. If the existence of the Union or of slavery was the issue, they would have hesitated little in deciding which should perish. Though, as we shall presently see, they were as intolerant of the Republican party as any community in the South, they were devotedly attached to the Union. The fact is partly explained by the industrial basis of society in this favored region.
Cut off from Middle Tennessee by lofty ranges of the Cumberland, and from North Carolina by the Great Smoky, the Black and the Stone mountains, this extensive district is traversed in its entire length by the Tennessee and its chief tributaries, the Clinch and the Holston; as the great river flows down to Alabama it receives, before turning west and north to join the Ohio, the waters of many important and beautiful streams, some of which, as the French Broad and Nolachucky, are associated with deeds of note in the War for Independence; indeed, one of its crowning victories was chiefly won by settlers from the banks of the Watauga. Other names, like Hiwassee, are familiar to readers of later events in Tennessee history, and Chickamauga Creek was destined shortly to become more famous than any.
Knoxville, in early times a capital of the State, was, in 1860, the metropolis of East Tennessee; Chattanooga, at the southern extremity of the valley, is separated from Bristol, on the Virginia line, by a distance of more than two hundred and forty miles; Cleveland and Greenville were towns of less importance. The absence of large cities makes it evident that manufacturing had not yet begun to attract serious attention. Like early settlers everywhere in America, the pioneers of Tennessee sought the most immediate returns from the products of the forests and fields around them. The rich mineral deposits, then either unknown or almost untouched, had not given rise to those great extractive operations which in our time have so stimulated the commercial life of East Tennessee. Vast cotton plantations, worked by multitudes of slaves, like those in the western portion of the State, had no existence in these mountain valleys, though occasionally small “patches” were cultivated for domestic use.
Citizens of West Tennessee would naturally place upon the Federal Constitution an interested construction; their industries, they believed, required such an interpretation of that instrument as would place the institution of slavery beyond the reach of Congressional interference. While the people of East Tennessee, too, believed in the several sovereignty of the States, the question of slavery did not touch them so nearly. Indifferent to the subject themselves, they had little sympathy with those who had determined to break up the Union from a mere suspicion that their interests were menaced by the success of a new political party. But to ascribe to the want of interested motives their indifference to the great disturbing question of the time would be to assign but one and that, perhaps, not the chief cause.
Except on its northern and southern boundaries this delightful region is practically isolated from several adjacent States as well as from the remainder of Tennessee. It was in this by-place of nature and amidst such a population that The Manumission Intelligencer, a weekly newspaper, made its appearance in 1819.[6] It was followed the next year by The Emancipator of Elijah Embree, a Pennsylvania Quaker; this in turn was soon succeeded by a more celebrated publication, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, conducted by Benjamin Lundy. While these publications served to perpetuate and to extend, they did not create the sentiment of which they became exponents, for, several years before their appearance, an anti-slavery society flourished in Jefferson County. Its existence is noticed as early as 1814.[7] This anti-slavery feeling was part of the philosophic movement encouraged by nearly all Southern as well as Northern statesmen before the inauguration of General Jackson. A new industrial era, beginning about that time, put an end to the abolition societies in the South; and though Lundy’s paper was discontinued in Tennessee after 1824, events of frequent occurrence sustained the anti-slavery sentiments of the people.
The Tennessee valley was a natural thoroughfare from Virginia to the south-west, and when slaves were purchased on the Potomac they were chained together, to prevent escape, and in that condition driven to the homes of their new masters.[8] The plaintive songs of captives as they were marched in lines along the valley highways often caused the free mountaineer to pause in his labors and reflect on what was passing before his eyes. He “saw slavery in its bitterness and without disguise.” The remembrance of such spectacles was apt to strengthen in him anti-slavery feelings that had come down from Revolutionary times. But whether Southern leaders ascribed the sentiment to an inherited tendency or regarded it as a consequence of this odious phase of the domestic slave-trade, they did not think it beneath the dignity of attention; for it was, doubtless, to create a sympathy for their institution that a “Southern Commercial Convention” was held at Knoxville in 1857. It was too late, however, to root out the convictions of two generations; the counsels of the wise were soon to be confounded and the fretful agitation of leaders soon to be hushed in the tempest of war.
No Republican electoral ticket was presented in the great political battle of 1860 for the suffrage of Tennessee voters, and had any citizen openly advocated the election of Mr. Lincoln he would have had to endure insult or injury, or to abandon his home. This explains why the successful candidates received no vote in all the State. As “Parson” Brownlow, selecting extreme abolition and secession types, characteristically expressed it, his people were equally opposed to the William L. Garrisons and the William L. Yanceys of politics.[9] In this situation the supporters of Bell, Breckenridge and Douglas were left to contend for victory among themselves. Addresses of the time reveal not only the emotions of individual speakers, but the excited state of public opinion. The attitude of Constitutional Union men was vigorously stated in a debate at Knoxville by Nathaniel G. Taylor, an elector on the Bell and Everett ticket. “The people of East Tennessee,” said the orator, “are determined to maintain the Union by force of arms against any movement from the South throughout their region of country to assail the government at Washington with violence, and that the secessionists of the cotton States in attempting to carry out their nefarious design to destroy the Republic would have to march over his dead body and the dead bodies of thousands of East Tennessee mountaineers slain in battle.”[10]
When Yancey came up from Alabama to “precipitate” this section into rebellion the intrepid Brownlow made a similar reply.[11] The energy or the elegance of such utterances may be questioned, but the deeds of loyal Tennesseeans during eventful years to follow are evidence alike of the sincerity of the speakers and their insight into the temper of the times.
Except Tennessee, all the States that attempted secession did so by means of revolutionary bodies styled conventions; this description of them is justified both by the general powers of administration and government which they assumed and by the fact that the legislatures in convoking them transcended their authority, the members of every State legislature being “bound by oath or affirmation to support” the Federal Constitution, which forms a part of the fundamental law of each commonwealth. Though the Legislature of Tennessee, following the example of law-making bodies in other disloyal States, passed a “Convention Bill,” it was promptly defeated by a majority of 13,204 in a total vote of more than 120,000. Notwithstanding the constitutional prohibition that “no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation,”[12] the Legislature on May 1 authorized Governor Harris to appoint commissioners to form a military league with the Confederate States. Six days later the relations entered into by these agents were ratified in a secret session, the State government thereby turning over temporarily to the President of the Confederacy its entire military force. These matters disposed of, the plans of disunionists were completed by the passage on the same day of a declaration of independence and an ordinance dissolving all Federal relations between Tennessee and the United States. Though this measure was to be voted upon a month later, the Legislature, as if anticipating the result, adopted and ratified the Confederate constitution. What was so ardently desired by secessionists was finally accomplished, and on June 24 the Governor declared his State out of the Union, the vote being 104,019 for, and 47,238 against, separation.[13] The Tennessee Legislature did not assume the functions of a secession convention till after the commencement of hostilities; but from that date the forms of law ceased to be seriously regarded. While the disunion party scored a present triumph, loyalist leaders like Horace Maynard, Thomas A. R. Nelson and Andrew Johnson, at the imminent risk of injury or even of death, were speaking and working actively against the spirit of secession. The strong Union feeling thus excited resulted ultimately in local insurrections and in the meeting, June 17, of a convention at Greeneville in which a remonstrance was adopted and a committee appointed to petition the Legislature for the separation of East Tennessee and such counties of Middle Tennessee as were willing to coöperate in the formation of a new commonwealth. But the presence there during the following years of veteran Confederate armies prevented Union men from organizing a separate government, and saved the State from the fate of Virginia. All who were known to have had a connection, or who were suspected of sympathy, with this movement were especially obnoxious to the secession party, and at the hands of soldiers were subjected to many indignities. In various ways the feeling of opposition to the Confederacy was intensified, and it was not long before measures of retaliation were considered. Union people were quick to perceive the advantage which the South derived from the use of railways within the State, and, in expectation of assistance from Federal forces in Kentucky, five railroad bridges were burned. East Tennesseeans, however, were destined to be sorely disappointed in the matter of aid from the Union army; and, without effective organization or arms, were easily captured or dispersed. Of the former, many were sent as prisoners of war to Alabama, hundreds were crowded into loathsome jails in the State and others hanged, with circumstances of deliberate cruelty, near the scenes of their alleged crimes.
These were among the outrages to which Mr. Lincoln referred in his letter to the Federal commander. By Horace Maynard a Representative, and Andrew Johnson a Senator, in Congress the President was kept very accurately informed of events in the State and often importuned to relieve their constituents. This he constantly endeavored to do, but his intentions were effectually defeated by the inactivity of General Buell, who cherished other plans for destroying his antagonist. More than two years were to elapse, from the time President Lincoln urged his policy, before Tennesseeans received any aid from Federal armies; long before that time they had been ruthlessly punished for their patriotism, and then their oppressors were chastised by the hand of an abler warrior than General Buell.
Within a month from the date of President Lincoln’s letter of January 6 General Grant had possession of Fort Henry and, ten days later, February 16, received the surrender of Fort Donelson. Nashville, becoming unsafe, was evacuated on February 23, 1862; the State appeared for the first time to be slipping from the grasp of the Confederacy, and a question, hitherto more or less academic, presented itself for practical settlement. In the territory from which hostile armies were reluctantly retiring there would be involved a great derangement in the administration of local civil law from the necessary displacement there of all officials heretofore acting in obedience to the Confederate States.
By other Union victories in the Spring of 1862 the same situation confronted the Federal Government in Arkansas, in North Carolina and in Louisiana. Indeed, this identical question arose as early as 1861 in Virginia and Missouri, but in the former the rebel government was abrogated by a delegate convention that restored a loyal government from which in due time sprang the separate State of West Virginia. In Missouri a lawfully chosen convention appointed a provisional government in sympathy with the Union. This subject, however, will be more conveniently discussed elsewhere.
When General Johnston received tidings of the disaster at Donelson he retired with his army to Murfreesboro, leaving Nashville, which he was unable to protect, a scene of panic and dismay, first advising Governor Harris to secure the public archives and convoke the Legislature elsewhere. It was in these circumstances that President Lincoln, on the same day, February 23, nominated, and the Senate, March 5, 1862, confirmed, Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee with the rank of brigadier-general. As the commission antedates the action of the Senate by two days the President, no doubt, consulted the leaders of that body relative to the contemplated nomination, and received assurance of its favorable consideration.
Nothing in any way connected with the appointment of Senator Johnson, who was destined to act so conspicuous a part in the important and difficult work of reconstruction, can fail to be of interest, and any account of the execution of his office would be incomplete without some observations on the nature of his commission of which the following is a copy:
War Department, March 3, 1862.
To the Hon. Andrew Johnson:
Sir: You are hereby appointed military governor of the State of Tennessee, with authority to exercise and perform, within the limits of that State, all and singular the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor, including the power to establish all necessary offices, tribunals, etc.
Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.[14]
Quoting the essential part of this document a recent coöperative work has this comment: “The office [that of military governor] was new to the laws and history of the State and country. Its powers and duties were limited only by the will of one man, the occupant.”[15] From the commission itself we derive our prime conception of both the nature of the office and the functions which it comprehended. The authority of the incumbent extended to the exercise, within the limits of Tennessee, of all “the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor.” Nothing in this language implies that the office was of recent creation. Nor is its nature to be discovered by a perusal of the supplemental authority contained in the President’s letter of September 19, 1863, to Governor Johnson, for the official conduct of the latter on his arrival in Nashville can not be seriously thought to have been influenced by instructions received nineteen months later. It is perfectly true, as Mr. Ira P. Jones, author of the chapter on Reconstruction in Tennessee, asserts, that the office of military governor had never been exercised within that State; but it is not a fact that it was new to the laws and history of the “country,” if by this indefinite expression he means the United States. During the war with Mexico the American people had been made familiar with military commissions and with military governors. Secretary Marcy prepared, June 3, 1846, for General Stephen W. Kearny the following instructions: “Should you conquer and take possession of New Mexico and Upper California, or considerable places in either, you will establish temporary civil governments therein.”[16] To this direction general rules of conduct were added, and the letter authorized the assurance that “It is the wish and design of the United States to provide for them [the people of New Mexico] a free government with the least possible delay, similar to that which exists in our Territories.” By virtue of this authority General Kearny appointed Charles Bent governor of New Mexico. Mr. Polk in his Message of July 6, 1848, to Congress maintained that with the termination of war his power to establish temporary civil governments over New Mexico and California had ceased; the legality of their previous existence he justified by the law of nations. By cession to the United States, the government of Mexico no longer pretended to any control over them.[17] President Polk, differing from other leaders of his party, held that “until Congress shall act, the inhabitants will be without any organized government.”[18] But Congress, notwithstanding urgent appeals of the Executive, moved very deliberately in the matter of abolishing the office of military governor. In May, 1847, Colonel Richard B. Mason assumed the office of Governor and commander-in-chief of the United States forces in California. Two months after ratification of the treaty with Mexico he received notice of the fact, but no intimation that the civil government instituted by the President was discontinued. Without other instructions than an order to extend over California “the revenue laws and tariff of the United States” he, as well as his successor, General Riley, continued the existing government.
After affirming the legality of its institution the United States Supreme Court (Cross vs. Harrison, p. 193, 16 Howard) says that the existing government did not cease as a consequence of the restoration of peace; the President might have dissolved it, but he did not do so. Congress could have put an end to it, but that was not done. “The right inference from the inaction of both is, that it was meant to be continued until it had been legislatively changed.” In fact it was so continued until the people in convention formed a government, subsequently recognized by Congress, when California was admitted during the autumn of 1850 as a State.
The authority, then, of both political departments, as well as the more deliberate opinion of the judicial branch, of the General Government had established a precedent with which Mr. Lincoln was thoroughly familiar; for, by a singular coincidence, both he and Mr. Johnson were serving together in the Thirtieth Congress, which began its first session in December, 1847. They participated in, or were interested spectators of, all those stirring scenes that marked the beginning of one of the last legislative victories of slavery; so that this portion at least of American history was not strange to either the President or the Senator from Tennessee.
The question whether Tennessee was within or without the Union will be reserved for more ample discussion farther on; it is sufficient to observe here that its territory was held by an adverse party and its government hostile to the national authority. If the administration of Colonel Mason and his successor in California was not regarded by President Lincoln as a sufficient basis for his action there was still left an undoubted foundation. The appointment was deemed an element of strength to the Union forces operating in Tennessee, and, in this view, the act was entirely within the power of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States. Though its wisdom may be questioned and its results dismissed with a sneer, it was not a novelty nor can his admirers claim for Mr. Lincoln the merit of its invention; and if in its origin the office had a bearing on the extension, its present application was not wholly unconnected with the abolition of slavery. The remaining pages of this chapter and the two succeeding ones will be employed in tracing rapidly the operation of the system of military governors in those States in which it was seriously attempted to be enforced.
The movements of contending armies had already obliterated in many districts of Tennessee almost every trace of civil government, and when State officials hurried away to Memphis, where Governor Harris had reassembled the Legislature, they left behind them an uncontrolled mob which General Forrest found it necessary to charge with his cavalry to remove a portion of Confederate military stores that had not been distributed among the poor or perished in the prevailing anarchy.[19] General Grant had already, on February 22, from Fort Donelson, issued an order that “no courts will be allowed to act under State authority, but all cases coming within reach of the military arm will be adjudicated by the authorities the Government has established within the State. Martial law is therefore declared to extend over West Tennessee.” The order added, “whenever a sufficient number of citizens return to their allegiance to maintain law and order over the territory, the military restriction here indicated will be removed.”[20] Union troops under General Nelson having occupied the city on the 25th, Governor Johnson on his arrival, March 12, 1862, from his seat in the United States Senate was not under the necessity of employing the harsh discipline of General Forrest to restore order in the deserted capital. For this part of his career he was, however, severely censured by political adversaries in Tennessee. Detached from their historical settings, indeed, his acts could justly be described as tyrannical. But it is precisely these figures in the back-ground that are necessary to harmonize the whole and set before us in its proper light a truthful picture of the times. As his professions preceded his administrative acts it is proper to introduce this portion of the subject by quoting from a speech which he delivered in Nashville the evening after his arrival. Five days later, March 18, it was printed under the style of “An Appeal to the People” of Tennessee. After some general observations on the tranquil and prosperous existence of the State in the Union, and on the honors by which many of her sons had been distinguished, he noticed the fact that the very leaders of secession themselves had been the recipients of Federal bounty and patronage; had taken oaths to support the Constitution and yet labored to overturn Federal authority. Entering fairly upon his theme, he continued:
Meanwhile the State Government has disappeared. The Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is in abeyance. The great ship of State … has been suddenly abandoned by its officers and mutinous crew, and left to float at the mercy of the winds, and to be plundered by every rover upon the deep.
Pausing to enumerate many acts of spoliation, he resumes:
In such a lamentable crisis the Government of the United States could not be unmindful of its high constitutional obligation to guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, an obligation which every State has a direct and immediate interest in having observed towards every other State. … This obligation the national Government is now attempting to discharge. I have been appointed, in the absence of the regular and established State authorities, as Military Governor for the time being, to preserve the public property of the State, to give the protection of law actively enforced to her citizens, and, as speedily as may be, to restore her government to the same condition as before the existing rebellion.
The “regular and established State authorities,” to whom Governor Johnson refers, were, of course, none other than those officials who administered affairs in Tennessee before the 6th of May. Of these some had actually abandoned their offices, while others had subordinated their functions to a power hostile to the constitution of the State. He proceeded:
These offices must be filled temporarily, until the State shall be restored so far to its accustomed quiet, that the people can peaceably assemble at the ballot-box and select agents of their own choice. …
I shall, therefore, as early as practicable, designate for various positions under the State and county governments, from among my fellow-citizens, persons of probity and intelligence, and bearing true allegiance to the Constitution and Government of the United States, who will execute the functions of their respective offices until their places can be filled by the action of the people. Their authority, when their appointment shall have been made, will be accordingly respected and observed. … Those who through the dark and weary night of rebellion have maintained their allegiance to the Federal Government will be honored. The erring and misguided will be welcomed on their return. And while it may become necessary, in vindicating the violated majesty of the law, and in reasserting its imperial sway, to punish intelligent and conscious treason in high places, no merely retaliatory or vindictive policy will be adopted.[21]
To all who in private and unofficial capacity had assumed an attitude of hostility to the Government amnesty was offered for all past acts and declarations upon condition of yielding obedience to the supremacy of the laws. This the Governor advised them to do. Though the “Appeal,” brief, clear and characterized by the best temper, is a state paper of decided merit, there were many classes still residing at the capital upon whom it made little impression. The mayor and the city council were ordered to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and on their refusal were imprisoned. Of the harshness of this measure it need only be observed that the essence of government is to govern, and had the new executive failed on this occasion to assert authority his administration would have been wrecked at the outset. For printing seditious matter the press was placed under restraint, and within a few months it was found necessary to punish with unusual severity, even ministers of the gospel. Clergymen, with a few exceptions, were not only hostile to the Union but actually encouraged treason from their pulpits. These offenders Governor Johnson summoned to take the oath of allegiance or to depart from the State. They appeared before him, as commanded to, refused compliance, but asked time for deliberation; this being granted, to the full extent desired, and still persisting in their refusal they were placed in confinement. That they were not proceeded against with undue haste appears from an entry in a diary kept by one of Governor Johnson’s biographers which fixes the date as June 28.[22] Three months had fully elapsed since the arrival of Mr. Johnson before the ministers were punished for their seditious utterances. To prevent interference with his executive functions he sometimes imprisoned judges. Other measures no less arbitrary have been the subject of much criticism. He declared that whenever a loyal citizen was maltreated five or more sympathizers with the Rebellion should be arrested and dealt with as the nature of the case appeared to require. When the property of Union men was destroyed remuneration should be made them from the property of the disloyal. The President seems to have approved of these reprisals. Nothing more clearly shows the demoralized condition of society in Tennessee than the necessity of adopting measures similar to those employed eight centuries before by the Danish and Norman conquerors of England to protect their followers from private assassination by the natives. With the natural leaders of the people, including bankers, physicians and clergymen, encouraging treason, men of inferior intelligence and station could not be expected to remain peaceful and contented citizens, and as preachers of sedition seldom lack numerous and sympathetic audiences the spirit of lawlessness increased. The Governor himself was threatened with assassination in the public streets and in public meetings, but he set such menaces at defiance and on at least one occasion addressed an assembly with his pistol on a desk before him.
But the repression of the disloyal and the restoration of order by no means included the whole of his duties. Functions not less important remain to be noticed. To the duties of governor and general he added those of quartermaster and judge. Though thousands of loyal people flocked to him for arms and supplies, he proved equal to every demand, and from their number raised an army that did gallant service in the field. He fed, clothed and sheltered the poor without regard to the army in which their natural protectors were serving. Thus redressing grievances, relieving want and reinstating courts he worked with an intelligent and tireless energy, and when the timid prudence of General Buell would have allowed Nashville to fall into the hands of the enemy “the courage of Governor Johnson,” said a panegyrist, “stood a bulwark for its defence.”[23] He had been scarcely three months in office when President Lincoln described him as “a true and valuable man, indispensable to us in Tennessee.” His zeal, his intense fidelity to the Union, his tremendous energy and undoubted courage peculiarly fitted him to rule in turbulent times. At the outset the only agencies left for the protection of life, liberty and property were force and arbitrary will; these he did not hesitate to employ.
The foregoing account does not notice his activity in another field. His ultimate object, the establishment of civil authority throughout Tennessee, was kept constantly in view. To prepare for this event he addressed in May, 1862, large assemblies at Nashville and Murfreesboro, and in June at Columbia and Shelbyville.[24] This work, however, was brought suddenly to an end later in the summer by General Bragg’s raid into Kentucky.
From what has been related it appears, and the opinion will grow stronger with the progress of this narrative, that in appointing a military governor of Tennessee President Lincoln intended no more than to revive an office already known to the people of the United States; and though Mr. Johnson was expected ultimately to reinaugurate a loyal government throughout the State, his office was regarded primarily as an inexpensive means of holding territory wrested from, and assisting in military operations against, an enemy. Indeed, it is only in this view that his administration of the office can be regarded as a success, and that it was so considered in the North his nomination on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln is undoubted proof.
Besides several colored regiments, the records for 1863 show that 25,000 Tennesseeans were then serving in the Union army, and every succeeding month increased their number.[25] That the political advantage to be gained by restoring a loyal government was not the only or even the principal purpose of the President may be fairly inferred from the following letter:
I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro military force. In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some man of your ability and position to go to this work. When I speak of your position, I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave state and himself a slaveholder. The colored population is the great available and yet un-availed of force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once; and who doubts that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? If you have been thinking of it, please do not dismiss the thought.[26]
Besides supporting the view of the military governors taken above, this letter also makes it evident that the pressure of events had already convinced Mr. Lincoln that to save the Union it was necessary to possess the untrammeled use of every national resource.
As early as June 8, 1862, the State was included in the department of General Halleck, who ten days later was requested by Mr. Lincoln to report any information of value relative thereto. The thought of a movement into East Tennessee was in the mind of the President again on June 30, when he informed the commander that he regarded the possession of the railroad near Cleveland fully as important as the taking of Richmond. Halleck, concurring in this opinion, telegraphed Buell that “the capture of East Tennessee should be the main object of the campaign,” the department commander believing its occupation would put an end to guerrilla warfare both in that region and Kentucky.
The inactivity of General Rosecrans for six months after the battle of Murfreesboro left in the interior of the State a strong Confederate force whose presence discouraged all but the most pronounced loyalists; these, by means of meetings and speeches, kept a latent Union feeling alive. A convention, called by Brownlow, Maynard and others, was held at Nashville, July 1, 1863. Delegates were in attendance from forty counties; they took an oath of allegiance to the United States, and in a set of resolutions pronounced the various secession laws and ordinances void. Deeming it vitally important to choose a legislature, they invited Governor Johnson to issue writs of election as soon as expedient; with this request, however, he did not then think it prudent to comply.
Other eyes were observing with interest the progress of events within the State. General Hurlbut, writing from Memphis, August 11, 1863, relative to the political situation in Arkansas, said he was satisfied that Tennessee was “ready, by overwhelming majorities, to repeal the act of secession, establish a fair system of gradual emancipation, and tender herself back to the Union. I have discouraged [he said] any action on this subject here until East Tennessee is delivered. When that is done, so that her powerful voice may be heard, let Governor Johnson call an election for members of the Legislature, and that Legislature call a Convention, and in sixty days the work will be done.”[27]
This desirable event was not long delayed, for by brilliant though bloodless victories both Knoxville and Chattanooga early in the following month were in possession of Federal armies. Then President Lincoln wrote his letter of September 11, which, because of its great importance, deserves to be reproduced in full:
All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need not to be reminded that it is the nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal State government. Not a moment should be lost. You and the coöperating friends there can better judge of the ways and means than can be judged by any here. I only offer a few suggestions. The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its friends there into political exile. The whole struggle for Tennessee will have been profitless to both State and nation if it so ends that Governor Johnson is put down and Governor Harris is put up. It must not be so. You must have it otherwise. Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for the Union. Exclude all others, and trust that your government so organized will be recognized here as being the one of republican form to be guaranteed to the State, and to be protected against invasion and domestic violence. It is something on the question of time to remember that it cannot be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do. I see that you have declared in favor of emancipation in Tennessee, for which may God bless you. Get emancipation into your new State Government—Constitution—and there will be no such word as fail for your case. The raising of colored troops, I think, will greatly help every way.[28]
The reference in this communication to emancipation is explained by the fact that, in deference to the wishes of Andrew Johnson and other Tennessee loyalists, the President in his proclamation of January 1, 1863, had not mentioned that State.[29]
Believing that his commission as military governor did not confer upon him powers adequate to every emergency that might arise in the important work of restoring a loyal government Mr. Johnson, to supply this deficiency, prepared a letter which he submitted for the approval of President Lincoln, who amended or modified it to read as follows:
In addition to the matters contained in the orders and instructions given you by the Secretary of War, you are hereby authorized to exercise such powers as may be necessary and proper to enable the loyal people of Tennessee to present such a republican form of State government as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor, and to be protected under such State government by the United States against invasion and domestic violence, all according to the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States.[30]
This supplemental authority is dated September 19, and the private letter enclosing it informs Governor Johnson why his draft was altered.
It was about this time, while the President was thus urging Governor Johnson, that General Rosecrans, surrounded by a victorious enemy, inquired of Mr. Lincoln whether it would not be well “to offer a general amnesty to all officers and soldiers in the Rebellion?” In his reply next day the President, referring first, as was his wont, to the military situation, added, “I intend doing something like what you suggest whenever the case shall appear ripe enough to have it accepted in the true understanding rather than as a confession of weakness and fear.”[31] The removal soon after of General Rosecrans from his command and the fortunate appearance at Chattanooga of those great soldiers of the first rank, Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, made at Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge the occasion which the President so much desired, and on December 8, 1863, he issued his famous Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, a copy of which was transmitted with his third annual message to Congress. The impression which its candid tone produces on the mind of a student to-day was the impression made at the time of its appearance upon thoughtful and enlightened men everywhere. Nicolay and Hay in an interesting chapter of their valuable history describe the satisfaction, and even enthusiasm, with which it was received by the adherents of all parties in Congress. This proclamation, around which the later controversy raged, was authorized by act of Congress approved July 17, 1862, which, among other provisions, empowered the President “at any time” thereafter “to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing Rebellion in any State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such time and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare.” The time for the exercise of this discretion Mr. Lincoln believed had now arrived. Like every measure conceived in his fruitful mind it had been maturely considered and was especially fortunate in being introduced by the concluding paragraphs of the message. The very note of sincerity itself rings in these weighty lines. Perhaps it was the suggestion of unuttered arguments that gave a temporary adherence to the Executive plan, which, we are told, was put forth because “It is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal State governments within and for their respective States.” The proclamation informed “all persons who have, directly or by implication, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in property cases where rights of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation.” This oath bound the subscriber thenceforth to “faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the union of the States thereunder”; to “abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves” unless repealed, modified or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court; to support “all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court.”
The classes excepted from the benefits of the amnesty were all persons “who are, or shall have been, civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called Confederate Government; all who have left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; all who are, or shall have been, military or naval officers of said so-called Confederate Government above the rank of colonel in the army or lieutenant in the navy; all who left seats in the United States Congress to aid the rebellion; all who resigned commissions in the Army or Navy of the United States and afterward aided the rebellion; and all who have engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which persons may have been found in the United States service, as soldiers, seamen, or in any other capacity.”[32]
The proclamation provided further that whenever, in any of the States in rebellion, “a number of persons, not less than one tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the presidential election” of 1860, “each having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall reëstablish a State government which shall be republican, and in nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the Constitutional provision which declares that ‘The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.’ ”
Any provision adopted by such State relative to its freed people “which shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not be objected to by the national executive.” In constructing a loyal government in any State, it was thought not improper to suggest that “the name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those framing the new State government.”
To avoid every occasion of misunderstanding it was expressly stated that the proclamation “has no reference to States wherein loyal State governments have all the while been maintained.” The President disclaimed any authority to admit members to seats in Congress, each House being “the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members.”[33]
In conclusion it was observed that “while the mode presented is the best the executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable.”[34]
To get an enrollment of those willing to take the oath prescribed in the amnesty proclamation the President, about the middle of January, 1864, sent an agent to Tennessee, as he had already sent one to Louisiana and to Arkansas. About the same time Governor Johnson himself was considering the subject of reconstruction; and on the 21st, to begin proceedings, called a public meeting at Nashville. It was on this occasion that he said: “Treason must be made odious, traitors must be punished and impoverished;” slavery he pronounced dead and declared that reconstruction must leave it out of view. The meeting, which was largely attended, adopted resolutions recommending a constitutional convention and pledged support of only those candidates who favored immediate and universal emancipation. The Governor, however, was cautious, and, January 26, 1864, issued a call for an election, on the first Saturday of March following, for the choice of only county officers.
The ex-Confederate and the loyalist having been placed by the amnesty proclamation on an equal footing, some dissatisfaction was aroused among unconditional Union men. To retain the confidence of this class and to set at rest the hostile feeling thus excited in the State, Governor Johnson framed the oath of allegiance more stringently than Mr. Lincoln had done. This variance occasioned discussion and delay and brought inquiries and protests to the President, who, to prevent confusion, telegraphed, February 20, 1864, Warren Jordan, of Nashville, as follows:
In county elections you had better stand by Governor Johnson’s plan; otherwise you will have conflict and confusion. I have seen his plan.[35]
A week later he assured the Hon. E. H. East, Secretary of State for Tennessee, that
There is no conflict between the oath of amnesty in my proclamation of eighth December, 1863, and that prescribed by Governor Johnson in his proclamation of the twenty-sixth ultimo.[36]
While it is perfectly true that no discrepancy existed between the proclamation of the President and that of the military governor, the latter required an additional test. This the communication to Mr. East does not discuss.
To avoid, however, any possible mischief from this source Mr. Lincoln, March 26, issued a supplemental proclamation which explained that the amnesty applied only to “persons who being yet at large and free from any arrest, confinement, or duress, shall voluntarily come forward and take the said oath, with the purpose of restoring peace and establishing the national authority.”[37] Prisoners excluded from the amnesty offered in the proclamation of December 8, like all other offenders, might apply to the executive for clemency and have their applications receive due consideration. This oath, it was made known, could be taken before any commissioned officer of the United States, civil, military or naval, or before any officer authorized to administer oaths, in a State or Territory not in insurrection. Such officers were empowered to give certificates thereon to persons by whom the oath was taken and subscribed. The original records, after transmission to the Department of State, were to be there deposited and to remain in the Government archives. The Secretary of State was required to keep a register of such oaths and upon application to issue certificates in proper cases in the customary form.
Meanwhile an election, the returns of which are extremely meagre, had been held on March 5 for the choice of county officers. Though the event was not without influence in confirming the faith of Unionists, it was chiefly of value in attracting the attention of the disloyal to the chances afforded by the proclamation of rehabilitating themselves in their former political rights. The result, however, was not so favorable as was expected by Governor Johnson or the President, and reconstruction in Tennessee once more sank to rest. From this condition it was again revived by the irrepressible Union men of the State. The East Tennessee convention of 1861, by appointing a permanent committee, had kept its organization alive. In April or May, 1864, this body called a convention at Knoxville to discuss reconstruction. Of this gathering one element favored the Crittenden Resolutions; the other, immediate emancipation. Probably it was this antagonism that prevented further action. The next we hear is that Brownlow and others signed a call for a second convention, which was held at Nashville on September 5. In this body forty or fifty counties were represented, some of them irregularly; that is, by volunteer delegates. This assembly recommended the election of a constitutional convention, the abolition of slavery in the State, and provided for taking part in the approaching Presidential election. The programme, however, was only partially carried out. On September 30, Governor Johnson issued a proclamation for holding the election, at which Union voters, so far as the unsettled condition of military operations permitted, cast their ballots for electors of President and Vice-President. It does not appear that in this election any attempt was made to choose a governor, a legislature or a constitutional convention; but that which met in July, 1863, constituted an executive committee, composed of five members from each division of the State, which after the Presidential election issued calls for a State convention at Nashville, December 19, 1864. “The people meet,” said the call, “to take such steps as wisdom may direct to restore the State of Tennessee to its once honored status in the great national Union.
“If you cannot meet in your counties, come upon your own personal responsibility. It is the assembling of Union men for the restoration of their own commonwealth to life and a career of success.”[38]
Hood’s advance upon Nashville preventing a response to this address, the convention did not meet till January 9, 1865. The enemy had then been dispersed. The State being free from further alarms of war, the convention met and proposed important alterations in the State constitution.
The first article provided: “That slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are hereby forever abolished and prohibited throughout the State”; also that “The legislature shall make no law recognizing the right of property in man.” The old constitution of Tennessee prohibited the assembly from passing laws to emancipate slaves without the consent of the owner; that prohibition was now removed. “The declaration of independence and ordinance dissolving the federal relations between the State of Tennessee and the United States of America,” passed by the Legislature, May 6, 1861, was abrogated and declared “an act of treason and usurpation, unconstitutional, null and void.” All laws, ordinances, and resolutions of the usurped State government passed on and after the 6th day of May, 1861, providing for the issuance of State bonds; also all notes of the Bank of Tennessee or any of its branches issued on or after May 6, 1861, and all debts created in the name of the State by said authority were declared unconstitutional, null and void. Future legislatures were restrained from the redemption of said bonds. It was further provided that “The qualification of voters and the limitation of the elective franchise may be determined by the general assembly, which shall first assemble under the amended constitution.”
The convention completed its labors on January 26, 1865. The amendatory articles were submitted, February 22, to the people, and ratified by a vote of 21,104 to 40. The schedule provided in the event of ratification that the loyal people of the State should, on the 4th of March next thereafter, proceed by general ticket to elect a governor and members to the general assembly to meet in the capitol at Nashville on the first Monday of April, 1865.
A proclamation of Governor Johnson, issued on January 26, referred to the respectable character of the convention and commended its wisdom in submitting for the approval of the electors the result of its deliberations. His executive powers had been employed to enable the people freely to express their judgment on the grave question before them. Provision, he declared, would be made to collect the sentiments of loyal Tennesseeans in the army. The paper concludes with this vigorous exhortation: “Strike down at one blow the institution of slavery, remove the disturbing element from your midst, and by united action restore the State to its ancient moorings again, and you may confidently expect the speedy return of peace, happiness, and prosperity.”[39]
About a month later, February 25, he had the happiness to congratulate the people of Tennessee on the favorable result of the election. By their solemn act at the ballot-box the shackles had been stricken from the limbs of more than 275,000 bondmen.
The convention which proposed the constitutional amendments had, in anticipation of its ratification, nominated William G. [“Parson”] Brownlow for Governor, and recommended a full legislative ticket. The nominee of the convention was chosen March 4, almost without opposition, receiving 23,352 votes against 35 scattering. Having been elected on a general ticket the members of both the Senate and House of Representatives received the same support as the Governor. The Legislature met at Nashville, and in a few days thereafter Mr. Brownlow was inaugurated. Civil administration was thus formally begun.
That the successive steps to restoration in Tennessee may be easily traced, the narrative has not been interrupted to relate even matters of undoubted importance. Almost a year before the occurrences described, the Republican national convention had assembled in the city of Baltimore, and on June 6, 1864, unanimously nominated Andrew Johnson for Vice-President on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln. Tidings of the fact aroused great enthusiasm when it became known in Nashville. In addressing an immense meeting called for that occasion Governor Johnson, among other things, said: “While society is in this disordered state, and we are seeking security, let us fix the foundations of our government on principles of eternal justice, which will endure for all time. There are those in our midst who are for perpetuating the institution of slavery. Let me say to you, Tennesseeans, and men from the Northern States, that slavery is dead. It was not murdered by me. I told you long ago what the result would be if you endeavored to go out of the Union to save slavery; and that the result would be bloodshed, rapine, devastated fields, plundered villages and cities; and therefore I urged you to remain in the Union. In trying to save slavery you killed it, and lost your own freedom.”[40]
In his letter to Hon. William Dennison, accepting the nomination, he wrote:
The authority of the Government is supreme, and will admit of no rivalry. No institution can rise above it whether it be slavery or any organized power. In our happy form of government all must be subordinate to the will of the people, when reflected through the Constitution and the laws made pursuant thereto—State or Federal. This great principle lies at the foundation of every government, and cannot be disregarded without the destruction of the government itself.
In accepting the nomination I might here close, but I cannot forego the opportunity of saying to my old friends of the Democratic party proper, with whom I have so long and pleasantly been associated, that the hour has now come when that great party can justly vindicate its devotion to true democratic policy and measures of expediency. The war is a war of great principles. It involves the supremacy and life of the Government itself. If the rebellion triumphs, free government—North and South—fails. If, on the other hand, the Government is successful, as I do not doubt, its destiny is fixed, its basis permanent and enduring, and its career of honor and glory just begun. In a great contest like this, for the existence of free government, the path of duty is patriotism and principle. Minor considerations and questions of administrative policy should give way to the higher duty of first preserving the Government, and then there will be time enough to wrangle over the men and measures pertaining to its administration.[41]
For reasons at which Mr. Lincoln hinted in his letter of March 26, 1863, few men in Congress exerted in the beginning of the war so decided an influence upon public opinion in the North as did Mr. Johnson. His conduct as military governor in no way diminished this popularity. His courage in that trying position no less than his devotion to the interests of the Union won him ardent admirers in every loyal State.
Vice-President Hamlin appears to have been the victim of an intrigue which represented him as being no material source of strength to the government and as scarcely loyal to the administration. This injurious suspicion, which seems to have had no substantial basis in truth, happened to coincide with a growing conviction that the Republican party should strengthen itself by placing on the ticket with Lincoln some prominent leader of the opposition. In this connection the names of General Butler, John A. Dix, Daniel S. Dickinson and Andrew Johnson were mentioned. The last named was charged in his administration of the office of military governor with harshness and even with oppression. Investigation proved these rumors to be without foundation, and Mr. Lincoln was not displeased to find them groundless. It does not appear that he was especially favorable to Johnson, but he regarded him as indispensable to the Union cause in Tennessee; Johnson was a slave-holder, was somewhat more outspoken than Butler or Dix, and a more conspicuous representative of the large class known as War Democrats; above all he was an able exponent of Southern Union sentiment and he came from the very heart of the Confederacy. Perhaps no single element of strength made him more acceptable to the majority of the convention than this last consideration. Even these qualifications might not have singled him out for the distinction conferred were it not for the enthusiasm created by a remarkable speech of Horace Maynard, which mentioned Mr. Johnson as a man who “stood in the furnace of treason.” His administration as military governor had been distinguished for vigor and ability, and it does not appear that the radical Republicans then regarded his State without the Union. Some of his measures were undoubtedly severe, but the peculiar situation in Tennessee required the employment of methods not adapted to times of peace. Mr. Lincoln could not, of course, show his hand in the Baltimore convention. In fact he repeatedly declined to interfere.[42]
On October 15, 1864, the ten electors on the McClellan ticket presented through Mr. John Lellyett, one of their number, a protest to the President against the proclamation published by Governor Johnson relative to the pending election. His paper, they asserted, contained provisions for holding elections which differed materially from the mode prescribed by the laws of Tennessee. The proclamation, it was alleged, would admit persons to vote who were not entitled by the State constitution to participate in the election; by another provision which authorized the opening of but one polling-place in each county, many legal voters would be unable to exercise the franchise. The unusual and impracticable test oath proposed, was stated as a further grievance, and they complained generally of military interference with the freedom of elections. To their representations Mr. Lincoln replied orally that General McClellan and his friends could manage their side of the contest in their own way. He could manage his side of it in his way.[43] In a written reply of the 22d, however, the President said that he perceived no military reason for interfering in the matter, and on the same occasion reminded the protestants that the conducting of a Presidential election in Tennessee under the old code had become an impossibility.[44]
In their reply to the written communication of the President, they asserted that an orderly meeting of General McClellan’s friends had been broken up by Union soldiers, and a reign of terror inaugurated in Nashville. These acts having been countenanced by Governor Johnson, they announced the withdrawal of the McClellan electoral ticket in Tennessee.[45]
In these circumstances the Union electors were, of course, chosen; but their votes, though offered, were not counted by Congress in the joint convention of February 8, 1865, for the reason that Tennessee was on November 8 preceding in such a state that no free election was held.[46]
