CHAPTER VIII

RECONSTRUCTION

In his inaugural address President Lincoln said: "The union of these States is perpetual.... No State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void." In these words was imbedded a principle which later on he showed his willingness to pursue to its logical conclusions concerning the reconstruction of the body politic. If no State, by seceding, had got itself out of the Union, there was difficulty in maintaining that those citizens of a seceding State, who had not disqualified themselves by acts of treason, were not still lawfully entitled to conduct the public business and to hold the usual elections for national and state officials, so soon as the removal of hostile force should render it physically possible for them to do so. Upon the basis of this principle, the resumption by such citizens of a right which had never been lost, but only temporarily interfered with by lawless violence, could reasonably be delayed by the national government only until the loyal voters should be sufficient in number to relieve the elections from the objection of being colorable and unreal. This philosophy of "reconstruction" seemed to Mr. Lincoln to conform with law and good sense, and he was forward in meeting, promoting, almost even in creating opportunities to apply it. From the beginning of the war he had been of opinion that the framework of a state government, though it might be scarcely more than a skeleton, was worth preservation. It held at least the seed of life. So after West Virginia was admitted into statehood, the organization which had been previously established by the loyal citizens of the original State was maintained in the rest of the State, and Governor Pierpoint was recognized as the genuine governor of Virginia, although few Virginians acknowledged allegiance to him, and often there were not many square miles of the Old Dominion upon which the dispossessed ruler could safely set his foot. For the present he certainly was no despot, but in the future he might have usefulness. He preserved continuity; by virtue of him, so to speak, there still was a State of Virginia.

Somewhat early in the war large portions of Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas were recovered and kept by Union forces, and beneath such protection a considerable Union sentiment found expression. The President, loath to hold for a long time the rescued parts of these States under the sole domination of army officers, appointed "military governors."[55] The anomalous office found an obscure basis among those "war powers" which, as a legal resting-place, resembled a quicksand, and as a practical foundation were undeniably a rock; the functions and authority of the officials were as uncertain as anything, even in law, possibly could be. Legal fiction never reached a droller point than when these military governorships were defended as being the fulfillment by the national government "of its high constitutional obligation to guarantee to every State in this Union _a republican form of government_!"[56] Yet the same distinguished gentleman, who dared gravely to announce this ingenious argument, drew a picture of facts which was in itself a full justification of almost any scheme of rehabilitation; he said: "The state government has disappeared. The Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is in abeyance." In this condition of chaos Mr. Lincoln was certainly bound to prevent anarchy, without regard to any comicalities which might creep into his technique. So these hermaphrodite officials, with civil duties and military rank, were very sensibly and properly given a vague authority in the several States, as from time to time these were in part redeemed from rebellion by the Union armies. So soon as possible they were bidden, in collaboration with the military commanders in their respective districts, to make an enrollment of loyal citizens, with a view to holding elections and organizing state governments in the customary form. The President was earnest, not to say pertinacious, in urging forward these movements. On September 11, 1863, immediately after the battle of Chattanooga, he wrote to Andrew Johnson that it was "the nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal state government" in Tennessee; and he suggested that, as touching this same question of "time when," it was worth while to "remember that it cannot be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do." He warned the governor that reconstruction must not be so conducted "as to give control of the State, and its representation in Congress, to the enemies of the Union.... 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."[57]

At the same time these expressions by no means indicated that the President intended to have, or would connive at, any sham or colorable process. Accordingly, when some one suggested a plan for setting up as candidates in Louisiana certain Federal officers, who were not citizens of that State, he decisively forbade it, sarcastically remarking to Governor Shepley: "We do not particularly want 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 Constitution, 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." Again he said that he wished the movement for the election of members of Congress "to be a movement of the people of the district, and not a movement of our military and quasi-military authorities there. I merely wish our authorities to give the people a chance,--to protect them against secession interference." These instructions were designed as genuine rules of action, and were not to be construed away. Whatever might be said against the theory which the President was endeavoring to establish for state restoration, no opponent of that theory was to be given the privilege of charging that the actual conduct of the proceedings under it was not rigidly honest. In December, 1862, two members of Congress were elected in Louisiana, and in February, 1863, they were admitted to take seats in the House for the brief remnant of its existence. This was not done without hesitation, but the fact that it was done at all certainly was in direct line with the President's plan. Subsequently, however, other candidates for seats, coming from rehabilitated States, were not so fortunate.

As reorganizations were attempted the promoters generally desired that the fresh start in state life should be made with new state Constitutions. The conventions chosen to draw these instruments were instructed from Washington that the validity of the Emancipation Proclamation and of all the legislation of Congress concerning slavery must be distinctly admitted, if their work was to receive recognition. Apart from this, so strenuous were the hints conveyed to these bodies that they would do well to arrange for the speedy abolition of slavery, that no politician would have been so foolish as to offer a constitution, or other form of reorganization, without some provision of this sort. This practical necessity sorely troubled many, who still hoped that some happy turn of events would occur, whereby they would be able to get back into the Union with the pleasant and valuable group of their slaves still about them, as in the good times of yore. Moreover, in other matters there were clashings between the real military commanders and the quasi-military civilian officials; and it was unfortunately the case that, in spite of Mr. Lincoln's appeal to loyal men to "eschew cliquism" and "work together," there were abundant rivalries and jealousies and personal schemings. All these vexations were dragged before the President to harass him with their pettiness amid his more conspicuous duties; they gave him infinite trouble, and devoured his time and strength. Likewise they were obstacles to the advancement of the business itself, and, coming in addition to the delays inevitable upon elections and deliberations, they ultimately kept all efforts towards reconstruction dallying along until a late period in the war. Thus it was February 22, 1864, when the state election was held in Louisiana; and it was September 5 in the same year when the new Constitution, with an emancipation clause, was adopted. It was not until January, 1865, that, in Tennessee, a convention made a constitution, for purposes of reconstruction, and therein abolished slavery.

Pending these doings and before practical reconstruction had made noticeable progress, Mr. Lincoln sent in, on December 8, 1863, his third annual message to Congress. To this message was appended something which no one had anticipated,--a proclamation of amnesty. In this the President recited his pardoning power and a recent act of Congress specially confirmatory thereof, stated the wish of certain repentant rebels to resume allegiance and to restore loyal state governments, and then offered, to all who would take a prescribed oath, full pardon together with "restoration of all rights and property, except as to slaves, and ... where rights of third parties shall have intervened." The oath was simply to "support, protect, and defend" the Constitution and the Union, and to abide by and support all legislation and all proclamations concerning slavery made during the existing rebellion. There were, of course, sundry exceptions of persons from this amnesty; but the list of those excepted was a moderate and reasonable one. He also proclaimed that whenever in any seceded State "a number of persons not less than one tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the presidential election of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, 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 no wise 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 guarantee 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 the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.'"

Also further: "that any provision that may be adopted by such state government, in relation to the freed people of such State, 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. And it is suggested as not improper that, in constructing a loyal state government in any State, 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."

Concerning this proclamation, the message which communicated it noted: that it did not transcend the Constitution; that no man was coerced to take the oath; and that to make pardon conditional upon taking it was strictly lawful; that a test of loyalty was necessary, because it would be "simply absurd" to guarantee a republican form of government in a State "constructed in whole, or in preponderating part, from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected;" that the pledge to maintain the laws and proclamations as to slavery was a proper condition, because these had aided and would further aid the Union cause; also because "to now abandon them would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and astounding breach of faith."

He continued: "But why any proclamation, now, upon the subject? This question is beset with the conflicting views that the step might be delayed too long or be taken too soon. In some States the elements for resumption seem ready for action, but remain inactive, apparently for want of a rallying point,--a plan of action. Why shall A adopt the plan of B rather than B that of A? And if A and B should agree, how can they know but that the general government here will reject their plan? By the proclamation a plan is presented which may be accepted by them as a rallying point, and which they are assured in advance will not be rejected here. This may bring them to act sooner than they otherwise would.

"The objection to a premature presentation of a plan by the national executive consists in the danger of committals on points which could be more safely left to further developments.

"Care has been taken to so shape the document as to avoid embarrassments from this source. Saying that, on certain terms, certain classes will be pardoned, with rights restored, it is not said that other classes or other terms will never be included. 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.

"The movements, by state action, for emancipation in several of the States, not included in the emancipation proclamation, are matters of profound gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have heretofore so earnestly urged upon this subject, my general views and feelings remain unchanged; and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity of aiding these important steps to a great consummation.

"In the midst of other cares, however important, we must not lose sight of the fact that the war power is still our main reliance. To that power alone we can look yet for a time, to give confidence to the people in the contested regions, that the insurgent power will not again overrun them. Until that confidence shall be established, little can be done anywhere for what is called reconstruction.

"Hence our chiefest care must be directed to the army and navy, who have thus far borne their harder part so nobly and well. And it may be esteemed fortunate that in giving the greatest efficiency to these indispensable arms, we do also honorably recognize the gallant men, from commander to sentinel, who compose them, and to whom, more than to others, the world must stand indebted for the home of freedom disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, and perpetuated."

This step, this offer of amnesty and pardon, and invitation to state reconstruction, took every one by surprise. As usual the President had been "doing his own thinking," reaching his own conclusions and acting upon them with little counsel asked from any among the multitudes of wise men who were so ready to furnish it. For a moment his action received a gratifying welcome of praise and approval. The first impulsive sentiment was that of pleasure because the offer was in so liberal, so conciliatory, so forgiving a spirit; moreover, people were encouraged by the very fact that the President thought it worth while to initiate reconstruction; also many of the more weak-kneed, who desired to see the luring process tried, were gratified by a generous measure. Then, too, not very much thought had yet been given, at least by the people in general, to actual processes of reconstruction; for while many doubted whether there would ever be a chance to reconstruct at all, very few fancied the time for it to be nearly approaching. Therefore the President occupied vacant ground in the minds of most persons.

But in a short time a very different temper was manifested among members of Congress, and from them spread forth and found support among the people. Two reasons promoted this. One, which was avowed with the frankness of indignation, was a jealousy of seeing so important a business preempted by the executive department. The other was a natural feeling of mingled hostility and distrust towards rebels, who had caused so much blood to be shed, so much cost to be incurred. In this point of view, the liberality which at first had appeared admirable now began to be condemned as extravagant, unreasonable, and perilous.

Concerning the first of these reasons, it must be admitted that it was entirely natural that Congress should desire to take partial or, if possible, even entire charge of reconstruction. Which department had the better right to the duty, or how it should be distributed between the legislative and executive departments, was uncertain, and could be determined only by inference from the definite functions of each as established by the Constitution. The executive unquestionably had the power to pardon every rebel in the land; yet it was a power which might conceivably be so misused as to justify impeachment. The Senate and the House had the power to give or to refuse seats to persons claiming to have been elected to them. Yet they could not dare to exercise this power except for a cause which was at least colorable in each case. Furthermore, the meaning of "recognition" was vague. Exactly what was "recognition" of a state government, and by what specific process could it be granted or withheld? The executive might recognize statehood in some matters; Congress might refuse to recognize it in other matters. Every one felt that disagreement between the two departments would be most unfortunate and even dangerous; yet it was entirely possible; and what an absurd and alarming condition might be created, if the President, by a general amnesty, should reinstate the ex-rebels of a State as citizens with all their rights of citizenship, and Congress should refuse to seat the senators and representatives elected by these constituents on the alleged ground of peril to the country by reason of their supposed continuing disloyalty. Even worse still might be the case; for the Senate and the House might disagree. There was nothing in law or logic to make this consummation impossible.

People differed much in feeling as well as opinion upon this difficult subject, this problem which was solved by no law. Treason is a crime and must be made odious, said Andrew Johnson, sternly uttering the sentiments of many earnest and strenuous men in Congress and in the country. Others were able to eliminate revengefulness, but felt that it was not safe in the present, nor wise for the future, to restore to rebels all the rights of citizenship upon the moment when they should consent to abandon rebellion, more especially when all knew and admitted that the abandonment was made not in penitence but merely in despair of success. It was open to extremists to argue that the whole seceded area might logically, as conquered lands, be reduced to a territorial condition, to be recarved into States at such times and upon such conditions as should seem proper. But others, in agreement with the President, insisted that if no State could lawfully secede, it followed that no State could lawfully be deprived of statehood. These persons reinforced their legal argument with the sentimental one that lenity was the best policy. As General Grant afterward put it: "The people who had been in rebellion must necessarily come back into the Union, and be incorporated as an integral part of the nation. Naturally the nearer they were placed to an equality with the people who had not rebelled, the more reconciled they would feel with their old antagonists, and the better citizens they would be from the beginning. They surely would not make good citizens if they felt that they had a yoke around their necks." The question, in what proportions mercy and justice should be, or safely could be, mingled, was clearly one of discretion. In the wide distance betwixt the holders of extreme opinions an infinite variety of schemes and theories was in time broached and held. Very soon the gravity of the problem was greatly enhanced by its becoming complicated with proposals for giving the suffrage to negroes. Upon this Mr. Lincoln expressed his opinion that the privilege might be wisely conferred upon "the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks," though apparently he intended thus to describe no very large percentage. Apparently his confidence in the civic capacity of the negro never became very much greater than it had been in the days of the joint debates with Douglas.

Congress took up the matter very promptly, and with much display of feeling. Early in May, 1864, Henry Winter Davis, a vehement opponent of the President, introduced a bill, of which the anti-rebel preamble was truculent to the point of being amusing. His first fierce _Whereas_ declared that the Confederate States were waging a war so glaringly unjust "that they have no right to claim the mitigation of the extreme rights of war, which are accorded by modern usage to an enemy who has a right to consider the war a just one." But Congress, though hotly irritated, was not quite willing to say, in terms, that it would eschew civilization and adopt barbarism, as its system for the conduct of the war; and accordingly it rejected Mr. Davis's fierce exordium. The words had very probably only been used by him as a sort of safety valve to give vent to the fury of his wrath, so that he could afterward approach the serious work of the bill in a milder spirit; for in fact the actual effective legislation which he proposed was by no means unreasonable. After military resistance should be suppressed in any rebellious State, the white male citizens were to elect a convention for the purpose of reëstablishing a state government. The new organization must disfranchise prominent civil and military officers of the Confederacy, establish the permanent abolition of slavery, and prohibit the payment by the new State of any indebtedness incurred for Confederate purposes. After Congress should have expressed its assent to the work of the convention, the President was to recognize by proclamation the reorganized State. This bill, of course, gave to the legislative department the whole valuable control in the matter of recognition, leaving to the President nothing more than the mere empty function of issuing a proclamation, which he would have no right to hold back; but in other respects its requirements were entirely fair and unobjectionable, from any point of view, and it finally passed the House by a vote of 74 to 59. The Senate amended it, but afterward receded from the amendment, and thus the measure came before Mr. Lincoln on July 4, 1864. Congress was to adjourn at noon on that day, and he was at the Capitol, signing bills, when this one was brought to him. He laid it aside. Zachariah Chandler, senator from Michigan, a dictatorial gentleman and somewhat of the busybody order, was watchfully standing by, and upon observing this action, he asked Mr. Lincoln, with some show of feeling, whether he was not going to sign that bill. Mr. Lincoln replied that it was a "matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way." Mr. Chandler warned him that a veto would be very damaging at the Northwest, and said: "The important point is that one prohibiting slavery in the reconstructed States." "This is the point," said Mr. Lincoln, "on which I doubt the authority of Congress to act." "It is no more than you have done yourself," said the senator. "I conceive," replied Mr. Lincoln, "that I may in an emergency do things on military grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress." A few moments later he remarked to the members of the cabinet: "I do not see how any of us now can deny and contradict what we have always said: that Congress has no constitutional power over slavery in the States.... This bill and the position of these gentlemen seem to me, in asserting that the insurrectionary States are no longer in the Union, to make the fatal admission that States, whenever they please, may of their own motion dissolve their connection with the Union. Now we cannot survive that admission, I am convinced. If that be true, I am not President; these gentlemen are not Congress. I have laboriously endeavored to avoid that question ever since it first began to be mooted.... It was to obviate this question that I earnestly favored the movement for an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery.... I thought it much better, if it were possible, to restore the Union without the necessity for a violent quarrel among its friends as to whether certain States have been in or out of the Union during the war,--a merely metaphysical question, and one unnecessary to be forced into discussion."[58] So the bill remained untouched at his side.

A few days after the adjournment, having then decided not to sign the bill, he issued a proclamation in which he said concerning it, that he was "unprepared by a formal approval of [it] to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration;" that he was also "unprepared to declare that the free-state constitutions and governments, already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana, [should] be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens, who have set up the same, as to further effort;" also that he was unprepared to "declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in the States." Yet he also said that he was fully satisfied that the system proposed in the bill was "_one_ very proper plan" for the loyal people of any State to adopt, and that he should be ready to aid in such adoption upon any opportunity. In a word, his objection to the bill lay chiefly in the fact that it established one single and exclusive process for reconstruction. The rigid exclusiveness seemed to him a serious error. Upon his part, in putting forth his own plan, he had taken much pains distinctly to keep out this characteristic, and to have it clearly understood that his proposition was not designed as "a procrustean bed, to which exact conformity was to be indispensable;" it was not _the only_ method, but only _a_ method.

So soon as it was known that the President would not sign the bill, a vehement cry of wrath broke from all its more ardent friends. H.W. Davis and B.F. Wade, combative men, and leaders in their party, who expected their opinion to be respected, published in the New York "Tribune" an address "To the Supporters of the Government." In unbridled language they charged "encroachments of the executive on the authority of Congress." They even impugned the honesty of the President's purpose in words of direct personal insult; for they said: "The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of the rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition.... If electors for president be allowed to be chosen in either of those States [Louisiana or Arkansas], a sinister light will be cast on [his] motives." They alleged that "a more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated." They stigmatized this "rash and fatal act" as "a blow at the friends of the administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of republican government." They warned Mr. Lincoln that, if he wished the support of Congress, he must "confine himself to his executive duties,--to obey and execute, not make the laws; to suppress by arms armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress." If they really meant what they said, or any considerable part of it, they would have been obliged to vote "Guilty" had the House of Representatives seen fit to put these newspaper charges of theirs into the formal shape of articles of impeachment against the President.

To whatever "friends" Mr. Lincoln might have dealt a "blow," it is certain that these angry gentlemen, whether "friends" or otherwise, were dealing him a very severe blow at a very critical time; and if its hurtfulness was diminished by the very fury and extravagance of their invective, they at least were entitled to no credit for the salvation thus obtained. They were exerting all their powerful influence to increase the chance, already alarmingly great, of making a Democrat the next President of the United States. Nevertheless Mr. Lincoln, with his wonted imperturbable fixedness when he had reached a conviction, did not modify his position in the slightest degree.

Before long this especial explosion spent its force, and thereafter very fortunately the question smouldered during the rest of Mr. Lincoln's lifetime, and only burst forth into fierce flame immediately after his death, when it became more practical and urgent as a problem of the actually present time. The last words, however, which he spoke in public, dealt with the matter. It was on the evening of April 11, and he was addressing in Washington a great concourse of citizens who had gathered to congratulate him upon the brilliant military successes, then just achieved, which insured the immediate downfall of the Confederacy. In language as noteworthy for moderation as that of his assailants had been for extravagance, he then reviewed his course concerning reconstruction and gave his reasons for still believing that he had acted for the best. Admitting that much might justly be said against the reorganized government of Louisiana, he explained why he thought that nevertheless it should not be rejected. Concede, he said, that it is to what it should be only what the egg is to the fowl, "we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." He conceived that the purpose of the people might be fairly stated to be the restoration of the proper practical relations between the seceded States and the Union, and he therefore argued that the question properly took this shape: Whether Louisiana could "be brought into proper practical relation with the Union _sooner_ by _sustaining_ or by _discarding_ her new state government."[59]

By occurrences befalling almost immediately after Mr. Lincoln's death his opinions were again drawn into debate, when unfortunately he could neither explain nor develop them further than he had done. One of the important events of the war was the conference held on March 28, 1865, at Hampton Roads, between the President, General Grant, General Sherman, and Admiral Porter, and at which no other person was present. It is sufficiently agreed that the two generals then declared that one great final battle must yet take place; and that thereupon Mr. Lincoln, in view of the admitted fact that the collapse of the rebellion was inevitably close at hand, expressed great aversion and pain at the prospect of utterly useless bloodshed, and asked whether it could not by some means be avoided. It is also tolerably certain that Mr. Lincoln gave very plainly to be understood by his remarks, and also as usual by a story, his desire that Jefferson Davis and a few other of the leading rebels should not be captured, but rather should find it possible to escape from the country. It is in other ways well known that he had already made up his mind not to conclude the war with a series of hangings after the historic European fashion of dealing with traitors. He preferred, however, to evade rather than to encounter the problem of disposing of such embarrassing captives, and a road for them out of the country would be also a road for him out of a difficulty. What else was said on this occasion, though it soon became the basis of important

## action, is not known with accuracy; but it may be regarded as beyond a

doubt that, in a general way, Mr. Lincoln took a very liberal tone concerning the terms and treatment to be accorded to the rebels in the final arrangement of the surrendering, which all saw to be close at hand. It is beyond doubt that he spoke, throughout the conference, in the spirit of forgetting and forgiving immediately and almost entirely.

From this interview General Sherman went back to his army, and received no further instructions afterward, until, on April 18, he established with General Johnston the terms on which the remaining Confederate forces should be disbanded. This "Memorandum or basis of agreement,"[60] then entered into by him, stipulated for "the recognition by the executive of the United States, of the several state governments, on their officers and legislatures taking the oaths prescribed by the Constitution of the United States;" also that the inhabitants of the Southern States should "be guaranteed, so far as the executive can, their political rights and franchises, as well as their rights of person and property;" also that the government would not "disturb any of the people by reason of the late war," if they should dwell quiet for the future; and, in short, that there should be "a general amnesty," so far as it was within the power of the executive of the United States to grant it, upon the return of the South to a condition of peace.

No sooner were these engagements reported in Washington than they were repudiated. However they might have accorded with, or might have transcended, the sentiments of him who had been president only a few days before, they by no means accorded with the views of Andrew Johnson, who was president at that time, and still less with the views of the secretary of war, who well represented the vengeful element of the country. Accordingly Mr. Stanton at once annulled them by an order, which he followed up by a bulletin containing ten reasons in support of the order. This document was immediately published in the newspapers, and was so vituperative and insulting towards Sherman[61] that the general, who naturally did not feel himself a fitting object for insolence at this season of his fresh military triumphs, soon afterward showed his resentment; at the grand parade of his army, in Washington, he conspicuously declined, in the presence of the President and the notabilities of the land, to shake the hand which Secretary Stanton did not hesitate then and there to extend to him,--for Stanton had that peculiar and unusual form of meanness which endeavors to force a civility after an insult. But however General Sherman might feel about it, his capitulation had been revoked, and another conference became necessary between the two generals, which was followed a little later by still another between Generals Schofield and Johnston. At these meetings the terms which had been established between Generals Grant and Lee were substantially repeated, and by this "military convention" the war came to a formal end on April 26, 1865.

By this course of events General Sherman was, of course, placed in a very uncomfortable position, and he defended himself by alleging that the terms which he had made were in accurate conformity with the opinions, wishes, and programme expressed by Mr. Lincoln on March 28. He reiterates this assertion strongly and distinctly in his "Memoirs," and quotes in emphatic corroboration Admiral Porter's account of that interview.[62] The only other witness who could be heard on this point was General Grant; he never gave his recollection of the expressions of President Lincoln concerning the matters in dispute; but on April 21 he did write to General Sherman that, after having carefully read the terms accorded to Johnston he felt satisfied that they "could not possibly be approved."[63] He did not, however, say whether or not they seemed to him to contravene the policy of the President, as he had heard or understood that policy to be laid down in the famous interview. In the obscurity which wraps this matter, individual opinions find ample room to wander; it is easy to believe that what General Sherman undertook to arrange was in reasonable accordance with the broad purposes of the President; but it certainly is not easy to believe that the President ever intended that so many, so momentous, and such complex affairs should be conclusively disposed of, with all the honorable sacredness attendant upon military capitulations, by a few hasty strokes of General Sherman's pen. The comprehensiveness of this brief and sudden document of surrender was appalling! Mr. Lincoln had never before shown any inclination to depute to others so much of his own discretionary authority; his habit was quite the other way.

It is not worth while to discuss much the merits or demerits of President Lincoln's schemes for reconstruction. They had been only roughly and imperfectly blocked out at the time of his death; and in presenting them he repeatedly stated that he did not desire to rule out other schemes which might be suggested; on the contrary, he distinctly stated his approval of the scheme developed in the bill introduced by Senator Davis and passed by Congress. Reconstruction, as it was actually conducted later on, was wretchedly bungled, and was marked chiefly by bitterness in disputation and by clumsiness in practical arrangements, which culminated in that miserable disgrace known as the regime of the "carpet-baggers." How far Lincoln would have succeeded in saving the country from these humiliating processes, no one can say; but that he would have strenuously disapproved much that was done is not open to reasonable doubt. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that his theories, at least so far as they had been developed up to the time of his death, either could have been, or ought to have been carried out. This seems to be generally agreed. Perhaps they were too liberal; perhaps he confided too much in a sudden change of heart, an immediate growth of loyalty, among persons of whom nearly all were still embittered, still believed that it was in a righteous cause that they had suffered a cruel defeat.

But if the feasibility of Mr. Lincoln's plan is matter of fruitless disputation, having to do only with fancied probabilities, and having never been put to the proof of trial, at least no one will deny that it was creditable to his nature. A strange freak of destiny arranged that one of the most obstinate, sanguinary wars of history should be conducted by one of the most humane men who ever lived, and that blood should run in rivers at the order of a ruler to whom bloodshed was repugnant, and to whom the European idol of military glory seemed a symbol of barbarism. During the war Lincoln's chief purpose was the restoration of national unity, and his day-dream was that it should be achieved as a sincere and hearty reunion in feeling as well as in fact. As he dwelt with much earnest aspiration upon this consummation, he perhaps came to imagine a possibility of its instant accomplishment, which did not really exist. His longing for a genuinely reunited country was not a pious form of expression, but an intense sentiment, and an end which he definitely expected to bring to pass. Not improbably this frame of mind induced him to advance too fast and too far, in order to meet with welcoming hand persons who were by no means in such a condition of feeling that they could grasp that hand in good faith, or could fulfill at once the obligations which such a reconciliation would have imposed upon them, as matter of honor, in all their civil and political relations. The reaction involved in passing from a state of hostilities to a state of peace, the deep gratification of seeing so mortal a struggle determined in favor of the national life, may have carried him somewhat beyond the limitations set by the hard facts of the case, and by the human nature alike of the excited conquerors and the impenitent conquered. On the other hand, however, it is dangerous to say that Mr. Lincoln made a mistake in reading the popular feeling or in determining a broad policy. If he did, he did so for the first time. Among those suppositions in which posterity is free to indulge, it is possible to fancy that if he, whom all now admit to have been the best friend of the South living in April, 1865, had continued to live longer, he might have alleviated, if he could not altogether have prevented, the writing of some very painful chapters in the history of the United States.

NOTE.--In writing this chapter, I have run somewhat ahead of the narrative in point of time; but I hope that the desirability of treating the topic connectedly, as a whole, will be obvious to the reader.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] These appointments were as follows: Andrew Johnson, Tennessee, February 23, 1862; Edward Stanley, North Carolina, May 19, 1862; Col. G.F. Shepley, Louisiana, June 10, 1862.

[56] So said Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee, March 18, 1862.

[57] In a contest in which emancipation was indirectly at stake, in Maryland, he expressed his wish that "all loyal qualified voters" should have the privilege of voting.

[58] N. and H. ix. 120-122, quoting from the diary of Mr. John Hay.

[59] He had used similar language in a letter to General Canby, December 12, 1864; N. and H. ix. 448; also in his letter to Trumbull concerning the Louisiana senators, January 9, 1865; _ibid._ 454. Colonel McClure, on the strength of conversations with Lincoln, says that his single purpose was "the speedy and cordial restoration of the dissevered States. He cherished no resentment against the South, and every theory of reconstruction that he ever conceived or presented was eminently peaceful and looking solely to reattaching the estranged people to the government." _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 223.

[60] Sherman, _Memoirs_, ii. 356.

[61] Grant stigmatizes this as "cruel and harsh treatment ... unnecessarily ... inflicted," _Mem._ ii. 534, and as "infamous," Badeau, _Milit. Hist. of Grant_, iii. 636 n.

[62] Sherman, _Memoirs_, ii. 328. The admiral says that, if Lincoln had lived, he "would have shouldered all the responsibility" for Sherman's

## action, and Secretary Stanton would have "issued no false telegraphic

dispatches." See also Senator Sherman's corroborative statement; McClure, _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 219 n.

[63] Sherman, _Memoirs_, ii. 360.

##