USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. V > Part 5
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Never in all its history was American diplomacy more sorely taxed than it was in the first half of the war to maintain friendly relations with Great Britain and at the same time to vindicate the rights and honor of the nation ; and never did it more victoriously acquit itself. The geographical situation of various British colonies and the commercial activities of the British empire gave that power peculiar interest in the struggle and made it natural that the southern States should look to it for aid. The adoption of the protective tariff system in the United States bore hardly upon British trade and industry and caused for a time a strong turn- ing of British sympathy toward the free trade Con-
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federacy. There was probably never any danger of British intervention. But British recognition of Con- federate independence would have been a serious injury to the United States, while British aid to the Confed- erates, even such as could be given without openly violating the letter of the neutrality law, was only little less detrimental.
Against these adverse circumstances and influences Republican diplomacy worked with a fine blending of resolution and tact. On the one hand the President sent to Great Britain informally several representative citizens who were specially well qualified to make clear to both the British government and the British people the real causes and issues of the war, and to show them how directly and greatly they were in fact interested in the success of the national arms. The result of such work was soon manifested in a great revulsion of British popular sentiment in favor of the north. Even in the great industrial centers where unspeakable dis- tress had been caused by the embargo on cotton, and where at first there was unmeasured hostility to the United States, there was developed almost as marked sympathy with and enthusiasm for the Federal cause as any American city displayed.
At the same time the sturdy Republican statesman who was Minister at the Court of St. James's, Charles Francis Adams, was as inflexible in his maintenance of our rights as ever his famous father and grandfather had been. At the supreme crisis of affairs, when the result of the war here seemed still trembling in the balance, and when the entrance of Great Britain on the
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side of the south would have cast fearful odds against us, he did not hesitate calmly and imperturbably to say to the British Foreign Secretary concerning an act which the British government had apparently fully de- cided to do, "I need scarcely point out to your lordship that this means war!" It could have meant war, but it did not, because in the face of such Republican diplo- macy the British government reconsidered the matter and withheld its purposed action. In such fashion did the Republican administration in those trying times uphold the interests and honor of the republic abroad.
Nor was Mr. Adams content with even so great services. He was incessantly alert and vigilant to detect infractions of the neutrality act. As early as 1863 he informed the British government that the United States would make claims against it for indemnity, and as soon as the war closed and the time was ripe for such a settlement he had in hand an overwhelming mass of evidence to prove our case and to substantiate our claims against the British government for the losses which we had sustained through its failure to fulfill its duties as a neutral power. There followed a few years of direct negotiation, culminating in the Geneva arbi- tration. That was the most notable case of international arbitration that the world had ever seen. It may truly be said to have founded the succeeding era of arbitra- tion and adjudication of international disputes, opening the way to many other peaceful settlements of contro- versies which formerly would have led to war, as well as to the great Peace Congresses at The Hague. In that august international court of justice, thanks to Republi-
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can principles and Republican statesmanship, the United States won a sweeping victory. Its contentions were upheld and it received a cash award of $15,500,000, which was ample to cover the direct dam- ages for which indemnity had been demanded. The event was acclaimed by the world as one of the greatest achievements for international peace and justice that history had ever recorded.
While Great Britain was thus largely unsympathetic and neglectful of duty, the French government, under the usurping Emperor Louis Napoleon, was almost undisguisedly hostile. Repeatedly it strove to get other European powers to join it in forcible intervention in behalf of the Confederacy. The emperor's object was plain. He was engaged in an invasion of Mexico, with the purpose of conquering and annexing that country, and he knew that to that end it would be necessary to get rid of the Monroe doctrine, and to do this it would be necessary to destroy the United States. If he could secure the success of the Confederacy he would have a clear field for the establishment of a French empire in Mexico. But he dared not intervene alone, and he could not get either Great Britain or Russia to join him, though he besought them both to do so; so he had to be content with giving Confederate agents all the hospi- tality he could show them, and giving to Confederate cruisers the freedom of his ports.
With the French campaign in Mexico it was not possible at once to deal. All our available troops were needed on our own side of the Rio Grande. But Republican diplomacy was not negligent. Seward,
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Secretary of State, instructed our Minister at Paris, William L. Dayton, to make it quite clear to the French government that while we had of course no objections to France's collecting her just pecuniary claims against Mexico, that being the ostensible purpose of her inva- sion of that country, we could not acquiesce in any action which would change the form of government of that country or deprive it of its independence. Despite this warning Louis Napoleon persisted in his schemes and put the Hapsburg archduke, Maximilian, upon the throne of Mexico as a puppet emperor. The United States protested against this, refused to give Maximilian any recognition whatever, and maintained friendly relations with the native Mexican govern- ment, though its President, Benito Juarez, was a fugi- tive in the northern mountains.
But 1865 came at last. With the end of the Civil War the United States, with an efficient army in the field, was ready to enforce its diplomatic demands with military acts. The Republican administration promptly read the international riot act to Louis Napoleon, practically ordering him to withdraw his army from Mexico. He tried to temporize, offering to remove his troops if the United States would recog- nize Maximilian as emperor of Mexico. This the United States flatly refused to do, but instead it entered into closer relations with the Mexican republican government, which was then in the field waging vigor- ous war against the invaders. At that Louis Napoleon gave up his enterprise and withdrew his army from Mexico with all possible haste, the "empire" of Maxi-
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milian collapsed in the tragedy of his death, and the independent republic of Mexico was restored.
Meantime a third great achievement of Republican statesmanship was in progress in the far north. Before the war there had been a futile proposal to purchase the Russian province in America known as Alaska, though with no notion of the real value of that country. During the war, and before the practicability of a transatlantic telegraphic cable was established, American attention was again called to that region through an attempt to build by way of Alaska and Siberia an overland telegraph line to Europe. Finally, at the close of the war, Russia indicated a readiness to sell the territory to the United States. The first great Republican Secretary of State, Seward, welcomed the proposal, partly because of its accordance with the Monroe and Polk doctrines and partly because of some strange prescience of the material value of the territory. Since under the doctrines mentioned the United States would not permit a European power to transfer its American territory to another European power, this country was morally obligated itself to take such terri- tory off the hands of the power which wished to get rid of it. For that reason, if for no other, Seward would have purchased Alaska. But in addition he believed it to be a region of vast wealth, and he regarded the Pacific as "the ocean of the future" and deemed it desirable for the United States to establish itself as fully and extensively as possible upon its shores. Seeing that Alaska to-day has an import trade of $45,000,000 and an export trade of $75,000,000 a year, that its forest
FRANCIS HENDRICKS
Francis Hendricks, political leader ; born at Kingston, N. Y., November 23, 1834; educated at public schools and Albany academy; removed to Syracuse; appointed fire commissioner city of Syracuse, 1877; president of the board two years; mayor of Syracuse, 1880-1881; member of assembly, 1884-1885; elected state senator in 1885 serving three consecutive terms; chairman of special legislative committee appointed to investigate munici- pal affairs in New York City; appointed collector of the port of New York 1891; state superintendent of insurance, 1900-1906; delegate to numerous republican national conventions; died in Syracuse, N. Y., June 9, 1920.
GEORGE WASHINGTON ALDRIDGE
George Washington Aldridge, party leader; born at Michi- gan City, Ind., December 28, 1856; moved to Rochester with his parents in childhood; educated in Rochester schools and Cary collegiate seminary at Oakfield; elected to the executive city board of Rochester which had charge of fire, water and police departments, 1883; chairman from 1885 to 1893; mayor of Rochester, 1894; appointed by Governor Morton state superin- tendent of public works, 1895; reappointed in 1897 and served until January 16, 1899; appointed secretary of the state railroad commission, November 1902; member of commission, June 1905; chairman of commission, 1907 ; defeated as a candidate for con- gress at a special election, 1920; appointed by President Hard- ing as collector of the port of New York, May 16, 1921; died on the golf course at Rye, N. Y., June 13, 1922.
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wealth is greater than that of all the rest of the Ameri- can domain, that its mineral wealth is inestimably great, that its coastal fisheries are among the richest in the world, and that the agricultural possibilities of the "panhandle" region are greater than those of . some States of this Union, there is in the fact that Seward purchased the whole territory outright for only $7,200,000 a most impressive memorial of the shrewdness, the foresight, and the wisdom of the Republican statesmanship of that day.
It is of interest and not without value to recall, however, that in that act Seward was far in advance of his time. Not only by the Democratic opposition but by many of his own party he was ridiculed and denounced for "squandering the people's money" in "purchasing an iceberg," and "Seward's Folly" was long a popular name for what was otherwise called, even by his supporters, "Our Arctic Province."
CHAPTER VII
RESTORING THE UNION
T HE first great question before the nation at the close of the Civil War was that of the restoration of the southern States to a normal status under the Constitution. They had attempted to secede and with- draw entirely and permanently from the Union and the Constitution. / But the north had insisted that they had no right to do so and that in fact they could not do so. Its contention in that respect was settled by the war. In its view the seceding States had not been out of the Union and therefore did not need formal readmission to it. But they had for four years ceased to be represented in the government of the nation, and a majority of their citizens had renounced allegiance to the Federal Union and its Constitution. The question was, therefore, through what process and on what terms and conditions they were to resume their normal relationship to the Union and their participation in its national government.
Before and preliminary to this, indeed, there arose the question of the authority to determine the terms and conditions of such restoration, and over that there arose a vigorous controversy. Andrew Johnson, who had succeeded to the Presidency on the assassination of
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Lincoln, coming of Democratic antecedents and having an exaggerated estimate of the powers and functions of his office, regarded such determination as a purely administrative prerogative. During the recess of Con- gress in the summer of 1865 he put into effect a plan of his own devising, concerning which he had not so much as consulted Congress, and in December, at the opening of the session, he submitted it to Congress for approval.
This approval he did not receive. While some of its features were commendable others were decidedly objectionable. It was felt by the great majority of Republicans in Congress and throughout the country that it did not sufficiently confirm and safeguard the results of the war, either in invalidating secession or in protecting the emancipated negroes in their freedom. It did not, in brief, adequately guarantee fulfillment of Lincoln's resolution "that these dead shall not have died in vain." In addition to that, it was the Repub- lican contention that this was a matter for Congres- sional rather than Presidential determination. It was something in which the whole people were intensely interested and in which they had a right to be heard through their chosen representatives. For the Presi- dent to determine it would be an exercise of one-man autocracy repugnant to the principles of a democracy. During the war, under military exigencies, the Presi- dent had exercised extraordinary powers, even to the temporary and local suspension of the right to the writ of habeas corpus. All that was permissible under his war powers as commander-in-chief of the army and navy. But with the ending of the war and the return
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of peace these extraordinary powers must cease, and the affairs of the nation must be conducted according to the normal methods of the Constitution, with all laws made by Congress, interpreted by the judiciary, and executed by the President. That was the policy of the Republican party as against the attempted autocracy of the misguided President, and it was supported by the overwhelming mass of the American people. In the conflict which arose over it the House of Representa- tives presented a bill of impeachment against the President, and he narrowly escaped conviction and removal from office.
The Republican majority in Congress was suffi- ciently large to enable it to enact legislation over the President's veto, and it accordingly set itself to the task of reconstruction with little regard for his vagaries. His stubborn refusal to cooperate with Congress, how- ever, and a certain unaccommodating spirit which his course had provoked and fostered in the lately seceding States, greatly added to the arduousness of a task which in any case would have been of enormous difficulty, with the result that the ensuing years of the "Reconstruction era" were marked with some regret- table incidents and circumstances not properly charge- able to the Republican government and party. On the other hand, as direct results of the application of Republican principles, those years were conspicuously marked with some of the finest achievements in recon- ciliatory and reconstructive statesmanship that the world has ever seen.
The first principle was to treat the lately seceding
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States as having always remained members of the Union. There was no thought of altering their boun- daries, their names, their divisions, their capitals. The map of the United States was to remain unchanged. Their citizens, too, were held always to have remained American citizens, though certain of their civil rights had been temporarily forfeited by their own acts. There was no proscription or attainder, there was no confiscation of property, there were no punitive mea- sures. All that was required was that they should in good faith abandon their pretensions of secession and declare their loyal allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. On their doing this full amnesty was freely granted with the complete restoration of all civil and political rights. In consequence of this unprece- dented generosity of treatment, in the course of a few years many seats in both houses of Congress, in the President's cabinet, and on the bench of the Federal courts were filled by men who had been commanders of the Confederate army and high officers of the Confed- erate government. In such a spirit of confident generosity did the Republican party through its Con- gress effect the reconstruction of the nation after the storm and stress of the Civil War.
There was something more to be done. After safe- guarding the Union, there must be a safeguarding of the freedom which had been given to the slaves. The slaves had been set free, as an incident of the war, and their reënslavement would be forbidden by constitu- tional amendment. An amendment to that effect was proposed to the States by the Republican Congress on
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February 1, 1865, and was ratified by the votes of the Republican States-some Democratic States refusing to ratify it-December 18, 1865. But Republican states- manship did not contemplate merely setting the negroes free and setting them adrift to shift for themselves. Under They were ignorant, propertyless, helpless.
President Johnson's ill-devised scheme of "reconstruc- tion" they would have been subject to vagrancy laws which would have made their condition even more deplorable than it had been under slavery. Republicans held that it was not for such an end that the Emanci- pation proclamation had been issued and the war fought to a triumphant finish. The abolition of slavery had been an act of the nation. The anti-slavery amend- ment to the Constitution was an act of the nation. It was therefore incumbent upon the nation, and was not to be left to the States, to protect the men who had been set free, to safeguard their civil rights, and to give them a "square deal" and a fair chance to enjoy the privileges of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
In pursuance of this wise and humane policy the Republicans in Congress enacted, despite Democratic opposition, a bill establishing a Freeman's Bureau as a part of the national administration, thus giving national guardianship to the negroes as temporary wards of the nation. Following this came a Civil Rights law, which recognized negroes as citizens of the United States-they had long been citizens of many of the States,-safeguarded them in their rights of person and of property, and forbade discrimination against them by any State laws. The purpose was to extend to
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the different races the same noble principle of democ- racy that the Republican party had adopted among individuals in society, of "equal rights for all, special privileges for none." The purpose was to require the States of this Republic uniformly thus to treat their citizens, regardless of the color of their skins. The fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independ- ence was to be the fundamental principle of the nation of which that declaration was the primal charter. That was Republican statesmanship in dealing with the aftermath of human slavery.
In order to make this principle secure against any possible repudiation by a subsequent Congress of a different political faith, the next step taken was the incorporation of it in an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This Fourteenth amendment was proposed to the States by the Republican Congress on June 6, 1866, and its ratification was proclaimed on July 28, 1868. It was promptly ratified by the votes of twenty-three northern and Republican States; three Democratic border States and ten Democratic southern States at first rejected it, but the southern States after- ward ratified it. This amendment provided that all persons born or naturalized in the United States should be citizens of the United States and of the States in which they lived ; and that no State should abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen, nor deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In this there was no reference whatever to "race, color, or previous condi-
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tion of servitude" or to the right of suffrage; the latter being left for subsequent action.
In the same amendment, the most elaborate ever adopted, there were included several other important provisions for the permanent and immutable readjust- ment of national issues affected by the result of the war. One had to do with representation in Congress. According to the Constitution, Representatives in Con- gress were apportioned among the States according to their population and not according to the number of their actual citizens or of the votes cast; but the popu- lation was to be reckoned as consisting of all the free persons and three-fifths of the slaves. That arrange- ment was always repugnant to Republicans because it violated the principle of equality of suffrage, making the vote of a white citizen of a slave State much more powerful than that of a citizen of a free State. To retain that principle in the Constitution after the abolition of slavery would make the conditions still worse. For then representation would be based upon not merely three-fifths but the whole number of negroes in the former slave States, while the right to vote would be enjoyed by only the whites. Thus in a State in which half the population was black, each white voter would have two or three times the voting power of one in a State where there were few or no blacks. To cite precise figures : In a northern State there would be one Repre- sentative to every 127,000 voters, while in a southern State there would be one Representative to every 45,000 voters. The southern members of Congress would thus represent not only the white men who
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actually voted for them, but also a larger number of negroes who were not permitted to vote.
This was obviously unfair. It gave the southern States an undue advantage over the northern. Accord- ingly it was provided in the Fourteenth amendment that if in any State the right of suffrage was denied to male adults for any cause save crime, the number of Repre- sentatives apportioned to that State should be corre- spondingly reduced. That meant that representation would be based not upon gross population but upon the voting population. It did not interfere with the right of a State to make its own suffrage laws and to exclude citizens from the exercise of that right, but it served notice that for such exclusion a State would have to pay a penalty in reduced Congressional representa- tion. It made straight for what afterward became known as "equal suffrage," the principle that every responsible adult person should be a citizen in the com- plete sense of the term, that every citizen should have one vote and no more, and that all votes should be of equal value.
The third section of this amendment provided that no person should hold office under the United States or under any State who, having previously held office and having therefore taken an oath to support the Con- stitution of the United States, had thereafter engaged in insurrection against the Constitution or had given comfort or aid to its enemies. But, it was added, Con- gress might, by a two-thirds vote of each house, remove such disability. The real purpose of this section was embodied in the last clause. It was not so
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much to impose the disabilities upon participants in the Civil War from the southern side as to vest in Congress, rather than in the President, the power to remove those disabilities; which the Republican Congress thereafter proceeded to do with a promptness and a completeness not approximated in similar circumstances by any other nation in the world.
Still another section had to do with public debts. It declared that the validity of the legally authorized public debt of the United States, including that incurred for bounties and pensions for the national soldiers in the Civil War, should never be questioned ; but that on the other hand neither the United States nor any State should ever assume or pay any debt contracted in aid of insurrection against the United States, or any claim for loss through the emancipation of any slave. This was intended to prevent any attempt to secure pay- ments of the debt incurred on the bonds issued by the late Confederate States, an attempt which, but for that provision of the Constitution, would doubtless have been made.
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