USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their times and their contemporaries > Part 38
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Then, turning toward the Cabinet, he said: 'And I will say to you, Mr. Secretary Seward, and to you, Mr. Secretary Stanton, and to you, Mr. Secretary [to a gentleman near by, sotto voce, Who is Secretary of the Navy? The person addressed replied in a whisper, Mr. Welles ] and to you Mr. Secretary Welles, I would say you all derive your power from the people.' Mr. Johnson then remarked that the great element of vitality in this govern- ment was its nearness and proximity to the people. He wanted to say to all who heard him, in the face of the American people, that all power was derived from the people. He would say, in the hearing of the foreign ministers, for he was going to tell the truth here to-day, that he was a plebeian,-he thanked God for it. It was the popular heart of this nation that was beating to sustain Cabinet officials and the President of the United States. It was a strange occasion that called a plebeian like him to tell such things as these. Mr. Johnson adverted to affairs in Tennessee and the abolition of slavery there. He thanked God Tennessee was a State in the Union and had never been out of it. The State Government had been discontinued for a time- there had been an interregnum, a hiatus-but she had never been out of the Union. He stood here to-day as her representative. On this day she would elect a Governor and a Legislature, and she would very soon send Senators and members to Congress."
Not long after the death of Mr. Lincoln, it was observable that the views and feelings of Mr. Johnson were undergoing a change in reference to those lately in insurrection. At first this change was hailed with delight by the great body of loyal people, for they had feared he would be too bloody and unrelenting in his policy.
The magnanimous Grant thus speaks of his apprehensions as to the future policy of Mr. Johnson after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, and he reflects, in what he says, the feelings and opinions of a large majority of the Northern people at that time :
"It would be impossible for me to describe the feeling that overcame me at the news of these assassinations [Mr. Lincoln's and Mr. Seward's, as reported], more especially the assassina- tion of the President. I knew his goodness of heart, his gen- erosity, his yielding disposition, his desire to have everybody happy, and above all his desire to see all the people of the United States enter again upon the full privileges of citizen-
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ship with equality among all. I knew also the feeling that Mr. Johnson had expressed in speeches and conversation against the Southern people, and I feared that his course toward them would be such as to repel, and make them unwilling citizens, and if they became such they would remain so for a long while. I felt that reconstruction had been set back no telling how far."*
Again General Grant said:
"Mr. Johnson's course toward the South did engender bitter- ness of feeling. His denunciations of treason and his ever ready remark: 'Treason is a crime and must be made odious,' was repeated to all those men of the South who came to him to get some assurance of safety, so that they might go to work at something with the feeling that what they obtained would be secured to them. He uttered his' denunciations with great vehemence, and as they were accompanied with no assurances of safety, many Southerners were driven to a point almost beyond endurance.
"The Southerners who read the denunciations of themselves and their people [by the President who was supposed to repre- sent the feelings of those over whom he presided] must have supposed that he uttered the sentiments of the Northern people ; whereas, as a matter of fact, but for the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, I believe the great majority of the Northern people, and the soldiers unanimously, would have been in favor of a speedy reconstruction, on terms that would be least humiliating to the people who had rebelled against the Government. They believed, I have no doubt, as I did, that besides being the mildest, it was also the wisest policy."
But soon they saw with amazement that the man who had been the most extreme of all our public men in his demand for punish- ment was becoming the most lenient, and making himself the champion of those lately in arms.
Not more remarkable was his change in December, 1860, from the extreme wing of Southern agitators to the support of the Republican party, than the reversal of feeling and opinion on his part in reference to those lately hostile to the Government, which occurred not long after he became President. This was the more surprising in each case because he was not a vacillating
*Grant's Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 508-9.
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man. On the contrary, he was noted for the dogged tenacity with which he clung to his opinions. He was not only firm, but obstinate. But while he was both firm and obstinate he was also calculating. He was wise in forecasting coming events. It is hard to escape the conclusion that both these changes were the result of a deliberate reckoning of chances. He supported Breckinridge, not because he cared for slavery, nor was in favor of secession, but because in so doing he was in line with his party, whose assistance in Tennessee he would need and must have, when the time for his re-election to the Senate should come around. When he saw that the leaders of the cotton States were going to establish a new government, he thought no doubt he could keep Tennessee out of the Southern movement, and could thus cement his power more firmly than before. But few men in Tennessee believed or dreamed in 1860 that Jackson's State and home would ever raise a parricidal hand against the Union. The thought was insulting to the memory of its great and idolized defender. It would be strange indeed if Mr. John- son did not share in this almost universal belief. He expected to be able to crush any effort in that direction. For a number of years previously he had been supreme in the councils of his party in the State. He made and unmade public men at his will.
But if he failed to hold Tennessee in the national column, his chances for advancement, from his point of view, would be better in the North than in the South. He knew that he had always been suspected and to some extent despised by the extreme Southern leaders. In birth, education, and social position, he was never regarded by them as their equal, and he felt it keenly. In a new confederacy he knew, as well as they, there would be no honors for him. He had never been an ultra-slavery propagandist. Mr. Johnson was too shrewd and sagacious not to see the immense probability of the triumph of the Government in the approach- ing conflict. With his boundless ambition, it was natural for him to count the effect of such a struggle upon his own fortunes. Patriotism united with interest and judgment in finally fixing his position. His chances for political advancement, therefore, were better in the North than in the South, especially if he could hold and carry Tennessee with him. With his own State in his hands, preserved from secession with his might and power, he would stand before the North as the greatest Southern
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champion of the Union. He would be next in esteem to Mr. Lincoln. Then the presidency! Why not succeed Mr. Lincoln ? Who could tell what might happen? This bright vision was an enchanting one. And how mysteriously and with what marvel- ous exactness this most improbable of things came to pass !
And the other change, from the most malignant hatred, to the tenderest love for those lately in arms, how came it about? Over and over again Mr. Johnson had proclaimed in his ad- dresses in Tennessee, while Military Governor, that "treason must be made odious and rebels be punished and impoverished." He said this in Knoxville, as we have seen, in April, 1864. In Nashville he had prominent leaders arrested and thrown into prison because they were disloyal. He levied heavy contribu- tions on their property. He went to Washington breathing out threats against them. In learning of the surrender of General Lee, he earnestly protested to Mr. Lincoln against the indulgent terms which General Grant had accorded the vanquished army. He believed that the whole army should have been held as prisoners of war, and General Lee kept in confinement. He insisted that Lee should be tried for treason, and but for the decided protest of General Grant, he would have been arrested and put up on trial.
A few days after Mr. Johnson became President, he said in an address: "The people must understand that treason is the blackest of crimes and will surely be punished. Let it be engraven on every mind that treason is a crime and shall suffer its penalty." On one occasion, he exclaimed: "The halter for intelligent, influential traitors !" Before he became Presi- dent, he declared that "traitors should be arrested, tried, con- victed, and hanged." Even blunt, honest, old Ben Wade, who was regarded as one of the bitterest men in the North, was startled at the vindictive spirit displayed by Mr. Johnson toward the secessionists.
And yet, in a few brief weeks, Mr. Johnson issued his procla- mation of Amnesty and Pardon, granting a pardon to all who had been in the secession movement, upon the simple condition of taking a prescribed oath, certain classes being excepted from the benefits of the proclamation. I do not say that this was wrong, but that it was wise and just, for pardon and amnesty had to come sooner or later, if we were to become again a reunited people.
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I hesitate to affirm positively that Mr. Johnson deliberately betrayed the North. When he succeeded to the Presidency he assumed grave and high duties toward the whole country. He was lifted up into a higher, a broader field, not only of patriot- ism, but of feeling also. His horizon was greatly enlarged. He became, as it were, the father of the people of all sections. The bitter partisan was, or should have been, merged in the noble patriot. The highest good of all should have been, and possibly was, at first, his aim. The desire of leaving a good name behind, of securing the love of his countrymen as a just ruler, would naturally prompt a magnanimous man to a course far above that of the mere designing politician. Possibly these were in part the reasons which at first influenced Mr. Johnson. If so, they were noble and honorable. But this revolution of feeling was so sudden and remarkable that men wondered at it, as well they might. Many began to criticise it ; some openly and severely to condemn it. His motives were questioned. He, in turn, became enraged at this opposition, and turned upon his critics with bitter denunciations.
It is possible that another motive may have influenced Mr. Johnson quite as much as that suggested. Mr. Blaine says that the reconstruction measures of Mr. Johnson originated in the mind of Mr. Seward, and that they were on his part intended as measures of love and reconciliation. That may be, and doubt- less is, true. But it seemed strange that Mr. Johnson, one of the least loving of men, should so suddenly become an apostle of love. Of all his qualities this was supposed to be the least prominent. Other feelings than that of love were known usually to dominate him.
No sooner had the amnesty proclamation been published, than applications for special pardons began to come in to the Presi- dent. Immediately he commenced pardoning the same classes which he had excluded from the benefit of the general amnesty. All were restored upon precisely the same terms. Was this done to bind to him the leading men of the South by the strongest tie known to honorable men-that of gratitude-a class whose crimes were too dark, as he pretended, to be em- braced in the general amnesty? He had distinguished the leaders by excluding them from the general amnesty, and a second time distinguished them by special pardons, thus doubly separating them from the common people.
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Mr. Seward may have flattered himself that he had obtained his chief's approval of his plan of love and reconciliation for the Southern States; but Mr. Johnson, if true to the history of his past life, looked away beyond the things, to their effect on his own political fortunes. Doubtless he was willing for Mr. Seward to indulge in such pleasing fancies. As for himself, he was a practical statesman, and accustomed to consider alone those things which tended to strengthen and consolidate his own power. He was subtle in policy and far reaching in fore- thought. Schemes of philanthropy could not fascinate his cool head. It was electoral votes he desired. These the Southern States would have, and they must be secured. At the same time, it was a pleasant reflection to him, no doubt, that by a humane policy he might also win the good opinion and respect of a class of persons among whom he was born and had lived, and who had always looked down upon him.
A magnanimous mind, touched by the misfortunes of a brave people, whose misguided judgment and ambition had led them into an act of supreme folly, might have been influenced by sympathy alone to overlook their acts in their day of extreme desolation, and restore them to full political brotherhood as citizens. But Johnson had never been distinguished for mag- nanimity nor mercy. But what he would not do from mag- nanimity nor mercy, he would do from self-interest.
I have elsewhere said Johnson was bitter and unforgiving, but that he was also calculating. A presidential election was ahead, no matter if it was three years off. What more natural than that the Southern people should vote for the man who had broken the shackles of their bondage and restored them to power?
By means of his immense patronage he might be able to detach from the Republican party in the North enough votes, when united with the Democratic votes, to carry the old Demo- cratic States. Thus he would be elected President by the people. What matter if Sumner, Wade, Stevens, and Biddings did howl and rage, provided the people were for him? He could hardly hope to keep on good terms with the strong, proud, arrogant radical leaders. They would not yield a particle, neither would he. Since his unfortunate appearance and address at his in- auguration, they, as well as many others in the North, were
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already alienated to some extent, and he could not depend on them to support him. He must, therefore, look elsewhere.
It was evidently the expectation of Mr. Johnson, in his sudden change of position, to draw away a large following from the Republican party, and to divide it. He counted on the powerful influence of Mr. Seward with the party. He also counted on the influence of Seward's old political partner, Thurlow Weed. Now that the Union was saved, many of the War Democrats, perhaps nearly all, who had attached them- selves to the Republican party, to save the Government, would come back to the Democratic fold, from natural instinct. With a division in the Republican party, the return of many or all of the War Democrats, and the support of the disloyal element in the North, the prospect looked bright for carrying many of the Northern States for Mr. Johnson in the next presidential election. Unquestionably the Presidency was his object. With the aid of the Southern States, which would be readmitted into the Union under his policy, and which would support him from motives of gratitude, combined with those he would carry in the North, the way to his election would be clear. Perhaps in the beginning he did not mean to go as far as he finally went ; per- haps he did not contemplate an irrevocable separation from the Republican party, and certainly he did not foresce the almost united opposition of the party to his policy. But opposition, as it always had, drove him forward in a headlong course of fury and desperation until he lost all sense of consistency.
Not less remarkable was the madness of the Southern people, guided by his infatuated advice. They could have been, and would have been, almost certainly, restored to all their rights, with a few exceptions, in the year 1866, on taking a simple oath, if they had adopted the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. But they indignantly rejected it. Congress was then driven, most reluctantly and contrary to its first purpose, to enter upon and adopt the series of harsh measures as means of national repose and future security, known as the Recon- struction Acts, which, unforeseen by Congress, resulted so dis- astrously to the people of the South. Under negro, and carpet- bag rule, grievous wrongs were suffered by the South, which were attributed to the hate of the Republican party, when, in fact, they were the result of the folly of their adviser, Andrew Johnson, and of their own lack of knowledge.
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No such changes as Mr. Johnson's,-so radical and thorough, from a state of intense implacableness to one of effusive con- sideration,-can be found recorded in history. Love and for- giveness were not qualities of his heart. Some other powerful motive must be found sufficient to neutralize his recent terrible hatred of the Southern leaders, to effect this revolution in feel- ing. This was ambition, the ambition to triumph over all op- position, to put his feet on the necks of his enemies, to be elected President by the vote of the people. This overrode, and, at times, quieted all other passions, even hate and revenge.
CHAPTER VI.
Bitter Quarrel Between President and Congress-Impeachment of John- son-Failure of Southern States to Ratify "Fourteenth Amendment"- Contest Between Mr. Johnson and Republican Party-Attitude of Prominent Republicans Toward Negro Suffrage - Reconstruction - Negro Rule-Fifteenth Amendment-Civil Rights Bill-Johnson's Op- position to Fourteenth Amendment.
SOON after the issuance of the amnesty proclamation there sprang up an angry quarrel between Mr. Johnson and Con- gress. The breach between them each day became wider. As the quarrel grew in intensity, Johnson drifted farther and farther away from the Republican party. Finally he became completely identified in sympathy, as well as in principle, with those lately hostile to the Government. It was hardly to be expected that the determined men who were leaders of the Republican party, in Congress, flushed with their recent victory in the State elections, and sustained by nearly three-fourths of a majorty in both branches of Congress, would quietly submit to the domineering will of the President. Johnson, on the other hand, with a supreme confidence in his own power, went forward in the policy which he had proposed, not shrinking from this deadly contest. Congress with unwavering firmness, swiftly passed measure after measure designed for the security and protection of the National Union. Johnson, again and again, resorted to his constitutional right of vetoing these measures. Scarcely were his veto messages read in Congress before the measures were triumphantly passed by Constitutional majorities over his vetoes. The President became more and more favorable to the late enemies of the Government. He encouraged them in every conceivable way by words and by speeches to persist in their course.
This embittered quarrel between the President and Con- gress went on for about two years, until at last the House of Representatives, driven to desperation by the repeated acts of the President, intended to defeat the nation's will, preferred articles of impeachment against him. Never before in the history of our Government had there been an attempt to im-
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peach a President. After a protracted trial before the Senate, sitting as the highest judicial body in the land, Mr. Johnson only escaped conviction by the narrow margin of one vote.
The strength of the impeachment of Johnson rested upon the charge that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act, by an attempt to remove Mr. Stanton from the office of the Secretary- ship of War. Stanton had been appointed to that office by Mr. Lincoln, and held over under Johnson without reappoint- ment. A quarrel had arisen between these two functionaries as to the plan to be pursued in reconstructing the late seced- ing States, Stanton taking sides with Congress. Johnson wished to get rid of him, because he was an obstruction in the way of the execution of his plans, hence the attempt to remove him.
Whatever may be thought of the conduct of Mr. Johnson prior to his trial, it is the better judgment of the world to-day that the impeachment proceeding was an unfortunate mistake. As a precedent, the conviction of a President of the United States, without the clearest proof of the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors, might prove to be at some future time most mischievous ; besides, it was never clear that Mr. Johnson was guilty of an impeachable crime. As remarked recently by an eminent Republican lawyer: "The executive office was on trial" in this impeachment, and it was fortunate for the country that Mr. Johnson was acquitted. Mr. Blaine says, in regard to his trial: "No impartial reader can examine the record of the pleadings and arguments of the managers who appeared on behalf of the House, without feeling that the Presi- dent was impeached for one series of misdemeanors and tried for another series."
I am not criticising Mr. Johnson for his plan of recon- structing the late secession States, nor for his sympathy with the Southern people. His plan may have been the best that could have been devised. I believe firmly that his policy would have proved such if the Southern people had accepted it in a fraternal spirit, and at the same time had ratified the Four- teenth Amendment to the Constitution. If these two things had been done cheerfully and in good faith, there can scarcely exist a doubt that in twenty months after the surrender of General Lee, the Southern States would all have been restored to their old places in the Union.
*Joseph H. Choate.
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Of course, the result would have been that the control of the late secession States would at once have passed into the hands of those lately in arms against the Government. That mattered not, for such happened in the end anyway, and was right, with proper guarantees and conditions and was inevitable sooner or later under any plan of reconstruction. All can now see that it was best that it should happen quickly. The colored people have finally fallen under the political power of the whites in every insurrectionary State, and they so remain, notwithstanding the Fifteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Bill. That, too, was inevitable. Ignorant colored men, however superior in numbers, are no match for the intelligent, masterful white race. If the whites of these States had retained the control of their own internal affairs, after the close of the war, the con- dition of the colored people would have been made at least as tolerable as it became after the return of the whites to power, and almost certainly much more so. The whites were, at that time, more kindly disposed towards their late slaves than they became later after they witnessed the corrupt, and sometimes insolent, rule of the latter, while they, and their adventurous associates, the carpet-baggers, were in the ascendency. The slave owners felt no resentment toward their late slaves until they saw the latter exalted over themselves. But their indig- nation was naturally aroused when they beheld those who were lately obedient to their every command, and whom they still regarded as their rightful property, and knew to be vastly their inferiors, exercising high rights denied to themselves, and holding honorable offices from which they were debarred. In addition to this, when they saw their late slaves used as the blind instruments of corrupt men, a feeling of intense indignation sprang up in their minds against those slaves, for whom they once entertained only feelings of kindness.
The quarrel between Johnson and Congress was a national calamity. The Provisional Governments in several of the late insurrectionary States, established under the Acts of Congress, with the evils that followed, and the sea of hate and malignant passion which swelled up, waiting for the day of vengence, would never have had an existence but for that quarrel. Except for it, too, the movement to impeach Mr. Johnson, which still fur- ther intensified this ill-feeling, would not have been made. Above all, and far beyond all, it postponed indefinitely the day of
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genuine reconciliation, and left on the minds of the Southern peo- ple an almost unalterable conviction that they had been harshly treated by the National Government. It was most natural that the people of the South, urged on by the President of the United States, with a few Republicans and the whole Democratic party, of the North, should have felt as they had felt in the days of their ascendency before the War, strong, proud, and inde- pendent.
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