Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  The emphasis on directions appeared in orders that Stanton, speaking for the president, sent to Governor Shepley, instructing him clearly to arrange for a constitutional convention. Loyal citizens (presumably including free blacks) were to be registered and an election held within the month following the completion of that process. Apportionment of the delegates would favor New Orleans, where the radical Free State General Committee was stronger than the conservative Executive Central Committee. Lincoln had long been trying to strike a balance between those two organizations, but now he decided to support the former. Discussing Louisiana Reconstruction with George Boutwell, the president said “that he desired the return of the states upon the old basis, substantially, making provision of emancipation of the slaves, and, if possible, securing them homes.”27

  With Banks distracted by military concerns, Shepley was left to carry out these presidential directives. Upon learning that the governor had not done so, Lincoln scolded Banks. The failure to register voters “disappoints me bitterly,” he told the general, adding that he did not blame Banks or the Free State leaders. But he urged them to “lose no more time.” Bluntly, he stated his wish that they should, “without waiting for more territory” to be occupied, promptly “go to work and give me a tangible nucleus which the remainder of the State may rally around as fast as it can, and which I can at once recognize and sustain as the true State government. And in that work I wish you, and all under your command, to give them a hearty sympathy and support. The instruction to Gov. Shepley bases the movement (and rightfully too) upon the loyal element. Time is important. There is danger, even now, that the adverse element seeks insidiously to pre-occupy the ground. If a few professedly loyal men shall draw the disloyal about them, and colorably set up a State government, repudiating the emancipation proclamation, and re-establishing slavery, I can not recognize or sustain their work. I should fall powerless in the attempt. This government, in such an attitude, would be a house divided against itself.” Here Lincoln seemed to renege on his pledge to exempt part of Louisiana from the Emancipation Proclamation; the entire state, including the occupied areas, must abolish slavery if it wished to be restored.28

  From New Orleans, Congressman Flanders reported to Chase: “The letter from the President to General Banks urging him and all under his authority to aid us to establish a State government has had the desired effect. All Departments of the Government now appear on the same side.”29 Chase rejoiced that the president was shifting toward the Radical position. Lincoln “advances slowly but yet advances,” the treasury secretary told Horace Greeley. “On the whole, when we think of the short time, and immense distance in the matter of personal Freedom, between the 1st of March 1861 & the 1st of October 1863 the progressives cannot be dissatisfied with results.”30

  The president grudgingly supported Banks’s controversial system of halfway freedom, which provided that slaves in areas of Louisiana not exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation would contract with planters and farmers of their choice for wages, clothing, and housing in return for their labor but would not be allowed to leave the farm or plantation without the army’s permission. Their children were authorized to attend schools that the army would establish. Physical punishment was forbidden, and employers were to set aside one acre for each black family to grow its own produce. Contracts were to last one year. “I have said, and say again,” Lincoln wrote, “that if a new State government, acting in harmony with this [federal] government, and consistently with general freedom, shall think best to adopt a reasonable temporary arrangement, in relation to the landless and homeless freed people, I do not object; but my word is out to be for and not against them on the question of their permanent freedom. I do not insist upon such temporary arrangement, but only say such would not be objectionable to me.”31

  Months earlier, Lincoln had told General McClernand that he would accept the implementation of “systems of apprenticeship for the colored people, conforming substantially to the most approved plans of gradual emancipation.”32 Similarly, he had written Stephen A. Hurlbut, commanding general at Memphis, that the employment of freed slaves was “a difficult subject—the most difficult with which we have to deal. The able bodied male contrabands are already employed by the Army. But the rest are in confusion and destitution. They better be set to digging their subsistence out of the ground. If there are plantations near you, on either side of the river, which are abandoned by their owners, first put as many contrabands on such, as they will hold—that is, as can draw subsistence from them. If some still remain, get loyal men, of character in the vicinity, to take them temporarily on wages, to be paid to the contrabands themselves—such men obliging themselves to not let the contrabands be kidnapped, or forcibly carried away. Of course, if any voluntarily make arrangements to work for their living, you will not hinder them. It is thought best to leave details to your discretion subject to the provisions of the acts of Congress & the orders of the War Department.”33

  Horace Greeley spoke for many Radicals when he denounced Banks’s “free labor” scheme: “Gen. Banks appears to have yielded without hesitation or reluctance to every demand which the grasping avarice, the hostility to freedom, the hatred to the policy of the Government, the cunning selfishness and the inhumanity of the Louisiana slavemasters can have induced them to make.”34 Such criticism was unfair, for Banks was helping pave the way to freedom and economic independence for slaves in areas exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation. He anticipated that the plantations would soon be broken up and that blacks would eventually possess their own farms.

  Before Congress met in December 1863, Lincoln made yet another attempt to restart the sputtering Reconstruction process in Louisiana. Ben Butler had suggested that as a preliminary measure, a referendum be conducted to determine whether voters would like to call a constitutional convention and repeal the ordinance of secession. On November 9, the president commended this proposal to Congressman Flanders, even though it meant tacitly acknowledging the legitimacy of secession. Nothing came of it. By December, hopes for the speedy restoration of Louisiana were fading fast.

  In nearby Arkansas, Lincoln’s attempt to promote elections also foundered. The military governor, Missouri Congressman John S. Phelps, was frustrated by the failure of the Union army to occupy much territory. In 1863, the president tried to enlist the aid of William K. Sebastian, who had resigned his U.S. senate seat when the state seceded. Learning that Sebastian planned to ask for reinstatement, Lincoln told General Stephen Hurlbut that Sebastian’s application “may be so presented as to be one of the very greatest national importance.” If Sebastian could persuade Arkansans to form a government and adopt gradual emancipation, Lincoln wrote, “I at least should take great interest in his case; and I believe a single individual will have scarcely done the world so great a service.” He added that of course the “emancipation proclamation applies to Arkansas. I think it is valid in law, and will be so held by the courts. I think I shall not retract or repudiate it. Those who shall have tasted actual freedom I believe can never be slaves, or quasi slaves again. For the rest, I believe some plan, substantially being gradual emancipation, would be better for both white and black. … It should begin at once, giving at least the new-born, a vested interest in freedom, which could not be taken away.”35 This initiative led nowhere, for Sebastian rejected the presidential overture.

  Attempts at self-reconstruction in Texas suffered a like fate. The failure of N. P. Banks’s assault at Sabine Pass in September 1863, followed by that general’s more disastrous Red River campaign in the spring of 1864, left Military Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton little to preside over beyond a small costal enclave around Brownsville.

  Foiling a Coup: The Etheridge Plot

  By December 1863, Lincoln realized that his ad hoc arrangement of military governors promoting Reconstruction in cooperation with Southern Unionists needed an overhaul. “However it may have been in the past, I think the country now is ready for radical
measures,” he told a caller.36 To replace the failed approach, he devised a more systematic one, which he spelled out in his annual message to Congress and in an accompanying Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.

  But before he issued those momentous documents, Lincoln was forced to help squelch a parliamentary coup by the clerk of the House of Representatives, former Congressman Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee. A strong Unionist but bitter opponent of abolition, Etheridge had supported the administration’s policies until emancipation became a war aim. Liberating the slaves he regarded as “treachery to the Union men of the South.”37 During the organization of the new Thirty-eighth Congress, Etheridge, a crafty schemer, planned to exclude Republican Representatives on a technicality while admitting Conservatives from Louisiana, thus giving Democrats control of the House. The possibility of such a coup alarmed many, including Congressman Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, who remarked: “I can think of nothing but a Bull run so disastrous to our cause as that they might hear in Richmond and abroad that our own House of Representatives was in a state of Revolution.”38

  Sharing Dawes’s concern, Lincoln mobilized Republicans to thwart Etheridge. He received word of the plot from the postmaster at Chattanooga, who suggested a way to head it off. Etheridge planned to deny Republicans their seats because their certificates of election were not precisely worded in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution and the laws of their states. These cases would be referred to the House committee on elections. To checkmate Etheridge, the president was advised to make sure that all Republican congressmen obtained correct certificates from their governors. Lincoln immediately conferred with the assistant clerk of the House, who offered practical advice on amended certificates. An act of Congress passed earlier that year authorized the clerk of the House to “make a roll of the representatives elect, and place thereon the names of all persons, and of such persons only, whose credentials show that they were regularly elected in accordance with the laws of their States respectively, or the laws of the United States.” Citing this statute, Lincoln wrote to several Republican leaders suggesting that loyal state governors make out certificates conforming exactly to the letter of the law. He included printed copies of such a certificate.

  Lincoln even contemplated using force against Etheridge. The night before the new House convened, he told Congressman Schuyler Colfax of Indiana to make “sure to have all our men there. Then if Mr. Etheridge undertakes revolutionary proceedings, let him be carried out on a chip, and let our men organize the House. If the worst comes to the worst a file of ‘Invalids’ [soldiers in the Invalid Brigade] may be held convenient to take care of him.”39 Congressman Owen Lovejoy, a clergyman who also thought force might be needed, said that if it came “to a question of muscle,” he could “whip Etheridge.”40 The next day, Etheridge’s attempt to exclude sixteen Republican congressmen was defeated by a 94–74 vote, obviating the need for Lovejoy’s muscle or Invalid Brigade troops. Significantly influencing the result was the willingness of several Border State congressmen to side with the Republicans. A journalist scornfully observed that the “impotent exhibition of petty spite and malice, exhibited by Clerk Etheridge, resulted only in his disgraceful failure.”41 The following year, when the secretary of the interior suggested that Whitelaw Reid publish information embarrassing to Etheridge, Lincoln vetoed the idea, saying: “No, Reid, I would not do it. Emerson ain’t worth more that a squirrel load of powder anyway.”42

  Before Congress assembled, Lincoln worried about the choice of a new speaker of the House to replace Galusha Grow, who had lost his reelection bid. The most likely candidate, Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, he considered “a little intriguer,—plausible, aspiring beyond his capacity, and not trustworthy.”43 Colfax was aligning himself with the pro-Chase Radicals. To challenge the Indiana congressman, Lincoln suggested to Frank Blair, then serving as a corps commander in Grant’s army, that he take the seat in Congress to which he had been elected by the voters of Missouri and help organize the House. Through his brother Montgomery, General Blair asked if Lincoln would prefer him to remain in the army or serve in Congress. On November 2, the president replied that he wanted Frank to come to Washington, resign his army commission, “take his seat, go into caucus with our friends, abide the nominations, help elect the nominees, and thus aid to organize a House of Representatives which will really support the government in the war. If the result shall be the election of himself as Speaker, let him serve in that position; if not, let him re-take his commission, and return to the Army. For the country this will heal a dangerous schism; for him, it will relieve from a dangerous position. By a misunderstanding, as I think, he is in danger of being permanently separated from those with whom only he can ever have a real sympathy—the sincere opponents of slavery.” (In September, Blair had infuriated Radicals by publicly attacking Chase.) “It will be a mistake if he shall allow the provocations offered him by insincere time-servers, to drive him out of the house of his own building. He is young yet. He has abundant talent—quite enough to occupy all his time, without devoting any to temper. He is rising in military skill and usefulness. His recent appointment to the command of a corps, by one so competent to judge as Gen. Sherman, proves this. In that line he can serve both the country and himself more profitably than he could as a member of congress on the floor.”44 After sending this letter, Lincoln said: “I don’t know whether Frank will do this or not, but it will show durned quick whether he’s honest or not.”45 Blair took the president’s advice, though army commitments delayed his arrival in Washington until January, by which time Colfax had become speaker. Edward McPherson, a Pennsylvania congressman defeated for reelection in 1862, replaced Etheridge as clerk. Blair’s inability to reach the capital in time to help organize the House should have led him to resign his seat, but he relished the opportunity to thwart his Radical opponents.

  Restructuring Reconstruction: The Ten Percent Plan

  As the president was composing his annual message, Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler urged him to ignore Conservatives’ advice: “You are today master of the Situation if You stand firm. The people have endorsed You gloriously.”46 Lincoln assured Chandler that he hoped “to ‘stand firm’ enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country’s cause.”47 At the same time, the president agreed with Seward that it was important to woo War Democrats.

  And so Lincoln offered a plan that he hoped would appeal to Radical and Moderate Republicans, to War Democrats, and to Southern Unionists. Like his earlier effort, it was rooted in his sensible belief that Southern white backlash against emancipation would be diluted if voters in the Confederate states themselves organized loyal governments, applied for restoration, and abolished slavery. Some reports from the South indicated that if Confederate leaders were held strictly accountable for the war and other Confederates granted amnesty, such a step would be hailed in the South as “magnanimous, noble, and great.” It might well induce wavering Confederates to surrender, confident that they would receive lenient treatment.48 Recent military developments predisposed many non-slaveholders to accept a generous amnesty. In October, when General Rosecrans proposed extending amnesty to most Rebels, Lincoln replied that “I intend doing something like what you suggest, whenever the case shall appear ripe enough to have it accepted in the true understanding, rather than as a confession of weakness and fear.”49

  The president’s long-standing faith in Southern Unionism was strengthened during the fall of 1863. In late October, some Arkansas Unionists, heartened by General Frederick Steele’s capture of Little Rock, proposed a constitutional convention to meet in January. Elections for delegates were underway as Lincoln penned his message. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a strong peace movement emerged, led by William Woods Holden of Raleigh. Lincoln heartily endorsed an appeal to North Carolina Governor Zebulon Vance urging him to accept a peace based on reunion, emancipation, and full citizenship rights for Confederates.

 
The president optimistically told John Hay that the rebellion was on the verge of collapse. Jefferson Davis’s government depended completely on the army, he said, “not only against us but against his own people. If that were crushed the people would be ready to swing back to their old bearings.”50 This was wishful thinking, for Southern disaffection with the Richmond government was not an expression of Unionism but rather of anger at the failure of Confederate arms, at the Davis administration’s inability to guarantee social order, and at its encroachment upon individual and states rights. Peace supporters in the South desired a negotiated end to hostilities only if it guaranteed independence. Just as he had done in the secession crisis, Lincoln overestimated the strength of white Southerners’ devotion to the Union.

  Laboring under that misapprehension, the president devised a scheme known as the Ten Percent plan. It allowed for the restoration of rebellious states after a number of voters equal to one-tenth of those casting ballots in 1860 took an oath of future loyalty to the Union and of willingness to accept emancipation. (Some Confederates would be ineligible for this amnesty, including military and civilian leaders, those who resigned commissions in the U.S. military or federal legislative and judicial posts to join the rebellion, or those who mistreated captured black troops or their white officers.) Once that threshold was reached, the state could hold elections and rejoin the Union, with all the rights and privileges it had enjoyed before the war. The oath-takers would also have all their former rights restored, except the right to own slaves.