Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  “Looking back,” said the General, “over the whole policy of reconstruction, it seems to me that the wisest thing would have been to have continued for some time the military rule. Sensible Southern men see now that there was no government so frugal, so just, and fair as what they had under our generals. That would have enabled the Southern people to pull themselves together and repair material losses. As to depriving them, even for a time, of suffrage, that was our right as a conqueror, and it was a mild penalty for the stupendous crime of treason. Military rule would have been just to all, to the negro who wanted freedom, the white man who wanted protection, the Northern man who wanted Union. As State after State showed a willingness to come into the Union, not on their own terms but upon ours, I would have admitted them. This would have made universal suffrage unnecessary, and I think a mistake was made about suffrage. It was unjust to the negro to throw upon him the responsibilities of citizenship, and expect him to be on even terms with his white neighbor. It was unjust to the North. In giving the South negro suffrage, we have given the old slave-holders forty votes in the electoral college. They keep those votes, but disfranchise the negroes. That is one of the gravest mistakes in the policy of reconstruction. It looks like a political triumph for the South, but it is not. The Southern people have nothing to dread more than the political triumph of the men who led them into secession. That triumph was fatal to them in 186o. It would be no less now. The trouble about military rule in the South was that our people did not like it. It was not in accordance with our institutions. I am clear now that it would have been better for the North to have postponed suffrage, reconstruction, State governments, for ten years, and held the South in a territorial condition. It was due to the North that the men who had made war upon us should be powerless in a political sense forever. It would have avoided the scandals of the State governments, saved money, and enabled the Northern merchants, farmers, and laboring men to reorganize society in the South. But we made our scheme, and must do what we can with it. Suffrage once given can never be taken away, and all that remains for us now is to make good that gift by protecting those who have received it.

  from Around the World With General Grant (1879)

  “THE DESTRUCTION OF A FREE BALLOT”:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 1879

  Joseph H. Rainey:

  From Remarks in Congress on South Carolina Elections

  MR. SPEAKER, much has been said on this floor regarding the presence of soldiers at or near the polls on election day, and on the fact that Governor Chamberlain requested military protection from the National Government during the campaign preceding the election. If the military had interfered to suppress the exercise of free speech during the campaign or a free ballot at the polls on election day by the democrats, there would be some propriety and pertinency in these complaints; but when it is so notorious that the military only protected from violence the republicans in the exercise of their right of free speech and free ballot, which the democrats endeavored to suppress by violence and intimidation, these complaints become absurd and unreasonable. All these objections to the presence of troops, when the reasons on which these objections are founded are wholly wanting, have, to say the least, a refreshing coolness; and when in addition it is so well known that their presence prevented the party complaining from carrying out their nefarious designs of depriving the party protected by them from the exercise of their political rights, it presents the most remarkable spectacle of the exact reversal of a political axiom otherwise sound and excellent. In a word, the presence of troops when they prevent the exercise of free speech and a free ballot is decidedly objectionable, but when they interfere to protect its exercise by both or either parties there can be no objection except by the party that seeks to suppress or prevent them. It is urged that the presence of soldiers in the State prevented contestant from being returned elected, by protecting, I suppose, those who gave me the majority of the votes.

  This fact aroused his virtuous indignation; but the gentleman has no indignation to spare against the State militia forces that were so largely employed to defeat my re-election in 1878. The presence of the military at the Sumter meeting of October 12, 1878, when the artillery from Columbia united their forces with the infantry of Sumter County and loaded their cannon with bags of ten-penny nails to fire upon the unarmed republicans is now a matter of history. The conduct of the State military forces at this meeting was but a specimen of the manner in which they acted not only throughout my congressional district but in every other part of the State. From the above it is evident that the objection is not to a military force per se, but to the national arms. Where the State military force succeeds in accomplishing what the national force prevented, namely, suppression of free speech and free voting, there is no objection to their presence at election time. Can anything better prove the hollow mockery of these objections and the wisdom of Governor Chamberlain in asking for troops and of President Grant in sending them? What a contrast in 1876! We had comparatively a fair election, free from violence, but not free from democratic fraud. But in 1878 both fraud and violence united to crush out a legitimate republican majority in my district of about 6,000, and gave the democratic candidate a majority of 8,000. He could have been declared elected by a majority of 20,000 with as much legal propriety. I now come to the thought with which I desire to conclude these remarks.

  It has been asserted and dwelt upon with force and emphasis on this floor that the corruption of the republican party was great. I have not denied that some pecuniary corruption existed during the first four years of republican rule in South Carolina, in the perpetration of which republicans and democrats were combined. Democrats outside the Legislature, who wanted special legislation enacted, were the first to corrupt the republicans. The briber, my moral philosophy teaches, is just as bad as the bribed. I notice there has been no word of condemnation for them, while the republicans have been assailed. The republican party in South Carolina was destroyed in 1876–77; not by desertion of thousands of them who went over to the democrats, as the gentleman from Louisiana asserted in the paragraph following:

  By the middle of October, 1876, the fortunes of the republican leaders in South Carolina had grown desperate. The colored voters were deserting them by thousands. They were flocking to democratic meetings; they were riding in democratic processions; they were joining democratic clubs. On this point there can be no doubt—

  but for the want of a simple guarantee of protection in the exercise of their acquired rights. The Government that had bestowed the gift failed to sustain and protect them in the enjoyment of the same. Up to this time the democratic party has been in possession of the State for two years, and an important election has taken place during that period.

  Now, let us compare the two governments of these two parties during that period and see if the ills complained of have not been cured by the substitution of greater and more fundamental evils. Republicans ruled under Governor Chamberlain from 1874 to 1876, and in the first two years of democratic rule under Governor Hampton, say from 1876 to 1878, no corruption has been charged much less proven against the former’s administration. As compared with Governor Hampton’s doubtless it was more extravagant; that I concede for sake of argument. Now let us see if economy has not been purchased at much too dear a rate. The democrats have had control for two years; what are the fruits of that power? While no individual corruption has been charged against those in power, the State to-day is an acknowledged repudiator in the exchanges of the world. After solemn pledges that the bonded debt should be held inviolate she refuses to pay the principal and interest of her bonds, and her public credit has been utterly ruined thereby. One of her own native-born judges says with stinging sarcasm, in deciding in favor of the validity of the bonds that the Legislature has repudiated, “that the State should certainly return money she has received and used from the sale of bonds before she repudiates them.” Her bonds that could have readily been sold when the democrats were i
nducted into power are now begging purchasers at any price; public schools are closed nine months in the year.

  Mr. Speaker, there are some things that are far more precious in the eye of the American citizen at least than all the wealth of the Indies, and those are human liberty and human rights. These are fundamental and much prized by my race; yes, sir, ­superior to all pecuniary consideration, as the soul is to the body. For their possession and their complete exercise men and nations have willingly laid down their lives in all ages. It is for this that even the uncivilized Zulus are fighting in Africa to-day. But to the point. Can the saving of a few thousand or hundreds of thousands of dollars compensate for the loss of the political heritage of American citizens? Must the will of the majority to rule, the very foundation and corner-stone of this Republic, be supplanted, suppressed, or crushed by armed mobs of one party destroying the ballots of the other by violence and fraud? The destruction of a free ballot by the democrats is an evil of greater magnitude than the extravagance of the republicans. The one will eventually destroy the Republic by sapping the foundation of its sacred institutions, while the other is but a comparatively slight and temporary evil, which ill can easily be repaired.

  This is but the record of the respective parties for the past four years. I cannot believe there is a true American citizen on this continent, with that instinctive love of liberty which should characterize all such, that would hesitate for an instant in preferring the republican administration of Governor Chamberlain, with all its alleged extravagance, to the present administration in South Carolina, with its fatal and pernicious destruction of the rights and privileges of republicans. I have only to say, in conclusion, sir, that I heartily reciprocate and appreciate the kind personal sentiment that has been expressed toward me by my colleague. Our personal and official intercourse has been most agreeable, notwithstanding our wide political difference, and I assure him I shall always cherish a pleasant recollection of it.

  March 3, 1879

  CHRONOLOGY

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

  NOTE ON THE TEXTS

  NOTES

  INDEX

  Chronology

  January 1865–April 1877

  1865

  U.S. House of Representatives approves Thirteenth Amend­ment to the Constitution abolishing slavery by 119–56 vote on January 31 (amendment was approved by the U.S. ­Senate, 38–6, on April 8, 1864). Congress establishes Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands within the War Department, March 3. (Staffed mainly by army officers, the Bureau will field about 900 assistant commissioners and agents throughout the South.) President Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for a second term, March 4, and Andrew Johnson becomes vice president. Robert E. Lee surrenders his army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, April 9. Lincoln is shot in Washington, D.C., April 14, and dies on morning of April 15; the same day, Johnson is sworn in as president. Remaining Confederate forces surrender, April 26–June 2. Johnson issues amnesty proclamation, May 29, pardoning former Confederates who swear future loyalty to the United States and restoring their property, except slaves. The proclamation exempts from the general amnesty federal officials and military officers who joined the rebellion, Confederate civil and military leaders, and persons with more than $20,000 in taxable property, but allows them to apply for individual pardons. The same day, Johnson issues a second proclamation, ­appointing a provisional governor for North Carolina and directing that elections be held for delegates to a state constitutional convention; the proclamation restricts voting to those who take the amnesty oath and are qualified to vote under pre-secession state law, thus excluding black men from the franchise. Johnson issues similar proclamations for Mississippi, ­Georgia, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida, June 13–July 13. (Wartime Reconstruction governments ­established in Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana by the Lincoln administration are recognized by Johnson.) Beginning in Mississippi, six states hold constitutional conventions, August 14–November 8, and elections to state offices, October 2–November 29. (Convention meets in Texas, February 7–April 2, 1866, and elections are held on June 25.) Johnson directs the Freedmen’s Bureau to issue order on September 12 restoring abandoned lands to owners who swear allegiance. Thirty-ninth Congress refuses to admit senators and representatives from any of the former ­Confederate states when it meets on ­December 4. Joint Committee on Reconstruction, made up of six senators and nine representatives (twelve Republicans and three Democrats), is appointed on December 13 to investigate conditions in the South and make recommendations concerning readmission. Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment is ­declared complete, December 18. U.S. army has 111,000 men occupying the former Confederacy, including 23,000 in Texas.

  1866

  Grant issues order on January 12 protecting military personnel and Freedmen’s Bureau agents in the South from civil prosecution for acts committed under military authority, southern Unionists from prosecution for resisting Confederate forces during the war, and blacks from being “charged with offenses for which white persons are not prosecuted or punished in the same manner and degree.” Johnson vetoes bill extending life of the Freedmen’s Bureau and expanding its powers, February 19. Senate fails to override veto, February 20. Johnson vetoes Civil Rights Bill, March 27, and issues proclamation declaring an end to the insurrection in every former Confederate state except Texas, April 2. Veto of civil rights bill is overridden by the Senate, April 6, and the House, April 9. Racial violence in Memphis, Tennessee, May 1–3, kills forty-six African Americans and three whites. Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, form the Ku Klux (later known as the Ku Klux Klan), a secret society that soon spreads through the state. Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is approved by the Senate, 33–11, June 8, and by the House, 120–32, June 13. Majority report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, June 18, concludes that the former Confederate states are not yet entitled to congressional representation. Congress overrides Johnson’s veto of revised Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, July 16. Tennessee is readmitted to Congress, July 24, after it ratifies the Fourteenth Amendment. Mob attacks supporters of new state constitution in New Orleans, July 30, killing thirty-four black and three white persons. Johnson issues proclamation declaring insurrection at an end in Texas and throughout the United States, August 20. Johnson makes controversial speaking tour (“The Swing Around the Circle”) through the East and Midwest, August 28–September 15, in attempt to rally support for pro-administration congressional candidates. Republicans make major gains in fall elections.

  1867

  Congress overrides Johnson’s veto and grants suffrage to black men in the District of Columbia, January 8, and passes bill, January 10, extending suffrage to black men in federal territorial elections (territorial bill becomes law without Johnson’s signature). On March 2 Congress passes Reconstruction Act and Tenure of Office Act over the president’s veto, as well as the Command of the Army Act, which Johnson signs under protest. Reconstruction Act declares that no legal state governments exist in the former Confederate states (except Tennessee), divides these states into five military districts, and sets conditions for their regaining congressional representation, including ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the adoption of state constitutions providing for black male suffrage. The Tenure of Office Act restricts the power of the president to remove certain government officials without the approval of the Senate, while the Command of the Army Act requires that all presidential orders to the army go through Grant and protects him from being removed as commander of the army against his will. (Army now has about 23,000 men on occupation duty in the former Confederacy; by October 1870 there are about 4,300 troops stationed in the South outside of Texas.) Supplementary Reconstruction Acts, passed over Johnson’s veto on March 23 and July 19, strengthen power of military district commanders to supervise state constitutional conventions and remove civil officials. Ku Klux Klan groups begin forming throughout the South. Johnson suspends Sec
retary of War Edwin M. Stanton from office on August 12 and appoints Grant as secretary of war ad interim. Ballot measures extending suffrage to black men are defeated in Ohio, October 8, and Minnesota and Kansas, November 5; Kansas voters also reject separate measure granting suffrage to women. Democrats make gains in northern elections for state offices, including in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

  1868

  Senate votes 36–6 on January 13 not to concur in Stanton’s suspension. Grant vacates office at War Department, January 14, and Stanton reoccupies it. Voters ratify new state constitutions and elect Republican governors in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida, February 1–May 6. Ku Klux Klan becomes increasingly involved in terrorist violence against African Americans and white Republicans. Johnson dismisses Stanton on February 21 and appoints Lorenzo Thomas, the adjutant general of the army, secretary of war ad interim. House of Representatives votes 126–47 to impeach President Johnson, February 24, and approves eleven articles of impeachment, March 2–3. Congress passes fourth Reconstruction Act, March 11, making a majority of votes cast (as compared to a majority of registered voters) sufficient to ratify proposed state constitutions. House managers begin presenting the case against Johnson in the Senate, March 30. Senate acquits Johnson of the most comprehensive article of impeachment by one vote, 35–19, on May 16. Republican national convention meeting in Chicago unanimously nominates Grant for president on the first ballot, May 21, and nominates Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, the Speaker of the House, for vice president. Johnson is acquitted of two further articles of impeachment, 35–19, on May 26, and his trial is adjourned indefinitely. Congress overrides presidential vetoes of bills readmitting Arkansas, June 22, and Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina, June 25. Democratic national convention meeting in New York nominates Horatio Seymour, former governor of New York, for president and Frank P. Blair, a former Missouri congressman who had served as a Union major general, for vice president, July 9. Congress passes bill on July 25 ending most operations of the Freedmen’s Bureau on January 1, 1869. (Bureau continues to support schools through the summer of 1870, and ends all operations on June 30, 1872.) Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment is declared, July 28. Georgia assembly expels twenty-five black legislators, September 3, claiming that the new state constitution does not explicitly permit them to serve. Grant defeats Seymour in presidential election, November 3, receiving 214 of 294 electoral votes and 52 percent of the popular vote; in the former Confederacy, Grant carries six states and Seymour two (no electors are chosen in Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas).