Posted on 11/06/2003 7:31:54 PM PST by republicanwizard
The Radicals passed the Tenure of Office law to prevent Johnson from replacing officers they had approved of. Johnson thought it was unconstitutional. Three days after Johnson fired Stanton as Secretary of War in violation of the Tenure of Office law, the House voted to impeach Johnson. The principal charge against him was the violation of the tenure law.
Johnson was right about the unconstitutionality of the tenure law. The Supreme Court of the time was intimidated by the radicals and wouldn't rule on the law, but the principles of the law were later ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1926.
Radical Republicans were a dark blot on the nation's history. In Texas, they tried to retain power by force of arms after being voted out by the people. In Louisiana, they got a friendly judge to block elected members of the government from taking office, but let some who had not even stood for election fill those posts.
Here is a description of the views of Thaddeus Stevens after the war by CSA General Richard Taylor who met with him then:
He wanted no restoration of the Union under the Constitution, which he called a worthless bit of old parchment. The white people of the South ought never again to be trusted with power, for they would inevitably unite with the Northern "Copperheads" and control the Government. The only sound policy was to confiscate the lands and divide them among the negroes, to whom, sooner or later, suffrage must be given.
Let's consider what a Republican has to say about it. Edmund G. Ross was a Republican senator from Kansas at the time of the impeachment. He had been a major in the Federal army during the war. Here is what he says:
The ostensible basis of the disagreement which in a few months after the accession of Mr. Johnson to the Presidency began to develop between himself and the Republican leaders in Congress, was the plan of reconstruction put in operation by him during the recess of Congress that year, 1865, and outlined in his North Carolina Proclamation. It availed not, that that plan had been adopted originally by Mr. Lincoln a few days before his death--that it had been concurred in by his entire Cabinet and would undoubtedly have been carried out successfully by him had he lived that plan was made the ground of criticism of Mr. Johnson by the extreme party element in control of Congress...
From: "HISTORY OF THE IMPEACHMENT OF ANDREW JOHNSON PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND HIS TRIAL BY THE SENATE FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS IN OFFICE, 1868", by Edmund G. Ross (Ross)
That's pure argumentum ad hominem. You privilege adherence to the Union cause as the only litmus test of honor. That is the blackest sort of bigotry on your part, and it's intellectual dishonesty as well, inasmuch as you deploy it like a fig leaf, to cover the nakedness of your refusal to discuss the issue.
General Taylor was a contemporary and an eyewitness to the views of Thaddeus Stevens. That Taylor was civil enough to take an interview with someone like Stevens without shooting him doesn't matter to you. All that matters is, which side he was on in the War between the States.
Your bigotry didn't really need my highlighting, it's a veritable lighthouse by itself; but I'm happy to supply a little neon if it helps illuminate things better.
That would explain his leaking Lincoln's orders to make war, wouldn't it!
The following words of Stevens are consistent with Taylor's version (Stevens' speech of Dec 18, 1865):
They [Southern States] ought never to be recognized as capable of acting in the Union, or of being counted as valid States, until the Constitution shall have been so amended as to make it what its framers intended; and so as to secure perpetual ascendency to the party of the Union; and so as to render our republican Government firm and stable forever. The first of those amendments is to change the basis of representation among the States from Federal numbers to actual voters. . . . With the basis unchanged the 83 Southern members, with the Democrats that will in the best times be elected from the North, will always give a majority in Congress and in the Electoral college. . . . I need not depict the ruin that would follow. . ....This Congress is bound to provide for them [freed slaves] until they can take care of themselves. If we do not furnish them with homesteads, and hedge them around with protective laws; if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in bondage.
Other sources note that Stevens wanted to break up large landholdings and give the land to former slaves, so that position of Stevens seems consistent with Taylor's version of the conversation.
Finally, before the war the Radical Republicans held that there were higher laws than the Constitution. Given that, the disdain with which Stevens reportedly characterized the Constitution to Taylor is not all that surprising either.
Such inquirers might question whether "state's rights" were an end in themselves or a dogma, or whether they were a means which might advance or retard, preserve or frustrate individual rights and personal liberty. Perhaps they'd question whether the unlimited and absolute right of some group to break away from their nation or larger society necessarily promotes greater liberty. I'd imagine such people -- if they exist -- also wouldn't telescope history and project twentieth or twenty-first century characteristics back on the opposing sides of the American Civil War. They might even be able to understand the 14th Amendment as an addition or completion or correction of the Constitution, not simply as a betrayal.
While some specialists may respect his accomplishments, I really doubt Lincoln has much of a reputation on Ivy League campuses. If he escapes specific condemnation as a racist, Lincoln is simply lumped in with the other Dead White Males. Nor would I imagine Wall Street has much use for him. So much of their time is taken up with financing China's industrialization that they have little time for American history or specifically American concerns.
When I wrote that Lincoln would have been equally reviled had he gone soft and wobbly, Southerners were one important group I was thinking of. Southern Blacks and hill country unionists would have hated him for his weakness which delivered them to their oppressors. I even suppose that some of you who attack him now, would think differently when Confederate or South Carolina tax day came around. On election day, when you had to choose between this or that set of local oligarchs, demagogues, bureaucrats or oppressors you might well wonder if things would have been better had the union been maintained. Being natural grumblers looking for a single Point At Which Everything Went Wrong, you might well have made the broken union the focus of a Lost Cause mythology -- though in this case, you might be on more solid ground, since much would have been lost had the Confederates won.
So much of what gets tossed around in these discussions is dogma or mythology. The idea seems to be that if states had been allowed to secede in 1860 or had seized their independence by force of arms, history would have stopped and the twentieth century wouldn't have happened. I don't think one can tear oneself out of the surrounding context of history. One can't wall oneself off from technological development yet enjoy its benefits. One has to choose between ending slavery or tyranny and defending the local right to enslave and tyrannize -- sooner or later one has to choose.
It sounds fine to talk of Jefferson's vision of the tree of liberty being watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants, but I suspect that breaking up the union in the 1860 would have meant many more years of such waterings with no greater liberty in sight. It would have made our history even more a story of force and repression reminiscent of Balkan or South American or African or Middle Eastern history than it was. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that at least was what many Americans feared, and they had reason to do so.
Here are some words of current-day historian Paul Johnson (no relation to Andrew Johnson that I know of):
Balancing this, it was abundantly clear that Lincoln wanted to exercise the utmost clemency. He intended to bind wounds. On April 14, 1865, his friend Gideon Wells described him as cheerful, happy, hungering for peace, 'full of humanity and gentleness.' His last recorded words on the subject of what to do with the South and the leaders of the rebellion were: 'No one must expect me to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off. Enough lives have been sacrificed; we must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union. There is too much disposition in some quarters to hector and dictate to the people of the South, to refuse to recognize them as fellow citizens. Such persons have too little respect for Southerner's rights. I do not share feelings of that kind.'
Lincoln had disagreed with Radical Republicans on reconstruction before. Lincoln's position had been that he wanted occupying armies withdrawn from the South as quickly as possible.
You don't trust Taylor. I have my doubts about Stanton. Taylor characterized Stanton as being in close contact with Johnson's enemies in Congress and constantly betraying him. It is no wonder that Johnson replaced Stanton.
What, that's all you've got? Keep digging, pal, I can still see the top of your head. As to how long you should keep going if I don't stick around, here's a hint -- quit, when you hear people speaking Cantonese.
By this middle-name logic I suppose William Jefferson Clinton... ah, forget it.
Why did Lincoln want a Democrat? Did he find that Johnson was not the right man for the office but was politically expedient to his own re-election chances?
Did the Republican party support this notion?
Excerpted from:
Lincoln and Johnson
Their Plan of Reconstruction and the Resumption of National Authority
First Paper
by Gideon Welles
Galaxy Magazine, April 1872, pp. 525-527
Page 525
When I went to the Cabinet meeting on Friday, the 14th of April, General Grant, who had just arrived from Appomattox, was with the President, and one or two members were already there. Congratulations were interchanged, and earnest inquiry was made whether any information had been received from General Sherman. The Secretary of War came late to the meeting, and the telegraph office from which we obtained earliest news was in the War Department. General Grant, who was invited to remain, said he was expecting hourly to hear from Sherman, and had a good deal of anxiety on the subject.
The President remarked that the news would come soon and come favorably, he had no doubt, for he had last night his usual dream which had preceeded nearly every important event of the war. I inquired the particulars of this remarkable dream. He said it was in my department -- it related to the water; that he seemed to be in a singular and indescribable vessel, but always the same, and that he was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore; that he had had this singular dream preceding the firing on Sumter, the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Stone river, Vicksburg, Wilmington, etc. General Grant remarked with some emphasis and asperity that Stone River was no victory -- that a few such victories would have ruined the country, and he knew of no important results from it. The President said that perhaps he should not altogether agree with him but whatever might be the facts, his singular dream preceded that fight. Victory did not always follow his dream, but the event and results were important. He had no doubt that a battle had taken place or was about being fought, "and Johnston will be beaten, for I had this strange dream again last night. It must relate to Sherman; my thoughts are in that direction, and I know of no other very important event which is likely just now to occur."
Great events did indeed follow. Within a few hours the good and gentle as well as truly great man who narrated his dream was assassinated, and the murder which closed forever his earthly career affected for years, and perhaps forever, the welfare of his country.
The session of the Cabinet on that eventful day, the last of President Lincoln's life, was chiefly occupied on the subject of our relations with the rebels -- the communications, the trade, etc. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. McCulloch, who had but recently entered upon his duties, was embarrassed in regard to captured cotton, permits, and traffic. It was generally agreed that commercial intercourse with the rebel States should be speedily established. Mr. Stanton proposed that communication should be reopened by his issuing a military order, authorizing and limiting traffic; that the Secretary of the Treasury would give permits to all who wished to trade, and he (Stanton) would order the vessels to be received into any port.
I suggested that instead of a military order from the Secretary of War, the President should issue an Executive order or proclamation for opening the ports to trade, and prescribe therein the duties of the several Departments. Mr. McCulloch expressed his willingness to be relieved from Treasury agents, and General Grant declared himself unequivocally opposed to them and the whole Treasury system of trading within the rebel lines as demoralizing.
In regard to opening the ports to trade, Mr. Stanton thought it should be attended with restrictions, and that traffic should not extend beyond the military lines. I proposed opening the whole coast to every one who wished to trade, was entitled to coast license, and should obtain a regular clearance. I wished the reestablishment of unrestricted commercial and social intercourse with the southern people with as little delay as possible, from a conviction that it would conduce to a more speedy establishment of friendly relations. General Grant concurred with me, and recommended that there should be no restrictions east of the Mississippi. The President referred the whole subject to the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and Navy, and said he should be satisfied with any conclusions to which they might arrive, or on which they could agree.
At the close of the session Mr. Stanton made some remarks on the general condition of affairs and the new phase and duties upon which we were about to enter.
Page 526
He alluded to the great solicitude which the President felt on this subject, his frequent recurrence to the necessity of establishing civil governments and preserving order in the rebel States. Like the rest of the Cabinet, doubtless, he had given this subject much consideration, and with a view of having something practical on which to base action, he had drawn up a rough plan or ordinance which he had handed to the President.
The President said he proposed to bring forward that subject, althought he had not had time as yet to give much attention to the details of the paper which the Secretary of War had given him only the day before; but that it was substantially, in its general scope, the plan which we had sometimes talked over in Cabinet meetings. We should probably make some modifications, prescribe further details; there were some suggestions which he should wish to make, and he desired all to bring their minds to the question, for no greater or more important one could come before us, or any future Cabinet. He thought it providential that this great rebellion was crushed just as Congress had adjourned, and there were none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we were wise and discreet, we should reanimate the States and get their governments in successful operation, with order prevailing the the Union reestablished, before Congress came together in December. This he thought important. We could do better; accomplish more without than with them. There were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. He hoped there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off, said he, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union. There was too much of a desire on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as fellow citizens; there was too little respect for their rights. He did not sympathize in these feelings. Louisiana, he said, had framed and presented one of the best constitutions that had ever been formed. He wished they had permitted negroes who had property, or could read, to vote; but this was a question which they must decide for themselves. Yet some, a very few of our friends, were not willing to let the people of the States determine these questions, but, in violation of first and fundamental principles, would exercise arbitrary power over them. These humanitarians break down all State rights and constitutional rights. Had the Louisianians inserted the negro in their Constitution, and had that instrument been in all other respects the same, Mr. Sumner, he said, would never have excepted to that Constitution. The delegation would have been admitted, and the State all right. Each House of Congress, he said, had the undoubted right to receive or reject members; the executive had no control over the matter. But Congress had nothing to do with the State governments, which the President could recognize, and under existing laws treat as other States, give them the same mail facilities, collect taxes, appoint judges, marshals, collectors, etc., subject, of course, to confirmation. There were men who objected to these views, but they were not here, and we must make haste to do our duty before they came here.
Mr. Stanton read his project for reorganizing, reestablishing, or reconstructing governments. It was a military or executive order, and by it the War Department was designated to reorganize those States whose individuality it assumed was sacrificed. Divested of its military features, it was in form and outline essentially the same as the plan ultimately adopted. This document proposed establishing a military department to be composed of virginia and North Carolina, with a military governor. After reading this paper, Mr. Stanton made some addtional remarks in furtherance of the views of the President and the importance of prompt measures.
A few moments elapsed, and no one else speaking, I expressed my concurrence in the necessity of immediate action, and my gratification that the Secretary of War had given the outlines of a plan embodying his views. I objected, however, to military supervision or control, and to the proposition of combining two States in
Page 527
the plan of a temporary government. My idea, more perhaps than that of any other of the Cabinet, was for a careful observance, not only of the distinctive rights, but of the individuality of the States. Besides, Viginia occupied a different position from that of any other of those States. There had been throughout the war a skeleton organization in that commonwealth which we had recognized. We had said through the whole war that Virginia was a State in the Union -- that her relations with the Government were not suspended. We had acknowledged and claimed that Pierpont was the legitimate and rightful Governor, that the organization was lawful and right under him; that the division of the State, which required the assent of the legal State government, had been effected, and was claimed to be constitutional and correct. Were we now to ignore our own acts -- to say the Pierpont Government was a farce -- that the act creating the State of west Virginia was a nullity? My position on that quesiton was different from others, for though not unfriendly to the new State, I had opposed the division of the State when it took place. The proposition to reestablish a State government in Virginia where there was already a State government with which we were acting, with Pierpont as governor, or to put it under military control, appeared to me a grave error. The President said my exceptions, some of them at least, were well taken. Some of them had occurred to him. It was in that view he had been willing that General Weitzel should call the leading rebels together, because they were not the legal Legislature of Virginia, while the Pierpont Legislature was. Turning to Mr. Stanton, he asked what he would do with Pierpont and the Virginia Constitution? Stanton replied that he had no apprehension from Pierpont, but the paper which he had submitted was merely a rough sketch subject to any alteration.
Governor Dennison thought that Pierpont would be no serious obstacle in the way, were that the only difficulty; but there were other objections, and he thought separate propositions for the government of the two States advisable.
I suggested that the Federal Government could assist the loyal government of Virginia in asserting, extending, and maintaining its authority over the whole State, but that we could not supersede or annul it.
The President directed Mr. Stanton to take the documents and have separate plans presented for the two States. They required different treatment. "We must not," said he, "stultify ourselves as regards Virginia, but we must help her." North Carolina was in a different condition. He requested the Secretary of War to have copies of the two plans for the two States made and furnished each member of the Cabinet by the following Tuesday -- the next regular meeting. He impressed upon each and all the importance of deliberating upon and carefully considering the subject before us, remarking that this was the great question pending, and that we must now begin to act in the interest of peace. He again declared his thankfulness that Congress was not in session to embarrass us.
The President was assassinated that evening, and I am not aware that he exchanged a word with any one after the Cabinet meeting of that day on the subject of a resumption of the national authority in the States where it had been suspended, or of reestablishing the Union.
Listen to Northerners debate negro suffrage after the war:
Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1866
January 15, 1866
Page | 235 | 236 | 237 | 238 | 239 | 240 | 241 | 242 |
January 15, 1866
Rep. John A. Kasson of Iowa
Rep. Hiram Price of Iowa
Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania
Rep. William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania
Mr. PRICE. I ask my colleague whether or no the question of negro suffrage was brought squarely before the voters of Iowa at the first election. Let him answer yes or no.Mr. KASSON. It was brought before the electors of Scott county in which my colleague resides.... (yada yada not answering the question)
Mr. PRICE. I ask the question again, and I want my colleague to answer me yes or no.
Mr. KASSON. I cannot yield to such a persistent determination of the gentleman. I have attempted to answer the question, and I now answer it again. (NOT)
Mr. PRICE. I pledge this House to answer the gentleman.
The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman yield the floor?
Mr. KASSON. No sir. If the gentleman has simply a question to ask or a fact to state I yield.
Mr. PRICE. I ask my colleague for an answer yes or no, and not a circuitous one, going all around the course. Was the question brought squarely before the voters of Iowa at the last election whether they would have negro suffrage in the State? I do not care which way he answers it.
Mr. KASSON. Mr. Speaker, I have answered the question already by reading the resolution. I have also stated the action of county conventions, and the fact that different speakers took different positions. What more can the gentleman ask?
Mr. PRICE. Yes or no. [Laughter]
Mr. KASSON. ... What does the gentleman mean by asking me to give him a straight answer, yes or no?
Mr. PRICE. I tried to get a straight answer from you.
Mr. KASSON. ... I will certainly answer in all courtesy his questions, but of course I must equally decline to have perpetual interruptions after I have answered them.
Mr. PRICE. I will not interrupt the gentleman any more. I will answer him when he has done.
Mr. KASSON. I resume, then. The question of negro suffrage was put in that way, involving the question of proper safeguards for the purity of the ballot-box: and among those safeguards, as I have shown by the declaration of the leading Republican paper of that State -- an exceedingly radical paper -- intelligence is recognized as one. I appeal to gentlemen of this House, especially those who were scholars in the common schools of the country, if we have not all learned from our childhood that the very basis of security of a republican Government is found in the intelligence and virtue of the people who control it. I have learned that from my infancy. I cannot unlearn it at the dictation of any man or set of men. I believe that the people control this Government. I believe that if those people have not intelligence to understand the policy and principles of our government to a reasonable extent, our institutions are unsafe and liable to be upset. I also believe in my heart and in my conscience that if you make suffrage universal in certain districts of the Union where ignorance actually predominates, you have no security in those districts that the institutions to which we are attached will retain their permanence.
Why, sir, look at those countries where mixed bloods have controlled the Government by universal suffrage. Look at Mexico and the South American republics, where revolutions are as frequent almost as the revolutions of the seasons. Look at the Latin races of the world, and where have they ever succeeded in establishing a permanent and reliable republican Government controlled by the will of the people?
Mr. STEVENS. Do I understand the gentleman's argument to be only against ignorant negro suffrage or equally against all ignorant suffrage?
Mr. KASSON. I was coming to that point presently. I will say that my argument militates against ignorance in the qualification of electors wherever found. There is another consideration, however, involved in its application to existing electors of which I shall speak presently.
Mr. KELLEY. With the gentleman's permission I will ask him whether he believes that the negro race has such mental or physical superiority in this country that, being but five million, it will, in spite of the fact that there is no negro immigration and a very large white immigration into the country, so diffuse itself into the American people as to make us a mixed race?
Mr. KASSON. If the gentleman will look at the census of 1860, he will find that in two States at the Sourth negroes have a numerical majority and that in other States they are so nearly equal with the white population that a few whites cooperating with them would be able to secure for any purpose control of the State government. That is my reply.
Take those countries where the blacks have succeeded in securing their own governments, as in Hayti, and you find there revolution after revolution; you find that in Hayti, instead of establishing a republican form of government, they have adopted an imperial form and sustained an emperor at their head.
Now, sir, I state these things because they are facts known to the members of this House. I do not want to state more opinions, to any extent, in the debate upon this question. I state the fact that this race of ours, known first as the Caucasian, and subordinately as the Anglo-Saxon, has developed the principles of self-government, and has protected itself under free institutions, more or less perfect, beyond any other race, white or black, and beyond any other modification of the Caucasion race; and hence it is that I say we should be very careful before, in any part of this country, we allow the power of this government to pass to another race which has not yet developed its ability to administer it.
* * *
Mr. PRICE. I can state to the House in two minutes all I have to say. I have established the fact that the question of negro suffrage was before my State in that election, and all my colleagues, except the member from the fifth district, will corroborate my statement. So much in regard to that question of veracity....
This story cannot be confirmed and is probably fictional. It first appears from the mouth of Eckert and is attributed by him to Lewis Payne, Paine, or Powell, who might also be called the not positively identified dead guy. At any rate, Powell, or whoever he was, was dead for some time before this story made its first appearance.
Wow! Your modest confession of incapacity before the beetling wall of my prejudice isn't such a modest confession after all, is it? Quite a slam, you're to be congratulated on the subtlety of your flame.
But since it is an argument ad hominem, there is really no defense I can offer, except to redirect people to the substance of my argument, and of your reply, which I notice you essayed anyway.
They'll recognize that the rebellion can't simply be identified with liberty or opposition to tyranny: things were far more complicated than that, and the Confederacy had its own tyrannical aspects.
May I point out, with modesty equal to your own, that secession is not rebellion, particularly under the political theories under which the United States was founded?
But let me agree with your main point, that issues are often joined in conjunction with others, and that the history of the Civil War, and the claims of the antagonists on the loyalties of their own States, and on sympathies in other States, can hardly have been made in vacuo on a single principle, or on a few principles, without the admixture of many other issues and interests. Nobody on theses boards has made that claim, but rather, several of us have offered arguments on this or that issue or principle. I've been interested mostly in issues of political theory, legal theory, constitutional law, and the authority claimed by the antagonists to compel or to resist. I've concluded that the South had better arguments, however the war came out, and that Lincoln's triumph accelerated several trends already in evidence in American life which have been deleterious to the liberty and dignity of the average American citizen. That is not to say that Lincoln desired to enslave or to indenture U.S. citizens, but only to say that the political theory he promoted and fought a war to advance, has been net-net deleterious to the only thing -- I confess my prejudice -- I care about, which is the freedom of the American citizen, which in turn requires the independence of the country where he lives. That is my bias, my prejudice, my blot on impartiality.
No, I don't think anyone is saying that. I have noticed only that certain developments of the Civil War era fed the excesses of the Gilded Age, which without the enabling of the Millocracy would nevertheless have occurred, but without the intensity of regional concentration of the benefits, and indeed without, perhaps, the particular distribution of gain and loss that in fact occurred. There would have been no Billion-Dollar Congress, no octopoidal railroad land-grants, perhaps no such abusive trusts as grew up under the war-fed grasping of John D. Rockefeller I and the railroading tycoonery of J.J. Hill, Pierpont Morgan, and Jay Gould.
I don't think one can tear oneself out of the surrounding context of history. One can't wall oneself off from technological development yet enjoy its benefits. One has to choose between ending slavery or tyranny and defending the local right to enslave and tyrannize -- sooner or later one has to choose.
False dichotomy. Misery or slavery, name your poison! You might concede that some good might have come of an agrarian victory in the Civil War, and that there might have been some substantial restraint, in at least part of the country, of the economic concentration and accelerating growth of social, economic, and political inequality that defined the Gilded Age. Timeclocks and the ignominious punching-in ceremony of worker debasement might have occurred in the deracinated parts of the country anyway, but mightn't Southern workers have happily escaped those deliberate humiliations?
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