The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences

the attempted secession, and had been pardoned, should have, and should control, the right of suffrage. Mr. Lincoln had acted on this theory in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas, and he furthe

his "practical wisdom," etc. Congress, during the session that began in December, 1864, did not attempt to reassert its authority bu

t at this time was the most appalling calamity that ever befell the American people. The b

ccessful in war, was successful in guiding his country through the first eight stormy years of its existence under a new constitution. Lin

rrender of Lee; but he requested their visit should be delayed that he might have time to put his thoughts on paper, for he desired that his utterances on such an occasion should be deliberate and not liabl

lan for the reinauguration of the sectional authority and reconstruction in 1863, which would be accepta

ham Lincoln's will, devising as a legacy to his countrymen his plan of reconstruction. That plan in the hands

ndrew Johnson "adopted substantially the plan proposed and acted on by Mr. Lincoln. After this long lapse of time I am convinced that Mr. Johnson's scheme of reorga

of Representatives voted to overthrow the Lincoln-Johnson plan of Reconstruction

ction was a firm conviction that its success would wreck the Republican party and, by r

Republicans could gain, as Senator Sumner said, the "allies it needed." But the masses at the North were opposed to negro suffrage, and only two or three State constitutions sanctioned it. Indeed, it may be safely said that when Congress convened in December, 1865, a majority of the people of the North were ready to follow Johnson and approve the Lincoln plan of Reconstruc

le personal influence and none of Lincoln's tact. Johnson retained Lincoln's cabinet, and McCullough, who wa

h had been approved by Mr. Lincoln, was, by Mr. Stanton, presented at the first cabinet which was held at the executive mansion after Mr. Lin

aders had been excluded by the presidential proclamation, all took the oath of allegiance, and reconstructed their State governments. From m

y the people of the prostrate States. Almost without exception they

luding the disabled, twenty per cent of the whites, who would now have been bread-winners, were gone. The credit system had been universal, and credit was gone. Banks were

an unexpected source. The old anti-slavery controversy had made it seem perfectly clear to many moneyed men, North, that free labor was always superior to slave labor; and now, when cotton was bringing a good price, enterprising men carried their money, altogether

ook of Fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines betw

hem. One was, armed bands of negroes, headed by returning negro soldiers. Mr. Lincoln had feared this. Early in April of that very year, 1865, he said to General Butler: "I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace unless we can get rid of the negroes, whom we have armed

nd around Freedmen's Bureau offices. Nothing seemed better than the old-time remedies, apprenticeship and vagrancy laws, then found in every body of British or American statutes. These laws Southern legislatures copied, with what appeared to be necessary modifications, and these laws were soon assailed as evidence of an intent to r

akers in their difficult task. But to the radicals in Congress nothing could ha

o the congressmen from the States reconstructed under the Lincoln-Johnson plan, and pass a joint r

ollowing extract from the speech of Mr. Shellabarg

goblets made out of their skulls. They poisoned your fountains; put mines under your soldiers' prisons; organized bands, whose leaders were concealed in your homes; and commissions o

proposed the Fourteenth Amendment, Section III of which provided that no person should hold office under the United States who, having taken an oath, as a Federal or State officer, to support the Constitution, had subsequently eng

d, who was, at a later date, to become generous and conservative, said exultingly: "This bill sets out by laying its hands on the rebel governments and taking the very breath of life out of t

erless. By the acts of March 2 and March 23, 1867, the reconstructed governments were swept awa

ty of suffrage for all colored persons in the disorganized States. It will not be enough, if you give it to those who can read and write; you will not in this way acqui

cluding West Virginia, were represented by twenty-two Republicans and two Democrats in th

ies" were ready to an

as to hold the Southern States out of the Union and make an appeal to the passions and prejudices of Northern voters in the congressional elections of November, 1866. Valuable material for the coming campaign was already being furnished by the agents of the Fre

Alabama illustrate their methods. Only five persons, who claimed to be citizens, were examined. These were all Republican politicians. The testimony of each was bitterly partisan. "Under the government of the State as it then existed, no one of these witnesses could hope for official preferment. When this Reconstruction plan had been completed the first of these five witnesses became governor of his State; the second became a se

of the North were deluded into the election of a Congress that went to Washington, i

try's good; and zealous efforts were made along this line in every State, but they were futile. The blacks had already, before they got the suffrage, accepted the leadership of those claiming to be the "men who had freed them." These leaders were not only bureau agents but army camp-followers; and there was still another brood, who espied from afar a political Eden in the prostrate S

crats, Secessionists and Union men, had not been entirely closed up, even by the melting fires of the Civil War. Old feuds for a time played their part in Southern politics, even after March, 1867. These old feuds made it difficult for Southern whi

; they bartered away the credit of State after State. Some of the States, after they were redeemed, scal

e they were radicals at heart, or to commend themselves to their superiors, who were some of them aspiring to political places, were super-serviceable; and it was not uncommon for a military officer, in a case where a negro was a party, to order a judge to leave the bench and himself take the place. In communities where negro majorities were overwhelming there were usually two factions, and when political campaigns were on agents for these clans often scoured the fields clear of laborers to rec

ative party" in that State then was, "The radical and dominant faction of the Republican party in this State persistently, and by fraudulent representations, have inflamed the passions and prejudices

overnment in 1870. Other States followed from time to time

fter the last of the negro governments set up in the South had passed away, looking back over the whole bad business, Mr. Godkin, in a letter to his friend Charles Eliot Norton, written from

or Josiah Royce, of Harvard, in "Race Questions" (1906), speaking of race antipathies as "trained hatred," says, pp. 48-49: "We can remember that they are childish phenomena in our